Idea:
It is known that the adaptive armour only comes with a single Toa Tool and a single launcher. For Kopaka to have a sword and a shield, one of them has to be his projectile weapon. So, he has a Rhotuka Shield.
Following your previous work, they should have a Kestora blaster
Well, Pohatu was able to have two propellers. Granted, that’s two of the same weapon, but it does show the adaptive weapons can take the form of more than one thing at a time. And since a sword/shield is such a common combo, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility.
(Though a Rhotuka launching shield is certainly an interesting idea, I’ll have to keep that in mind)
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Chapter 11
The Kestora known as Makuta was still prowling the halls, looking for her enemies. Perhaps… perhaps they had left the star, after all. Maybe if the Kestora went back and tried the machine now, it would work? Maybe the Toa had actually fixed the problem?
No, no, that wasn’t right. Toa didn’t fix problems. They caused problems. That was no doubt what these Toa would do, too.
The orange Toa had reacted upon hearing her name. She knew the name had some sort of significance to those from Mata Nui, but little else. No Makuta had ever been here, so they couldn’t be that important. Or perhaps the Makuta had another way of coming back, if something happened to them? It didn’t matter to her. Nor did the question everyone asked, the question of ‘why are you called Makuta’, matter. It was the name she was assigned, just as maintaining the star was the job she was assigned. And while someone, or something, else might share that name, no one else could share the job of maintaining the Star. No one but the Kestora.
That, really, was the problem with the Toa. There was a problem here, a problem that the Kestora needed to fix. But the Toa thought that they would know better how to fix it. If Toa could fix the Star, they would have been put in charge, not the Kestora.
“Makuta!” Another Kestora was running down the hall, toward the horde of mind-controlled Toa.
Makuta turned to look at her fellow. “What is it?”
“The two rogues… they’re at the central control hub!” the Kestora cried.
“So, they are trying to cause trouble,” Makuta said. “Just as I knew they would.” She held up her staff, the gem on the tip of it glowing. “Let’s go!” she called.
Her orders transmitted through the gem, to the control chips she’d placed in all of the Toa. Slowly, they began to follow her back toward the central hub…
In the central hub for the Red Star, chaos had erupted.
Botar teleporting in had caught the Kestora completely by surprise. Apparently, they hadn’t anticipated anyone getting past the defenses they had set up, at least without them knowing the attackers were coming, and most of the Kestora didn’t even have blasters. Thos few that did were easily dispatched by the combined efforts of Kopaka, Pohatu, and Hydraxon, with help from the Turaga and Matoran. Ivohku was still blinded for the moment, so there was little he could do.
Still, everyone knew that Makuta and the army of Toa would be here soon. They had to work fast. “So, anyone know what these machines we need to fix look like?” Pohatu asked.
“I’ve got a rough idea,” Ruhko said. “I spoke to one of the other Ghosts who was here, came here when the Star first broke. The Kestora found out that the machine was broken after they tried to send him back. He described a row of beds, of a sort, with a large machine with tubes connected to each, and a viewport looking out into space.”
“M-my guess is-- is that way,” the grey Turaga said, pointing at one of the doorways. Above it, Pohatu saw a sign, with the Matoran word ‘return’.
“Well, that was easy,” he said. “Let’s go!”
“Wait,” Kopaka said. He pointed to another door. This one was marked with the word ‘navigation’. “Do you suppose that’s where the controls for the engine might be?”
“Engine?” Hydraxon asked.
“For moving the Star,” Kopaka said. “The Star is also a giant engine, for – for Mata Nui to travel.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that isn’t what we’re here for,” Hydraxon said.
“Is it?” Kopaka replied. “Even if you fix those machines, they might not be able to send people back like they’re supposed to. They’re supposed to send people back to Mata Nui, but it’s…” he paused, realizing that the people on the star had no idea of what had happened to their old world during the fall of Mata Nui, and it would take far too long to explain. “It’s not exactly the same as it was. But, if we can land the star on the ground, everyone can just walk out.”
“If we can land it,” Pohatu said. “There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to do that. I doubt it’s something that the Star was made to do.”
“There’s no guarantee that fixing those machines will work either,” Kopaka said.
“All right, so we do both,” Quilha said. “One group tries to fix the machines, the other group tries to land the star or whatever. Way I see it, we double our chances of success.”
Pohatu frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t like splitting up, especially when we know our enemies will be coming.”
“Look, we’ve got Botar,” Hydraxon said. “I’ll go with one group, Botar with the other. If anything goes wrong, I can call to Botar, or he can bring you to us.”
In moments, the rest of the teams had formed. Pohatu, Ruhko, Mavrah, Botar, and Ivohku would head to the send-back machines. Kopaka, Hydraxon, Quilha, and the Turaga would head to the engine controls, where perhaps the Grey Turaga and Quilha, with their combined technical expertise, could figure out how to land the Star.
“See you soon, brother,” Pohatu said, as the two teams parted ways.
A few minutes later, Pohatu led his group to a room just like the one Ruhko had said. “This is it,” Ruhko said. “This is where you’re supposed to be sent back.”
“Well, we did our part,” Pohatu said. “We got you here. Now you’d better be able to fix them.”
“I told you, I can fix anything,” the Fe-Matoran said. He reached out toward the closest machine, then winced, glancing down at the arm the Xutohki had crushed earlier. “Might have to do it with my left arm, though…”
In the chaos that had erupted in the central hub, there’d been a lot of noise. So much noise, perhaps, that it would be easy to miss the sudden halt of an already low hum, especially over the smashing of machinery that had caused the humming to stop, when Hydraxon had tried to punch a Kestora and missed.
But to one accustomed to hearing everything, and figuring out what it all meant, the lack of the ever-present hum was impossible to miss. And while the Toa Nuva and their allies might not have known what it meant, Delara certainly did.
Months ago, he’d tried to get to the central hub, and met with the Kestora’s defenses. He knew that all the Toa were being kept there by the Kestora, and he had to free them. Together, nothing on the star could stop them. They would end all life on the Star.
He knew that humming, because as long as it was there, Delara was the only free Toa on the Star. Sometimes, that humming haunted his dreams. But now, it was gone. The defenses were down.
Delara raced down the hall, toward the central hub. There, he was confident he could put an end to the Kestora. But first, he had two false Toa to kill.
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I can tell something big is coming; we all know stuff goes so well when the group splits up.
I’m also curious to see which option ends up working.
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My brain: several months ago
My fingers, typing: So you said years, right?
Jokes aside, this is a consequence of how I’ve been posting these last two stories, editing and rewriting just before I post each chapter. If there’s one thing I’ve learned with this story, it’s that that is a mistake. In the future, I’m going to try to rewrite before I post, to hopefully catch little errors like that.
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Wow, I have a really bad feeling about this one. You better not be about to kill off one of the Toa Nuva, you hear? 
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But Kopaka was just days from retirement!
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It can be counted as a spoiler, so be warned.
Also if a Toa Nuva dies in one of the books, I am going to be disappointed. And disappointed me is a really crazy-bad guy. 
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Chapter 12
“All right,” Ruhko said. “I think I’ve got something.”
Pohatu and the rest gathered around the Nynrah crafter. “What is it?” Pohatu said.
“Well, it seems these machines are all connected to the same teleport loop,” Ruhko said. “One can only activate after another finishes, to prevent warp interference. But since the last connection somehow resulted in–”
“Wait, hold on,” Pohatu said. “Can you say that in a way that someone besides you can understand?”
“Right, sorry,” Ruhko said. “The machines can only send one person back at a time. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, as a teleport takes less than a second, but if something were to interfere with the teleport, such that it couldn’t be completed…”
“And that’s what happened?” Mavrah said.
Ruhko nodded. “The Star got stuck trying to send back someone, and hasn’t sent back anyone since then.”
“So, can you fix it?” Pohatu said.
“Well, here’s the issue,” Ruhko said. “I can’t figure out what happened to the last person it tried to send. I could cancel their return procedure, but there’s a good chance that might… erase them from existence.”
“Well that’s… disturbing,” Mavrah said.
“Also, there’s no guarantee it will fix the problem,” Ruhko said. “The next person to be put in might just suffer the same fate.”
“But you’ve got something, right?” Pohatu said.
“Well, I’ve got an idea,” Ruhko said. “I can manually activate the summoning feature that pulls dead people here, and focus it on the guy that’s stuck in the teleport loop. That should get him out safely, and allow the machines to be used on someone else. Then, we can–.”
Before he could say the rest of his plan, the Star abruptly shuddered, throwing everyone off balance, and they all could feel the sensation of acceleration, as gravity began to shift slightly to the side.
“What’s happening?” Mavrah said.
“I think Kopaka succeeded,” Pohatu said. “We’re about to land.”
“If that’s the case, we might not even need to solve this,” Ruhko said.
“Botar, go check on them,” Pohatu said. Botar nodded and vanished.
“Nixie! Nixie!”
The Ga-Matoran looked up at the sound of her name, and saw a Ko-Matoran running her way, frantically. “What is it, Jaatikko?”
“You’re an astrologer, right?” the Ko-Matoran said. Nixie nodded. “Well, what does that mean?”
Nixie’s eyes followed where Jaatikko was pointing, up into the sky. The sun was just starting to set, and the stars were starting to be visible. Nixie made out a comet, falling through the sky.
But this was no ordinary falling star. It was a bright crimson, and it was much larger than any meteor she’d ever seen. It took her a moment to realize that it was the Red Star, falling rapidly toward the surface of the planet.
Nixie suddenly remembered what Gali had told her about the Red Star, and what the Toa of Water had discovered about it. “Nothing good,” Nixie muttered. “We should tell one of the Toa about this.”
Quilha had never seen the type of machinery in the control room, but Grey seemed to take right to it, figuring out how the different controls worked. The others watched eagerly as he worked.
“How do you know how to do this?” Hydraxon asked.
“I don’t,” Grey said. “B-but I know how tech – how machines work, how con-control panels are l-l-laid out. They always have to – always should m-make sense, lest they co-confuse who’s supposed to use them.”
As Grey worked, Quilha watched intently. So focused on Grey’s work, she never registered the faint sound of footsteps.
“I-I think I have it,” Grey said, flipping a switch. There was a soft hum, and the room began to shift.
“Are we moving?” Quilha said.
“Look out!”
At Lhikan’s cry, Quilha turned to see a sight that chilled her to her core: the sound Toa, entering the doorway, weapon raised, lunging toward her.
She should’ve dodged, but she couldn’t move; seeing the sound Toa again, fear rooted her to the spot, watching as his blade arm swung toward her…
And then, suddenly, Grey was there, blocking the attack with his staff. Magnetic energy swirled in his hand, and he reached out to grab the Toa, but before he could, the Sound Toa lashed out with a kick, sending the grey Turaga flying. He crashed into the control panel, inadvertantly loosing his magnetic power into the machines. Abruptly the Star shifted more violently, as if rapidly accelerating.
The Sound Toa came in to finish off Grey… but then, Hydraxon slammed into him, knocking him to the floor. Hydraxon slammed his elbow into the back of the mad Toa’s head, hard, and the Toa went limp.
Grey got to his feet, staring at the control panel, and realized what he’d done. “Uh-oh…”
At that moment, Botar appeared, quickly taking stock of the chaos in the room. “What happened?”
“I can’t m-m-make us stop,” the grey Turaga said. “The machines – I m-must have b-broken something. Can’t slow us down, even ch-change direction.”
Kopaka used his power to look through the walls, and saw the surface of the planet slowly getting bigger. “This is bad,” Kopaka said. “Unless we can regain control of the engines, the Star is going to crash.”
“Can we even survive something like that?” Lhikan said.
Kopaka’s mind flashed back to the Great Cataclysm, when the Mata Nui Robot had crashed onto the surface of Aqua Magna. The Star, however, was not meant to land at all, and might not be as durable as the robot had been.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“We need to get as many people off the Star as we can before then,” Hydraxon said.
“We might not have enough time,” Kopaka said. “Botar, take us to the others. We need to grab them and get off of here.”
“What about everyone else on the Star?” Quilha said.
“All we can do is hope they survive. We can come back for them after the crash.”
Botar grabbed the group, and they vanished, reappearing in the send-back room. “What’s happening?” Ruhko asked.
“Star’s going down,” Kopaka said swiftly. “We need to be off of it. Everyone, grab Botar. Botar, take us to the location I’m envisioning.”
Just as Botar grabbed on to the group, Pohatu saw something surprising: a lone Kestora, either very brave or very foolish, was standing in the doorway, aiming a blaster at them, about to pull the trigger. By sheer instinct, he activated his mask, running to the Kestora and disarming it before running back.
At least, that’s what he intended to do. He’d taken only a few steps when pain exploded in his skull; he’d forgotten that he’d overused his mask. The Kestora pulled the trigger, lightning leapt from the blaster, heading toward the group… and then they vanished.
Leaving Pohatu behind.
The Toa of Stone got to his feet, pulled out his own blaster, and zapped the Kestora, causing it to fall unconscious. Then, he went to grab the Kestora’s gun in case it got back up.
Just before he reached it, there was a loud shudder… the lights flickered… Pohatu was thrown off his feet, slamming against the wall, then the ceiling, then another wall, as the force of gravity seemed to shift every which way… and then there was the sound of crumpling metal, and the lights went out.
To be continued…
Author’s notes: don’t worry, I’m sure Pohatu’s fine. Right? Well, we’ll have to wait a while to find out, as there’s still another main plot thread I need to address, involving three Toa and a Glatorian who are being hunted in the woods.
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I sure hope Pohatu’s okay.
Also, that escalated quickly. I expected it to be 1 or 2 more chapters before they got off the Star.
What exactly happened here? What broke the machines? What happened to Delara and Grey?
Will The Yesterday Quest story be a crossover with Rising Star, or are you starting a whole new continuation story?
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I guess this is a case where I thought things were clear enough, but I have the benefit of being the writer.
- Delara attacks
- Grey tries to hit him with magnetics
- Delara knocks him aside, and Grey’s magnetics hit the engine controls
- Someone else (presumably Hydraxon, as he’s the strongest member of the current party) deals with Delara
I’ve added a few lines to the scene, to hopefully make things clearer.
It’s going to be a separate story, though the ending of it may coincide with the ending of Rising Star.
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Well, I can’t wait!
While I’m a huge fan of your work, I’m gonna call it like I see it: the ending was incredibly rushed. To me, this all comes down to set up and payoff. Simply put, you set up a lot of things in this story. You spent time setting up Quilha, Ivohku, the Xutohki, Delara, this new “Makuta”, the return of Botar and Hydraxon, all in addition to the basis of the story being how Pohatu and Kopaka are trapped on the Star and trying to get off. Given all of that to work with, you just didn’t give yourself enough time to getting a satisfying payoff for all of them.
Some of them sure did; Qhilha got her moment to shine, Botar played a key role, and, uh… honestly, that’s about it from my list. There are cases like Delara and Makuta, where the issue is closed but doesn’t quite feel satisfying. The Makuta thing felt like a lot of build-up for a sorta underwhelming reveal, and Delara spends most of the time being handedly avoided before him finally attacking the others gets glossed over.
Then you have a bunch of characters who feel like they’re just kinda there. Hydraxon was set up rather well, running a one-man resistance against all the Kestora’s shenanigans, and he serves the plot rather well, connecting the others to Botar, but beyond that he doesn’t really add to the dynamic in any interesting way. Ivohku and the Xutohki fall in a similar category, with an interesting set-up but no real resolution. Ivokhu is kinda just there, which feels weird when you spent a chunk of time establishing from his perspective who he is and why he’s on the star, and the Xutohki is an interesting set-up, connecting to Lhikan, but then it never feels like it resolves when the characters manage to run away.
And, as another aside, you also have Lhikan, Mavrah, and Jovan, who I didn’t mention earlier because you never took much time to set them up. That’s not meant as a critique, I’m just clarifying that for the sake of being thorough.
So, with all of that, it starts to feel like you bit off more than you could chew, or at least could properly deal with in this amount of story. Maybe you could have handled it by having two serials dedicated to Red Star shenanigans, though I can imagine that in the grand scope of things dedicating too much time to any particular plot thread might be unappealing or even daunting. Maybe it would have been better to have just cut some of these elements out, though I can imagine that if this is all the time you plan to spend on the Red Star you might be excited to tie in as many related elements as possible.
After all that, though, I have to say that I have a huge amount of respect for what you’ve accomplished with this project. You’ve done an incredible job of not only coming up with an interesting continuation to Bionicle’s story, but of making one that feels like it fits with the ideas and style of Bionicle as we know it. It’s telling to me that even the new characters you’ve added in feel right at home with the other characters and world. I’ve really enjoyed reading everything so far, and I look forward to what you have in store!
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That’s certainly a fair critique. I think a part of it does have to do with the fact that there’s a lot of known characters on the Star that I felt obligated to at least acknowledge. It’s less a matter of wanting to write these characters in, and more wanting to not leave such ambiguous dark fates for these characters. Like, there’s a nagging part of me wondering “what happened to Guardian”, and I’m sure someone else might want to know, too.
With that said, this is only the conclusion to the “stuck on the Star” story. The character’s stories can certainly continue – Hydraxon, in particular, I’d like to do something involving him meeting his duplicate, but I can’t really do that until after the Star. Quilha’s arc was my only real focus in this story. It’s quite likely that all the characters here will show up in the story I have planned focused on the wreckage of the Star.
I do hate to say “Just wait, I’ll do things eventually!” but I have always seen this as part one to at least a two part story. The Star crashing marks the end of part one, but now they have to go through the wreckage – at the very least, to look for Pohatu. That said, I have none of it written yet, so I’ll say your critique is a fair one for what I have so far.
Some things I hadn’t really meant to build up:
- Ivohku wasn’t really set up for anything. I wanted a Toa for Hydraxon to free, and I needed something to explain who he was. Otherwise, it would’ve just been an author’s note ‘oh, by the way, he’s that Toa Lariska killed’. I will agree that he doesn’t do a whole lot, though.
- Delara, I never saw as a major threat. He was an inconvenience, sure, but the fact is that he’s just a single Toa. Had they fought, I imagine Kopaka and Pohatu could’ve dealt with him. His final purpose is to cause the Star to crash.
- The Xutohki, too, was just meant to be a tough monster – something that could fight three Toa, two Turaga, three Matoran, and Hydraxon, and actually stand a chance (I don’t count Botar, as his injuries kept him from really fighting). I gave it a backstory connected to Lhikan partly because that felt like a nice little detail to give some depth to it, partly because I wanted him to have some awareness of the danger this thing posed.
And regarding Makuta: I kinda agree. I still think the idea of someone just being named that to completely mislead the characters/audience is a really interesting idea, but it does inevitably lead to a rather anticlimactic reveal. I honestly considered cutting it out, but I feel that the idea itself is still good.
With all that said, I do appreciate the criticism! I appreciate any feedback, and I hope it makes me a better writer in the end.
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These are two good points. I agree that it would have been better to get a more detailed description of their encounter with Delara, and it was never really explained why Makuta was called that.
I don’t quite see what you mean by this. By connecting them to Botar, he adds to the dynamic. Also, I suspect that we will see him return and that his memories of the Toa Mata will do… something.
I don’t really see why he needed to do anything else though. He died, and was eventually captured into the Toa Army. There’s nothing particularly special about him.
This is a matter of personal opinion, but I don’t see anything wrong with that. The Xutohki was just another dead being causing problems on the Star. From what we see, there is nothing too special about it that would cause the Toa to go out of their way to defeat it. And, given how much time the characters spend running, rather than fighting, I think that end makes sense.
I’ve wanted to see this for a very long time.
Don’t feel bad, that justifies things pretty well to me. If we’re going to keep seeing most of these people again, I can’t expect everything to wrap up in a neat tidy little bow to never be touched again.
To respond to your and @TheJerminator 's other various comments: I guess some of it just came down to my own expectations. I read more into things than was intended, and I came out dissatisfied because of it; that’s on me.
Did want to explain myself further on this, though. You’re right, he does add something with his presence, but to me it feels like more of a plot role than really a character role. Compare him to Quilha, for example. When Quilha gets added to the cast, she has unique and interesting interactions with the other characters. It feels like she’s known Mavrah and Ruhko for a while, and the Toa immediately get a strong reaction out of her.
Hydraxon, by contrast, pretty much just helps Botar with his powers and fights stuff. Nothing about his interactions with the others really stands out; he doesn’t add to the group dynamic in an interesting way. Granted, with the knowledge that basically this same cast will reappear and continue to travel and work alongside one another, that’s probably something that will get more time to breathe and be explored in the future.
Well, that’s one more book. And a pretty nice book - cool new characters (Ruhko, Quilha), several cool backgrounds for them (again Quilha). Some very nice scenes - the super cool door and Mavrah’s speech are really well done. But I agree on several points with rainsong, and this is what I think:
- I don’t see why Xutohki exists. It has very small background (Something to do with Lhikan, but we don’t know what exactly), all it does is giving Pohatu a headache (or a maskache). Fighting monsters is what Toa do, but still: why? Or maybe I am an ignorant Stone Ape that missed something, sorry if so.
- Same thing for Delara. All he have done is causing Jovan to hit the controls. “It could’ve been accomplished in a 1000 of ways. And 941 of them fits” (c). But Delara is less of an issue, because creepy atmosphere he adds is really fits in that story.
- Ivohku is a walking furniture, but he is the first Toa of Gravity we see, so I just will wait for his further development.
Also, while re-reading briefly the whole story, I have 3 questions.
- Why Lhikan has his shield if Teridax destroyed it?
Wha? Have thay teleported within the Star, and will try to save everybody else, or have they just ran away to wait until better times?
I think I’ve missed it.
That’s actually all. Sorry, if some of those were silly. That book was quite good one, though it actually takes third place next to “Secrets the Mountain” among your books for me. But still I like it and I will wait for the next one (because it is actually my next-to-favorite unended story)! 
Link to download Word/PDF versions of “Story Serial Continuation Project” books by Willes12
From my understanding, the Xutohki had nothing to do with Pohatu’s mask problems; that just came down to overuse.
The Xutohki was just another creature causing problems on the Star.
While I don’t have a problem with that, I wonder if the Xutohki could have been cut to make room for an extra chapter of the characters trying things out before the Star comes down, or a more detailed fight with Delara.
It’s within reason that the Kestora replaced his shield. They replaced his mask, after all.
I’m curious about this as well. I suspect they just went to Spherus Magna though, maybe to the site of Tren Krom’s murder, since Kopaka was picking the destination.
I just don’t think they had enough time to save anyone.
[quote=“Lesnichiy, post:58, topic:57963”]
Personally, I don’t think we really need an explanation for this. Perhaps Jovan just had a stutter before. Or the Kestora messed him up a bit.
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By shield, I meant his mask of Shielding.
(also, while the movie shows the shield being destroyed, the novel say that he used his mask power instead; not sure if there’s any official statement on which one is canon)
They teleported off of the Star, as by that point they only had seconds before it crashed.
(Hydraxon might have wanted them to save more people, but since he can’t see through the walls of the Star like Kopaka, he doesn’t realize how little time they have)
Granted, I suppose it isn’t an explanation, just speculation, but it’s what I imagine happened – Jovan tried to set something up to free one of the mind-controlled Toa, and instead it damaged his brain
Pretty much just that it attacked Lhikan, and then Lhikan was rescued by Toa Dume. Then, sometime after that, it was defeated by two teams of Toa (presumably Dume’s team and another). The implication being that the Toa were either forced to, or inadvertently, killed it.
You know, while I hadn’t really imagined Delara as a major threat (simply there to cause a few problems), I can see how it seems like he’s built up as a scary opponent, only to be dealt with pretty quickly (and offscreen, at that). Looking at it that way, I can see how it would be rather disappointing.
Given that, I’ve edited the chapter so that the fight with Delara is actually shown. Still the same series of events, just that we actually see it this time. I do hope that makes it a bit more satisfying than just dealing with him off-screen.
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