Volt-Isle and Fe-Isle could be presented in either order. While it does make sense that the gang would go to Fe-Isle first, given Genakex is a Steel specialist, I was thinking of visiting Volt-Isle first, since we used Fe-Isle first in Sekai and I wanted to begin showing Zempyst and Aile sooner. As I’ve shown in previews, these two are in a relationship, with Aile being hyperactive and clingy and Zempyst being a total tsundere. I was planning to involve the Assassination Division: while Aile was distracted, either by an assassin or Cell or Buu, Zempyst would be targeted by Exo-Chandelure, who fights by trapping opponents in a field of darkness and slowly wearing them down. Zempyst would be in serious danger here, and when Aile realized that, she would utterly destroy whoever she was fighting, fly to Zempyst’s location, and take Exo-Chandelure out with a single, flawless hit. This was intended to give us a look at Aile’s full power, what it takes for her to reveal it, and how much Zempyst means to her.

When we did get to Fe-Isle, Genakex would ask Artakhall some questions about Gurren Lagann. Something mentioned earlier is the fact that Genakex has been using the effects of Spirits he has Combined with, and has been working on the assumption that it’s an innate feature of Combine. However, Artakhall tells him that is not the case: Combined Spirits should not have their effects in place unless the user has the corresponding Ultima-Orbs to activate the effect. Genakex’s use of these effects is curious, and upon learning this, he actually loses the ability to use them during his battle with Artakhall. The Steel-Lord says that Gurren Lagann has two major abilities, each stemming from one of its Elements. Its Combine ability is Steel Elemental, so Artakhall understands it; but the other ability (which may explain this mystery) is Dragon-related, so Artakhall cannot offer any assistance and recommends they ask Aile when they next see her. (Truth be told…originally, I had just forgotten that I had made this decision and didn’t remember until after Genakex had used Grimlock’s effect in his battle with Stratoro. This was my attempt to turn the mistake into something cool!) Artakhall would be using several newer Spirits different from the ones he used in Sekai, and once I began trying to put more diversity in the cast, I began considering making him a trans individual. Overall, though, his behavior would be similar to how he acted in Sekai: rather distant, but kind at heart. The Consortium would send the new Exo-Vahki to siege the Fe-Isle mines, and, since I really wanted to show off the Exo-Vahki, there would be several encounters with them. I think the first encounter would have each Exo-Vahki fighting individually, a fight where the heroes would lose, and the second would be a similar encounter but with the Vahki being on the losing end. Contrivance was then going to give them a rare second chance, letting them fight again with one of them (possibly Rorzakh?) using the Exo-Link to its fullest, becoming a Vahki Nui. The Spirits have been modified to bypass some restrictions on Link Skills, making Rorzakh Nui very dangerous and giving him a win. The fourth encounter, then, is when Rorzakh Nui would have been defeated and the Exo-Vahki reduced to experiments. As everyone is about to leave Fe-Isle, Hutanik shows up yet again, this time making the shocking revelation that he is a Va Champion. Exo-Tahnok Kal Tyrant has been keeping an eye on Titan all along, staying hidden using a technique that allows him to divert his tracking signal if another King Bohrok is in the area, even if they are hiding their own signal through another method. (So basically, Titan’s ability to track other Kings only ever worked 1/5 times. Guess how happy he’d be about that.) Tyrant is, in Titan’s eyes, even worse than Abomination: Tyrant also successfully freed the Bahrag, and even helped them clean Mata Nui, but once that was complete he grew restless and decided to kill the Bahrag so that he could gain their power. Since he had time to master his energies and had more control when absorbing those of the Bahrag, Tyrant is exceptionally powerful, and he views the other Kings as pitiful imitations. Still, he has not been able to win the war, so he proposes that all the King Bohrok gather on Draco-Isle for one final battle. Titan agrees, letting Tyrant go to gather the other Kings while Genakex and the group advances to the last island.

This might start getting a little more disorganized here, sorry. Zempyst would be on Draco-Isle to spend more time with Aile, and Norscu, Vitirus, and Avanda might have appeared as well. All the King Bohrok would show up one at a time, holding a very uneasy truce until the time for their massive battle. Voyager, Prism, and even Titan agree to maintain their alliance in the battle; Assassin is invited to join them, but he refuses. Genakex immediately asks Aile about Gurren Lagann’s Dragon Elemental ability, which she explains (perhaps a bit cryptically) as the ability to bypass rules simply by believing. Genakex had been tapping into this ability to use the effects of Spirits he had Combined with, but when he stopped believing that he could, the ability vanished. He is able to reactivate this ability when the Orb Battles begin (in similar fashion to the Terminal Trials of Sekai): when Genakex fights, he Combines with every Steel Spirit he owns (except for Titan, maybe) to become Ikhav Gurren Lagann, which is visually identical to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for those of you familiar with Gurren Lagann’s source. The Orb Battles are spaced out, some being done early, some being saved until after the following mini-arcs. Valxan, while waiting for the King Bohrok battle, goes to investigate the Draco-Isle Lucky Ghekula, encountering Heart Breaker (position in the casino not determined) and any Suite Bosses who had survived their previous failures. (Hopefully at least one would survive so that they could use their Shuffle attack, which would allow them all to team up in one move for large damage.) Obviously, Valxan would win no matter how many opponents he ended up with. This would also be when everyone decides to take down the Shadow Consortium.

Now, prior to this, I wanted to give all the Division Heads and members of equivalent rank a chance to show off. Meutrière assassinated the Mainland President; Contrivance would probably battle one of his experiments that broke loose; Exdeath, in his journeys on the Lost Continent, was going to have a battle with Tahace; and other random battles. All the kids and Valxan would participate, each taking a different opponent, tentatively: Kytan vs Garland (has collected artifacts containing powers of the Hapori, achieves a Super Spirit based on Chaos from Final Fantasy), Cyren vs Millennium Earl, Genakex vs Contrivance (Contrivance has converted his failed operatives into weapons he can combine with, and uses his Mask of Fusion to break down Genakex’s Combinations), Xyla vs Meutrière, Zane vs Virulence, Valxan vs Gambler, Phaenyx vs Kain, and Ren vs Exdeath. (I hadn’t decided who Tahra would be fighting.) When all was done, they would leave the Consortium island behind and head back to Draco-Isle.

That leads us to the final King Bohrok battle. With Titan, Voyager, and Prism working together, they are able to take down Abomination and Assassin, but eventually it ends up being a one on one duel between Tyrant and Titan to determine the winner. Tyrant clearly has the upper hand, prompting Titan to say farewell to Genakex (telling him that he was an excellent Titan Va and such), but before Tyrant lands the final blow, the cycle ends and all King Bohrok are forced back into slumber. This sets up for all the Kings to return in Book 4. At some point, it is also revealed that Tyrant was responsible for One-Winged Angel attacking on Flora-Isle: he had negotiated with the Legendary Spirits serving Gahu-Shadow and said that if they helped him win the war, then Gahu-Shadow would be allowed to rule the Bioni-Lords Universe once Tyrant left it to conquer others.

After that, all that would be left would be the remaining Orb Battles. Kytan would be last, probably, since I was thinking he would not be given his Dragon Ultima-Orb as a replacement for the aforementioned Rahaga Ultima-Orb deal. Then again, with things being modified, maybe this wouldn’t fit anymore. Either way, things eventually progress to Kytan (along with Tahra and perhaps some others) fighting One-Winged Angel and Tabuu. The Frères and their allies are elsewhere, however; it turns out that Cyren is actually Konpaku in disguise. He attacks and kills Zane, absorbing his power and combining Obscura and Language Supreme to create Mairi, an ancient Super Spirit that at one point split into two groups who later devolved into Obscura and Language. Ren and Phaenyx do their best to fight Mairi, but they are unsuccessful. It occurs to them that, since Zodiakai and BionicleKeyblade are Toa, perhaps they can combine into a Kaita, but Konpaku tells them it will not work because their Spirits are artificially created Toa, called so because those unaware of their origins did not know any better. Ren makes another proposal: Phaenyx uses his Keyblade to unlock and absorb the Zodiac energies within Zodiakai, creating a pseudo-Kaita that might stand a better chance. Phaenyx refuses, since the process would release Ren’s heart as well, killing him. However, since they are about to die anyway, Ren intercepts Phaenyx’s Keyblade and initiates the process, allowing Phaenyx to fight on more equal ground with Konpaku. Sadly, Konpaku is still victorious. Kytan and the others are able to seal One-Winged Angel in a manner similar to how Stained Glass was defeated, and Tabuu is attacked in such a way that his mind shatters, leaving him the way we see him in Sekai. Kytan then proceeds to fight Konpaku, sealing his body inside a book in an effort to defeat him. Konpaku’s strange nature allows his soul to escape, but his body (and Mairi) remains trapped in the book, and he vows to retrieve them someday.

The ending has gotten really messy. The original plan: Kytan goes super nuts, creates The Diseased Ones and kills Revictor as a way of taking revenge on Lassus, kills Vitirus and makes Mutant-Isle free-floating as a way of taking revenge on Norscu, contacts the Shadow-Lord to begin forming the Shade-Gang from the remnants of the Shadow Consortium, and converts the Consortium’s island into the Mountain of Death. This then leads to Genakex and Xyla storming the mountain. At first I thought they would fight two on one, but then I thought Kytan would cast the Doppelganger Spell on Xyla. Xyla’s doppelganger would use a Stone Spirit (not sure which one, might have made a new one) and be either incredibly arrogant or personify self-loathing, depending on how Xyla continued to develop. Xyla would win, and then be sure to keep her doppelganger too weak to re-separate going forward. (This is also meant to explain why the Darkhadaz persona existed before the doppelganger spell was cast on Khadaz: since Xyla’s doppelganger was still inside her soul when Khadaz was conceived, the conflict was sort of passed on, creating Darkhadaz. Since Darkhadaz was separate when Kharuun was conceived, Kharuun does not have the same problem.) Genakex, using Ikhav Gurren Lagann, was going to fight Kytan, using Krahka. They would argue a bit first, but when Genakex realized Kytan was too far gone, he would resolve to fight to bring him out of it, calling him by name instead of “niisan” to show that has accepted that Kytan is now the 10^th rather than his brother. I also wanted to include something along the lines of “I’ve always wanted to be you, so I know who you really are”, and “when you wake up from this, it’ll be because for the first time, you want to be a little more like me”, though I guess that’s pretty cheesy. Anywho, Genakex loses, but Kytan allows him and Xyla to escape and casts The Retcon. The memories of those with great power, however, are unaffected—the Element-Lords, Genakex, and Xyla all remember everything. Zempyst goes to fight Kytan and gets killed, as had been previously stated.

Now, once Plans 2 and 3 came into play, I thought maybe Konpaku had something to do with The Retcon, and/or he did something that caused Tahra, Vitirus, and Zempyst to disappear from this world rather than being killed. (They’d all come back in Book 4.) Konpaku would also be filling Kytan with madness as time went on, making him the cause of Kytan turning into the 10^th. Also, Konpaku would at some point obtain blood from either Kytan or Genakex, as he promised “the puppetmaster” in Chapter 1; the puppetmaster then used the Ikhav blood to increase the strength of his latest creation, none other than Dark Knight Destroyer, explaining why Destroyer behaved like an Ikhav.

Anyway, it all sort of ends up at the same place. The story is complete, so we return to the present, where Khadaz and Norscu take Kytan to see Genakex and Xyla again. Genakex punches Kytan and says he had a lot of time to think, and he only has one thing to say. Kytan expects Genakex to tell him off, but instead, his brother smiles and says “Welcome home, niisan.” So essentially, all is forgiven, and Kytan begins to work with the Element-Lords as one of their agents to make up for what he’s done. Or something like that. I was thinking of including some parts of Sekai’s Epilogue as well—namely Konpaku unsealing Mairi and the sentient Shadow Apprentice absorbing Shadow Knight’s soul, to remind readers of what’s in store for Book 4.

So, that’s Kako. It was either going to be terribly offensive or end up a complete and total mess. I have concerns about my plans for Books 4 and 5, which I will post soon, but Kako’s immediate and massive concerns are especially discouraging. I still care about Bioni-Lords and I still think there’s a chance it could work, but it’ll need some serious reformulating if that is to happen. As such, it’s time for me to let go of its current iteration.

So I guess, in order to let go of the past, I need to start by letting go of Kako. *drums*

…Get it because “kako” means “past” I’m sorry I just really like puns