This past week much happened. It was quite chaotic, actually. Our team was involved in two separate campaigns, one involving those Crynok scouts, and another involving out old enemies resurfacing. To top it all off, our Alliance has been expanded in number from seven to twelve! This victory has not lessened the peril we faced this week, however. Our enemies are greater in number than we previously suspected, and are beginning to put more effort into eliminating us.
I will start off with the story involving the Crynok scouts since Matu and Hoka were the main personnel involved, they are waiting for me to take down their story, and also because I do not wish to keep them waiting. Apparently out Ta-Matoran craftsman Matu and our Ga-Matoran huntress Hoka were out collecting resources when Hoka saw something strange. Beckoning for Matu to follow, she led him over to an odd-looking rock. Apparently the rock had a burn scar on it that was oddly dark, as if whatever had burned it produced coal where anything else would have produced ash. At any rate, it was a strange sight that the Matoran had not time to observe since they heard footsteps coming their way. Wisely, our two Matoran friends ducked behind cover, but Hoka kept her disk launcher ready and aimed at the source of the footsteps. When the Matoran saw that it was the Crynok, Matu wished to go and greet them. Hoka kept him down, advising him that the Crynok would see the situation as the Matoran spying on them and not respond kindly.
So they kept watching. The Crynok stopped by the gunky rock and nodded to each other before simply standing still as if they expected something to happen. Something did, Hoka tells me. Another Crynok showed up. This one was a female, like Buraka, but clad in ebony and gray armor, wearing a different mask, and carrying a more slender, needle-like staff. The black Crynok appeared suddenly and spoke to her kinsmen abruptly, startling them. Matu tells me that the female, whom he heard addressed as Vaturi, spoke shortly to Panuko in an angry fashion before casually gesturing over to where the Matoran were hiding, pointing them out to Buraka and Panuko.
Immediately Panuko tried to encase the two in ice crystals. The Matoran dove from their cover, Matu drawing his sword and Hoka rolling before coming up firing her disk launcher. The energy disk connected with Panuko, it seemed, but then passed through harmlessly.
Buraka shouted that the Matoran were letting Vaturi get away, to which Vaturi noted in response that, in doing so, Buraka had revealed the true motive of the Crynok on their island was to forcibly bring the renegade Vaturi back. Vaturi then assured her sister that she was not leaving, firing a bolt of what appeared to be shadow energy to accentuate the point. Buraka screamed and fell on her back, driven down by the force of the blast. Panuko whirled and leaped at Vaturi, swinging his staff over his head, but the female Crynok vanished from sight, leaving Panuko to hit the ground awkwardly. Hoka described it as if the black-armored one had melted into the shadows cast by the trees, whatever that means.
Vaturi reappeared about twenty feet away and attacked again, slamming her staff into the ground. The action sent shadow energy crawling through the ground toward Panuko. Matu says some of it even leaped out of the ground like tentacles and encircled him. Hoka says she was too busy shooting at Vaturi to notice. The Crynok renegade batted away Hoka’s disks with her staff, then seemed to flash by as a shadow to rip Hoka’s launcher out of her hands. Vaturi then proceeded to shoot Panuko with her launcher, but in the act of doing so she accidentally freed Matu from his bonds.
At this point the two Matoran snapped into action as one, they tell me. Matu lunged forward and tossed a low-power Kanoka Blade of Freezing at Vaturi (he crafts throwing knives from Kanoka disks), which bounced off her armor, but subsequently encased her in ice. Hoka then wrested her launcher free from the icy shell surrounding Vaturi. The female Crynok wasted no time in breaking free, however, shadow energy seeping from her body and splintering the ice around her.
At this moment the Matoran say they heard a noise coming from our camp. It was a crash, and it distracted them both for merely a moment. That moment, however, was enough for Vaturi to slip away as if she had never existed. The Matoran considered chasing her, but decided to return home and see what the ruckus was all about.
The ruckus was actually the sound of Rohko smashing Infernix face-first into the stone wall near our home cave. The Vahki Ultima, as they called themselves, had attacked us again. Apparently they were successful at exhuming themselves from the muddy graves we left them in. They decided somehow that attacking Rohko, Vohk, and the Fuzors would be a good idea. When Makuta Burtok made these robots, he apparently skimped on intelligence.
At any rate, I was off by myself foraging at the time. I realized that my last outing had not ended very well, so I was looking every which way, prepared to fight whatever might leap at me from some shrub. I was not expecting the next set of beings I discovered to just walk up to me and introduce themselves, however.
Those silhouettes I mentioned that seemed to be stalking us? Put all thoughts of them being hostile to rest. They are friends, and as of this writing, they are teammates, as well! When they seemed to be stalking us, they were simply watching us and trying to determine whether we were friend or foe. Their leader, a red-and-silver Toa of Lightning named Voran, had apparently assessed that we were no threat and were simply fellow refugees on this island.
Voran was as tall and powerful-looking as any Toa, but his teammates were abnormally small. They told me that something had happened to them some time ago, but none of them remembered it. They remember that they lost contact with a teammate in the process, though. At any rate, they were the Toa Tronux, and they had been here for some time trying to make a living. They saw it as beneficial to team up with us, since we were out to do the same thing. Conveniently, they also seem bent on defeating and driving away Makuta Burtok, much as we are. I believe we will get along just fine.
I brought the new recruits to our camp to find it plunged into combat. Thranatuka, Jardel, and the Vahki Ultima were fighting my brother, the Matoran, Vohk, and Zakalonn. It was a losing fight, but with five new team members tailing along behind me, it was one that was shifting its balance in our favor. Our new comrades quickly made their entrance and their introductions to Rohko, and he approved their admittance into the Avenging Alliance. The very next words to exit his mouth comprised a command to flatten our enemies and scatter them like dust to a wind. My brother for you.
Suddenly, just as we were beginning to win -- which was ticking Thranatuka off quite a bit, I might add – a new force came into view. Flying at us on a mechanical rocket-glider was a figure in black armor wielding a type of rifle, black energy cracking around his hands. Following him was a skinny figure in green armor, his weapon stained with acid venom and his eyes a pale red color. The black figure ordered the green one to attack, which the green figure mechanically complied to. He never seemed to be all there for the entirety of our encounter. He always seemed as if he had been wiped of all spirit and emotion. The black figure identified the green one as Levuku, a name that seemed familiar to me at the time, but one I couldn’t place until later.
It was the name of the lost Crynok companion of Buraka and Panuko. Something had happened to him, or the Crynok had joined Burtok against us. I hope for the former, despite my compassion for the poor youth. Levuku is only a young one, and now he’s been brainwashed (I hope, as opposed to the alternative) into fighting his potential allies.
Suntrah, on the other hand, seemed to be ready to fight us willingly. I imagine he is a mercenary hired by Burtok to dispose of us, seeing as I had never seen him or heard Thranatuka mention him before. If he was around the island before this battle, however, I wish I had indeed heard of him before, because a warning would have been appreciated before plunging into battle with this man. His dark power is frightening in its efficiency and lethality. In one strike, he knocked out Zakalonn and proceeded to plow his glider into Rohko, knocking the wind out of my brother. Even as he did this, Levuku went to the rescue of Thranatuka, who I dare say was having his backside handed to him by Voran. Voran’s teammates sprang into action, only to have Jardel plunge into their midst. I myself attacked Suntrah as his glider swooped by, and accidentally lodged my blade in the machine. Rather than let go of my blade, I decided to hang on and see what happened.
Immediately Suntrah noticed me. He actually seemed to know I was there before he could possibly have seen me or heard me. I am not sure how. He fired a bolt of dark power from his hand, which somehow missed me. I responded with a point-black spinner aimed at him, but a quick application of his dark power put up a field in the spinner’s way and incinerated it. I swung my blade at his shins, trying to knock him off his machine. I was being swung around too hard to be able to strike very hard, and my strike simply bounced off his armor. That was when I noticed how he was steering. He was doubling around and swooping in low for a pass on my team, but that was not what scared me the most. He was also aiming to scrape me off as he flew along the ground. That was when he aimed his rifle at the Toa Tronux and prepared to pepper them with ammunition. Desperately, I reached up toward him and grabbed his gun, trying to bring its aim lower so that he would miss.
For the record, I didn’t mean for his shots to go into my leg. That was his doing, using my efforts to shift his aim from my friends to me. It hurt a lot. I must admit, Suntrah is good at making is next moves up on the fly. I would never have seen that coming in a million years.
Despite my scream of pain, I got my other leg on board and began grappling with Suntrah, trying to knock him off the glider so the team could fight him as one. I held his gun pointed upward and made sure to grab him by the wrist to avoid his dark power being unleashed on my hand. All the while we continued our downward swoop. As we came in low, something wonderful happened. Apparently the Toa Tronux got some backup from Rohko, who sent Jardel flying through the air at high speed. The strange being happened to collide with the glider as he shot by. This turned out to be the most important moment of the whole battle.
Jardel slammed into the glider, which knocked Suntrah and myself off and dislodged my blade. However, it also got Jardel’s foot caught in a slot in the glider’s armor. With no pilot, and with Jardel’s weight now directing it, the craft shot upward, through the trees, toward the water beyond the island, and off into the distance. We have not heard from Jardel since.
As this happened, Suntrah and I hit the ground hard. Unfortunately, we landed on Vohk, who was in the middle of distracting and infuriating Thranatuka. Quickly I collected my blades and stood up, leaning on the wall for support. Suntrah was beginning to rise, but I kicked him with my good leg to discourage that move. Vohk pleaded for backup as Thranatuka advanced on him, and I responded with a blade tossed in his general direction. When he whirled and began to mock me, I simply smiled as Vohk snuck up behind him and plunged his electric stinger into Thranatuka’s back. The Runask hit the ground and lay still, unconscious.
I turned to see how the fight against Levuku was going, only to see him being surrounded by the smaller Toa Tronux and hammered by their combined powers. Suntrah began to rise once more, and when I tried to kick him again, he was ready. He blocked my kick, then grabbed my leg and brought me in close for a whack to the face with his own leg. The blow sent me sprawling.
At this point I can’t attest to have actually seen the events unfold, but it sounded like Vohk challenged Suntrah to a fight, but the dark-powered Runask simply used a smoke bomb to cloak his escape. He left, and took Thranatuka with him as well.
My eyes opening again as the pain in my face subsided, I glanced out at the fight. Levuku’s deadly acid was keeping the Tronux at bay, but Rohko had a perfect ambush set up. At least he did until Crystallox tried to tackle him from behind. All that the robot accomplished was grabbing onto Rohko’s neck and dangling from his back…and alerting Levuku to Rohko’s presence. The Crynok whirled and fired acid at my brother, but Rohko managed to flip Crystallox over his shoulder and have the Vahki receive most of the blast. Some acid still found its way to Rohko’s arms and legs, however. I saw him wince at the pain.
Infernix met a high-voltage defeat by Voran’s hands, and the Toa now joined his teammates in fighting Levuku. Surrounded, the brainwashed Crynok saw no way out, that is, except a prompt rescue in the form of Suntrah suddenly swooping by. Apparently he has wings. Why he was using a flying vehicle is as much a mystery as why he was working with a ponce like Thranatuka in the first place. Levuku grabbed Suntrah’s outstretched arm as he passed, and in a moment the pair were gone.
Rohko was very mad, and needed to blow off some steam, so he tried out his pitching arm on the Vahki Ultima. He set a new world record for the Vahki Toss. I lost sight of them as they soared into the foggy jungle in the distance.
The Toa Tronux assimilated themselves into our ranks effectively shortly after this, and moved all their supplies to our cave, which they also helped us expand. Mine and Rohko’s wounds were treated, we recovered, and the next few days of the week went by without much else to say. With the new additions to our team, I look forward to seeing what we can do against Burtok and Rayzok sometime in the future. For now, however, we will bide our time, and we will keep fighting, because that is what we do. We are the Avenging Alliance. I am Kanahka. And I am done with this journal entry.