Bionicle G2: New Legends, New Heroes

Chapter 29: Torrent of Emotions

Zala's grip on her scythe shook like the vault's stone walls around her. "He's here," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Beside her, Maram nodded. "Young Rhem, are you ready?"

The Toa of Time breathed heavily, having used his strength to appear in the vaults a minute ago. "Give me a second, and I'll be good!"

Zala wished she had her fellow Toa's certainty or any emotion other than anxiety she felt since taking the strange mask. It didn't help that Kivoda City's "vaults," which she, Rhem, and Maram stood in, were catacombs several miles below. Protector Torren insisted on the name because the Water Okotans kept and honored their fallen warriors here. Zala thought differently while standing in between two rows of solemn-looking statues and a coffin behind each statue.

Another shake brought Zala to reality. The electrical poles, placed on Maram's request to light the vaults, jittered slightly from either side. "This way," said the Toa of Light, who marched down the tunnel of statues with Rhem.

Zala followed behind, sparing a glance at any shadow. With another shake leading the three Toa, it wasn't long until they finally reached the gigantic stone slab for a door at the end. "I-is he alone?" Zala asked, though she already had a good guess.

Maram's raised hand, once releasing a ring of light on the door, gathered the light of the surrounding poles. "No. Be ready for anything!"

The door, and the surrounding wall, cracked. The three Toa backed away before it all crumbled before a flood of water pooling at their feet. Zala's grip shook on her new scythe, enough for one hand to trail to the mask on her waist. Its empty eyes paled to the lit orbs glaring through the faint cloud, the Earth Guardian's the largest and brightest of them all.

"Is that...?" Rhem asked, and Zala nodded. "Yeesh, I didn't think the guy would be so big!"

"Remember the plan," Maram said and held his sword at the Okotan stepping out of the smoke.

"Hmm, I never expected three to be waiting," Uram said with the Earth Guardian trailing behind him. He looked at the figure beside him. "Take care of them."

Said figure, thrice as tall and skinny as Uram, raised a frozen stalactite of an arm. The cold mist around its body struck at the Toa. Standing her ground with Rhem and Maram, Zala saw the large, white knuckle for a hand, once a Toa's mask, and feared the worst. The Ice Guardian was as Torren said, the most silent and the deadliest, as it charged with faint splashes in its wake.

"I got it!" Rhem called. His chained sickle flew forward... and the Ice Guardian's bitter gusts blew it aside. "Ah, come on–!"

"Watch out!" Zala shouted, her scythe hitting the incoming knuckle and skewing its aim.

She didn't account for the frosty winds the knuckle let loose to fling her and Rhem to the nearby wall. They began to freeze the very water around her, and they would have frozen her if a greatsword had not parted them. Covered in the same glow it took from the electrical poles, the sword clanged atop the knuckle. "I shall handle this one! The other is yours!" said Maram, locked with the Ice Guardian.

When Zala sat up with Rhem, she staggered under the shaking floor. The Earth Guardian's arm rose from it, with Zala's relatively tiny form on top. "Zala, look out!" she heard Rhem, who stood below while the Guardian's arm tossed her upwards and she hit the vault's high ceiling.

Or rather, sink into the darkened overcast on it. The outlines of friends and enemies stood out in Zala's old realm of shadows, including the Earth Guardian's massive blob. This time, Zala took extra care to pass over it and not through. She already had a good trajectory, albeit slowed.