BIONICLE Legends: Invasion
Chapter 2
Written by Jeff Douglas
The Cord
The Toa Inika had encountered an obstacle that, while unexpected, was somehow equally unsurprising: the tunnel branched in two directions.
“Alright,” Hewkii muttered. “Right or left?”
“Jaller, what do you think?” Hahli asked.
“It seems entire legends depend-hinge on the decision to go right or left,” Kongu grumbled.
“I can scout ahead,” Matoro offered.
The Toa of Fire frowned. When Axonn had described the passage to the Cord, he hadn’t mentioned anything about multiple paths. Was this new?
“No, don’t scout ahead,” Jaller said. “If something happens, we’ll need you with us. Hewkii, take Nuparu and Kongu and take the path on the right. Hahli, Matoro and I will investigate the path on the left. If we haven’t run into each other in two hours, we’ll backtrack and meet here.”
The other Toa seemed to hesitate slightly, and for a split-second Jaller wondered if they disagreed with the decision. They would keep their grievances to themselves, of course, out of respect. But in that fraction of an instant, Jaller became conscious of a fear that had been hidden in the back of his mind, a growing fear in his heart, a rift in the team. The responsibility was his, the decision was his, but they would all have to live with the consequences.
There was no descent, at least none spoken aloud.
“A lot can happen in two hours,” Nuparu shrugged.
✴ ✴ ✴
As Kongu moved past corner after corner, he was careful to lead with his crossbow and his Zamor Launcher. Axonn hadn’t known of anything running loose down here, but he himself hadn’t been down in a while, and certainly not very far beneath the surface. The Toa hadn’t run into anything yet, but they weren’t taking any chances.
Evidently, they were further in than they realized. Before the fork, there had been a few side chambers the Inika hadn’t really investigated, fearing a delay on their trip. But now, down here the path wound in every direction. The three Toa had already gone up, down, and curved so far around they didn’t know which direction they were facing anymore. The labyrinth reminded Hewkii of what he understood a Fire Ant-hill to be structured like, or a Blade Burrower network.
Not that it helped in any way. The Toa had to rely heavily upon telepathic sweeps from Kongu’s mask, Nuparu’s claws and Kanohi, and Hewkii’s Climbing Chain to navigate the labyrinth. Hewkii didn’t want to imagine how the others were faring.
“Hewkii, look!”
The Toa of Stone had been in the process of scaling a rock wall upward. Twisting to look down, he tried to see where the dim glow of Nuparu’s drill was focused. Seeing that the others were having trouble making out what he was seeing under the dim light of the natural lightstones, Nuparu reached up, removed his mask, and illuminated the tunnel. Kongu walked over from the side passage he’d been examining, and Hewkii jumped down from the wall.
“Do you see them?” Nuparu asked. “The small, repeating claw marks?”
“Footprints?” Hewkii asked. “You’d know better than we would, Archivist.”
“Not any that I recognize,” Nuparu replied, putting his mask back on. “But they’re different from most Rahi.”
“Let’s keep quick-moving,” Kongu said. “We have to get to the bottom of this network, and I’d much rather not greet-meet the residents if it’s all the same.”
✴ ✴ ✴
In the opposite network, the other three Toa were making much slower progress. Jaller had ultimately consented to letting Matoro’s mind fly through all the side passages, and the Toa of Fire and Water crouched near his body as he did so.
Jaller was scratching something in the dirt, and Hahli was humming softly to herself. There were no other sounds except the distant dripping of water and some faint scraping noise even further away. There had been no sign of whatever had caused the roar, although they suspected that it had been a natural phenomenon caused by the internal shifting of the island — something which was hardly reassuring.
“Hahli,” Jaller suddenly asked. “How much say do you think we have over our actions?”
The Toa of Water did a double take before realizing Jaller was serious. “Wait, what?”
“Like this mission. How responsible was I for all this?”
“Completely,” Hahli laughed. “At least, I think so. You were the one that knocked on my door, asking me to go on some brokenmasked trip to the south, weren’t you? If not—”
“No no, I mean… How much do you think it was shaped by destiny?” Jaller asked. “I wouldn’t have thought twice about it before. But the fact that we were turned into Toa… doesn’t that mean that destiny had some part to play?”
“Sure,” Hahli shrugged. “It usually does.”
“Then why was I the one that was compelled?” Jaller asked. “There are so many other Matoran just as worthy as we are. Why wasn’t it Kapura, Tamaru, Kopeke, Taipu, Hafu, and Macku? Wouldn’t the Chronicler’s Company have much more experience working as a team than we would? Or Kotu, or Onepu? I wouldn’t trade you or Nuparu for anyone, but those two are as good warriors as any of us. And there are so many others… Why was I the one that acted?”
“I can’t imagine what destiny was thinking when it put you in charge of assembling a team,” Hahli shrugged. “Anyway, you were probably carried away from hearing the Turaga’s stories.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am too. The Turaga knew what they were doing when they let you listen to their tales.”
“As I recall, you were the one that invited me that one time.”
“And who do you think it was that sent me?” Hahli shot back. “Vakama always thought very highly of you, Jaller. I think he was hoping you’d keep coming to hear him speak. Perhaps he anticipated that you would walk this path.”
In spite of himself, Jaller smiled.
“Besides,” Hahli grinned. “Mata Nui may yet have plans for the Chronicler’s Company. He certainly didn’t let Takanuva get very far without them, did he?”
Jaller chuckled, his musings dispelled.
“Takanuva,” he snorted. “What a name. Hey, when’s the next Naming Day? I want my name switched to ‘Jalanika.’”
“You’ve had more than your share of name changes,” Hahli retorted playfully. “I’m the one that’s overdue. Besides, ‘Hahlinika’ flows better—”
Beside her, the body of Matoro shivered, and his lax limbs tightened. The Toa of Ice inhaled and sat upright, looking at both of them with wide eyes.
“You’ll never guess what I saw,” Matoro said, sitting upright. “There were a few other main passages, aside from the ones we’re investigating, but they look just like this one. Most of the side tunnels don’t lead anywhere, but there was an opening straight that way that led to a vast chamber. Looked Matoran-made, but completely abandoned. Get far enough down in the network and it narrows to a single tunnel. Oh, and at one point I thought I saw some movement in the shadows, but it was probably just Rahi.”
Jaller stood. “You had me at Matoran-made.”
✴ ✴ ✴
Hewkii and his compatriots had made a discovery of their own. After trailing the passage downward for some time, they had found themselves a vast lava flow. Distantly, they could barely make out two lavacraft resting idly on the river, perhaps where they had been left by warriors in search of the Ignika some time before.
“This flow must be flowing down from Mount Valmai,” Hewkii observed. “The entire Cord must have been formed by it. Not at all like a normal island. If Voya Nui came from far beneath us as the Matoran say, the landmass must have arrived on the surface and then the lava would have dripped down and formed the Cord. The reverse of a normal island.”
“It seems the Cord is the tether holding the island above in place,” Nuparu remarked. “Here’s hoping it doesn’t break anytime soon.”
“I don’t think the lava’s fast-coming from above,” asked Kongu, walking along the edge. “It seems to be flowing from beyond that metal wall.”
Intrigued, the Toa made their way over to the metal barrier that the Toa of Air had indicated. Nuparu gingerly ran his hand along the surface and shook his head.
“This metal… in the Great Mine, we once found a slab made of the same substance. For the longest time, we couldn’t break through. I’d always wanted to melt it down and see what I could make out of it, but… to see it here…”
“Did you ever try the door?”
Nuparu and Kongu looked over. Hewkii was standing beside a small round hatch door.
“Should we go in?” Nuparu asked.
“Someone was meant to,” Hewkii responded. Before anyone could object, he swung the wheel hard, and the door creaked open.
Almost to their surprise, nothing jumped out at them. In fact, the interior appeared to be a habitable control room with a large mirror on the far side. Nuparu eagerly stepped over to the largest panel of buttons and fiddled with them. Few worked, but when he threw a large lever, the panel hummed to life. The mirrors shifted, and before long, the Toa were looking through glass windows into a vast, cylindrical metal basin, twice the width of the volcano itself and many times as deep. At the very bottom, pipes sputtered as they sought to suck up what few magma puddles remained in the chamber.
“The core of Voya Nui. So this is where the molten protodermis came from,” Nuparu breathed. “Drained from here by the pipes, but disconnected from wherever they were supposed to take it. So the lava spurts both up through Mount Valmai and along the bottom of the island, doubling Voya Nui’s surface and anchoring it in place.”
“A vast chamber meant to hold the stuff. Like a fuel tank of some kind,” Kongu remarked.
“But fuel for what?”
The three Toa pondered this, but could come up with no answers. After a while, Hewkii pointed to some pipes that ran along the wall outside.
“Come on. Those pipes may lead us where we need to go.”
With that, the three Toa started after the mysterious pipes, unwary of the shadows shifting behind them.
✴ ✴ ✴
Jaller and Hahli stepped up to the hole Matoro indicated. Beyond it, they could make out a dim glow.
“It’s through here?” Jaller asked.
Matoro nodded. “I didn’t take much time to check it out, but yeah.”
Glancing one more time at Matoro and Hahli, Jaller stepped through the hole and into the chamber beyond. Hahli followed, and Matoro came in after them.
The catacombs the Toa now found themselves in quite resembled Onu-Koro, except far brighter. Small Matoran homes dotted the large chamber, blanketed with the luminescence of lightstones. As the Toa walked further inward, the soft hum of soundstones filled the chamber with peaceful white noise, even as heatstones maintained the comfortable underground atmosphere. Jaller recalled hearing from the Matoran of Voya Nui about Nui Cave networks they’d recently found underground. They had been uncertain why they had been carved out, and for and by whom, but perhaps now they knew.
“Matoran,” Hahli breathed.
“Not just any Matoran,” Matoro said, scraping some dirt off a sign. “This says ‘Av-Koro.’”
“Av-Matoran,” Jaller inhaled, starting into the village. “Matoran of Light lived here.” He shook his head. “Astounding.”
“Add them to the list,” Hahli said. “De-Matoran of Sonics. Fe-Matoran of Iron. Elements of Gravity, Magnetism, Lightning, Psionics, Plasma, Plant Life, and who knows how many more. We’ve come a long way since the six tribes of Mata Nui.”
Takua would have loved it here, Jaller thought. In all his years of exploration, he’s been looking for a place like this.
“Guys, look at this,” Matoro called. Hahli and Jaller broke off their paths to follow his voice. They found the Toa of Ice in a large structure, surrounded by tablets scattered in every direction.
“The library!” Hahli exclaimed. Eyes wide, she started rummaging around for interesting chronicles.
“‘—The radiation of the energy storms below and our close proximity to the Codrex have afforded us powers and strength the likes of which no other Matoran holds. Yet only death awaits us in the land below: the core of the universe, the heart that feeds Metru Nui. Only the mighty Toa Mata have ever had the power to save the heart of Mata Nui. It is for them, those that sleep below, that we carry out our tasks, such as the building of their vessels. For it is said the chosen one from among us will be the one to awaken them…’ Isn’t that interesting…” Matoro murmured, reading off of one. He picked up another. “‘—formulation of a proper Toa Canister depends on a four-to-one mixture of protosteel and—’”
Hahli’s gasp cut him off. Matoro looked up at once, and Jaller moved over to take the tablet out of her hands. Most of it was broken off, but what remained had been well preserved. He started to read.
“‘—told us the Krana are not the aliens many had thought them to be. In truth, we were informed that the exposure of the Matoran to energized protodermis diverted them from destinies as Toa or Bohrok and turned them into Krana. Submersion in the Kal substance put forth an elite version of the Krana, named Krana-Kal. Although the Bahrag queens did not control the manufactured, mechanical Bohrok Va, the transformation would bind the individual Bohrok to them…’ Mata Nui!”
“Mata Nui,” Matoro agreed. “How can it be?”
“That’s not all,” Hahli insisted.
Jaller’s eyes returned to the tablet. “‘But the experiments did not yield complete Krana output. There were others, monsters sometimes born of the leftover materials. We did our best to drive these, the Zyglak back, but with limited success. One tribe remains in an alcove some distance away from our underground village. We’re the only ones standing between them and this, several regions of their old territory that we have repurposed and joined with our own. The rest now wander the universe, preying upon our brothers and sisters above.’”
The inscription finished, Jaller lowered the tablet. “So where did these Av-Matoran go? And why?”
“I’ve never heard of the Av-Matoran… or the Zyglak. Even in the Turaga’s stories,” Matoro said.
“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” Hahli remarked.
Before Jaller could respond, a loud boom from the direction they had come shattered his thought. The three Toa dropped the tablets and ran through the village, emerging back in the labyrinth. They were met on the other side by the sight of Hewkii, Kongu, and Nuparu barreling in their direction. Nuparu looked fearfully at them.
“We have company.”