[center][h3][color=green]Lewa[/color][/h3][/center]

After exchanging what conjectures they could, the team was only too happy to move on from the morbid, malodorous carcass and press on into the woods. As they advanced, Lewa brought up the rear, keeping a careful watch both over his smaller organic acquaintances, and the forest itself. Though neither the trees nor the underbrush, nor the topography of the environment itself, had really changed, a subtle menace now pervaded the once-calm, once-beauteous area. Now that Lewa knew for sure that something foul was afoot among these trees, unknown horrors could very well lurk in every shadow, every hollow. The further the team went, the more still and strange the woods became. While the wind still filtered through the trees, and freshwater creeks trickled through leaf-choked beds, their whispers and burbles were now a solo act, unnerving in implication. No birdsong arose in harmonious response. Nothing stirred among the lichen-riddled logs, nor the mossy stones. Nature's symphony had faded away, its crucial parts too stricken with timidity to play. Whatever the culprit might be, the toa of air knew he was getting close.

Then, before Lewa even realized, the trap was sprung. Something dropped from the boughs overhead--something thick, ropy, and segmented, and alive. Sanae and Remilia's scream startled Lewa, and in an instant he'd snatched his axe from his back to ready for use. He watched as more of the serpentine beasts emerged, disturbed -or maybe excited- by the girls' shrieking. They burst forth in surprising numbers, scuttling on hundreds of spindly, stripy legs, a veritable tide of chitin armor, waving antennae, and clicking mandibles. 

Lewa, however, did not immediately go on the offensive. The centipedes did not frighten him, nor even register as a threat. He could see at a glance that the little bugs lacked any natural weapons that could pierce his armor, and even if they did wield some sort of venom, it seemed very unlikely that they could reach his organic components. Instead the centipedes fascinated him, as they more than anything else he'd seen so far resembled something from his own world, thanks to their hard exoskeleton and segmented bodies. Of course, the others didn't share his curiosity. For the humans, the sight of the bugs elicited a visceral response of fear and revulsion. Before Lewa could even begin to study the creepy crawlies, the organics unleashed their magic, turning the forest into a chaotic maelstrom of fireworks. It was total pandemonium. "Mata Nui..." Lewa sighed. If these writhing, wriggling beasts endangered the others to the extent that such overwhelming force was warranted, he couldn't exactly stand around and study him. Lewa went to work, halfheartedly chopping at the centipedes. If anything, he was more worried about his allies hitting one another, or himself, for that matter. Hopefully all the commotion would convince the bugs to retreat, rather than rush headlong into their deaths.