Beneath the endless ocean, in the heart of a massive cave, energy pulses course through rock. Machines that sat immobile for a thousand centuries shudder and slowly move, shaking the universe. Power races through long-disused conduits and streams further and further from Karda Nui.
Water ripples around the barren island of Mata Nui, stripped of all life and vegetation by Bohrok hordes. Powerful quakes shake the earth and massive megaliths of mountain and bedrock crash into the ocean. An immense chasm rips upward through the middle of the doomed island, each side sliding toward the ocean as something massive pushes up from below.
Far away, to the south and east and west, water foams and boils as undersea shockwaves spread from the movement beneath the sea. Gigantic whirlpools form and disappear. The sea itself heaves up towards the sky. Two halves of the island churn already-frothing waters as they slide apart and dissolve into the maelstrom.
A tremendous head made of metallic protodermis rises from beneath the shattered remains of the once-beautiful island. Water, soil, and rock cascade off its face as it rises higher and higher into the sky. Titanic shoulders breach the ocean, and an equally immense chest pivots upwards. Slowly, the robot climbs to its feet and towers above the clouds for the first time in a hundred thousand years. Yellow light gleams from its eyes as it surveys the ocean below.
Mata Nui has risen.
Later, celebrations ripple through the great city of Metru Nui. The Toa Nuva, Takanuva, and rescued av-Matoran escaped from Karda Nui just before the cave was flooded with intense energy. The Makuta trapped in Karda Nui were not so lucky, and were obliterated.
The Great Spirit is awake, and balance has returned to the universe.
Just as Turaga Dume begins to congratulate the city’s protectors, a chill wind spreads over the spectators and a voice rumbles from everywhere and nowhere. It is a voice no one had ever thought to hear again – the voice of Makuta Teridax, leader of the Brotherhood of Makuta.
“I am everywhere. I am everything you see.”
Toa Matoro had heroically brought the physical form of Mata Nui back from death, but before the Great Spirit’s consciousness had returned, Makuta Teridax replaced it with his own version. Then he had only to wait for the Toa Nuva to achieve their destiny and resurrect the great form of Mata Nui. Makuta will now rule the body of the Great Spirit, the entire universe of the Toa and Matoran. Evil laughter shakes every surface in Metru Nui.
A tremor runs through the ground. Trapped in the golden Mask of Life, the mind and spirit of Mata Nui is flung through space on a journey whose destination no one can know…..