Chapter Eleven

“You’re sure this is going to work?” Ehrye asked, aiming a Kanoka launcher straight at the floor of the airship. “Because I can list about four hundred and thirty seven reasons why it won’t.”

Beside him Berix and Nuhrii were also there, each holding up a launcher of their own, all armed with levitation Kanoka.

Orkahm sucked in air as he made his way to the ship’s cockpit, taking his place in the pilot’s seat. “I have no idea,” he said with complete honesty.

Ehrye huffed. “Wonderful.”

Walking up to the cockpit, Gresh knelt down beside Orkahm, watching him fiddle with the controls. “Are you sure you know how to work this thing?”

Orkahm simply nodded. As he familiarized himself with the airship’s controls, some pieces of it seemed to come to him like second nature, as though they were memories he forgot he had. Even though the airship had no power, the steering mechanics still seemed to work, as did the shift. As he sat in the captain’s chair, he felt an unusual wave of confidence wash over him.

“Let’s go over it one more time,” Berix stammered. “We hit the airship with enough levitation disks to get it airborne. Gresh steers us to the Coliseum. Hopefully by that point Tehutti will have found Whenua, the gravity well will have been destroyed, and we’ll be able to pick them up. Then, when the gravity flips around, we’ll coast our way out of the city?”

“Basically,” Ehyre replied. “It’s not entirely insane, it’s just a more crude version of the system that used to make them fly. Orkahm’s console used to control a set of weight and levitation disks that would make the ship rise or fall on command.”

Nuhrii nodded. “But without power, we have to be the system manually. So we’ll be the lift–”

“And we’ll be the propulsion,” Ackar finished, as he and Gresh made their way towards the back of the vehicle.

Kiina took a deep breath in, mentally preparing herself for this task. Atop her shoulder, Click chirped with excitement.

At least you’re having fun, she smiled.

“Alright,” Orkahm called out. “Carry-lift us up!”

At his command, four Kanoka disks struck the floor.

For a moment, all that changed was the sound of groaning metal, as the vessel stirred from its nest in the rubble and collapsed buildings. Stone and metal crumbled away as it steadily budged, slowly rising up into the air.

In the corner of the cabin, Vhisola was whispering a silent prayer beside Pewku when she suddenly felt the floor beneath her feet climb upwards. She clung tight to the floor with one hand as she adjusted to the shift, tenderly petting the Ussal crab with the other. As the lift crew fired off another round of levitation disks at the floor, the speed of the airship rising increased gradually.

The nearby buildings shifted as the airship slowly shifted against them, scraping against the walls as it rose upwards. Reaching out of the rear opening, Ackar shot off a plume of flame from his sword, accelerated by Gresh’s wind to give the vessel a push. Slowly but surely, the ground was getting further away, and the airship was successfully lifting off.

Steadily rising to her feet, Vhisola walked up to the cockpit, and looked out the windshield for confirmation. One of the many chutes that extended above the city snapped in two as the airship cut through it, climbing above the skyline. The sea of protodermis still waited above, confirming that gravity had not yet shifted back to normal, and that they weren’t simply falling.

They were flying.

At the rear of the airship, Ackar shared a proud smile with Gresh. “Looks like you got your chance to fly,” he said.

Gresh chuckled, astonished by the view of the city so far below him. “I guess I did.”

✴        ✴        ✴

As Whenua at last entered the ruins of the Core Processor, he found there was not much left to see. The machinery and energy capsules that once surrounded the brain of the machine were left shattered, and the floor was barely intact, left in ruin from the collision of the planet’s moon.

The only thing illuminating the darkened room was a purple sphere of energy shining from the center. Ahead of him, Whenua could see a narrow ridge of scrap, and the silhouette of a dark figure standing in front of his goal.

“You’ve found it,” the voice of the energized protodermis entity boomed from the figure. “The gravity well. And the end of your journey.”

Whenua was silent. He slowly walked forward, minding each step as he made his way closer. The being towering over him was an amalgamation of pieces from Rahkshi, Bohrok, and Vahki. But holding them together was organic tissue, something none of the composite pieces possessed.

“Binding them together,” the entity said, as if it read Whenua’s thoughts. “The corpses of the two who piloted this machine, ages ago. The final piece of my design.”

Whenua sighed, and rested the end of his staff against the ground. “I’ve come to finish this. I will destroy the gravity well, and lay you, and this city, to rest.”

The amalgamation seemed to chuckle. “Do you truly believe stopping this will save your people?” the voice taunted. “My power resides in every crevice of this metallic shell. From the largest ocean to the smallest vein.” The amalgamation stepped forward. “Your kind has already brought small portions of my power onto the planet’s surface, ready to be used as ammunition, and rekindle the sparks of war.”

Whenua said nothing, only tapping the end of his staff lightly against the ground, before assuming a fighting stance.

“Even from here, I can sense the frozen fractals of my being that float through the cosmos, adrift since the Shattering. Some ten thousand years from now, they will crash onto the surface of your planet, and I will reemerge. What will you do then?”

The Turaga simply shrugged. “Our future is in most capable hands. I do not fear it.”

“Of course not,” boomed the voice of the energized protodermis entity. “You fear the past… your past… That the city you left behind would come back to haunt you. You wished to destroy it, to let the past die.”

The amalgamation paused for only a moment. “I can fulfill this wish for you. All will be destroyed, and a new future can be built.”

Whenua rested the tip of his drill staff against the floor. “I wanted that, once. I wanted to destroy this city and move past it. But now, I know that I don’t have to destroy the past to learn from it. I can move forward. And so can you.”

A rippling laugh rumbled through the chamber. “You are foolish to entrust them as caretakers of this world. If allowed to continue, they would simply continue to fail.”

“And they will learn from those failures,” Whenua retorted. “Whatever it takes.”

With that, he spun his Drill Staff around, and slammed the drill end into the ground, sending shockwaves rippling through the metallic floor. The dislodged floor plating from the blast knocked the fusion off of its feet, sending it flying back towards the heart of the gravity well. In an instant, the mechanical warrior was caught within the orbit of the field of energy, rapidly being pulled around the pulsating sphere.

Whenua only watched on as the amalgamation spun around rapidly within the containment of the purple wisps of energy, growing faster and faster in speed as it neared the center.

“You would defy destiny?!” The voice of the energized protodermis entity boomed from the amalgamation’s speakers, even as plates of armor peeled away from its form.

“Destiny is in their hands now,” Whenua replied.

A scream echoed from the body of the amalgamation, soon drowned out by the screeching of metal as its body was torn apart limb from limb, plate from plate. At last, all that remained of the being was the Shadow Kraata, writhing around as it rotated rapidly through the air. The field of energy slowly began to shrink down, closing on the creature as it did its best to absorb the energies coming towards it. The sphere closed like a fist, tightening on the Kraata until there was no more room to move.

And then, in an instant, it burst.

Whenua had blinked, and it was gone. There was no trace of the gravity well’s energies, nor was there any sign of the Shadow Kraata.

As if to confirm his victory, Whenua suddenly dropped from the floor, collapsing onto the metal ceiling that was above him. He grunted as he did his best to rise, adjusting to the sudden change in gravity. Within moments, he knew, the combination of energized protodermis and molten magma pouring into the sea down below would create an explosion wiping out anything within the city’s hull.

Shutting his eyes, he only prayed that the Glatorian and Matoran would find their way out in time.

“Turaga!”

For a moment, Whenua wasn’t certain whether or not he was imagining the voice calling him. Perhaps his mind was simply recalling one final memory of home before his demise.

But as he opened his eyes once more, he realized the truth of the matter.

“Tehutti?!” he stammered, looking up at the Onu-Matoran standing over him, Volo Lutu Launcher in hand. “What are you doing here?!”

“Saving you,” Tehutti said, carefully navigating his way across the deteriorating ceiling.

Whenua sighed in frustration, as the room around him began to shudder even worse. The rush of energized protodermis cascading downwards was becoming too much for the Coliseum to bear. Even the base of the tower itself, once securely held to the ceiling, was beginning to crumble from the weight.

“You need to get out of here,” Whenua said, “this place won’t be stable much longer.”

Tehutti grunted, as he at last leapt over to the ceiling tile that Whenua now lay on. As he did, the portion of the ceiling he had just been standing on suddenly dropped into the abyss below.

“Not without you,” he asserted, extending a hand to Whenua.

Without any cause to protest, the Turaga merely chuckled, and took Tehutti’s hand. “You’ve always been brave, Tehutti. But how do we plan on escaping?”

“Easy,” Tehutti smiled. “Just hold on tight.”

With that, the Onu-Matoran grabbed tightly onto Whenua as he stomped hard on the ceiling beneath him. That was all it took for the ceiling tile to dislodge, succumbing to the natural force of gravity and sending the pair into a free fall.

Whenua looked down, expecting to see the silver sea rapidly rushing forward to claim him.

Instead, he saw a miraculous sight, one he hadn’t witnessed in over a thousand years.

An airship was flying above Metru Nui’s skies.

With his free hand, Tehutti held out his Volo Lutu Launcher, and fired in the direction of the airship as it passed them by. The pair had already fallen past it, but before they could hit the bottom, the launcher’s projectile had latched onto the ship, and caught their fall.

Whenua hurried to catch his breath, holding tightly to the Onu-Matoran as they were flung rapidly back and forth, and now ascended upwards to the airship. He looked up to see Kiina and Ackar waving him down from the vessel’s open hatch, and mere moments later, they were taking his and Tehutti’s hands, pulling them into the safety of the ship.

His head was a blur. He couldn’t be certain whether or not he was dreaming, but one thing was certain. He had never been on an adventure so daring since he had been a Toa.

Whenua couldn’t help but laugh with joy.

✴        ✴        ✴

Orkahm sat in the pilot’s seat of the airship, looking out through the windshield with nervous eyes. Two streams of liquid, one of energized protodermis, the other of magma, were pouring out into the silver sea like waterfalls, with parts of buildings and scraps of chutes falling from the area around the eruption. Much of the city was falling into further ruin as a consequence, but the plan was working so far.

Now, there was only the matter of escaping.

Frantically, he turned over his shoulder, and watched as Kiina and Ackar gently aided Whenua and Tehutti into the airship.

“Turaga,” she muttered, helping Whenua into a seat. “Are you alright?”

Whenua exhaled, letting the events of the past few moments wash over him. Slowly, he nodded his head. “I am, yes. Thank you.” He turned his head to the Onu-Matoran responsible for his rescue, then to the rest of the group. “Tehutti, all of you. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tehutti said, dropping his launcher to the ground as he ran up to embrace the Turaga. “We weren’t going to leave you behind.”

With quiet contemplation, Ackar looked over at the Turaga, and wondered just how close they came to losing him.

“Okay, Whenua is back,” Orkahm called from the cockpit, partly to reassure himself. “Where to now?”

Nuhrii shrugged. “Out the exit hole, I’d assume.”

Beside him, Ehrye made an uncomfortably skeptical noise. “Not so simple. We need to pick up speed. Once the two streams of protodermis meet, we’ll have maybe a minute to escape. At the pace we’re going, we’ll never make it out in time.”

Orkahm nodded. “Right. We need propulsion.”

Gresh lit up, and rushed up to kneel beside Orkahm. “The storm in Le-Metru,” he said, in a hushed tone. “If it’s still going, we can–”

“Use it to wind-fling us away!” Orkahm finished. “I’ll steady-steer us there now!”

On Orkahm’s right, Ehrye ran up. “Hang on, your plan is to steer us into the path of a tornado?!”

Gresh smirked. “My plan, mostly. What do you think of it?”

His expression went from bewilderment to resignation, knowing that there would be no time to argue. “Toa Lewa would have a field day with you,” he muttered.

From the very back of the airship, Tehutti rushed towards the cockpit. “Guys?!” he stammered, tripping over himself. “The protodermis just hit the water! It’s time to move!”

Orkahm nodded confidently, looking dead ahead as he gripped the handle of the airship’s controls. “Steady on,” he said to himself. “Just like ever-brave Matau.”

✴        ✴        ✴

Steam rose from the silvery sea below as molten protodermis flooded into it. Slowly but surely, the water level began to rise, as an endless amount of magma from the Great Furnace continued to fill up the dome.

Several miles away, a cascade of energized protodermis poured much more rapidly, streaming out into the waters. It was still far away from the magma stream, but the two substances were both rapidly spreading through the waters, and were soon to meet.

Delaying this process, however, was one Glatorian from Tajun.

Leaning out of the airship’s cargo hold, Kiina put all her might into her trident, summoning a wall of water between the two streams. It was a temporary solution to the problem, but one that would buy Orkahm and Gresh some more time to fly them out.

That said, holding together a wall of cascading liquid was much easier said than done, and Kiina could feel her power slipping.

Grunting, she looked over to Vhisola, who nodded dutifully. The Ga-Matoran retrieved the level 8 Freeze Kanoka from the bottom of her bag, and fired it off, solidifying the wall of water into a block of solid ice. Relieved, Kiina released her trident’s power, and sat back down.

“Alright,” she sighed, “let’s hope that holds for long enough.”

✴        ✴        ✴

Ackar, meanwhile, found himself wishing for a rest. He clung tightly to the top of the airship as it soared with the power of Gresh’s wind, heading straight for Le-Metru.

While his fellow Glatorian had the responsibility of keeping the vehicle moving, Ackar was entrusted with a more delicate goal; blowing a hole through the ceiling big enough for the airship to exit through.

He kept his flame sword in hand as he clung tightly to the airship’s roof with the other. As the winds buffeted him, and as his legs flowed freely in the breeze, he reminded himself to count his blessings. One of which being that he wasn’t alone. He glanced over his shoulder to see Nuhrii, Ehrye, and Tehutti clinging to the airship with him, each armed with a Kanoka launcher.

Hang in there, I guess, Ackar sighed to himself.

✴        ✴        ✴

Orkahm veered the controls hard to the left, sending the airship into a gradual turn in the opposite direction. He had spotted a whirlwind tearing through the Le-Metru ruins once more, and was now in the course of making adjustments to get caught in its path.

“Gresh! Steady-turn left!” he called out.

At the back of the vehicle, Gresh obliged, and sent out a gust of air from his blades. In the corner of his eye, he could see debris being carried by the blistering winds, a signal that they were nearing the tornado.

“Keep it up, Orkahm!” Gresh called back, feeling the shift in weight as the tornado’s winds picked up.

“Berix! More floatation!” Orkahm shouted.

In his seat in the Boxor walker, Berix loaded a levitation Kanoka into his launcher, and shot it at the floor. As soon as the disk’s energies dissipated, the airship felt much lighter, letting the winds carry it even more effectively.

Gresh set down his weapons for a second, admiring the view from so high above. He was flying.

“Orkahm, pull up!” He called out.

Orkahm yanked back on the controls as hard as he could, nudging the vehicle’s nose into an upward climb. The moment of truth was almost at hand.

✴        ✴        ✴

Ackar held his flame sword aloft, and fired off a massive fireball towards the ceiling. It was then followed by a volley of weaken Kanoka from the trio of Matoran behind him, aiding the blast.

But even with the combined power of the attacks, there was only a relatively small dent in Le-Metru’s streets. There were many layers still left to drill through, and not nearly enough time.

Ackar’s eyes widened. At first, he thought to charge up another attack, try to bore a bigger hole. But there would be no point, for as he held tightly to the airship, he felt something wrong.

It was falling.

✴        ✴        ✴

“What’s going on?!” asked Vhisola, as she climbed up to Orkahm in the pilot’s chair.

“I can’t high-climb it!” the Le-Matoran sadly reported. “There’s not enough push!”

Berix ran up to both of them. “Guys? There’s another problem!”

The trio looked back, and gasped. As the airship slowly fell into freefall, they watched as the ice barrier between the magma and energized protodermis shattered, leaving nothing standing between the two.

Orkahm gulped. “Tight-hang on!”

✴        ✴        ✴

Nuhrii watched on in horror as it happened. With the wall of ice gone, a cascading wave of energized protodermis crashed onto the magma spill, and immediately burst open in a ball of fire. As an inescapable wall of flames marched towards him and his fellow Matoran, he closed his eyes, not knowing if the fire would take him, or the fall.

But strangely, neither seemed to happen.

Slowly opening his eyes, he looked to see Ackar holding back a wall of flames with his sword alone. The fire danced around him, furious at his resistance, but he stood tall, silhouetted by the flames.

The next thing he realized was that the airship was no longer falling. Looking down, he spotted Gresh summoning a massive wind to guide the airship out through the exit of the hull, while Kiina gathered what little water she could from the sea to carry it further.

He looked to see the gash in the robot’s skull growing closer and closer, the sunlight slowly overtaking his vision. It was a miraculous sight, three elements working together in harmony to get them to freedom.

It was a moment that seemed to last an eternity. The growing wall of flames and smoke before them seemed to dance in slow motion, covering all of the city in its blast. Ackar’s knees slowly buckled, his body unable to keep up with the force of the blast. Kiina strained to pull more water with her trident, while Gresh collapsed to the side, his energies exhausted.

At last, the airship broke through the threshold of the metallic hull, now tilted over to face upwards towards the sky once more. Nuhrii received only the briefest glimpse of the grass and sand of the world outside, before time caught back up.

In an instant, the force of every drop of energized protodermis exploding consumed the entirety of the robot’s head, and spread out to a radius far beyond the ruins of Metru Nui. The underside of the airship bore the brunt of the blast, spiraling through the air as it narrowly avoided being consumed in the inferno.

Nuhrii held on for dear life, his only sense of connection being his hand gripping the handle on the airship’s roof. He watched as Tehutti and Ehrye scampered into the inside of the airship, taking cover in the safety of its hull. He braced for the impact as the airship at last hit the ground, skidding through dirt and sand as it began slowing to a halt.

Looking over his shoulder, Nuhrii saw Ackar’s unconscious body about to fall past him. Thinking quickly, he reached out a hand and grabbed the Glatorian by the wrist, powering through the whiplash it sent through his body.

“I’ve got you,” he muttered, doing his best not to let go of Ackar. Even as they passed through the black smog of the blast, and into the scenery of this new world, he didn’t let go.

Finally, the airship rocked to a halt, half buried in a tunnel it had bored through the earth. Nuhrii let go, and Ackar sat down gently on the hull of the vessel.

Still shaking from the experience, Nuhrii clung tightly to the airship, and didn’t loosen his grip one bit. But as he looked up, and the smoke and dust cleared, he saw the new world that waited for him.

A scarlet sky hung over the world, as the sun finally peeked out over the horizon. Green hills and forests dotted the land, with rivers snaking through. In the distance, he could make out the shapes of makeshift huts and buildings, a combination of materials from the Matoran universe and Agori designs.

It was a new world he looked out on, one that harbored so many different types of people and landscapes. When he first exited his old universe, it was something that intimidated him, such a strange myriad of new people and places.

But now, it didn’t seem so bad.