Part 2 - "THE WIND"
“Can we get started?” Toa Vosala said. “I would really like to get out of here, you know, soon.”
“Sure, yeah, let’s get started.” Toa Kidoma fell to a seat, crossing his legs. The speartip constructed upon his staff dissolved into water and he placed it behind his back. “So, let’s hear it! How did you all find your masks?”
“I-i-it was an ac-c-ccident,” said Toa Orano.
Auru looked up at him, about to say something, but was cut off.
“We have been tasked with discussing the weather, as strange as that may be,” Narale said curtly. “Let us do that.”
The Toa were quiet for a moment, before Auru said, “Avalanches are growing frequent in the Iron Mountains.” His voice was slow, but grounded. Firm. “I have fortified Granite Town and its residents, but there is something foreboding about them. I would like to find the source of these strange happenings soon.”
“How do we know that there’s anything going on?” asked Vosala. “Avalanches are just, like, snow, right? Snow does things.”
“Has anything strange been happening in the Flickering Wastelands?” Auru questioned.
“Uh, if random geysers of fire cropping up more and more commonly counts as ‘strange.’” Vosala paused, and his eyes narrowed, then widened. “Oh, wait. That is strange, isn’t it?”
“There have been some pretty crazy storms out in the Great White Shores,” said Kidoma. “Crazier than usual, I think.”
“And-d the whirlwinds h-here in-n-n Aero C-City!” said Orano. He shivered hearing his new voice. He wasn’t used to it being so… loud? It was like the voice of a powerful wind. It didn’t feel like his.
“These things are all happening at once,” Auru said. “The weather is growing in power, in every region. Moda Nui’s elemental strength is rising.”
Narale crossed her arms and squinted at the group. “This could all be a coincidence. And if not, the recent emergence of the Toa could inspire the land to triumph.”
“Th-they were hap-ppening-g b-before we found-d-d the m-masks,” said Orano.
“And Elder Saane said that the Toa appearing now - it means something,” Kidoma said, holding his staff in both hands as he examined it with reverence. “The Toa are a response to danger. Moda Nui is in danger, and something is either coming or already here.”
“This Elder Saane,” began Narale, “how old is he?”
“I don’t know,” said Kidoma. His eyes squinted. “That’s a weird question.”
“But surely not old enough to have witnessed the Toa previously. At least, I assume.”
“He says that the last time Toa appeared was ‘before the trees were given shadows,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean-”
“So a long time ago. Before anyone who was alive today was alive, certainly. And yet, your ‘Elder’ seems to know exactly how the Toa operate.”
Kidoma crossed his arms. Orano imagined that Kidoma would not enjoy Elder Saane being questioned in this way. They were likely friends. “The Toa had stories that were passed on from elder to elder.”
“The deeper the cavern, the more the belch of a sludgetad can sound like the roar of an ash bear,” said Narale, quoting a famous Matoran proverb. “The point is, we do not truly know what the Toa are, or why we are here, or what we are to do. How do we know that whatever meteorological force may be tied to our arrival? How do we know that we aren’t supposed to help propel it along? We have to be cautious in where we lend our strength.”
“She is right,” said Shynali, who had been largely silent until this moment. “We do not know what we are here for, or why we were chosen.”
Auru scratched the top of his mask. “Perhaps, then, it is our responsibility to look into these happenings and…”
“How do we do that?” asked Kidoma. “Do we just, jump into a storm and ask it where it came from? We aren’t exactly elemental masters, right? We can’t exactly talk to these things.”
A chilly wind rose in the room, and Orano shook. Next to him, Shynali crossed her arms. Had she felt it too?
“So, our plan is then to look at these events and expect to learn something,” said Narale. Her skepticism burned in her voice. “Is anyone here a scientist?”
No one spoke up.
“Great. So, we’ve no way to do the job we are supposed to. I suggest, then, that we return to our homes, go and do our responsibilities, and wait for things to get more… corporeal.”
“Did everyone else feel that?” asked Shynali, ignoring Narale’s suggestion.
“I-I-I did-d,” said Orano. “A d-dr-aft.”
“Yeah, I did too,” said Kidoma. “What about it?”
Shynali turned her head around, taking in the structure. The only opening in the center were the small cavities in the ceiling to let in light, but the draft hadn’t come from above. “Where did it come from?”
Kidoma’s eyes went wide, and his hands tightened around his staff. “Um… wind? You mind telling us what you’re doing here?” He received a glare from Narale, to which he shrugged.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then, the shadows grew. The pillars’ shadows stretched and expanded, until the whole room became enveloped in rampant darkness, and Orano felt the strange draft whirl up around him. It wasn’t just from one direction, but all around, spiraling across the room. And then, the wind became sharp, whistling into his receptors. Its whistle soon was reshaped, and it became like a… like a voice.
The voice - a woman’s - simply laughed. And then it said, “It’d be my pleasure.”
Orano was surprised at the speed with which the Toa snapped into defense. Within moments of the wind’s speaking, Kidoma had his water-tipped spear drawn, Vosala’s torch was alight with a blade of flame, Auru’s iron gauntlets were raised defensively, and Shynali had her twin blades at either side.
Whatever this presence was, it had four armed Toa ready to strike at the first sign of threat. Only Orano and Narale stood still, weaponless.
“Who are you?” called Kidoma.
The voice seemed to laugh again. “I am the Dark Wind. I am your predecessor.”
Her voice was a strange blend of delight and loathing. It stung in Orano’s receptor.
“You’re a Toa?” Shynali asked. While the other Toa were frantically searching the room for the speaker, she had her eyes shut.
“I thought I would be, once,” the Wind said, “but fate betrayed me. I thought it was in my Destiny to be what you are, but Destiny decided that it was not.”
Orano felt his mask tremble over his face, pushed by the air. He held a hand to it, keeping it on.
“It’s a funny thing, Destiny,” she continued. “You never know whose hand it will play into. Why was it that Destiny deemed you all worthy to bear the title of ‘Toa,’ and yet my age was left to suffer without such hope?”
“What are you saying?” asked Narale.
The air was still for a moment. “Destiny chose my path for me, and so I took Destiny into my own hands. Now, look what I have become!”
Dust began to blow from the walls, collecting in the center of the room. It clung to itself, building a swirling shape from the floor. It was a towering figure, taller than even Narale and Auru. It was lithe in shape, with sinister spikes protruding from its shoulders. Its details were few and lacking, as the dust seemed only held to fragments of this shape. It was nowhere near a physical form, but it was as close to one as wind could take.
“I am the Elemental Lord of Air,” said the Wind. “I have given everything to become this, and now I am here to see what about you made you worthy that I had lacked!”
“Elemental Lord?” said Vosala. “Like, the ghost story?”
“Ghost story?” scoffed the Wind. “Is that what you think I am?” Her head - or, what appeared might be her head - turned to Orano, and she lunged. “I am no ghost!”
The Toa barely had a moment to duck, letting the swing miss over his head as he felt the powerful gust of wind above him.
Kidoma sprang towards her. He held his staff at its center, quickly drawing it apart into halves. From each half, a watery arrowhead formed, and he swung with these at the strange foe.
The blades rippled as they cut through the Dark Wind’s shape, and she breathed with strain as they did.
“It’s been too long since I’ve felt the strike of a blade!” she cried, almost cheerfully. Her form twisted around swinging a kick at Kidoma. As soon as the dusty foot collided with his armor, the Toa went soaring back.
Auru and Shynali appeared at either side, each making an attack. With a poof, the Wind’s form dissipated, and the two Toa crashed into each other. She reshaped above them and clapped her hands. The air around them came alive with force, and the two were pressed against the ground with great force.
“Are you really the Toa?” the Dark Wind jeered. “I must say, you are not living up to the hype…”
“Allow me to change your mind!” said Toa Vosala. He jumped against the wall, kicking his feet out upon impact, turning himself into a projectile. He waved his flaming torch in a swing, creating an arc of flame that raced towards the Wind. The fire sliced through her midsection, causing her to yelp in pain, but not much more.
Before the Toa crashed into her, she lifted a hand. Vosala was hit but a burst of wind and was flung into a wall. Her featureless head turned to Orano, and she chuckled.
As she stepped towards him, someone jumped between them. Narale stood, cloaked back to Orano, her hands enveloped in blades of ice.
“Run!” she called behind her.
“Don’t,” said the Wind, bored.
Orano began to sprint away, but he quickly found his feet were not on the ground. He had been lifted into the air, and now was floating towards the Dark Wind.
“Elemental Lord!” Narale shouted as she swung her created weapons at the shape. She was knocked aside by a gust.
Helplessly, Orano was dragged to the shape. He scrambled to grab onto anything that could save him, but none of his companions were up and able, and he was out of reach of anything solid.
“Toa of Air,” the Wind said. “Allow me to relieve you of that title. You have done very well, but you are no longer -”
Orano clenched his fist and threw a punch. He had never actually been taught, but he had seen the Twinventors get into fistfights on a few occasions. His fist pushed into the woman’s form, and immediately his hand felt pressure on every side, mighty and crushing - as if he had just thrust it into a whirlwind.
“Who taught you how to be heroes?” the Wind said. She placed a hand on Orano’s face, but then struck him with the other. The Toa was pushed back, but his mask did not follow.
Ono clattered on the ground. “N-n-no!” he cried, but he couldn’t get up. Each of his limbs throbbed with pain. He felt so… weak.
“I once celebrated the idea of Toa. I thought they were legends, tales worthy of being told year after year!” The Dark Wind’s shape became less stable, the dust forming snake-like shapes in the air that swirling hungrily around the Kanohi mask. “Now I see what you truly are.” The mask began to float, rising slowly. “Jokes.”
The mask stopped in the middle of the air. First, it hung there, still, but then it began to tremble, going from a subtle vibration to a vigorous convulsion. It was terrible, but just as soon as it began did it stop. The mask fell upon the floor and did not move again.
“Well,” the Wind said. The voice was hardly a whisper in Ono’s receptor. “That’s unfortunate. I was hoping for more time.” And then…
That was it. She was gone, and the Toa were alone.
“Yah!” cried a recovered Kidoma, sweeping his staff halves around the floor, seeking for any sort of target. He leapt to the center of the room, spinning around on his heel. “Where are you?”
“She’s not here anymore,” said Shynali, rising to her knees. Auru, who was already back on his feet, held out a hand to help her up. Shynali looked at it curiously before slapping it as a misunderstood high-five.
There was an absence where there had once been a presence. There was no mistaking it; the Dark Wind was no longer within the Center.
Kidoma thrust the two ends of his baton-like staff halves back together, and when he took one of his hands away, the staff was reformed. “Okay, that happened.”
“We’re supposed to be the greatest heroes in the world,” groaned Vosala from the floor, “and we just got kicked in the rear by a fairy tale.”
Auru shook his head, hands on hips. “Most fairy tales have echoes of truth concealed within them.” He turned to Orano. “Toa Orano, would you mind taking us to the nearest archive? Perhaps we can perform some research on these Elemental Lords.”
“Y-y-yeah,” said Orano. There was an archive just across the street, positioned near the historic Center of Gathering to add to it all.
“Some meteorological event, huh?” said Kidoma, pushing Narale on the shoulder with a fist.
The Toa of Ice glared at him with the fury of ironic fire. “You will watch your tone around me. I am Heiress to the lordship of the Rimelands. I believe I deserve respect.”
Kidoma’s eyes narrowed in disgust. “Whatever.”
Orano, however, fixated on the place where the Dark Wind had just been. She had appeared so suddenly, so quietly, and yet she was the most powerful, most evil thing he had ever witnessed. How could the Toa stand against her? How could the Toa do anything? Anything other than fail, the one thing Orano could always manage to do.
He drew his hands up and felt the mask over his face. It was so odd, so clunky to him. It certainly didn’t belong to him anymore than it did to the Elemental Lord.
The Dark Wind was right.
The Toa, or at least he, was a joke.
Part 3 - "THE DIVIDE"
The archivist seemed very surprised as six multicolored Toa twice her size stomped into her archive - in the middle of the workday, of all times - asking to see what information she had on the Elemental Lords, a semi-popular ghost story for children. But she swung a few levers, opened a few chutes, and sorted through a few canisters, and soon the Toa had themselves a flimsy scroll with a description of several iterations of the old tale to look through.
Auru handled the reading, but he had four heads trying to peer over each of his mighty shoulders to catch glimpses of the text (Orano had decided his time was better spent just listening, and sat across the table from Auru).
The first scroll suggested that the stories’ exact origins were uncertain, but that many scholars believed they could be traced back to the creation of the two Elemental Temples, and that the Lords may even be the creators themselves.
So, the Toa sat down with their second scroll, telling of these temples and their creation.
“‘About two hundred years ago…’” Auru read, and then stopped. He check the scroll’s canister, which had an inscription on its lid. “That’s four hundred years ago, now. ‘Scientists discovered a way to synthetically generate elemental power. A sort of crystal that acted as a lens, taking warm light from the star and cold, reflected light from the moon to create different elements that, in theory, could be harnessed by the Matoran.”
“Four hundred years ago?” repeated Kidoma. “The Matoran have barely lived on Moda Nui for that long. Why haven’t we heard of this before? What happened to these scientists?”
“If you kept listening,” Narale said, “maybe you would find out.”
“Please, both of you,” said Auru.
Orano could see his singular eye twitching. He couldn’t remember an interaction between the two Toa that didn’t consist of some sort of jab, taunt, or generally rude comment.
Auru shook the scroll, pushing back the four hovering Toa a bit and kept reading. “‘The Northern Elemental Temple was built in the peaks of the Rimelands. The Southern Elemental Temple was built on the edges of the Flickering Wastes. They were built to harness and transfer this energy to those who created it, in hopes of creating six heroes with incredible power.’”
“For what purpose?” asked Narale.
Kidoma was about to make some snide comment, but Auru beat him to speaking. “It doesn’t say. What it does say is, ‘The results of the experiment were never reported, likely lost in the chaos of the age. It is known that those who performed this project were never mentioned in any documentation or records since, so it is widely assumed that they disappeared - possibly even consumed by the event.’”
Shynali put knuckle under her chin. “Hence the stories. They were so hungry for power that it turned around and devoured them.”
Auru nodded gently. “An attempt to become Toa, as the Dark Wind said. But they failed, and now they are ghosts of the elements they attempted to sign themselves. And now the Dark Wind hates us, reminders of that failure.”
Vosala grunted. “Well, that’s cliche. Promise of revenge, return of an ancient evil. How many stories start with that?”
“Ours,” Kidoma said. “There’s an evil power out there, and it’s growing more powerful,” he said. He held his staff out in front of him. “We come from different stories, different lives, but right now, we each have the same chance. This is our opportunity to become something greater than ourselves. This is our Duty. Let us stand against this foe. Let us stand against this evil!” He thrust the staff into the air, pointing it to the towering heights of the archive.
There was a silence before Auru began to clap. As soon as the Toa of Earth realized he was the only applause, he stopped and embarrassedly put his bulky arms at his side.
“Are you finished?” asked Narale.
Kidoma’s form drooped. “Yes…”
“How do you propose we stop the Dark Wind?” she asked. “Have you already forgotten how easily she defeated us just thirty minutes ago?”
“Well,” he said, “we weren’t ready. This time, we’re bringing the fight to her. We don’t know a lot about this Dark Wind - why she tried to turn herself into one of us, or why she is back now, or where she’s gone now - but we have something we didn’t before: a direction. We go to these temples, and we defeat her there.”
Auru rolled up the scroll, set it back into the container, and slapped the lid on. “Perfect! There are two temples, which means I can divide you two. Narale will go to the Northern Temple, and Kidoma to the Southern. The Dark Wind is most likely at one of them, gathering strength for our next meeting.”
“How do you know that?” asked Kidoma.
“What was it she said? ‘I thought I’d have more time?’ And then, she was gone. Her shape must have failed her. Think, it took her four hundred years to return like this. She must have been gathering strength all this time, and she overestimated how much she had.”
“And how do we find these temples?”
Narale chuckled to herself. “Everyone in the Rimelands knows of the temple atop Shatterside Summit. It’s the hardest climb in the country. Nobody’s made it to the top, at least, not in my lifetime.”
Auru turned to Vosala. “And you? Do you know of the Southern Elemental Temple?”
The Toa of Fire had been examining his reflection in the pearlescent surface of the archive table. He looked up, and saw that everyone was staring. “Oh, what? Sorry, I wasn’t really listening for the last, like, five minutes.”
Auru’s grip on the container tightened, and Orano worried it might crack. “Do you know where the Southern Elemental Temple is? It’s in the Wastes.”
Vosala’s eyes grew with excitement. “Hey, yeah! I think my friend Grinner’s been there, he’s told me some stories about that place! There’s some crazy labyrinth in there, it’s really easy to get lost in!”
“Excellent, then I would like for you to be on my team,” said Narale. “Your gift of fire could prove valuable in ascending the frozen paths of the mountain. The others can go and find this ‘Grinner’ and enlist his guidance.”
Kidoma threw his hands in the air. “I was going to give you the first pick anyways, but okay!”
“Please, stop acting like a child. This conflict is bigger than your ego, Toa Kidoma.”
Orano felt as if he could hear the raging boil inside Kidoma’s head. He thanked the Great Nui Spirit that the two weren’t traveling together.
“Auru, how do you feel about the desert?” Kidoma asked with forced calm.
The great silver-armored Toa gave an easy shrug. “I will follow whoever calls upon me.”
“Awesome.”
The tiny, timid Orano and the cool, experienced Shynali remained. Orano began to anticipate traveling through the hot and dry dust of the Flickering Wastes alongside Kidoma and Auru before he heard his name.
He looked up. Narale’s yellow eyes were locked on him. They held no humor nor deception.
“Would you join our group?” she asked him.
Him? She had chosen him? Over Shynali? What sort of game was she playing? He remembered how she had thrown herself between him and the Dark Wind. What sort of ploy was that? What did she see when she looked at his hunched, clumsy form?
He waddled over to her side. Vosala jerked his head upwards while looking at him, a friendly nod. Orano wasn’t sure what to say, if anything.
“And so…” said Kidoma, opposing Narale.
She laughed quietly. “Let our adventure begin.”
Toa Shynali never understood politics. Fogfa, the Matoran who gave up a quarter of his core energy to grant her life, never explained society to her. Of course, he was the one who had elected to move outside of his after his wife had shut down. Shynali’s “mother,” as he had called her.
Frankly, Shynali didn’t care to learn. Chieftain Kasimi seemed a kind and wise individual, but she heard his name spoken in gossip ever since she had departed from the Fauna Jungle that she had begun to question him herself. Was he truly senile? If so, was he fit to lead an entire community of Matoran people?
Still, she found it easier to trust in the wisdom and experience of the old Matoran than in that of this strange Toa before her.
Kidoma seemed fine enough. He came off as confident and optimistic, and she had heard the stories of how he had defeated a legion of pirates and saved his home. But the idea of him leading her and Auru through the Wastes to a historical temple filled with an old evil just seemed… discouraging to her.
Kidoma himself, however, was anything but discouraged.
“So, we’ll pass through the kokonut tree forest, which will be fun, but we won’t have time to stop and visit the village - that could put us behind Narale, who already will have the headstart, since Aero City is closer to the Rimelands…” he was saying, waving his hands across a twisted map he had sprawled across a table.
They were standing in the middle of Chute Station C, a circular tower that rose up nearly three stories, each side of the wall filled with chute entrances. Wind howled in their receptors, reminding Shynali of the presence of the villain they had fought in the Kini Center. Matoran flowed through the structure, both in and out of chutes. Most carried bags of various sorts to bring to their respective jobs. Very few of them appeared to notice the Toa, or if they did, paid little attention as they continued to pursue their destinations without pause. Shynali thought it was a wondrous sight - the animals and Rahi of the Fauna Jungle never behaved like this.
“Looks like we take Breezely Road down to Nalido Path and then a right when we get to the Sandar Crossroads, and then…” Kidoma was tracing his directions on the parchment. “…the Flickering Wastes.”
“What about our guide?” asked Auru, staring at the map from the other side. “Where is this ‘Grinner?’”
“Vosala said you could always find Grinner at Laxly’s,” Kidoma said. “It’s apparently some famous diner. They have a special drink there that causes you to burp out giant bubbles, which sounds interesting.” He rolled up the map. “But we don’t have time for that. We’ve got a temple to crash. Maybe on the way back.”
Shynali noticed a Matoran on the other side of the room with a steaming cup in his palm. He paced quickly through the hall, moving towards a chute. Before he reached it, though, he whipped from his bag a slip of plastic film that he slung over the brim of his cup, all while maintaining his hurried speed. As the Matoran stepped up to the chute entrance, he was taken up and away by the winds contained inside.
It was incredible, all of it. As the Matoran Shali, she was entirely removed from this sort of society. She had spent her days with monkeys and Saw-Apes and jungle crabs. They had a system of community, sure, but compared to the intricacies of Aero City…
She could never understand this world that she had so recently joined, all because of that mask she found trapped beneath the twisted roots of a Keetongu tree.
“Alright, are we ready to go?” asked Kidoma, returning the map to Auru.
“One moment,” Auru said, placing the map in a large leather satchel he wrapped around his torso. “I have been meaning to ask you something, Kidoma.”
He blinked back.
“Why are you so bothered by Toa Narale? You have not made one civil comment to one another since we’ve met.”
Kidoma shrugged. “I guess it’s just, well…” He paused for a moment. “She was supposed to be a leader, right? She was supposed to succeed this Lord Qualis guy, and that was before she found her Kanohi mask. Narale was always supposed to be a hero. Kind of… goes against my whole philosophy.”
“Which is…?”
“I was a fisherman. A nobody. And I had this whole crazy identity crisis when I found this thing-” He tapped the front of his mask. “-but I managed to do it. I saved my people. Me, a nobody, became an anybody. And I believe that. I believe in that. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things.” He looked at Shynali and Auru. “Sorry, that was a lot. I didn’t mean-”
“No, it is alright,” Auru said, placing a massive arm on Kidoma’s shoulder. Kidoma sank a little under the Toa of Earth’s powerful grip. “I asked. And I understand. But if I may suggest a revision to your philosophy… A nobody may become an anybody, but an anybody may become an anybody as well.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Kidoma. His gaze avoided Auru, like Fogfa’s did whenever Shynali asked something specific about her mother.
“But, you still would like to reach the temple as quickly as possible,” said Auru after a prolonged moment of nonconversation had passed.
“Yes, I would!” said Kidoma.
“Very well.” Auru scanned the tower of chutes. “Which one of these do we take?”
“We are going south?” asked Shynali.
Auru nodded.
“Then we take the southern one.” She began to run towards the chute and hopped into the quick-moving line formed in front of it.
These Matoran barely even looked where they were going. They just walked up the stairs, and when their feet had carried them far enough, the wind picked them up and they were gone. Did they not notice the wonder of it? Was magic that seemed to power these glass tubes that transported people around the city as a core pumped ichor invisible to these Matoran?
“Hey,” said someone behind her. “You’re holding up the line.”
Shynali was before the gaping entrance to the glass pipe. She could feel the wind pulling her in, willing her into its current. She took a step, another step, and then the ground beneath her was no more, and she was airborne.
Toa Orano had ridden the Aero chutes hundreds of times in his life. He had seen the buildings fly by as he was carried between them, interweaving, intervening their blocky flow. He should have been numb to the wonder of it all, the majesty of his home city. But this time, he was breathless in the awe of it.
Perhaps it was the fact that the chutes, once three, four times his height, now seemed comfortable. Not tight or cramped by any means, as his size hadn’t changed drastically by the donning of the Kanohi mask, but it certainly was noticeable how much the chutes had seemed to shrink around him. For some reason, that made it easier for Orano to look outside of it. Aero City had been his home for every year he had been alive. He had taken a class trip to the Iron Mountains, once, but other than that, he had never left the industrial landscape of this city. He was familiar with the feeling of nervousness, but this was something different. He was about to be the furthest from his parents that he had ever been, and he wasn’t even allowed a good-bye. And considering he and the other Toa were actively looking for danger - There was a chance that the last words he had gotten to say to his mother and father were, well, the last words he would ever say to them.
Suddenly, the chute ride wasn’t so inspiring.
Orano had been the last one into the chute, and therefore he was the last one out. Vosala was already on the move before Orano had even landed in Chute Station G, but Narale appeared to be waiting for him.
“Come,” she said. Her politeness in waiting was not accompanied by patience. “We must hurry. Every moment we wait is a moment the Dark Wind has to become stronger.”
“O-o-okay,” Orano said, hobbling up to her. They began to quicken their pace as they pursued Vosala. The Toa of Fire skirted around the various passersby, who did little to heed him unless he got directly in their way. He received many angry comments, but relented little in his speed.
“He still thinks he can make it back to his coliseum for a gladiator match if we reach the temple fast enough,” said Narale. “I don’t think he understands how long defeating a power-hungry gust of air will take.”
Orano let out an anxious chuckle. Even though Vosala was clear about his hurry, Narale seemed just as impatient, though more restrained about it. Was her only concern really the Dark Wind? He thought about the way she had spoken to Toa Kidoma in the Kini Center.
“This conflict is bigger than your ego, Toa Kidoma,” she had said. She seemed to have something to prove.
The three hustled out of the station and into the streets. There weren’t many to cross before they reached the feet of the great ring of mountains that surrounded the city. With no delay, they were at the border of Aero City and about to cross into the Iron Mountains.
Here, Vosala stopped.
“Here it begins,” he said. His voice was low, serious. “The great adventure of Toa Vosala and his courageous team of desperados.”
“We are not desperados ,” objected Narale.
“Well, we are desperate. Or, you guys are. I’m at my best. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain.”
“Please stop ‘narrating,’ or whatever it is you call that.”
“Oh, wow, okay. Sorry, didn’t realize I got the boring team.” He looked down at Orano. “What about you, shortstack? How do you feel about my voiceover?”
Orano frantically darted his head back and forth between the eager Vosala and the exasperated Narale. “I-I, um - I’d-d-d rather-r, um, b-be left out-t of th-th-this.”
Vosala’s shoulders slumped. “Alright, fine. You guys ready to go?”
Rather than give him an answer, Narale simply began to march forwards, expecting the others to follow behind.
Vosala itched the top of his mask. “Whoa. Okay, we probably shouldn’t mess with her too much.”
Orano shook his head and began to follow Narale.
The wind howled through the peaks of the mountains in a low tumult. Orano’s fingers clenched into fists, and his bag became intensely heavy over his back. Was that mere air brushing past the snow-adorned peaks above? Or was it the Dark Wind, here to claim his mask?
He could still remember how helpless he had felt, reverted to his Matoran state. It was a familiar feeling - to some degree, he had felt it everyday of his life. Even now, he was a Toa, and he still was helpless. He had needed protection. Narale had dived in front of him in the face of the Dark Wind. She had chosen him to join her team. He was supposed to be a hero, and he needed protection.
The three ascended the Iron Mountains in a tense silence.