Hordika Under the Bed
Mic felt slightly excited, and maybe even a little nervous. It was later on in the day, though she couldn't tell since the underground never showed a person the sky. The only way she had found out was thanks to Whenua and the fact that Vakama finally woke up. Thus meaning it was probably late afternoon in her mind. Metru Nui's daytime was different than home.
The Hordika and human were getting ready to leave the room and venture further into the archives, to find the Onu-Metru Suva and the other Toa Hordika. That was exciting. Traveling through the dark underground was... slightly different.
Whenua's eyes were wide open and he was not only in the lead but near constantly scenting. "Remember, stay beside one of us." he said, tail twitching.
"Not between," Vakama added as he further explained, "It's too vulnerable, beside your more shielded."
"M'kay," Mic nodded, doing as they said. "How much longer will it take until we get to the Suva from here?"
"Not too much longer I don't think." Vakama guessed, humming at his brother and getting a nod in return, "Some time tonight."
"Good," The human's eyes darted around as they went, though she really couldn't see all that much unless there were a good amount of lightstones. "What are the other Hordika like?" She probably had a good idea, but the books and movies had obviously cut some things out about hordika, and maybe even the other Toa.
"Like?" The fire Toa blinked, "Well, Onewa is about Whenua's size."
"He's the best tracker of us," Whenua added, chuckling, looking at the human beside him, "That game we played, Nuju's better at it."
"Figures," Mic stubbed her toe on a random rock, the human muttering 'crap' to herself. She hated not being able to see very well in the dark, but that came with being a human. She then asked, "What about Matau and Nokama?"
The earth elemental shifted closer, letting Mic grab onto his broad shoulder for support. "Matau's had a lot more venom in him, like Vakama." he looked back apologetically.
Mic hopped for a moment, banging her shoe's toe in hopes to get rid of the small pain. She glanced back at Vakama before saying, "Does the venom... I dunno, cause your system to have bad side effects?"
Venom wasn't really a preferred topic of hers, but she just wanted to make conversation while walking in the dark.
"Well, there's this," Vakama rose up onto his back legs, spreading his arms out, "There's also a mental component. Gaaki said its old instincts. Supposedly there's an actually organic Hordika on Metru Nui..."
An organic hordika?
"Huh." Nothing ever mentioned that. Mic seemed to have run out of things to ask them at the moment.
Mindful to keep their stride short to match the human's, the two Hordika didn't mind the quite, for a little while at least. After a while the two started talking, mostly about what happened to Vakama after he'd been separated from the other Toa, and trying to find out how they got to the human world and back.
"I think we should take a break." Whenua said slowing down and looking at Mic, "And get a small light-stone?"
"That would be helpful," she agreed. Though she knew there were two Hordika with her, it would be nice to actually see them, than just their outlines and eyes. And maybe she could relieve her bladder as well.
"There's a closed archive room to the right," Whenua offered, stopping and looking down the passage off to their side, "I can take a nap and Vakama can hunt."
"Sounds good," Mic shrugged, and followed Whenua through the dark. Yeah, that lightstone would really come in handy.
"Here," The big Hordika said as he stopped at a door nudged a glowing panel with his muzzle to get it to activate, "Come bring you're littler hands over here Mic. Claws don't work well with holo-pads."
The human stepped up and reached out to the glowing panel. After a moment the door unlocked and opened to reveal the room inside like Whenua had said. It was brighter inside, like an office building or school only softer light, and a bit warmer too. The room inside was huge, filled with shelves in the first half and tubes of sorts in the back half.
Mic walked inward, looking at the new room with interest. Of course she was glad to find several lighstones, thus the brighter light, but she found her gaze on the tubes toward the back. Mic glanced back to the Hordika coming in. "What's this room used for?"
"Rahi study," Vakama guessed, pacing in and started to poking around.
"Sort of," Whenua corrected as he closed the door, waiting until it locked, "I didn't work in this section. There should be a clean water system over there." He added helpfully.
Mic found the water and drank before easing her way toward the back for privacy. She was mostly done with her business, about to join the Hordika up front, before catching a faint reflection of herself in a tube's surface. She made a face. "...ew."
She turned and went to see what the hordika were doing up front.
The mutated earth Toa was settling down, yawning as he curled up against the wall. Watching Vakama attempting to get into trouble but unable to open the side doors to smaller rooms.
"I should go hunting," The fire elemental said coming back over, "Or find another food storage area..."
Looking up from touching one of the shelves curiously, Mic asked the red Hordika, "Can I help?"
"Yeah, if Whenua gives us the codes," Vakama huffed, and then again as a data pad was offered to Mic.
"It's a color code here," Whenua chuckled, "Just try any of those, I'm going to nap now."
While the earth Hordika settled for his nap, the human put her mind to the color codes on the data pad. It somehow reminded her of one of those games that could be played online. It wasn't too long before she had it figured and the side doors unlocked.
"You take those doors, I'll go here." Vakama said after staring at the pad, but let Mic keep them, and then he licked her, "There won't be any Visorak, but if you need help just yell okay?"
"I will," Mic smiled, before heading into the side room. There were less lightstones, but she was able to see. She started looking around, noting the set of shelves in the corner and searching there. She also wondered if there were any other ways out through the room or not.
Mic found a container covered in dust and blew on it before looking inside, but found nothing... but a little bug-like Rahi. "Ugh, nothing," she quickly shut it.
It was probably about twenty minutes or so, with only an assortment of cool things but no food containers. Then...there was a noise, not a Hordika noise either, it was more feline and deeper or bigger than the Hordika sounds.
Whirling her head, Mic scanned the room, already more alert than before. "Okay, get a grip... probably another Tiger or something," she muttered to herself, yet her face was uncertain. Should she... call for Vakama?
Then again Whenua had said there were those cats here in Onu-Metru to help protect the archives from those rat-like rahi. Only this sounded different then that Po- tiger's trill, it almost had a sicky sound to it.
Mic stood up from kneeling amongst a broken container, eyes fixed on the darker areas of the room, looking all about. That was NOT very friendly sounding, at all. The human glanced over and saw the doors, still cracked open. She began to slowly ease herself in their direction, unknowingly on the verge of shaking again.
Something growled, coughed, whined and coughed again before a shape came out of the darkness, or rather around and out from under a shelving ar. Somewhat feliniond in shape, but as big as a horse and looking a bit...well, gawky. White and blue eyes glowed dimly in the lit room, blinking at the human as it limped. The head was defiantly feline in shape, and had the start of tusks forming.
Mic's mouth dropped open, recognizing the Rahi from the movie and images on different sites. "A Muaka..." she breathed. Taking another good look at it, she could tell that something must be wrong with it... but it was a Muaka. Weren't those beasts supposed to be... unfriendly? 'That's what the fanfics always say,' she thought. Just to be safe, she kept making her way toward the doors.
It rumbled, fallowing after her with it's eyes, but there was also no aggression about it. Behind the Rahi there were signs of a nest of sort, a nest that the Rahi backed back up to and curled up in. Doing so Mic had a glimpse of claws marks on its back, a fight with another bigger Rahi, probably another, bigger Muaka for this one didn't look old at all.
Mic hummed, feeling sympathy for it despite her slight uncertainty. The human kept her eyes on it before turning and walking to the doors, prepared to find Vakama or even Whenua once in the other room and tell them about the wounded Rahi... perhaps something could be done to help it.
A deeper growl echoed out of sight, somewhere ahead and to one side of the human, the kind of growl that said 'hide!' on every instinctual level.
"Um..." Mic did a quick turn-about, trying to spy the source of the deeper growl. 'What the heck's going on...?'
A soft hiss for attention came from her left, and there was something hunched and low in the darken room, urging her to hurry across the hall and duck in.
Picking up the note this time, Mic darted forward and through the opening, stumbling and scraping her hands while catching herself. The human sprang back up and whirled to see what would happen next.
Large, strong hands caught the human up, one hand going over her mouth before Mic could realize the hand wasn't like the somewhat paw-shaped hand of a hordika. She was held up against a broad chest and whoever crouched low over her, as something even bigger walked by the open doorway.
Vakama had said to yell if she needed him. In this case she began to scream, even though the sounds were muffles, and kick and thrash against the being, knowing it wasn't one of the hordika.
It, or he, hissed darkly, holding her down and against him as a full sized, adult Muaka tiger walked past. It paused, sniffing and glancing around. It growled low and deep, but it was that this thing was massive and... and had a large huck of purple tinted meat in its jaws, behind tusks that were as large as Mic's arm.
Whoever had her, was trying to protect Mic from the mother-rahi returning to its cub.
Mic had her hands gripping the larger one around her mouth trying to tear herself free, but had stopped when the Muaka went by. That still didn't explain this being scaring her out of her mind. Mic's wide eyes darted around. Where were the hordika?
As the Rahi left, the person holding Mic backed up and turned, lifting her up completely before seeming to run the other way the rahi had gone. In doing so, the human had a clear view of the large, wedged shaped head that was different then the mutated Toa, and the glimps of the spines.
"Mmphhh!" New fear spiked and Mic started to scream again, thrashing harder than before. Only one creature hissed and had spines like that. 'Oh lord above, it's a Rahkshi!' The Rahkshi gave a soft snarl at her, grip tightening on the human and it's pace didn't slow down. In fact once into a hallway it sped up, no longer having to be quite.
"VAKAMA!" Mic screamed, or tried to at least, the result sounding much different against the Rahkshi's hand. She was being kidnapped by a freaking Rahkshi! Rahkshi were the sons of Makuta!
That must mean...
"Omhgoahnuuuu!" Translate: Oh god no. This was NOT good. At all.
It stopped, pretty much dumping the human on the floor in front of it. Apparently unhappy at her struggles, the green armored creature essentially loom over her.
Mic flipped over and backed up on the ground... suddenly realizing her mouth was no longer covered, so nothing was there to keep her from...
"VAKAMAAA!"
...screaming.
The Rahkshi growled, stepping over and reaching for Mic... and then it wasn't there. A clash of metal on metal and the monster was sent crashing into wall of the room they were in, hard enough that the creature inside was knocked out.
The girl had clasped her hands against her head during this, watching in awed fear. She took her hands down and sucked in a shaky breath, turning to see who had sent the creature flying. To her dismay, it wasn't a Hordika. It was another Rahkshi, but this one... it was different in not only being twice as big but... it looked more bio-mechanical. Not a purely mechanical shell like the other, it had black armor and slightly more up-right than the fist.
Rumbling, the big Rahkshi snorted and kicked the smaller shell, making the relatively little krata squeal in protest. It's movement were calm as it turned back to Mic.
She backed up, scrambling to her feet before stammering, "Wh-What the heck is this? Who are y-you, and what's goin on!" she ended the question with a slight shriek, staring at the black being.
"Not, loud." The big black Rahkshi lifted a finger at Mic and then turned the finger around in the 'come with' motion. Shifting the weight of whatever weapon he had gripped in his right hand.
The human stared warily before stepping forward, obviously untrusting him, she asked in a slightly calm voice, "Why should I trust you? That one just kidnapped me for crying out loud,"
"Is young," It said and moved over and nudged Mic, pushing her slightly, "Up, Mother wishes you."
Mic blinked, "Mother? Wha?" Nevertheless after a long moment of thought she sighed heavily. "Fine... whatever. Take me to her."
The big Rahkshi rumbled and motioned the direction he wanted her to go, "Mother Makuta." he added.
A nervous, shocked squeak came from her mouth and for a moment she stood rooted to the spot. Thinking over the odds, she realized the Rahkshi could very well force her into meeting 'Momma Makuta', so she sighed again and gathered what was left of her courage, walking in the direction given to her.