Toa Kovorix: Ice-Cold Rebellion | Chapter 1: Part 1

Chapter 1
Part 1

    The Artakhan matoran were building up defenses. They always had been. Their preparations before had failed. Makuta Kojol lead his large strike force of rahkshi, visorak, and exo-toa and breached the city, stealing the Kanohi Ahvoki, the mask of light. It was a close battle, but the city was stormed and the fortress breached. The Makuta stole the mask and left. Rebuilding was initiated quickly, but the Artakhans knew simply to rebuild would not be enough. The matoran were mostly crafters, but many were warriors. Artakha, the ruler and the namesake of the island, was a crafter-warrior, but did not seek to turn the beautiful island into an imposing fortress, but a beautiful work of military architecture. Even before Makuta Teridax's voice echoed throughout the matoran universe, The Matoran had constructed a high wall around the island. It was built to the shore except for on the southern shores where the powerful crystal serpents had all been accounted for. Lekk, a toa of air using a great Komau, the mask of mind control was able to somewhat tame them and feed them The four serpents would make valuable defenses as they were during Kojol's invasion.

***

    Kovorix braced himself against a disintegration turret as the island, under the control of Artakha morphed into a natural fortress. On top of now sheer cliffs that went out directly to the liquid protodermis sea, the protosteel-reinforced wall rose another 20 bio. Beautiful architecture and carvings decorated the ivory-colored wall. Now, Kovorix was helping lift more disintegration turrets using his Great Matatu, mask of telekinesis. It felt good to use his powerful Matatu again. For the sake of training, Kovorix had not used this Matatu, made from Power-level 9 disks, for centuries. Now, a task like this was easy. He had to concentrate, but still had plenty of consciousness left to see all of the other activities around him and to be carrying on his current thought process. He watched Velika, a Po-matoran recently sent to Artakha from the southern continent along with the rest of the "Voya Nui resistance team," weld the turret in place.

***

    Bratik, the commander of the Artakhan guard, directed six squads of warrior matoran to go to the armory inside the city. It would have been a long walk for them, but Matarik, a Le-Matoran, commandeered a nearby transport and sped off towards the city with half of the warriors promising to "return in a quick-minute". Bratik surveyed the defensive preparations that had grown exponentially in urgency since Makuta's announcement. The Ta-Matoran looked over to see Tanma, a new Av-Matoran formerly in Karda Nui, powering up his jetpack and donning impact armor. It gave Bratik hope to see matoran like Tanma on the island, but only a faint glimmer of hope. Bratik stood on the highest parapet, sun glinting off his red protosteel armor, pondering if there was any possibility of success at holding off the coming onslaught.

***

    Gami prepared her mini fighter-sub that would lead the Trident squadron on scouting missions and on a frontal assault on Makuta's rahkshi transports once the inevitable invasion began. She walked around the sleek vessel and examined the twin external Artakhan Cordak blasters loaded with phase 2 seeking rockets. "Where are those energy crystals I asked for?" Gami called to Feylu, a Fe-matoran mechanic.

"They're coming your way now" Feylu answered, bringing a cart of glowing crystals.

Gami picked up two crystals and removed the engine slide. After placing the crystals in, Gami closed the engine slide and warmed up the craft.

"I'll take it out for a test run Feylu"

***

    Balta and Piruk were still new to the island and in awe of the greatness of it. Balta, as well as Piruk and Kazi, had adjusted well to his new home. Garan just seemed not to fit in and Dalu was hardly ever seen. Velika was one of the elite crafters already. Balta wondered at Artakha's creation abilities. The great ruler had crafted his weapons into armor that functioned in the same way of the original blades. Artakha seemed slightly humbled that it was Karzahni who had thought of something so useful but simple to make Balta mused. Still, Artakha rewarded Balta for bringing new technology to the island. The other members weapons of the former resistance team did not seem to interest the great crafter as he had seen them many times before. Balta wondered what Artakha looked like, but knew he needed to focus on his work. Piruk had appeared next to him calling him to help with setting up a defense mechanism.

***