Spot the Mega Man 7 (Megaman? MegaMan?) reference in here. And the two Bob and Doug McKenzie references. If you get one, good for you. If you get two references, that's great. If you get all three, YOU GET A COOKIE!^-^ Okay, so this chapter sees some interesting developments...and Kavin being more Kavin-ish. In previous chapters he was being a bit too gloomy for me, so I tried to get him to be a bit cheerier. Also, Ciox finds a new feature about his weapon (remember in the description of his weapon? 'Tiny buzz saw'). Don't worry, 'gimmicks' are definitely NOT going to be integral to the plot in any way. Now, read on in the next chapter! Yeehar.

Chapter 11: On-Ship

Ciox stood on the deck of the airship, feeling the air shoot past his streamlined mask. He grabbed his trident and looked at it. The buzz saw in the middle bugged him. What was it for? As he pondered it, it suddenly began to spin. The sudden movement and noise startled Ciox, but what startled him even more was when the saw jumped straight out of the holder and into his hand. It began to expand, until it was large enough to cut through a good-sized tree. In the center of the saw was a handle, which was the only thing that didn't spin. He gripped it, but didn't know what to do with it otherwise. Then he got an idea. He tossed it down the length of the deck, and after flying for a while, it disappeared. Ciox frowned. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"I guess so," said Romcron, who was standing on the deck ladder right behind Ciox. Ciox jumped and turned around. "The creators of that weapon wouldn't just make a weapon that didn't work properly."

"That's true," said Ciox. Suddenly, the saw reappeared in Ciox's hand, and it was only quick reflexes that prevented him from dropping it straight through the floor.

"Aha," said Romcron, stepping onto the deck. "The saw is designed to return to the thrower's hand after a while. Useful."

"How'd you figure that out in two seconds?" asked Ciox.

Romcron chuckled and clapped Ciox on the shoulder. "Kid, when you've been around as long as me, you figure out weapon gimmicks pretty quickly. I remember one guy who had a weapon that shot springs. He was kind of disappointed, but he made the best of it." He materialized his staff-club-thing, then looked at it with a nostalgic smile. "When I first learned how to create this, I was kind of annoyed that I couldn't create something with a bit more flare, or a gimmick, like your trident has. Now I wouldn't part with it for the world."

The dinner bell rang, and Romcron shifted his shoulders backward in a circle, loosening them up. "I'm going down to dinner. Brulaz has the helm for the moment. You coming?" he tossed back as he stepped onto the ladder again.

Ciox nodded. "Yeah." He stepped onto the ladder as Romcron descended, then followed suit.

...

Ciox stepped into the dining hall, spotting his fellow Toa sitting at a table with a large slab of meat and a bowl of small roasted potatoes on it. The meat had chunks missing, and the potatoes looked a little scarce. Ximtar and Wildr seemed to be in the middle of an argument. Ciox walked over and took a seat next to Icras. "What are they arguing about?" he asked.

"Whose weapons are better," said Icras. "Wildr says that her slash-sword is better than his thud-club, and Ximtar says her weapons are just easy-cheap ripoffs of his."

"Do you see this?" shouted Wildr, brandishing her sword inches from Ximtar's mask making him jump slightly. "It's a sword. If I wanted to, I could put it through your head right now with a simple thrust. If I was on the receiving end of your club, the most I would get would be a headache."

Ximtar batted the offending yellow weapon out of his face and hefted his club and shield. "Your shield is exactly the same as mine, but...yellow, with lightning bolts on it. Mine came first, so mine is better. My club reacted instantly to my power when I picked it up. What does yours do? Squat. Zilch. Nada. Quatro."

"Quatro?" said Kavin skeptically.

"Whatever!" Ximtar snapped.

Singva slammed her hands down on the table, surprising everyone and drawing their attention. "Stop your nonsensical fighting!"

"Nonsensical?" said Kavin.

"Pointless," explained Singva. "You two are chattering like ignorant little brakas!"

"That's my line!" said Romcron from another table.

"WOULD YOU ALL SHUT UP?" yelled Singva angrily. She composed herself and turned back to Ximtar and Wildr. "Wildr! I never would have thought of you to be so childish! Arguing over who's weapons are better." She scoffed. "Mata Nui above. You two are Toa. Tooooooooaaaaaaaaa," she said, drawing out the word to make it clearer. "Why do we have to argue amongst ourselves when there are bigger problems to face?"

Ximtar chuckled softly, and Singva turned her anger on him, cutting his chuckles short instantly. "And you! Always acting like you're better than the rest of us! Kavin told me himself: you were a farmer. A farmer, of all things! Any one of us has the right to claim we're better than you, yet we don't! Why do you?"

Ximtar tried to come up with an answer that would make him sound genuinely superior without sounding lame, and came up short. He just shrugged instead.

Singva stood up, slamming her hands on the table and making a potato roll off the table for freedom. It was immediately squished as she stormed out of the hall.

There was silence. No one had ever seen Singva angry before.

Then she poked her head back in. "Was I too loud?"

"No, no," said Icras, picking up the squashed potato. He sniffed it, brushed some dirt off it, and stuffed it in his mouth. "Mmm," he said. "Boot-potato. Yum."

Singva walked back over to the table and sat down with her fellow Toa. "Um..." she started.

Wildr held up her hand. "No need to apologize. I was acting like a stubborn youngster, even if Ximtar is a mindless buffoon who couldn't tell his club from his–"

"HEY!" shouted Ximtar, brandishing his club. He then hefted his foot onto the table and pointed to his club. "Club." He pointed at his foot. "Foot."

"Ohh," said Kavin. "She was going to say foot. Okay then."

Ximtar put his foot on the ground and re-strapped his club. "I'm not sure I want to know what you were thinking."

"Just eat your dinner," said Wildr.

...

After dinner, Ciox retired to his room. Kavin followed not long after.

"Good day, eh?" said Kavin.

"Not bad," replied Ciox. He looked at his trident lying on the ground beside his bed, or, more specifically, the saw in the center. His trident had held a hidden power he hadn't seen yet. It made him think: was that the case with his own body? Did he hold amazing secrets just waiting to be found? He turned his gaze to his armoured hand. Not for the first time, he marvelled at how different the change from Matoran to Toa had made him. Gone were the short, chubby, child-like digits, replaced with a more powerful, stronger fist. Gone was the old, humble Ciox, here was the new...humble Ciox. Alright, so maybe there weren't as many changes as he'd thought.

As he was marvelling at his hand, his hand suddenly released a blast of sonic energy straight at the wall. The energy hit the wall with a resounding shriek, then there was a hole in the wall. Icras was on the other side of the hole, peering through at him, mask fading into bright green.

"Oh. Just you. Okay then, happy-night, Ciox. Calm-sleep tight." And Icras was asleep. Go figure.

Kavin, on the other hand, was not. "What did you just do?"

"Um, fired a sonic blast through the wall," said Ciox, pointing at Icras.

There was a pause.

Then Kavin shrugged. "Well, I guess that's good. Just be careful with that power of yours. We've all seen firsthand what might happen when you lose control."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I'm tired. Go to sleep," said Kavin, sounding genuinely ticked off. This day was full of firsts: first time seeing Singva mad, first time using his saw, first time seeing Kavin annoyed...first time getting a full night's sleep in a while.

...

In the morning, Ciox awoke to hear Brulaz on the announcements.

"Hey! Newbies! Up and shine! ...No, that's not right. Rise and attem! ...Wait. Um, Romcron?"

Romcron's voice was heard quietly in the background. "Just tell them to wake up."

"Okay. Hey, wake up. Okay, now that you're up, good day. Just figured you'd all want to see the island where you'll be taking your entry exam."

That got Ciox out of bed. He grabbed his trident and rushed upstairs. Kavin was trailing sleepily behind, leaning on his lance for support. Ciox was the first one to the deck.

The island was large, larger than the last one. Smoke rose up from various sections of the island, indicating settlements, but one smoke source was a large forest fire. The puddle-shaped island looked peaceful, but it was more than met the eye. The rest of the Toa were slowly drifting up to the deck.

"Why are you up here so early?" said Ximtar.

"I wanted to see the island," said Ciox.

"Nerd."

Brulaz (who had been on deck the whole time) pointed at the island. "That there is the island of Yina Nui. It's inhabitants are some Matoran, some Rahi...and some evil-nasty rodents you wouldn't want to seek-find in a dark alley. They're called Kinlo Nui. 'Great Rat'. They are some of the worst creatures you can see-meet."

"Oh, boy," said Icras sarcastically. "Rat-creatures. Just what I wanted."

"Not only are they big-huge, strong-bad, and hungry, they also have reign over the 6 basic elemental powers: Fire, Air, Stone, Earth, Water, and Ice."

"Rat-creatures with superpowers. Lovely."

Ciox interrupted. "Can I assume our job is to stop the spread of these creatures?"

Brulaz nodded. "Right. Be careful though, the Kinlo Nui have a dark-hate for anything that isn't a Kinlo Nui." As he spoke, a large tree toppled over in the forest fire, and a mass of dark shapes scurried away from the crime scene. "That includes stationary objects."

Brulaz cracked his knuckles. "Right then. Now, you all see that one dark-smoke pillar over there?"

"Oh, Mata Nui," said Wildr. "Don't tell me it's this again."

"Go there," said Brulaz, attempting to push all six Toa out of the ship with a gust of wind.

It didn't work. Icras countered with his own gust, creating a mini-tornado on the ship's deck. "Oh, no. Not this time. We aren't falling for that fool-trick again. Fool-trick me once, shame on me, fool-trick me twice, shame on me. There must be fly-boats or something."

Brulaz smiled and nodded. "Nice going, Icras." He dispelled the tornado with a flick of his hand. "I'll take you to the sky-ships. Romcron?"

Romcron (who was standing behind him) created six rods of iron and smashed each Toa in the face with one. Brulaz then blew them out of the ship.

...

Ciox' mind was still reeling from the blow he'd been given. A big piece of iron to the face was not the wake-up call he'd been expecting. He fell, tumbling end-over-end, through the air, just like last time, except this time there was less Aaargh we're falling and more Mata Nui, that really hurt going around.

Ciox suddenly remembered his mask power, and concentrated on a Gukko bird. Less than a second later, he was a four-winged flying machine. He plunged into a nosedive and swooped under Wildr. She fell onto his back, knocking him downward, but not breaking his flight. He then swooped under Ximtar, with the same result.

Icras and Singva were fine, it seemed. Icras had discovered an unexpected gimmick to his weapons. He held his weapons pointing out behind him, and a green film was spread between his daggers and his waist. He held his arms out straight, occasionally flapping his arms like a bat.

"Isn't this cool?" he shouted, a giant grin on his face. Ciox gave him the Gukko equivalent of a grin. Icras smiled back, unaware of how grotesque a smile looked on a Gukko face.

Singva had called upon her water power, and a pillar of water was rising up from the sea to greet her. All that left was...

Kavin fell, tumbling end-over-end, through the air. He tried to think; it was tough after the iron blow to the head. Luckily his mask was still okay, so he did what Romcron recommended and tried to call on his mask power.

Kavin shrunk down to the size of a raindrop. "Hmm," he said. "This could be useful...in some other situation."

Icras saw Kavin falling (through his mask power) and pulled his wings in close to himself. He started into a nosedive until he was at Kavin's height, then called on his elemental power. A tiny platform of air materialized under Kavin, and Icras, using his power to keep aloft, held out his hand. Mini-Kavin hopped onto the outstretched arm and ran along until he was behind Icras' mask. Icras released his hold on the wind and continued falling down to the ground.

"You're getting good at this," said Mini-Kavin in a high-pitched, squeaky voice.

Icras tried to look at Kavin in puzzlement at his sudden change in voice pitch, but Kavin was standing right behind his mask. He gave up trying to look at him and figured that the voice came with the stature.

...

Thirty seconds later, the six Toa were standing on the beach, unharmed except for where they'd been smashed with iron.

"That hurt. Like, a lot," said Ximtar.

"Deal with it. We all got hit too," said Singva, healing the pain in her team-mates' faces.

Ciox, who was morphing back into a Toa, clapped-his wing-hands together. "Should we keep moving?" he said. "I'm not sure where the smoke-cloud is from here, but I have an idea. Wildr, your mask allows you to see far away, right?"

Wildr nodded. "That's what Romcron said."

"Can you use that? I remember Romcron saying something about spreading your mind's eye floating far away or something like that, so you can look out over the whole island without having to move. Sounds useful for a scout."

Wildr nodded. "I'll try it." She closed her eyes and concentrated on her mask.

Then she fell face-first into the sand.