Epilogue

A breeze tousled palm trees and drew soft ruffling sounds from the dry grasslands of the Great Desert. In the swamplands that had once been the Agori village of Tesara, distant Rahi could scarcely be heard braying and chirping in the cool evening air. Beyond the rugged coasts, the orange hearth lights of scattered villages and fledgling civilizations slowly began to extinguish their campfires and succumb to sleep.

The cannibalized husks of the two Great Spirit robots lay beyond, like two distant mountain ranges, in a sad tranquility. That little niche that the Matoran and Agori had made for themselves on this alien world.

Spherus Magna lay still and silent, if not for a single lonely whisper.

“I wish… I didn’t have to be a Toa Hagah anymore.”

The words drifted through the air, cold and crisp even against the vanishing heat of Tesara at night.

They crashed against the ragged coastline of sea lochs and fjords where the ruined Skakdi fortress nestled. They passed through the scattered and artless arrangement of broken pillars and statuary that had once been an arena. They snaked around young trees and moss-capped boulders, as though they had been riding the wind in search of meaning.

Meandering through the valley, Iruini’s whisper settled in the scattered surroundings of the Matoran camp, finding purchase among the wreckage dredged from the Silver Sea. Encrusted in layers of subsea grime, one item of salvage lay glimmering in the starlight. Rectangular in shape, it lay nestled between fragments of buildings, vehicles and machines from Metru Nui, Artakha, Odina, Stelt and Xia.

Not long ago, Norik had stopped to admire this piece of salvage, drawn to it by forces he could not describe.

A blinking crimson light suddenly blinked on, revealing a console beneath the marine silt. As the panel continued to flash, a mechanism deep within the object sprang to life. Motors whirred and grinded, the damp circuitry finally giving out after centuries of use.

In a hiss of sparks and steam, something moved within. An occupant knocked against the walls of the container, weak at first until one final swing forced the mottled glass surface doors open.

As smoke and briny fluid billowed out, an azure-armored Toa sat up. She panted for wild and desperate lungfuls of breath and searched around her stasis pod for any sign of her teammate or the Dark Hunters who had been there a moment ago.

“Norik…?” she gasped, gazing up at the moonless night sky.