After so many victories, the Toa Mata had finally met their match: themselves.
Or rather, their shadow selves. Upon entering the lair of Makuta, they found themselves attacked by six beings that looked just like them, but darker. The similarities didn’t end there, though, for as the Toa quickly found out, these Shadow Toa had the same powers and abilities as the Toa, and the two sides had gone to battle.
While the other Toa would never admit that they were fighting a battle they could not win, Kopaka knew that, with the two sides evenly matched, the Toa could never gain the upper hand on their shadow opponents in a fair fight. And Kopaka had learned there was no benefit to fighting a battle you could not win.
Shadow Kopaka, however, had no such qualms, and was already moving to attack Kopaka. The Toa of Ice blocked the Dark Toa’s attacks, but did not go on the offense; instead, he focused his mind on finding a way to win, for he knew that just fighting these things would not get him or the other Toa anywhere.
The other Toa had gone on the attack, though, and this turned out to be bad. Kopaka found himself hit by one of Lewa’s air blasts, almost falling in a lava pool made by Tahu, and nearly swept off his feet by Gali’s water. Oddly, though, the Shadow Toa did not suffer the same problem: Shadow Kopaka never had to avoid the attacks of his teammates, and the same thing applied to all the other Dark Toa.
They’re working together, Kopaka realized. Their unity is strong, while ours is weak.
The beginings of an idea were forming in Kopaka’s mind. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, however, Shadow Kopaka realized he was distracted, and came in for a sudden attack. Kopaka couldn’t react in time. Only luck saved him, as Shadow Kopaka’s sword brushed past his sword arm, a hair’s breadth away from slashing his arm.
Shadow Kopaka was thrown off-balance for a moment, having expected his attack to hit home. That gave Kopaka time to speak. “Toa! Form a ring, back to back!” Kopaka ordered.
It wasn’t often that Kopaka gave an order, but when he did, the other Toa knew to listen. Now the Toa were free to send their attacks outward without worrying about hitting their teammates, giving them an edge against the Shadow Toa.
But Shadow Kopaka was just as smart as Kopaka. The Dark Ice Toa activated his levitation Kanohi, leaping over Kopaka and landing in the center of the ring. A quick swipe of his sword struck all of the Toa except Kopaka, who saw it coming, and Lewa, who happened to be in midair at the time, dodging an attack from his own opponent. Now it was the Dark Toa who had the advantage.
“You cannot defeat us,” Shadow Kopaka said, stepping toward Kopaka.
Wounded by Dark Kopaka’s attack, the other Toa were being pushed back by their shadow counterparts. And thanks to Kopaka’s idea, the Toa were now surrounded, except for Kopaka himself. Kopaka was free, but he realized he could not launch his ice attacks anymore without risking hitting the other Toa.
Something was still bothering Kopaka about his enemy’s rash attack from earlier. Like himself, Dark Kopaka had a lense built into his mask, affording him much greater visual capabilities than normal. Even without that, Kopaka had the analytical eyes of an eagle, and surely Shadow Kopaka had as well. That attack shouldn’t have missed. Unless…
This time, when Shadow Kopaka attacked, Kopaka made no move to block or evade, watching as his enemy’s sword swung toward him… and passed right through him.
The Toa of Ice blinked in surprise. Dark Kopaka was just as surprised, and swung again, with the same result. Then Dark Kopaka fired a blast of ice at his enemy. It, too, passed harmlessly through Kopaka.
“Stop fighting!” Kopaka shouted to the other Toa. “They can’t hurt us if we don’t fight back.”
“Are you crazy?” Tahu exclaimed, narrowly avoiding a strike from his opponent’s blade.
“Just trust me,” Kopaka answered. He saw Tahu glance his way for a moment, long enough to see that Shadow Kopaka’s attacks were passing through the Toa of Ice.
Gali was the first Toa to comply, standing still as her opponent’s hooks passed harmlessly through her. “Mata Nui, he’s right!” she realized. “They can’t hurt us if we don’t move.”
It was a difficult act to stand still and let an enemy attack you without resisting, or trying to dodge, but it became easier once you saw that that opponent could not harm you. One by one, the Toa stopped fighting. Realizing that their attacks were no longer effective, the Dark Toa stopped attacking and stood back, resorting to glaring at the Toa.
“Now what?” Pohatu wondered aloud.
Kopaka didn’t answer. One thing was still nagging at him: when Shadow Kopaka had struck the other Toa from behind, they hadn’t tried to block or evade because they hadn’t seen it coming. Yet the attack still hit them. Did that mean–
Shadow Kopaka was a step ahead of him. Before the Toa could react, he leapt in for another attack – at Tahu. Tahu didn’t react… and the sword slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.
“We can’t hit our own Toa, but we can hurt the others,” Dark Kopaka declared.
Seeing his success, the Dark Toa advanced once again, this time attacking different Toa. Now Kopaka found himself confronted by Shadow Tahu, pitting his sharpened ice sword against Tahu’s jagged fire sword and his ice against Tahu’s fire.
Yet even as he traded blows with this new opponent, Kopaka’s mind raced. Why could the Shadow Toa attack others, but not their respective Toa? Somehow, Kopaka knew that figuring this out was key to defeating these foes.
This time, though, it wasn’t Kopaka who figured out the answer. A sudden flash of light attracted the attention of Toa and Dark Toa alike, halting the fight for a moment. Gali was glowing, though this faded quickly. And Kopaka noticed that Shadow Gali had disappeared.
“What… what did you do?” Tahu implored. For the moment at least, the Shadow Toa had stopped attacking.
“These things… they aren’t shadow versions of us,” Gali explained. “They ARE us. Well, our shadow halves, anyway. Our darkest thoughts, the “evil” parts of us. Makuta has pulled them out of us, given them form. But we can bring the Shadow Toa back into us by accepting that they are part of us, temptations we must always resist in our struggle toward good.”
“Can’t we just leave them be, then?” Pohatu asked. “I think I could live without the dark part of my mind.”
Tahu shook his head. “What Makuta can do, he can undo,” he said. “If these shadow halves are to be reunited with us, I’d rather it be by my hand, not his.”
“Besides,” Onua pointed out, “if we leave these things here, who’s to stop them from attacking the Matoran above?”
That brought the discussion to an end. Kopaka closed his eyes and thought about what Gali had said. It was hard for his logical mind to accept; a being’s inner demons being granted physical form sounded like something out of a Matoran fairy tale. Kopaka realized that everyone had a pull toward evil. Makuta, and those like him, embraced it, while Kopaka and the other Toa overcame it. They had to. When he opened his eyes, Shadow Kopaka was gone.
No, not quite gone. He was the twinge of jealousy that Kopaka felt at Gali for finding the answer before he did; the frustration with Tahu, whose brash, hot-headed idiocy went against Kopaka’s logical and calculating nature; and he was the fear: if Makuta could do this, what else might he be capable of? Shouldn’t Kopaka and the others turn back while there was still time?
Kopaka pushed these thoughts aside. He would go on, because that’s what heroes did.
“Let’s go,” Tahu said. “Makuta awaits.”
Wrote this down in a notebook ages ago, finally got around to transcribing it to the computer. Based on Greg’s interpretation of the Shadow Toa fight, with a slight spin to it.
~W12~