And here it is the third part of my and @MichaelTheLightBringer’s collab story! I am personally pretty proud of here. Let us know what you think about it too!
Vladin, the Toa Epsilon of Fire, was walking in the dense and unknown jungle. At least two hours have passed since he and the two young Okotoans he supposed to take care of, Virra and Vekoron, were sucked into two purple portals and woke up in the unknown.
He was tired, confused, and annoyed. He really wanted to take a break. He looked up at the big, orange sun. He had to find a way to get out of the jungle. If he was still on Okoto, then any villager should recognise and help him.
“If I only could contact Ghabix in any way…” Vladin started thinking aloud. “Or maybe I could get up on the top of a three and look for the edge of the jungle! Yes! I can do that. Or maybe I could…”
“Wow! So beautiful!” asked Vekoron, the young Lightning Okotoan.
Vekoron was staying down right in front of a big, yellow flower.
“Yeah, yeah… Very nice Vekoron…” Vladin said, not really listening to him.
“Can I take it for mommy?”
“Sure… Whatever you’re saying…”
“Cool!” Vekoron said, before raising his hand slowly towards the plant. However, before the young Okotoan child could take it, the flower turned black and attempted to bite it with it’s petals, like a Venus Flytrap. Fortunately, Vekoron jumped back before he could get hurt.
“Bad flower!” he yelled, before taking his small, widen sword and hitting the flower with it until it stopped moving. “Yes!” the young Okotoan said excited. “Fear me, bad monsters!”
Vladin rolled his eyes. “Stay safe kiddo.” He said absently as Virra, Vekoron’s baby girl, started shaking in his arms. “What is it, Virra?” Vladin asked the baby, who started raising his small legs. “You wanna crawl around?” the Toa asked, to which the baby nodded. “OK, but don’t crawl too far.” He said, as he put the baby down.
Virra smiled happily before starting crawling forwards. Vekoron was running around the two, imagining that he is fighting invisible villains with his sword, and muttering something about plant monsters. Vladin eyed the two for a few seconds, before sighing and sat down on a boulder.
“I am lost in a jungle with these two. Razer and Rosie should have returned by now. Oh, Mata Nui! Rosie will kill me if I don’t return her kids!” Vladin chuckled tiredly. “Let’s face it. It can’t get worse than that.”
Suddenly a loud noise came out of the bushes surrounding the three. Vladin quickly jumped on his legs and drew his sword.
“Show yourself!” he yelled.
The sounds became louder and louder. Vladin was prepared to protect the two kids, who stopped from what they were doing to see what was happening. Vladin was expecting a wild Rahi to get out of the bushes, but was surprised to see another Toa of Fire instead.
“Amera?” Vladin asked, confused.
Amera was Vladin’s sidekick. After Ekimu accepted the construction of an Order of Mata Nui military training base on the shores of the Region of Earth, a bunch of new agents showed up on Okoto. One of them was Amera, who was the daughter of a Toa of Light from the island of New Lout before becoming a Toa of Fire and joined the Order. Lout was the closest island to Okoto, which was the primary reason of why Amera knew so much about Vladin, his team, and Ekimu. She quickly became a fan of them, especially of Vladin. This is why, in the first day after she was transferred to the training base on Okoto, the first thing she did was to find Vladin and ask him thousands of questions, just like a fangirl. She was spending so much time with Vladin instead of learning in the OoMN base, that she was in the danger of getting expelled. However, Vladin convinced Breyna, the Bruiser in charge for the training base, to let him train her. Amera was extremely happy when Vladin came to her and told her that from now on he is her new mentor.
Only a few days later Vladin learned that what he have done was a huge mistake. Amera was a huge, hyper-energetic, childish fangirl, one that would do anything just to impress him, which would become annoying and tiring pretty quickly. Amera would show up in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Vladin didn’t expect to find her in that jungle too.
Vladin gave him a strong facepalm, one that he would remember till the end of the day. “It can get worse.” He said to himself.
“Vladin! Oh my god, Vladin!” Amera said, running towards him. She was a young, athletic girl, being about 8 years younger than Vladin. She was wearing red and gunmetal grey armour, wearing a variety of the Mask of Scavenging specific for Lout. “I am so happy that I found you!”
“Amera…” Vladin said, tiredly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was looking for a way out of this jungle, sir!”
“How did you get here in the first place?”
“I got sucked into a purple portal and woke up here some time ago. I don’t recognise this part of the jungle, nor it’s flora. I think we are not on Okoto anymore.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“How did you get here?”
“Same as you…” Vladin said, sighing. “Something weird is happening here. Maybe we four are not the only ones teleported. Maybe there are more. Come on, we need to find more victims of this treachery.”
“Yes, sir!”
Meanwhile, in Vladin’s home universe, Ekimu the Mask Maker and Bambu the Ysmaen were inside the Forge, discussing about each other’s universes.
“So you got gods, called Vestals, and demigods, called Kaethroni?” Ekimu asked, to which Bambu nodded. “But from what you told me, the Kaethroni seem to have the same powers as the Vestals, so why are they considered demigods?”
“There was one case in which Lutherians, the weakest sapient life form on Earth, killed one of them.”
“Oh…” Ekimu said, tapping his chin.
“What about you?” Bambu asked.
“We have six stones that can control the six aspects of our universe: the Infinity Stones. Combined, they have powers so big that I am afraid to even imagine what they can do.”
“Wow…” Bambu said. “Where are these Stone now?”
“The Space Stone is in the possession of one of my trusted Toa. I have the Power Stone. The other four are…”
Before Ekimu could tell Bambu the location of the last four Infinity Stones, the doors of the Forge opened and two tall figures entered inside. One of them was the human John, Bambu’s best student. The other was Rena, the Toa Epsilon of Water.
“Rena, who is this Toa?” asked Ekimu.
“He is no Toa.” Bambu said, standing up, eyeing John surprised.
“Master Bambu!” John said, running to his superior. “You’re here too!”
“Of course I am, John.” Bambu said, nodding.
“Wait, he is from your universe too?” Ekimu asked Bambu, standing up and walking to him.
“Yes.” Bambu said.
“We this is not good.” Ekimu said, tapping his chin. “If you are not the only one who got teleported into my universe, then there might be many more, just like in our case!”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Bambu.
“I am suggesting that the number of teleported people from your universe into mine is… let’s say somewhat equal to the one of people teleported from my universe to yours. I am also thinking that the two waves of teleportation are linked in some way.”
“That makes sense, I guess.” John said, shrugging.
“But what had such power?” Rena asked, walking forward. “The Space Stone?”
“Impossible. Unless my Toa went rogue, which isn’t that probable.” Ekimu said, shaking his head.
“I think the one who is responsible for this isn’t from your universe, Ekimu.” Bambu said. “I think I know who is behind the waves of portals…”
In the meantime, in Bambu’s home universe, in a monastery on the top of a mountain, three of Bambu’s other students just found out about the waves of teleportation. These three students were Vience, the Sentient Metallico and the humans James and Logan, who were German and Dutch respectively.
Vience slammed his axe on the table, smoke rising from his cigarette.
“What the hell is going on?” he said. “I want to know who is the b****** behind all of this!”
“Calm down, Vience.” Said James, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We are just as clueless as you are.”
“Bambu is gone!” Vience said, hitting the table. “I saw him getting teleported with my own eyes while I was walking up the stairs. Mike and John are also gone! And from what we know, Voltex might be gone too!” he took the cigar from his mouth and threw it aside. “I bet it’s Darkseid. I bet everything I have that it’s him!”
“Don’t be foolish!” said Logan, crossing his arms. “Darkseid might be evil, but he is not stupid enough to violate his agreement with the Vestals. Not so soon. Or at least… I hope so… James, you said you talked to a Zenthronian agent.”
“Oh, yes!” James said, suddenly remembering what he had to said. “He told me that several of their agents disappeared. Most of them were ground troops, except for Agent Seven.”
“Seven is gone too?” Vience asked, to which James nodded.
“At least this is what he told me.” The German said.
“This day is getting better and better, let me tell ya!” Vience said, slapping the table.
“Please, stop…” James said. “What if we try to find Scar? He sure will know what is happening”!
“The Proto-Vestal?” Vience asked. “How do you know where we can find him? Or if he disappeared, just like the others?”
James shrugged. “Most of the time I was finding him at a temple in his hometown. If he is still around, I think we can find him there.”
“Logan, what do you think?” Vience asked his Dutch, friend.
“I say that we should at least try.” Logan said.
“Fine then…” Vience said, standing up. “Let’s go.”
But right then, the doors to the interior training quarters of the Prime Palace opened, and two strange beings entered inside. One of them was looking like a human, wearing blue armour. However, the three could very easily see how he was rather a bio-mechanical than a regular human. The other was a literal fighting machine with long, chicken legs, four arms that were ending with two spikes, one laser pistol and a huge shield saw, a small body, and an ugly face with a big, red eye. These two beings were Otto and XT4, two victims of the waves of teleportation.
“Looks cozy, don’t ya think?” Otto asked, hitting XT4 with his elbow in his lower right hand.
“Yeah… Yeah… I presume so O—“ XT4 started, before realising that the three warriors were eyeing him. “H-Hi!” the weird being said, nervous. “How are you, friends?”
Otto also observed the humans and the Sentient Metallico. “Oh, hi fellas!” Otto said, approaching by them. “So happy that we found you here!”
The three Furious, however, were looking at the two without even blinking, completely perplexed by their appearance.
“What the devil are you, guys?” Vience asked, after a few seconds of awkward silence.
“The, the question is what are you doing here.” Logan corrected him.
“Well, we were definitely not going to steal this monastery, thinking that it is abandoned, until we find a way to return back to our universe, right T4?” Otto asked his friend.
“Ri-right…” XT4 said nervously, not approaching the trio.
“Who are you, freaks?” Vience said, standing up and taking his axe.
“Well…” Otto said, taking a deep breath. “IamOtto,Iamabeingthatcomesfromasecretislandthatyoufreakswillnotfindoutof,Iambasicallyacyborgofsorts,theonlydifferenceisthatIampartorganicandthatIamdesignedtobeatleastaspowerfulasaToa,myfriendoverhereisXT4,whoisthefourthversioninalineofkillerrobotsthat…” the being said extremely rapidly, until he was stopped by James.
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Please, stop!” the German said.
“We are travellers…” XT4 said, after he became a little more confident that the three were not going to kill him. “We were teleported here via some purple portals, and we wanted to turn this monastery into our base until we could return back home.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Otto said. “What he said.”
“Well this is not your place, freaks.” Vience said, resting his axe on his shoulder. “You are not welcomed here.”
“No, Vience. Wait.” Logan said, before turning to Otto and XT4. “Did you said purple portals?”
“Uhm… Yes.” XT4 said, nodding.
“Vience, what was the colour of the portal that teleported Bambu?” the Dutch then asked the Sentient Metallico.
“Uhm… Purple I think…” Vience said, still not realising where Logan was going for.
“Then the portals that sucked these two may be linked to the one that sucked Bambu. Maybe they can help us bring everybody back.”
“He is right.” James said, nodding.
Vience thought for a few seconds, before throwing his axe to the ground, and sighing heavily. He turned to the two. “OK, we will let you in with one condition: you will help us bring back everybody that got teleported, including Bambu: our master.”
“Can you do this?” James asked.
“Of course we can!” Otto exclaimed, to which XT4 gave him a worried look.
“Otto…” the war machine whispered, as he pushed the techno-organic in his arm. “What are you doing?”
“What’s that?” Logan asked, hearing XT4 whispering.
“N-nothing.” XT4 babbled. “W-w-we c-can do it!”
“Good.” Logan said, nodding. “Now let’s show you two the place.”
And so, the five entered inside the Prime Palace, not knowing that from a nearby mountaintop, a big, black figure with a golden glove was eyeing them.
On the bottom of a ravine Scar woke up from unconsciousness. The Proto-Vestal had a strong headache, and he was still wounded and weak after his battle with Darkseid. He looked up at the distant yellow sun, immediately realising that he is in another universe.
“I have to find Ekimu.” He said, slowly standing up.
.”VEKORON! GET DOWN RIGHT NOW!”
Vekoron was on top of a tree, having a vine in his hands.
“Right now, uncle Vladin!” the Lighting Okotoan said, preparing to jump off the three, expecting the vine to sustain him. However, right after he jumped, the vine fell down with him. Fortunetely, Vladin caught him.
“Don’t you ever…” Vladin said, before he turned his head. Amera was running around them, with Virra on her shoulders. The baby was giggling and laughing strongly. “Amera… Please…” Vladin started, before Vekoron jumped out of his grasp and started following Amera.
Vladin felt a strong headache. He covered his ears. “Stop… Stop…”
How could he be the only one who realised the jungle they were in? They were in a dangerous jungle, maybe they were not even on Okoto anymore! And yet, look at his companions: they were laughing, running around and playing. Vladin missed his Toa Team. At least they could understand when they had to shut up and to listen to him.
The giggles, the laughs, the yelling, the running… It was making Vladin loose his minds. He crouched down, pressing his hands on his ears, grunting his teeth, squeezing his eyes.
“STOP!” he yelled as he jumped back up, letting his anger get out of his mouth. The three stopped from what they were doing and turned to him. A few moments later, Vladin realised that they were not actually looking at him, but at something above him.
“Can you please stop with all of the noise?” a voice asked from above Vladin. “I was trying to sleep here, you know?”
Vladin looked up. Above him there was a Toa-like being, with golden and trans-blue armour, standing in a tall tree.
“Thank you.” The stranger said, putting his hands behind his head.
“OK, who the hell are you?” Vladin asked, annoyed.