#the third has the turaga screaming; energy crackles around their bodies (are they becoming more solid?) and between them

[legend-as-old-as-time]

Yes, and then Piraka transforming into the GSB makes everything worse! Leading to Ignika somehow being dropped in Lake Naho. Maybe even out of sight, leaving the toa and turaga without information where she is, because the Piraka refuse to say.

I remembered suggesting Vakama in that previous ask because of the parallels between him and Matoro in canon. There's hints that the writers patterned part of Matoro's arc after Vakama's journey in Time Trap and adapted specific plot points. It feels thematically fitting for the AU that Vakama's near-death parallels Mata Nui's death and resuscitation, and whatever happens to Matoro when he revive the latter with the Ignika.

If Tien helps in the fight with the Golden-Skinned Being as we've been speculating, that means the fusion happened a relatively short time before Vakama's vision. The mental link is even stronger than usual - so the already huge, hurting emptiness where he should be becomes a tear cutting into the other five turaga's very being. They're heightened like in an echo chamber. Maybe they even experience, like a vision, the moment his heart stops.

I've remembered a plot point I suggested - how the toa and turaga learn that the Toa Inika (somehow) must dive into Lake Naho to the Ignika.

This has shifted significantly with the brainstorming we've done since then, but I think Vakama still could have that lethal vision containing significant information. (And his heart stopping because Mata Nui dies temporarily and the feedback plus the terror is so strong that Vakama experiences the same thing as Mata Nui.)

Also. Tien is a thing now. They add another complication because of their physical, metaphysical, and emotional connection to the turaga.

This is at least a few months old sorry Shauni

I think definitely that can still be how they figure out that Mata Nui is dying! Ignika doesn't really have a full memory, and his Swiss cheese brain is struggling to fill in the gaps. On top of that, it's not until a little ways in that the gang actually meets up with Ignika, so they might not be in the picture yet and even if they are they'd be a fairly faulty source of information.

And yessss the addition of Tien really makes this hurt. There's almost an emotional feedback loop of shock/grief/pain/anger going around all five of them, and then relief/joy/anger (but different this time) when Hahli and Kongu revive him.

[kai-borg]

The Mangai Trio

A second chance can change everything

In a time once following the same path as its original, and so many before it, three heroes of legend fell. From corruption, betrayal, and death. 

But now, now their time has been redone. It has become far different than it once was. 

An accident happened. 

An unforeseen event that was not supposed to be.

One was sent back. They were reforged. Their body remade twice over, their mind broken yet still held together, and changed through their future experiences and knowledge of what their chosen path and its choices brought unto them.

Once cruel, malicious, a betrayer to those he should’ve held most dear all for a foolish belief that a position of higher standing, no matter the cost it would take to gain nor where it came from, and what accepting it would mean, would lead to a better life than what he already had.

Now he knows how wrong he was. His mistakes unforgettable, his consequences and failures permanently etched into his body twice over, and the memories of what he caused, where his path eventually lead, and the horrifying fate he received, forever in his nightmares.

Now all he wishes is to, while unable to fix his own self’s idiotic choices of past, ensure he does not lose his family, that which brought him his only true happiness in life, something he wished he had realized so much earlier, again.

And he has succeeded. But with his success came change. Not just for himself, and those he aimed to save, but also how time and its past events once proceeded.

A fate he’d no way of avoiding. For a second chance can change everything.

Here we have the famous trio. Different from what they once were due to times own changes.

Nidhiki, the one who fell through time.

Tuyet, the one who lived.

And Lhikan, the one who turned ‘renegade’. 

-===================-

So, first off some basic info for this AU/timeline thing. 

Basically in this world (i.e my story/Tekan’s timeline) everything basically went exactly the same as it did in the canon beyond the inclusion of Tek, who honestly could’ve just been your average background Ta-Matoran of little import, especially after they all lost their memories (I.e. his friendship with Takua) following Teridax’s temporary takeover... or at least it did at first.

The two differences, both so surprisingly small for how big the changes they caused became, but perhaps such makes sense when it is considered that both were related to the Vahi.

First was the time of the Vahi’s completion, or at least its near completion. In this world Vakama had nearly completed it early, early enough that upon Teridax’s ‘proper’ reveal through means of draining the power plant, he had a mask that, while technically wearable, was far from stable, much less controllable.

The second was Teridax’s choice in who, and what he was going to absorb. 

While, yes, he did of course take Nidhiki and Krekka first, in this world the risk of letting the Vahi, now completed to a point where he himself could easily finish it if need be, slip through his grasp was enough to tip the balance from, ‘letting the Metru escape', to instead, ‘taking them out early/at all’. Certainly a change in plan, but as we who have read the story know it would’ve honestly done little in preventing it.

In fact it would’ve most likely decreased its timeframe by an astronomical amount. Certainly, the Toa were useful in getting him what he wanted, but as was fairly obvious the Makuta themselves could’ve just as easily accomplished the tasks themselves.

There’s very little beyond a Toa that can slow a Makuta for an amount of time that actually counts, much less kill them, and honestly nothing of the sort was really utilized in protecting the various necessities of Teridax’s plan. 

Even the ‘impenetrable’ shield protecting its final, and most import ‘key’ was quite quickly shown to be a false label.

So by removing the Toa in their entirety, well, all that’s left is the OOMN and truthfully when compared with the Brotherhood, well, they’re at best just even, and at worst, rather,well, disadvantaged.

So, Teridax in this world choice to also go for the Toa following his meal of a crab-spider, and its one eyed friend. This would both removed future irritants, and gain him the Vahi, which he could easily finish himself. Especially seeing as how he’d soon absorb Vakama, the one who was making it, into himself.

Unfortunately for Teridax, said choice didn’t exactly go to plan. But hey, how could he have expected Vakama to be so desperate as to put on, and attempt to activate the unstable, highly powerful mask he’d yet to complete in attempt to stop him as he’d made a grab for the Toa.

Due to said instability of the legendary mask, upon activating it instead of simply stopping, or at least merely slowing Teridax’s shadow hand, Vakama instead literally broke time around not only his fellow Toa who were in range of the mask, but also around Teridax’s entire self. The uncontrolled temporal energy quickly latching onto, and arcing through Teridax’s entire being. Including the yet to be fully absorbed duo he’d grabbed earlier.

This ‘breakage’ of time managed to create a sort of... pause, or saved point in time. An area where no matter what actions were taken would somehow repeat itself throughout the timeline. 

A loop of sorts, but also one that saved the... imprint of the original selves of those affected. An imprint which would recombine with its ‘new’ versions, forcing them to remember how their original timeline went in comparison to whatever differences may have occurred in their new one up to that point.

It also further affected Teridax and those... ‘combined. Due to the energy that crawled through Teridax’s gaseous self being a fair bit more unstable.

Of the three two,the dark hunter duo, found themselves rocketed back in time as copies, and the third, the ‘dark lord’, found himself combined with his past self, but left with only foggy, fragmented remains of his ‘original’ self’s memories. Certainly not as great a fate as the other two, but it was more than enough to cause some... changes, some steps taken earlier, much earlier, in his plans.

In particular his choice of when he took over both the Brotherhood, and Metru-Nui. I.e. A whole lot earlier than he did in canon! The few memories he either had intact, or had managed to partially puzzle back together showing him more than enough to figure out how exactly he accomplished both before, or at least how he now could.

Due to this many other events found themselves... misplaced in the timeline. Such as certain events coming earlier, or perhaps not at all, or past deaths (or at least assumed ones) not happening when they should’ve due to the events needed to cause them not happening as they originally did.

-===================-

Nidhiki, the one who fell through time

Name: Nidhiki

Element: Air

Gender: Male

Species: mutated Toa

Kanohi: Powerless, mutated Volitak, fused to face

Weapon/s: Built in, extendable, claw daggers

Bio: Nidhiki re-entered his timeline with a crackling tear of temporal energ, pained and ragged screaming, and a fall from the apex of Metru Nui’s coliseum. 

The fatal impact itself barely lessened to a more agonizing than deadly outcome by his elementally given instincts, and the few remnants of his power he’d regained.

To say the when of his re-arrival was both the best, and worst place in time would be putting it lightly. For he’d landed just after his past-counterparts betrayal and exile, a wound, while still fresh for his siblings, far more easily mended than what it had become after being kept from healing so many times, and left to fester and grow for as long as it did in his own future, but also a time long since past the loss of one member of his ‘family’s’ trio.

Or at least it should’ve been.

To say that, after initial introductions had been completed, and some of the confusion cleared up (and certain dangers made clear), such as Lhikan’s surprised arrival to his suddenly traumatized, and clearly... ‘changed’ brother after having exiled him just a few days ago, and then ‘Dume’s’ (or should I say Teridax’s) arrival, enraged recognition of the just (re)appeared Toa, and then said Toa’s panicked attack on him, which ‘Dume’ quickly took advantage of to declare both he and Lhikan, as traitor’s of the state to the Vahki (having scheduled the forces creation much earlier), Nidhiki was surprised to learn Tuyet was somehow alive would be true. 

To say he was also beyond overjoyed, and soon after beyond terrified once he began recognizing certain events from time once long passed began, would also be.

Surprisingly enough Nidhiki quickly got Lhikan on his side. The Toa having only had past suspicions, ones gained from having Teridax impersonating his Turaga for a time far greater than before, confirmed by ‘Dume’s’ declaration.

Even more so he managed to, not only stop Tuyet before she made any attempts at murder, but also redeemed, or at least set on the path of redemption, her, well, very self. Managing to now have a sister who actually saw her siblings as family, or at least potential ones.

Following this the Trio quickly became the cities most infamous inhabitants. Becoming so-called ‘renegades’, outright betrayals of Toa-Kind, yet whose acts only worked to undermine ‘Dume’, and his so called righteous intentions.

Saving Matoran unjustly attacked by Vahki, destroying what could be considered fleets of the cities so called robotic defenders (more like enforcers of ‘Dume’s’ will as many considered them), and even more actions far too heroic for what were supposed to be such vile ‘evil-doers’ as Dume was trying to make them out to be.

Tuyet, the one who lived

Name: Tuyet

Element: Water

Gender: Female

Species: Toa

Kanohi: Mask of intangibility 

Weapon/s: Crook scythe

Bio: Tuyet, a Toa once turned murderer all in attempt to keep an artifact of such power it never should’ve been made, much less given to a single protector. For power always corrupts at least a little bit, and for one who’s mind is far from the ‘purest’, such an addictive rush (as power typically is) is very difficult to give up, whereas finding ways to justify its use is so much easier. 

And Tuyet, well, we’ve seen just how far she can push her reasoning for justification.

In this world though, Tuyet was given a fairly good reason to choose the more difficult path once her time’s Lhikan, and a Nidhiki of a different future, but still with the knowledge of what would soon come, confronted her before she was pushed to that level of justification by  the recent of appearance of some dark hunters with a certain prey in mind. She’d yet to hear of one of her brothers sudden reappearance, much less of the pairs subsequent shift to ‘villainy’, a definite stopper in her plan if she’d known earlier.

When Nidhiki and Lhikan confronted her she was just beginning to prepare for said plan as it was. So she hadn’t yet set up the preparations needed for any surprise visits, such as hiding the Nui Stone. So when the two burst into her home, they caught her red-handed. Somewhat literally at that going by the crystal’s hue.

Now, any other timeline this would’ve resulted in Tuyet attacking, and either winning the battle, or losing it, but in this one, well, while she did attack the two she was quick to willingly forfeit.

Now at this point Nidhiki had only just been, well, shot out of his temporal anomaly of a portal a few hours ago, and he was still littered with loose temporal energy. So when Tuyet activated the stone to drain the pairs powers, she got a full dosage of overcharged temporal energy channeled into her.

Enough to, while not send her through time, essentially temporarily connect her to her various selves potential timelines, and force her to witness what her fate could be.

Now while a number were, yes, shows of success, they for the most part ended in painful failure. One could certainly argue that now that she knew about how she failed she could easily work to prevent it, but it didn’t fully assure she would succeed in the first place. 

And, well, the chance she’d seen how the OOMN dealt with the main timeline Tuyet, and she’d rather not have taken the risk that she would end up being the Tuyet ‘copy’ they took.

Along with this the energy itself interfered with the Stone, it did have a limit on what it could contain and temporal energy, especially when unstable, was a powerful, powerful force.

While the stone did not outright shatter, it did... fracture when she attempted to deactivate it. It was like it was caught in a temporal anomaly of itself, both shattering, and yet not at the same time.

This ended up with her being peppered with temporaly infused shards of the Nui Stone, and being left with a greatly weakened, and structurally unsound artifact.

Following the Trio’s... fight (if you could really call it that) Tuyet was quick to throw her lot in with Nidhiki and Lhikan. The fact they both quickly made to help her following the Stone’s ‘glitch’ also helped affirm the choice as the best one in her mind.

Due to the temporal infusement of the shards of Nui Stone stuck inside of Tuyet they’re kept in a form of constant temporal instability. Permanently active, yet also infused with Tuyet’s very self, this in turn causes the odd effect of causing Tuyet to now be the main focus of their elemental energy draining, but only from the environment around her instead of other Toa as is natural for her kind.

Unfortunately she is still limited to only using her own element, thus leaving her rather stock full of useless energy of the various other elements. This is where the Stone comes into use, and why the OOMN have so far not tried to take it (beyond the fact that without she’d eventually go off in what would basically be a nuke’s equivalent of a self-feeding elemental detonation that would leave its effected area permanently wiped of all elemental energy, and the surrounding highly depleted).

Tuyet uses the stone to both filter out the various energies within herself, convert what she can, and store the rest for later use.

This also causes a number of areas on her body, namely those with visible shards in them to lightly glow with elemental energy.

At the same time that the shards absorb/filter energy they also grow, attempting to revert back to their original temporal state, but forced to remain still infused with Tuyet, and thus stuck in their current one. 

This is a very painful affliction for the Toa, but a useful one in a way at least

The infusement of time energy, and its various effects also managed to warp Tuyet’s body, stretching her into a more lanky, and thinner form. Similar to Nidhiki’s own in a way, just much less withered.

The Nui Stone

The Nui Stone, once an artifact capable of power more immense than any should have. Power that is most certainly more addictive than it is not.

As Tuyet herself can most certainly acclaim to.

Nowadays the Stone is, while weakened, still a force to be reckoned with. Just one far less versatile than it was before. 

At least if you don’t want it to shatter after a single use it is.

Lhikan, the one who turned ‘renegade’

Name: Lhikan

Element: Fire

Gender: Male

Species: Toa

Kanohi: Hau

Weapon/s: Fire greatswords

Bio: Lhikan is perhaps both the most confused, yet also happiest of the Trio. For now he has regained both his lost siblings. Even if he only remembers losing one, and even then a more recent, much less devastating loss than said brother knows it grew into.

Lhikan was quick to believe Nidhiki’s story, he’d had his suspicions of Dume for years now. He’d noticed he’d become... different, even if he couldn’t outright tell why. The fact it was his own brother, screaming in pain, mutated, and clearly aged and traumatized by events he had no knowledge of also helped.

The sudden announcement of an additional, robotic force of defenders, and a number of recent deaths, or at least near ones for his various other teammates, and some just outright disappearing, all while on missions given to them by Dume had left him even further wary.

So when Dume suddenly became enraged, and seemingly recognized Nidhiki immediately despite his mutations after arriving on the scene to see what was happening, followed by Nidhiki’s own horrified apparent recognition of him, and panicked attack Lhikan was quick to figure out his suspicions had been correct.

And only had them further confirmed when Dume labeled him an accomplice despite his own reaction to Nidhiki’s attempted attack was to stop him.

He was also quick to agree with his brother’s plan of saving his sister, though he did at first have some doubts that such was true, having seen no real proof as to her having such a dark side as of yet. At least he was until they caught her holding the stone, and would’ve most likely been killed outright if it wasn’t for Nidhiki’s remnant sparks of temporal energy.

Following this, and Dume’s soon following announcement of the Trio’s newest status as the most terrible of ne'er-do-wells, Lhikan himself decided to get some upgrades to his form to make his new vigilante lifestyle a touch easier.

From a more taller, more lanky build, similar to his two sibling’s own, just now a prposeful choice, making him far more aerodynamic, and a fair bit more suited for parkour, a useful skill when running from Vahki, and a modification to his ‘Fire board’. A modification which now allowed him to strap the two greatswords to his arms and have them also be able to act as wings instead of only a flying surfboard, a much, much more maneuverable choice, and what eventually lead to his ‘nickname’ amongst the Matoran as the ‘Darkened Angel’.

Despite how modified his form is, it’s still difficult to gain access to the necessary pieces, and people needed to keep up repairs due to his criminal status.

And while Tuyet is partially temporally anomalified, keeping her form from aging in a manner any more detrimental than just the basic aging, and Nidhiki was physically set back to quite a younger age despite his remaining mutations which would’ve come about far past it, Lhikan has none of these benefits, and it is clearly shown in the visible decrepitness of his form.

From a back hunched with age and damage, to arm dulled and rusted from battle despite his own attempts to keep it as clean as possible.

Lhikan is just happy to have his family back, even despite the rather... disheartening tales of what they would’ve done, and what his Nidhiki would be doing, had future!Nidhiki not appeared.

Lhikan’s ‘wing’ positions:

Folded/speed position

Extended/Agility position

And now to wait until someone notices it.