Nokama had almost made it back to the transport when the current hit her. Being a native of Ga-Metru, she had dealt with sudden undertow and freak tidal surges before. Before it could carry her too far, she dug her hydro blades into the rock walls to halt her progress. She was safe, but helpless to stop the Lhikan as it flashed past her.

The Toa of Water was not ready to give up. She focused her elemental energies on the river, trying to force the current to reverse, or at least slow enough that the others would be all right. But the current was too powerful and the transport already too far away for her to draw it back.

This is like trying to empty the silver sea with a test tube, she thought. I should be able to master any natural tide…but what if this isn't natural? What if the same beings who rigged the traps up ahead are responsible for this too?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of white off to her right. It was followed by a wave of bitter cold that sent shivers through her frame. Either one by itself would have meant nothing, but together they made her instincts scream: Nuju!

The current was too strong to swim against. Nokama pulled one of her hydro blades free and dug it back into the wall, then did the same with the other. It meant pulling herself along at a painfully slow pace. At one point, her hand slipped from her Toa tool and the current slammed her into the wall. She fought to stay conscious and hang on to the other blade. Letting go would mean being swept away.

Now a white object was shooting toward her through the water, followed swiftly by another. She couldn't tell what they were. She reached out as the first came near, grabbing it. It was Nuju's Mask of Power!

Now the larger object had almost reached her. With both hands full, she threw her body out at a 90 degree angle from the wall and scissored her legs to catch Nuju. His speed through the water threw her off balance and both Toa collided hard with the wall. Nokama winced as her right arm was wrenched. It took everything she had not to lose her grip and doom them both.

Without his mask, Nuju was so much dead weight. Nokama strained until she could fit the Kanohi back on to the Toa of Ice. Nuju's eyes glowed brighter and he immediately grasped the situation. He grabbed one of the hydro blades and used his power to create a shell of ice around the two Toa.

"This will not last long," Nuju said. He coughed up some of the river water.

Nokama gestured at the strands of seaweed still wrapped around Nuju's arms. "What is that?"

"One of the river creatures wanted a cold meal," he replied. "The current changed its mind. Where are the others?"

Nokama shook her head. "Nuju…they're gone. I saw the transport go by, but I couldn't…."

Nuju put an arm around her. "Do not fear, Nokama. We will find them." If they still exist to be found, he added to himself.

X X X

"I have had enough," said Onewa. "We were branded criminals, captured, imprisoned, saw our friends taken by Makuta and our city damaged beyond repair. Now we are about to lose our lives and the lives of the only six Matoran we could save."

He turned to Whenua. "It stops now. And you are going to stop it."

Whenua's eyes were fixed on the whirlpool. Despite Vakama's best efforts in the cockpit, the transport was still headed right for it. "What are you talking about?"

"Just listen," said Onewa. "l have a plan."

Vakama had given up on hoping to avoid the whirlpool. Now he was trying to calculate the best way to ride with it and minimize the damage to the transport and Matoran spheres. If the craft shattered, maybe they could still salvage most, if not all, the spheres before they were lost.

Then he saw something rising from the water. Before his mind could even register what it was, the transport had struck the object and was flying through the air. The whirlpool passed beneath and then the transport dove, its momentum spent. It plunged bow first into the river, the water swamping the deck. The craft came close to capsizing before righting itself and bobbing back to the surface.

"What in Mata Nui's name just happened?" said Vakama. He was too surprised even to notice that the current had calmed and the boat was no longer rocketing forward.

"l did," Whenua answered, smiling broadly.

"We did," corrected Onewa.

"A little Toa power, and instant earth ramp—up and over we went," said Whenua.

"My idea, of course," broke in Onewa. "The hard part was explaining the plan in time to make it work. So—" He gently tapped the Great Mask of Mind Control he wore.

"You used the mask," said Vakama, hardly able to believe it. "You were directing his actions."

"His Toa power. My mind," replied Onewa. "An unbeatable combination. By the way, Whenua, your brain is as cluttered as your Archives. How do you manage to think?"

"I don't know," laughed Whenua. "I guess I am just used to having more than one thought at a time, carver. You should try it."

"Then we're safe for now," said Vakama, not sounding as if he believed his own words. "We have to go back for Nokama and Nuju."

Onewa glanced behind and shook his head. "No, we don't. Look!"

In the distance, Nokama was heading their way using her hydro blades to pull her along. Above her, Nuju traveled via an ice bridge created with his Toa power. Both looked exhausted, but unharmed. They reached the Lhikan at the same time. Matau looked on, frowning, as Nuju helped Nokama onto the deck.

"It's good to see you both," said Vakama. "But how did you avoid the whirlpool?"

Nokama looked at the Toa of Fire as if he had lost his senses. "What whirlpool?"

Vakama rushed to the stern of the vessel. Sure enough, the waters were dead calm. There was no sign the maelstrom had ever been there. But it had been real, and so had the rushing water, the damage to the boat proved that.

He crouched down and stared into the water. The current had slowed and the whirlpool vanished just moments after the Lhikan would have been lost.

Almost as if someone was controlling them. Someone who wasn't close enough to see what happened, he thought. Once they thought we had vanished into the whirlpool, there was no reason to continue it.

He turned back to the others. "Someone tried very hard to kill us. Now that someone thinks we're all dead."

Whenua and Matau looked surprised. Onewa shrugged, no longer able to be shocked by anything that happened to the Toa Metru. Nokama and Nuju nodded in agreement.

"So what do we do about it, fire-spitter?" asked the Toa of Stone.

"That's simple," answered Vakama, rising to his feet. "We're going to die."

X X X

The Lhikan drifted aimlessly down the river. No Toa sat at the controls to keep it on course, nor was there anyone keeping watch for threats. In fact, there was no sign of life anywhere on the vessel.

To an observer, it would have appeared there had been a great struggle on board. One of Matau's aero slicers was embedded in the cockpit. Other parts of the craft were scarred by heat and ice blasts. The story was there for anyone to read: Some great force had overwhelmed the Toa Metru and swept them away, no doubt to their doom.

But if that observer's eyes had been able to see through the solid walls of the transport, quite a different tale would have unfolded before them. Six Toa Metru huddled inside the cramped hold, listening intently to the noises from outside.

"Do you hear anything?" Nokama whispered to Vakama.

The Toa of Fire shook his head, frustrated. He had been certain that if it appeared he and the others had been lost in the whirlpool, their mysterious foe would reveal themselves. Of course, that assumed their enemy had some use for the ship and some need to confirm their deaths. If that wasn't the case, he could just leave the Lhikan to drift.

Onewa was saying something, but the words sounded like they were coming from far away. Vakama's mind had spun into another of his visions, brief glimpses of the future…or was it the past?

Monstrous Rahi, ancient when Metru Nui was young…driven from their home waters… jaws opened wide…tentacles reaching, reaching….

The craft spun, then lurched violently from side to side, shocking Vakama awake. They were no longer moving forward, he realized. They were going down!

Onewa sprang to his feet and tried the makeshift hatch, but it was stuck fast. They could all feel the change in pressure as the transport sank rapidly. Nokama used her power to summon an undersea wave to lift them back to the surface, but whatever force was pulling them down was too strong.

A crack appeared in the hull beside Nuju. River water began to leak slowly in, rapidly joined by leaks in other portions of the hold. Already the liquid was up to the Toa's ankles and rising.

"Vakama, burn a hole in the hull," said Nokama. "We have to get out of here."

"If I do that, the Lhikan is lost," Vakama replied, "and so are the six Matoran spheres. There has to be another option!"

The transport shuddered violently as it struck the bottom of the waterway. The Toa Metru scrambled to hang onto something to keep from being slammed around the hold. The hull of the craft groaned as the increased water pressure threatened to cave it in.

"Don't look now, Toa of Fire," said Onewa. "But I think we just ran out of options."

X X X

The octopoid beast that held the Lhikan in its grasp carefully examined its catch. This strange thing did not belong here, so it had to be stopped. But now that the Rahi had the hard object, it was not sure what next to do. This thing did not live or breathe; it was not food; it had not even provided sport by trying to get away.

The Rahi's dim brain realized that this catch was of no use at all. Still, if allowed to escape, it might be an obstacle in the future. Better to avoid that by destroying it now. The creature's tentacles began to squeeze the Lhikan, with enough force to shatter the ship to splinters….

X X X

Mavrah stepped into the vast cavern, feeling a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. Given the choice, he would have preferred to simply scare those intruders away rather than harm them. But he knew enough about Toa to know they never gave up, not even in the face of overwhelming force. Certainly, Toa Lhikan had never flinched before any threat. Strange that he hadn't been among these strangers…?

Still, it was good to know his inventive genius had not deserted him after all these years. The whirlpool had worked perfectly. Of course, he hadn't waited to see the intruders' boat wrecked by it. There would have been no joy in that.

For a moment, Mavrah was lost in his memories. He could remember long days spent in the Archives, talking with Nuparu about their newest ideas for inventions. Nuparu was an inventive, brilliant Matoran who was always putting things together and taking them apart, and he was determined to one day perfect a new mode of transport to replace chutes, if only to knock the Le-Matoran down a few pegs.

For his part, Mavrah had simply wanted to better understand the Rahi. It frustrated him that so many of the creatures had to be kept in stasis in the Archives, where little could be learned of them. How could a researcher study the behavior patterns of creatures who were always asleep? Sometimes he had fantasized about smashing open the stasis tubes just to see one of those magnificent Rahi move again.

Mavrah jumped as a great serpentlike creature snaked down from a stalactite and brushed against him. The Rahi was on its way to the water, a trip that would take some time given that the beast was over 40 feet long from head to tail. "Mustn't scare me like that," Mavrah said gently. "I might have thought it was another Toa, come to bring us all back."

The Onu-Matoran turned as two mechanized beasts entered from side passages. They took no notice of him, but instead took positions on either side of the serpent. They would make sure it got to the pool without incident and without being observed by any intruders. Where one group of Toa had come, more might follow.

Mavrah walked across the cave and stood at the edge of the vast pool. Beneath its calm surface lived countless creatures, remnants of an age long before Metru Nui. Powerful, unpredictable, dangerous beyond measure, they were still Mavrah's only friends in this desolate place. And no one—no one—would take them away from him.

X X X

One of those "friends" was busy at the moment trying to crack open the Lhikan. The octopoid Rahi had found the Vahki transport a tougher target than it expected, but it was only a matter of seconds before the hull gave way.

Suddenly, the transport began to glow red. An intense shock of searing heat forced the Rahi to let go, allowing the craft to bob back up to the surface.

Slowly, the glow faded. A few moments later, the hatch opened and the Toa Metru emerged on the deck. Vakama stumbled and almost fell before Nokama caught him. "Take it easy," she said.

"That was the hardest stunt I have ever had to pull," said Vakama. "So much heat without flame…but it worked."

"I wonder what it was that strong-pulled us down?" asked Matau. "And where is it now?"

A massive tentacle erupted out of the water, wrapping itself around Matau and hauling him off the transport. "When will I quick-learn to stop asking stupid questions!?" shouted the Toa of Air, just before he disappeared beneath the waves.

As one, the Toa Metru dove in after him. A swipe of a tentacle sent Nuju flying through the water. A second tentacle grabbed Vakama. Nokama turned to rescue the Toa of Fire, but he waved her off.

In a moment, she saw why—or rather, she didn't see. Triggering the power of the Mask of Concealment, Vakama faded from view. The Rahi was puzzled. It could feel something in its grip, but not see anything. Its grip slackened just enough for Vakama to slip through, reappearing beside Onewa.

Matau was in bad shape. He hadn't been able to grab a breath of air before being pulled under and was rapidly drowning. Worse, the Rahi had started to swim away with its prey. Onewa glanced at Whenua, who nodded. Then both unleashed their elemental powers, forming hands of earth and stone that reached up from the bottom to grab the creature.

Nuju rocketed forward, using both his elemental and mask energies. Bolts of ice and stone hurled telekinetically battered the beast. Stunned, it let go of Matau. Nokama caught him and rushed him to the surface.

Onewa and Whenua released the struggling Rahi and the creature swam away. Vakama gestured urgently for the Toa to head back to the transport.

They were still climbing aboard when the Toa of Fire shouted, "Matau! We need to go now!"

Nokama and Matau looked at him, surprised. But the Toa of Air could tell this was no time to argue. He leapt into the cockpit and started the craft moving forward.

"We are going after the beast," Nuju said to Vakama. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, we are," the Toa of Fire replied. "It's time we became the hunters."

X X X

From a hiding place nearby, six pairs of audio receptors recorded Vakama's words. Six pairs of optical sensors studied the Toa Metru, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their current condition. Complex clockwork mechanisms began to analyze, evaluate, and plan the ideal time to strike.

One of the six beings turned away and began the trek back home. In any conflict, defeat was an option. Logic dictated that the information gathered should therefore be relayed to others for future use if necessary. This unit would return to Mavrah to do just that while the others pursued and apprehended the intruders.

Had these beings possessed muscles, they would have felt them tense in anticipation of the conflict to come. If blood coursed through their veins, it would have flowed that much faster at the thought of battle after so many years of inactivity. But instead, they could only stare at the Toa with cold calculation. There would be no anger or hatred in their attack—just precise, efficient destruction.