My Little Bionicle: Quest for the Masks
By
Toa Coy, Co-author Blazikenking
(To be) Edited by Cade the Sharkbear
Ending this part of the story in four more chapters, and remember you wake one you wake them all.
~Toa Coy~
Chapter Fifthteen: The Mask of Evil
Artemis watched her friends leave the library wishing her good tidings and that tomorrow they looked forward to having her help them get their cutie marks. Artemis had tear stains from joy and fear, being seen as a monster was something that she hated now but being alone that was her breaking point. Over a thousand years in age and being alone even as a villain lead to this. A filly whose life is so far beyond simple that if it was made into a novel adding needless things like a love interest or so false tragedy to downplay her evils. As she watched the moon begin to raise Artemis felt a weight lift off of her like a chain had broke. Her mother and Spike had been her solid ground and having her friends liking her even know most of her secret, to even think of him as anything other than a monster that made another monster would be too much credit to him. After dinner Artemis retired to bed with Spike saying he had a few more things to do before he hit the sack. It did not take much for the alicorn to enter the realm of sleep.
----
Dawn was coming over Mane Nui, and like many things the light reveals the happenings of the night. Some for good and others for ill.
Lewa and Gali would not wake up in their camp, they would not truly be awake for awhile. Inplace their normal kanohi were infected kanohi, those that did not know what infected ment for kanohi is that be it poison or shadow it would cause anything connected to it to be a slave to the infector. Antroz was just lucky that he knew of the pegasus and merpony were.
“Now to turn them on the ones they wanted to protect.” Antroz said to himself before turning to Goldrax. “Looks like you aren’t useless after all.”
Goldrax hid his frown as the two new slaves follow Antroz, once they left the shadow Toa shadow traveled to the place where he hid the masks that the toa had. Moments before Antroz came to his location, as Umbrage woke and warned him about the head of the order’s approach, Goldrax sent the masks to the cave in Ce-koro that was made out of light stone. He did this knowing that the order would just use those masks to infect the island.
“Goldrax are you sure we can stay here?” Umbrage said knowing that they were playing a very dangerous game.
“As long as we stay the forgotten ones then we might just get away with it.” Goldrax replied moving through his shadows and to the cave. He noticed that aside from the sack holding the masks it was empty like it was abandon.
“Umbrage you might want to come out.” Goldrax said as a piece of his shadow split off and formed into Umbrage.
“Okay I know the plan; get this to Twilight Sparkle and her friends, but what about the other Toa if they are with them?” The dragon said changing his form to that of an adolescent to carry the sack. “Either your ‘teammates’ or the other toa would wonder how I have my powers. I’m just happy that I don’t have the emblem on me.”
“I think Twilight would figure something out but I have to get back before they get back.” Goldrax said before using his wing to hug his friend. “Be safe Umbrage.”
“You, too.” Umbrage said returning the hug and watched as the pegasus disappear into the shadows before getting the sack and heading out of the cave.
----
Twilight and the other equestrians, along with Tahu and Kopaka, spent the rest of the night in De-Koro without any other things attacking them. The matoran gave the eight ponies food and went about their days. The girls talked to hothead and cold shoulder about their powers, the ones native to the matoran, and how they come to acquire them. Again the Equestrians avoided mentioning Mata Nui, Twilight explained that in their homeland the three races of ponies had general mastery over the land, sky, and magic. Compared to what they had seen of the Nuians are more deveraced in the control of those three parts.
Tahu cracked a smile under his armor while Kopaka kept his face unchanged from his emotionless look. It was then Rarity asked if she could help with the pair’s attempts to find the kanohi masks. When asked how by Kopaka, whose mask four eyes stared at the mare, Rarity showed them the gem spell that she used for her dresses and changed it to kanohi after asking for a spare one to try it out on. The two toa were surprise to learn that their horns could be used for other spells besides elemental attacks. Once they all were ready to go the group split back into Equestrian and Toa, Twilight and crew heading to Vo-Koro and Tahu and Kopaka mask hunting.
----
“I’ve got to ask why aren’t we not just taking the fight to those shadow creeps and blast them to the moon with the elements.” Rainbow said flying above as a scout.
“Because it doesn’t work like that.” Twilight said shaking her head causing the others to give her questioning looks. “As Miserix said our natural magic fields are aligning to this place’s own magic field while our bodies keep our native magic from being affected by the change. I think after we return home we may have some of these powers for a bit but should fade once we stay there.”
“So we are going to be able to use these elemental power until we leave this place?” Applejack asked as she saw Pinkie go pass her on a tiny tornado.
“Not right away but I guess it would be in relation to how long we are here.” Twilight replied as a small fireball formed off her shoulder. “Then again this could permit, which I will look into once we are safe and not walking into a trap.”
Just then Pinkie dropped off of her now nonexistent twister.
“Twilight you are right.” Pinkie said pulling out her “The Comic Relief Guide to the Fourth Wall and What may come from it” with the yellow speech having “My movie is awesome, get it to the masses.” written in it. “Here in the great leader’s section by planning for there to be a trap then you can plan around it.”
“Is it strange to see Pinkie use that book, over Twilight using a book?” Rarity asked the other four.
“I don’t know I mean this is Pinkie after all.” Fluttershy said before she saw something out of the corner of her eye.
It looked like a giant frog that was red with black lines that looked like it was made of lava and crimson eyes trained on Rainbow Dash. Without thinking Fluttershy called forth a tentacle of water to grab Rainbow right before the long tongue could get the pegasus. With that the frog got angry at the meal that was stolen from it and began to hop towards the Equestrians.
“Okay, giant lizards and shadow creatures are dangerous but giant frogs*.” Rainbow said as the tongue came at her again. “That has got to be someone’s sick joke.” Freezing the tongue to the ground.
Meanwhile in the order of makuta’s base some being was laughing, though no one cared to know who it was. Back with the Equestrians, the frog used his stuck tongue and jumping to launched itself at the ponies. The six split and dodged the attack, but due to the attack the frog broke the ice holding it’s tongue.
“Well Twi what do ya have planned for this.” AJ said using her earth powers to split the ground and try to trap the frog.
“I was planning on having Fluttershy use the stare on it but it has the same eyes as that...um...Tarakava in Ga-koro.” Twilight said recalling the crimson eyes of the lizard as Gail fought it. “I’m just going to guess we have to do the same if we want to stop it we have to remove anything that is discolored.”
Rarity heard this and used her designer eye to look at it and saw a diamond like shape on the back of the frog. Using her elemental powers, stone seemed natural to her, and summoned rocks to injure the frog but aimed for the out of place spot. Within several hits of the spot the frog jumped wrong and the spot changed into a diamond shaped mask that fell near Twilight, without the weight from the mask the frog sailed far away from the group.
With the frog gone the six friends looked at the thing that fell off of the frog. Twilight lifted it with her magic and was shocked to this what it was.
“Girls I think we might have sent Tahu and Kopaka into a trap.” Twilight said noticing that the mask was one of the six that each Toa was to collect. The surface was dark gray with rust like color in places and looked corroded by something.
“But that can’t be one of the ones they are looking for since it came off of that frog.” Applejack said having a good point.
There was sounds of electricity that caught the ears of the equestrians, which caused Twilight to cast a shield spell as a static hit it disbanding the energy. A group of three ponies appeared; each has a different mane and tail style but they were blue with white and blue manes. Thier horns trained on the six.
“I got to ask why did we come here again.” Rainbow said as she waited for any sign to defend the others from the three.
----
Mazeka waited with the prince and the royal guards as the airship with his comrades touched down just outside of the Crystal Empire. Just scanning the looks on a few faces caused him to ask Shining Armor about them.
“Don’t you have airships?” Mazeka asked the white unicorn who gave a nod as a response. “Then why are they looking like it new?”
“Well for one our’s has a balloon and ship under it, second they are made of mostly wood not metal like that.” Shining Armor replied. “By the way how does it even fly? All metal things seem too heavy to fly threw the air. Even Pegasi heavy armor is lighter than earth or unicorn armor.”
“My friend when gravity control is as easy as putting on a mask, there is almost no limit to how heavy or light something is.” Mazeka said as the Order of Mata Nui approached the welcoming party.
Once again Mazeka looked at all guards again, and the amazed looks were replaced by harden looks even if a few had fear hidden under the normal harden glare. The site of a bipedal armored being was not what had them on edge, though it might be a part of it, the outline of Jerbarz caused a much larger response. He was taller than any of the other beings but he seemed to lack bulk.
“Well it seems you’ve finally made friends outside of the order, Mazeka.” Jerbarz said with the equestrians wondering who said that seeing how the five visible beings that had yet to speak.
“Jer you know that you are in a snowstorm right?” Mazeka said shaking his head before turning to Shining Armor. “Prince Shining armor allow me to introduce my colleagues from the order of mata nui. The ponies are Toa that have agreed to join the order, the lady in black is Johmak, and the invisible one is Jerbarz.”
“It is nice meeting you all but I must ask how did he become invisible without turning visible after some time?” Shining said with the guards now awaiting a sign to defend the prince or to be at ease.
“Will long ago, I was once the most handsome being in our little band of do gooders. Before I was given a sword that they wanted to equip all of our operatives to allow them to sneak into a place do their mission and get out without being noticed. Good news the sword turned me invisible, bad news I could not turn back.” Jerbarz moving as he spoke with the snow showing what he was doing. “On that day the world lost a face that females would-”
With a swift elbow Johmak hit Jerbarz in the spot men feel pain the most. Falling to his knees then rolling on the ground in pain, the guards looked at the lady in black with more pain than fear.
“Sorry about him,” Johmak said as she and the Toa walked to close the gap between them and the guards. “He is always whining about how beautiful his face is and how no one will help him turn visible.”
By that time all but Jerbarz was in front of Shining Armor and Mazeka, Shining Armor extended his hoof as a sign of friendship to the order members. Johmak in turn reached out her mechanical hand to shake and with that Equestria and the Order of Mata Nui gain allies, but as they say with allies comes enemies.
----
Technia had been able to salvage the data in the broken down vahki and remove any negative commands in the code before giving it to Blue to store and analyze. Trixie and Lesovikk watch the pair in silence given that technology was not a part of their field of interest or profession. Tech was going on about how if she used some of the still good parts of the broken Vahki then it might be useful to strip it down. It was then a rahkshi fell out of the sky and landed feet first near the wagon.
“What are rahkshi doing here? I never known them to be this far from my home.” Lesovikk said a hint of venom in his voice.
“More than likely from the same beings that brought me and the other vahki here.” Blue said as data came up on his optics.
Rahkshi identified: Rahkshi of Accuracy
Also known as Detection, Seeker, Finder.
Body type: Fortified
Higher armor with opening mouth as to the split in lower armor have in the head.
Suggestion: form a circle and back to back to deflect attacks
It took moments to read all that and that lead to a plan should the need arise. Before Blue could speak Lesovikk ran out of the wagon sword drawn and ready to fight.
“What is he thinking we have no idea on what that ‘rahkshi’ can do.” Trixie said showing concern for her traveling companion.
“Toa are known to fight Rahkshi, according to records from the other vahki it saw it happen often.” Blue said as the toa charged the blue and purple machine.
The rahkshi had height and speed but it’s long range attack was limited as the toa of air would increase the air around him to stop attacks. The sword and staff clashed causing sparks to fly and stones to fly at the Toa of air. To those watching it would seem as if the opponents were almost too fast to follow. It was then that two other rahkshi; one tan and blue while the other was blue and green one.
Blue had scanned and learned that they were a rahkshi of illusion, tan and blue, and a rahkshi of teleportation, blue and green, and formed their staffs. Lesovikk was now surrounded by three rahkshi that had them on all sides. In a blink of a pony eye three became twenty with many different colors, Technia and Trixie were concerned for the Toa while Blue saw beyond the illusion. This was something that was smart, the three rahkshi used each talent to fight the toa. Lesovikk could tell the difference from what was real and what was fake but they were moving too fast and hidden.
Blue decided to help the toa because he could see the real ones from the fakes. As he began to head out to help the toa. That did not go unnoticed by Technia who hide her fear and move to intercept him.
“And where do you think you’re going?” The dark gray unicorn said to the vahki with a glare.
“To protect you from every being harmed again.” Blue replied before he pushed her aside.
It was then that Technia willed her armor to form and cover her. Even if she was a bit scared and not a fighter, she was not a pony to leave a friend alone in a fight or in sadness.
“I thought the reason for this armor was so you didn’t have to be my bot in shining armor.” Technia said her voice a bit electronic from the helmet.
“Normally Trixie would think that you both are out of your minds.” The blue unicorn said with a tone that betrayed her face. “But I should know better than to say that when my only traveling companion is out there fighting to defend us.”
There was not a word spoke after that, Technia and Blue ran out of the wagon however right before bolting from the wagon Tech had see the change Blue had told her earlier that day. As the sun was disappearing Technia hoped to have a real heart to heart with Trixie and not just hateful words.
----
Takua, Kapura, Jaller, Hahli, Macku, Hewkii, and Hafu had formed a bit of a group traveling to the main villages as they felt it was right. They were heading to Onu-Koro as if they were being called there but none spoke spoke this thought. When they got there, since they were such a large group they walked there, they found that much of the mining force was finishing the tunnel from Onu-Koro to Le-Koro. The whole village was quiet even with the Fa, Ba, and Fe-ponies around.
“So you guys want to see the great mine it is kinda the major thing here.” Takua said acting like a tour guide instead of a chronicler.
“I think it’s best to see Turaga Whenua since we have to look for the traitor.” Jaller said getting nods from the Po and Ga-matoran.
“Alright lead on captain.” Takua said knowing that his friend was being his heroic self.