Recoiling Pickaxe

"He glided his hand down the shaft of the weapon to find the switch Detras had told him about and flipped it. A short metallic noised roared from the tool before the head of it began to ferociously jackhammer back and forth just as the Toa of Fire had said."

- Narration, Against the Storm The Reciprocating Excavator Handheld Device, often known by it's acronym REHD or it's nickname Recoiling Pickaxe, was an experimental mining tool developed on Powai Nui. One was later used by Toa Wreshi as his Toa tool.

History
Recoiling Pickaxes were developed by Po-Matoran and Onu-Matoran engineers around a century before the Great Regression. They were funded by the PNGC, who wanted a device that would make underground infrastructure easier to build. Designed to make mining more efficient, their development was abandoned once tests revealed that using them seriously destabilized the integrity of tunnels, with one experiment ending in a cave-in that trapped several Matoran for days until Rangers were able to recover them.

This major oversight, which the PNGC claimed "should have been obvious to even those of the lowest intelligence," cost some of the engineers their careers and resulted in the Coalition terminating all development on the project or similar ones.

This decision led to controversy as some saw it as being guided more by the Coalition's anger with the results than it's concern for safety. Several voting sessions were held to try and resuscitate the project, all of which ended in favor of keeping it shut down, often by a mere one or two voters.

Recoiling Pickaxes became popular among historic artifact collectors. One such collector, Detras, famously gave one to Wreshi to use as a Toa tool after the two and four other Matoran were transformed into the Toa Powai. This caused the device to become associated with the Toa of Stone. Non-functioning replicas were produced to capitalize off of those who admired him, and were sold up until the Great Regression.

Description
The Recoiling Pickaxe, as it's name suggests, took the form of a long-handled pickaxe. Most were silver, although a couple of prototype designs were painted black for unknown reasons. There is a switch in the middle of the handle which, when flipped, would activate a hydraulic piston system. This would allow the head of the device to rapidly reciprocate back and forth like a jackhammer.

Example Usage
In Against the Storm, Wreshi activated his Recoiling Pickaxe but was unable to control it, causing it to bore a hole into the stone wall of Detras' shop.

Appearances

 * The Feral Plains/Volume II (First Appearance)
 * The Feral Plains/Volume III
 * The Feral Plains/Volume IV
 * The Feral Plains/Volume V
 * The Feral Plains/Volume VI
 * The Feral Plains/Volume VII
 * Against the Storm/Volume II
 * Against the Storm/Volume III