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Yet another comedy of mine being taken out of the mothballs, so to speak. Here is the link to the old topic. Chapter 4: Budget Cuts On the island of Daxia, in the Order of Mata Nui headquarters, Helryx sat in her comfortably heated chambers, pouring over a pile of tablets two feet high. Being head of the Order of Mata Nui had its perks, hence said comfortably heated chambers, but it also entailed an enormous amount of tablet work. Helryx's desk phone buzzed, and she picked it up, saying, "Yes, Claire?" Her secretary was on the other end, and she said, "Mr. Naad is here to talk to you about the budget, Helryx. He says it's important." Helryx groaned in exhaustion, and said, "Alright, send him in." Naad came in through the wooden double doors of Helryx's chambers, carrying a brief case. Naad was a tall, green armored being with a Great Kanohi Rau, the mask of translation. He said to her, "Good evening, Ms. Helryx. How are you today?" "As fine as can be, what with our little Destiny War going on," said Helrxy, peering past the stack of tablets on her desk. "What can I do for you, Mr. Naad?" "A word on the budget," said Naad, taking a seat in a chair in front of Helryx's desk. "Accounting just finished our most recent audit, and found that our current budget for the surveillance division greatly exceeds the budget for all other departments." "Of course," said Helryx. "We're the Order of Mata Nui. Surveillance is our primary function." "I understand that," said Naad, pulling a tablet out of his briefcase. "But the board made it clear to me that they think that when planning for the coming fiscal year, we ought to consider reallocating resources to other departments, such as R&D." Helryx examined the figures carved into the tablet, and set it down, saying, "Alright. How did the board vote on this proposal?" "It was a vote of nine for, three against," said Naad. "The board is hard set on trimming the fat, as it were." Helryx rested her elbows on the desk, holding her chin in her hands. She said, "Alright, I understand. I approve the board's decision. Good night, Mr. Naad." "Good night, Ms. Helryx," said Naad. He took up his brief case and went out the door, thinking, This briefcase could be used as an exercise weight. Stupid tablets. With luck, this new budget should bring us more paper to use. After Naad had left, Helryx took the phone from her desk and said, "Claire? Get me board member Jend on the line." "Yes, ma'am. Just a moment," responded Claire. There was a moment of silence, before another voice came on with a click, saying, "Jend here." "Mr. Jend, this is Helryx," said the Toa of water. "Since when is the board allowed to convene without my knowledge?" "Well, it's clearly written in the bylaws-" "Bother the bylaws. Naad was just in my office, and he told me that the board just voted on next year's budget, which involved heavy reallocation of resources from the Surveillance department. Who was the muffin head who wrote up that proposal?" There was a brief silence, and Jend said, "That... muffin head.... would be me, ma'am." "Oh. Well, in that case, I'd like you to know that my recommendation is to convene the board for an emergency meeting to discuss the budget. From what I understand, the new budget for the surveillance department is just over nine thousand widgets." "That's nine million, ma'am." "Really? Darn dyslexia. Well, anyhow, I want to meet with the board pronto to discuss this. I'm not the director of the Order of Mata Nui for nothing!" * * * Several days later, on the island of Nynrah, Order of Mata Nui agents Trinuma and Joe were on a stake out of the Brotherhood of Makuta building on that island. Trinuma could barely fit in the car, his knees scrunched up to his chin. Joe had a little easier time of it, being smaller, and kept a sharp eye on the building's entrance. Their objective? To keep an eye on the area and to report any activity of interest. Joe was using his binoculars to watch various people going in and out of the building. Unfortunately, it was night out, so he couldn't see much of anything. "Drat this device," he said. "Just a few weeks ago, we would have had a decent car and a pair of night vision goggles. Now all we've got is a junked up Dodge, a pair of binoculars from the Fourth Street Second Hand store, and some stale doughnuts." "Don't forget the kanoka disk launchers," said Trinuma, feeling just as grumpy as Joe was. "Man, I used to have a pair of ghost blasters, and now all I've got are these disk launchers! They're soooo 2004." "You said it," said Joe, peering into the darkness. They were currently parked in the parking lot of the McKyry's across the street from the Brotherhood of Makuta building. He reached down into the darkness of the van and pulled up the doughnut box, and said to his partner, "Want a doughnut?" "No thanks. They're too fattening." "Can we even gain weight? We're robots, right?" "Biomechanical beings, Joe. Wait, what's that?" Joe lifted up his binoculars and saw two Matoran walking out of the building. "What do you think they're up to?" asked Joe. "I mean, this late at night and all." Trinuma buckled his seat belt and said to Joe, "I say we follow them. They might be running some top secret errand for the Brotherhood." "You've been watching too much Law and Order," said Joe. "The Brotherhood doesn't assign important tasks to mere Matoran." "We'll see," said Trinuma. "We'll see." * * * Katax and Praket walked down the street to Praket's car, silent. "I can't believe your boss wanted us to meet with this organization," said Katax. "I know, right?" said Praket, opening the door to his car. "It's all about PR, though. The average Matoran is scared of the Brotherhood, so the higher ups wanted to show that we care a little about their well being." "That's... somewhat comforting," said Katax as he got in the front seat. "But I take it they don't want the masses to know just yet, do they?" "Exactly," said Praket, starting the car's engine. "That's why we have to meet them at night, just in case it goes bad, you know?" "Yes, sir," said Katax, buckling his seat belt. If there was one thing he had learned while working for the Brotherhood of Makuta, it was to always agree with the boss. The two drove downtown to a dilapidated parking garage, where they parked on the third floor. They got out of Praket's Prius, and approached a white van. About a quarter of the way there, the doors of the van opened, and two Matoran, a Toa, and a Turaga got out. They met halfway between their respective vehicles. "I'm Turaga Smith," said the Turaga, a Turaga of Stone. "And these are my fellow representatives from the Letty Gord Center for Toa. I see you got our message." "We did," said Praket coolly, which was ironic, as he was a Ta-Matoran. "We are here to accept your request for Brotherhood support. In the interest of PR, our boss said yes. All you have to do is sign some tablets, and it should be fine." "Yes, sir," said the Toa of Ice. "We'll send a Matoran representative down to do that. You can even start organizing the press release." He stuck out his hand to shake with Praket, who reciprocated by offering his own hand. "It's a done deal," declared the Ta-Matoran. "We'll be able to organize a public announcement soon." Little did these meeting persons know, however, that just across the street, Trinuma and Joe sat listening with their state of the art eavesdropping device. After the meeting was over, and the two parties went their separate ways, Trinuma said to Joe, "You thinking what I'm thinking?" "What are you thinking?" said Joe, confused. "I'm thinking," said Trinuma, "That we ought to report this to the boss." "I'm thinking the same thing," said Joe. To be continued... X-Ray
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And now, after a very long time, I hearby present the next chapter of Glatorian of Bara Magna: Curse of the Grey Crystal. The old thread can be found here: http://www.bzpower.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=313251&st=0&p=6450397&&do=findComment&comment=6450397 Chapter 14: Gresh's Ultimatum Below the deck of the Barricade, the blast of a cannon had knocked a beam across the door of Gresh's cabin. He noticed some writing on it: Made in Hong Kong. Of course, he thought. He tried with all his might to dislodge the beam, but it was no use. Water began to fill the room, and Gresh could not get the door to budge. Suddenly, he heard a noise from behind him. It was the cursed sand ray. It had grabbed the medallion from where Gresh had left it on the table, and then darted through a hole in the bulkhead. Perfect, thought Gresh. Gresh treaded water, the water coming up to his neck now. In desperation, he took a deep breath and dived below the water. Meanwhile, up on deck, the sand ray raced past Strakk, who saw that the animal had the medallion. He pursued it, running over the Barricade's fallen mast over to the Grey Crystal. He was about to snatch the medallion from the sand ray's... paw, when another hand reached down and grabbed it. Strakk looked up into the face of Barbonesa, who gave him an unpleasant grin. "Why, thank you, Strakk," said the glatorian captain. "You're welcome," Strakk replied grimly. "Not you," said Barbonesa, the sand ray now perched on his shoulder. "We named the sand ray Strakk." It seemed that all was lost. The Barricade was sinking fast, the crew was being rounded up, and the glatorian had stolen the sattelite TV equipment from the Barricade. Finally, Tarix singalled their surrender as Barbonesa raised the medallion high up into the air. "The prize is ours!" he shouted, to the cheers of his crew. Tarix, Manaria, Tarduk, Kiina, and the rest of the crew were roughly brought aboard the Grey Crystal and tied to the mast by Kirbraz and Scodonius. "Any of you so much as thinks the word 'parley' and I'll have your guts for garters!" said Kirbraz, holding his thornax launcher to them. Suddenly, a huge explosion ripped through the battered hull of the Barridcade, somehow not sending harming anyone with all the shrapnel and debris it sent flying everywhere. There, standing on the rail of the Barricade, soaking wet, was Gresh, alive and well and pointing a thornax launcher at Barbonesa's head. "She goes free!" he shouted. "How did you manage to survive that explosion and drowning besides?" yelled Barbonesa, quite puzzled. "That's not important!" shouted back Gresh. "Now let my gi- eh, Kiina, go!" "What's in your head, boy?" said Barbonesa. "You've got one shot... and we can't die. Furthermore, how do you expect to hit the broad side of a barn from that distance? In the orignal movie, it would hae been impossible with a flintlock pistol-" "You can't. Die, I mean," said Gresh, putting the thornax launcher to his chin. "But I can. My name is Gresh Tesner," he announced. "My father was Shoelace Sean Tesner. His blood runs in my veins!" Every glatorian on deck looked a Gresh in surprise, but Strakk only shook his head in dismay. "Why, it's the spitting image of old Shoelace, come back to haunt us!" said Scodonius, quivering slightly. "Name your terms, Mr. Tesner," said Barbonesa flatly. He knew that if Gresh pulled the trigger, he and his crew would be cursed forever. "Kiina goes free!" Gresh answered. "Yes, we know that one," said Barbonesa, glancing down at his phone. He was looking forward to a game of Angry Birds. "Anything else?" Unfortunately, Gresh hadn't thought that far ahead, nor had he read the script. "And Strakk," he finally said. "He goes free too. And the crew, they're not to be harmed! Agree!" he demanded as he leaned out over the water. "Agreed," said Barbonesa, pocketing his phone. "You have my word at a gentleman of fortune." "You can't trust him!" shouted Kiina, having learned from her own mistake. "You can trust this," Barbonesa said through ground teeth. "Pull that trigger and the girl will be the first to suffer- and the last to die!" Gresh slowly lowered the thornax launcher. Glatorian immediatly swarmed him, dragging him over to the deck of the Crystal. Fearing what might happen next, Strakk stepped over to Barbonesa. "What about our bargain?" he said. "What bargain?" said Barbonesa, puzzled. "I caught you, and then you escaped after a witty repartee. We never worked anything out. I've got the Crystal, and I've got the child of Shoelace Sean now. And you've got" -he glared hard at Strakk, jealous of his advantage of height- "nothing to bargain with." Barbonesa then clapped Strakk on the back and said, "But no worries, Strakk. See that island over there?" Barbonesa asked, pointing to a spit of sandwashed sand in the distance. "If memory serves, it be the same one we made you governor of on our last trip. I'll wager that by whatever miracle you escaped before, you won't be able to conjure it up again. For you or the girl!" "Barbonesa, you cool dude!" yelled Gresh from his spot on the deck, being restrained by the glatorian. "You swore she'd go free! And darn you, word filter!" "Aye, so I did," said Barbonesa, "and so they will. But you never made any specific mention of when nor where." Gresh struggled furiously against the glatorian who held him back. He'd been duped." "Men!" Barbonesa shouted to the crew. "We are going to proceed to throw historical accuracy out the window! The plank!" To be continued...
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X-Ray: The ReturnIt was back. For real.X-Ray stood in the gates of BZPower, hesitant to enter. It had been several months since he had gazed upon the forums, and typed in a witty line for the Bionicle Caption Contest, but it was back.He saw the line of members coming and going. He saw that things were about back to normal. He saw that he had forgotten his password.After the brief hustle accompanied by forgetting your password, changing it, and resetting it, X-Ray entered BZPower.It was glorious.He looked down, as his body transformed into how he saw himself on the site; a fine suit with a white dress shirt, blue vest, and a silver tie. He adjusted the new-improved Akaku Nuva-style eyepiece built into the right side of his head, and regaled in the site.Members were going to and fro, with Black Six and SPIRIT and the other admins and mods whose names he forgot directing the new influx of traffic. Everything was new and shiny and clean. The entrance booth still needed polishing, but he thought it looked okay anyhow. Yes, it was all good and fixed. X-Ray gazed happily at this new BZP, fully prepared to go forth and write and post to his heart's content.And then his cellphone rang."Never gonna give you up!" shouted his ring tone, "Never gonna let you down! Never gonna turn around and-"X-Ray snatched the cellphone out of his... pocket, flipped it open, and said:"Hello?""X-Ray, is that you?""Kapurkar?" said X-Ray, relieved to hear the voice of a frequent reader of his comedies. "How did you get this num- ah, never mind that, I'm glad to hear from you, buddy! How are you?""Just fine, X," said Kapurkar. “Listen, I just thought I’d call to tell you- all of the stuff in the library is gone. You have to go to the old forum archive, get the link to your comedy, and repost your stuff.”X-Ray groaned. That sounded annoying. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll remember to do that. By the way, how’s Ja-”Suddenly, as X-Ray turned around a corner to enter the Bionicle Storyline & Theories forum, a huge flash of light engulfed him. A moment later, he was surrounded by the cold of cyberspace, with all of the activity of BZPower frozen around him, his avatar appearance stripped from his being. He then gazed with confusion and annoyance at a sort of screen sign which had popped up. It said: “Need an account? Sign in right now!”Confound this new server, thought X-Ray as he complied with the instructions, just what in Hapori Tohu’s name is wrong with it?The next minute, X-Ray abruptly dropped back into the Storyline & Theories forum, and everything was fine. That’s the third time that’s happened since I got here, he thought, brushing himself off. I’d better edit it out of the overly dramatic one-shot I plan to write about me coming back to BZP. It might even make a good meta-joke. He flipped his cell phone open, only to find that Kapurkar’s connection had been cut off. “Well, great,” he said to himself. He had Kapurkar’s number from the last call’s memory, but he still couldn’t reach the toa of transport.“Nuts,” X-Ray said to himself again. “Well, off to repost all of my comedies. And short stories. And epic.” And with that, the scholarly faux-toa-of-ice walked back down to the main hall, with nobody giving a hoot that this particularly clever being had returned to BZPower.“Hey X!” shouted Nobody from his bench just outside of the Library, “you’re back! WHOOO!”“Hi, Nobody!” said X-Ray, shaking the mild-mannered wraith’s hand. “How’s my favorite anthropomorphic running joke doing?”“Just fine,” said Nobody. “And yourself?”"Oh, good. Have you been taking care of yourself?""Oh, yeah. I joined an MMA club!""Mixed Martial Arts?""No, Mild Mannered Aviators! I'm flying for charity!""Uh... huh. Well, I-"And so, the writer and the wraith walked into the Library, fully prepared to engage in a new era of thread-bare wit and occasionally funny jokes, with a bit of serious, EPIC writing on the side. But mostly comedies.* * *...I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! I assure you all, I'll be re-posting all of my stuff soon, but first, let me just say that it's wonderful to *AHEM* "see" you all again! Hurray for the Comedies Forum! And hurray for BZPoweeeeeeeeeeeerrrr!...What? Oh, yes. X-Ray
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Hello, and welcome to the review topic for Bionicle: Infinities. The new topic for the actual epic won't be up for a little while, but you may read and review it from where it was formerly posted in the forum archive by clicking the link at the bottom of this post, and post your thoughtful reviews here. Rest assured, Bionicle: Infinities WILL return. Eventually. X-Ray http://www.bzpower.c...2
