Co-Authored by Dragon Claw92 and Omicron the IceQueen

Heroes of Spherus Magna

The mech just about dropped Takiu at that, stumbling a bit, but keeping himself upright, and Takiu in his arms, as he regained himself. "What was that?" Bulk asked with confusion, stopping and turning to look at Hafu. He would've likely offered the Matoran a hand up, but considering that he was presently holding Takiu and trying not to drop the boy, it made sense that he didn't.

A deeper voice laughed from above and a shadow passed over Bulk, as an impossibly large form stepped over the mech and crouched down to scoop up Hafu and then set him up. "That never gets old!"

"Yes it does!" Hafu yelled, slapping at clawed hands of an earthy tan shade, than whacked the nearer knee of the giant with his staff.

"Whoa!" Bulk all but yelped- that is, if such a thing were possible with a voice as deep as his, staring up at the large being with confusion and surprise. "...Hello up there?"

Pohatu Nuva turned, his attention shifting to the mech as he arched an eye ridge in surprise, not at all affected by the scolding. Just letting it roll past, "What's this? His not an Agori, and hello in there little Takiu."

The mech raised an optic ridge as well, as he stared up at Pohatu. "I'm not exactly from around here." He responded. "Most people just call me Bulk." That probably would've sounded like a joke considering the huge size difference, but still, couldn't very well lie about what he was called.

"He's an off worlder," Hafu explained, throwing his arms up after giving up on trying to yell at the Toa he knew for so long. "Apparently he and some others didn't hear that they should avoid Spherus Magna like everyone else out there has done, and crashed. Likely from the planet's outer energy field shook their ship up too much."

Bulk looked curiously at Hafu now, his expression showing confusion. "If the energy around this planet is so dangerous though, why would someone send Hero Factory a distress call requesting help?"

"The what?" Hafu and Pohatu had matching expressions of confusion.

"A...factory?" The Toa added.

"Yeah." The bot responded with a faint shrug. "I was built there, just like the rest of my team. Hero Factory is... well, just what the name says, really. They build Heroes, like me, and we go out and protect the universe. It's pretty much what I live for; protecting and helping people."

"Like a Toa!" Takiu blurted out from where he was held and clinging in return to Bulk.

"Little short," Pohatu held a hand down at the mech's height.

"Like a Toa!" Takiu insisted and after a pause, where the current Toa of stone gave a small vibration of a shake as he was holding back his mirth so not to offend the boy.

The mech smiled a little, chuckling quietly at Takiu's insistence. "Just doin' my job, really." He remarked to the boy before looking curiously at Pohatu, seeming not overly sure what the hand gesture was supposed to mean.

It seemed like just a repoint out the size differences, there was gentleness about the stone giant. Despite a permanent hunch in the neck and shoulders that should have made the yellow and brown Toa look intimidating like the last villain the Hero and his team faced.

But it didn't, not with that ridged and open...masked face.

The more Bulk looked at him, the more he began to wonder if Pohatu was somehow related to Rotor, but he pushed that thought out of his mind for the time being, and instead smiled awkwardly. "I guess this just goes to show size doesn't matter?"

"Not unless it's the size of your heart light." Pohatu agreed.

"Or Core, in my case." The mech added, smiling up at Pohatu and giving a nod as though to further confirm their agreement. Despite the awkward similarities between Pohatu and Rotor, Bulk couldn't help but find himself rather enjoying the Toa's company. In fact, it almost reminded him of some of the times he and Stringer hung out.

"Pohatu, can you give us a ride to the village?" Hafu asked, though at this point he didn't have to. "Something is up, there's big Rama out here."

"Rama?" The Toa echoed even as he knelt down almost automatically, lowering one hand to let Hafu climb up and over arm and shoulders.

Bulk nodded as he watched Pohatu, his expression showing his own concern. "Mhm. They nearly had Takiu and I. Thankfully, Hafu showed up and got things fixed up."

"The many uses of a kohlii staff." Hafu preened, than yipped as he was poked.

Pohatu looked back down and offered his hand to Bulk, "Indeed, come on then my new shiny friend."

At first, the mech wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do, but after a second or two had figured it out, and carefully -still holding Takiu- got onto Pohatu's hand. He chuckled quietly at the Toa's words. "If you think this is shiny, you should see it after I get cleaned up."

Pohatu half rolled his shoulders to get Hafu to drop down onto his back, still having the grips in his armor for a Matoran sized person to cling to. At the same time he stood, Pohatu snickered as he had to hold Bulk not unlike how the mech was doing with Takiu.

Needless to mention, Bulk found the situation awkward, embarrassing, and amusing all at once. "Well... can't say I've ever been carried like this before." He remarked almost jovially.

"Just hang on." Pohatu grinned as he tilted his head, and then the mask he wore started to glow, the color shifted from tan to blue as he stood and took two long strides...

And the world surged forwards, no they were! It was like being on a ship's engine... Without the ship!

"Whoa!"

That was really all Bulk could say about the situation, finding himself subconsciously leaning against Pohatu as though half expecting he was going to get flung to Makuhero city and back. At first, he seemed rather unsure about it, but after a while he just grinned. Just before it got too much, the friendly giant like being was slowing down again and then stopped. He knelt down to let his passengers off, and helped support the Hero with a hand to the back he was standing on his own for the sake of the youngest, as well as to be friendly.

As for the mech himself, he seemed to be needing a little support for a couple seconds before he got his balance back, smiling brightly as he did so. "Not sure how you went that fast, but that has to be one of the most incredible ways I have ever traveled."

"It's his mask power!" Takiu touched his own Kanohi mask, still perfectly happy to stay where he was.

"Mask of speed, one of my Kanohi, but also my favorite." Pohatu chuckled as Hafu slid off his back. "Very useful."

"Mask power?" Bulk repeated, raising an optic ridge in a display of confusion. "Masks give you crazy powers here?"

"Only for Toa, Kora and Turaga." Hafu said, scratching the bottom edge of his own, "Not all Kanohi are active or at the same power level, thank Mata Nui." He paused as in the village to their right, the massive dome to the left, but he very distantly heard his own name being yelled, and some yelling were distinctly female.

And he was back to preening.

Bulk knew fans when he heard them, and chuckled quietly with amusement. "By the sounds of things, masks are quite important... And you're popular." He looked towards the source of the noise as he said this, seeming almost reminiscent of something, most likely something from his home world.

"Not the only one, but they're not used to seeing me." Hafu pointed up to Pohatu as the Toa stood, then the carver and athlete waved to the village and grinned at the reaction.

"Hafu's one of the best kohlii players ever!" Takiu spoke up, wiggling a bit at last, scanning the masks for his own parents, and then pointed them out. "Sire!"

"Ah," the bot remarked quietly, acknowledging the first part of what Takiu said before raising an optic ridge and looking to the pair that the boy had pointed out. Smiling in amusement, he asked. "Did you want me to set you down now so you can go say hello?"

"Yeah!"

Pohatu rumbled pointedly.

"Ah... Yes please?" Takiu corrected himself.

Bulk chuckled quietly in amusement as he nodded and set the boy down. "Alright, there you go." He then paused to glance at Pohatu, considering something for a moment before looking away again. He was probably trying to figure out what to think of the Toa.

"Don't worry, I ate four days ago, I'm not hungry enough to try and eat you yet." The stone Toa grinned down at Bulk.

The mech gave a reaction equitable to blinking, raised an optic ridge for a moment, and then started to laugh. "Well that is definitely good news. Actually I was just trying to figure something out, and you just confirmed it. You remind me a lot of one of my teammates. He's got the same casual attitude and knack for joking."

"I'll take that as a compliment!" Pohatu laughed, his voice only lightening a little because if his sheer mass. He smiled and looked after where Takiu ran off to get swooped up by his father. "Let's let Hafu deal with his fans, and we can have a talk about what happened to you Bulk."

He nodded cheerfully to the first remark. "Glad you will; Jimmi's one of the funniest guys on the team, and a good friend of mine." He then paused to glance at Hafu, the 'fan club', and finally to Takiu and his father. "Sounds like a good plan to me."

"The little one will likely pass out soon from what you both hinted at." Pohatu looked between village- that looked more like a small town than 'village' and the temple. Deciding that his shared Suva in the temple was quieter, motioned to one of arches that he only had to duck a little bit to make it. Thankfully for him it opened up for him to stand up.

The mech gave a quick nod, hurrying to keep up with Pohatu as he led Bulk inside. "I'm actually surprised he didn't conk out already." He remarked. "Poor kid was grabbed and just about carried off by those things... Rama? That was what they were called, I think... their giant bugs either way."

"Fragging annoying to fight," Pohatu snorted, motioning to a set of Matoran stairs that would lead to the next level but had a few balconies that would put Bulk chest height to a Toa. Almost eye level with how this one was hunched over. "You mentioned other off worlders like yourself?"

"That's right." Bulk agreed, hurrying up the steps after they were pointed at. "There are... or were... five others with me, each of us a different color. Stormer was the first one I lost track of; he was in the cockpit and it broke off before the rest of the ship tore apart. I haven't got a clue where he landed..." He then blinked and pulled out the piece of green metal he'd found earlier. "This was all I could find of Breez, but there was a hole near it so she very well could've ended up sliding underground."

"Onu-wahi," Pohatu muttered, making a note to back track the prints to find the hole.

"Onu-whaty?" The bot inquired, his expression showing his confusion.

"Wah-he," the Toa considered, looking at translation stone and tried another dialect. "The...wahi...region."

"... Ah, that makes sense now." Bulk remarked, seeming pleased to know this new bit of information. "You'll have to pardon that I don't know many terms. I didn't get the sort of translation capabilities that Breez got. I'm the heavy hitter on my team, and not much else."

He paused a moment to think it over a bit. "So... there's actually an underground region here too? Is there anything this world doesn't have?"

Pohatu chuckled, motioning at the carvings around them, the inside of the temple decorated more than the outside of the giant dome. It was still considered a newly made one.

"We don't know, not yet. The world was just put back together."

The bot looked around with curiosity as Pohatu motioned to the carvings. He didn't have a clue what the carvings met, but judging by the low whistle he made, he was certainly impressed. "I haven't got a clue what those all mean, but it looks like you've got a very full history."

"...I tend to leave it to the Chroniclers," Pohatu admitted with a chuckle, rubbing the back of head, "What about the others of your group, any ideas?"

"The others' locations? No not really." Bulk responded, pausing to think a bit. "... well, the cockpit broke off near... I think it looked like a marsh-ish area, so Stormer probably ended up in a mud puddle, if my guess is right. As for the others... I really don't know. When the ship broke I got hit pretty hard and lost track of my senses until Takiu found me."

He paused again before smiling a little. "I surprised him when I pushed the vehicle door off me though; he didn't think I could do it."

"Takiu doesn't have any umph, not yet." Pohatu laughed softly, looking back to the way they came into the temple. "So he doesn't know what he can do yet at half size let alone adult size, or what his sire can do."

"What sort of things will he be able to do when he's bigger?" Bulk asked curiously, his expression showing his interest.

The Toa shrugged, and then smirked as he said with great pride, "Po-Matoran are like Onu-Matoran. Once adult and healthy, they can heft up two three times their own weight."

The bot seemed highly impressed by this information. "Wow... Sounds like Takiu's going to be pretty tough once he gets even just some of his umph going on. I could even end up seeming like a lightweight if he gets really strong." He paused to consider the sheer size of who he was talking to and laughed. "I'm probably already seen as a lightweight as it is."

"You shouldn't judge your strength to another race's," Pohatu pointed out as he stood up fully to stretch.

"Wasn't judging." Bulk responded with amusement. "Was just laughing at how odd it might seem to someone of your height for me to be acting as though I'm a tough guy."

The giant rubbed the back of his head, "At the risk of sounding like my fiery brother, we Toa aren't exactly in a normal class, even for Bionicle."

"Oh? How so? I don't know much about the Toa other than we've got similar jobs." The tone he used when responding showed that he was quite curious, even if he wasn't the brightest lightstone in the mine.

"We are elements, not just users, we are our element," the brown and tan Toa tried to explain as he stepped up closer to the balcony. The tri-colored eyes focused on some of the loose pebbles and with a twitch of fingers, and a felt ripple of power, the small stones vibrated on the ground, dancing before lifting up a finger span. "We Toa are the Guardians of our world, of the land as well as the different people."

Bulk gave the impression of blinking as he looked curiously at the stones, watching with high interest. "Wow… Takiu told me about putting the world pieces back together and such, but… still, actually watching someone move the rocks around… that is cool."

"I haven't put a world back together," Pohatu shook his head, and glanced off to the far distance of memory, "That was Mata Nui; biggest I'd done is made a good bioquake and landslide."

"Ah." The mech responded, thinking it over a bit. "The way Takiu said it implied you and... Onan? ... No, that wasn't it... Onua? ... Something like that. You and Onua put it together. I'm not fully sure how it all went though."

"It may have seemed like that to him," Pohatu aloud with a soft laugh, "What happened is there was a...scar in the surface you can say." The Toa held his hands to make a deep V shape, "Too deep and dangerous, so my brothers and I created landslides until it was filled in and more even." The Toa widen the V shape to imply a wider and flatter crater shape instead.

Bulk smiled a bit as he nodded at that. "That makes sense, I suppose. No sense in leaving a ditch when the hazard could be gotten rid of, right?"

He paused a moment before giving a small shudder and sighing before sitting down. He appeared as though he were tired, as if the effect of his previous exertions were starting to catch up to him now. All the same though, he smiled at Pohatu while he waited for an answer.

"Very big ditch!" The Toa came over to lean on the balcony, "Are you okay friend?"

"I'm alright." The bot remarked, nodding once as though to try and assure Pohatu that it wasn't anything serious. "My Core's starting to run low on energy. I just have to take it slow for now and find some way to recharge before my energy's gone, that's all. Nothing too severe just yet."

"Energy?" Pohatu echoed as he tried to straighten up, but his hunched back just wouldn't. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Bulk explained. "I don't exactly run on an engine." As he said this, he fidgeted with the plate on his chest, popping it off and revealing a glowing, faintly pulsating circle, held in place by small latches. "That there," he remarked. "is my Hero Core. My heart, and my energy source."

Turning his gaze back to the Toa, Bulk continued. "If that were to be broken, or to fully lose its charge, I'd be dead. No restarts, no waking up. Just... dead." He put the Core plate back on after speaking. "As it is, I'm running a bit low, so I shouldn't do a whole lot more until I can find a way to recharge again."

The large Bionicle gave that same sort of interested click-chirrup sound that Takiu did before, and reached out to hock a claw carefully on Bulk's wrist to keep the mech from putting on the plate again. "What kind of crystal is that? I've never seen that before."

The mech seemed faintly surprised when Pohatu stopped him, but didn't fight back. "It's called Quaza." He replied, looking at his Core again. "It's a rare mineral that can be found deep within certain planets. It's probably the most powerful substance anyone from my neck of the universe knows, and only us Heroes... ehm... robotic Heroes, use them as power sources. They let us do things that other bots and beings generally can't do."

The stone giant sniffed at the air, regarding his core with an intent focus, a little innerving since it had a universal predator-like unwavering quality. But also something else was going on unseen, the mech could feel it through his exposed core, like a tugging sensation on the energy itself.

"Feels like energized protodermis in a crystallized state, though a little of the liquid state in the back... but not." Pohatu cocked his head to one side, "Bigger than most heart-light stones though."

Bulk tilted his head a little, not really sure what Pohatu meant by his words. "I... don't quite understand what you just said, but hey, if it makes sense to you I'm cool with it." He glanced at Pohatu again, an optic ridge raising a bit as he felt the unusual shifts in his Core's energy. "... mind my asking what you're doing to it?" He asked, sounding rather calm and unworried despite the fact he'd just said the Core was the main reason he was alive.

"Hmm..." Pohatu tapped his other claws on the stone of the flat balcony. Then with a swift motion, his other hand drew back from the core only for the clawed hand to snap out, claws hocking into Bulk's legs and tripped him up to sprawl backwards. Tugging the mech closer and speaking a word that the translated only to a hybrid wait/come.

"Hey, what?!" Bulk sputtered, finding himself on his back before he could really do or say much about it. He was about to try and sit up when he got tugged again, getting knocked over again and just giving up. "Well, you seem to know what you're doing, so I'll letcha do it. Just don't break me any more than I already am broke, okay?" He was surprisingly chill about the situation after getting the initial startle, and just let himself get dragged.

The Toa flashed a grin, holding the Hero down with one hand and then lifted his other hand, then flexed the claws out. A second pulsed by, and yellow-white energy crackled over fingers and claws before growing into a sphere of raw energy.

The mech's optics widened a little. "... would this be a good time to ask what you're doing?" He inquired, seeming a bit uneasy, but not really fighting back. He didn't want to waste his energy anyway.

"Going to try something. Hope it works!" The Toa lowered his hand, with the energy, intending on pressing it to the exposed core.

"What sort of something?" Bulk asked quickly, seeming a little more concerned now as he watched the energy draw closer to his Core. He shifted uncomfortably now, though only slightly. "Because this is looking like it might hurt a little."

"Likely will," Pohatu admitted, and he was one thing if nothing else: he was honest.

Then the pure elemental energy was pressing against the golden crystal. It was hot, heavy, there and not. Seeping into the Quaza core, filling the used energy 'space' with...stone. That elemental energy that was tied to the earth stone sacrificed itself to become, born and remade from molten lava's first heart.

The bot was about to comment again before his whole frame went rigid, optics widening again as he twitched and shuddered. However, as the energy seeped in, the light in his optics flickered, almost worryingly so. Several seconds later...

Bulk's frame went limp, his optics losing their glow as he shut down.

Reviews!

Shimmer Mane
Omicron: Yes that Toa can... and can get into trouble in other ways too. Be careful what you wish for! You just get a young matoran bouncing, nosing and runn around you, or flopping, and their not very 'light' to us once getting Takiu's size!

Species Unknown
Omicron: 8D the size scale is so much fun

Autobot Phoenix
Omicron: O.o I see that

Galem
Omicron: a new reviewer! Thank you for that, we both appreciate that you think that of our story