First time in a while that I started writing a chapter and got it done before midnight. Yay for sleep! 
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Chapter 42
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As soon as I deduced that we were heading for Pohatuâs, I started to spot signs that that was in fact our destination. The modern, glass-and-steel buildings that made up the city center gave way to structures with more concrete and then brick, while the roads and buildings got progressively dustier. I even recognized a few roads that weâd followed three days before, after leaving Pohatuâs place the first time. At our pace, I estimated that it would take a good hour-and-a-half to reach it, and throughout it all, Kopaka maintained the fast, silent pace. Indeed, a little past nine in the evening, we found ourselves standing in front of the dilapidated, brick structure that was the current residence of the Toa Nuva of Stone. It didnât look much different from the last time: two wooden crates, filled to the brim with empty bottles, were taking up the space in the overgrown garden next to the front door, ready to be taken away with other garbage. The one front window, its ragged curtain closed, showed that there was a dim light inside. Coming to the door, Kopaka hesitated for a moment.
âSo, why are we here?â I asked. âI thought you said your goodbyes.â
âWe did,â Kopaka said dourly.
âThen, why are we here?â I repeated myself, keeping my voice down just in case the Toa inside would hear.
âUnfinished business,â Kopaka sighed and opened the door before I got the chance to keep asking. He walked in, and I followed right behind, making sure to close the door again behind me. The place looked almost exactly like how weâd left it: the single trophy on the shelf, the folded wheelchair in the corner, and the recliner facing the telescreen, which was producing all the light and noise in the room, though there wasnât much of either since its volume was not turned up high. Slumped in the recliner, which was surrounded by at least eight empty bottles from what I could see, was the Toa Nuva of Stone.
âBrother,â Kopaka greeted as he slowly crossed the room, careful not to kick or trip over any bottles. He got no response, so he maneuvered himself around the chair until he was in front of Pohatu, but not between him and the telescreen. I followed a short distance behind, eventually positioning myself next to the bedroom door. âBrother, I am back,â Kopaka greeted again, and again he got no response. Pohatu, leaning back in the chair, appeared to be half-asleep, eyes barely open and fixed on the telescreen. Apparently tired of trying to get his attention verbally, Kopaka reached forward and shook the Toa of Stoneâs shoulder. âWake up,â he said in about as quiet and soothing a voice as I think he could ever have managed.
âWh⌠whoâŚâ Pohatu finally seemed to slowly come to some kind of consciousness, turning his head to look at Kopaka. âwho⌠whoâs there?â
âYour brother, Kopaka,â the Toa of Ice answered. âI have come back for you.â
âKopakaâŚâ Pohatu let out the name with a shallow, breathless sigh, still clearly not quite in his right mind.
âYes, it is me,â Kopaka answered. âDo you recognize me?â
âUhmâŚâ Pohatu let out a long sigh, again, then almost by instinct leant to the right and reached down with his arm, retrieving what by the sound of the liquid sloshing inside was a nearly empty bottle. âOne minuteâŚâ he said as he proceeded to raise the bottle to drink from it. Kopaka, however, put his left hand on Pohatuâs arm and easily pushed the bottle aside.
âNo, no more of that,â he said, still retaining a softness to his voice that before then I hadnât thought he could muster.
âHey, thatâs⌠thatâs mineâŚâ Pohatu protested meekly.
âAnd you are going to put it down,â Kopaka said as he grabbed the bottle and, again, without much effort pulled it out of his brotherâs hand, after which he set it down on the ground and out of the latterâs reach.
âNo⌠no, itâs⌠itâs fineâŚâ Pohatu stammered. âItâs been⌠itâs been a whileâŚâ
âYouâre still drunk,â Kopaka asserted. âGo back to sleep.â He put Pohatuâs arm back down on the armrest of the chair.
âStupid visionsâŚâ Pohatu uttered as he began to drift back into unconsciousness. Within seconds, he was out. Kopaka held there for a minute, then straightened up and walked over to me. Keeping his voice barely above a whisper, he told me:
âWe need to get rid of the bottles. I will get these; you check the kitchen.â
âRight,â I nodded. I still didnât really get what his plan was, since I knew he didnât want to stay for long, but I wasnât going to argue against dispatching of the alcohol present. So, while he cleared the area around the chair and picked up what was scattered around the living room, I went through the fridge and all the kitchen drawers, producing six more bottles that, so far, hadnât been opened. Kopaka, meanwhile, also checked the bedroom, but found nothing there. We took the bottles outside and set them down next to the crates already present.
âWe need to get rid of these, completely,â Kopaka repeated. âCan you go and find some place to throw them away?â
âSure,â I answered. âJust⌠what are you planning on doing?â Kopaka sighed, then thought for a moment.
âJust get rid of the bottles,â he answered as he turned to head back inside.
âRight thenâŚâ I looked up and down the street, hoping to spot some kind of dump site, but I didnât see any at first. On a hunch, I took the two crates and headed down the road south, where within a minute or two I came across a side alley. It was only a narrow space between the sides of two taller buildings, but it seemed to be a common dumping ground for garbage, judging by the number of boxes and bags that were already stashed near the entrance. Figuring that the bottles would blend in just fine, I pulled them out of the crates and stacked them next to a couple of steel bins. I returned to Pohatuâs place with the empty crates, loaded up the rest of the bottles, and then took them away as well. By now, it had gotten properly chilly outside, so I was glad when I could head back in even though the heating in Pohatuâs place was pretty dismal. To my surprise, I found Kopaka in the kitchen, scrubbing some long caked-on food remnants off of a set of plates.
âDoing the dishes?â I observed. He didnât answer to me pointing out the obvious. Looking around the kitchen, I noticed heâd already cleaned up some of the pots and pans that had been lying around the place earlier. âSo, we came back to clean Pohatuâs house?â
âThat is part of it,â Kopaka replied. âI do not want it to look so disheveled.â
âRightâŚâ I nodded. I wasnât all that surprised that Kopaka may have wanted the house to reflect his usually organized mind, but heâd insisted repeatedly that we werenât staying for long, so what was the point? âSo, you think that a clean house will help Pohatu clean up his act?â I asked, somewhat incredulously.
âNo,â he answered, âbut while I wait for him to sober up I might as well do something.â
âFair point,â I agreed. âSo, while youâre doing this, Iâll⌠straighten up the bedroom?â
âGo ahead,â he answered. So I did, and soon found that, apart from making the bed, there wasnât much to do in the bedroom. In a small side closet, I found Pohatuâs armor, two heavy, metal blocks, and a set of pincer-like contraptions all lying in a pile. At first, the purpose of the blocks and pincers eluded me, but then I recognized them as Pohatuâs Toa tools. Judging by the layer of dust and the rust spots that covered them, I imagined they hadnât been taken out in ages. In fact⌠pretty much everything in the place was very, very dusty, so with little else to do, I retrieved a wet rag from the kitchen and proceeded to wipe it off. The armor soon got some of its sheen back, though the rust was still evident. Returning to the kitchen, I found that Kopaka was cleaning off the countertops and empty cabinets, so I followed his example, went back to the bedroom, and wiped down every horizontal surface I could find. First the windowsill, then the side tables, then the shelf in the closet⌠At one point, a familiar hacking noise from the living room attracted my attention; Pohatu was about to throw up again, it seemed. By the time I got there, though, Kopakaâd already arrived on scene with a pot, which in the aftermath heâd clearly have to wash again.
âChoking again, huh?â I observed from the bedroom doorway.
âThankfully, he is not in as bad a way as he was last time,â Kopaka identified. He set the pot down beside the chair; the Toa of Stone had returned to peaceful slumber. Kopaka got up and looked around. By virtue of its emptiness, the living room was already quite clean, with the exception of the thick layers of dust on the desk, the telescreen, and the shelves populated by the lone remaining trophy. He turned and lowered the volume on the telescreen to zero. âDust these off,â he gestured over the desk and at the shelves. âI will take care of the pot⌠again.â With that, he picked up the pot and took it back to the kitchen. I followed him, rinsed the rag, and came back to clean off the shelves, looking back periodically to see if Pohatu was doing okay. Lying back in that chair, he looked relatively fine; out of shape, yes, and definitely in need of maintenance, but nothing on the outside really betrayed how far his mind had gone. Indeed, knowing that sooner or later, the Toa Nuva of Stone had to wake up, I found myself wondering what state of mind heâd be in, and what exactly Kopaka was planning to do about it.
It was about thirty minutes later that Kopaka finally seemed satisfied; Iâd gone over all the shelves, and the trophy as well, while heâd practically turned the kitchen upside down, finding lots of old, rotten, and broken things to throw out in the process. One of the crates out front served as makeshift trash can.
âWell, I guess it does look a lot better nowâŚâ I looked around the living room at the result of our handiwork.
âSignificantly,â Kopaka concurred.
âSo,â I yawned, âwhat exactly was the point of all this? Are we staying a while?â
âNo,â Kopaka answered as he turned for the door.
âWeâre leaving? Now?â I followed behind.
âNo, we are not,â Kopaka answered. âGet rid of that.â He pointed at the garbage crate by the door. âLeave it wherever you left the bottles.â I noticed his mood was dropping again; not frustration per se⌠more anxiety, anxiety about what was coming. It made me wonder whether the surface house cleaning was just to kill time.
âUhm, sureâŚâ I moved past him, picked up the crate, and headed out the door. The offal inside had quite the stench about it, which made the trip decidedly more unpleasant than the previous two had been. This time, I elected just to leave the whole crate behind; given its rickety state, and with the garbage and the bottles gone, I figured that it had done its job. On the way back, I started trying to think of what the point of this whole endeavor was. Kopakaâd already acknowledged, last time, that there was nothing he could really do for Pohatu, or was concerned to do⌠and yet here we were. What was he planning to do, and for that matter, what had prompted the change of plan in the first place? He still hadnât answered⌠perhaps, perhaps that was because he didnât really know the answer himself. Of course, he wouldnât admit it if he didnât, but it seemed a reasonable possibility. I returned to the house to find that Pohatu was no longer occupying the chair; Kopakaâd moved him to the bed, and had taken up the same post beside him that heâd occupied a few nights before, with a pot still at the ready.
âItâs gone,â I informed him, not proceeding past the doorway into the bedroom.
âGood,â he answered.
âSo⌠anything else we could do?â I wondered. Kopaka looked up to me.
âYou look tired,â he observed, quite to my surprise.
âYeah, itâs been a long dayâŚâ I suddenly realized. Between running around Onu-Koro-Nuva on four hours of sleep, the long train ride, and midnight cleaning, I was starting to feel it.
âGet some rest,â Kopaka advised.
âI thought we werenât staying long,â I remarked.
âWe would not beâŚâ Kopaka admitted as he turned back to Pohatu, ââŚbut he wasnât ready.â
âOh⌠okay,â I nodded. âReady for what?â
âJust⌠go and sleep for a while,â he sighed.
âOkay, sureâŚâ I yawned again. Donât take me wrong; I welcomed the opportunity to use that chair again, but I really didnât want to miss what Kopaka was planning. He seemed so⌠uncharacteristically conflicted about it: the hesitations, the way he seemed to stall for time, the musing⌠The air of unease of this second trip had been palpable ever since heâd gotten back on that train after I showed him Onuaâs demise. Back then, thereâd been a sense of purpose, an angry spirit that seemed to drive him back, but that had vanished within minutes when the train got rolling, like it had been a heat-of-the-moment decision. The Kopaka I knew didnât do things on impulse like that, yet this whole trip back seemed to have started with one. Was that what bothered him so? The fact that he had been propelled into action by a moment of unchecked emotion? With the opportunity for some shut-eye in the comfiest chair in the world, I wasnât going to question it now, but after whatever this was ended, I definitely had some questions for the Toa Nuva of Ice. Unfortunately, the returning of Toa Nuva company meant the return of the⌠unintended mind-reading. I had been lucky to remain clear of it on the train trip back, but this night I once again experienced what, to me, were more like nightmares.
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Iâm in a tunnel again. By virtue of it being a tunnel, it is difficult to know where exactly, but the fact that thereâs only one lightstone here, the one laying in the tunnel behind me, makes it pretty clear that this isnât a mining tunnel. Itâs small, with a ceiling barely a foot higher than I am tall, and Iâm standing at the end of it, it seems. Iâm holding out my blade in front of me. The tip just touches the wall of earth and stone in front as I channel my elemental powers through it, causing what little moisture exists in the ground to rapidly freeze. The cold⌠the cold makes things brittle, I know, and now that glittering streaks of ice crisscross the wall in front of me, I think itâs just about brittle enough⌠I raise my shield and activate my mask. A tremendous surge of power seems to flow through me as, with a deafening crash, I bring the shield down and shove it forward, impacting the heavy metal disk into the wall with as much force as I can muster. It works: deep cracks have appeared, radiating out from the impact. I raise the shield, and bring it down again. This time, the wall gives way, the rocks breaking into pieces that come tumbling down. I begin shoving the pulverized rubble aside, clearing the six foot or so section that Iâve opened up, and move the lightstone forward. Satisfied, I pause and listen for a moment⌠thereâs an intermittent sound, a sound of stone grinding against stone, coming from somewhere in the earth nearbyâŚ
Instinctively, I immediately assume a ready stance, frosty air already condensing around my blade. I switch back to the Akaku Nuva; whatever is coming for me will not have the element of surprise. Just as I activate the mask, the wall to my right gives way in a cascade of earth and rock, forcing me aside and against the opposite wall. For a moment, I fear a tunnel collapse, but Iâm not buried. Instead, looking at the pile of rubble that now occupies part of the tunnel, I notice something inside⌠the glimmer of metal. Quickly, I clamber onto the rubble and, putting my weapon to the side, start removing rocks to excavate whatever it is. It takes mere moments, and I recognize it immediately; itâs one of Pohatuâs tools! Not wasting a moment, I stow it away and activate my mask, scanning the collapsed earth and the wall opposite me. I see, I see⌠two rahkshi! Their armor looks battered, crushed⌠but I cannot guarantee they are dead. Best to leave them be, but⌠buried very, very close to them is the other tool, and buried not ten feet away⌠itâs Pohatu!
Upon identifying the Toa of Stone, I immediately get up, move to the end of the tunnel, and place my blade against the wall in his direction. Once again, I send my elemental powers into the wall, stone cracking as I fill every free orifice with ice and freeze what little water the ground already contains. Iâm going all out on this one; the fewer hits it takes to get to Pohatu, the better his chances. Satisfied that the wall ahead of me is almost covered in a solid sheet of ice, I switch masks again, to the Pakari Nuva. I take a step back, and activate the mask, feeling that surge of energy coursing through my body again⌠and shove forward, bashing my shield into the wall. Much of it crumbles and collapses around me; I put an arm over my head, wait for the falling rocks to subside, and open my eyes. Thereâs more frozen wall ahead. I repeat the process, hurling myself â â â â â â â â â â â â into the next wall with all my might, and again, the earth crumbles in front of me. This time, when I look up, I see an arm! Wasting no time, I clamber over the rubble Iâve just created, and start digging at the armâs shoulder, where it retreats into the wall. I keep the Pakari on, using the extraordinary strength it provides to tear aside one rock, one clump of earth after another, frantically digging towards Pohatuâs head. Less than a minute later, Iâve exposed his face⌠his eyes are closed, and his mask has a few dents, but he could be, he has to be okay.
âWake upâŚâ I lean close and whisper, not wanting to be surprised by Rahkshi bursting through the wall on my right. Pohatu offers no response, so I try again: âWake up,â a little louder. I put a hand around his mouth and shake his head a bit. For a moment, thereâs no response, but then, a cough! Suddenly, his eyes spring wide open.
âWhoa!â he exclaims, struggling to catch his breath. âOnu-Koro! The Matoran! The RahkshiâŚâ he looks over and suddenly notices me. âKopaka!?â
âKeep it down,â I urge him. He takes the advice and looks around as much as his still-restrained body will let him. âYou are okay,â I advise. âHere, I will get you outâŚâ
âI, I think I got itâŚâ he protests as, under his influence, some of the rocks already begin to move. I help out, pulling aside one after another, and itâs not long before my brother is free.
âWhat happened?â I ask him.
âOnu-KoroâŚâ he answers with a slight tremble to his voice. âRahkshi arrived; Onua and I couldnât stop them. He brought down the roof to slow them down.â
âBrought down the roof on Onu-Koro?â I must admit Iâm surprised. âWas that the loud rumbling I heard?â
âNo doubt,â Pohatu concurs. âThe Onu-Matoran got out, but the village is no moreâŚâ
âThat is too bad,â I commiserate, âbut we have to warn the others.â
âThe chronicler and the Captain of the Guard were here,â Pohatu continues. âThey escaped, too; Iâm sure they got word out already.â He stands up and stretches, trying to get over the stiffness that comes with being buried for several hours.
âIn that case, we should join them,â I assert. âBy the way,â I take out the Toa tool, âI believe this is yours.â
âSo it is, thanks,â he smiles, taking the tool back and momentarily inspecting it for damage.
âWhere is Onua?â I wonder.
âYou didnât find him?â Pohatuâs expression is suddenly a worried one.
âNo.â
âWell, heâs got to be around here somewhere,â the Toa of Stone continues, immediately switching to his own Akaku. âLetâs scan the rock.â
âRight.â I concur, switching my mask as well. Again, activating it seems almost like a summons more than anything, as a sudden rumbling sound catches both of us off guard.
âWhereâs that coming from?â Pohatu asks, but before I can answer, a metal⌠thing suddenly emerges from the wall beside me, accompanied by the sound of a screaming engine.
âI believe I have an answer!â I shout over the noise as the screaming object moves down, carving a deep gash into the wall, after which it finally stops.
âMove back!â a voice calls from inside; I do so immediately, and barely in time as a sudden, loud impact sends the wall flying towards me in pieces. Peering over my shield after the rocks have settled, I spot a familiar Toa standing in the newly created entrance.
âWhat was all that noise about?â Onua asks.
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#####authorâs notes: When I first saw the Mask of Light movie, I couldnât for the life of me understand how Onua and Pohatu showed up at the final battle against the Rahkshi when weâd last seen them in a collapsing Onu-Koro. I suppose knowing English would have helped me understand the explanation they offered, namely that Kopaka rescued them, but even now I still feel like thatâs a scene that wouldâve been nice to see in G1. Of course, MoL couldnât do that when it was running with Takuaâs perspective, but there was nothing to stop me from exploring it a bit here, which I very much enjoyed doing. Either way, itâs been a while since weâve had a comparatively positive memory, right?
Iâll post more chapters as I finish them. As always, post any questions, comments, and/or observations below. Enjoy!
