Black Ice

Black Ice is the third story in the series 'The Darkness Crime' It's takes place in Crogha, and follows the events of The Creatures in Darkness.

Chapter I: An icy reception.

Gtara, toa of plantlife of Palkar. Was on the border of Ilovar, province of lightning, Along with his team, they were crossing to Crogha, Ko-province of Tylor magna. "Here we are, um... Does any know the way to the village?" Said Gtara. The toa of lightning named Sartig came forward and said "It's not far from here, we continue heading north until we get to a ice ravine, then we travel west." "Right," said Gtara "let's get going, Can't keep Malloruu waiting any longer." So the toa headed of into the mountians of Crogha, Unaware that a small, winged black and silver being watched them from a crag high above, The toa must be heading for that village, I must warn the queen. And it flew off in a easterly direction. The toa had now got to the ravine, "We head west now." Sartig said. As the toa started walking, Retamd, the toa of fire, Looked down the ravine, suddenly he saw something at the bottom, "Hey! Come look at this, I think theres a tablet of some sort down there." The other five toa rushed over to see what he was talking about, "Shall i use my mask?" The toa of psoinics named Jarmara asked. Gtara nodded. So Jarmara triggered his mask of telekinesis, Raising the object from out of the ravine, He grabbed it and said "It's got something written on it, it says 'When the city rises, and the sands have settled, Akramora will rise, and darkness will fall, The matoran of the six stars, will fail.' What does it mean?" "Akramora? i wonder who that is, and matoran of the six stars? They seem like they'd be matoran but more powerfull." Konaro said. "Well, there is a possibility that they could be given more power, But only Tylor himself could do it though." Jarmara replied. "still, we must continue." and they started going west.

At Kragmar, the ice village. Malloruu was leaning against the outer wall of the village, He was a toa, A toa of sonics, but Technicly he was a turaga. His toa team achieved their destiny and they became turaga. But Malloruu turned down the choice of being a turaga, and now he is a toa for the rest of eternity. He was waiting for Gtara to arrive, He had sent a messanger three days ago, and still nothing. What can be taking so long? He thought. But then he saw six figures coming up the mountain on which Kragmar was built. He walked down to them to see it was Gtara and five others. "Greetings." he said coldly "I may have said in the message that it was urgent, but still you come late." "Apologies, Malloruu," Gtara said "But what are we late for?" Replied Gtara. "Follow me, i'll tell you in the village." When they got to up the village Malloruu led them inside a house, The walls were covered with symbols and carvings. "Now, Strange lights have been seen far north to the ruins of the palace of Crogha, But nothing as been living in that area since the magna war ended, But it seems something is in the ruins and i you to find out what." Said Malloruu. "How long have these lights been there? and why can't you do yourself? you're a toa." Asked Retamd. "Well. you see Retamd, I am 50,000 years old, and when you have um..lived that long, your elemental powers start to weaken, so do your physical abilitys." Replied Malloruu "And to answer your first question, The lights have been appearing for about one and a half weeks now." "Well, what ever is happening there, We'll find out." Gtara concluded. And the six toa started out of the village. Before they were out, Jarmara said "Hold on, I just need give that tablet that we found to Malloruu, He might know what some of it means." So he ran back to Malloruu and gave him the tablet. He looked at it and said "Hmm......Leave it with me." So Jarmara nodded and caught up with the other toa. And they travelled toward the ruins....

Meanwhile. A tall, shadowy figure stood looking out at the deep ocean. She had sent a watcher to oversee the toa to make sure they don't interrupt that part of the plan. Things appear to be heading downhill She thought I've heard nothing from that puny Ikan who thinks himself a raiser of dead, And now that Vhyzathkira has taken those adaptive armor plates! She then heard a clang as the massive basalt door opened. She turned to see a watcher walking up to her, It spoke a line of clicks and whistles, Speaking in the laungauge of birds. Of course she knew what it ment, though. "Ahh, The Toa have come to Malloruu's plead, And of course, they must be delt with, send Frathika to intercept and destroy them, And don't let him at any of those disgusting beige things." The watcher nodded and scurried out of the room. They simply must not succeed. She thought, walking back to the window. Soon Tylor Magna will be mine!

The six toa were a trecking across the ice and snow of Crogha. They came into a large valley with a massive frozen lake in the middle. Then something caught Sartig's eye "Hey, it looks like there's another one of those tablets down there." He said. "Let's check it out, And there might be some shelter down there, a storms coming." Said Gtara. So they headed down the valley to the middle of the ice lake. When they got there, Retamd picked it up and said "It is! What it says is: 'and The ocean will part for Krahmia, Where shadows are alive and horrors wait.' It's useless! we will learn nothing from these!" After Jarmara had stopped Retamd from destroying the tablet, He said "Calm down, It sounds like that one and the first one we found are linked with each other, we should head on, They may be more up ahead." and they continued walking north, to the palace of Crogha.

*     *     *

After a an hour, the toa had come to an icy canyon, as they walked through the shadows of the icy overhangs. A red figure watched them from atop the canyons, The figure aimed his firebolt gun at the toa of lightning, and fired. Sartig saw the danger and fired a arc of lightning at the projectile, destorying it. "Look! someone's up there! he must have fired the bolt!" Konaro said,  The red figure then suddenly  ran off out of sight. Then the toa saw a small parchment slowly floating down from where the figure had been, Gtara stooped and picked it up "Hmph. It's a message, 'Frathika, your mission is to track down and destory six toa crossing to the ruins of the palace, they must not get there at all costs. -A' So many mysterys, yet none of them solved." Xenius then said "One mystery is solved though, He was Frathika, I don't know why, but something is shouting at me in my mind that i should know that name, Or something like it anyway." "Maybe it's got something to do with where you came from?" Retamd asked. "Hmm. Let's not worry, we must get to the palace." concluded Xenius. So they started out  again, very close to their destination.

Frathika had failed. something he had not done for years. He was hoping he would injure the toa of lightning, so the other toa would be caught up seeing to the injured while he could pick them off, Unfortunatley, He would now have to say to Akramora that he had failed, which in saying that to the shadow mistress normally ends with being fed to a hungry Drash. "What if i don't go back? he said to himself. What if start something on my own? I could get some being's who simply hate Akramora, And i could slowly but surely overthrow her." As he was caught up in his thoughts of conquest. He heard a voice from behind him "If you would do such a thing, i would be more then pleased to join.." Frathika turned, surprised at what he saw, He was tall, with tan-black armor, He had four arms, and Eye's with a sickly green glow to them. "Wh-who are you?" Frathika said as he raised his gun. "No need for that, I am Val-mir, At your service." The being said. Frathika lowered his gun and said "Val-mir? weren't you the one that was defeated by five matoran?" "I'd prefer if you were to not speak of that, But i hear that you don't like Akramora, Well, i don't either, So maybe we could do something about it? And the two unusual beings walked off through the icy wastelands...

Meanwhile. The Toa were facing rather dead problem. They arrived at the Ruins and saw lights flicker around some of the toa armor of ancient guardians, And then the armor got up and was advancing toward them, Retamd was first to strike, Hurling a fireball at the on coming undead, it flew straight and true and blasted away two of the guards. Then another one of the dead fired a stream of plasma at Xenius, He ducked out of the way and threw his sword at the undead, It hit it in the arm, The sword, Being made of crystalline protodermis, Shattered upon hitting the undead toa. But of course now Xenius had no weapon. But by this time the other toa had defeated the other undead toa. "Right, So if what we are dealing with here is a Dead raiser, We have a problem" Jarmara said. "And said problem is?" Konaro asked. "Well, You see, I've heard and studied a bit about this palace, And underneath it is a crypt, housing most of the dead toa who fought in the Magna war, So if what we are dealing is a raiser of dead, He, or it, will most surtanly be there." "Could we have less of the lectures?" Retamd said irritated "Whatever's in there, We need to find it, Let's go." And they started toward the ruins.

Chapter II: The temple of Ikan

The toa stepped into the ancient ruins and saw an enourmous ice statue of a rather bulky, short and strong looking figure. Gtara walked too the base of the statue and saw one word etched into the ice 'Trathika' "Trathika.... wait, Xenius, Didn't you say you knew something like the name 'Frathika'? Well, Trathika, Frathika, only the first letter is different!" Said Gtara. Xenius didn't acknowledge that Gtara said anything and was just staring up at the statue. Sartig noticed that something was wrong and rushed over too him "Xenius! What's wrong?" Xenius didn't look to Sartig but said "Trathika, the king, i tried to kill him, but i failed...... That was on Hyperion." "What's that suppose to mean? What are you talking about?" said Retamd. "Wait." Said Jarmara "Hyperion is the inner moon of Tylor magna, But how it could hold life i don't know, It's mostly volcanic, But the poles are freezing cold, Literally, But if somehow it did manage to hold life then that is probably where Xenius came from!" Xenius then shook his head and turned to Jarmara, "What....What just happened? I felt like i was just knocked out." Sartig walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder "You were talking about Trathika, Saying he is 'The king', And also you said it was on Hyperion and-" "Yes! Interupted Xenius "Yes! that's where it was! Hyperion was my home planet! Well, Moon, But How can i get back? was there any more that i said?" "Well, you said you tried to kill This Trathika, Why? It is beyond the toa to kill." Replied Sartig. "It's all coming back now, I.... I was an assassain, But i must go back too Hyperion somehow, You can go on without me, I need to get back there." "No, Xenius," Said Gtara "We need you, Even if what you were before was not honorable, We, together, Must continue." Xenius slowly noded "I guess you are right, Brother, and i may also have the right to say that now, We must go on." And the six toa scouted out the room and found a tunnel leading deep into the ground, They readied themselves and walked forth...

Val-mir, Frathika, And Wrathika (Who also wanted to overthrow Akramora) Were on the gravely beach of the Nirrtaw, The ocean of Tylor magna. They were scouting out an area for interception of a supply vessel headed for a reacon point at Igniz, The fire province. The said vessel is a Land-sea transport Vehicle. Since Frathika built the vehicles, He knew exactly where the weak and strong points were, so if needed, he could destroy it. Frathika and Wrathika were both Hiding behind a rocky outcropping that was in the direction that the supplies are headed, While Val-mir was using his invisibility and flight powers to hover silently then drop down on the unsuspecting beings that were driving the vehicle. After a few minutes, The three heard the sound of clinking mechanical legs moving toward them, "It's coming!" Frathika said trying to be quiet. "Shut up! Do you want everyone on board to know we are here?" Wrathika whispered angrily. Then as the vehicle got to the right spot, Val-mir yelled "Now!" Then he suddenly cut off both invisibility and flight and dropped to the ground in front of the vehicle, Frathika and Wrathika came out of their cover and stood beside him. "Alright, Hand over all you've got or we'll split you down the middle, Slowy of course." Frathika smiled wickedly. The driver put his hands behind his head to say he's surrendered. And the three advanced on the vehicle, So caught up in their victory that they never noticed a caped figure crouching behind them, The figure leapt at Val-mir, Using his Tase knife to stun him and then execute a perfect kick to knock him out, Frathika and Wrathika turned to see what had happened, But then the figure fired two lightning bolts out of his hands, Knocking them unconscious. The mysterious figure gathered all the bodies up and calling on his mask of teleportation, Blinked out of the area.

It was dark in the the passages of the ruins, But the toa were readied and alert. They moved slowly through the twists and turns of the tunnels. Then Konaro saw something moving at the end of the tunnel "Look! What's that?, I think there's someone over there." he said. Then the figure turned to look at them, The figure was quite short, But it was hard to make out his features in the darkness, But his eyes glowed with evil intent. The figure turned and walked away. "Wait! Who are you?" Said Retamd running in direction of where he had gone, And the other followed. But there was just a dead end where the figure had gone, "Disappearing beings, Riddles on tablets, What next? The ocean falls on our heads?" Just at that moment, Blue-green lights flickered around the passage they had just been in, Then From the walls, six long dead beings got out of the half-opened coffins that lined the walls. The undead toa staggered toward them, The toa braced themselves, and charged in, Gtara fired vine coils to entwine the undead, while Sartig fired arcs of lightning, turning one of the undead into ash, But then she suddenly felt herself being launched at the wall, She hit it hard, fighting to regain her senses, She saw her attacker, The undead toa wore the black-purple armor of a toa of gravity, It was advancing on her, Wielding a wicked axe. She quickly leapt at the undead, Brandishing her sword, and struck the toa, It slammed into the wall, And Sartig brought her sword down into the chest of the undead toa, The sickly light in it's eyes went out, And it fell to floor. She smiled with satisfaction, Even though toa must not kill, For it is not honorable, Undead creatures and completely mechanical beings did not count for that, because undead are abominations, And mechanical beings have no inner organics. She turned to see Retamd struggling with what seemed to be a toa of air,  She ran to help him, Stopped, And kicked the the undead to the floor, then Retamd finished off by incinerating the undead toa with a fireball. "Thank you, sister" Retamd said as he went to help the other toa. After the toa had beaten the undead toa, They went back to looking for where the being they saw before had gone. "Maybe," Jarmara said "Maybe he didn't go anywhere, He may still be in this tunnel." "Rediculous," Retamd said "The being can't be hiding somewhere, Let's go back, maybe he missed another tunnel back there." And Retamd led them back through the tunnels,

*    *    *

After a few minutes, The toa had reached the upwards staircase from where they had come, But when they got too the top, they found that is was not the same room. "That's strange," Xenius said "This was the room with the statue in, But's it's just another tunnel." "Maybe it's an illusion," Jarmara said "I'll try firing a mental blast at the wall." So he fired a mental blast at the wall of the tunnel, But it stayed intact, "What is going?" Retamd said "Assassins trying to kill us, Undead toa, Now a tunnel that wasn't here before!" "Calm down, Retamd, if anger is what we get, we must fight it off, and move on." Jarmara said. Retamd shrugged and started walking through the tunnel. They reached a stone staircase, It went deep into the ground. At the bottom, The toa found themselves in a large, domed room, But in the center of the room, Like when they entered the ruins, There was a statue of a figure very similar to the one above. "How interesting," Jarmara said "This statue Has a similar name to 'Trathika' It say's 'Krathika' and this being is slightly taller, And not as bulky." "There's alot of writing's on the walls, Most of them talking about Something called 'Ikan'." As the toa examined the carvings and words, They heard a noise from behind them, They looked round and saw a figure, It was mostly sliver, bright blue eyes, a spear and somekind of launcher,  it approached the toa and said mistily "Toa, You must not go any further, evil lies in the depths of the temple." "Wait a moment, Who are you? and how do we know your not lying? or real?" "I am Myder, Formerly a brother of Gyder." Konaro stepped forward and said "Former? But Gyder is alive." Myder looked slightly taken a-back by this "What? Gyder is alive? By the sealords! I thought he died long ago!" "Calm down, Friend," Gtara said. "We haven't introduced our selves, I am Gtara, Leader of this team." And he introduced all the rest. "Well, We must go on now." "No!" Myder said "You must not go any deeper!" "But we must succeed our mission." Gtara said "And what danger's will we face that we can't defeat?" "The Ikan," Myder said "The Ikan will tear you apart like a leaf, Actually, He will probably want to leave you in one piece." "Ikan... What are the Ikan?" "The ikan were a clan that are savage, brutal, intelligent, and sometimes quite moronic, i only know of three, Frathika, Wrathika, and Krathika, But there's bound to be more." Myder replied. Xenius walked for a enterance on the back-side of the room "Well," he said "If Myder is not going to let us go, we will simply say 'go to the surface, and look for Gyder'" And the other's followed Xenius, leaving Myder in the room. "Toa!" They turned to see Myder coming toward them "If you must go on ahead, so be it, destiny's must be achieved, and even if you have to go through living death to get there, you must do it, I will look for Gyder, but i have not been too the surface for 40,002 years, so it will have changed." "You need to head to the desert," Konaro said "Gyder will be there." "Thank you, Toa, and may the sealords guide you to victory." And Myder and the toa headed their ways in search of their destiny...

Frathika woke up in a dark chamber, he remembered that himself, Wrathika, and Val-mir were intercepting a supply vessel heading for Ignniz. But just as they were going to loot the vessel, Something attacked them, and that's all he remembered. He then saw a figure approaching him, The being was short, Red and black, and two pairs of wings potruding out of his shoulders. "Well well," The being said "Frathika, when will you learn you can't get the drop on the Kingdom of shadows?" Frathika gasped "I'm back in this pest hole? I suspect Akramora will be wanting me." "No, all three of you, oh, by the way, i'm loyare, Jailer of what you call a 'Pest hole', now, come along, we can't keep Akramora waiting, or the Drash." Loyare smiled wickedly and unlocked the three prisoner's cells. And they slowy walked through the halls of Krahmia (Which is The Kingdom of shadows main base) Until they got to two large black doors, Loyare opened the doors and they saw Akramora looking out at the ocean. She turned and said "Ah... you have brought the prisoner's to me, i have been thinking about the fate of them, and i have decieded, he dies" she said pointing at Wrathika. "No! please!" Wrathika pleaded. "Silence," she made a hand gesture to a figure beside her and said "Triaka, take him to the Drash." The being named Triaka nodded and slowy dragged Wrathika out of the room. "And the fate of you two? Thrown into the ocean? slowly and painfully disasembled? Or being banished to Hyperion for the rest of eternity? I can't decide, so i will put it to you, drown? disassembled? Or banished? you can choose." "We will be banished." Said Val-mir. (Without asking Frathika about the matter) "So be it!" Then there was a flash of energy, intense pain for a split second. And then Val-mir and Frathika found themselves in a ash-covered wasteland. "Well, Thanks for telling me what our fate would be." Frathika said. "Would you rather have been Drowned?" Val-mir said. "Well i guess you're right," Frathika said "And now Wrathika is i presume, dead, we have to start from scratch..... again."

"Well this is just fine," Retamd said sarcastically. They had reached a room with a pool of silvery liquid in the center two doors on the other side, And from there, chutes of the liquid were being pumped out of the pool. "Hmm.... This looks like energized protodermis," Jarmara said "Don't fall in, you'll either be killed or mutated, but only if it's your destiny too." Then they heard a noise similar to the humming of an insectoid rahi, "What's that?" Konaro said "It sounds like it's coming from energized protodermis" He stepped closer to the pool, Then the humming sound got even more intense, Then a massive hand made of the liquid erupted from the pool and grabbed Konaro, slowy dragging him toward the pool. "Konaro!" Gtara yelled as ran with the other toa to help him "Come on! Retamd, use your mask to disrupt the hand." So Retamd triggered his mask of liquid disruption, trying to disperse the hand, but it was to late, the hand had pulled Konaro into the pool, "No!" Sartig said "I have to get him!" "You must not," Jarmara said "Konaro is probably already dead, energized protodermis kills almost instantly." "Then there is no hope of saving him?" Xenius said solemnly. "No, Xenius, he is dead." Then what happened surprised all the Toa. There was a blast of power and before and of them could react, The five Toa where blasted into the wall and got stuck there. "What's happening?" Gtara said. "It's some kind of magnetic power, " Jarmara said "something must be triggering it." Then they saw a figure climbing out of the pool. And the magnetic power stopped, the Toa went over to the figure and he said "What happened?" the being said. "Wait, first, who are you?" The being look puzzled and said "What? but.... i'm Konaro."

Chapter III: New and old

"You can't be Konaro, you don't look anything like him!" Gtara said. "Hang on," 'Konaro' said "Jarmara, didn't you say that if you fall into energized protodermis you die or get changed, if it is your destiny!" "By Tylor your right!" Jarmara said "It must be you, But, your phyiscal form has changed, How about your elemental power?" "I don't know, it's probaly still earth, let me try-" As Konaro triggered his power, Retamd was suddenly stuck to the floor. "Oh..... It's magnetism, that's interesting." Konaro said. "Well thanks for testing it on me." Retamd said shooting a glare at Konaro. "Well, Magnetism will be useful to say the least, since the energized protodermis destroyed my weapon, anyway let's go, our goal is not far, i can sense it." Konaro said. "But brother," Gtara said "There is two paths too be taken, which do we choose?" "The choice is not mine to decide," Konaro said "You are leader of our team, the choice goes to you." After a few seconds of pondering, Gtara came to a conclusion "We will split," Gtara said "Konaro, Xenius, and i will go the right passage. Jarmara, Retamd, and Sartig, you will go to the left passage." And the Toa split into two groups and head into the two paths.

*   *   *

Gtara, Konaro, and Xenius, crept through the crypts seeing all kinds of deceased beings lining the walls like lightstones. "Stop," Gtara said raising his hand "There's something at the end of the tunnel." The 'thing' Gtara  saw turned to them, and started walking toward them, then it spoke "Toa, you have come far i see, such a shame all of it's going to be vain." "In vain? Who are you to say that? Who are you anyway?" Gtara said drawing his sword. "Me?" The being said "I am Grathika, and i am what you've been searching for." "Woah woah woah," Konaro said "What's with all of these similar names? Trathika, Krathika, Frathika and Grathika! How many being's are there with only one letter changed in their names?" Grathika sighed and said "Such ignorance, We were a clan named Ikan, we used to hunt rahi and all that shazamage, but Wrathika, Frathika and i saw the light by stepping into the darkness, so to speak, and now you will see it aswell." The Toa reddied themselves for a physical attack, but none came. Instead, for a split second it felt like their heads were imploding, exploding and fragmenting all in one, and then everything went black. Is this what it's like? Gtara thought Is this what it's like to die? Then, Gtara tried opening his eye's and wished he didn't, he was standing in a large open desert, the sand of the desert was charred black, and the sky was like the blood of fallen gods, he looked around, Konaro and Xenius were by his side, surveying the land around them. "What has happened?" Konaro said "One minute we were confronting short and scaly in that tunnel, and the next were in some wasteland, What is going on?" "I am," The Toa turned to see who was talking and saw a tall, ebon-blue figure approaching them, "Tylor magna is mine now, and you, are not welcome here." There was two flashes of energy and two beings appeared "Akramora? how may we serve?" One of the beings said. "Triaka, Loyare, i want you to destroy these Toa." "As you wish." The one known as Triaka said. The first move was done by Xenius, making a wall of poisonous gas between Them and their attackers "You think a wall of gas will stop us, Toa?" The being called Loyare then, to all the Toa's shock, started flying over the wall of gas. "Need a landing spot?" Konaro said triggering his magnetism power and pulling Loyare to the ground, "I'll deal with Loyare." Xenius said. meanwhile Gtara was struggling with Triaka, "What's going on here?" He said to himself, blocking an attack by Triaka. "What is going, Toa?" Triaka said slashing at Gtara with his axe "Akramora has taken over Tylor magna, and killed all of the Toa, but it seems she left a few, but now there will be fewer." He then brought his axe down on Gtara, aiming for his head, but Gtara used his power to make vine coil around his weapon, and then ripping it out of his hands, "You think that an axe is my only weapon?" Triaka said "Cause if so your wrong!" He then thrust out his hand and a claw of shadow shot out of his hand, it gripped Gtara throat, threatning to strangle him. "No you don't, Triaka!" Gtara looked to see Konaro running at Triaka, he then headbutted Triaka in the chest, knocking him of feet, and the claw of shadow dispersed. "Thank you, brother." Gtara said. "No problem, been practicing that one for a while." Then the three Toa heard a voice in there head Wake up! come on! Then the world around them started disappearing, and then once again, everything went black, Gtara opened his eye's to see Sartig looking over him "An illusion....." Gtara slowly said. "What happened Gtara? are you alright?" Sartig said looking worried. "I'm alright, but what of happen to Konaro and Xenius?" Gtara said. "They're fine, but, why did you say 'An illusion'?" "We found a being calling himself Grathika, He said he 'Saw the light by stepping into the darkness,' and saying that we were going to see it too." "And?" Sartig said. "I can't remember exactly, but i can remember feeling imense pain, and then awaking in a charred black desert, and there was a figure calling herself Akramora, and that's all i remember." "Akramora....That was the name on that stone tablet we found." Sartig said. "So it was," Said Gtara "But we must focus on the present, we need to find Grathika." "No just yet," Jarmara, who was also there said "We found some things that will help us in our journey." "Okay, let's go." And the six Toa set off back down the tunnel...

Frathika and Val-mir were trekking across the ashy wastelands of Hyperion. They were trying to find a new place to set up a base where they can continue their plan to overthrow Akramora, But first of course, they had to get of this moon. "Let's get to the top of that hill" Frathika said "It will be a good vantage point." "Alright," Val-mir said, triggering his flight power. "Oh yes cause of course i can fly." Frathika muttered, as he started up the hill, When he reached the top of the hill he saw Val-mir with a grim expression on his face, "I now know why Akramora chose Hyperion to banish us too, look." He pointed to a small mountain that was down in the Ash-plains, Frathika looked over to see over hundreds of thousands of black creatures marching across the land, laying waste to anything in their path, "Why, it's like all the horrors and all the beauty and all the universe crammed into black shells." Now Frathika saw why Val-mir pointed at the small mountain. The black creatures were tearing through the ash, soil, and stone of mountain. "Are they turning to hill that we just happen to be standing on? Yes, it appears they are," Val-mir said "We may need to run, or fly in my case, very quickly." And without waiting for any response, He rose into the air and flew off, leaving Frathika " Sometime i'll show that stone-head one day to not mess with an Ikan." He said to himself running down the hill.

*    *    *

Frathika had been walking for what seemed an eternity, Whilst along the way picturing in his mind all the delightful he pictured Val-mir dead, then he spotted something sparkling in the ash. "Is that a Kanohi?" He said to himself walking over to it. Yes it was, Masks are useless to me, i can't wear them. "Stupid thing." He said, kicking it out of the ash, but when he did, he noticed that it started pulsating with energy, "Huh, What's it doing?" He walked over to the mask again and picked it up, he suddenly felt severe pain coursing through him. Then there was an explosion of energy. Frathika could feel himself changing, as soon as it had started, it was over. He opened his eyes, having closed them from the light the energy gave off. But something felt different. and his head was filled with voices saying Step into the light once again, Frathika, find your kin, find them and show them the light. "What?" Frathika said getting up, he looked down at himself and to his shock, his armor color had changed from red to White-gold. "What has happened?" He said to himself "But......yes, i must find my brethren and show them the glory in the path of light." And he wandered off through the ashlands...

Chapter IV: Waterlogged

The six Toa had reached the room that Sartig was telling them about, it was a circular room with all kinds of weaponry and armor in shelves. "We were looking through all the equipment in this room and we found six shields that appear to attach on too your arm, and also six weapons that have our elements, and also seem to be made out of a much stronger materal than our current weapons." Sartig said. Gtara walked over too where they had the weapons and said "Right, so which embued with which element?" "The spear with a hook on the end is yours, Gtara, Retamd, the smaller spear is yours, Konaro, yours is that mace, Xenius, we couldn't find one with gas as an element, but you can probably find something, Mine is the flail, and Jarmara found some gauntlets, but we don't know what they do." Xenius was looking through the weapons and then saw blaster type of weapon, he pick it up, and saw a name etched into it Advanced laser crossbow "This seems strangely familiar." He said. All the Toa had put on an arm-shield now, "Hey," Retamd said "what's this disk like thing on- Whoa!" The 'Disk like thing' fired out of the shield, it hit a wall and exploded into a ball of fire. "Okay, that's what it is, shall we find this 'Grathika' now?" The other's nodded and headed down the tunnel system that Gtara Konaro and Xenius had gone through.

It was quite a long and twisting tunnel, Retamd was quite disturbed after noticing most of the dead Toa lining the wall were Toa of fire. Then the short figure once again approached them "You shall not stop me, Toa!" Then The Blue-green lights started to surround the dead Toa all across the walls. "Try and stop all of them, Toa." He laughed sickenly and strode down the tunnels, the dead waking in his step. The Toa unsheathed their weapons and prepared for the battle. Three of the dead Toa struck at once, creating a beam of lightning, plasma, and fire surging toward the Toa, they ducked out of the way and Jarmara fired a what he thought would be a small mental blast, but it turned out to create an entire beam of mental energy, it struck the dead Toa head on, but it only made them recoil slightly "Of course, They're mindless." He said to himself whilst launching a disk from his Arm-shield. Gtara was fightning two Toa of water. In his head  it was simple, entangle them in vines and hit them with a shield disk. But of course it wasn't that simple, one of the  dead Toa of water seemed to be unskilled with elemental abilities, whilst the other was maddly swinging it's sword around, making it dangerous to go close to it. One of the Toa of water struck him with a fist of water, knocking him off his feet "You like it that wat do you?" He said, he got up quickly, then coiled vines around the sword of the dead Toa, pulling it to his own hand, he struck the two Toa in chest and they fell to the floor, becoming dead again. He turned to see Xenius and Sartig parrying blows from a Toa of fire, "We could use a hand here!" Konaro said as he made the dead Toa's weapons stick to the floor. Then Sartig struck the Toa, It fell to the floor and Gtara bound it with thick vines. The fighting was over now and all the Toa regrouped "Grathika escaped," Gtara said "Did anyone see which tunnel he went through?" "The went the the left tunnel, i think." Xenius said. "Okay," Gtara said "We go down the left tunnel." as they walked, Sartig thought I can rember someone told me something about going left, i can't remember what though. Suddenly a blisteringly loud roar  came from the darkness in the tunnel. Then four red eyes blinked open in the darkness of the tunnel. Oh yeah, that's it, Sartig thought Never go left. Then a large worm-like creature slithered into view. Running would be a good cause of action now. Gtara thought. "My thoughts exactly, Gtara." Jarmara said. The creature then roared and started quickly slithering toward them. "Run!" Gtara yelled as he started running  "it won't be able to get through the enterance!" The six Toa ran for the enterance, with the creature firing energy blasts out of it's eyes. "How did you know i was thinking of running, Jarmara?" Gtara said. "Toa of psionics, remember?" He replied, "Anyway, we've escaped that monstrosity, now we go right." So they headed down the tunnel. The lightstones were dim and it smelled of death. "We should be close now," Gtara said "Although it's strange, there are no traces of anyone being down here, look, there's no footprints in the dust, no scrape marks of weapons on walls, we may be leading a false trail." "No footprints, eh?" Konaro said kneeling down to look at something "There's a line of them here, spiked toes, and a wide back, but they stop here, Let's keep going and see if theres anymore." They continued down the tunnel, "We must be very deep underground now." Jarmara said. "Yes," Konaro replied "Atleast halfway or more below sea level, I wonder wha- Agh!" The other Toa turned and saw that Konaro was being held to the floor by chains of energy, then the energy chains formed more and they shot towards the Toa, They ducked out of the way but it was not quick enough, the chains bound the Toa to floor. "I'll see if i can melt them!" Retamd said, he triggered his powers, attempting to raise the heat of the chains, but it didn't work. "Hey, what's happening?" Xenius said. What was happening was that the chains, and the themselves were slowly dematerialising, and soon they had disappeared from the tunnel. They materialised again in a large, crudly cut stone room with a pillar of stone in the middle. "Where are we?" Gtara said. Then a voice came from a tunnel leading out of the room. "Where you are, Toa, is my domain." "Grathika!" Retamd said. "Yes, Retamd, and i do know your name, i am Grathika, and you will soon be dead." He then raised his staff, energy pouring out of it and waking hundreds of dead Toa lining the walls. "Brace yourselves!" Gtara said, for they had noticed that in the procces of teleporting, the energy chains had been destroyed. "Toa, always looking for justice in a world of crime." The dead Toa had now all awoken and were advancing on the Toa. "This will end up two ways, we'll all die, or we'll defeat them all." Konaro said. "Toa, you forgot the last one," Grathika said wickedly "I do this!" He then threw his staff at the pillar in the center of the room. "Everyone!" Gtara said "He's going to being the roof down! Get into a tunnel!" they all ran towards a tunnel leading out of the room. When they got to safety, Sartig looked back to see Grathika, just standing where the pillar holding up the roof had been. "Such cowardice." Grathika then just stared into the eyes of Sartig as the roof came down on him. "What happened to him?" Gtara said. "He must have been crushed by the rocks." Sartig replied, "How are we going to get out now?" Gtara said. "I think i've found the way out," Konaro said "But's it's terribly... wet." The other Toa followed Konaro through the tunnel till they got to a hole full of water. "No, no, no," Retamd said "I am not going in there." "Would you rather be left to die in here or come with us?" "Ugh, alright, let's go." Gtara was first to dive into the watery tunnel with Retamd diving in last. "I hate water." He muttered before taking a deep breath and following the other Toa. They were swimming down the tunnel for quite some time, fortunately there were air-holes at certain points. But then the tunnel widened out into an enourmus cavern filled with water. the Toa spotted an air-hole in the roof of the the cavern and got some air. "Guys," Konaro said "You're not going to like this, but, this is Onurua."

To be continued...

Next in the series: Flooded dreams

(I Haven't written that one yet, but you don't care, do you?)