Hug your friends!

Smother it, says the voice of gold within your throat, within your crystal brain wrapped in its leaves, smother it. You hands were made to kill it if you so desire and I so desire; smother it. Fear not the burn that cannot reach you. I so desire: smother it.

Smother it.

There is a heat.

Sweet and feeble, cherry-sweet, too sweet, too bitter, too burnt and sour, sour like a medicine that can't cure you, bitter like a lie - oh how you hate it, how you hate it. How it tries to peel its way to you, to appeal to you, after all of it, how you hate it, hate it. You can't stand it, you can't bear it.

There is a heat.

Cherry-sweet and burnt, left simmering too long, encrusted around the flame, rough and cracked, how you hate it, hate it - and yet how you cannot hate it enough to undo its gentle reach, to pull yourself away from it as it worms into the gold, as it sinks into it, rough against soft, warm against cool, a flesh too tender to fight back.

The gold peels.

It stretches too much, frays, a hole with messy edges at last opens on the fabric-soft gleam, tears the skin without ichor or pierce or cut to rend it apart: beyond it you can look away, beyond the glow, into a world you don't recognize, look at an absence that is a presence, at a heat feeble and dark and bittersweet, at a voice.

Smother it, says the voice of gold within your throat, smother it, smother it, I so desire: smother it, before it melts you down, before it melts the golden leaves around your crystal brain; your hands were made to kill it if you so desire and I so desire - smother it, fear not the burn that cannot hurt you, that can kill you, smother it, crush it, choke it to death in your hands that were made to kill it if you so desire and I so desire.

Are these your hands?

These things you've never seen before, scalding hot, rotten cherry burnt to black, moving in a way you cannot fathom to understand: pushing feebly against the gold, towards the heat, burning worse than the warmth they ache to reach and yet unable to pierce through the tender metal skin, the gleaming flesh, retreating when it clings to them, when it coats them in its sheen. They grow hotter to dispel it, yet still they cannot melt it; and again they push, weak and desperate, towards the heat, towards the world outside, towards the absence that is a presence, towards the voice.

Are these your hands?

You cannot recognize them. It cannot be you moving them. You haven't had hands in so long, let alone hands to move on your own. You've never had hands at all.

There is a heat.

Your hands reach towards it, desperate, towards the holes it burns in the tender gold.

Smother it.

Your hands were made to kill it if you so desire, and I so desire: smother it.

Are these your hands?

Is this your voice?

Cawing from disuse, calling weakly, struggling through the gold in your throat, calling beyond, through the holes, through the air, clean air, for an absence that is a presence.

The gold peels.

The gold melts, the gold crumbles, the gold drips and folds and curls on itself under the cherry-sweet and bitter heat's push, reveals a world you don't recognize, a world the hands that are yours reach for, a world the voice that is yours calls out to, a world where an absence that is a presence calls out to you, a voice.

Smother it!

The voice of gold in your throat screams, Smother it! Smother it! Kill it! Fear not the burn that cannot reach you, that can kill you, smother it! Smother it!

The gold peels.

Are these your hands?

Is this your voice?

There is a heat.

Tender and mellow and piercing through the curtains of metal flesh it singes apart, reaching for you, an absence that is a presence, a voice, a hand, an eye that sees beyond the gold and the mask and the memory and the guilt, a noun you hate and yet cannot hate enough to hate forever, a voice that calls the name you had forgotten through the cascading molten flesh at last peeling, dripping away from you, from your hands, from your voice.

Is this your breath?

Heaving and shallow and fast, like you haven't breathed in a millennium.

Is this your body?

Crumpled and cradled and tense, still reeling, so tired, so heavy, so tightly held.

Is this your mind?

There is a heat, gentle, cherry-sweet and sour and bitter and burnt - an absence that is a presence, a voice wrapped around you, calling your name: it's passed, it's passed, you're here, I'm here.

I'm here.

The gold peels.

Smother it.

The Toa are very stressed and trying to find help wherever they can

eventually Tahu, Gali, and Onua make their way to Artakha, who is maybe trying to return to his original island or maybe trying to start a new secret community with his Matoran, idk but point is he's doing his own thing. And as he did when Lewa came to him for help against Teridax, Artakha wants nothing to do with it

Tahu tells him off for not helping Lewa and at long last they all convince him to give some kind of help because Artakha needs to understand that the Toa Mata will all die if this continues. and Artakha pretends not to care, but he does a little, and that's all they need to chip away at him

and finally Artakha agrees, alright, he can't do much against something like Marendar, and they all already have the best armor and masks they can have, but Artakha is able to create Toa/imbue elemental energy. He used it to make the Toa Mata. so he offers to make several new Matoran into Toa

but the Toa stop short. because if Artakha just gives them new Toa, they will still be rookie Toa. they won't know how to use their powers yet, they may not know how to fight in their new bodies, they may not have their mask powers under control. And what they will be is targets for Marendar too.

so Tahu's heart is heavy, but he says no. because if the Toa are all going to die to this thing, he won't give it more of his friends to destroy. he explains all this to Artakha

Artakha pauses and thinks for a while. He says that he may be able to do something else. Instead of creating new Toa. Maybe he could give Tahu some experienced warriors again. He isn't sure yet if he can do it on this new world. but he will try

Tahu is exhausted and doesn't really know what this means, but he thinks maybe Artakha is going to somehow repair some Toa who have died or even build new ones who have experience built in. so they agree to this and leave. They take the long journey back home, hoping no one else will have been lost in their absence

and when they get home, Pohatu is right there at the gate waiting for them and asking them what the hell they did

???

they don't know? what happened?

he tells them you better just come see for yourself

There's a Fire Toa waiting outside the gathering hall. Tahu's never seen him before, but Pohatu turns and smiles at him as they get close, and the Fire Toa waves and laughs and shakes his head, tired and exasperated but smiling to see him

and Tahu realizes

VAKAMA??

and Vakama just covers his mask and sighs and laughs again

Tahu races over to him, hollering like mad, and all but picks him up in his eagerness to hug him and look him over. It's you?? It's you??

What did you do? Vakama is asking. I had my time. We had our destiny

Well here's a second one for you, evidently, because Artakha gave you your power back, I didn't know he could, I never though - Vakama!!

world feels instantly brighter because together surely they can do this. With his Turaga? surely they can do this.

yes he's scared of the thought of losing Vakama to this too but more than that, he's bolder with him next to him, more ready to face anything

and it's not just him. Nokama's coming to greet Gali, and Whenua is joking about showing Onua his full strength at last, and Kopaka and Nuju are both shaking their heads at them from the corner, and Matau's probably overhead, who knows, he's hardly stopped flying since he changed back; Onewa's pretending to be mad about all of it, but Pohatu's having a blast

Artakha has returned the Turaga to Toa again: the Metru, Dume, and others still alive. There is a variety of reactions to this from the Turaga, but they remember their old strength. and even the ones who would prefer to be done with their fighting days won't stand by with a threat like this on the loose

oh sure in the end many of them will give up their powers again and go back to being Turaga. but right now. it's time to fight. like they used to

He was walking alone in the woods, and that fire came back to him. It hurt coming back. He had fallen to the earth. The fire changed him. He felt the heat and pain with it until the moment he didn't. Until the heat stopped hurting. The plants around him are burnt or smoking. He realizes the danger and rolls himself over quickly, putting out a small cluster of weeds before anything can make it to the treeline and start to really burn. The fire does not singe him.

“Is it real?” he asks himself. A pressing question for someone who once spent days trapped in a Makuta's illusion. But Makuta is gone. Who would have the means and the desire to trap him in a vision like this? Perhaps it is a trick. But it feels very real.

His hands splay out above him. He looks at their backs and at their palms.

Turaga Vakama had fallen down here, and Toa Vakama stands up.

He is a Toa again. Apropos of nothing. He is Toa Vakama.

“Alright,” he says to himself. “Alright.”

And then, with a sort of long-legged swiftness and an easy grace he hasn't experienced since what feels like a time before time, Metru Vakama sprints back towards the settlement.

The path takes him and little else matters; he won't allow himself to dwell, reflect, or plan even for a second until he's seen the others. It's only minutes before he's back in view of the first rows of impromptu shelters and tents, racing past a pair of Agori and dodging a herd of tilling Bo-Matoran who gape at him openly as he goes by.

“A new Toa!” he hears one say to a friend. “Where do you suppose he came from?”

“Is there danger in the woods?”

He keeps on until he's in the thick of things, forcing himself to break from a sprint, though he makes no attempt to hide his haste, panting as he moves through the crowd gathering to start distributing and receiving a midday meal. He had been hungry earlier, but now he feels so full of energy – of vigor – he can't imagine needing to eat. He spots a familiar face and calls to him. “Agni! Have you seen the other Turaga?”

Agni stops short with a bag of barla lifted onto his head, blinking at Vakama in surprise. “S-sorry, Toa? The Turaga?”

Is he so unfamiliar? Agni is looking at him like he might know, but isn't confident enough to call him Vakama. And he has no time to explain. “The Turaga Metru,” he says.

“Some of them are still home. I saw them working outside,” Agni says. “Sorry, have we...?”

“Thank you,” says Vakama, turning to leave. A cry going up from the crowd interrupts him, and he sees a pair of Ga-Matoran heading in the direction of those waiting for a meal.

“News, brothers and sisters,” one is calling. “New Toa! Where are the Toa Mata? Where is Turaga Dume? Send them, there are new Toa at the Turaga's hut!”

Agni looks back up at Vakama in shock. He is not the only one turning his way. Fingers point in his direction. “You do look just like Turaga Vakama! You know him – admire him! That's why you look like him. You're from my village? You got a Toa stone? Who? Kapura? Is it you?”

“Now, Agni,” Vakama chides him, “when have you ever seen Kapura in a hurry?”

He triggers his mask.

His disappearance causes an outcry, and now the crowd kicks up a real excitement, everyone pointing to where he was or turning to the Ga-Matoran for news. Vakama just runs.

The memorial stone Onewa was working on for one of his Matoran is still in the same place outside their shelter he was when Vakama told him he was going for a walk almost an hour ago, but his brother is nowhere in sight. A small group of Matoran stands outside the shelter, speaking in a mix of nervous, low tones and vibrant thrills, but the curtain over the shelter opening is drawn shut, and no one goes through until he does. He pulls the curtain aside and a small “ooh” of excitement follows him as the fabric shifts aside as if on its own.

Onewa looks up at the shifting of the curtain too. He and Whenua are sitting down against the wall of their shelter as though they had both had dizzy spells.

“The hell did you do this time, fire-spitter?” Onewa asks.

Vakama disengages his mask and stares at the two of them, shaking his head slowly at the way the memories rise up in him, painful and fond alike. Toa Onewa: a color bronze that's almost gold in the light, flinty-eyed, broad-shouldered. And Toa Whenua beside him, powerfully-built, ebon-dark, smiling faintly and looking at the weapons in his lap.

“Wasn't me,” Vakama says finally.

“We were just talking,” Whenua says. “I just felt strong again.”

“Yeah? Well, I felt like I was twisted til I broke,” Onewa retorts. “If the Great Spirit was going to do this, why not do it while he was here transforming the whole planet?”

“I don't think this was the Great Spirit,” Vakama says, “or if it was, something gave him reason. Are you both alright?”

“Maybe better than alright,” says Onewa. “If this is real, that is.”

“Tahu and the others sought out Artakha for aid,” Whenua points out calmly.

“You think they could have had something to do with this?”

“He does need more Toa.”

And Toa are also the ones being hunted, these days. None of them say this out loud, but the reminder makes Vakama's hands feel hot. “Where are the others?”

“Matau's been gone all morning. Nokama and Nuju went off to talk more about wells. How can there be so much discussion about where to drill wells?” Whenua shrugs his shoulders in reply to his own question. “It must have happened to them too, don't you think?”

“I sure hope so,” Onewa agrees, “because I am not interested in having to go on an adventure with just the two of you.”

“Stay here and I'll bring them back,” Vakama says. “And say something to the Matoran, will you?”

Onewa sighs and heaves himself to his feet, stepping outside the shelter without further preamble. “Alright, alright,” he calls. “Everything's alright. I know this is exciting, but we still need to sort out what happened before we can meet with everyone about this. Go back to your duties, please. And somebody send for Kopaka and his brothers.”

“You alright, Whenua?” Vakama asks.

His brother smiles patiently up at him. “Very strange,” he says. “We gave up these forms for a reason. Now they return to us. I hope it is not an ill omen.”

“The omen has already come, my friend,” Vakama says. “But if we are truly changed, maybe we will have some strength to oppose the evil it brought here.”

.

He's not five minutes from home when he is full-body tackled out of the sky.

“Vakama!” screams a familiar voice, and he has no chance to dodge before Matau swoops down from the air like a bird and crashes into him so hard they both roll.

“Matau,” Vakama splutters, yanking his head out of the grass. “Why – ”

Matau's cracks up wildly at the sight of him splayed out in the dirt. He gets up on his hands and knees as if to rise, but gets stuck there from the force of his own laughter. “Vakama,” he almost sings. “Did you do this?”

“Why would I have – no! Did you do this?”

“I wish.” Matau leaps to his feet, putting his hands on his hips and bending over him to look at him better. His wings are splayed broadly behind him, shining like they did the first day he learned to use them, his dark eyes full of mirth. Vakama puffs out half a laugh despite himself. His brother.

“Look at you,” Matau purrs, almost reverent. “Toa-hero Vakama, back again. The third time you've come back to this form. Maybe it's meant to be.”

“Maybe something's tampering with us,” Vakama counters. He gets to his feet and dusts off his hands. Matau steps back from him, but he's still looking him over. Beneath the enthusiasm, Vakama thinks, Matau was just as unsure as he was that this was real. His brother's no fool, even when he pretends to be.

“Now I'm certain it's real,” Matau says, as if to confirm what he was thinking. “Nobody could mimic you like this.”

“They could,” Vakama protests. “If I was drawn from your own memories. We should be careful.”

“I don't remember you so clearly,” Matau answers. “I had forgotten that particular shy-look on your mask when you're uncertain.”

Vakama ducks his gaze, shaking his head. “If it is real, it may not be permanent.”

“I'll take it anyway,” Matau says, rocking on his heels. “The wind was glad to see me too.”

“Whenua and Onewa are at the shelter. Meet them there?”

“Aw, I want to fly,” Matau whines, even though Vakama knows his protest is only for his own entertainment. “Who can bear to be grounded another second more?”

Before he goes, he pushes slightly back into Vakama's space, smiling at him. “It's good to see you like this.”

“Go,” Vakama orders him. “I need to see to Nokama and Nuju.”

Matau points to the west. “Hahli and Nuparu were with them.”

“Did you go to check on them?”

“Nope.”

“Matau.”

“Aw, come on.” Matau shrugs as he turns to leave, smiling winningly. “We're Toa again, Vakama. When have bad things ever happened to Toa?”

.

“Turaga,” says Hahli without hesitating, turning his way.

He could have predicted it, but still, it's strange to be her height. She was his Matoran, once – in heart, if not in technicality; she had spent enough time hanging around Ta-Koro and laughing with Jaller and Takua for her to count as his – and then she was the tired Toa coming back to them all from out of the ocean, tall and finned, with the gleam of glass over her eyes. And now he's the one who's changed.

“Hahli,” he replies. There's no need to hide this from her and Nuparu, who's looking at him with plaintive amazement from her side. They seem cautious, though, too. “What's wrong?”

“Nokama's in there with Nuju,” Hahli says, gesturing towards Garan's tent nearby. Garan himself is standing ponderously outside of his home, still holding in his hand what Vakama supposes was the map of locations they've been talking about drilling for wells. He nods courteously to Vakama as he comes over to him, apparently equally unsurprised as the Toa to see him like this.

“I sent the Agori and the other Matoran away,” he says. “But they will tell everyone what they saw.”

“What did they see?” Vakama asks.

“A light came to them,” Hahli answers from behind them. “Changed them. Nokama recovered herself quickly. But Nuju was in distress.”

Alarmed, Vakama steps past Garan and ducks into his tent.

Nokama makes eye contact with him instantly, setting her finger to her mouth. Shh. Vakama swallows down his questions and comes to her on his knees, though he gives them space.

Nuju's there with her, bowed over himself on the ground. His hands cover his audio receptors. He is utterly still. Neither of them speak.

“What's wrong?” Vakama asks at last, quiet as he can.

Nokama breathes out slowly. Her hand is pressed to Nuju's back as though holding him in place.

“He says he can hear,” she whispers back to him.

Vakama stares at her. By now, he had expected to find them like this: her, lithe and vibrantly blue, with her easy elegance, him snowy white and severe, his spikes a warning on his back. But it hadn't even occurred to him that something might have changed with his hearing. How long since Nuju last claimed to be able to hear anything? Thousands of years have passed since the Zivon. He's been silent – and in silence – ever since. With Matoro gone, Nokama has been his translator more often than not. Then again, he's spoken so little since they lost him.

“All of his hearing?” Vakama asks in a hush. “Or some of it? As if – ”

“As if the Zivon never happened,” Nuju cuts him off coldly, and then his own voice seems to wound him. He flinches and curls tighter into himself, breathing out a harsh breath. The sound of his voice is a shock to Vakama too. He was usually so flat and direct in his speech, but when excited, he wasn't beyond joining them in cries of victory or relief. The Great Spirit proclaims it, Vakama recalls suddenly. We are Toa.

“He needs quiet,” Nokama says.

“Let's bring him back home.”

“There will be many questions on the way there. Everyone will stop us.”

“We will take the long way around. I will distract them if we are stopped.”

She frowns down at her brother, running water gently down his neck. Nuju shudders slightly. His body emanates cold again. Vakama realizes he must be heating up the tent, which is already warm. He backs away again.

“Will you be alright, Nuju? We should get you home.”

Nuju gives out another long breath. “I'm fine,” he says tersely, voice hoarse. “What did this to us?”

“I don't know, brother.”

“I didn't ask to be fixed of anything,” Nuju whispers. “I did not ask to stop being a Turaga.”

Vakama pauses, letting him rest for another long moment.

“Maybe you are a Toa to exact some revenge,” he offers finally, “on the monster that has been robbing other Toa of their chance to one day become Turaga.”

Nuju uncurls himself slowly, drawing his back straight. His one eye is icy blue, the other hidden behind the scope Vakama made him, when they were an older form still.

“Revenge,” he says roughly. “Unbelievable. Somewhere along the line, you did learn how to lead me.”

“Wonders never cease,” says Vakama. “Come. Let's go home.”

Hahli and Nuparu come with them, and though Onewa has succeeded at dispersing most of the Matoran, others have come. Nuju looks over the being gathered in and out of their shelter with a haggard gaze, but he doesn't ask for peace and quiet now. Kopaka comes towards him from within their home, and Nuju reaches for him calmly. Kopaka bows low, and then allows Nuju to clutch his shoulder.

“What happened?” Nuju signs to him.

“I don't know,” Kopaka signs back. “I don't know any more than you do.”

“Has Tahu returned?” Vakama asks him. “This could have something to do with him.”

“No.”

Matau spots them from where he's chatting eagerly with Kongu to the side. “Nokama!” he cries in delight, and when he strikes a ridiculous pose for her entertainment, she smiles broadly and laughs at him.

“Oh, dear,” she says. “Toa Matau.”

“You look just as unhappy as ever you did as a Toa,” Matau signs to Nuju. “Cheer up, Ice Toa!”

“No, thank you,” says Nuju aloud.

Matau's smile falls from his face as though slapped off, and Vakama feels Kopaka jolt slightly back from them in surprise.

“Can you hear me?” Matau asks him, stepping forward, all teasing gone from his voice. “Nuju?”

“Let's not make a big deal of this,” says Nuju, voice rather worn.

“Give the boy some space,” comes a deep voice, and Vakama looks over to see who would think to call them 'boys,' only to find a tall Fire Toa in black and red regarding him stonily from the doorway of his shelter.

It takes a second.

“Dume,” he manages. “Mata Nui.”

“Oh yes,” says Matau. “It's not just the six of us.”

“It's all of us,” Onewa interjects. Vakama looks over to see him standing next to a Toa he once knew as a Turaga of Psionics who seemed to spend most of her time trying to keep Orde and the others in line. “Every Turaga in this settlement is a Toa again.”

“I know it doesn't help to hear this from someone else,” offers the Toa of Psionics, “but for my part, I have sensed nothing that would suggest this is an illusion or mind-trap.”

“It's true!” someone else interrupts, and from the sigh Onewa gives, Vakama suspects that this may have been happening the whole time he was gone. Still, he can't help but break into a wide smile when he sees Toa Norik coming towards him, arms outspread and laughing.

“As if it wasn't insane enough for me to be a Toa again,” he calls. “Now you as well! Toa Vakama!”

Vakama moves forward to embrace him, and Bomonga goes searching for Whenua, who laughs his loud deep laugh.

“Not feeling suddenly depressed or anything, are you?” Norik asks, perhaps only half-teasing, holding the back of his head for a moment.

“Not yet,” Vakama says. “But I'll make sure you're the first to hear about it if I do.”

Norik chuckles, rubbing at his own mask in astonishment. “Kopaka,” he calls. “What will you do?”

“I've sent Pohatu and Lewa for every Toa – or Turaga, if any remain – to gather in Mata Nui's Hall. Ackar and his people as well. Everyone needs to be made aware of this.”

“I'll be happy to help you spread the good news, Ice Toa,” Matau calls.

“Having more fighters is good news,” Kopaka replies coolly. “But you understand what this means as well as I do, Turaga. Yesterday, there were 45 remaining Toa in this camp, and perhaps on this or any other planet. Like it or not, we all knew that Marendar was targeting us, that it was trying to kill us, and that more lives are likely to be lost before we can destroy it. But it has not harmed our Matoran, the Agori, the Glatorian... or the Turaga. Now there are all of you. You will be targets as well.”

Sobering as it is, Vakama can see that it surprises no one there.

“We would not have it any other way,” Vakama says, “if it means we can help to stop this creature. I have been with Jaller every day since his injury. I would gladly have died to stop it from harming him. Or killing those we have lost.”

Dume seems to agree with his sentiment. “The last time I wore this form, I lost many of those that I cared for,” he says roughly. “I will make the choice to fight again. Let anyone who is unwilling to face Marendar give his power up to a Matoran with more heart. Those who fight will do it with intention.”

The weight on Kopaka's shoulders seems to grow lighter. Vakama looks carefully at the Toa. If it was Tahu, he would be so easy for him to read. Kopaka is less known to him. But what he does know is that the worst fear of any good leader is to lead others into danger or death. Kopaka isn't free of that burden just because he's an Ice Toa. Being Tahu's right hand won't help him either just now: his brother left him in charge of the Toa in the settlement for as long as he was gone.

“We'll go to the Hall, then,” Nokama says. “Remember, no Toa should be traveling alone these days. It isn't safe.”

She smiles to her side, where Hahli stands, eager to stay with her. The younger Water Toa smiles easily back at her, upright, confident. “We'll go into battle together,” she says. “You and I.”

Vakama looks around at his friends, changed and unchanged. Onewa nods at him from just outside the shelter, while Whenua emerges, laughing with Bomonga. Nuju is a cool presence at his side, steady as the seasons, and Matau winks at him when he turns his gaze his way, the spread of his silver wings gleaming with light.

“Together, then, Toa Kopaka?” Vakama asks, gesturing towards the gathering hall.

Kopaka bows to him too. “As you wish, Toa Vakama.”

.

By the time they return to their home, the shock is still there, but quieting now, dulling, and the fervor of the day begins to fade. Vakama lights a fire and they sit around it in silence. Matau has fallen asleep against the table, and Nuju sits in a sort of rapture beside him and listens to the fire crackle.

Vakama exchanges a glance with Onewa, with Nokama, with Whenua. Whenua starts to chuckle. Shakes his head and then shakes it again, amazed. Maybe it will only be weeks before this is over, and they go back to being Turaga. They'll choose Matoran, this time, to succeed them, and they'll return to life as they knew it. They'll return to the normal course of destiny.

Right now, though... yes. It's good to see them.

"This is insane," Whenua whispers.

"Good," Matau replies lazily, apparently not fully asleep yet. "We're insane."