Forest of Doom (Story Serial Continuation Project)

Creative Content Literature
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As most everyone knows, the Bionicle story serials ended on multiple cliffhangers, as Greg was not able to continue them. I don’t know of any fan project that has actually set out to finish the serials. So that is what I aim to do. Not just finish the stories – I aim to finish them as I feel Greg would’ve. So that means taking into account things Greg said he might have done, including building up to an eventual Great Being Civil War.

This story is a bit more chaotic than the last one, with a lot more characters to juggle, as opposed to the relatively small cast of the last one. They’re all relatively familiar characters, though, so there’s that.

Previous stories in this project:

Chapter 1

Hafu was starting to get tired of people trying to kill him.

It hadn’t even been an hour since Makuta had tossed him out into outer space, probably intending for him to suffocate in the void. Then he’d gotten dragged to this tower to free a mad Great being who could bring things to life, made the mistake of chiselling at a rock, and it tried to strangle him. And now, someone had to go and try to blow up the tower. Could the universe just give him five minutes without someone or something trying to kill him?

At least the second incident helped save him from the third. After the stones stopped trying to kill him, he decided to get as far away from the living rocks as he could, and started to explore. This fortress had been made eons ago, yet still stood after all that time, despite not having been maintained. As far as Hafu could figure, no one had been here in a long time, except for the imprisoned Great Being, until Hafu and the rest showed up.

The others were debating whether they should free the Great Being, a conversation that Hafu didn’t really think he should get involved in. Freeing a mad Great Being who could bring anything to life was way over Hafu’s head. He’d rather explore the Fortress, figure out what secrets it held.

When he got far enough from the Great Being, the rocks stopped being alive; apparently, the Great Being’s curse had a range limit. Hafu spent some time wandering the halls, seeing the dust-covered rock, the dust-covered carvings and blueprints for creations he couldn’t begin to comprehend, the dust-covered walls, the strange machinery – that wasn’t covered in dust.

That made him take a closer look. Someone had put this here relatively recently. He felt fairly certain it wasn’t any of the people here; only he and Lewa had left the chamber where the Great Being was held, and Lewa wouldn’t have bothered with machinery.

Another look around, and Hafu found more dustless machinery. Suspicious, he took a closer look at the machinery… and when he figured out what it did, his blood went cold.

The sides on freeing the Great Being were not unlike the sides of the debate about destroying the Matoran Universe, really. Helryx, Miserix, and Axonn spoke against freeing someone so clearly powerful and so clearly mad, while Brutaka and Artakha argued that a Great Being, even a mad one, could do a lot of good if he were freed. Tuyet was being watched closely by Axonn, as no one present trusted her, and she was not allowed a voice in the argument.

The argument was abruptly interrupted by Hafu running into the chamber. “We have to get out of here!” He yelled. “This whole place is rigged to blow!”

For a moment, all attention was on the Po-Matoran. This was the opportunity Tuyet had been waiting for, and she ran, leaping out the window, and fell. As she got close to the ground, she hooked her barbed sword into the wall, halting her fall.

Then she felt a rumble, and the wall started to shift. She leapt free, using her water powers to cushion her fall, and landed just as the building behind her erupted in several massive, huge explosions.

Looking back at the smoke and flames where the fortress had been, Tuyet wondered if everyone else had been killed. She quickly dismissed the idea. Many of the beings in that fortress had survived worse. There was no way she was the only survivor.

But if they had survived, if they hadn’t, it didn’t matter. She had survived, and she had her own plans. The other people in that tower couldn’t stop her. No one could.

She reached into her pouch, seeing the glowing red stone inside, reassuring herself that it was still there. Then, she turned and set off into the forest.

Hafu was surprised to still be alive.

When he’d mentioned that the building was about to blow, it was almost too late. The explosions started at the bottom of the building, giving the inhabitants some warning, but also blocking any conventional escape. In seconds, the flames and explosions had reached them, and everything was chaos. There was Helryx, trying to shield them with her water; Miserix smashing a hole in the wall that allowed them to escape; Vezon opening a portal and disappearing; and then a powerful force hit Hafu, sending him flying, and then he blacked out.

Now, he awoke to find himself in a forest. There was no sign of the others. He figured he must’ve been thrown quite a ways. Of course, he could take it; he’d always been particularly tough. He did wonder if the others were all right, though.

He stood up and looked around, realizing he didn’t know where to go. He couldn’t even tell which way the fortress was, surrounded by tall trees and a dense jungle. He’d hoped to see at least a plume of smoke he could use as a direction to go to, but no such luck.

Maybe if he could get above the treeline? Hafu shook his head. He’d tried to climb trees a few times, back on the island of Mata Nui. It had never ended well. Rocks, he could climb all day, but trees were a different story.

Then, he heard the sound of something moving through the forest. Thinking it must be one of the others, Hafu ran toward it, breathing a sigh of relief.

But then, when he pushed a tree limb aside and caught sight of what had made the noise, he realized that he’d just made a huge mistake. Because it wasn’t one of the others. It was a massive lion, and it was staring right at him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought, Oh good. Another thing that wants to kill me.

Author’s notes: this was difficult to write. Greg has said that everyone survived the tower being blown up, but not how, so I had to figure out a good way to get everyone to survive this mess. And they have to be unaware that a certain Great Being escaped, too.
Also, no, the lion is not the main villain of this story. Unless, of course, I’m lion about that. :stuck_out_tongue:

Like with the last one, chapters should be posted daily, so next chapter sometime tomorrow, probably.

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Good job. Just one complaint. You forget Kapura.

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Good chapter. Jokes are nice. Hafu might become a nice Toa one day, if he keeps surviving like that. Also I think Axonn would have said that GB should be freed - He trusts in Mata Nui and GBs too much.

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I hadn’t forgotten him, I just wasn’t sure how to mention him without it sounding awkward, but he’s just watching the debate from somewhere in the room.

This is something I bring up later, but I’ve often imagined that the imprisoned Great Being doesn’t really “feel” like a Great Being. Like, everyone in the room knows he is, assuming they believe him and Vezon of course, but they don’t see a GB when they look at him – they just see a madman with an uncontrollable power wait, I just described Vezon.

With that in mind, there’s also the fact that most people only know the Great Beings by legend. Brutaka, perhaps, knows more, and I’ve always imagined Artakha has actually met them. They’re able to look beyond the madness and see the potential; the others can’t connect the madman in front of them with the legends they’ve heard.

That’s my thoughts on how it would go, at least.

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Being awkward is the specialty of Kapura. But I think he deserve a mention. I don’t know where you will conduct the history, but maybe he accompanied Hafu to the weapon. He is slow, so if he was in the chamber, he would be death :cry:

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Don’t worry, I do have plans for Kapura. In fact, he shows up in this chapter.

Chapter 2

Somewhere near the fortress, a being muttered a string of curses.

He’d been hoping that the destruction of the tower would’ve killed everyone inside. He would’ve accepted if some of them had survived. But somehow, it seemed that everyone had survived.

He grumbled in frustration. Still, he realized, it didn’t really matter. The fortress was an opportunity, one he’d tried to seize, but not originally part of his plan. Successfully killing everyone in the tower would’ve greatly accelerated his plan, but failure meant nothing.

Besides, maybe there was a way to turn this situation to his benefit…

Being hit by an explosion and thrown several hundred feet through a forest, smashing into trees along the way, might’ve killed any other being. But not Axonn. For Axonn, such a blast was just a rough bump.

Opening his eyes to see a dragon staring at him, however, was slightly unnerving.

Axonn yelped and sat up, preparing for a fight, before realizing that the dragon was actually Makuta Miserix.

“Are you still in that dragon form?” Axonn muttered.

Miserix shrugged. “It feels fitting. I intend to stay this way until Teridax is dead, and the Brotherhood of Makuta is mine again.”

“What Brotherhood of Makuta?” Axonn answered, brushing sticks and leaves off his armor. “Teridax killed them all.”

“Good,” Miserix said. “Saves me the trouble of having to do it myself. I intend to oversee the birth of new Makuta, ones who won’t be power-grubbing maniacs.”

Suddenly, Axonn remembered the pool of Antidermis, the birthplace of the Makuta. He and Brutaka had gone there, intending to destroy it, so that no more Makuta could be born. Instead, Brutaka wound up… merging minds with the substance, somehow, and then teleported himself and Axonn to the Core Processor. The pool was likely still intact, though Axonn wasn’t sure if he really trusted Miserix with it.

He decided to change the subject. “What happened to the others?”

“I don’t know,” Miserix answered. “When the building erupted, I only managed to grab her.” Miserix gestured to the side, and Axonn noticed for the first time that Helryx was sitting there, looking a little worse for the wear.

“I’m surprised you cared,” Axonn said.

“I really don’t,” Miserix replied, “but right now, you all are my best allies against Teridax. As the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy–”

“Is my friend,” Axonn finished. “For the record, that’s the only reason I’m working with you, too.”

Helryx stood up. “We need to find the others,” she said. “Especially Tuyet. I don’t want her running around loose.”

“She leapt out of the building as soon as that Po-Matoran mentioned the explosion,” Axonn said. “So she probably survived. If she’s smart, she’s hiding.”

Helryx bit back a curse. Tuyet was a problem, a big one, if left unchecked. Especially if she still had the Nui Stone…

“Well, let’s see if we can find Artakha and Brutaka,” she said. “The Matoran, too, if they survived. I blasted them out of the tower before the explosion hit, but…”

Miserix gestured at the trees Axonn had smashed through. “Well, luckily, our big friend left a trail of destruction that we can follow back to the tower. Perhaps from there, we can find the others, if they survived.”

During the reconstruction of Metru Nui, Kapura had accidentally gotten caught in a reactivated blast furnace, and only a timely rescue by Toa Tahu had saved him. He still remembered the waves of intense heat that probably would’ve severely burned him if he wasn’t a Ta-Matoran.

That barely compared to being hit by an explosion as he fell out of the tower. Everything hurt, and he felt pretty sure he was badly burned. The explosion had also thrown him into the ground, hard. He doubted he would be moving again for a while.

Somehow, over the ringing of his ears and the pounding of his head, he thought he heard footsteps running toward him. He tried to call for help, but all that came out was a low moan. Slowly, painfully, he tried to look up, but he couldn’t see anything but smoke in front of him.

Then, abruptly, he was being lifted off the ground, a strong pair of hands picking him up and carrying him. He tried to look and see who it was, but a surge of pain kept him from moving.

“Sorry, but we need to move,” the voice of Artakha said. “Something’s coming, and I don’t think it’s good.” Then Kapura was being carried through the forest, away from the ruins of the tower.

Hafu was frozen in fear. The lion moved closer, closer, and then prepared to pounce… Hafu was ready for the end… and then, suddenly, the lion turned its head to the side, listening for a monent, and then ran off into the jungle.

Hafu breathed a sigh of relief. He’d never seen a lion that big before. Whatever this place was, it was dangerous.

“Are you okay?”

Hafu nearly jumped out of his armor at the voice behind him, and spun around to see Brutaka approaching. “Don’t scare me like that!” he cried, then berated himself for scolding the powerful warrior.

“Sorry,” Brutaka said. “Force of habit, sneaking around.” Hafu realized that Brutaka was floating a foot off the ground, meaning he made no noise through footsteps.

“Well, I guess the lion heard you coming,” Hafu said. “So, thanks.”

“We do not think the lion was scared off by us,” Brutaka said, apparently still referring to himself as ‘we’. “We can sense it. There’s something in these woods, hunting us.”

“Of course there is,” Hafu grumbled. “If it wants to kill me, it’s going to have to get in line.”

“We need to find the others,” Brutaka said. “Before they find us.”

Suddenly, Hafu heard a loud hiss, and turned to see a small red lizard crawling out of the underbrush. Then another appeared on the left, and then another on the right, and then more behind them. In seconds, Hafu and Brutaka were surrounded by hundreds of red lizards, their eyes trained on the two people in their midst.

“Too late,” Hafu said. “I think they found us.”

Author’s notes: Hafu got lucky. Helryx managed to knock him a good distance from the tower, and he only got hit by the edge of the explosion. Kapura wasn’t so lucky, as Helryx barely got him out of the tower; but I guess lucky he’s a Ta-Matoran.
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Chapter 3

Hal, leader of the Jagan Tribe of Bota Magna, was not sure what to do.

For years, the Jagan Tribe had followed a simple principle: anything that came from the tower of the Great Beings was to be treated as a threat to the Tribe, and dealt with appropriately. The Great Beings had once been revered inventors and creators, but they had gone too far in their creations, making dangerous things. They’d left this world long ago, but they left behind some of their creations.

But then, Lewa came along. He wasn’t a beast, or a mutant, like the other creations from the tower. In fact, when he’d first encountered a hunting party, he’d tried to warn them of a nearby Giant Tantor, though it seemed he didn’t speak or understand the Agori language. Hal wasn’t sure what to do with him.

Moreover, Lewa had demonstrated a control over the winds that was unlike anything Hal or her people had ever seen. Well, she’d seen the machines the Great Beings made control the elements, but Lewa wasn’t a machine; he was a person. Though he wasn’t an Agori, or a Glatorian warrior. Hal wasn’t sure what he was, and they hadn’t mastered communication enough to ask him.

He could also apparently fly with his powers. That, combined with his elemental powers and his weapons, would’ve probably allowed him to leave at any time if he wanted to. But he had let the Agori drag him back to the village, and had stayed there, not offering the least bit of resistance.

Hal’s ruminations on what to do with Lewa were interrupted by the arrival of one of one of the hunters. “Lady Hal!” the hunter cried.

Hal sighed at the interruption. “What is it?”

“There’s been… some kind of explosion!” the hunter said, panting for breath. “The… Great Beings’ Tower… has blown up!”

Hal rose to her feet. “How did this happen?” she asked.

“I… don’t know,” the hunter said. “We saw it happen… from a distance, and there was nothing but a smoking crater when we got there.”

More evidence that the creations of the Great Beings were dangerous. “Were the pens damaged?”

“That’s another thing,” the hunter replied. “They didn’t seem to have been damaged by the blast, but they were opened. There’s nothing left inside.”

Hal muttered a curse under her breath. “Rally all of the Hunters,” she said. “Inform them that we need to move!”

“What about Lewa?” the hunter asked.

Hal thought for a moment. “We’ll bring him, too. If the Great Beings’ ‘pets’ are loose, we need all the help we can get.”

As Axonn glanced at the enormous crater where the tower had been, he realized what a difficult task finding the others might be. The explosion had leveled a large chunk of the forest surrounding the tower, and while Axonn had left a trail when he’d been blasted through the forest, he wasn’t sure about the others. Had they even survived?

“I’ve found footprints!”

Axonn’s hopes soared at Helryx’s exclamation, and he rushed to her side. Sure enough, in the rough, upturned dirt left behind by the explosion, there was a set of footprints, leading away from the crater.

They weren’t Brutaka’s – Axonn knew well what Brutaka’s footprints looked like, and last he’d seen Brutaka floated rather than walked lately – and they were too big to be Hafu or Kapura’s. That meant they had to be from Artakha.

“Where was he going?” Axonn wondered.

“Only one way to find out,” Helryx said. “Miserix, can you take us over the jungle?”

Miserix grumbled a bit about being a beast of burden, but he let Axonn and Helryx climb on his back. He grunted under Axonn’s weight, but was able to fly, and took off in the direction of Artakha’s footprints.

A few minutes later, they had found him. Artakha was sitting upon a rocky ledge on a cliffside, tending to a badly wounded Kapura. The ledge was too small for Miserix to fit, so he dropped Helryx and Axonn off and flew off to search for Brutaka and Hafu.

“Helryx, Axonn,” Artakha said. “It is good to see you in one piece, and relatively unharmed. It is a shame the same cannot be said for our Matoran friend here.”

Helryx started using her water powers to tend to Kapura’s burns. “Don’t worry, you’ll make it,” she reassured the Ta-Matoran. “It is good that Artakha found you. I imagine he saved your life.”

But Artakha shook his head. “All I did was carry him here. I’m afraid tending to living beings was my brother’s specialty, not mine.”

It took Helryx a moment to realize who Artakha was talking about. “You mean Karzahni?” she said, surprised. “I’m afraid Karzahni wasn’t great at repairing Matoran, either.”

“Aye, but he could’ve been,” Artakha said. “He was supposed to be. I offered him my help a few times, but he stubbornly refused. With him and I working together, this Matoran could be patched up, good as new, in no time at all.”

Helryx was surprised to hear such praise for Karzahni, someone she’d though of as a monster, from Artakha. But she realized that Artakha was probably one of the few people who knew how Karzahni had started out, before his failures drove him mad.

“It’s a good thing you were on this cliffside,” Axonn said. “We might not have been able to find you in the jungle.”

“True,” Artakha said, “though I must admit, I wasn’t thinking of you when I chose this spot. There are creatures in the forest, dangerous creatures, and I didn’t want them sneaking up on me while I tried to help the Matoran.”

“Dangerous beasts?” Axonn said. “I’m surprised someone like you has anything to fear from beasts.”

“These are not normal beasts,” the creator replied. “These were modified by the Great Beings, given powerful, dangerous abilities. The Great Beings had them imprisoned in a pen near the tower, not far from where I landed. I suspect the explosion freed them.”

Axonn was stunned at the information Artakha was sharing. “How do you know this?” he said.

“I know many things you don’t,” Artakha replied. “I helped the Great Beings create your world.”

Surrounded by the red lizards, an unknown but clearly dangerous threat, Brutaka’s mind ran through two scenarios: fight or flight.

Fight meant using his powers against the lizards, and though Brutaka had immense power at his disposal, he wasn’t sure if he could fight off so many at once. Especially if he had to protect Hafu as well.

On the other hand, flight meant teleporting away. While Teridax had shattered his Olmak, the mask of dimensional gates, Brutaka’s connection to the Antidermis that the Makuta were comprised of gave him access to certain abilities, including teleportation. He could grab Hafu and be far away in an instant. The safest place to teleport to would probably be near the ruins of the tower.

But then, as he gazed at one of the lizards, he realized it was buzzing, and glowing slightly. He felt a sudden panic, and a sense of recognition.

He knew what these lizards were. He knew, because the knowledge had been programmed into the Antidermis long ago, by the Great Beings. The Great Beings had made these lizards, and they had intended for the Makuta to be able to make Rahi like them. The lizards had a special ability: if someone tried to teleport past them, they could latch onto that person while he or she was teleporting, and become part of their prey’s teleportation. No matter where the person tried to teleport to, the lizards would stick with them, clinging to the target’s body, attacking it with their claws and teeth.

If Brutaka still had his Olmak, he could’ve gotten past, as the Olmak opened a direct portal, rather than telporting the user. There was one person Brutaka knew of who might be able to teleport past the lizards, but he wasn’t here. That left Brutaka with one choice: fight.

As the lizards started to leap in to attack, Brutaka’s blades spun, energy crackled around his hands, and he prepared for a vicious fight.

Author’s notes: the first new character, Hal. I thought about naming her Harvali, but G2 Harvali was an archeologist, not a leader. Also, I really enjoyed writing Artakha’s view of Karzahni; adding some depth to his character, beyond the mad villain he’s become when we see him.
And I swear I’m not trying to end all these chapters with Hafu in danger. It just keeps working out that way.
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Awesome! A new character!

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Artakha saing good things about Karzahni - I’ve waited for it. Always liked the guy.

Oh yeah, that sounds like him.
Also, I don’t think Miserix can fly with Axonn on board. His canon MOC doesn’t look that big. But, he is a Makuta, so it is okay. Super nice chapter. And the previous one too, by the way.

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Hmm, I hadn’t considered that. He was able to fly with four people, including Brutaka, but none of them are really a brute like Axonn is. I added a line saying that he had difficulty lifting Axonn, since I feel it’s something that should be acknowledged.

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Oh, I actually forgot that flight from Artidax. Then that’s not really the case. Also, because of that line, there is “a bit” two times in a row in two sentences. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think the lizard teleportation part was too much exposition for my taste. I’m not a writer, so I don’t know how to fix it, but that my humble opinion.

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noted, and fixed.

That’s honestly fair. There’s a few things here that were mentioned in Greg answers but not in the story proper, like Brutaka being able to teleport, and the different types of teleportation. So if you’re an avid follower of canon, it’s probably some stuff you would already know, even though no story has mentioned it. Ideally, it would be mentioned throughout the story as it was relevant, but it wound up all being relevant at once.

On the plus side, now that the lizards are an established threat, I’ve no need to give further exposition about them later.

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Oh! Wait! This probably wouldn’t end up happening for some time, but it would be real nice to see Takanuva and Jaller reunite and catch up. I know BS01 says the Toa Mahri and Takanuva fought the Kardas Dragon together, but this statement from Greg seems to suggest otherwise: Official Greg Dialogue | Page 155. This could imply they never crossed paths and we never saw what would have been such a great moment, anyways.

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that’s an excellent idea. I won’t make any promises, since I don’t know how the story will play out with these characters, but that’s definitely under consideration.

Chapter 4

After all this time, all her struggles for power, Tuyet was not going to be taken out by a bear, of all things.

She had to admit that the bear had gotten the drop on her – quite literally, falling from the trees and grabbing her arm. When she’d thrown it free, it had taken her bag, and the powerful stone nestled inside. Now the creature was in-between her and the bag, and it wasn’t going to let her pass so easily.

She spent a few seconds swinging her sword around, trying to keep it at bay, before she remembered that she didn’t have to go around it at all. Her mask glowed, and she turned intangible, approaching the bear. When it attacked, its claws simply passed through harmlessly.

At least, she expected them to pass through harmlessly. Instead, she heard a loud snap, and felt a surge of energy zapping her body where the claw went through. Caught by surprise, she stumbled backwards. Another claw hit her, zapping her again, and she started to lose focus on her mask power. She began to rematerialize… right as her intangible body was passing through a tree. She cried out in pain as her body started to fuse with the tree.

The bear, however, didn’t let up. It lunged forward, slamming into the tree, cracking it. With great effort, Tuyet broke free, part of the tree still stuck to her. One of the limbs smacked the bear in the back of the head, stunning it.

Fueled by fear and pain, Tuyet found the strength to crawl along the ground. The bear recovered, and whirled to attack again. Tuyet collapsed, her fingers brushing against the handle of her bag. The bear leapt toward her. She yanked the bag toward her, and reached out with her other arm. The bear landed on her back, its power crackling against her armor.

Her hand closed around the Nui Stone.

A surge of energy flowed through her, and a blast of water slammed into the bear, sending it flying high into the air. Hopefully, if it survived, it would land far, far away.

As powerful as the stone was, though, it could do nothing for the pain of being forcibly fused with part of a tree. Every movement hurt, parts of her body weren’t working right. With the danger posed by the bear gone, her surge of adrenaline faded, and she blacked out.

At first, Brutaka’s rapidly spinning blade and blasts of energy protected Hafu from the lizards. Then Brutaka had to turn the blade to defend his back, and the lizards took the opportunity to leap in. One grabbed onto Hafu’s leg, and he kicked it away; another grabbed his shoulder, its claws finding a chink in the armor and digging into the tissue underneath. Hafu grunted in pain as be ripped it off, only for two more to grab his other arm.

Suddenly, a loud humming noise filled the air. The lizards all stopped attacking and started shaking and screeching in pain. Then, they fled, disappearing back into the jungle. Shortly after they left, the humming noise died down.

Hafu glanced up at Brutaka. “Nice trick,” he said.

Brutaka was staring around the forest. “That wasn’t us.”

“It was me.”

Brutaka and Hafu whirled to see a green-armored warrior, looking like a Toa but not, wielding a strange type of weapon that Hafu didn’t recognize. The warrior was followed by a group of beings who were like Matoran but not, clad in a variety of brown, grey, and blue armor. Strangely, their armor was mixed with plant life, as if they were trying to become a part of the jungle itself.

“A… Matoran,” the warrior said. “I never… thought I… would see one again.” His speech was halting, uncertain, as if he had to think of the words he needed in order to speak.

Then he turned to look at Brutaka, and his eyes widened. “Brutaka?”

Brutaka narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You know us… me?”

“Of course I know Brutaka,” the warrior said, anger seeping into his voice. “You’re the one who ended my old life.”

Flying over the jungle, Miserix heard a faint humming noise from off to his left. He turned toward the noise, but seconds after it started, it vanished again.

“Interesting,” he muttered to no one in particular. He tried to recall anything about Brutaka having any sonic abilities. Even if it wasn’t Brutaka, perhaps it was whoever had blown up the tower. Miserix intended to have a few words with that being… if the would-be murderer survived his wrath, that is.

Flying over the forest, he caught a glimpse of movement, and came in for a landing. As he crashed through the tree tops, he heard shouts of surprise and panic, and saw Brutaka and the Po-Matoran, along with a group of people he didn’t recognize, who were clearly frightened by his draconic form.

He came in for a landing next to Brutaka. “Found you,” he said. “So, are these guys friends, or foes?”

“Miserix,” Brutaka chided, as if he were lecturing a child. “You shouldn’t go around scaring people like that. That’s no way for the leader of the Makuta to act.”

“It’s the way Teridax acts,” Miserix shot back. “And I will not be told how to act by you. Now, if you’re done talking to the natives, your allies are looking for you, so we’d best be–”

“Miserix?” one of the warriors interrupted.

Miserix glanced at the green-armored warrior, wondering for a second why this strange being had uttered his name. Then, suddenly, he felt a spark of recognition: he’d seen this warrior before, a long time ago. It took him a moment to figure out who this warrior was, but when he did, his eyes widened.

“Makuta Clanik?” he exclaimed, incredulous.

The warrior smiled. “Clanik, yes, but Makuta no more, I’m afraid. It is good to see you again, Brotherhood leader.”

Author’s notes: the character and story of Clanik was created by user Racie02, as part of the Brotherhood of Makuta community project. I’ve included many of the Brotherhood Project Makuta in my unposted stories, but since I’m posting this one I got Racie’s permission. Clanik’s backstory fit so perfectly into this story.
Pics are gone from the topic, but luckily since I was helping with the Brotherhood Project I have pics of most of the Makuta saved, so here’s the original moc of Clanik, if you want to see what I was going off of.
Summary

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Also, yay for a cliffhanger that doesn’t have Hafu in some kind of danger. Don’t worry, he’ll be in danger again soon.
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Ooo, well this is quite interesting indeed. I keep checking this topic right as you post somehow, and it helps keep the cliffhangers at bay. :stuck_out_tongue: A new Makuta… former Makuta? is definitely not something I expected to see.

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Chapter 5

Millennia ago…

Clanik didn’t really know why he’d volunteered for this mission. Maybe he wanted to see the world, instead of being cooped up in Destral all the time. Or maybe he was just bored, and wanted to do something besides creating Rahi. He liked creating Rahi, but no being could do the same thing every day for their whole life without getting bored eventually.

Not that this mission was anything particularly exciting or dangerous. The ecosystem on one of the islands near Destral had been out of whack lately, with the herbivorous Rahi dissapearing quicker than normal. Clanik was supposed to investigate the cause, figure out if some new Rahi was source of the problem, or some change in the environment that the Rahi couldn’t cope with.

The job probably required a Makuta, but it could’ve been any Makuta. The only reason Clanik was sent was that he volunteered. He had an escort of Brotherhood agents, just in case they ran into a dangerous Rahi beast, as Clanik had no skills in combat. They didn’t really expect any trouble, though.

But trouble has a way of finding you when you least expect it.

Before they even got to one of the native village, they heard the sound of something crashing through the forest, heading their way. The soldiers in Clanik’s guard prepared for a fight, but they were not prepared for what was coming.

In seconds, a blur shot out of the forest, hitting one of the soldiers and felling him before anyone could react. Then it shot to a second target, a claw attack slashing through his chest armor, and then took down a third person before the soldiers could react.

Between attacks, Clanik got a glimpse of the creature. It appeared to be a Rahi, though not one he recognized. Still, if it was a Rahi, that gave Clanik a solution.

Clanik never liked using his Rahi Control powers. Most of the Rahi he created were friendly, peaceful creatures, not like the vicious beasts some of his brethren concocted. Still, he could control a single Rahi if he needed to.

Clanik reached out with his powers, and touched the Rahi’s mind. The creature attempted to resist this, and Clanik had to push harder. He hated using his powers to dominate another living being, but it had to be done.

As the beast struggled against Clanik’s power, one of the soldiers moved to kill it. “No!” Clanik cried. “Just restrain it.” The soldiers complied, using ropes to tie up the beast. Clanik gave one final push with his powers, and the beast collapsed into sleep. Still, though, it shuddered, straining against the ropes; something was bothering it badly.

The soldiers breathed a sigh of relief, and helped their brethren who had been attacked. Three of them had been badly wounded, but there were no casualties.

“There aren’t supposed to be any Rahi this dangerous here,” one of the soldiers pointed out.

Clanik nodded. He could tell by the beast’s claws and teeth that it was a predator, and it was clearly more powerful than the native Rahi would be able to cope with. It was no wonder they were disappearing so fast, with this thing around.

How did it get here? He knew some Makuta liked to create Rahi out in the field, rather than working on Destral. Perhaps a Makuta had made it, and then it escaped? Or perhaps it was more vicious than its creator had intended? Were there more here, or was it just this one?

Clanik sat down by the sleeping Rahi, studying it, trying to determine if its vicious nature was intentional or accidental, when he noticed it was glowing a faint yellow. That glow slowly increased, turning orange.

In a flash, Clanik recognized what was going on. He’d seen this before, a mistake from rookie Rahi creators. A certain mix of viruses, done correctly, could allow the Rahi to climatize, adapting to cold weather by heating up. Done incorrectly… The beast wasn’t on a rampage because it was vicious. It was on a rampage because it was trying to burn off the excess energy its body was building off. And now that it wasn’t moving…

“Get back!” Clanik cried, too late.

The Rahi exploded.

Brutaka had been sent from the local village to meet the entourage from the Brotherhood and guide them to the village. He was making his way to the shoreline, taking his time, not really in a hurry, when he heard the explosion, and started running.

By the time he got to the scene, there was little left but a massive fire. Brutaka grimaced, sure that nothing could’ve survived. So much for the Brotherhood’s entourage.

He wasn’t really sure why he did what he did next. He activated his mask, opening up a portal. The flames, the burning remains of Clanik and his entourage, were swallowed up, teleported somewhere very far away, where they’d probably never be found. It would likely confuse whoever came to investigate the incident, not finding the bodies of the Makuta and his crew. Brutaka realized that the thought of their confusion was… amusing.

Somehow, against all odds, Clanik survived.

The portal Brutaka had opened had dropped him and the still-raging fire into the middle of a forest, next to a group of people who quickly put out the fire, saving Clanik. He tried to thank them, but quickly discovered that they spoke a very different language, one he didn’t understand.

He had no idea where he was, no way to get back home. An experiment gone wrong a year ago had messed with his teleportation abilities, rendering them difficult to control. He could teleport to a space he could see, if he was careful, but beyond that, there was a high chance that things would go wrong.

So he stayed with the villagers, who nursed him back to health. In time, he started to learn their language, at least a little. He learned that they were Agori, and that this world was called Bota Magna. And when he heard of the ‘tower of the Great Being’, he’d practically leapt at the chance to find his way home.

The villagers had warned him. They said the tower was dangerous, that they Great Beings were dangerous. But he didn’t listen, of course. He thought of the Great Beings as these benevolent creators who would be all too happy to help him. And so, he went to the tower. And he learned why the villagers feared it.

No sooner had he gone in than he’d blacked out. He had only a vague memory of things after that, but it felt like being experimented on like the Rahi he used to make. When he finally awoke completely, his body had been drastically altered, all of his powers gone.

The villagers refused to accept him back after that, fearing him, thinking the Great Beings had turned him into a monster somehow. But he found new companions, a group of villagers from other tribes, who had been ostracized for various reasons of their own. He’d become a leader of sorts, of a tribe of exiles.

Eventually, he came to think of this new place as his home. And he actually grew to like it. It was peaceful, in a way his old home never was.

That is, until more people from his old home came to this world, and the peace exploded.

Author’s notes: this is an adaptation/expansion of the vague backstory given to Clanik originally; showing how Clanik went from just another Makuta to a leader of Agori on another world. And a bit of a hint to Brutaka’s “playful” nature, teleporting things where they don’t belong.
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18

Kapura probably just teleported.
We all know that’s definitely in his skill seT

Drop bear lore confirmed?

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So were Clanik’s soldiers his own toa hagah?

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I admit I hadn’t made the connection there.

Technically, no; this is during Miserix’s leadership, so the Toa Hagah aren’t a thing yet.
But they could be Toa; I hadn’t given any thought as to what they were, aside from “some kind of warrior.”
And if they were Toa protecting a Makuta, they would technically be “Toa Hagah”, though they likely wouldn’t be called that.
But they were only assigned to Clanik for this one mission.