No new chapter last night because I was caught up with some IRL stuff.
Chapter 3
Hiding in a tree, Gelu pondered what to do.
He wasn’t sure he wholly understood Orde’s explanation of a Great Being ‘hiding’ in one of the inhabitants of the Matoran world, but he understood that he apparently had dark plans and needed to be stopped. Of course, if Gelu and Orde were found and killed by the Vorox, there would be no one left to warn the Matoran and Agori.
There was also the problem that they didn’t know who their foe was. Perhaps if they could capture Kabrua and interrogate him, they might be able to find out, but that was hard to do with only Orde’s Psionic powers and no weapons.
“We need to go back for Zaria and Chiara,” Orde said. “Only as a team can we have any hope of… well, anything.”
“Are we going to head back to the villages, or are we going to try to confront Kabrua and see if we can learn who our foe is?” Gelu asked.
Orde thought for a moment. “IF we could get rid of whatever he’s using to mess up our powers, and if we can capture him alive, I could probe his mind and find out more,” he said.
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Gelu pointed out. “Maybe we should just go back, and warn our people.”
Orde nodded. “Right now, we may be the only ones who know that this Great Being is hiding amongst my people. We have to spread the word…” he drifted off.
“What is it?” Gelu said.
“We can’t do that,” Orde said. “If we tell everyone that a Great Being with dark plans is hiding disguised as someone, but we don’t know who, everyone’s going to be suspicious of everyone else. It’ll cause chaos. Plus, it’ll alert our enemy that we’re on to him. No, we need to limit who we tell about this. Perhaps just the Toa.”
“And if he’s hiding among the Toa?” Gelu said.
“It’s a risk we have to take,” Orde said.
“Well, whatever we’re doing, we need to go back for Chiara and Zaria,” Gelu said. “Before they try anything stupid…”
Helryx stared down at the body of the dead Toa of Earth. “This is bad,” she said. “Very bad.”
Behind her stood Axonn and Artakha, and behind them, the Matoran Kapura, Kazi, Dalu, and Velika. On the way back to the Matoran encampment, the group had stumbled upon the body. Axonn had tried to keep the Matoran from seeing the Toa’s body, but they’d all caught a look at it.
“Do you know him?” Axonn said.
Helryx nodded. “He used to defend the island of Xia. I sent him on a reconnaissance mission to the south during our war with the Brotherhood, but never heard back from him. How did he get here?”
“He probably joined Tahu’s army of Toa for the Battle of Bara Magna,” Dalu said. “They went through the south. Then he found his way to these woods, and someone…” she trailed off.
Artakha had been studying the area around the Toa’s body, looking for signs of where the killer might have gone. He stood up and shook his head. “Seems a lot of people have been here recently, and they all went off in different directions.”
Helryx sighed. Bending down, she picked up part of the Toa’s broken weapon, scanning it with her mask power. She saw the weapon being used in many battles against pirates and the like, and saw a glimpse of a battle in a desert against an army of Rahkshi, but no sign of the battle that had killed the Toa. “It must have happened too fast,” she said.
“Well, what do we do?” Axonn asked.
Helryx got to her feet. “We’ll bring his body back with us. From there, we’ll figure out what to do.”
Axonn hefted the body over his shoulder, and picked up the pieces of the Toa’s mask and weapons. The group continued somberly back to the village. All their thoughts were focused on the dead Toa, wondering what might have happened to him… and whether whatever killed him might be in the woods.
The sun was high in the sky the time Gelu and Orde got back to the area where they’d been separated from Chiara and Zaria. Orde had taken to scanning Gelu’s mind every minute or so, to assure himself that his powers still worked. Gelu hated the intrusion, but he understood the need for it.
They found the rocky outcropping where the two Toa had hidden, but there was no sign of them. “They must have moved,” Orde said. “I’ll probe for them.” He closed his eyes, scanning the area around them with his powers. After a moment, he opened them. “No Vorox nearby. I found Chiara and Zaria, they’re not far.”
“Let’s hurry up and find them,” Gelu said. “I’d like to get out of this valley before the Vorox come back.”
The two dashed through the woods. It was slow going at first, but then they found a path cut through the dense forest, likely cut by Zaria and Chiara. As they followed the path, they eventually say the two Toa cutting through the woods.
When he heard them coming, Zaria whirled around, holding up one of the force blasters the Vorox had held. He lowered it when he saw it was Gelu and Orde. “Ah, there you are.”
Chiara turned to see them, holding up the Vorox blade she’d been using to cut through the jungle. “We were starting to worry the Vorox might have caught you.”
“Gee, great to know you have such faith in us,” Orde said.
“Well, now that we’re all together, we can get back to our quest,” Chiara said.
“Quest might be off,” Orde said. “We’ve got something bigger to worry about. I probed Kabrua’s mind, and, well, you might not believe this, but there’s a–”
Click.
The noise was very faint, and might have gone unnoticed by any other Toa. But Zaria had been paranoid for years, and his senses had been on high alert since the fight with the Vorox. “Get down!” he yelled, grabbing Chiara and pulling her down just as a blast of energy flew past where they’d been standing.
Chiara got back up and fired a blast of lightning at the place the energy had come from. At least, she tried to, but nothing happened. “Wait what? Again?”
A light sound caught Gelu’s attention, and he turned to see another Vorox behind them. Another came from the left, and finally, Kabrua came from the right. The Toa were surrounded.
“Well,” Kabrua said. “This was almost too easy.”