Ok then, here is chapter five. I don't own BIONICLE but most of these characters are my own OCs so I own them… yeah… Anyway, enjoy, and please leave reviews!

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Chapter 5 – Relief… Amongst Other Emotions

"Ouch!" Xirrea whispered to herself as she adjusted her weight and landed her foot straight on a jagged piece of rock. She and the Matoran had been in the caves for almost a whole day by now. Xirrea was plagued by cramp all over her sleek form and was very, very worried about Izerix and his brothers.

No-one had come up to the mines to find them – Toa or otherwise – so Xirrea assumed that they were perfectly safe where they were. Still, the male Toa were taking an awfully long time.

Oh, Silver. It's my fault they've come, I can tell! Xirrea let a few tears fall down her mask, but as to weather they were from physical or emotional pain she couldn't tell.

She brushed them away as she heard approaching footsteps. Was it Izerix, or a Dark Hunter? From where she was she couldn't tell, but the footsteps sounded too heavy to be Izerix's or those of either of his brothers'.

Xirrea put a hand on her Lightning Rod – which she had put in between her and the cave's entrance – making ready to attack if needed.

The footsteps got closer. She tightened her grip on the rod.

She saw the shadow of the approaching person. She began to charge her powers.

Krix stepped into view, hand to his side in an attempt to stop his blood from flowing out and stepping heavily as he could barely stay up right and was constantly fighting to stay on his feet. Xirrea relaxed slightly but leapt out as Krix collapsed.

"Krix! Oh, Mata Nui, what happened to you?" She took some leaves and vines from nearby trees and wrapped up the wound.

"Hey, come off it, Xi. It isn't as bad as it looks!" he protested. He gasped as she pulled the vines around his waist a little too tightly for his liking.

"If it wasn't bad, you wouldn't have collapsed!" she cried, finishing her work. She stood and helped him up. The Matoran began to file out of the caves.

"Are you all ok?" Krix asked the Lightning Toa.

"Yes," Xirrea said, looking over the Matoran. "Where are Izerix and Ro'Dae?"

"Still fighting off the Hunters. There's only one or two left, but they're friggin' huge!" He examined the makeshift bandages, "Nice work. Unnecessary though."

"Oh?" Xirrea said, slightly disappointed.

"Yeah, there's a flower that grows up here that heals wounds in an instant. That's why I specifically came up here, rather than Izerix or Ro'Dae. Because I know which flower it is and they don't," he said proudly, puffing out his chest a bit.

"Uh huh. Well, I don't mean to delay your flower picking session." She turned on her heel and walked over to the Matoran in order to help them get out of the caves. Krix rolled his eyes sarcastically and went to get the flowers.

***

"What do you want this time?" Izerix roared at the one remaining Hunter, who was currently begging for his life.

"The female! The Lightning one! She was in our base; she needs to be killed so she'll keep quiet about our operation!" He clapped a hand over his mouth as he realised he'd said too much.

"What operation?" the Magnetism Toa barked.

"Can't say, can't say!" the cowardly Hunter whined. "Please don't kill me! I'll say she ran away, that she left and went to another island!" Izerix pinned him to the wall with his magnetism powers and held his sword to the Hunter's throat.

"I don't trust you."

"Well, you should! I can't lie, never have done, never will do. Wait that contradicts what I said before. Oh, damn it, I'm so dead!"

Izerix held him with such a crushing force that the Hunter's armour began to flatten against the wall ever so slightly, but just enough to cause the Hunter to scream in pain. Tears of pain and fear streaked the Hunter's face, never had he encountered such a fearsome Toa – he'd been told that they didn't work like this, that they never killed and were just and honourable. The worst part was the grey-blue one only stood and watched with a sort of sick fascination at his younger brother's antics.

The Hunter began a desperate attempt a wriggling out of Izerix's magnetic grip, but his effort only resulted in Izerix putting pressure on the armour on his neck, slowly suffocating him.

Things were just beginning to go black for the Hunter when the older Toa finally stepped in.

"That's enough, Izerix. Put him down."

"But he wants to kill Xirrea! You think I'm just going to let him go?"

"I don't think you will, I know you will. You're a Toa, Izerix, not a Hunter. And if you don't do it willingly, well…" he tapped his mask of mind control, finally persuading Izerix to drop the Hunter.

"Fine," he said darkly. "I'll go and try to catch up with Krix then." He stormed off towards the mines. Ro'Dae turned to the Hunter.

"You have three seconds to start running before I burst your eardrums. If you're fast, you'll get far enough away to be unaffected, and you can go. If you're slow, however, well, you'll have trouble listening to your superiors for a while, and it'll hurt."

He began counting, and the Hunter proved to be a little too slow for his own good.

***

"Krix! Where are you?" Izerix called out to his brother, still grumpy at being denied a kill. Before coming to Kisa Nui, he'd lived on an island with much… bloodthirstyer Toa, and since arriving Ro'Dae had tried to force the habit out of him. He knew killing was wrong, he just preferred it to locking his enemies up or letting them run away.

He turned a corner and found himself flat on his back as Xirrea pounced on him.

"Oh, Mata Nui! You're ok! I was so worried about you; I thought you'd been hurt! I mean, yes, Krix told me everything was fine, but I worry about everything as I'm sure you've noticed by know. You're not hurt, are you?" Izerix laughed, instantly cheered up.

"Sparky, I'm fine. Thank you for your concern, though," he said, looking up at Xirrea's emerald eyes. It was in that moment that he saw something that had previously gone unnoticed by him, the oblivious fool that he was.

He saw her love for him. And he knew he loved her back.

He was about to act on his new found emotions when Krix appeared, laughing his head off at the scene. Both Toa turned to him, obviously cross.

"Oh, sorry, did I spoil the moment?" He continued to laugh even harder, tears beginning to fall from his eyes due to how much he was laughing. Izerix stood up and started chasing him, Xirrea was a little worried about Krix's wound but noticed that it had been healed by the flowers he'd gone to find.

She stood up and watched as the two Toa ran about the area, laughing at Izerix as he tried to catch his younger brother. She wondered why he didn't just stop him with his Magnetism powers.

It would be cheating, I suppose, she thought to herself.

Ro'Dae came up behind her, silent as a ghost.

"What did he do this time?"

"HOLY KANOKA!!! Don't do that!" she cried, whirling round to face the Sonics Toa.

"Sorry, force of habit and all that." He waved a hand dismissively as Xirrea turned back to the chase. "So?"

"So what?"

"What did Krix do this time?"

"Oh, he, erm… surprised Izerix a little, that's all," she said, doing her best to hide her darkening cheeks.

"Uh huh." The Sonics Toa smiled slightly and went to separate his younger brothers of who were now rolling around on the ground, play fighting. He pulled the two apart easily and proceeded to mock-scold them.

Krix ran off into the nearby trees after Ro'Dae had finished, Izerix walked back over to Xirrea.

"Come on, we should head back to the village before it gets dark," he said, offering his arm to her. She accepted it and together they walked back to the tiny village.

***

"One of the Hunters said something about you seeing the inside of their base," Izerix began. They had arrived back at the village and Izerix and Xirrea were sat around a fire with the other two Toa, both of who had fallen asleep.

Oh, Mata Nui, I knew they were here because of me!

"He said you knew too much about their "operation". What was he on about?"

"Operation? I… don't know," she admitted.

"What did you see in their base? Please, Sparky, this could be really important in the long run."

"There was a lot of machinery, and…" she thought back to the caves.

Those machines she had drawn power from had been wired into some huge tubes full of a green liquid, Xirrea realised. In the tubes there were what looked like tiny bodies with wires attached to them at the temples, heartlight, chest and stomach, with breathing apparatus over the mouths of the larger ones. She told this to Izerix.

"Sound like they were cloning something. What did the bodies look like?"

"Little Toa, but some of them had Rahi-like parts, like wings or claws," she said, beginning to realise what the Hunters may have been doing.

"Is there any sort of powerful energy source on your island, Xi?" the Magnetism Toa asked.

"Yes, the Lightning Towers. They attract lightning to them during storms and use the energy to power pretty much everything mechanical on the island. It's one of the most effective and powerful energy sources in the world." Xirrea's mask held an expression of horror. "Do you… suppose they were using the electricity to power their experiments?"

"That's exactly what I think."

"But, that would mean that they'd been on the island for months! It would take ages to set all of that equipment up! Not mere moments."

"They must have been on your island for quite some time without you realising. But, what were they cloning?" That question he directed at himself more than Xirrea, but Xirrea thought of a possible answer before he did.

"The Toa they've been kidnapping!"

"You think so?"

"Yes, they must have been going to islands that have just sent Toa off to the war – ones that would be at their weakest when they struck – and kidnapped one or two of the Toa from there to clone. They must be making more troops for themselves. And if they're fusing the developing Toa with Rahi-"

"They're pretty much creating an army of Toa Hordika," Izerix finished for her. Xirrea placed a hand over her mouth in shock. Izerix rubbed his eyes, tiredly. "We ought to get some sleep now, Xi. We'll think about what to do in the morning."

"Ok," she said, laying back and allowing herself to fall into unconsciousness.

***

"We need to send word to Metru Nui," Izerix declared.

"Huh?" Krix looked up at him, half asleep.

"We need to warn the Metru Nuians that the Dark Hunters a making a Toa-Rahi hybrid army," Izerix explained.

"They're what?" Krix said, shooting up to his feet, anger blazing in his eyes – not at Izerix of course. Izerix had never seen him like this before.

"Xirrea said she'd seen cloning equipment in the Hunter base on her island, with Toa-Rahi creatures developing in them." Izerix was getting tired of saying the same thing in different ways by now.

"Those freaks," Krix hissed. He turned to look at Izerix. "I've never told you about my home island before here, have I?" Izerix shook his head. "Well, our Turaga made the stupid mistake of letting the Hunters do some "harmless" research on our island. After they'd set up their equipment, me and a… friend… of mine went to check it out. They saw us and chased us, my friend was too slow and they caught her. They took her back to their base and… did things to her. They hurt her, broke her, mutilated her. And all I could do was stand in the shadows and watch in fear and horror. I was such a coward; I could have saved her, easy. But did I? No, I was too bent on self-preservation."

"Krix, I'm so sorry." The young Toa looked away from his elder brother, tears freely falling down his mask. "You loved her, didn't you?"

"Yes," he sighed, the tears falling thick and fast. "She was everything to me, but they killed her… and after the Turaga tried to get them off the island, they killed everyone else, too. I barely escaped with my life." He dropped to his knees. "They were doing cloning experiments then, as well, combining Toa and Rahi. It was disgusting! They tried to attach a tail and fins to my Ti'Lya – she was a Toa of Water, you see, so they thought it "fitting"." Izerix shuddered at the thought.

"Go to your hut, Krix. Have the day to yourself. The rest of us will take care of this," Izerix said kindly to his heartbroken brother who climbed to his feet and walked, dolefully, over to his hut.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I've certainly never seen him like that before," Ro'Dae said, totally calm, behind Izerix.

"Do you have to jump everyone like that?" the silver Toa inquired.

"No, it's just I prefer to go unheard by my enemies, so I practice around you and Krix."

"Nice to know you care about us enough to make us test subjects," Izerix moaned. Ro'Dae simply smiled ever so slightly and walked off.

Izerix just shook his head as the blue-grey Toa walked away, then turned to look at the still sleeping Xirrea.

She's so beautiful, he thought as she adjusted herself ever so slightly, getting more comfy on the ground. He knelt down next to her, gently running his midnight-black fingers down her arm. He began to realise just how desperate he was to have her, but, considering the current situation with the Dark Hunters and the cloning problem, he thought it best to put his emotions on hold for the time being.

He stood up and walked towards the hut of the local messenger. It was vital that the information of what was happening got through to Metru Nui, and was acted upon before it was too late and the Hunters got the upper hand.

***

"Izerix?" Xirrea said sleepily. She raised her head and looked around her. She was still on the make shift bed by the remains now near-dead fire that had been built in the town square during a mini party the Matoran had had to celebrate the eradication of the Dark Hunters the night before. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and stood up. She gathered up the sheets and her Rod and went to dump them in her hut.

As she crossed the square, Ro'Dae stepped out from the shadows.

"Need a hand?" he said as half of Xirrea's bundle fell to the floor.

"Um, yes I suppose I do," she said as the Sonics Toa stepped forward and gathered up what she has dropped.

"Your Rod is a fine weapon," he commented.

"Oh, thank you. My brother, Socha, made it for me a few centuries ago." She began to twirl it around, demonstrating some of the dance-like combat moves she used. "What's your weapon? I've never seen it."

They had, by now, arrived at her hut, so Ro'Dae put the sheets down and took his bow out for her to see.

"Wow," was all she could say. It was long, silver, with evenly spaced, pale-blue topazes serving as the grip. The quiver was made of delicately woven flax which had been dyed grey and pale blue to match the bow. Each arrow was made of fine wood, with light protosteel arrow heads and a grey fletching at the end.

"Nice, isn't it? An old friend of mine made it for me before I left my old island."

"Did all of the Toa on this island come from other places?" Xirrea asked, all too curious.

"Yes, except for our eldest brother, Zerrafitz. He was always here. But, right now, he'll be in Metru Nui," he told her.

"I wonder if he's met my elder brother…" the Lightning Toa wondered, placing a finger on her chin in thought.

"He might have, you never really know. Anyway, I've got some errands to run, so I'll see you later, Xi."

"Alright, Ro'Dae," she said, snapping out of her day dream. As he walked out she sat down on the bed, pulling her knees up under her chin as she thought of her brother and dead sister. A few tears fell from her eyes, but she brushed them aside as Izerix walked in.

"Sorry to bother you, Sparky. I was just wondering if you'd like to go to the clearing again?" Her mood brightened instantly.

"That would be great."

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That's it for this chapter. I'm not sure if I like this or not but I'm too tired to care right now.

Xirrea: Hey! Don't fall asleep on us now! *electrocutes Loziek*

Me: Nyah! Don't do that! *rugby tackle*

Izerix: Sigh…