When the other Toa found him, he was still lying unconscious among the rubble. The fire being was gone. Nokama used cooling water to revive him as the others gathered the pieces of the transport. It would take some effort to repair the parts and put the vehicle back together, but it seemed their best option.
That left them with only one problem. "It won't swim-float," pointed out Matau. "The other transport stayed afloat for maybe a minute before we lashed the pods to the bottom. And we have no Matoran-pods to use this time."
"No, but we might have something that can replace them," said Onewa. "Come with me. And bring your aero-slicers."
An hour later, the two Toa returned, both of them carrying armloads of blackened logs. They didn't have to explain where they had gotten them. The Toa had only recently witnessed the death of the Karzahni, a plant creature created by Makuta with an appetite for conquest. Onewa had decided to put the trunk and branches to good use.
If the idea of using the Karzahni to help them make it back home bothered any of the Toa, they didn't say anything. Vakama welded the parts of the transport together while Onewa, Matau and Whenua turned the logs into a crude raft. When the transport was done, they lashed the raft to the bottom and pushed it into the water. It wasn't the most seaworthy vessel ever to ride the waves, but it didn't sink either.
As they boarded the new boat, christened the Lhikan II, none of the Toa noticed a small, green shoot growing from one of the logs. It would be an oversight they would come to regret.
Matau sat in the cockpit. He was just about to start the transport's insectoid legs moving when he noticed Nuju's disapproving gaze. "What?"
"l think I should drive," said Nuju.
"You?" laughed the Toa of Air. "A Ko-Metru librarian, steer-piloting a machine like this? Why?"
"Because I remember what happened the last time you drove."
"Yes, we only found a beautiful home-island, Nuju. Nothing very important or special," Matau replied, sarcastically.
The Toa of Ice shook his head. "How is it that you manage to remember only the good things, never the bad?"
Matau grinned. "Practice, brother. Lots and lots of practice."
Onewa crouched at the bow of the vessel, his eyes locked on the silhouette of Metru Nui across the silver sea. He expected the city to be dark, and it was, nor was he surprised that only one sun now shone weakly in the heavens. Makuta had drawn upon great and terrible forces when they fought him in Metru Nui. There was no telling what damage might have been done to the City of Legends during that conflict.
Still, something about the look of the city was nagging at him. He might not have spent his life in crystal towers like Nuju, or soaring through chutes like Matau, but he knew Metru Nui. He knew its rhythms, its feel, almost as if it were an old and trusted friend. Even stripped of its population, there were things that could not change about Metru Nui.
And yet they have…
"What do you see?" asked Whenua.
"Mist, everywhere, shrouding the city…can't you spot it yourself?"
"You know my eyes are not strong in the light," said the Toa of Earth. "Maybe that is why I can't see what you do."
"Or maybe you just don't want to." Then, more gently, Onewa continued, "You really didn't want to leave, did you?"
"Of course not. It's our home. Battered, bruised, but still the only place we have ever known. We could have stayed and rebuilt. We still could."
Onewa said nothing. The same thoughts had occurred to him many times over the past few days. It had been Vakama's visions that told them they must move on to a new land, beyond the Great Barrier, a place where Matoran could live in peace. What if the Toa of Fire was wrong?
He pushed the idea out of his mind. True, he had doubted Vakama from the beginning, but each time he had been proven wrong. It was too late to begin regretting the course of action they had all agreed upon. More than that, it was simply too painful to consider the possibility that they were abandoning Metru Nui for nothing.
His eye was drawn to movement in the city. With all the Matoran trapped in slumber, nothing should have been darting across the rooftops. Could Makuta already be free? Are we sailing into a trap?
"Nuju!" he called. "l have need of your vision."
The Toa of Ice moved to stand beside him. Onewa pointed to the southern tip of the city. Nuju focused the telescopic lens of his mask on that point. He stared straight ahead for a long minute, never speaking, until Onewa could no longer contain his impatience. "What is it? What do you see?"
"Something is preparing to welcome us home," Nuju answered quietly. "We should make certain we do not attend the celebration empty-handed."
X X X
Whenua watched, puzzled, as Nuju and Nokama practiced complicated tactical maneuvers on the deck. Using both tools and elemental powers, they engaged in mock battle with the same intensity as if they were challenging a Vahki. Nokama hurled water blasts and Nuju froze them; Nuju tried to trip her up with his crystal spikes, only to be felled himself by her hydro blades.
"Is this really necessary?" asked the Toa of Earth. "What is in Metru Nui that we can't handle?"
"It never hurts to be fully prepared," Nuju answered, narrowly evading a blow from Nokama's tool.
"Nuju saw Rahkshi—lots of them—on the rooftops," Nokama said, parrying strikes from the Toa of Ice. "If they have emerged from the tunnels, it must mean the Vahki are either shut down or else too busy to challenge them. Either way, it means things could be worse there than we thought."
"I wish I could have seen more," Nuju continued. "But the mist makes it difficult, and there was something more…something I couldn't make out. It was everywhere, obscuring the buildings and spires of the city. I fear for Metru Nui."
Vakama's reaction to the news of motion in the city had been to urge Matau to increase their speed. The Toa of Air was never one to turn down a chance to make a vehicle go faster, but the choppy seas were beginning to make even him nervous.
"The skies are gray-dark," he said. "Lots of lightning, too. Might not be the best time to cross."
"We keep going," answered Vakama.
"And then there is what Nuju spotted," said Onewa. "We should send one or two of us ahead as a scouting party. I would volunteer. Make sure we know what we are walking into."
Vakama shook his head. "We can't afford the delay. I don't want the Matoran trapped in those sleep pods any longer than they absolutely have to be."
"If we end up Rahi bones on the shore, they will be sleeping a good long time," Matau muttered. "Vahki transports are built for calm seas, not storm-tossed."
A wave washed over the deck of the transport. Vakama and Onewa held onto the railing to keep from being swept overboard. But the sea's argument made no more difference to the Toa of Fire than did Matau's.
"Waiting increases the risk that Rahkshi or something else will break into the Coliseum and harm the Matoran," he said firmly. "So we go on. If we wanted smooth seas and safety, we should never have become Toa."
Matau watched the Toa of Fire walk away, and said to himself, "Or one of us shouldn't have, anyway."
X X X
Ga-Matoran in Metru Nui had a special fondness for boat racing. In their off-time, they would often gather at the canals with miniature replicas of Ga-Metru vessels and sail them against each other to see which was the fastest. The truly daring would wait for those times when the channels were opened to the sea and huge tides of liquid protodermis would sweep through the canals. More than one little boat was swept up by the current in those races and smashed to shards against the walls.
Nokama was beginning to get an idea of how those vessels felt. Twin storms had converged on the Lhikan Il, hurling it this way and that. Tidal waves threatened to swamp or sink the boat. Vakama had ordered Nuju, Whenua, and Onewa below decks to lessen the chance they would be swept overboard. He remained near the cockpit, keeping watch as Matau struggled to keep the transport on course for Metru Nui. For her part, Nokama was straining her elemental powers to try to calm the raging seas. "It's no use!" she cried. "The storm is too strong for me to control! We need to turn back!"
"Nowhere to turn back to now!" shouted Matau. "It stretches all the way to the Great Barrier. Forward-sail or backward-sail, the end is the same!"
"If we can't outrun it, we will just have to plow through it," said Vakama. "Keep on course."
"l never knew Ta-Matoran were such ever-smart sailors," snapped the Toa of Air. "What do you think I'm trying to do!?"
The ocean ended the argument. A massive swell lifted the vessel high into the air. At the apex, a lightning bolt slammed into the bow, shearing off a large chunk of the hull. Then the wave pitched the ship forward, sending it plunging at high speed toward the shoreline of Metru Nui.
"Hang on!" shouted Vakama.
Like one of those miniature Ga-Metru toy boats, the Lhikan II slammed into the sea and disintegrated on impact. The tide swept the shattered pieces of the transport and the Karzahni cuttings in every direction, but of the Toa there was no sign.