[center][h3][color=green]Lewa[/color][/h3]
[b]Ruined Church[/b][/center]

With his weapon now in hand, ready to carve a path toward freedom or channel his elemental power if need be, Lewa felt his confidence returning. If he was going to have any one friend in a bizarre and unfamiliar place like this, full of unknown organisms and dangers with no sign of any way home, it might as well be his trusty axe. It had enabled him to brave the island of Mata Nui with all its perils, from infected rahi to the Bohrok swarms. It should help him brave this new realm, too. And besides, wasn’t the discovery of new and fascinating creatures something he enjoyed? Lewa took long, slow breaths, pragmatically trying to push past the unreal superficiality of everything in front of him to find common ground. Once he had that foundation, he could build on it to reach a functional level where he could interact with his surroundings more or less as normal–or at least, the toa sure hoped so.

For one thing, Lewa wasn’t the only one who seemed to be a fish out of water here. Even among the fleshy ones, there were some who recoiled from the others. One, garbed predominantly in black and adorned with a long curtain of burgundy plant fibers that extended from her head, fled toward the wall in an odd manner. Her biology might be foreign to Lewa, but her body language struck him as oddly familiar, suggesting heavy fatigue or some sort of injury. He hoped she’d be okay; even if he possessed the medicinal knowledge of the Le-koro healers, it would be useless against organisms like these.

There was another, clad in heavier garments of beige and white, with fibers like polished silver. Instead of panic, she moved with an air of certainty, and her decisive action made one thing crystal clear for Lewa. These creatures might be short like matoran, shorter than him by two feet or more on average, but they were far from powerless. As he watched, his yellow-green eyes shining through his mask, this organism smashed a huge door off its hinges. “Such strength,” he marveled, having assumed that creatures of meat must be far more frail than beings of protodermis like himself, only to witness physical might on par with Onua.

Once she went to leave, Lewa focused on another organic who was talking. This tiny one, and the even smaller thing next to him, were pitiful enough to make even a matoran look like a toa. As he tried to explain what was going on, several of his words went over Lewa’s head, but the Spirit of Air found his heartstrings tugged nonetheless. These minuscule, pleading creatures needed help, that much was for certain. The others seemed inclined to oblige, even the black-and-burgundy one that seemed unwell earlier, and Lewa decided that he would, too. As an appointed guardian of Mata Nui, it fell to him to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves. How could he call himself a toa otherwise?

Of course, that decision was hardly the end-all, be-all. Even if his answer to their cry for help was ‘yes’, the questions of ‘how’ and ‘against what’ remained. Lewa watched, impressed, as the one who called herself Sanae floated into the air. That power didn’t look elemental, so clearly these people didn’t need masks in order to access supernatural abilities. Just one more preposition he needed to throw out the door, he supposed. She flew away, and the others went to action. A tiny organic that Lewa thought amongst those who needed aid instead marched forth to render it, watched over by a warrior in strange gray armor. Lewa shook his head, his doubts beginning to resurge. Could he assume [i]anything[/i]? He needed ground to stand on if he was going to make a move.

As the others took action, Lewa couldn’t keep track of all of them. There was too much going on. He understood by now that there were enemies outside, though that concept by itself would’ve felt foreign to him if not for recent events. Before the Bohrok, Mata Nui had no ‘enemies’. Just the adversary, Makuta, and the rahi possessed by the infected kanohi masks. If not for him, the only real dangers of the island would be running afoul of one of those rahi just trying to survive day to day. That changed when the Bohrok arrived, though. Those monsters were weapons made for war, meant only to destroy the beauty of nature and all that Mata Nui’s people held dear. They had no right to live, if they could even really be called ‘alive’, and they represented an ‘enemy’ that Lewa and his brothers should exterminate without reservation. Were these ‘Raven Heralds’ similar?

Regardless, he did not join the others as they exited the church. Maybe the enemies were out there, but the creatures he needed to protect were in here. Leaving them alone to go out and kill seemed like missing the forest for the trees. Instead Lewa crossed the interior of the building and knelt a few feet away from the children. “Fear not, little-things. I, toa-hero Lewa, pledge to uphold your right to live. Whatever might come our way.” So saying, he rose to his full height and turned his back to the children, fixing his eyes on the church’s entrance with his axe at the ready.