I don't own BIONICLE, but I do own Xirrea, Kyra, Izerix, Socah, Zerrafitz, Krix, Drehx and Ro'Dae as well as some other not so important characters. I didn't come up with the names or appearances for the Dark Hunter guards either, BZPower member Tehina-toa of lava did.
Enjoy, and please review!
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Chapter 3 – A Disaster, a Loss and a Storm
Kyra had fallen asleep on top of a bed of dried seaweed, leaving Xirrea to her thoughts.
The lake was one of the most beautiful spots on the island and, despite the fact that she was a Toa of Lightning, Xirrea loved to sit or swim through the water, though she had to be careful to not activate her elemental powers.
Xirrea was contemplating having a swim, but she had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, like something was going on and she needed to be there.
The war, of course, she thought to herself. I want to be with Socah, to fight alongside him and to save our universe. She sighed and stroked her little sister's shoulder gently. She'd grown up so much.
Kyra had appeared on the island about ten years ago. When she was first found she was tiny, shorter than your average Matoran, but her armour shone with such brilliance that everyone who saw her had to look away in order to keep their eyesight. Her armour was almost completely gold, but she had black streaks along her waist, hips, chest and shoulders. Her eyes glowed a silvery-white colour, which meant many people who didn't know her assumed her to be blind.
She was "ten years old" now, because that was how long she had been there. She still held a childish innocence and only came up to the bottom of Xirrea's chest. She was absolutely adorable!
Xirrea had been there for much longer, five hundred and thirty four years, eight months, one week and four days to be precise, which is something Xirrea constantly was, due to her mask power. She was almost identical to her sister, except for the black streaks which splashed out all over her body in curling patterns that reminded many of the sea's rolling waves. Xirrea's eyes were a pale green colour, and she was the average height of a Toa – roughly seven foot tall.
Xirrea's head was filled with the memories of Kyra's first day on her island, of how she was found in a cave in the mountains, crying and calling for her "mother", whatever one of those was. She had been unable to remember anything about herself apart from her four-letter long name and that she was of the Lightning element. Xirrea and Socah had taken her in and cared for her ever since, but they never found out what "mother" was. They shrugged it off as one of those things that they'll never know about.
Xirrea continued to walk the corridors of her memory, until her thoughts were disrupted by a huge storm brewing off the coast.
She turned to the little Toa "Kyra, wake up! We need to head home!" The little Toa didn't want to wake up, and that storm was heading for the island unnaturally fast. Xirrea saw a lightning blot flash over the sea and sensed the next one was going to be over the trees on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Before the bolt even struck, she pushed forth her will and forced it out over the water.
"That's not a natural storm," Kyra said, suddenly fully awake. "Someone is controlling it." Kyra had a gift, a gift beyond those that normal Toa possess.
A gift of second sight - to be able to determine the truth behind all lies without even meaning to.
And she was feared by her own people for it.
"Come on!" Xirrea grabbed her sister's arm and dragged her up into the mountains, where their village was hidden away. They needed to warn the Matoran that there was to be an imminent attack on the island.
But they were all ready too late.
***
Izerix rolled off his bed as the alarm bell began to ring. He grabbed his sword and daggers before flinging himself out of the door using the strategically placed metal bars on either side of the entryway that he used for quick exits.
"What's happening?" he shouted at Drehx.
"Hunters! Loads of Dark Hunters!" the orange Toa called to him.
"No… my premonition…?" Of all the times not to tell his brothers of his premonitions, it had to be this time.
"Open to interpretation", yeah right, Turaga! A Turaga had lived on this island some time ago, and had been a mentor for all the Toa there until his sudden death at the hands of an unknown assassin.
Izerix followed his brother to the coast where a storm had appeared to quickly to be natural. A fleet of Dark Hunter ships had arrived and Hunters of all shapes and sizes were pouring out of them.
"I didn't realise there were so many of them to begin with!" Krix yelled.
"Heh, same here!" Ro'Dae called, "How many do you think you can bring down before this is over?"
"More than you, brother!" Krix called rather cheerfully, as he began to deal blows and count out loud how many he'd beaten.
The battle waged on for hours, with the four Toa valiantly cutting down their opponenets, until one Hunter made to grab Drehx.
"Hey! Get offa me, you over grown Stone Rat!" The Hunter did look somewhat like a rat, but Izerix was too intent on freeing his brother to notice, or care.
He leapt into the air and slashed down on the Hunter's arm with his sword, causing blood to spray out and cover both Izerix's chest and Drehx's back. The Hunter screamed in pain.
"Thanks, brother, but did it have to be so… messy?" Drehx said as he wiped blood from his shoulder. Izerix looked at him apologetically and then went back to slashing at the Hunters.
Another one tried to drag Drehx toward the boats, Izerix stopped him. Then another tried, and another, then a fourth. Izerix was getting extremely annoyed after he stopped about eight further kidnapping attempts.
"What do you want with him?" Izerix yelled at one female Hunter as she snuck up behind the orange Toa. She looked at him with very obvious dark intent in her yellow, snake like eyes.
"Orders are orders. It's best not to ask the reason when it's the Shadowed One himself giving them," she spat at him. Izerix raised his sword to strike her, but she hissed and ran off.
"We need to get you out of here," Izerix said to Drehx.
"What? No way! I'm having way too much fun. Can't you just be my bodyguard for a little longer?" Drehx moaned childishly, before gasping and shoving his brother out of the way. "LOOK OUT!"
Izerix fell to the floor as a Hunter flew at the two of them; he tackled Drehx to the floor and began to drag him away. Izerix got up and ran at him. But the Hunter heard him approach and turned to face him.
"Let him come, and we'll leave you all alone."
"What?" Izerix was stunned, they only wanted Drehx? Why not kill them all and save themselves some trouble later?
"Let him come with us," the Hunter said slowly, mocking Izerix, "and we'll leave you alone." Izerix looked at Drehx.
"No," he said simply.
"Izerix, you fool! If I'm all they want, then let them have me!" Drehx yelled at the silver Toa.
"But, I can't just let them-"
"Yes you can, you stupid fu-" Drehx's captor's screams of pain and terror cut him off, as a huge plant grabbed him with vines and threw him into its mouth-like blossom and swallowed him whole.
"Ew, Krix! Such a death was not necessary!" Drehx called out to the Plant Life Toa.
"I wanted to do something that would show these Hunters to not mess with a Toa of Plant Life!" the younger Toa said innocently.
"Well, I'm gonna have to wait for another one to grab me now," Drehx said, grumpily.
"Huh? You're not happy that I saved you?" Krix asked, rather confused.
"I'm grateful for your effort, but if he'd kept a hold of me you guys wouldn't have to fight them anymore." Krix looked gobsmacked.
"YOU WANT US TO LET THEM TAKE YOU?" he yelled.
"Yes, if it means none of you idiots have to die or get hurt." Drehx was often rude to anyone and everyone during a fight. Ro'Dae appeared out of no where, true to his nature.
"Strategically, it would be wise to let you go, but morally, it is unspeakable! How could you even possibly consider the thought of letting yourself be captured just for our benefit?"
"Speech time…" Krix moaned, stopping a few Dark Hunters from attacking with his plant powers.
"You, Toa Drehx Spehct, are one of the team; we won't let you go without a fight. You may be the second last Toa to join us here, but you are still immensely important to us, and if we-" He was cut off by a desperate attack from another Hunter who knocked him unconscious simply by breathing in his face. Drehx stood up and yelled at him.
"Take me, you damn stink bug, preferably before I melt you into slag out of boredom!" The Hunter seemed awfully confused, but grabbed Drehx by the arm and shoved him towards the ships.
"We've captured the Plasma Toa!" a Hunter on board the ship called out a few times, summoning the other Dark Hunters back into the ships.
Izerix and Krix looked around, totally stunned. They didn't know what to do. Fight? Sneak on board one of the ships? Try and persuade Drehx to fight them off?
Drehx had vanished onto one of the ships before either Toa could blink.
"Well, now what do we do?" Krix looked up at Izerix. Izerix didn't move, he simply stood and stared out at the quickly disappearing ships.
***
"There are the Toa! Get the little one!" a huge Hunter called out to his comrades.
"WHAT?" Xirrea yelled. She picked Kyra up and had her cling to her back as she ran through the village, dodging Hunters and shooting those she couldn't avoid with lightning.
Hunters were hot on her heels, but Xirrea kept on running. She sped as fast as she could up one of the mountains, gradually getting further and further away from their pursuers, until she could run no more.
"Kyra, keep going. Get into the caves, hide there until it is safe." The elder Toa collapsed from exhaustion as the younger turned and ran. But Kyra stopped and called back to her.
"They won't leave until the have me, you know!" But she ran on anyway.
The Hunters caught up with Xirrea and, seeing how she was exhausted, picked her up and took her to a tunnel complex they'd found to bunk in until they had the little Lightning Toa.
Kyra saw this happen, and quietly followed them back down the mountain. They knew she'd follow, that's why they had bothered to take Xirrea alive and not kill her there and then. She was bait.
But Kyra didn't care. She was both brave and foolish, and would not see her sister and idol hurt.
They arrived at the entrance to the tunnels; two burly Dark Hunters stood guarding it. Kyra snuck past them easily and followed Xirrea's captors inside. The one carrying her dumped Xirrea on the floor of one medium sized cave and stood guard outside. Kyra had already entered the room by then, and, as the Hunter went to his post, she crept over to Xirrea.
"Xi, are you ok?"
"Kyra," Xirrea said weakly, "Get out of here, you silly little thing, before they catch you!"
"I'm not leaving without you." Kyra closed her eyes and began to concentrate, hard. After a while her mask began to glow ever so slightly, and then it suddenly stopped.
"You moved something?" Xirrea said rather sceptically.
"My mask power isn't just telekinesis, it's psychic in general," Kyra told her older sister.
"So, what did you do?"
"I called Kava to help us." The little Toa snuggled up to her sister as they waited for Kava to arrive and, hopefully, provided them with an escape.
Hours passed, and still no Kava. Then, all of a sudden, the two sisters heard a mass of commotion outside.
"Get it! What are you waiting for? Shoot the bloody thing!"
"Hey, come back here, you lame runt!"
"YEOWCH! The stupid thing bit me!"
The Kavinika leapt into the room and stood it's ground in front of Xirrea and Kyra.
Thank you, Kava, Kyra said telepathically to the wolf. It wagged its tail happily but didn't turn around.
"There you are!" One of the guards stepped into the room and pointed his blaster at Kava. "Thought you could save your friends, did you? Well, pup, guess again!"
Rather than shooting Kava, the Hunter did something awfully unexpected…
He shot Kyra.
"NO!" Xirrea leapt to her feet and shot the Dark Hunter with a huge lightning bolt, bigger than any she'd made before. "How could you? Killing an innocent Toa-child? What in Mata Nui's name could make you commit such a terrible crime?" Xirrea screamed as tears fell from her green eyes. She managed to gather more power from the electrical equipment in the cave across the tunnel, and she directed it all at the Hunter who had, somehow, managed to survive the first hit.
But the second had him dead in seconds.
Xirrea looked at her sister. Kava was howling in mourning for the fallen pack-sister and nudging her with her snout, trying to get her to stand up.
"Kava, oh, Kava, you did your best." Xirrea stroked the wolf's back. The wolf turned to her, and began to push her towards the cave entrance.
"What? No, I won't leave her!" But Kava's eyes told Xirrea that it was pointless to waste another life. And so, Xirrea ran.
Xirrea ran down the darkening tunnel, fear in her heart and hatred in her eyes. Her sister was dead.
And it was her fault.
If only I'd kept going, she wouldn't have followed, she'd still be alive! Why am I so weak? Xirrea screamed to herself as she ran. She kept on going until she finally saw light up ahead, but she also saw two Dark Hunters. One of them heard her approach, and began barking orders at the other one.
"Gantran, don't just stand there, you imbecile - get her!" The Hunter, Gantran, was huge, black and keetorange (AN: Keetongu Orange) and carried a huge sword, easily as long as Xirrea was tall.
Gantran looked around confused, but when he saw Xirrea he didn't hesitate in the slightest at charging at her. She sidestepped him easily, but the other one seemed more calculating than Gantran.
"She's too quick for me!" he said, his voice showed that he was obviously one tooth short of a Kanohi Dragon.
Pathetic idiot, Xirrea thought, which was rather mean for her.
"Krenark, you're faster than me, you get her!" Krenark was also very big, his armour was black and green and his sword was just as long as Gantran's.
Krenark rolled his eyes, "Idiot." He went to slash Xirrea down anyway, but Xirrea rolled under his sword and dodged through the gap between his legs.
"GET HER, YOU MORON!" Krenark bellowed as he and Gantran took off after her. Xirrea summoned what little power she had left and struck the two with lightning. The two looked a little stunned, rather than electrocuted, but at least it gave Xirrea some time to gain distance on them.
She continued to run on until she made it to the docks on the south coast of the island. The largest of the piers had been broken, but a large chunk of the platform was still floating on the water. Xirrea ran towards it, took a long stick from the ground, jumped off of what still stood of the pier and landed perfectly on the "raft".
She began to push herself away from the island desperately, too afraid of the Hunters to realise that she was leaving her people alone to face them.
But the Hunters were the least of her worries for the time being. The storm was still raging and as soon as she left the bay she would hit it. She didn't care though, she would not die at the hands of the Dark Hunters.
So the storm took her into its embrace, and the islanders of her home island never saw her again.
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I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. The wait for the next one shouldn't be as long. Please review! :D
