Excerpt Sixteen

Tahu spoke the truth, for the Toa’s quest had just begun. But while they were gathering krana, a momentous discovery had been made by a Matoran named Nuparu: the Bohrok were not living creatures, but a form of artificial life, vehicles for the krana.

Using this knowledge, Nuparu took apart fallen Bohrok and used the pieces to build the Boxor, a one-Matoran defense vehicle. The Boxor would prove vital as the Matoran strove to protect their villages.

Meanwhile, the Toa followed the trail of the Bohrok’s scouts, the Bohrok Va, back to one of the nests. In a chamber below the nest, they found mysterious slots in the floor in the same shape as the various krana. Fitting the krana into the floor caused six massive doors to be revealed.

Each Toa chose a door. These doors led to long, dark tunnels, and at the end of each tunnel was a mighty suit of armor. The Toa donned this Exo-Toa armor just in time, for Cahdok and Gahdok, the queens of the swarms, had at last arrived! Possessing all the powers of the Bohrok swarms, the Bahrag queens were a formidable foe.

The Toa used the armor’s power to drive the two monstrous creatures into the center of the chamber. But once there, they discovered to their horror that Cahdok and Gahdok had grown stronger… and the battle was far from won.