Birth of the Toa Dermis

Part Four: Po-Mata

"You are a failure." A slow, cold voice echoed across the room.

"Listen boss, I tried my best." Vuhui spoke in his typical, irritating voice, but it had a tone with it. A tone of fear.

"I give you the powers of lightning, & you can't even kill ONE!"

"Hey, listen. Just give me a few days, my arm will be back & fully grown. I'll be good as knew!"

"By the time your arm has returned they could be in KO-MATA FOR KARZAHNI'S SAKE!"

"You can't expect me to go out like this." Vuhui raises up what remains of his arm. Oha had cut it off, but Vuhui was slowly growing it back. Though right now it looked like a dead worm stuck to his shoulder.

"You don't have a choice in the matter." 

"Oh come on! Hey, I have an idea. I know you've been wanting to test out one of your other creations, so how about that? I know you wanna see how that toa does..."

"... Fine..."

Far away from that, a certain airship was filled with the interesting sounds of a le matoran singing.

"The gukko fleet did sweep their feet

& launch the disks from high!

The beetle-beasts did never see

A matoran such as I!"

"What are you singing?" Vhelitti interrupted Owki's musical ramblings, both out of curiosity & annoyance.

"Oh it's a sing-song from Turaga Kongu. He says it's about a 'Great battle that happened long ago.'"

At the back of the airship sat Oha, contemplating. He reached behind himself & pulled out his sword. For his entire life he'd been nothing but a coward. But yesterday, for the first time, he did something. He went on the attack. Oha was still coming down from it all, & the blue goo dripping down his sword did nothing to calm his nerves.

"Hey," Vhelitti walked in. "We'll be hitting ground any moment now."

"Oh, uh. Alright." Oha stood up, his legs, though long & lanky, planted themselves solidly on the ground. He calmly sheathed his sword into his back & walked with Vhelitti towards the front of the airship.

"Hey big-friends, look ahead." Owki pointed out the window, gesturing to the reason they needed an airship to make it to Po-Mata in the first place. A massive cliff blocked off the swamps & jungles of Le-Mata, leaving Po-Mata a dry desert-plateau.

A few minutes later & the group had landed. The first thing they did was ask where they might find Tourk, this question leading to chuckle coming from the matoran they asked. They explained he lived to the north of the village. Despite the ominous chuckling, the group took the advice & made their way to the north side of town. Eventually they made it to the edge of town & walked into the desert until-

CHRKCHRKKURKCHERK

They all heard the grinding sound of an engine approaching rapidly.

"INCOMING!!!" A n excited voice rang out. Oha, Owki, & Vhelitti all looked off into the distance, & saw a large ploom of sand quickly getting larger, or rather, closer. As the three looked on they could get a better look at what was approaching. The thing kicking up the sand was a large motorized metal carriage. Riding inside the carriage was most definitely the person they were looking for, though he was too far off to get any good details on. So the group just stared & waited, at least until they realized the carriage was going much faster than they thought, & that it was actually on a direct collision course with them. The person riding the carriage, Tourk, held his hand out & shouted, "LOOK OUT!!!" but the carriage was far too close & far too fast. All they could do was brace for impact as Vhelitti held out her shield & Oha blocked his face with his claw. Owki, for his part did nothing. Ever the optimist he trusted Tourk would find some way to stop the carriage before it hit anyone.