Ko-Matoran Representation! Okay, so I skipped Le-Koro and Onu-Koro, but I am working on them. Le-Koro is almost finished, I just need to build some birds, and maybe that lightning bug if I ever figure out how. Does anyone know?
So there were originally, I think six represented Ko-Matoran in MNOG: Matoro and Kopeke, the Sanctum guards, Lumi and Jaa. I have added some Matoran from MNOG2 as well as Ehrye, who does not have a diminished or rebuilt form. He's the one with the Mahiki behind Kopeke. I'm a little surprised how often dark gray shows up in Ko-Koro, but then again Kopeke was dark gray when he got rebuilt. I know he appears light gray in MNOG2, but that's due to a typo! I think BS01 accounts for this in the other Matoran affected by this error.
Also, some of the MNOG2 Matoran I included have blue masks and feet, but I couldn't tell if they're supposed to be sand blue or light blue. I have elected to make them sand blue because they look like the same shade as Matoro, however I am willing to experiment and I am open to criticism and feedback! Let me know what y'all think!
Once I finish the Onu-Matoran, who include far more background characters than I expected, I will share them, as well Le-Koro once I build the birds I mentioned. As a bonus, I'll share something else I made for Le-Koro in a follow-up post.
Word of the Mask of the Light reached Ko-Koro before Jaller and Takua’s quest brought them there, travelling with word of the kohlii results. Turaga Nuju took the news silently and returned to his chamber without so much as a gesture to either Kopaka or Matoro. In itself, this was not a remarkable fact, but Kopaka Nuva found himself disquieted by the news, and sought the open night skies and the slopes of the mountains.
The weather was calm, as it usually was in Ko-Wahi when Kopaka was contemplative, and the constellations shone brilliant above him. With no wind, it was pleasant for a Ko-Matoran (what any other Matoran would call cold), and Kopaka Nuva sat on the frozen ground, gazing at the stars without attending to them.
He had spoken of it to no one since they had emerged as the Toa Nuva from the chamber below the Bahrag, but something was off. Different was the wrong word, since of course they were different: their masks, their powers, their tools had all changed and needed to be relearned. That was not it, though it had hidden the problem for a while.
No, the problem was... personal. Something about himself, or about his team, was different. There had been an easiness, a confidence to them before, even in the midst of the Bohrok chaos. You could almost believe the legendary talk of six kings in mask of gold. But that balance had been missing since.
It was not something Kopaka would ever have talked about willingly, but he certainly could not do so now. Tahu would have bristled at the idea that something was wrong, would have denied the very possibility. Gali would overthink it. Onua should have been the one to notice, to say something... but Onua was different, almost a stranger.
All the others were different. That was the problem. Tahu and he had always butt heads, but Tahu would once have listened. He did not think Tahu would anymore. As for Pohatu...
“Toa Kopaka?”
It was Matoro. Nuju’s translator and right hand man had come onto the mountain seeking him. Matoro did not seem aware of it, but he had an excellent voice, deep and rich, the perfect spokesman, and he radiated quiet trust. How could he not, knowing so many secrets?
"Yes, Matoro," he answered. There was no point pretending he had not been found, and Kopaka was curt not rude.
"The news from Ta-Koro is strange," said Matoro. "Weighty, even. Will you search for the Seventh Toa?"
"Your friend, Takua, and Captain Jaller will search," said Kopaka. "I am sure I will meet them, once they are found.
"Do you not wish to?" asked Matoro, and for a second Kopaka Nuva wondered if the slope on Matoro's Akaku had seen right through him, but Kopaka knew that however much the translator knew of the Turagas' counsels, he knew nothing of the Toa Nuva's strange new selves--or troubles. For the Toa Nuva needed no translator, nor did they meet in council.
"I am in no hurry," said Kopaka. "I have too many brothers already." He trained his unwavering gaze on Matoro. "You are not here because you think something might bother me, Translator but because something bothers you."
"As I said, the news is weighty," said Matoro.
"I understand if you cannot say more," said Kopaka. "Your secrets are not your own."
Matoro said nothing but continued to look intently at Kopaka.
"The phrase 'Seventh Toa' is an odd one," admitted Kopaka, taking a stab at what Matoro could not say. "I am sure I have heard it explicitly denied before."
"There are only the six of you," said Matoro, nodding. "The Turaga have said that to all, many times."
"I have never heard of the Mask of Light before," said Kopaka, trying to solve the puzzle Matoro was laying before him. "It is like, and yet unlike, the Golden Kanohi we once wore--or is it not? Is that it: the Turaga have denied there being a seventh one of us--perhaps not there being a Seventh Toa. The Seventh Toa is a Toa, yet not like us."
Matoro said nothing. There was silence under the stars. The first moon was rising.
"The Turaga have many secrets," said Kopaka Nuva. "This is why I do not hasten to find the Seventh Toa. When they come, they will come."
And, perhaps, when they do, he thought to himself, it may be that they will bring the piece we have been missing since the Cave.
It took him several moments to realize his eyes were open. So caught up in Seeking had he been that perhaps he thought the wall was simply a visualization of his thoughts. All of the images seemed to blend together, so the Matoran thought for a while that this was just another part of the process.
Whatever findings had crossed his mind however were gone. The thing he had been seeking was now nothing more than a fleeting thought, and something else had taken over his mind.
Something had directed his attention away from the Seeking. What particularly it was, however, he could not put his finger on. Something had permeated into his mindscape, breaking concentration. and bringing him from his meditation.
Matoro looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary in the chamber he was in. The fire at the center of the room quietly crackled. Near him sat Turaga Nuju, his mind elsewhere as his mediation went on uninterrupted. His assistant however looked around, continuing to wonder what had disturbed him. Other than the few Matoran Seekers allowed to meditate with the Turaga, uninterrupted in their own deep meditative states, the room was still.
There it was though. A sound reached his ears. A voice, calling to him. He could not hear what it was saying, the words being just out of earshot. But he could hear the voice, ominous and calling.
He could hear it more definitively this second time, coming from the hallway beyond the chamber. Conversation was frowned upon in the Sanctum. No one would make disruptive sound like this unless it was for a purpose. Yet this voice sounded different, and it seemed Matoro was the only one to notice it. Perhaps it was part of a vision he was experiencing?
Matoro found himself walking towards the hall, drawn towards the voice. He felt as though he were in an almost dreamlike state.
Behind Matoro, Nuju opened his eyes. The Turaga had heard the Matoran rise, and came out of his own meditative state to see his translator making his way towards the chamber’s exit. Generally he would not follow, but something seemed off about Matoro’s manner. Rising quietly as to not disturb the other Seekers, Nuju followed Matoro out into the hall.
Click, click-click.
Matoro turned to see the Turaga, alert and on his tail. In his trance like state, it took the translator a few moments more to understand the language of the flyers that Nuju communicated in. Upon understanding the message, Matoro nodded.
“Yes, Turaga, I am fine,” Matoro insisted. “I am still Seeking. A voice is calling to me, and I can hear it leading me to the answers I Seek.”
Nuju whistled, confusion in his tone. His assistant nodded. “Yes, a voice. It is calling to me. If I follow it, it will lead me to the part of the Wall of History which has the answers.”
Will it though? Nuju wondered. He too remembered a time when he thought he could follow a voice. His brow furrowed at the memory. His concerns were growing for his right hand Matoran. I have been warned about voices afar before, the Turaga thought. He grappled for a long moment on what to do.
Nuju allowed Matoro to go ahead, although he followed him closely.
***
Ehrye had been staring at the Wall of Prophecy all day. He now looked at the glyphs written on the walls with a hard squint. The sun outside was sinking into the late afternoon, making it harder to see. He should go to the center of the hall he was studying and light a fire, he knew, so he could see better. Yet he was so engrossed in his Seeking that the fading light did not matter to him.
But none of this was why he could not concentrate. For years he’d studied the walls until his back hurt, with nothing but the glow of his eyes and heartlight to illuminate the prophecies. No, the rapidly changing lighting situation was far from what was distracting him. It was the little voice which reached his audio receptors.
“Fire,” said the voice. Ehrye looked up from his translation, searching for whom had spoken. No one showed themselves.
He should have looked back down at his work, but his curiosity was piqued. He looked around for a few moments, before lowering his gaze to his work once more.
“Fire!” came the voice again, this time more urgent. Ehrye looked up again.
“Fire! Fire upstairs!” The voice chirped. The Ko-Matoran set down his translation tablet, comprehending what the voice was saying. A fire?
“Evacuate! We need to!” the voice called again. Ehrye then looked around, utterly confused at what was being said. No one spoke in these parts of the Wall of Prophecy, and if they did the urgency for them doing so had to be of the utmost importance. Seeing no one else moving, however, Ehrye cocked his head. He strode over to his neighbor, another Matoran translating.
“Did no one else hear?” he whispered to his cohort. The Matoran looked at him, eyes wild. Talking in the Sanctum… no Matoran would break this oath unless it were urgent.
“Hear what?” he whispered back, anxious of the dirty looks anyone within earshot might shoot at them.
“We need to evacuate the building,” Ehrye told him. “There is a fire upstairs.”
“A fire?” the scholar asked. “Says who?”
“There was a Matoran in the hallway who called in,” Ehrye told him. “Didn’t you hear him?” The second Matoran shook his head, alarm forming on his mask.
“We need to get out of here then!” the second Matoran insisted.
The two began tapping the rest of the Matoran, urging them to evacuate. Without haste, they set down their tablets and began to evacuate.
They looked odd as they trode through the Sanctum, a group of Ko-Matoran walking together. Scholars and Seekers noted them curiously as the group descended toward the main chamber, spreading word about a fire in the upper levels.
One Matoran looked up at the oncoming commotion, far from pleased about the interruption. He listened for a moment, hearing words about a fire. Something did not sound right, so he stopped the group to understand the full story.
“There is a fire upstairs!” Ehrye cried to him.
“A fire?” the annoyed scholar asked. He looked towards the ceiling for a moment. “I smell nothing burning.”
“It probably hasn’t come there yet,” said Ehrye.
“Who told you there was a fire?” asked the scholar, rather agitated at all the fuss.
“Someone outside our Prophecy room,” the Ehrye explained.
“Did you see someone?” asked the scholar.
“No,” the Ehrye said. “They probably were evacuating and just shouting a warning to us.”
“So you did not see anyone,” said the scholar. A few Matoran in the small group began to give looks.
“No but we need to go! Now!” cried Ehrye.
“Go?” asked the irritated scholar. “Seeker, you are the first person I have heard talk about a fire in the Sanctum. And, icicle head, has it occurred to none of you that there couldn’t be a fire here, this place being made of ice?”
No fire had been found, and the only thing that had happened was that the rest of Ehrye’s peers were mad at him.The other scholars glared at Ehrye as they filed back into their chamber.
The Ko-Matoran stood with his head hung, embarrassed at the whole scenario, not able to look anyone in the eye. He had heard a voice, he knew that much. He could not prove it, but there was a voice that had called out about a fire. Someone in the halls of the Sanctum had called into the chamber of study, and Ehrye had been the only one to get the message.
Someone had made a fool out of him. Somebody in the Sanctum had played a joke on Ehrye, and made him look like a raving, disruptive lunatic. Crossing his arms, Ehrye only glowered angrily down the hall, furious at whomever that trickster had been.
Until the laughter began.
Ehrye’s eyebrows raised. Laughter, in the Sanctum? The Matoran’s eyes glowed wide with shock.
It was the trickster again, pulling some sort of prank on Ehrye that only he could hear. The Ko-Matoran set off down the hall then, determined to find this trickster. Whoever they were, they were about to get a scolding of a lifetime.
The laughter was right around the corner— but when Ehrye turned into the hall, he found no one there. How could that be? Ehrye thought. He looked around, bewildered at the sourceless noise.
The laughing was suddenly behind Ehrye. The Ko-Matoran tensed, his shoulders raising in fear.
But then his fear grew exponentially as his feet were lifted off the ground.
Something had grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him off the ground. Ehrye found himself yelling indiscernible words as he tried to bring himself back to the floor, kicking and writhing as he resisted whatever was holding him.
A shadow passed over his eyes, and Ehrye dropped to the ground. Something clattered on the floor nearby. Feeling a drain of energy, the Ko-Matoran realized it was his mask, torn away from his face. He grabbed onto the walls as he stumbled forward towards it, feeling disoriented. All around him, the laughing continued. Whoever it was he did not care anymore. All the scholar wanted was his mask.
Bringing his mask to his face, Ehrye felt energy seep back into him. His vision began to clear, and he glimpsed the scene outside a window as he stumbled. A forest of evergreens surrounded the clearing that the Sanctum was set upon. The afternoon light was fading rapidly as clouds began to cover the sky above Mount Ihu. And the snowbanks below looked unbroken.
Before he was able to catch his breath, Ehrye felt a pair of hands shove him, and found himself falling out of the window. Finding nothing to grab onto, the Ko-Matoran realized he was going to find out how unbroken those snowbanks below were as he fell towards them.
“Gravity hurts!” laughed a voice out the window as Ehrye fell.
***
Ducking under a tree branch, Toudo stepped into the clearing. Before him stood the Sanctum, its icy white sheen standing boldly against the grey sky. Breathing a sigh of relief, Toudo brushed himself off, eyeing the building as he began to walk around the building, leaving the treeline behind.
Toudo had been out checking his traps in the wilderness of Mount Ihu when he had sensed a storm approaching Ko-Wahi. The endless blue sky of Mata Nui had become grey, and the wind had begun to pick up. The animals had disappeared, more than likely sensing the storm and taking cover, the trapper supposed. Normally he did not mind being out in the squall, but having found so many of his traps empty he decided it would be best to head back to the village. As he walked around the Sanctum towards Ko-Koro, he looked to the sky to see a few flying Rahi flapping overhead, most likely making haste towards shelter themselves. His would follow their cue and head to his home until the mountainside was clear again.
“Catch me if you can!” came a voice. The Ko-Matoran looked up, seeing noone around. Someone had called, but there was nobody in the area around besides himself. The area was quiet. Not even the growing winds on the mountainside permeated the natural borders that surrounded Ko-Koro. Squinting into the scenery, Toudo looked around for anyone. He even looked up to the windows at the top of the tower, but no Ko-Matoran could be seen. Perhaps it was just his imagination, he supposed. Toudo continued on his walk.
“You can’t!” came the voice again. Toudo whirled again, trying to catch the source of the voice. “Not quick enough!” Again, there was nobody in the area except for him.
The trapper looked around, annoyed now. Someone was playing a joke on him. He started to stomp through the snowdrifts, determined to find whoever was playing this game. No Ko-Matoran usually acted like this; those villagers who resided around these parts of the village usually studied in the Sanctum, where near silence was almost required. Toudo knew a few scholars who would have insisted on a Ko-Matoran making noise this close to the Sanctum could carry out their studies with Takua the Chronicler or one of the Le-Korans. Yet someone out here was carrying on like a Brakas monkey.
Another sound made Toudo spin, and he found himself being showered with a spray of snow as something landed in the snowbank. Sputtering the drifts out of his mask, he dashed over to see what had created such an explosion.
The snow which had been relatively unbroken a few moments before was now scattered, something having come down from the sky to crash into the snowbanks. In the center of the crater that had formed, maskless and bewildered, was a Ko-Matoran. One of the scholars.
“What just happened?” asked Toudo.
“Did you get a glimpse of who pushed you?” asked Toudo, concerned upon hearing Ehrye’s story. The scholar’s mask had been dented in a few places, and would need repairs, but it still attached to his face.
Ehrye shook his head. “I just grabbed my mask before I was pushed. I could barely tell which way was up before I found myself falling. That was terrifying— I could have died!”
“Disrupting the studies of the Sanctum is one thing, but nearly murdering a Matoran is a serious matter,” said Toudo.
“So you believe me?” asked Ehrye. The trapper nodded.
“I heard a voice as I came out of the forest as well, mocking me,” Toudo explained. “Someone here bears us ill will.”
“We need to apprehend this person,” said Ehrye. “Before they hurt anyone else.”
“Let us go to Turaga Nuju,” said Toudo. He will sort this out.”
***
Toudo and Ehrye made their way to the entrance of the Sanctum, where the two guards stood at their positions. They gave a nod to scholar as he approached the entrance, only to wince as he went into a wild accusation. He informed them to be on the lookout for any giddy Matoran, repeating the experience he had told the trapper. The Guards nodded and assumed their guard as the two took shelter from the storm.
The Guards of the Ko-Koro Sanctum were known for their vigilance. Always standing at their positions outside the temple with a watchful eye, Talvi and Pakastaa ensured that the sacred place was well protected from the dangers of Mount Ihu. Many threats lurked in the snowstorms of Ko-Wahi; if any of the monstrous creatures were allowed to run rampant within the Sanctum, many prophecies of the Ko-Matoran would be lost. So the two sentries took their duty very seriously, never wavering from their task even in the harshest of conditions.
Makuta, however, had found something rather peculiar in his observations of the Matoran. As much personality that the villagers exhibited— or in some of the Ko-Matoran’s cases, didn’t— at the very core of their being, they still machines. They worked fluidly and flawlessly most of the time, but just like any computer or lab dummy, Matoran were subject to lag. Up on the top of Mount Ihu— colder than many of the regulated environments of the Great Spirit Robot— the Ko-Matoran experienced extreme cold, perhaps more harsh than anything they were designed to withstand. Even as snow and ice formed around their Kanohi, Talvi and Pakastaa stood outside. Sometimes though, Makuta would send Rahi to get close to the two, only for them to not even react. Sometimes, they simply stopped noticing and just stared forward, still as ice sculptures, even when something clearly stared back at them from the edge of the horizon.
It was imperative that these Matoran did not stop working, Makuta knew. They were engrossed in their studies, yes, but if not stimulated, they would cease working entirely. Sound was a good stimuli, he supposed; while he could send the vicious Muaka and Kane-Ra or any other of the larger beasts of the mountainside to frighten the villagers and keep them alert, in his experimentations Teridax had found there were much more subtler ways of keeping the Matoran moving, if not somewhat distracted.
***
Nuju followed Matoro through the halls of the Sanctum, as the latter listened to the voices coming from somewhere ahead. Matoro insisted that they were close to the source— at almost every turn, to the Turaga’s annoyance. He was moments away from knocking the translator over the head with his Badge of Office, if that meant getting the translator to knock off the nonsense and think straight.
Two Matoran rounded the corner though, in a fashion Nuju thought resembled his and Matoro’s. Nuju recognized the form of Ehrye, his Kanohi for some reason battered and dented, followed closely by Toudo the trapper. The scholar seemed annoyed while he walked— although he was always annoyed at something, Nuju knew— his head cocked to the side as he seemed to listen to something.
“Turaga Nuju!” Ehrye called, recognizing the elder. The sound rang down the hall. The Turaga frowned, insistent on the silence that the scholars of the Sanctum must keep for their studies. But given what happenings were going on today, Nuju figured it may be appropriate.
The elder of ice nodded, listening to the pair’s story and growing alarmed with each passing detail. His eyes flitted to his translator, who had been hovering a bio or two away as he listened himself. Matoro now stood next to him though, a new sense of clarity in his eyes as he listened to the story.
“I have heard the voices too,” Matoro admitted once they were done. “I was Seeking as well, and thought they were some sort of revelation.”
“Far from it, unfortunately,” Ehrye said. “It is someone in here playing a prank. Thank the Great Spirit I found you, lest the same thing happened to yourself.”
Toudo shot the scholar a look of scorn, but Ehrye did not notice. “So now we all know about this trickster. They seem to be several steps ahead of us at all times. They can avoid all four of us. So how do we find them?”
Something whizzed over their heads suddenly, coming from the depths of the hallways Nuju and Matoro had come from. Whatever it was passed by in a flash before disappearing down the next hallway. The four of them ducked, protecting their masks as the blur flew by them once more.
“What in Mata Nui!” Ehrye exclaimed, holding tight onto his own Kanohi.
Another shape flashed by, and Nuju was in the air. Toudo whipped out his bamboo disc and hurled it in the direction the blur flew. The Turaga fell, and Matoro dove, trying to catch his mentor. The Ko-Matoran ended up blocking Nuju’s body from the full impact of the floor instead, the two of them ending up in a tangled mess.
Nuju whistled and cut through the air with his hand, utterly enraged. “Your mask is fine, Turaga,” Matoro insisted. “There are a few scratches, but otherwise you are in one piece.”
“Scratches?” Toudo asked. “Wait a minute…” he turned to Ehrye, looking at the top of his mask. At first they looked like random scratches from the fall, but upon closer inspection the white Mahiki the scholar wore had several claw like marks on the top of his mask. “I don’t think what attacked you was a Matoran,” said the trapper.
“Who did I hear then?” asked Ehrye. “Rahi do not talk.”
“I am not sure,” said Toudo.
The quartet stood back to back, tense as they waited for the next attack from the creature. Nuju gripped tightly onto his pick, ready to swing; Ehrye clenched his fists. His disc unsheathed once more, Toudo watched carefully, ready to hurl the bamboo at whatever the blur was. Extending and retracting his eyepiece, Matoro looked around, hoping to get a better glimpse at whatever had just come through. No doubt it was some sort of flying creature; but it flew faster than anything Matoro had ever seen.
The sound of Matoro’s eyepiece shutter clicking went off, and the group was in scrambles again. The bamboo disc went flying, Toudo flinging it with breakneck speed at the blur coming by. The shape went tumbling, and the creature fell to the floor.
Nuju’s ice pick pinned down one of its bony wings, and the four of them were able to get a look at it. Its hide was white with streaks of blue, able to easily blend in with the icy walls of the Sanctum. The creature was unexpectedly bigger than they expected, its size clearly demonstrating enough strength to pick up a villager. Between its incessantly flapping bony wings two green eyes shined, its beak screeching a mix of Matoran and jumble.
“Let me goooooo,” the thing cried. The three Matoran jumped, but Nuju kept his pick firmly on the bat’s wing, unperturbed by the voice. So this is the creature that has been causing all of the fuss, he signed to Matoro. The translator nodded.
“It appears so,” said Matoro. “What are you?” he asked the creature.
“Your nightmare!” the bat called back, in Matoro’s own voice.
“That is not an ice bat,” Toudo said.
“This cannot be the only one of them though,” said Matoro. “There has to be more of them.”
“There were,” Toudo said. “I saw a group of flyers when I came back from the woods— I thought they were just snowbirds, but it must have been these.”
“What are we going to do about them?” asked Ehrye. “I cannot study with all of these distracting bats around.”
“We will have to find where they are nesting in here,” said Toudo. “Then I can make some sort of net which we can put over the windows of this place.”
Nuju nodded, agreeing with the trapper. He knew Rahi of this Koro best— he and Kualus would have gotten along well— so it would be appropriate to let Toudo make whatever he needed to trap all of these birds.
“Now that we know what is causing the ruckus in here,” Ehrye said. “I can get back to my studies. Thank you very much Turaga.”
Toudo grabbed Ehrye’s arm, raising an eyebrow. “How about before studying, however, we go down and address the horde of angry Ko-Matoran down in the main atrium?”
***
The main atrium of the Sanctum was in chaos.
Matoran argued with one another, raving about the sacredness of the place. Others, like Matoro and Ehrye, were raving about tales of voices of phantoms in the halls. Some Matoran even spat Ehrye’s name, accusing him of being the one to cause all of this disruption.
“This was all Ehrye’s fault! The Ko-Matoran who cried fire!”
“Just because he can’t focus doesn’t mean he has to distract all of us from our studies!”
Pakaasta and Talvi had looked in as well at one point, utterly confused about what was going on within the building they were protecting. This was more noise than they had probably ever heard at their posts. It was not their place to question, however, they both figured as they turned away. It was only their place to guard the Sanctum.
Matoro, Nuju, Toudo and Ehrye walked amongst the arguments, observing the chaos. Very few of the Matoran noticed them, continuing their accusations. Nuju banged the head of his Badge of office onto the ground so it made a resounding ring which reverberated through the room. All of the squabbling scholars fell silent, turning towards the Turaga.
The Sanctum was a uniquely crafted place, but it did not echo. Certainly not the way these voices were reverberating. Above them though, voices still chattered. The gaze of dozens of masks turned toward the high ice ceiling, where the voices of the Matoran still rang about. Green glowing eyes stared back at them, the bats somehow mimicking the voices of the entire village.
“Look!” someone cried.
“What are they?” another Matoran nearby asked.
“Pests,” said Ehrye. “I told you I heard something! It was them!”
“How do you suppose we get rid of them?” Matoro asked Toudo.” The trapper pointed to Nuju, who bewilderedly looked at the trapper. Toudo then indicated the Badge of Office. The ringing that the tool had produced the bats seemed to like, so the trapper had an idea. Allowing him to take the ice pick, Nuju watched Toudo as he worked.
“What are you doing?” asked Ehrye.
“These appear to be creatures of sound,” said the trapper. “If I can find a frequency I can lure them in with, then it will be easier to trap them.”
Toudo banged the ice pick on the ground, holding it up towards the ceiling as it reverberated. It grabbed the creatures’ attention, several of them flying down to screech at the Matoran. It did not maintain their attention, however, as the bats flew immediately back up to their roost.
“It is not holding their attention,” the trapper said, dismayed. How was he going to bring them down here? He doubted the Rahi had an appetite for bula berries. “I need something else, something that can hold their attention. We need another tool.”
Nuju however, emitted a series of clicks and whistles, to which the translator shook his head violently.
“I respectfully decline Turaga,” said Matoro. “We are not doing that.”
“What is he suggesting?” asked Ehrye. Matoro ignored him, clicking and whistling back at Nuju.
“Please.”
Nuju slammed the butt of his pickaxe into the ground as the two argued. Many expected the Turaga to emit a number of angry bird calls, but he simply stared at his assistant, close lipped and silent. His deep blue eyes stared menacingly at the Matoran.
“Fine,” Matoro said. “But we are having a talk about this later.”
The Ko-Matoran turned away from the translator. The lens on his Akaku clicked as he scanned the ceiling, finding where the bats were hiding. They blended in well with the ice of the building, but if one looked hard enough, they were discernable. Matoro glowered at them, pursing his lips with dissatisfaction.
He assumed a bold stance, similar to how he stood when he was translating. But clearing his throat, a much different sound came from Matoro as he began to sing.
I see your face before my eyes
I'm falling into darkness
Why must I fight to stay alive?
Snow is falling
Wake me, can't you hear me calling?
Out of darkness, they come crawling
The Sanctum grew still as Matoro’s singing drifted over the building. The Ko-Matoran fell silent, mesmerized, never having heard Matoro sing before. It was the smooth sound of the wind blowing on the mountain peak, and the resounding of a drip of water, but it was also unlike anything they had ever heard.
The sound of the bats overhead grew as the bats responded as well, emitting tiny little screeches. They were screaming in delight, Toudo realized as Matoro looked at him.
“Are they… enjoying it?” he asked.
“It seems so,” Toudo confirmed. “Keep going!”
Here I am
I am lost in your land
And I hope you will be
Creeping in my soul
Shadows fall, let me out
Hear my call
And I always will be
Creeping in my soul
I fade away into the night
My eyes are closing in
Shadows are fleeing from the light
My nightmares can begin
Wake me, can't you hear me calling?
Out of darkness, they come crawling
The bats had come down now, swarming just a few bio over Matoro’s head. They opened their mouth, bearing their fangs, but made no move to carry Matoro away or take his mask. Instead, they began to join him, singing in a chorus.
Here I am
I am lost in your land
And I hope you will be
Creeping in my soul
Shadows fall, let me out
Hear my call
And I'll always will be
Creeping in my soul
Matoro grew silent, ending the song himself. However, the bats continued to play it back, all mimicking the Ko-Matoran’s voice. Toudo nodded to the translator, a new strategy already forming in his mind on how to capture the bats.
“This… helps, so much,” Toudo said to Matoro, preparing a net from his pack. “Pretty soon the Sanctum will be at peace once more.” The trapper set off, his work cut out for him.
Nuju put a hand on his shoulder, nodding his appreciation of Matoro’s voice.
“Thank you, friend,” Matoro told the Turaga. “I wouldn’t be able to see clearly if you weren’t there for me.”
“Come,” said the Turaga, speaking in regular Matoran to his translator’s surprise. “I will help you see more clearly, as I must tell you a story about voices.”
Some Ko-Matoran: Pakastaa and Talvi, guards outside the Sanctum
The Ko-Koronan’s masks are lined with furs to protect them against long stretches in the cold of Mount Ihu and the extreme weather conditions bleach any mask worn outdoors for long to a dull grey.
