A/N: Alright, after three weeks only TWO people have participated. So I'm gonna have to wait until the next post to close the competition. If you participate, be sure to open a DocX connection with me. Whether you terminate the connection after you get your prize or not, I don't care. If you don't, however, I won't be able to give you your bonus paragraph...!

Anyways, enjoy the story ahead.

4: Calm Before the Storm

1003 years PGC

"Da-yuum. Have you heard? Karl's gang got into a tangle with the cops again," Alex started off.

"Yeah. Have you noticed them getting bolder 'bout half a month ago?" Jonathan, another of his friends, chimed in.

Jerome involuntarily winced. Half a month ago was when they walked in on that giant beating the crap out of the gang lord. No one has heard from him since, though various rumours were abound as to why he abruptly disappeared while his gang seemed to function on the scale and capability of a well-funded terrorist cell.

Much of the talk was thanks to Alex and his too-big-for-his-own-good mouth, Jerome thought.

"Hey Jerry, half a month ago was when we saw that badass dude kick Karl's ass, right?"

Jerome swore under his breath. Alex really needed to learn the meaning of the phrase "Shut The Fuck Up" soon or he'd get himself killed. What did that thick-skulled Neanderthal need to drill that concept into his brain? A jackhammer? An oil ri drill?

"Alex, didn't I tell you to keep quiet about this? It attracts too much attention. Sure, it makes for impressive bragging rights, but you know that guy wouldn't want us to go shooting our mouths off about him, right?" Jerome ranted.

Alex cocked one eyebrow up, "Really? I don't recall him saying anything about shutting up."

This time Jerome faceplanted without restraining himself. He still can't read expressions? Dear lord, WHY do I still keep this barbarian as my best friend, Jerome cursed. Maybe he should start bringing aspirin to school, given his friends ridiculous antics and the number of people crowding around him for his version of the story. He nearly kicked Alex in the nuts when he found out that his best friend was saying "If you don't believe me, ask him"! He was antisocial, and damned proud of it too.

Jerome lifted his face from the table and silently counted the seconds till class started, hoping that time would somehow speed up…

Haavok grumbled as he settled into the sofa. The best way to stay hidden in this world was to stay hidden in plain sight, something he had yet to get accustomed to. He had amassed quite a fortune over the millennia spent on this world, so he was beyond capable of purchasing the penthouse he now resided in. It was in a quieter part of the town, so the chances of getting caught were lower.

Still, he made sure every piece of technology was locked away in the various rooms around the house, which was the second reason he bought this penthouse: the size. It had 3 bedrooms, a study and 2 guestrooms.

He kept one bedroom as such, and turned the other two into a communications centre and the Wall of Kanohis. The study was used as a laboratory and the guest rooms housed the power generator and supercomputer.

But that was not what was bothering the Guardian Toa. No, the Order of Mata Nui hadn't responded to his messages for 3 local years. He was worried about what had happened—the Order doesn't disappear from the life of one of their members unless something dire happens, but they usually take said member with them.

Take Lesovikk. The "Toa" was one of his kind, a Guardian, fused from his own team. When he wanted out after a mission gone wrong made him lose control over all but one of his powers, the Order wouldn't let him. But he persisted, nearly getting himself killed in the process.

The Order was forced to make him undergo a mindwipe. His weaker memories of work with the Order were locked away from his conscious and sub-conscious mind, and his stronger memories—of his previous lives as a team, his botched mission, his "thing" for protodermis—were merged and melded together to form an alternate version of what happened.

Instead of his team laughing and chatting together one last time, smiling as the protodermis mist engulfed them in a painful transformation into one being, or of being savagely attacked by Zyglak after they were thrown into a protodermis pool, losing his power over gravity, sonics, iron, lightning, fire, water and stone in the process, he remembered his team being torn apart while he made a break for it.

That was what worried him. They would not risk someone of his standing—Guardian Toa of Fire, Air, Psionics, Lightning, Plasma, Magnetism and Earth and Protector of Inhabited World 33742—being left alone without any backup. He hadn't even finished his 7,500 year cycle yet!

Beating up the gangster in the streets was merely a temporary discharge of stress. Having the hotshot personalities of a Toa of Air, Fire, Lightning and Psionics without the calming personality of a Toa of Water was a recipe for disaster.

Recklessness of Air, impatience of Fire and the overconfidence of Lightning was bad. Throw in the temper of a Psionic and you get a walking time bomb, which he was. The high stress level of the population around him was doing wonders for him too, thanks to his telepathy.

Toas of Psionics tend to be influenced slightly by their environments. Which was partially why Toa Orde—the first Toa of Psionics and the only male one—accidentally increased the rage of the Zyglak instead of decreasing it; he felt their anger through the open psi-link and was influenced by it as a result.

The stress was getting on his nerves now. It made him itch for a fight. No, wait… This felt… different… Almost like back when he was nearly ambushed on an assassination mission to kill the first Dark Hunter leader.

A day before the ambush was sprung, an odd feeling of unease settled over him. It saved his life when he noticed the trap's mechanisms—and setters. The agitation pushed his guard to the highest alert. Much like now.

He smelt a war coming on. At least, that's what his age-old Toa instinct told you.

"And the first lesson of living to be an age-old Toa-hero is to always trust-listen to your feel-instincts," Haavok muttered, quoting the first phrase his Air Toa part said when they first met 40,000 years ago after his Fire Toa part commented on this strange feeling he had.

A/N: Yes, I am delaying the brawl for the sake of characterisation. Alex is gonna have to use his dad's Remington 870 Home Defense shotgun soon. So now that we know a little more about our main characters, we can... Jump to Sphereus Magna for a plot development chapter!

Yes, yes. You all hate me for dragging along after the little hint in the last part of the story and hyping it up in the AN. But trust me, the action will happen in Chapter 6. Or 7.

Q282_