Story Co-Authored by Omicron the IceQueen and Sinead Rivka
Love in the Light
Chapter Nine:
Onu-Wahi
"Are you sure you're alright?" Takanuva asked, but couldn't repress the amusement in his voice as he looked down at the crab-like Rahi that his current two companions were riding on in front of him. The sight of the human with very frizzy hair from her introduction to net-jumping and one last flight with Lewa was funny.
Takua was waving his arms on one side of the wide shell of his mount, trying to get some bugs like cicadas away from him. Said bugs weren't bothering River other than a place to land since she wasn't known to them. Takua had been reunited with his Rahi Pewku when the creature tromped the whole distance from Ta-Koro, and he promised the Rahi he wouldn't leave her behind again.
Trying to smooth down her waist-length hair yet again, River sighed and looked up at the Toa with a mournful gaze. "I think I'm going to need you to cut it."
She shook another bug off of her wrist absently.
"Cut it?" Takua asked, rocking onto his hands and knees and giving himself a good shake. The Matoran jerked in surprise as a high keen came from the Toa behind, the sound was mostly in a higher pitch that chased away the bugs. "Thank you Toa."
"Matoran can do that too, comes in handy." Takanuva nodded, fiddling with his staff as he scanned around.
"Yeah. It may be attached to my head, but there aren't any nerve endings attached to the length of my hair." She pointed to her scalp. "But it's still attached and will hurt if pulled, which is why I'm having trouble with it right now."
"Did you not have something for it? I saw you running some tool through it in your world." Takanuva titled his head just a little.
Takua snapped his fingers as he plotted back down perfectly happy with his Rahi, "It's called a brush! Kora Kara used to have to use one before she regained her true Bionicle body."
Thinking about this for a moment, she looked at the Toa. "Yeah. I brought a brush. It's in my bag. Where's my bag, Lightbulb?"
As the Ta-Matoran snickered, Takanuva quirked up an eye ridge up but he smiled since he sometimes referred to himself as the 'best light stone around,' "In my sub space." He started to reach behind his neck to his sub-space pock, the Toa hesitated, fleeting something going 'crack' under his foot he just put down. "Frag."
That was the last word before the Toa gave a yelp and vanished, falling downwards.
"Toa!" Takua called in alarm, already rapping out the command for Pewku to stop, reaching to pull out his kohlii stick.
River held onto the Rahi, wedging a foot around a piece of stationary armor and leaning over the side, yelling, "Taka!"
"...ow..." His voice drifted up out of the darkness before a faint glow formed.
"It looks like a week tunnel of Onu-Wahi." Takua said urging his Rahi around to a spot where he could peer down over her shell and into the darkness, "Toa?"
"Hey I know these plants." Takanuva muttered before hefting himself up. He used his staff to reach up, with the blade flipped he could just brushed the edge, "I can jump, but that's not going to support me again. it's a junction down here."
"So...what're ya gonna do?" River asked, still peering down at him, then looking around at the surrounding areas. She was slowly getting her heart-rate down to normal again.
"Stay down here." Takanuva said, not sounding troubled, "It's a highway to Onu-Koro according to the sign. You two should come down here."
Takua leaned out a little farther, "Pewku can make it. She's from Onu-Koro originally."
"So, do we jump down first, or hang on to Pewku as she climbs down?" River asked, looking at Takua and sitting back, resting her hands upon the smooth armor of the rahi.
Takanuva shifted in the darkness, "You jump down River since you don't know that kind of Rahi yet, I'll catch you."
"Gotcha." sliding down off of Pewku, she patted the Rahi's side before smiling and looking down at the Toa. "Ready?"
"I am right here."
Takua tilted his head, shifting to sprawl over top Pewku's shell and got a hold of holds that the Rahi had made just for her favorite rider. "We'll be down after you."
Seeing his outline, she didn't hesitate to leap into space, knowing that he'd catch her. Net-jumping had done a lot to help her begin to rid herself of the fear of jumping into nothingness.
There was two seconds of freefall, and then River was within Takanuva's grasp. "See?" He was mindful of his claws as he stepping back to set the human down beside his staked staff to be out of the way of the few falling bits as Pewku scuttled down.
She grinned up at the Toa, enjoying exploring the world similar to what he came from. They were still strange to her. Speaking of strange matters, why didn't any of the Toa exhibit any urge to try to woo Gali? The Matoran were all doing what they could to woo those of Ga-Wahi, but it just seemed very odd that the Toa were completely platonic in their assessment of the opposite gender.
"Have to tell Turaga Whenua about this." Takua said, having hopped off his Rahi to do a quick look around and wrote a message on the nearest wall by squishing up one of the glowing ferns, a warning.
The Toa of light retrieved his staff, channeling his element through it to light the way, pointing up at writing over an arch, one of many around the room they were in, large enough for Takanuva, "Onu-Koro highway." He read aloud.
Climbing back upon Pewku's broad back, River settled herself and looked to Takua. "All right, Chronicler, you keep stories, don't you?"
"Of course!" Takua hopped up as well and rapped the command to start off, "Come on Pewku, lets go Turaga Whenua. Remember? Come on girl." Behind Takanuva gave a chuckle, but had a look that said he remembered doing the same thing.
"Can you tell me where the Toa came from?"
"I summoned them..." Takua hummed in an equivalent of a blush. "Kind of by accident. I found Toa Stones all over the island back before becoming the Chronicler, when I was in the Kini Nui I found a new room. A pedestal in there had places to fit the Toa Stones...so I put them in."
"Of course." Takanuva grinned, "Just because they fit."
"Toa Stones? What are those?" This was all new to her, and since Takanuva wasn't feeling up to talking about his life as a Toa, she wanted to know things that weren't necessarily readily available.
"A Toa stone that both is a stone that represents a Toa for a story, or used to summon a new one." Takua paused as something red, semi-clear, and about two hand lengths dropped between human and Matoran, "This is one! For stories since there's not a lot of elemental energy, thank you Toa."
River looked at the stone, then reached towards it and stopped, pulling her hand back. "Can I touch this?"
"It's a stone, can't bite." Takanuva grinned at her before returning his attention to looking around.
"Here," Takua placed the stone in the human's hands. "This represents a Toa of fire."
Blinking, she held the stone before turning it over in her hands easily. "It's lighter than I expected ..." Holding it up so that the light from Takanuva's staff shone through it, River murmured, "It's... warm. Almost like there's life from it."
"It has a little elemental energy inside it." Takanuva said, "Toa-" for a split second he glanced at Takua before substituting, "-Norik, made this set for me as a gift."
She looked up at Takanuva before smiling and hugging the stone, feeling the warmth seeping into her bones after being in the chilled ground for a while. "Mmm. You'll have to tell me about him sometime. Toa and Matoran of Fire seem to have the most interesting personalities."
"Wait until you're in Po-Koro," Takua giggled, winced that he did so and started humming again until Takanuva stepped forward to brush the backs of his claws against the Matoran's back and side of his mask.
"I see the lights of Onu-Koro." The Toa said, able to spot the bare flickers far off as if they were closer. "Only a little farther."
Sensing that the Matoran was embarrassed, River shifted over with Pewku's gait until she was resting against his arm and side. "So, when you activated the stones, what happened?"
Takua took a breath, "Well, there was a pulse of energy that was...energetic." He rubbed the side of his mask, "I was teleported to the beach around Ta-Wahi and kinda landed on Toa Tahu Mata...heh."
"I thought his name was Toa Tahu Nuva ..." Unless they changed their names somehow? And why was she feeling like the Stone had something in it that was like something that was in her?
"Our Toa were Mata before, great Toa. After fighting the Makuta they were submerged in energized Protodermis by the Makuta as he tried a last minute attempt to kill them, but it changed them into stronger, more powerful Toa instead, the Nuva."
"Nuva are the strongest kind of Toa." Takanuva said, "I am one in my world."
Made sense, then, to have a new name for them. "So... they're the strongest that your world has to offer."
"Yep!" Takua nodded, "And we have the Kora as well, who can merge their power to the Toa to amplify theirs."
"So lemme get this straight. The Kora are like smaller, concentrated mini-Toa?" She remembered Lee and that other one, the fire Kora, but her memories were still fuzzy from the fever she experienced, so names continued to elude her.
Takua giggled again, this time not noticing, "Kora are Toa. Lesser, or younger Toa. Their name was Koa originally but somewhere along the way turned into Kora. It means the same thing." Behind them, Takanuva look greatly interested in this since, as far as he knew there was no Kora, or Koa in his world.
"So, it seems like they're going to eventually take the place of the Toa here. Am I right in that assumption?" Tucking her legs up so that she could curl her feet closer to the warmth of the Toa Stone, River looked around them, viewing the walls.
Takua frown, "I'm not really sure about that. Their about half the size of the Nuva, but Tala said their won't get any bigger, or stronger."
"Because we are sterile?" Takanuva guessed, "Or something else?"
The Matoran shrugged. "I didn't get to talk to the Toa Hanu back on the human world about it."
"You're sterile?" River asked of Takanuva. Pausing, she looked at Takua. "Wait. There's a Toa on my home world?"
"I told you about that!" Takua looked over, "But you just got over the fire-fever... that fuzzes things a little."
"All Toa are sterile, at least those I met." Takanuva said as he shrugged, "In theory there are worlds where Toa aren't. And he means the human world of this universe."
"Oh. Well." That was interesting. She sighed and shook her head. "It would have been cool to meet at Toa that existed on earth." She looked up at the Toa of Light. "So we're going to Onu-Wahi?"
"We are in Onu-Wahi," Takanuva rapped the blunt side of the hocked blade of his staff on the wall of the tunnel, "Onu-Koro is just ahead. You should be able to see the lights now."
Grinning, totally not used to the layout of the land here, River held up the Toa Stone still in her lap and looked at it once more before holding it up. "Here, Taka."
The Toa took it, holding it carefully as one did with things that were personally dear to someone before slipping it into sub-space. After a few minutes, filled with Takua telling River about light stones and the great mind of Onu-Koro. After a slight turn they were suddenly in a vast underground cavern, so high you couldn't see the ceiling but had sprawl of glowing crystals that gave a comfortable illusion of stars, including those six stars that were visible in the day.
"Hi guys!" Takua said looking to the sides, seemingly at nothing until a form shifted, black and grey against black.
Two Matoran guards, bigger and looking three times as stronger than Takua came into the light coming from the Toa. They gave a quick bow to both the Ta-Matoran and the new Toa.
"Hello again Chronicler." One said, "Turaga Whenua is in the market today."
"Thanks Jomar," Takua said as they past, twisting around to ask, "Is there a Khi-team game going on soon?"
"Sure is Takua!" the other guard called, bowing again to Takanuva.
"Khi-team game?" River was still gazing up at the 'stars' above them. "That's different than Kohlii, right?" She blinked at the guards, then smiled shyly and waved. "Hi."
The one to the right gave a wave back before both guards melted back into the darkness, and their duty. Takua was shaking his head, pulling out his Kohlii stick, "No, we use this and one to three balls in a Kohlii game. In Khi you use your hands, there's three teams: Pink, Green and Blue. Each team has balls filled with glow in the dark stuff made from the moss in Onu-Wahi. The whole village plays! Even Toa Onua and Kora Kara!"
"I want to play. Kohlii looks painful if I got caught the wrong way, but ... this sounds less painful." Grinning, she looked at Takanuva. "And with three teams, and now to Toa and a Kora, that means it'll be semi-even."
"Onua and Kara normally play the wild-Rahi. They get anyone with any color." Takua grinned. "We can ask Turaga Whenua when he's planning to start the next game, the Market is that way. Got to put Pewku away first."
Sliding down but going to give the Rahi a hug around her head, River murmured, "Thank you for the ride Pewku."
The land crab chipped and gave River a lick.
"Be right back-" Takua started but cut off as a large building in front of them suddenly exploded.
Well, in a way. The building was more work shop with an open side, and it was more of a plume of smoke that billowed out and up. After a moment a Matoran staggered out, coughing and waving his hands in front of his face.
"I meant to do that!"
"Nuparu!" Takua yelped rushing over, but Takanuva beat him, pulling the Matoran into clean air and into the Onu-Matoran's friend's arms as he started for a fire represent on the outside wall of the building.
Blinking and staring, but making sure to stay back, River stared at the building before thinking, Why do I have the feeling that I've just met the Matoran version of Wheeljack?
This was going to be a very interesting day.