DISCLAIMER: Do I even need to bother?
Enjoy theprogressing story of Kate!
Kate silently cursed Nuju and Whenua as she clung to the side of the crystal like tower. She HATED heights and had a psychological reason behind that hate. She shut her eyes tightly and forced herself not to think about that reason. Instead, she focused on not sliding off the edge of the sloping tower. Not an easy feat when the only thing you were holding onto for balance was the side of the very tower you were trying not to fall from. Not only that, but this place was freezing! Much more so than the archives had been and her fingers were beginning to feel numb. Who knew how much longer she'd be able to hang on! Whenua tapped her shoulder.
"Kate?" He'd finally gotten used to calling her by name. "Are you okay?"
Kate shook her head and mumbled that she was 'freezing her arse off' and would like to get back on the ground. Of course that wasn't happening anytime soon. Nuju was making sure of that. The Toa of Ice was just as irritated as the human. He'd wanted to leave her behind with the matoran, but she made them uncomfortable. Especially the very confused Tehutti. Not only that, but there was no guarantee that she would still be there when they returned and he certainly didn't trust Ehrye to be able to stop her if she wanted to leave. So, they'd dragged her along. Something he was regretting. While Whenua seemed set on making friend with the strange creature, Nuju wasn't entirely certain that she was a friend. Not that she had done anything to harm them. In fact, she'd even gotten them out of a tight situation down in the streets below with the Vahki. Still, he'd be keeping an eye on her.
Kate gave a small cry of fear when her hand slipped and she had to scramble to not slip off. Whenua reached forward and grasped her arm. "Maybe you should hang onto me."
Kate didn't need a second prompting. She wrapped her arms around the Earth Toa's waist (seeing as she could only reach that high anyway.) and kept her eyes shut. It felt slightly warmer next to Whenua's body heat and she held tighter, trying not to freeze and not to fall.
'Kid must be really scared of heights.' Whenua didn't blame her. He wasn't one for tower hopping either, seeing as he was a Toa of Earth and not Air. But Ehrye had said that the Ko-Metru disk was up here and according to Vakama they needed those disks. So not much choice there.
Nuju suddenly took a running leap, crossing the gap between this tower and the next. When he turned, Whenua was looking on in frustration. There was no way he would be able to make the leap, especially with Kate holding onto him for support. Then, Nuju fired something from one of his spikes and when he was done, a thick frozen beam spanned the gap. "Wrap your arms around it and slide across!"
Whenua frowned, but pried Kate from his waist. The quick calculations he'd done in his head told him that the beam would never hold his weight, but the smaller human would make it across without trouble. He placed his hands on the girl's shoulders and explained as best he could. "Kate, you need to slide across." He saw her face pale. Funny creatures, humans. Their emotions could be read like instructions on a data pad. "Trust me. You'll be fine. Nuju is waiting on the other side for you."
Kate felt her heart constrict with fear as she approached the gap slowly. She couldn't do it. Her muscles were already freezing up in fear and she could already imagine herself falling to the ground to become the first ever human pancake to be found in the streets of Metru-Nui. She shook her head, not trusting her voice. Kate heard Whenua sigh.
"Please Kate! We don't have much time until the Vahki come up here and I promise nothing's going to happen to you!"
Kate felt her hands shaking, but when she looked into Whenua's glowing eyes, she saw his absolute sincerity. How much of a coward was she to him? She didn't want to know. Kate hated being seen as a coward! Taking a deep breath she crept a little closer and let Whenua hold her up so that she could reach out and grasp the beam of ice. It was cold on her bare hands, but her fear kept her from letting go and soon she was sliding incredibly fast across the gap. It was over in a few seconds before Nuju was stopping her from hitting the wall of the tower and pulling her to safety. She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt him turn expectantly towards Whenua.
"It'll never hold!" She heard him shout, his voice sounding faint from this distance.
"Yes it will!" Nuju insisted, but Kate heard him mutter under his breath, "Probably."
Whenua leaped and grabbed hold of the beam and was rapidly making his way across when the beam suddenly began cracking in the middle. Kate watched in horror as Whenua lost his grip, but was relieved when his velocity carried the rest of the way across and he slammed into the side and dug his drills into the ice.
She heard him mutter something about Ko-Metru needing more chutes before she felt Nuju tnse and answer him. "Most Ko-Matoran don't travel by rooftop. Look below."
Kate let Whenua do the looking, afraid that if she did look she'd lose her grip on Nuju and plummet to the bottom.
"I thought we had left them far behind." Whenua said quietly.
Nuju snorted. "Keerahk are efficient." He answered, referring to the Ko-Metru Vahki. (Whenua had explained some things to Kate on their way to Ko-Metru.) "We are not where we are supposed to be. It's their job to fix that. Keep moving."
Kate held on for dear life while Nuju and Whenua climbed for the top and then she was being pushed into a crevice by Nuju. "Stay there." He whispered fiercely.
"We have problems Nuju." She heard Whenua cry.
"More than you know." Nuju answered, explaining something about the Keerahk that Kate missed as he moved closer to Whenua's position and farther from hers. She wished she could see more than the two Toa. Then again, it may have been a good thing that she couldn't see much.
Suddenly, she watched as Nuju thrust one of his spikes at Whenua and the Earth Toa was frozen up to his neck in ice. She gasped just as Whenua shouted, "What are you doing!"
Then she saw Nuju turn to something she couldn't see from her hiding place and speak to it. "After a long pursuit, I have caught this thief from Onu-Metru! Take him to Turaga Dume for punishment."
It only took a second for Kate to catch onto Nuju's idea and she fought the urge to run to help Whenua that she previously had. The Earth Toa was beginning to grow on her and he was the first friendly thing she'd met since coming here. Nuju was okay when he wasn't being cold. Which was most of the time. She kept quiet and shrank farther into the crevice, fighting the urge to sneeze. Only a few seconds later and Nuju was freezing something yet again, but freeing Whenua in the process.
"The Vahki have kindly provided us with a bridge." The Ice Toa said simply pulling Kate from her hiding spot. "Let's use it."
Now Kate could see three frozen Vahki spanning another gap and she could easily guess what had happened based on what she had heard and seen. Whenua was still grumbling about his sudden frozen experience as he helped Kate across the bridge of frozen Vahki, prompting Nuju to turn around, somewhat (surprisingly) concerned.
"Are you alright?" he asked his Toa brother.
"Well I won't be in a hurry to visit the icier parts of the Archives for awhile." Whenua sighed. "Give me a little warning next time."
Kate was tempted to say 'me too.' She hadn't been very pleased to just be stuffed somewhere like a toy a child was trying not to get caught with. Then she remembered that she was trying to avoid talking to the Toa of Ice as much as possible since it seemed her voice irritated him.
"All right," Nuju replied, looking over their shoulders. "Hit the ground." And he fell flat to the ground with Whenua pulling Kate down next to them with a cry. Nuju created a thin ice layer that domed them in. "Keep quiet." He hissed.
Kate kept her mouth shut against the complaint on her tongue as she listened, thinking, 'Man, this guy is bossy!'
But as the events progressed on, she was glad she's listened to him and soon, they were following the Keerahk straight to the Great Disk. It was only a few moments before Whenua was traveling down Nuju's ice slide and making a lot of noise down on the ground and Nuju was going in for the Great Disk. Kate had her arms wrapped tightly around her, wanting to be warm when she strangely felt warmer and was no longer shivering. Weird. That had never happened before. She didn't have time to ponder it as Nuju leaped back to the tower she was waiting on, Great Disk in hand.
"Let's go." He said shortly. "We have matoran to collect and I'm not keen on playing babysitter much longer."
Kate ground her teeth, but said nothing. The guy was her ticket down after all. Silently, she followed the Toa, not knowing that her future had much more in store for her.
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