TNTOS

Great to see you're writing again . Writers' block is definitely not fun, heh. In fact, I am sort of going through that right now with my novel (which is why I am working on a fanfic instead).

The Urohk drew a sharpened sword. Vezon followed this up by holding up a golf club.Urohk: ...Vezon: COME AT ME BRO!

The sounds of a large battle could be heard from outside the prison and it’s electric fence (powered by elemental energy, of course).

This chapter had a few funny moments such as:

*At Icarax's labyrinth*(Rocka and his team burst in through the door)Icarax: How did you find me?Surge: *throws sign that reads "Icarax's Lair"

Matoro: How dare you speak to the Great Beings' chosen herald like that, Mr. East!West: Actually my name is West.Turaga Matau: Paradox!Axel: Matau, I said no copying

Matoro: We have discovered three ways to stop Icarax's plan. Here they are : One, send in the Hero Factories to attack Icarax, Two , use the combined powers of my mask of reanimation , the mask of life , and the mask of light to destroy Icarax's device and de-animate Icarax, Three is use the Omega Key and de-animate Icarax's device.

Matoro: We have discovered three ways to stop Icarax's plan. Here they are: One, send in the Hero Factories to attack Icarax. Two , use the combined powers of my Mask of Reanimation, the Mask of Life, and the Mask of Light to destroy Icarax's device and de-animate Icarax. Three is use the Omega Key and de-animate Icarax's device.

And so it is that magical time of the week known as Wednesday, although it isn't very magical nor is it very windy, for that matter. Oh, well. Here's another chapter of this comedy that I think some people like:

The next day, the group had breakfast. Everyone ate bacon and eggs – which I guess exist in the BIONICLE universe now or something - except for Bucket-head, who was given dirt to eat.“You expect me to eat dirt?” said Bucket-head as Kiina handed him the plate which the earth was on.“What, do you want me to fry it or something?” said Kiina disgustedly as she went to sit down next to Mata Nui, who was pouring sugar and syrup on his bacon and eggs for some reason.After breakfast, the party of five continued their journey to the Great Volcano Night Club. They suddenly found themselves in a dense jungle area, forcing them to hack their way through. Mata Nui was in the lead, using his gun to chop through the jungle undergrowth. And he didn’t have a blade attached to the gun or anything, either. He could just cut through it because he could.“This makes no sense,” Bucket-head complained as he nearly tripped over a tree root. “What’s up with this place’s geography?”“What’s up with you?” Kiina snapped, which caused Bucket-head to keep his mouth shut.Nothing exciting happened for several minutes until suddenly, plants attacked our heroes. Thick jungle vines – with teeth, by the way – emerged from the trees around them. The vines hissed and snapped at the gang, causing Mata Nui and friends to back into the center to avoid getting eaten.“Hmm, murderous plant life,” said Mata Nui as he slashed at a vine that had come too close. “Don’t think we’ve seen that one before, have we?”“Well, there was that one time in that greenhouse,” said Ackar as he slapped a vine away. “But then, that was because of the mutagenic piggy demons, so I don’t think that counts.”“How do we get rid of them?” said Kiina, almost bored, as she swatted a particularly scrawny vine away.“I know these plants,” said Oris, who just sort of pushed one of the vines away from them. “They hate water. But where are we going to get water?”“You mean we don’t have any water bottles?” said Mata Nui in shock. “Oh, no! We’re doomed to die at the hands of violent plants!”“Are you guys honestly that stupid?” Kiina snapped as she poked a vine. “I would expect that from Bucket-head, not from you two.”“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Bucket-head as he blocked a vine with his shield.“It means you’re stupid,” Kiina replied. “Anyway, stand back. I’ll deal with these dumb plants.”Kiina raised her hands and said, “O great Poseidon, god of the sea, lend me thy powers to wash away these dumb plants and save my friends. If necessary, I will sacrifice Bucket-head to please you.”“Why does everyone keep talking about sacrificing me?” Bucket-head muttered.But the heavens opened up just then and Poseidon appeared, holding a giant trident in his hands as he said, “O faithful servant of the waves, I need not that insolent, idiotic Skrall to grant thee powers. Behold! The power of the ocean rests within your very body, young maiden! Now use it to save your friends from the evil plants!”Kiina immediately snapped her fingers, creating a wave of water that splashed into the vines. The vines hissed and retreated into the shadows because they were sissies.“Okay, I love you, bye bye!” said Poseidon, waving as the heavens closed.“Wimps,” said Mata Nui, shaking his head. “Afraid of water . . . that is so lame.”“Hey, Bucket-head, what are you doing?” said Ackar, looking at the Skrall, who was kneeling on the ground.Bucket-head quickly put something in his bag and stood up, saying, “Oh, um, nothing.”“He’s just being stupid,” said Mata Nui dismissively. “Anyway, I see something up in the trees.”All five of our heroes looked up. In the uppermost branches of the trees were what looked like two Glatorian warriors. One was clearly an ice Glatorian; the other, an earth Glatorian (by the way, what’s an earth Glatorian? Is it a Vorox or something? I don’t know). They were both wrapped in vines and looked dead, for they did not appear to be struggling. Oh, and because they were never released as sets I can’t- oh, you know the routine by now.“People!” said Ackar in surprise. He turned to Oris and said, “Hey, do you know those two?”“Um, no,” said Oris, a little too quickly. “I didn’t trap them up there in those vines. Honest.”“I never said you did,” said Ackar.“That’s because I didn’t,” said Oris, nodding, sounding relieved.“Uh huh,” said Ackar. “Well, how are we supposed to get them down?”“Why do we need to get them down?” asked Mata Nui.“I dunno,” said Ackar, pulling out a stack of paper. “The script says so.”“Okay, fine,” said Mata Nui. He turned to Bucket-head and said, “Get them down from there.”“Okay,” said Bucket-head. He looked up at the two trapped Glatorian and began aiming his shield.“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” said Mata Nui, grabbing Bucket-head’s shield arm.“I am going to free them,” Bucket-head replied, annoyed. “I am going to throw my shield and it will rip through the vines and-““That would be too easy,” said Mata Nui. He pointed at the base of the nearest tree and said, “Climb. Now.”Bucket-head looked at the tree in which the two Glatorian were trapped. It was gigantic, easily bigger than a mountain. It looked like it went all the way up out of the planet’s atmosphere and into space and possibly outside of the universe, which, considering this comedy’s nature, is quite possible.“But it would be quicker and more efficient to throw my shield,” Bucket-head insisted. “My shield has buzz saw blades on the side. Also, it’ll look really cool and I’ll be just like Captain America.”“Well, Captain Bucket-head,” said Mata Nui, “I don’t want you throwing your shield. The script says you have to climb it.”“Where does it say that?” asked Bucket-head.Mata Nui pulled out his script, scribbled something on it, and said, “Here. It says ‘Bucket-head climbs up tree and frees Glatorian.’ See?”Bucket-head peered at the script and said, “Hang on, it looks like someone crossed out something here-““This is a revised version,” said Mata Nui, hastily putting the script away.“But-““Your name is Bucket-head, not But-head,” said Mata Nui. “Now get climbing or else I’ll kick you up there myself.”Bucket-head sighed. “Okay. Fine. But if I die-““Don’t worry, no one will cry,” said Mata Nui, patting Bucket-head on the shoulder. “Well, I might, but it would be tears of joy at your passing.”Bucket-head didn’t answer. Instead, he began climbing the tree, which, as he thought, was bigger than it looked. It was much, much, MUCH bigger than it looked.A few hours and several hundred falls later (including one in which Mata Nui ‘accidentally’ shot Bucket-head down), Bucket-head reached the top of the trees. He quickly cut the two unconscious Glatorian free, sending them falling to their deaths.But because these two guys are supposed to be major characters (according to the script, anyway), a giant trampoline appeared beneath them, which broke their fall. Mata Nui and the others on the ground quickly pulled the two Glatorian off the trampoline and began trying to wake them up.Meanwhile, up in the trees, Bucket-head peered at the ground. He saw the giant trampoline and decided he would jump on it. After all, if it could handle the weight of two Glatorian, then surely it could hold the weight of one Skrall. It would break his fall and he would be safe.So, without further hesitation, Bucket-head jumped, aiming directly for the trampoline below him.What Bucket-head didn’t realize, however, was that Ackar had moved the trampoline out of the way, aware that Bucket-head was going to try to land on it. So Bucket-head smashed into the ground, burrowed through the core of the planet, burst through the other side, and fell through space until he went all the way around the universe and landed on Bara Magna again. Amazingly, he landed right next to Mata Nui and the others.Mata Nui looked at Bucket-head with disgust. “Stop playing around, Bucket-head. This is no time for fun and games.”Because every bone in his body was shattered into dust, Bucket-head could only whimper in pain in response.Mata Nui turned back to the two new Glatorian, who were awake now. They looked around at everyone in confusion, or perhaps it was fear, considering how violent and sociopathic our 'heroes' are.Mata Nui roughly grabbed the two and pulled them up to his face. He snarled, “Who the heck are you two and what the heck are you doing here?”“I-I’m Tera,” said the earth Glatorian. He pointed at the ice Glatorian and said, “A-and he’s Likus.”“A likely story,” said Mata Nui, shoving them to the ground. “What the heck are you doing here?”“W-w-we don’t know!” said Tera, who appeared to be cowering in fear at Mata Nui’s anger. “Our friend O-Oris just led us here a-and told us to wait for him. S-so we did and th-then those plant things appeared and gr-grabbed us!”Mata Nui, Ackar, and Kiina looked at Oris, who shrugged and said, “Must be another guy named Oris.”“Please don’t kill us!” Tera added, throwing himself at Mata Nui’s feet. “I beg of you!”“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you,” said Mata Nui. “I was just acting angry earlier to get you to tell the truth.”“Why do you think we’d lie to you?” said Likus. His voice reminded Mata Nui uncomfortably of Justin Bieber. “We don’t even know you.”“Ah, but that is exactly the point,” said Mata Nui. “Why would you lie to us? You are hiding something!”“We are not,” said Likus acidly. “Tera and I used to be swords-for-hire. We would work for separate villages and stage air guitar competitions. We’d split the winnings afterwards.”“Air guitar competitions?” said Kiina. “You mean those actually exist?”“Yes,” said Likus, who seemed to have far more backbone than Tera. “And I am pretty good at it, too. Watch.”Likus stood up and started acting like he was playing a guitar. “Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh!”“Okay,” said Kiina, grabbing his arm. “Just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”“It gets all the chicks,” said Likus.Kiina immediately let go of him. “Well, I’m sorry, but this ‘chick’ is already with someone.”Likus looked from Kiina to Ackar and back again and said, “Whoa, you mean-““I am Kiina’s man,” said Mata Nui, sounding extremely jealous and annoyed.“Oh,” said Likus, who sounded relieved. “Good. For a moment there I thought-““Eh, I’ve never had luck with girls,” said Ackar. “Even in my younger days, girls never seemed to like me as much as the other guys. Never bothered me, although I never understood why they didn’t. Guess it’s because of their cooties or something.”“So what are you guys doing here?” said Likus.Mata Nui explained to Tera and Likus how they got here when Bucket-head emerged from the crater he had created. Somehow, through sheer force of will, Bucket-head had forced his bones to reform, although they were extremely stiff, causing him to walk awkwardly toward the others.“Ah! A Skrall!” Tera screamed, ducking behind Likus. “Don’t let it touch me!”“Don’t worry,” said Mata Nui. “He’s tame.”“I am not an ‘it’ and I am not an animal that is tamed,” said Bucket-head, throwing Mata Nui an irritated glance. “If you must know, it was I who climbed the trees and saved you two.”“Wow,” said Likus, now looking at Mata Nui with respect. “You even taught it tricks.”“’Taught it tricks’? What kind of cupcakes and noodles is this?” said Bucket-head. We were forced to censor his curse because it was inappropriate for this comedy’s viewing audience.“Oh, no,” said Mata Nui, shaking his head. “I told him to throw his buzz saw shield and save you, but he insisted on climbing. He’s not very smart.”“What the heck?” said Bucket-head, outraged. “Mata Nui was the one who-““Is he a stray or something?” asked Likus.“Sort of,” said Mata Nui. “You know me. I’m so soft-hearted, I couldn’t just let this poor little creature go live by itself.”“Oh, so I’m a ‘poor little creature’ now, am I?” said Bucket-head, folding his arms. “And you’re soft-hearted? Actually, it’s more like you’re no-hearted.”“Man, you’re lucky,” said Likus enviously. “Tera and I have talked about getting a Skrall, but we’ve never been able to find one for cheap.”“I am so offended right now that I would just walk away and leave this comedy entirely if I was allowed to,” said Bucket-head, but as usual, no one noticed him.“He’s not that great,” said Mata Nui. “He’s boring and stupid and ugly, too. He’s not even worth selling. Look, you and Tera can have him for free.”“Oh, don’t bother asking me what I think,” said Bucket-head. “It’s not like I have a free will or anything!”“Hey, Tera,” said Likus, looking down at his legs, where Tera was cowering in fear. “Did you hear that? We got a free Skrall!”“Skrall scare me,” Tera muttered. “Big trees scare me. Vines scare me. Bad jokes scare me.”“Everything scares you, Tera,” said Likus dismissively. “Anyway, where are you guys going?”“To the Great Volcano Night Club,” Mata Nui replied. “We’re going to defeat Dah Element Lords because they’ve kidnapped a couple of our friends.”“The Great Volcano Night Club?” Likus repeated. “We went there once, right, Tera?”“Y-yeah,” said Tera, who was compulsively shaking, like he was one of the recliners with a vibrating function. “But it was scary.”“You mean you’ve been there? What were you doing there?” asked Mata Nui.Likus puffed out his chest proudly and said, “Well, our reputations as air guitarists were so big at one point that Dah Element Lords hired us to privately play for them. Don’t think they liked it, though, right, Tera?”“Dah Element Lords are scary,” said Tera. “They made me wet my-““Anyway,” said Likus, “after that, one of their servants, Oris, took us here. Then the plants grabbed us and we’ve been like that until your Skrall rescued us.”Again they looked at Oris, who shrugged and said, “Like I said before, must be another guy named Oris.”“And I am NOT ‘their Skrall,’” Bucket-head said hotly, actually brandishing his gun now. “Next guy who says that gets this gun shoved up their-“But it was at that moment that a trillion gangsters – armed to the teeth with machine guns, knives, pistols, chains, and other gangster gear – appeared around them. All of our heroes – even frightened Tera – drew their weapons and turned to face the army of gangsters.“We can discuss this later,” said Mata Nui. “For now, we have to fight for our lives!”Commentary:

Nothing exciting happened for several minutes until suddenly, plants attacked our heroes. Thick jungle vines – with teeth, by the way – emerged from the trees around them. The vines hissed and snapped at the gang, causing Mata Nui and friends to back into the center to avoid getting eaten.

“Air guitar competitions?” said Kiina. “You mean those actually exist?”“Yes,” said Likus, who seemed to have far more backbone than Tera. “And I am pretty good at it, too. Watch.”Likus stood up and started acting like he was playing a guitar. “Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh!”“Okay,” said Kiina, grabbing his arm. “Just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”“It gets all the chicks,” said Likus.Kiina immediately let go of him. “Well, I’m sorry, but this ‘chick’ is already with someone.”

“Ah! A Skrall!” Tera screamed, ducking behind Likus. “Don’t let it touch me!”“Don’t worry,” said Mata Nui. “He’s tame.”“I am not an ‘it’ and I am not an animal that is tamed,” said Bucket-head, throwing Mata Nui an irritated glance. “If you must know, it was I who climbed the trees and saved you two.”

Oh, I've always thought we needed a topic like this. I just never got around to making it 'cause I'm too lazy .Now onto the questions:

What ideas do you like to portray in your Bionicle Stories?

What's your favorite genre to write about?

Why do you post stories and when do you find time to read other entries?

Do you enjoy Epics or Short Stories more and which do you enjoy writing for overall?

Contest ideas for the Library?

The most difficult, the longest, shortest and easiest written and published stories you've done?

Short Stories and Epics that are your favorites?

Captain America looks surprisingly better than I thought he would. I might pick him up if I see him on sale somewhere (maybe ).-TNTOS-

Wait I thought the sun was risen by little goblin/elf things pushing it up a mountain. In all seriousness the moon thing could be seen as a form of foreshadowing for how weird this chapter is going to be. Poor Bucket head he will never if it was a dream, how did you come up with Orlando Bloom playing Oris? Plus how many demons has Mata Nui slayed again?Sorry this is sort of short but I await the next chapter.

all i have to say is i had this dream last nightand the ugly kiina face was lady gaga

Chapter VI

After the frozen village, Kiina and I were forced to travel through the open plains all day, stopping only briefly to have dinner. Our food supplies were running low again, but I figured that, as we only had about a day left on our journey, we could survive off what little we had if we were frugal. Kiina promised she would not eat any more than she had to, but I already knew that, for I knew she had learned her lesson about gluttony earlier.

The wind was icy, piercingly cold, even between the mountains, and, when the sun set, we agreed to find a place to stop and rest. It was difficult to find something to keep us out of the wind, for the area around us was mostly flat and there were no large gatherings of boulders. We managed to find a large, dead tree, though, but it offered us little protection from the cold air that night. Sleeping was doubly uncomfortable for me, because I had to find just the right position to lie in so my broken leg wouldn’t hurt so badly.

In the morning, I was so cold that I could barely move. We huddled around the fire I had made with my sword in order to thaw out before continuing. My broken leg still hurt like crazy, but I forced myself to ignore it. As a soldier, I had taken far worse than this before, but that didn’t diminish the pain I felt.

As we walked, I became increasingly aware of what we were walking into. True, we were heading back to the welcoming arms of our comrades, but the fact remained that Kiina and I weren't truly on the same team. Kiina was a soldier of the Water army; I, of the Fire army. Enemy soldiers did not become friends and didn’t remain friends with each other, either. It was a bitter truth, but one that would remain true so long as the war continued.

As far as I could tell, the only thing we could do when we got back was terminate our friendship and pretend like we never knew each other. It was the only way to avoid the pain of having to fight and kill a friend, although that didn’t mean I liked it. It just meant that that was our only realistic option.

I decided that now was the best time to talk about this with Kiina. After all, we were nearly at the end of our journey. In time we would be forced to separate and become enemies once again. Better to get it over with sooner rather than later, in my opinion.

So I said, “Kiina, there’s something I’d like to talk with you about.”

“It’s about the fact that we can’t be friends, right?” said Kiina, glancing over her shoulder at me.

Startled, I said, “Uh, yeah. Have you been thinking about this, too?”

“Yeah,” said Kiina, nodding grimly. “I know that, when we get back, we’re gonna have to go back to our own armies. I doubt my superiors would be happy if I were friends with a Fire soldier. Our armies are supposed to be at war with each other; they wouldn’t let me be friends with you, no matter what.”

“Well, I thought that maybe we should stop being friends, then,” I said. “I mean, practically-speaking, we won’t be allowed to be friends when we get back home. A friendship between two soldiers who are supposed to be enemies is impossible. What will we do if we’re forced to fight each other on the battlefield someday?”

Kiina stopped and turned to look at me, causing me to stop, too, so I didn’t bump into her.

“We could run away together,” Kiina suggested. “Run away from the armies, the war, everything, just so we can be together and not have to fight each other.”

“Whoa, Kiina,” I said, feeling alarmed and, for some reason, embarrassed. “That’s a little extreme, isn’t it? I mean, I like you, Kiina, but the way you’re talking, we might be lovers.”

“Oh,” said Kiina, looking very embarrassed. “Oh, er, you’re right, Ackar. I . . . sorry. It was a stupid idea. I didn’t really mean it. It was just a joke, you know?”

I nodded, but something in her voice told me that maybe it hadn’t been a joke. “Well, even if you were serious, your plan wouldn’t have done us any good. There is not a single place on this planet that hasn’t been touched by the war. We couldn’t escape it even if we wanted to.”

“Good point,” Kiina said with a sigh. “Then what should we do?”

”Like I said, the only thing we can do is stop being friends,” I said. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but that’s the only option I see available to us. It will be much less painful for us that way.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Kiina, turning away from me. “Sure. If we’re forced to fight each other on the battlefield later, it’ll just be that much easier for me to kill you.”

“Don’t take it too hard,” I said. “I mean, there’s always the possibility that we may never fight each other again. Maybe the war will end before that. Maybe after the war ends, we can restart our friendship.”

“Whatever,” said Kiina, who was clearly unhappy with any idea I came up with, no matter what it might be. “We can do that. So let’s just get going already, now that we’ve decided what to do. Not much farther now.”

I did not consider myself a particularly observant person, but I noticed Kiina sounded a bit hurt. I understood her feelings, but I had no way of making her feel better because I didn’t feel very happy myself. I just followed her as we continued our journey, trying to ignore the pain in my leg as best as I could.

-

The farther we walked, the more I wondered if we were heading the right direction. Sure, Xocion had told us that the silver pool was north, but what if he had been lying? After all, besides the frozen village, we had yet to find any Agori or Gadarians, roads or houses, or anything to suggest that we were anywhere close to finding civilization again.

I brought up these concerns with Kiina, but she just shrugged them off. “Even if we are going the wrong way, we can’t go back. Forward is our only option.”

After that, I kept my mouth shut. Kiina was right. It would be too impractical to turn around and head back, especially since the only thing waiting for us back there was Xocion. We could do nothing but keep going and hope Xocion hadn't lied to us, which seemed increasingly likely to me the further we traveled.

Yet soon – almost abruptly – we came upon a long road, slightly covered with snow. It looked like it had been used recently, for wagon trails and footprints had crushed all of the snow into the dirt of the road. Interestingly, the road went east, then turned north again.

“Think this road will take us to the silver pool?” I asked Kiina as we walked upon it. “It leads north.”

“I think so,” said Kiina, looking excited. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but there are a lot of roads leading to the silver pool, so-“

It was at that moment that we heard the sounds of heavy feet pounding against the ground. At first, the marching feet sounded distant, but soon the sounds got closer and closer. Kiina and I looked around for the source of the footsteps, but neither of us could see anything. I figured the sounds must be coming from beyond a nearby hill, which this road went over, which meant a lot of people were coming over that hill. It sounded like a marching army; the Ice army, perhaps?

There was nowhere for Kiina and me to hide. After all, aside from a few small hills, this was mostly flat country. You’d have to dig a hole to hide anywhere and we didn’t have the time to dig anything. So Kiina and I just stood there, watching, waiting, wondering who was coming and if they were friendly. We would fight if we had to, but considering how weak and cold we were, I doubted we’d last long against even a small battalion of untrained soldiers.

Finally, after what felt like forever, a group of red-armored beings appeared on the hill crest. With joy in my heart, I recognized them as my own soldiers from the Fire army. They looked weary and beaten even from a distance, but I was so pleased to see them all that I would have jumped for joy had my leg not been broken.

“Hey!” I said, waving my arms up and down. “Hey, you guys! Over here! It’s me, Ackar!”

The Fire soldiers stopped and seemed confused at first. Then they spotted me, screaming and hollering like a lunatic, and to my relief they started forward again, this time faster than before. I began hobbling toward them as fast as my bad leg would allow and soon I reached the head soldiers.

They looked even worse than I thought. Their armor was dented and battered in many places, more than half of their weapons appeared broken or heavily damaged, and at least a few were shivering so violently that I thought they were going to fall apart. Malum was in the lead and looked about as good as the rest of them, with his right arm in a sling.

“Ackar,” said Malum, sounding shocked. “How . . . we thought you were dead!”

“It’s a long story,” I said. Then I looked around at the soldiers and said, “You guys look like you might as well be dead. What happened? And why aren’t you protecting the silver pool?”

For the first time since I’d known him, Malum looked away from me. The other soldiers also did not make eye contact with me, as though I had just mentioned something shameful and embarrassing.

I was puzzled at first, but then realization slowly dawned on me. “You lost it, didn’t you?”

“Well . . . yes, we did,” said Malum, still not looking at me. “The Ice army attacked and kicked us out and took it.”

My temper, which had been smothered by my joy earlier, flared as bright as a raging flame. “How? How did they do it?”

Malum looked at me again and said, “I will give you no excuses, Commander Ackar. We did our best. We fought the Ice army with the amount of bravery you would find in a much bigger force. I myself took on the strongest of their soldiers and won-“

“I don’t care who you killed,” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could. “What I want to know is how you lost. Tell me everything.”

“Fine,” said Malum. “After we thought you died, a lot of the soldiers deserted. Seemed to think there was no reason to stick around now that you were dead. I tried to keep them all under control, but the morale was definitely at its lowest the morning after we thought you died. Quite a few simply left, as I said, no matter how many I punished to teach the deserters a lesson.”

“Punished?” I said. “You don’t punish deserters. It just encourages them to leave.”

“I thought you wanted me to tell you everything, sir?” said Malum, in that irritating way of his. “Or would you rather I whitewash it for you?”

“Go on,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “But just so you know, as of this moment I take back my status as commander of this platoon.”

“You can have it, commander,” said Malum, shaking his head and folding his arms. “Being a leader doesn’t work for me. Anyway, there were no more enemy attacks until a day or two ago, when the Ice army struck from the north.”

I said nothing, although I wondered why this was so. Xocion had promised to me and Kiina that he would give us a week to return to our armies. Unless a week had already passed and we didn’t know it – which I doubted, for I had kept very good track of the passing days – we still had a day to return to our allies. I realized Xocion must have gone back on his word and attacked a day before he promised he would, which made me even angrier than before.

“It was a terrible, uneven fight,” said Malum, his good hand balled into a fist. “The Ice army was thousands strong, while we only had a few hundred. We fought valiantly and bravely, but we were no match for the Ice army’s wrath. So we retreated. We are the only survivors.”

I looked over the group. There were probably around 150 or so left out of the 500 that had been there before the avalanche. It was better than no survivors, I supposed, though I wondered if maybe Xocion had given the Ice army specific orders to be extra unmerciful towards my men. Knowing him, that seemed very likely.

Before I could say anything, I heard Kiina shout behind me. Turning around, I saw that two of my men had circled around behind us and had grabbed Kiina. She was struggling fiercely, but even in their weakened state they were strong enough to hold her. Her trident lay on the ground out of her reach.

Reacting instinctively, I fired a jet of fire at the two soldiers. It didn’t actually hit them or Kiina, but the two soldiers immediately let go and backed off, causing Kiina to jump forward and seize her trident. She then aimed it at my men, but I said, “Kiina, don’t!”

“Why shouldn’t I?” said Kiina, still aiming her trident at us. “Your men attacked me!”

“Commander Ackar,” said Malum, looking at Kiina quizzically. “Who is this Water soldier? Were you traveling with her?”

I ignored Malum’s questions and said to Kiina, “Kiina, you know better than that. I did not order them to attack you. Right, guys?”

One of the two soldiers nodded, while the other said, “Well, we just thought that because she’s a Water soldier, we should-“

“I don’t remember telling you to capture or attack her,” I said to the soldiers. “Did I?”

“No, Commander Ackar, sir,” said the second soldier. “But-“

“No buts,” I said as I lowered my sword. “Don’t attack anyone else I specifically give you orders to. Otherwise, I might not miss next time. Understood, soldiers?”

“Yes, Commander Ackar, sir!” said the two soldiers in unison.

I smiled. It felt good to be back in charge. For a while there I’d nearly forgotten what it was like, but seeing those two acting without orders from me jogged my memory. I would punish them later, I decided, after we left the Northern Frost.

“You didn’t answer my questions, sir,” said Malum. He pointed at Kiina and asked, “Who is she and what were you doing traveling with her?”

“My name is Kiina,” said Kiina, glaring at Malum. “And I am-“

“A temporary ally,” I said quickly. “She also survived the avalanche and we’ve been working together for nearly a week now, trying to find civilization. She’s okay.”

I had interrupted Kiina for a reason. If my men knew Kiina and I were friends, they would probably stop respecting my authority. And for good reason, from a military perspective; would you respect your leader if he was best friends with the enemy that had tried to kill you?

They would understand if I had temporarily allied with her for survival, but if our relationship was any closer than that . . . well, I didn’t want to put either of our lives at any unnecessary risk.

“So, are we going to take her prisoner now?” asked Malum. “Even if we have lost the silver pool, if we can bring back at least one prisoner, maybe Lord Slacuvun will not be as displeased.”

“She’s not going to be our prisoner,” I said. “It’s because of her that I managed to survive out in the wilderness for as long as I did.”

“Yet we can’t just let her travel with us,” said Malum. “She’s a Water soldier! If what you say is true, then she was part of that army that tried to take the silver pool nearly a week ago. I’d say it’s too dangerous to let her travel with us, am I right?”

The rest of the soldiers nodded in agreement, a few muttering their agreement.

I didn’t want to treat Kiina like a prisoner. She was my friend. To repay her kindness and loyalty with chains would be wrong and unfair.

Yet my soldiers obviously didn’t trust her. They had no idea of the things she’d done to ensure my survival. All they knew was that she was a Water soldier; a Water soldier, moreover, who had probably tried to kill them all at some point. There was nothing I could do to change that.

To stall for time, I asked Malum, “Where are you guys going?”

“Back to the Great Volcano, sir,” Malum replied. “To get reinforcements. That was the plan, until we ran into you and the Water soldier. We couldn’t defeat both the Ice and Water armies, after all, although I think we could have given them a run for their money if we had-“

“Wait,” I said. “Did you say Ice and Water armies?”

“Of course,” said Malum. He gestured toward the hill and said, “We passed the Water army on our way out. They’re preparing to take the silver pool from the Ice army. They didn’t attack us; maybe didn’t think we were worth the trouble or something.”

I wasn’t paying attention to Malum now. The fact that the Water army was here suddenly made everything that much easier. I would still have to approach this professionally, however, otherwise I might mess everything up.

“Well, then,” I said, turning back to Kiina. I looked her directly in the eyes as I spoke to her. “Looks like this is your lucky day, Kiina. According to Malum, the Water army is not very far from here. Unless you want to wear chains all the way from here to the Great Volcano, I suggest you get moving now.”

“Really?” said Kiina in surprise. “Where are they?”

I looked at Malum, who sighed reluctantly and said to Kiina, “The Water army is just a day or two from here. You will probably reach them if you follow the main road north.”

“So you’re just letting me go?” said Kiina, looking at me. “Why-“

“Because I feel like it,” I said. “It is only fair. You and I have had to rely on each other for this past week just to survive. As a token of thanks, I am allowing you to return to your allies unharmed. But remember, Kiina. Next time we meet, we won’t be allies.”

Kiina just stood there and looked at me. For a moment, I feared Kiina’s stubborn attitude would prevail and she would start arguing with me, trying to get me to change my mind and let her come with us. I didn’t see any reason why she would do it, but I knew Kiina enough by now to know that she wasn’t always a logical or reasonable person.

But then, to my surprise and relief, Kiina nodded and said, “Thank you, Commander Ackar. You are truly an honorable warrior, allowing me to return to my allies even though I am your enemy. I will remember this act of kindness always, even if our next meeting is on the battlefield.”

Kiina’s formal words were a bit odd-sounding coming from her, but we really couldn’t have a tearful farewell in front of my men. They might just mutiny if they saw me crying about this. Not that I was going to cry; it’s just that I figured our farewell would be much more emotional if this had been in private.

So I barked orders at my men to let Kiina through and not to lay a finger on her unless they wanted their behinds whipped. So it was that Kiina passed through the ranks of my men, unharmed and unbothered, like a military commander. She didn’t look at me as she passed, but I looked at her, watching my friend as she went over the hill and disappeared.

I didn’t know when I’d see Kiina again, but I didn’t look forward to it, because Kiina and I would be enemies next time we met. Those hadn’t just been fancy words; I had been serious. Next time we met on the battlefield, only one would live and only one would die. The thought didn’t comfort me at all.

At an order from me, the small remnant of the Fire army continued their journey south. For now, I had to worry about all of us living long enough to see the next battle. The Great Volcano was far away from here, closer to Bara Magna, so we had a long journey ahead of us. I figured we would probably make it, but when we did, we would just be sent back out into battle. I sincerely hoped the next battle wouldn’t be against the Water army, because that would mean I would have to fight Kiina. And I didn’t want to kill her. I didn’t want to kill her at all.

Review Topic.

Congrats, Paleo! Hope you do your job as well as you can .-TNTOS-

and now its time for my favorite time of this comidy...reviewingfirst of all i like the introduction of joeTwo gigantic armies were fighting each other.at first i thought this said arms and i was going to make a joke about arm wrestling“Any time someone speaks for longer than five seconds I stop paying attention.thats just like meOur four heroes – plus the newly acquired Oris – went up the nearest pathaquiered Orisyou have found 2/4s of the new charicturesproceed on to the next levelwell that was fun

Mata Nui and friends were forced to camp that night, for the sun set quickly, replaced by the moon in the sky. The moon did not like these arrangements, for the sun always got off work at the exact moment the moon appeared, meaning the moon had to make up for the extra work the sun left over. The moon had complained to corporate about this, but they hadn’t done anything about it and the moon was seriously thinking of quitting. Maybe get a job as a lawyer, like his mom always said he should.But what the moon thought was irrelevant to what was happening below. Mata Nui, Ackar, Kiina, and Oris were sleeping in comfy sleeping bags, while Bucket-head was forced to sleep on the hard ground without even a rock for a pillow. He did have a sleeping bag, but Mata Nui had taken it and ‘accidentally’ burned it in the campfire, much to Bucket-head’s chagrin. Mata Nui did promise to buy Bucket-head a new one, but Bucket-head knew that was a lie, for he’d overheard Mata Nui joking with Ackar about how stupid Bucket-head must be to believe him.“Why do I have to sleep on the hard ground?” Bucket-head complained.“Couple of reasons,” Mata Nui replied, his head sticking out of his yellow bag. “First, you’re a Skrall. Second, you’re a Skrall. And third, you’re a Skrall.”“Is that all?” said Bucket-head.“Actually, there’s a secret fourth reason,” said Mata Nui.“And what is that?” asked Bucket-head.“You’re a Skrall,” said Mata Nui. “Anyway, good night, everybody. Let’s try to get some sleep because I have a feeling we’re going to have to fight for our lives in the morning.”So everybody went to sleep. So did Bucket-head, although he took longer to go to sleep than the others because of his lack of a sleeping bag. He contented himself with dreaming about Mata Nui and the others bowing down to him, but bizarrely even in his dreams they still hated him.All five of the unlikely travelers were sleeping soundly. Mata Nui and Kiina slept next to each other, while Oris slept a little too close to Kiina. Ackar was snoring loudly, occasionally muttering something about prunes or those darn kids on his lawn. Bucket-head, though asleep, constantly shifted his sleeping position to get more comfortable. No one was awake to see plant tendrils growing from the earth, reaching out toward our heroes.No one, that is, except the fire. The fire didn’t like plants, so when it saw those plant tendrils about to grab Mata Nui and his friends, the fire said, “Oh, no you di-ant! Smoke this!”The fire unleashed a blast of heat upon the plants . . . well, it would have, but it as such a small fire that it could only throw a few tiny, insignificant sparks onto the plants.Just then, the plants exploded into flames as a voice hissed within, “It burnsssssss!”The plants burned to ashes as Mata Nui and friends suddenly awoke. Bucket-head – who was sleeping nearest the fire – quickly reached out and took some of the fire’s kindling, which was a pretty stupid move because he ended up burning his hands. But he managed to stash it in his hand dandy trusty rusty item bag, which, based on its small size, probably once belonged to Link from The Legend of Zelda video games. No one saw Bucket-head do that, for they were all too distracted by the noise the fire had made to notice what a stupid Skrall was doing.Mata Nui had jumped out of his sleeping bag and fired his 40k MGA at the fire. This caused the fire to explode, sending Bucket-head flying several feet away from it.“Was that necessary?” Oris asked Mata Nui.“Didn’t mean it,” said Mata Nui as he put his gun away. “I just woke and fired. It was instinctive.”“You mean you are always prepared to fire your gun as soon as you awake?” said Bucket-head as he got up painfully from the ground. “Even if you don’t know whether there is something that needs to be shot?”“I learned many things during the war, Bucket-head, and one of them was always be ready to shoot something,” Mata Nui replied. “Always.”“Change of subject,” said Kiina, looking around. “What was that sound that woke us?”“Not sure,” Ackar said, rubbing his back. “But this hard ground is killing me. At least I have my Snuggie.”He then turned to the camera and said, “Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves! Buy it today!”“And don’t forget to buy your BIONICLE Glatorian Legends Mata Nui figure with it!” Mata Nui added.“What are you two doing?” asked Bucket-head.“It’s called advertising,” said Mata Nui. “It pays for this comedy’s expenses.”“What expenses?” said Bucket-head.“Oh, various things,” said Mata Nui. “First, we actors get paid for our work-““But I’ve never been paid,” said Bucket-head.“You don’t get paid,” said Mata Nui, pointing at him. “Just us. Anyway, then there’s the camera crew, the special effects team, the annoying director, the narrator, the author, the costume designers-““What costumes?” said Bucket-head, looking around. “I don’t see any-“Kiina took off her helmet, revealing an extremely ugly woman’s face underneath.“AHHH!” said Bucket-head, putting his hands over his eyes. “Okay! I see costumes!”Kiina put her helmet back on and smirked. “It’s always fun to see grown Skrall scream like pigs.”“Anyway,” Mata Nui went on, “there’s also the set designer-““But I don’t see any sets,” said Bucket-head. “All of this is real, isn’t it?”“Nope,” said Ackar. He poked a nearby tree with his sword, causing to wobble over and hit the ground. “Made out of one hundred percent real cardboard.”“What?” said Bucket-head, looking around.The more Bucket-head looked, the more he realized how fake everything appeared. The rocks looked like painted pieces of Styrofoam, the trees appeared to be cardboard stands, and even the sky looked like a wall someone had just painted over. It was surreal, to say the least.“Back to the various people who worked on this,” Mata Nui continued. “Then there’re our agents, our stunt doubles, our best friend Steve-““Who?” said Bucket-head, but his question went unanswered as Mata Nui rattled off the list.“-the CGI animals, the scriptwriters, the stage hands, and the lights crew,” Mata Nui finished. “Oh, and our good friends at Angel Fire, New Mexico, where this is story is currently being filmed.”“You forgot one thing,” said Oris.“What is that?” said Mata Nui, looking at Oris quizzically.Oris ripped off his face – not his helmet – and said, “I’m really Orlando Bloom.”That last revelation caused Bucket-head to scream in horror at the sight of Orlando Bloom’s head on the biomechanical body of Oris. Bucket-head screamed so loudly that all of reality seemed to go black for a moment before he felt someone slapping his face.Then Bucket-head’s eyes flew open as he screamed. For a moment he couldn’t take in anything he saw; then someone slapped him really hard in the face, causing him to stop screaming.“Gah you’re annoying,” said Mata Nui, who looked he had been the one slapping Bucket-head. “What were you dreaming about?”“Movie!” said Bucket-head, still frightened. “Cardboard trees, advertisements, Orlando Bloom! The horror . . .”“Uh huh,” said Mata Nui, unconvinced. He turned to the others – who were still lying in their sleeping bags not far away – and said, “He’s okay . . . I think.”“Wait, you guys cared about me?” said Bucket-head to the others.“No,” said Ackar bluntly. “We just didn’t want to lose a perfectly good meat shield, that’s all.”Then Bucket-head looked to Mata Nui and said, “Did you have to slap me so hard?”“No,” said Mata Nui, just as bluntly as Ackar. “But it was fun, don’t you agree?”“Not really,” said Bucket-head.Mata Nui scratched his head, as though thinking, and said, “Hmm, I seem to remember saying that I would kill someone last, but I can’t remember who-““Uh, I mean, yes, it was fun,” said Bucket-head, nodding fervently. “It was really fun.”“I didn’t say it was really fun,” said Mata Nui, his voice dangerously low.“I mean, it was fun,” said Bucket-head. “Just fun.”“I never said it was just fun, either.”“Okay, it was fun!” said Bucket-head, throwing his hands in the air. “Happy?”“I never said it was-“Bucket-head decided to ignore Mata Nui. Instead, he looked closely at Oris. Oris met his gaze and for a moment they looked at each other.Then Bucket-head lunged and grabbed Oris’s face and started pulling. Oris screamed and struggled to push the Skrall off him, but Bucket-head was holding on like his hands had been glued to Oris’s face.Ackar and Kiina seized Bucket-head and, with effort, yanked him off Oris and threw him to the ground while Oris rubbed his face.“What was that for?” Oris demanded, looking at Bucket-head, who hastily got back to his feet.“Yeah,” said Ackar in agreement. “Your name is Bucket-head, not Face-grabber-head!”“I thought he was Orlando Bloom in disguise,” said Bucket-head sheepishly.“And why the heck would you think that?” said Oris.“I had a dream where life was a movie and you were really Orlando Bloom in disguise,” said Bucket-head, who realized just how stupid that sounded as he said it.“That’s stupid,” said Kiina. “Like you. Orlando Bloom is way hotter than Oris. Don’t see how you could possibly confuse the two.”“Yeah,” said Oris. “Orlando Bloom is- hey, now wait a minute here.”“It doesn’t matter,” said Mata Nui, shaking his head. “All we know now is that Bucket-head is insane. I mean, life a movie? Oris as Orlando Bloom? What kind of insanity is that, you know?”The others agreed and soon they went back to sleep, but not before calling Bucket-head several names that I can’t repeat here due to BZP’s restrictions. Suffice to say, they used a lot of words Bucket-head had never even heard before, some that even I, the narrator, never knew, and a few that didn’t even exist, all of which were somehow much worse than Bucket-head’s name.As Bucket-head lay down to go back to sleep, he wondered if it had just been a dream.That’s probably it, Bucket-head thought as he closed his eyes. I mean, it was a silly dream. Life isn’t a movie and Oris is most certainly not Orlando Bloom in disguise. Don’t know what I was thinking about when I dreamed that.Bucket-head felt something in his bag, something that hadn’t been there when he went to sleep earlier. He dug through it and pulled out a piece of the fire’s kindling. It was still smoking and, now that he looked more closely, he saw that his hands still had burnt marks where he had grabbed the wood.But that had only been in his dream, hadn’t it? The same dream in which life had been a movie and Oris had been Orlando Bloom . . .Bucket-head looked over at Oris, who was sucking his thumb while he slept. He didn’t know if Orlando Bloom sucked his thumb or not, but the idea that his dream had been real freaked him out so much that he didn’t sleep at all that night. Instead, he just watched the darkness, jumping at the slightest sound, and contemplating the deeper questions of life, which, because this is a comedy, we won’t explore. So there.Commentary:

Chapter VII: Weird Events

But he managed to stash it in his hand dandy trusty rusty item bag, which, based on its small size, probably once belonged to Link from The Legend of Zelda video games.

Your spelling and grammar were pretty good overall, though I think you need to work on some formatting, like here:

Onua Nuva : my first bionicleNarrator: One beautiful morning in Florida Jaller and Hewkii are talking under Axel's beach house. I should probably go see what they're doing

The line beginning with "Narrator" should be in the story itself, not fused with the author's notes.

I'll fix that. Also my Narrator is not Onua. the spacebar is messed up on my computer.

I received your PM, so here's my review. Be warned that it's a bit long, but I hope it helps you just the same .First off, I think it's neat how you made the Narrator an actual BIONICLE character. In most comedies, the Narrator is usually the author's own orignal character, rather than a canon BIONICLE character. Making Onua Nuva the Narrator is an interesting twist, one I've never seen before in any comedy with a Narrator. Good job.I do caution, however, that you remember that Onua is an actual character, not just a Narrator. Make sure to emphasize some of Onua's personality traits - whether his canon ones or ones you made up for this comedic version of him - otherwise he'll just be the Narrator and not Onua Nuva the Narrator.Also, I like the Ancient Aliens reference. I just finished watching the first season, so I understood the reference. You managed to turn a canon fact about Kiina (her belief in alien worlds) into a joke, which is cool because most comedies don't seem to build off the canon characters' official personalities that much except in a few cases.I do have a few criticisms, though.Firstly, while you definitely don't overuse emoticons, you should still get rid of them. Emoticons are useful for online communication, but in stories they just interrupt the flow of the narrative. You can communicate the characters' emotions through their dialgue or actions or, heck, even just telling us what they are feeling (when appropriate, of course).So in future chapters, try not to use emoticons. They're just not necessary, IMO, even in a comedy. Just my opinion, though, and if you disagree, that's okay.Secondly, I think you should have describe Nova's appearance in the actual story itself, rather than inserting it in the author's notes after the chapter. Unlike canon characters - whose appearances don't need to be described because people already know how they look - original characters like Axel/Nova need descriptions because the reader doesn't know what they look like even if the writer does. There's no need for a long, detailed description; the description in the author's notes at the end would do just fine, IMO, and any other details Axel/Nova has can just be mentioned whenever they need to be.Your spelling and grammar were pretty good overall, though I think you need to work on some formatting, like here:

Onua Nuva : my first bionicleNarrator: One beautiful morning in Florida Jaller and Hewkii are talking under Axel's beach house. I should probably go see what they're doing

Chapter V

We were halfway down the other side of mountain by sunset. As we agreed that it would be too dangerous to travel after dark, Kiina and I found a good place to camp: a small gathering of rocks that protected us from the wind. Kiina managed to squeeze into the area between the rocks easily, but due to my broken leg it took me several minutes before I managed to slip in with her.

Due to the possibility of a Snaj attack, we took turns staying up that night. We debated whether to start a fire because we didn’t want to attract another Snaj accidentally, and decided to make a small one. If there were no Snajs nearby, it wouldn’t make sense to freeze to death; on the other hand, if there were some Snajs around us, it made sense to keep our fire as small as possible so they wouldn’t sense the heat. We’d definitely get cold, for the small fire didn’t give off that much heat, but we reasoned that it was better than getting eaten by a Snaj, although I privately questioned that as I tried not to freeze to death that night.

Fortunately, we weren’t attacked by anything during the night. In the morning, Kiina and I set out down the mountain again, until at long last we reached the foot of the mountain. But that was only several hours later, for we had to walk slowly because of my broken leg. Not to mention going down a mountain, we discovered, is much more difficult than going up. You have to be more careful, lest you trip and fall to your death, as we saw happen to a poor mountain rabbit.

Now we stood in a wide, empty plain boxed in between the mountains. I frowned and said, “Kiina, do you see any roads or anything that might lead us to the pool of silvery liquid?”

“No,” said Kiina, shaking her head. “But if we keep going a little father, maybe we’ll see something. Xocion said it would take us a week to get there. We’ve been out here for five days; there’re still two more days of traveling ahead of us.”

“Assuming we survive that long, that is,” I said, with more than a little bitterness. “We have no idea what kind of dangers are out there, after all.”

“Well, we can’t really go back now,” said Kiina, glancing over her shoulder, “unless you want to risk the mountain again.”

I shuddered. “Good point. Besides, maybe we’ll find a village or something soon. Then again, any village around here is likely to be an Ice Agori village. I doubt they’d be happy to see us, since our tribes are at war with theirs.”

“They don’t have to like us,” said Kiina. “I just want to find civilization again. Even if we run into enemies, it’s still better than being eaten alive by big, ugly Snajs.”

So we began walking across the long, white plain broken only be the occasional hill, which seemed just as empty and lifeless as the rest of the Northern Frost. But I remembered the Snaj and so kept a careful eye on my surroundings. I didn’t want any of those ‘hills’ to turn out to be giant snow monsters or something even worse. The towering mountains on either side didn’t exactly reassure me, either, for they blocked the sun. Or perhaps it was the gray clouds in the sky that did that.

After a brief stop to rest and eat, Kiina and I walked for several more hours, until a small village came into view. Both of us briefly stopped in shock, because we had not seriously expected to find any settlements out here. The possibility of sleeping in a warm hut tonight snapped us out of our shock, however, causing us to continue walking, this time a little faster than before.

The closer we drew to the village, however, the worse it looked. The huts all seemed old and decayed. Many of them were covered in snow; in fact, one hut had so much snow on it that the roof collapsed, sending the snow cascading into its interior. We saw no sign of any Agori in the village; we didn’t even see any lights on in the windows. The village looked totally lifeless.

“Whoa,” said Kiina as we stopped at the village’s limits. “It looks like a ghost town.”

“’Ghost town’ is an understatement,” I said, looking around at the huts. “Where’d all of the villagers go?”

“Maybe they left,” Kiina suggested. “This is in the middle of nowhere, after all. Personally, if I lived here and was given an opportunity to leave, I’d be gone without thinking about it twice. I’m not a big fan of creepy ghost towns.”

I took a step forward and grunted, for my leg still hurt. Ignoring the pain, I said, “Let’s go in anyway. The huts are probably warmer than the wilderness. Even an abandoned house is better than no house at all.”

So Kiina and I walked through the village. We saw no one; we didn’t even see any animals hiding among the ruins. Like nearly everything else on our journey, this village felt dead.

We searched several huts, but found absolutely no one. The lack of people was odd, but what was even stranger was the fact that all of their furniture and belongings were still in the buildings. Nothing appeared to be missing and it didn’t look like a struggle had taken place. What could have caused an entire village of Agori to just up and leave without bringing any of their possessions?

Kiina suggested that it might have been a mining town at one point and the villagers left when they exhausted the mine. But as we saw no mines or mining equipment or anything to support her idea, I dismissed her theory. Something else had happened here, but what, we didn’t know.

We decided not to worry about it. Instead, we chose to stay in a large hut that looked like our kind had perhaps once used it, for the beds were about our size. Despite what I’d said earlier, this hut was not much warmer than the wind outside. If anything, the lack of life seemed to make it even colder, somehow.

During our lunch – which consisted mostly of burned fish (I wasn't much of a cook) and hot water – Kiina discovered a scroll in a dresser in the hut. It was a small paper scroll, which Kiina handed it to me. It felt old and frozen, like it was about to break apart any minute.

“What is it?” I said, looking at the scroll.

“I don’t know,” said Kiina with a shrug. “I just thought it looked important. Why don’t you check it out?”

I nodded and unfurled the scroll, although I had to do it carefully because it was old and felt like it would break if I was too rough with it.

I peered at the writing. It was faded, making it difficult to read. As I was not a very good reader, I handed the scroll to Kiina, saying, “I can’t read this. It’s too faded. Why don’t you give it a try?”

Kiina took the scroll and tried to read it. Then she said, “I think . . . I think it’s a diary. Yes, that’s what it is. Someone named Digo wrote it, although I don’t know if he’s an Agori or an Gadarian.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then what does his diary say?”

Again Kiina studied the writing, then she said, “Now I might be wrong, but the date seems to be a few thousand years ago, around the time the Element Lords were created, I think.”

“Hey, do you think this diary might explain why this village is abandoned?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not particularly important to our journey, but I have to admit that this mystery intrigues me.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” said Kiina.

A minute later, Kiina sighed in frustration and said, “No. Nothing on the village. Just Digo talking about his daily life; his hopes, dreams, and whatnot.”

“Well, what does the latest entry say?” I asked.

Kiina glanced at it and frowned. “It’s only one paragraph long. It says, The Element Lord of Ice arrived today. He’s gathering all of the villagers outside of the village to show us something grand. My friends are waiting for me outside, since we’re all going together. I’ll write more when I get back.”

“That’s odd,” I said. “What could Xocion have wanted to show to them?”

“Who knows?” said Kiina as she threw the diary to the side. “And who cares? It’s not important. We really should get going now. We shouldn’t waste time pondering mysteries we can’t solve.”

“You’re right,” I said. “We’ve got two days to get back to our armies. We shouldn’t waste them, not if we want to get back in time to warn our friends of the . . . Ice army attack . . .”

It was then that I remembered that Kiina was a Water soldier and I a Fire soldier. We’d been so worried about just surviving that it hadn’t occurred to me what would happen if Kiina and I did manage to return alive. Our armies were trying to destroy each other; it would be difficult to explain a friendship between the two of us. I couldn’t just hand Kiina over to the Fire army as a prisoner, though, and Kiina probably wouldn’t do the same to me.

That didn’t mean our friendship could realistically work, though. Not as long as the war continued. We were technically supposed to be enemies, after all. I didn’t like it, yet there was nothing I could do about it except end our friendship entirely, which didn’t exactly comfort me.

Discarding that uncomfortable thought, I said, “We don’t have time to solve strange mysteries. The sooner we get going, the sooner we end this mad journey.”

“Yeah,” said Kiina. “You’ve got a point.”

Something in Kiina’s voice told me she was thinking the same thing that I had, about our impossible friendship. I chose to say nothing about it, however, because I didn’t think it was a subject either of us were very interested in discussing right now. It was too depressing to talk about.

-

The first thing we saw when we exited the village through the north was the huge collection of Agori ice sculptures.

At least, that’s what they looked like, anyway. Their general shapes and designs looked like Agori, except in this case, they were literally made of ice. Thick layers of snow covered the sculptures, like no one ever took care of them. One of the sculptures had even fallen over and lay half buried in the snow like a forgotten piece of equipment.

“Who do you think made these?” I asked as we walked through the statuary, which was eerily quiet.

“I don’t know,” said Kiina, shaking her head impatiently. “Some mad ice sculptor, maybe. We’ve got enough problems as it is without adding this mystery on top of it.”

“I guess you have a point,” I said.

Just then, a fierce wind blew through the garden of statues. We stopped, bracing ourselves against the wind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the wind blow the snow off of one of the sculptures . . . revealing two eyes staring right back at me.

Startled, I jumped, then groaned as the pain in my leg exploded from the movement. Kiina looked at me in surprise and asked, “What? Did you see something?”

“I think so,” I said, glancing over at the statue. “I’m not sure, but does that sculpture . . . have eyes?”

“Eyes?” said Kiina, looking over at the same sculpture. “What are you talking about?”

I hobbled over to the statue and began dusting snow off of it. “Look, Kiina, this . . . I can’t believe it.”

What I saw chilled me worse than any blizzard. With the snow no longer covering it, I was now staring at the head of an Agori; a real one, not an ice sculpture. The Agori was encased in thick ice and obviously dead. His eyes sightlessly stared out at me, wide, like the last sight he had seen before he died was a terrible one.

“Oh my . . .” said Kiina, one hand on her mouth. “Is that . . . is that an Agori? A real, living one?”

“Real, yes, but not living,” I said, turning away from the dead Agori. “He’s dead, probably froze to death. Let’s check the other statues just . . . just to be sure.”

After quickly checking of a few of the other statues, we discovered that they were all Agori, frozen to death by the extreme cold which contained them. We figured the other several hundred statues must also be frozen Agori, but the few we had seen disturbed us so much that we chose not to investigate any further. We already knew what we were going to find; there was no reason to go looking for it.

“This is horrible,” said Kiina, shaking her head. “But I think I know who did it.”

I looked at Kiina, puzzled. “Who could have the power to do this?”

“Xocion, of course,” said Kiina. “Remember what Digo’s diary said? It said Xocion gathered all of the villagers outside of the village to show them ‘something grand.’ After that, Digo’s diary just ends. Seems to me that Xocion probably froze them to death once they were all gathered together, including Digo. He’s the only one who could do this to an entire village of Agori.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why he did it, if he is the culprit,” I said. “I mean, these people were his subjects, weren’t they? Why would any ruler kill those he is supposed to rule?”

“Who knows?” said Kiina, throwing a distasteful look at one of the frozen Agori. “He’s a monster. Isn’t that obvious? Maybe he just did it because he could. The Element Lords are strong enough to do whatever they want, even if they don’t have a reason for it.”

“I know,” I said grimly. “It’s horrible.”

“Well, this just gives us another reason to get the silver pool and defeat the Ice tribe,” said Kiina, gesturing at the collection of frozen Agori. “Xocion is clearly an unjust dictator if he unfairly kills innocent Agori like this. Overthrowing him would actually be doing these people a favor, in my opinion.”

I didn’t say anything. The way Kiina spoke, it was like we were both members of the same army. That was not the case, of course, but it did show how far our friendship had come in the last week.

It made me uncomfortable. Even if we managed to return to our armies, we might be forced to fight each other again at some point in the future. We might even have to kill each other, just because our leaders told us to. It left a sickening feeling in my stomach and I couldn’t think of a way to explain this to Kiina, so instead I just silently nodded, hoping against hope that we would find a solution to our problems.

Review Topic.

'Nother Wednesday, 'nother chapter:

“Hey, what’s that?” said Ackar, pointing ahead.The other three morons stopped and looked to see what he was pointing at. Two gigantic armies were fighting each other. Limbs, heads, and all of that other nice stuff were flying between the enemy forces, while the screams of dying or wounded soldiers pierced the air. There was even an explosion as a monster with a drill for a head burrowed out of the ground and dragged down several soldiers into its pit.“No, not that,” said Ackar, shaking his head and pointing in another direction. “I mean that.”Turning their gaze from the epic battle, Mata Nui, Kiina, and Bucket-head saw the strangest thing on their journey yet: A clearing.But not any old clearing. It looked like nature had gone to war with itself. Churned up earth and rocks stuck up out of the ground, plant life was everywhere, either frozen solid or burned black or both (don’t ask). It looked totally insane; just like something from comedy, in fact.“Strange,” said Mata Nui as he and the others approached the clearing. “We haven’t been here yet, so how did this happen?”There was silence for a moment. Bucket-head looked around at the other three, puzzled, and asked, “Erm, why-““Usually Berix says something stupid to try to explain it,” said Ackar, who sounded a little sad. “But we forgot Berix isn’t here, so . . .”“That just gives us another reason to go after Dah Element Lords,” said Mata Nui, brandishing his gun and shooting a bird out of the sky, which exploded into nothingness. “They took away a good source of humor for this comedy. They will pay.”“Oh,” said Bucket-head, who wondered whether any living being was safe while Mata Nui had a gun. “Anyway, it looks to me like Dah Element Lords were around here.”“Shut up,” Mata Nui snapped. “Anyway, it looks to me like Dah Element Lords were around here.”“But that’s what I said,” said Bucket-head.“No it isn’t!” said Mata Nui. “Stop lying, you evil, stupid-“Just then, a loud, really annoying groan, interrupting Mata Nui’s insults. The group looked around for a few seconds before Mata Nui found a Jungle Glatorian underneath a ton of rubble. As this guy never had a set, either, I can’t really describe him. So go make a MOC of him or something, if you want to know how he looks.“Who are you?” said Mata Nui to the Jungle Glatorian.“Please get me out of here,” the Jungle Glatorian gasped. “I’m underneath tons of debris. Please . . .”“Oh, okay,” Mata Nui grumbled as he lifted the tons of debris with his smallest finger and hurled it several hundred feet away. “Crybaby.”The Jungle Glatorian got up to his feet, still gasping for breath. “Thank you for rescuing me, brave travelers. What might you be doing here?”“Going to kick butt,” Mata Nui replied. “What happened to you?”“Got caught in a worldstorm,” the Glatorian replied. “They happen here sometimes, although if you bring an umbrella they usually don’t. I forgot my umbrella, so you see, I got caught.”“What is your name?” asked Mata Nui.“Oris,” said the Glatorian. “At least, that’s my unofficial name. See, my name was just a placeholder name that the Great Being Farshtey used when he was writing the story for this comedy. But because I was never given an official name, the author of this comedy had to use ‘Oris’ as my official name.”“That sounds long, complicated, and unnecessary,” said Mata Nui. “How’s about I just call you Joe?”“But my name is Oris,” said ‘Joe.’ “Didn’t you listen to my explanation?”“Nope,” said Mata Nui, shaking his head. “Any time someone speaks for longer than five seconds I stop paying attention. How’s about Joe Oris?”“Just Oris, please,” said the Glatorian. “Please?”“Okay,” said Mata Nui, pouting. “I still think Joe is a better name, though.”“How’d you end up in here?” said Ackar.“Used to work for Dah Element Lords,” said Oris. “Then they fired me, but never gave me directions for getting out of here. So I’ve been lost in here for a while. By the way, how long have you guys been lost?”“We’re not lost,” said Mata Nui.Oris smiled, like Mata Nui was a naïve little child who didn’t know what he was talking about (which probably wasn’t far from the truth). “Oh, you soon will be.”Then Oris's eyes fell on Kiina and he said, “Oh, hello. Who are you?”“I’m Kiina,” she replied. “What are you looking at?”“Oh, nothing,” said Oris, although his voice definitely suggested a bit more than ‘nothing,’ if you know what I mean (because I don't).“My name is Mata Nui,” said Mata Nui. “And he’s Ackar.”“Don’t care,” said Oris, who was still looking at Kiina. “It’s been a while since I last saw a female . . .”Before this scene could get any more uncomfortable, Bucket-head suddenly reappeared. “Guys, there’s a problem.”“Besides you?” said Mata Nui, throwing an irritable glance at Bucket-head.Ignoring Mata Nui’s comment, Bucket-head said, “The path we took to get in here is blocked. What’s worse is that there isn’t any other exit.”“Why is a Skrall travelling with you?” said Oris to Mata Nui, with the same tone as someone asking why you are listening to Justin Bieber.“Good meat shield,” Mata Nui replied.“That’s all Skrall are good for,” said Oris, glancing nastily at Bucket-head. “Meat shields.”“I think I like this guy,” said Mata Nui. Then he lowered his voice so that only Oris could hear, “So long as you keep your hands off Kiina that is.”“Don’t worry,” said Oris, in the same quiet voice. “I’ll try not to get in your way.”Mata Nui didn’t seem to understand what Oris was implying, so he simply nodded and then addressed the group as a whole: “As we can’t go back, going forward is the only option.”“May I travel with you?” said Oris. “I have been stuck in here for a while. I can help.”“Okay,” said Mata Nui. “You’re better than a Skrall at any rate.”“Hey!” said Bucket-head.But it was at that exact moment that the earth tore open, unleashing screams of purest agony as a being made of stone erupted from the endless hole. It was not much taller than Mata Nui, but it radiated such power that it might as well have been bigger.“I am Stonetus,” the rock being boomed. “And I must kill you!”“I’ll handle this one myself,” said Mata Nui, gesturing at the others to stay back, while at the same time cocking his 40k MGA.“So I have only one opponent today!” said Stonetus, his voice like rocks being smashed together. “You shall die!”Stonetus lifted up what looked like a gun made of rocks and fired it at Mata Nui. Mata Nui jumped out of the way to avoid the oncoming stone, which shattered into a million pieces when it collided with Bucket-head, who had been standing right behind Mata Nui for some reason.As Mata Nui hit the ground, he aimed his 40k MGA and fired. The bullet hit Stonetus’s left leg joint, causing him to stumble a little, giving Mata Nui the chance to run over and hit Stonetus in the face with the butt of his gun.But Stonetus was not fazed by this. He slammed his fist against Mata Nui, sending him flying into the sky, and then Stonetus actually flew after him.Still going up, Mata Nui tried to shoot Stonetus, but the flying rock entity rolled in midair to dodge the projectiles. Stonetus reared back his fist as he drew closer to Mata Nui, believing victory was within his grasp.But what Stonetus failed to understand was those who believed victory was within their grasp were doomed to failure. Their arrogance blinded them to their own mortality and often ended their lives quite abruptly, as Stonetus was about to find out.Mata Nui landed on Stonetus’s shields and stuffed his gun into Stonetus’s open mouth. With a roar of rage, Mata Nui pulled the trigger, which set off a chain reaction in Stonetus’s body that ended with him exploding.The fiery explosion, however, still contained Stonetus’s spirit within it, which tried to surround Mata Nui and cut off his air. Mata Nui was immune to fire, however, and he punched it so hard it exploded again, this time killing Stonetus for real.Now Mata Nui was at least 1,000,000 feet in the air, which meant he was going to splatter on the ground if he didn’t do something to slow his descent. So he grabbed the explosion, solidified it, and turned it into a surfboard, which he used to surf down on the clouds. You see, clouds are made of vapor, which is water, and it is possible to surf on water. Therefore Mata Nui could surf on clouds using a surfboard made out of an explosion.No, that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s so *#$@!ing awesome that it doesn’t need to.So Mata Nui surfed back to the earth. Then he threw the surfboard away – since he didn’t need it anymore – and the board exploded.“So,” said Mata Nui, walking back to the others. “Now that that is out of the way, we still have a long way to go, I think.”“Yeah, Bucket-head,” said Ackar, glaring at the Skrall, who was lying on the ground. “Stop playing in the dirt and get up!”“I’m not playing,” said Bucket-head as he got to his feet. “Stonetus’s rock hit me instead of Mata Nui-“Just then, Oris punched Bucket-head directly in the face.“Ow!” said Bucket-head, grabbing the spot where Oris had punched him. “What the heck?”“Was that good?” said Oris, looking at the others. “It’s been a while since I’ve punched a Skrall, so I want to make sure I am doing it right, Kiina.”Kiina looked a bit taken aback at being asked her opinion, but she nodded and said, “Uh, yeah, you did it right.”“You know, maybe you’re not such a bad guy after all,” said Ackar. “You’re pretty cool if you punch Bucket-head, in my opinion.”“Oh, it is nothing,” said Oris, waving Ackar off. “I am simply a humble but chivalrous Glatorian. I do it because it is the right thing to do. I am sure anyone in my place would have done it.”“He’s probably right,” Bucket-head muttered, so low that nobody could hear him.“I don’t think there is anything else plot important to do here,” said Mata Nui, pulling out the script. “So I think we should get going. We still have a long way to go before we can get to the Great Volcano Night Club, so let’s stop dillydallying and get there already.”Our four heroes – plus the newly acquired Oris – went up the nearest path, which they assumed led to the Great Volcano Night Club.As they left the clearing, Mata Nui asked Oris, “By the way, how long have you been lost in here?”“Um, let me see,” said Oris as he started counting off his fingers. “Let’s see, carry the four, divide by six, square it by twenty-three . . . eh, screw math, I was never good at it. About twenty-thousand years, I’d say.”“You must be pretty stupid to get lost somewhere for twenty-thousand years,” said Mata Nui.“It’s a big place,” Oris insisted. “Anyone could get lost that long. Heck, some people have been lost in here even longer.”“Uh huh,” said Mata Nui, who didn’t sound at all convinced. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”Oris looked annoyed, but said nothing as the group continued their journey. It looked like Mata Nui had made a new frenemy in Oris, but whether that would actually amount to anything, I don’t know. I’m just the narrator, folks. You can’t expect me to know everything, although if I had to guess I’d say, based on the author's consistency, he's probably going to forget about it pretty quickly, if he hasn't already.Commentary:

“I am Stonetus,” the rock being boomed. “And I must kill you!”

So Mata Nui surfed back to the earth. Then he threw the surfboard away – since he didn’t need it anymore – and the board exploded.

Thank you for the review, JMJ . I need to address a few points in particular, however:

Not only that but your writing style and the theme involve in this series of stories (The Core War), it does a very good job at selling your other works to the reader (me in this case). Why do I say this? Because I am actually interested in possibly checking out your other work due to fact that I like the writing style, you used here, and obviously the theme involve in this series itself.

However I do not think the Skrall as a species would be that attached to their children as he was. Then again, it is not like all Skrall are same being, so saying that they are all same in behavior would be rather stereotypical of me. So yeah, there is really nothing wrong with that character trait, you gave the lieutenant here. I just thought it was weird is all.

Yeah I generally don't bother worrying about language and translation in my stories. It's just not that important and, IMO, actually takes away from the quality of the story I'm trying to tell. I'm writing a story, not an English-to-whatever-fictinal-language-my-characters-are-speaking dictionary, so I don't give the subject that much thought in comparison to other aspects of the story.-TNTOS-

Mostly the Library forums because I have so many stories to post and update and keep track of, though I spend a fair amount of time in the Blogs, too.-TNTOS-

this chapter was short despite your attempt to delay the end“Erm, why did he explode?” Bucket-head asked.because everything in this comidy explodes havent you read the title bucket-head?Soon, I will kill everyone, mwahaha!”not hostbitalise (i know i spelt that wrong)sequals always have a higher age ratingwell short chapter=short review

One question though, would Bucket head know about humans? Mata Nui I can understand (and Fire Demon) Bucket-head not so sure.

Well, I have arrived. I haven't caught up yet, so I'll only comment on the first chapter and the prologue.Very well done, I like Bucket-Head and I remember his role in Reloaded.Also Imploded sounds like a nice name for the conclusion.I also liked how the Element Lords are called "Dah Element Lords". Funny.So far, nice job. I hereby declare that this is of the same caliber as the first. Keep it up!

Chapter IV

The next three days were fairly uneventful, save for the frigid temperatures and snow storms. We were having an increasingly more difficult time to find good firewood, however, and there were not many caves for us to sleep in at night. That we managed to survive this long at all, however, was an accomplishment in itself, in my opinion, and gave me some hope for our future survival.

The food situation wasn’t doing well, however. We ran out of food and water on the second day of our journey. The water itself was easy enough to deal with; we just filled our empty bottles with water from Kiina’s trident and then I heated them up to a drinkable temperature with my sword.

But we couldn’t live off water alone. So we were forced to hunt for any animals we could find that might be edible . . . which, suffice to say, weren’t much.

On the third day, we found a snow rabbit hopping through the snowdrifts. It was small and probably wouldn’t fill our stomachs much at all, but as we were both extremely hungry by then, we thought it looked like a gourmet dish ready to be cooked. I tried to crisp it with my sword, but it was too fast. I just ended up melting the snow while the rabbit hopped away.

Just when I thought the animal was about to escape, Kiina leapt into action, firing a stream of water from her trident. The water struck the rabbit, knocking it to the ground and stunning it. We quickly captured the rabbit and killed it. Then we cooked and ate it, although it didn’t taste very good and, as I had thought, didn’t fill our stomachs much. It was better than nothing, though.

The rabbit gave us enough energy to continue on, although we briefly stopped in the area to look for any more rabbits. We didn’t find any, but we did find a frozen river, which fortunately had fish in it. Catching the fish was the difficult part, for we didn’t have any fishing lines, but Kiina managed to spear a few on the end of her trident. She also accidentally dropped her water bottle in the river, but we managed to get it out before it floated away.

“Hey, what river is this?” I asked Kiina as she cleaned the fish.

Kiina glanced at it and said, “No idea. I’m not familiar with the Northern Frost’s rivers.”

“Whatever it is, I think we should follow it,” I said. “Agori generally live near rivers. Maybe if we follow it we’ll find civilization.”

“I don’t know,” said Kiina as she glanced up and down the river. “I don’t remember there being a river near the silver pool. What if this leads us off track?”

I had to admit that she was right. From what I could remember, there were no large bodies of water near the silver pool. I insisted that we at least keep the river in sight, however, just so we could fish whenever we needed to. I also hoped we would be run across a village, perhaps, although considering how untamed the wilderness seemed to be, I doubted that.

On the fourth day, our journey took us to the foot of a large mountain. Oddly enough, we saw what looked like an Agori-made path leading up the mountain. Did that mean there were other people nearby?

Neither of us knew the answer to that question, but as we could not go around the mountain, we took the path through it. The mountain looked huge, imposing, and cold; but so did everything else in the Northern Frost. If there were any beasts or unfriendly people up there, we could probably deal with them.

The path wound up and up the mountain, getting rockier and rougher the higher we went. I wondered how long ago this path had been abandoned, by whom, and, more importantly, why they abandoned it in the first place. We saw no other signs of civilization, which meant that this path had probably been solely used as a travel route at some point, but that still did not answer any of my questions.

Just then, I took a step forward and slipped. Stunned by the fall, I slid back and slammed into Kiina’s legs, knocking her over in the process. We went sliding down the mountainside extremely fast, both of us screaming as we slid, bumping over all of the rocks beneath us. I looked over my shoulder and saw a large boulder right in our path. If we crashed into it at this speed, I doubted we’d survive.

So I grabbed Kiina’s arm and, heating up my sword, plunged it into the ground. But to my dismay, my sword’s tip broke off because the rock was too thick for my blade to pierce. So we kept sliding to our doom, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Then Kiina acted. As we slid down, she grabbed a rock sticking out of the ground, which was stout enough to stop us from sliding any further. The jarring stop caused me to smack my head against the ground. I felt blood trickle down the side of my head, though it wasn’t much. My heart beat rapidly and I panted hard because my body was bruised all over.

“Whoa,” said Kiina, looking up the mountain. “What was that?”

“I slipped,” I explained as we both slowly and carefully rose to our feet. “The ground must be covered in ice. Wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Kiina rolled her eyes, then said, “Well, be more careful next time. Maybe I should go ahead, since you’re so clumsy.”

“Clumsy?” I said. “You’re the one who dropped your hot water bottle in the river back there. Seemed pretty clumsy to me.”

“Just shut up,” said Kiina. “I’ll lead. You can stay in the back and cover me.”

“Fine,” I said. “I never liked having my back to you anyway.”

Kiina glared at me, but said nothing. Instead, she turned away and kicked some snow up behind herself, then started up the path again. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the snow hadn’t got all over me. Grumbling and wiping the snow off my armor, I followed her up the path.

As we continued through the mountain, I thought about Kiina. Ever since that fight on our first night, we’d been working together much more smoothly. In fact, I almost considered Kiina a friend now, or as close to a friend as a Water soldier can be to a Fire soldier, anyway. At least I trusted her more now, despite what I said about disliking having my back to her.

Still, Kiina was stubborn and aggressive. She always had to have the last say in an argument and usually rejected my ideas in favor of her own. This wasn’t always bad, but combined with the cold weather, lack of adequate food, and lack of sleep it did get a little annoying after a while.

Thinking about Kiina’s flaws wasn’t useful, so I thought about my sword. The tip was broken; the sword itself would still work, of course, but it would be harder to aim correctly, especially because my sword was still bent. I felt stupid for breaking it, especially because Kiina managed to save us without having to break her own weapon. I’d get it repaired if – no, not if, when – I got back to the Fire army. Or maybe just get a new one, if this one was irreparable. It was dangerous to travel in unfamiliar territory with a broken weapon, but seeing as it was impossible for me to repair right now I’d just have to make do.

-

The higher up the mountain we climbed the colder and thinner the air became. We were freezing, but still we marched on, the wind and snow battering us like the heat of a volcano, until Kiina stopped suddenly, looking at the ground before her as though something had magically appeared out of nowhere right there.

“What is it?” I asked, stopping behind her and looking over her shoulder to see what she’d spotted.

A huge footprint was imprinted in the ground before us. The footprint was round, with three long toes. I had never seen such a strange footprint before, so I didn’t understand why Kiina seemed so unnerved by it.

“What’s the problem?” I said. “It’s just a footprint.”

Kiina turned to look at me, fear in her eyes. “Just a footprint? Ackar, do you know what this footprint belongs to?”

“Uh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t.”

“It belongs to a Snaj,” said Kiina, wrapping her arms around her body. “You know what Snajs are, right?”

“The name sounds familiar,” I said. “It’s some type of giant snow beast, right?”

“Yeah! They’re huge!” said Kiina, spreading her arms wide. “They live in the Northern Frost’s mountains, preying on anything that lives. A friend of mine, Tarix, told me about it. Some say Snajs grow to be ten-feet-tall, but others have reported seeing twenty-foot-tall Snajs. They’re absolute monsters.”

“Twenty-feet-tall?” I repeated. “You’re serious?”

“Completely,” said Kiina. “What’s even scarier is that they walk on two feet, just like us. And they have really long, sharp claws that can-“

“Okay!” I said, holding up my hands. “I don’t need to know any more, thank you.”

“But that’s not even the worst part,” said Kiina. “Snajs stalk their potential meals and strike only when they think the time is right. What if this Snaj decides to stalk us? We’re probably pretty tasty-looking compared to rabbits or fish.”

“You’re nothing but skin and bones,” I said with a laugh. “What monster could possibly want to eat you?”

Kiina hit me on the head with her trident and snapped, “Get serious, Ackar! I was told that wild Snajs can kill even trained soldiers. They aren’t afraid of Agori and other sapient species like most animals are. Maybe we should head back down the mountain and find another way around.”

“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “There are two of us and one of it. Besides, what if the Snaj doesn’t even know we’re here? This footprint might be from yesterday, so the Snaj could be long gone by now.”

That probably wasn’t true, of course. If the footprint had been created yesterday, it would have already been filled with snow and indistinguishable from the rest of the ground. Still, I didn’t want to climb back down the mountain, not after everything we’d gone through to get up here in the first place. And I was reasonably confident that we could take this Snaj, even if it was twenty-feet-tall. After all, we had elemental weapons and it didn’t.

“Okay,” said Kiina “But if we get killed, I’m blaming you.”

“Fine by me,” I said, gesturing at the path. “Lead the way, wet feet.”

We continued our trek up the mountain, but we went a bit more slowly now, for Kiina was still apprehensive about the Snaj. It didn’t help that we found more Snaj tracks the further we went, but neither of us suggested turning back. We knew it was too late to do that.

As we walked, I looked around the foothills and snowdrifts around us. It seemed to me that, even if a Snaj was stalking us, we’d be able to see it if they really did grow to be twenty feet tall. We’d have probably heard it, too; something that big couldn’t be very quiet. The howling wind made it difficult to hear anything, of course, but I reasoned that a twenty-foot-tall monster couldn’t be that silent or stealthy.

An hour or so later, Kiina and I had to take a break at a small clearing in the heart of the mountain. We were both weary and tired and cold, but we still had a long way to go, for we hadn’t reached the other side yet. I glanced around the area and saw nothing but snow and rocks. I didn’t see any place that a twenty-foot Snaj could hide.

To keep my mind off the Snaj, I began talking to Kiina. We talked about a lot of things, including the war. To my surprise, I found that Kiina didn’t really like the war, but was in the army because it gave her the opportunity to leave her home region, Bara Magna.

“Bara Magna?” I said, shivering as a strong wind blew through. “I’ve heard about that place. It’s just one big desert, right?”

“Yeah,” said Kiina, nodding. “I live just to the north of it, by the Dormus River, but that’s still too close for my liking. It’s all sand in every direction, although there are some oases. It’s boring and bleak, but a lot of warmer than this place.”

“Perhaps I’ll go there someday,” I said. “If it’s warmer than the Northern Frost, then I’m all for it.”

Just then, a long, loud howl pierced the wind. Both of us froze (not literally, of course) as the howl sounded down from the mountains. It sounded terrifying, causing me to jump to my feet in fear. Kiina did the same.

“What was that?” I said, looking around. “Some kind of wolf?”

“No,” said Kiina. “Wolves aren’t that scary-sounding. I don’t want to stick around and find out what it is, so how’s about we just keep on going until we get to the other side of the mountain, okay?”

“All right,” I said, trying not to show any fear. “That . . . that sounds like a good idea.”

Kiina and I made to exit the clearing, but just then, something huge burst from the peak above us. It crashed hard in front of the exit, blocking our escape.

For a moment, I thought our path was barricaded by a giant snowball. But then four limbs and a big head sprouted from its body and the titanic creature stood up on its hind legs, towering over us both. Giant snowballs didn’t do that.

The creature was probably fifteen-feet-tall, maybe taller, with thick fur that was the same shade of white as the snow around us. Three long, thin, metallic claws extended from its hands and feet, which looked like they could rip and tear through armor with ease. A long, black tongue sniffed the air, while its saliva hit the ground like raindrops. It had big, slanted eyes that seemed to track our every movement. And it was extremely muscular; it could have probably lifted the entire mountain with one claw if it wanted to.

“Oh no . . .” said Kiina with a gasp. “It’s a Snaj. A big one.”

“No kidding,” I said, sword at the ready. “Was it following us?”

“Maybe,” said Kiina, holding her trident in a battle position. “I don’t know. You can’t expect me to know everything about Snajs.”

“Well, whatever it’s doing, it doesn’t look friendly,” I said. “But maybe it isn’t interested in us. Maybe we can go around it or-“

The Snaj raised its claws and slashed at us. We just barely managed to dodge the claws, which ripped through the ground where we had been standing. The Snaj snarled and raised its claws again, a hungry glint in its eye.

“No, I think it’s very interested in us,” said Kiina, her voice slightly trembling. “In fact, I think it would like to have us for dinner, probably.”

“Let’s try scaring it,” I suggested. “Wild animals are afraid of fire. If I make even a small spark the Snaj might run away and never bother us again.”

“Worth a try,” said Kiina, shrugging. “Go ahead.”

I nodded and aimed my sword at the ground. Fire flew out of my sword’s tip and hit the snow – not quite where I had wanted it to, due to the broken tip. It seemed to work just the same, however; at the sight of the flames, the Snaj took a step back as if afraid it might get burned.

Yet it didn’t run. Instead, after a minute or two, the Snaj actually drew closer to the fire; hesitantly, of course, but still it came nearer, as if attempting to get over its fear of fire by facing it head on.

“Oh, that was a smart move, Ackar,” said Kiina, rolling her eyes. “I think you forgot that we are in the Northern Frost. Even the animals need heat out here, so it is probably attracted to the fire’s warmth.”

“Shut up,” I said, glaring at her. “You’re the one who told me to do it.”

Before Kiina could respond, the Snaj lost interest in the fire and then looked at us, like it suddenly remembered we were here. Then it leapt over the fire, landing with enough force to shake the ground beneath our feet.

It charged, causing Kiina and I to scatter to avoid its razor sharp claws. The Snaj stopped and looked in both directions, as though trying to figure out who it should go after first. Its eyes fell on my sword – which was still emitting heat – and it immediately started lumbering toward me with impossible speed.

Alarmed, I hurled a fire bolt at it. The Snaj roared in pain as the fire burned its fur but, to my amazement, it started patting snow over the burned area. Soon the flames had gone out and the Snaj no longer appeared to be in pain, although its fur was still blackened by the fire. I had never seen an animal use its environment to put out a fire like that, which made me wonder just how intelligent Snajs really were.

Then the Snaj charged. I tried to fire another fire bolt, but due to my sword’s broken tip I missed. The Snaj slammed into me, sending me flying into the mountainside. I crashed into the ground and lay there, stunned. Every bone in my body felt broken, but I had no time to worry about my pain. The Snaj – which was advancing on me now – was obviously not going to give me the time to heal.

I tried to stand, but groaned and fell back down. My right leg felt broken; if so, then there was no way I could escape. It looked like the Snaj was going to eat me after all. Never thought I’d die getting eaten by a giant snow monster. It was a depressing thought.

A blast of water hit the Snaj in the back, causing it to screech in pain. The Snaj whirled around, probably to find out who had dared attack it, only to get more water in the face. I looked around the beast and saw Kiina standing before the Snaj, relentlessly firing water at the snow monster from her trident.

Apparently the Snaj couldn’t handle the water anymore, because it soon ran off, surprisingly quick for such a large beast. Kiina hurled another blast or two at the Snaj as it left, but that wasn’t necessary, because the soaked animal was clearly too afraid to come back and fight. Soon it was out of sight, hopefully never to return.

Kiina ran up to me and stopped, bending down to check on me as she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said with a groan, grabbing my right leg. “Just broke my leg, that’s all. Anyway, why’d the Snaj run away like that? Don’t tell me it’s afraid of water?”

“No,” said Kiina, shaking her head. “I just figured it out. The Snaj likes warmth. Fire hurts it, but it enjoys the heat the fire produces. I figured it must dislike extreme cold, so I decided to drench it with ice cold water. It didn’t want to freeze to death, so it ran away. Simple.”

“I see,” I said. “I would never have figured that out myself.”

“Well, your weapon can’t shoot water, so it wouldn’t have done you any good even if you had,” said Kiina. “Here, let me help you up. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

“You’re right,” I said as Kiina helped me up. My right leg was sore, so I tried to shift my weight onto my other leg to lessen the pain. “But we’ve got to do something about my leg. I’m afraid I’m useless with a broken leg.”

Kiina led me over to a rock and helped me sit down on it. Then she found some wood and made a makeshift splint out of it. It wasn’t the greatest or fanciest, but it made walking a little more endurable, at least.

“There,” said Kiina, after finishing her work. “Oh, and you’ll need this.”

She picked up a long, thin stick and handed it to me. “A walking stick.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said as I took the stick.

I looked at her and she looked at me. It just now occurred to me what she was doing. As a Water soldier, she should have left me, with my broken leg, here to die. Yet she not only gave me a splint, but a walking stick as well to help me balance. We’d been through a lot since we started this journey. Maybe she really did consider me a friend now.

Kiina just nodded, like she accepted my thanks, and said, “Now get up. I don’t want that Snaj to tell its friends about us. I’ve heard Snajs don’t like it when one of their own is attacked. So we’d better get going.”

“Right,” I said as I slowly stood up. “Lead the way, Kiina.”

Review Topic.

a chapter focusing on bucket-head... i like it“I dunno, but the closer we get to the Great Volcano Night Club, the weirder I feel. It’s almost like going through adolescence again, except minus the zits and drama."ok i remember ackers flames going out of control but was mata nui getting angry from the 5th movie?(seems weird talking about a "5th" movie when it was just a rejected script)texting and music downloads and Justin Bieber and all of these other things that all teens are crazy about.actually i think the Justin Bieber fad is overnow hes just a joke for badly writin storysNor did I think this comedy would become a romantic comedywait i thought this was non-fictionwell i enjoyed this chapterby the wayanyone want to buy an afro?

Mata Nui and pals soon found themselves at the edge of a mountainous region. In every direction, Mata Nui saw huge mountains whose peaks reached into space. The mountains appeared to be older than the world, older than the universe, although if that was the case Mata Nui wondered where they existed if they were older than the universe.Kansas, Mata Nui decided. That’s where they were before the universe.They saw someone climbing one of the mountains, but then the person accidentally slipped and fell and exploded upon hitting the ground. Not only that, but they saw giant vultures spewing fire and lightning perched in the mountains. They looked so huge that they could have devoured Mata Nui and his friends easily.They won’t get me or my friends while I’m around, though, Mata Nui thought. Although I might let them have Bucket-head. He’s stupid.Right in the center, however, was a volcano that appeared bigger than all of the other mountains combined. A giant neon sign above it read, ‘THE GREAT VOLCANO NIGHT CLUB.’ Mata Nui thought it was stupid that Dah Element Lords would make their base so dang obvious, but he reasoned that they were villains, and most villains were not that smart, which is why they were villains, after all.“That’s the Great Volcano Night Club, eh?” said Mata Nui. “No problem. We can get there.”“But the only path into the mountains is THAT one,” said Bucket-head, pointing ahead.As Bucket-head had said, there was only one path leading into the mountains. It looked long, twisting, and narrow. There was a sheer drop of 1,000,000 feet on either side of the path and at the bottom of the drop were flaming spikes that echoed the cries of the fallen souls that had been claimed by their fiery pointyness. The path looked fragile, like it would break any minute, and it probably would as soon as they stepped on it. Besides that, though, it looked pretty safe.“We’ve seen worse,” said Mata Nui as he led the group up the path, which did not break as soon as they stepped on it. “This will be like a walk in the park.”“Like a walk in the park of the Underworld, that is,” said Bucket-head, nervously glancing over the side of the ravine, which was pretty deep.Just then, the path trembled, almost knocking them off their feet. But they managed to stay steady as a giant fire demon arose from the flaming spikes, roaring in agony as it recalled the pain of the people that had passed through here but had died. It had a wingspan of 1,000,000 feet, with long, curved horns that looked like goat horns. It had no skin; just black bone, which burned with the everlasting fire of the Void. The fire demon’s eyes reflected a lifetime of events, from beyond the beginning of time, space, and even eternity.“What the heck is that?” said Bucket-head, jumping back in horror.“Wait,” said Mata Nui, holding out his hand, for Kiina and Ackar had already drawn their weapons. “This beast obviously requires a human sacrifice before it will allow us to pass.”“But we don’t have any humans,” said Ackar in shock.“Well, I’m sure it’ll take Bucket-head,” said Mata Nui, turning to the Skrall. “You don’t mind being sacrificed to a fire demon god, do you?”“Yes, I do!” said Bucket-head.“I do not require living sacrifices,” the fire demon god boomed. Its voice was so loud that it caused the skull of a nearby giant vulture to explode. “Besides, I would not take Bucket-head even if I did want a sacrifice. He is stupid.”“We know,” said Mata Nui, nodding. “He’s so stupid, in fact-““But I do require sacrifice before I allow mortals to pass this way,” the fire demon god said. “I must ask of you something so precious that to give it up would be like giving up your own life.”“And what is this sacrifice that is like giving up your own life?” said Mata Nui. “Whatever it is, we shall give it to you.”“I require . . . a peanut butter sandwich,” the fire demon god said.“Wait, that’s it?” said Ackar. “I thought you were going to ask us for our memory or something like that.”“What could I do with the memories of a mortal?” said the fire demon god. “Now a peanut butter sandwich, on the other hand, that’s good stuff. I’m hungry. So feed me or else I will feed myself.”“Um, one moment, please,” said Mata Nui. He turned to the others and said, “Group huddle!”Ackar, Kiina, and Bucket-head huddled around Mata Nui, while the fire demon god stood by, looking impatient and hungry.“Do we have any peanut butter sandwiches?” Mata Nui asked Kiina.“No, I didn’t pack any,” said Kiina, shaking her head. “You’re allergic to peanut butter-““I am not,” said Mata Nui. “I just . . . I just don’t like it.”“Uh huh,” said Kiina, who wasn’t convinced. “Well, I didn’t pack any because I knew you ‘didn’t like it.’”“What about you two?” said Mata Nui, addressing Ackar and Bucket-head. “Do either of you have peanut butter sandwiches?”“You know I can’t eat peanut butter,” said Ackar. “It gives me gas.”“Uh, okay,” said Mata Nui. “That is not something we needed to know.”“I do not have any peanut butter, either,” said Bucket-head, shaking his head. “Peanut butter was only ever eaten by the Tuma when I was with the Skrall. It was almost considered sacred; so you see, a minor Skrall like me didn’t get any. I did get to lick off the Tuma’s knife sometimes, though . . . oh that was so good . . . it was like heaven in the form of butter . . .”Mata Nui sighed heavily, then said, “Break!” and the group turned back to face the fire demon god.“So? What will you do?” said the fire demon god. “Will you appease my rumbly, tumbly tummy or will you be rumbling and tumbling inside it?”“We shall give you what you ask,” said Mata Nui as he dug through his pockets, which I guess he has now for some reason. “Here!”Mata Nui had fished out of his pocket a peanut butter sandwich neatly divided into two in a plastic baggy. He tossed the sandwich up to the fire demon god, who grabbed it eagerly.“Wait, you had peanut butter all this time?” said Kiina in shock. “But you told me you didn’t like it!”“Well, that was kind of a lie,” said Mata Nui, not looking at Kiina. “’Cause I really do like peanut butter, but you never let me have any because my body, er, doesn’t like it. So I thought I’d sneak one out of the house and eat it when you weren’t looking.”“I thought I whiffed peanut butter on you,” said Bucket-head. “I just thought it was one of those weird things in this comedy, hence why I didn’t bring it up.”Before Kiina could hit either of them for their stupidity, the fire demon god gulped down the peanut butter sandwich in one bite and declared, “My hunger has been sated! I now give you four travelers the right to go and enter the Maze! Woo hoo!”The fire demon god then exploded.“Erm, why did he explode?” Bucket-head asked.“It’s not important,” said Mata Nui, shaking his head. “What matters is that the way is clear. Soon, I will kill everyone, mwahaha!”“Er, you mean rescue Berix and Gresh, right?” said Bucket-head.“Save who now?” said Mata Nui.“Never mind,” Bucket-head said, secretly wondering if he had somehow died and gone to that place that isn’t where good people go when they die. “Let’s just keep going.”Mata Nui punched Bucket-head in the face.“Ow! What was that for?” said Bucket-head, rubbing the fist-shaped dent in his helmet.“Only I get to say ‘Let’s just keep going,’” said Mata Nui, folding his arms. “Not you. Now let’s just keep going, guys. I'm sure we’ll find Gresh and Berix in no time.”So the group of four continued down the trail, but no one noticed the two mountains behind them slam shut. I am not even going to ask how they didn't notice two mountains slamming together, which surely would have made a loud noise that would have caught their attention. Then again, they aren't that smart, so maybe I shouldn't be pondering this too much.But onto a tangent, the mountains slammed together because it is an ancient ritual of the mountains. When two mountains come of age, they must slam into each other as hard as possible in order to combine their forms together to make one big mountain. This is done so that one day all of the mountains in the world would fuse together to make the Giga Mountain, which would then rule the world with an iron, er, I mean stone, fist.Yeah, you didn’t seriously believe that, did you? Good, because it’s true. Ha, the joys of being the narrator.Anyway, I’ve been delaying the end of this chapter too long, so the end. There.Commentary:

“I do not require living sacrifices,” the fire demon god boomed. Its voice was so loud that it caused the skull of a nearby giant vulture to explode. “Besides, I would not take Bucket-head even if I did want a sacrifice. He is stupid.”

Glatorian Chronicles #11: Obsidian Among the Frost by TNTOSWould appreciate a review.-TNTOS-

I followed the Bionicle storyline through the Bara Magna saga, and while I was never as invested in it as the years encompassing the Matoran Universe (above or below), the Core War has always interested me. This game of cat and mouse in the drifting snow was very engaging to read, and I like the notion of Skrall "children" as well.My favorite part about this whole thing though (aside from the honor of seeing you chose my title suggestion) is that lingering question about the greater monster here. Skrall are truly fearsome soldiers, never running from a fight as Stronius said. This beast born from the Energized Protodermis has no sense of fear either, or remorse. Stronius and the creature are both determined, cunning, and relentless. It makes it all the more fun to read, knowing both sides are so resilient.Of course, occurring in the past gives a bit of a safety net to Stronius. Even if he is mauled within an inch of his life, we know he'll live to fight another day. So you brought a nameless companion into the mix, putting a life on the line if the situation goes south for the Skrall warriors.As enjoyable a read as this was, I'll have to read through the other Glatorian Chronicles eventually. Fantastic work, TNTOS.-Ced

Chapter III

Xocion led Kiina and I through the snow to the eastern wall of the Frozen Fortress. The Element Lord strode through the slush like he was taking a pleasant stroll through the park, but Kiina and I had a more difficult time trekking through the snow. True, we both were equipped with winter survival gear (which our armies had given us to help us fight in the Northern Frost), but neither of us was used to the Northern Frost’s deep snowdrifts, meaning we had to hustle just to keep up with Xocion. Kiina sunk up to her waist in deep snow once, but I managed to pull her out with help from my fire sword. Xocion didn’t notice.

After what felt like hours of walking, the gigantic ice wall in the east stood before us. The wall had looked big from afar, but up close, it was enormous. It was so huge that the sun’s rays barely streamed over it. The shadow of the wall covered us, making us even colder than before.

Xocion walked up to a hollow tree and pulled out a small bag from it. He then unexpectedly tossed the bag to us, saying, “Take this.”

Kiina caught it in surprise and said, “What’s this for?”

“Supplies,” Xocion replied. “It should be enough for one day, maybe a day and a half if gluttony is not your sin. There are also two full bottles of hot water; cold water would freeze in this weather.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said, staring at the bag as Kiina slung it over her shoulder. “I-“

“Do not mistake it for a gesture of kindness or mercy, Ackar,” said Xocion, shaking his head. “It is only to make the challenge a bit fairer. I value fairness and honesty, so I am giving you an advantage you would never get from anyone else.”

I was about to say it would be fairer if he just took us back to our armies without any of this quest nonsense, but then thought better of it when I saw his icy glare.

Instead, I said, “Should be fun, then.”

“’Fun’ is not the word I’d use to describe our situation,” Kiina muttered.

I looked at the huge wall and saw no doors or gates. “How are we supposed to go through this?”

“Actually, it is more like how are you supposed to go above this,” Xocion said, pointing upwards.

His meaning was obscure until without warning a giant pillar of snow burst out of the ground, sending Kiina and I flying into the air. Shocked and stunned by the sudden impact, we lay on the pillar’s head as it went up, higher and higher and faster and faster into the air, until we were just over the top of the wall.

It was at that moment that I could see why the Ice tribe loves these mountains. True, we were on top of a wall rather than a mountain, but it was a mountain-sized wall that afforded us an excellent view of the area. The morning sun shone brightly, glaring off the white snow. The peaks of the mountains in the distance were beautiful and mysterious, rising above a layer of gray clouds. For a moment, it seemed like Kiina and I just floated in midair, taking in the breathless beauty of the Northern Frost.

And then, without warning, we suddenly dropped like stones. I hate to admit it, but I started screaming for my life as we fell, but Kiina did too, and arguably her screams of terror were worse than mine.

The ground got closer and closer, which meant that we were probably going to end up splattered messes on the ground in a few seconds. For a moment, I wondered if Xocion had lied to us about giving us the opportunity to return to our armies and had merely been planning to kill us all along. If so, I’d say his plan was working quite well.

Just then, another pillar of snow burst from the ground. Kiina and I slammed straight into it, smashing deeper into the pillar the further we fell. The initial impact was jarring -- if not bone-breaking -- but the soft snow actually did slow down our descent until we safely reached the ground.

Then the pillar suddenly fell apart, but remarkably little snow fell on us. Kiina and I lay on a large pile of snow, dazed and in pain. My lungs hurt from screaming, my legs hurt from being pushed up by the pillar of snow, and my arms hurt because the rest of my body hurt and they didn’t want to be left out. I was freezing and cold and felt snow stuck in my armor. At least we didn’t become splattered messes, but my body hurt so badly that I wish we had.

But the warmth of the sun felt good on my body. Out here, the sun shone brightly, although it wasn’t as warm as the flames of the Great Volcano. Still, at least it was better than the cold shadows of the Frozen Fortress, anyway.

For a long time Kiina and I just lay there, panting, trying to catch our breath, warming up in the sun. Finally, with some effort, I sat up and tried moving my limbs. They hurt like heck, but none of my bones felt broken, fortunately.

“That . . . was . . . horrible,” Kiina said, panting. “Next time I see Xocion I’ll-“

“Be quiet,” I told her, although my voice was hoarse from all of the screaming. “You know what happens to anyone who insults an Element Lord, even if he isn’t around.”

“I know, I know,” said Kiina as she struggled to sit up, which she succeeded in doing with some effort. “I’m just frustrated.”

“You survived,” said a voice behind us. “Interesting.”

Kiina and I looked over our shoulders and saw Xocion standing there, arms folded across his chest. How he got there, I had no idea, but considering he was the Element Lord of Ice, he probably had his own, less painful methods of getting over the wall. He didn’t look like he’d been launched up into the air and then caught by a pillar of snow, anyway.

“So you thought we’d die?” Kiina said, bolting to her feet. “Why you-“

“Oh, no, I didn’t think you’d die,” said Xocion, looking at her with amusement. “I merely believed all of the bones in your body would have broken into tiny pieces. I suppose you snowflakes are tougher than I originally thought.”

“Of course we are,” said Kiina, putting her hands on her hips. “We’re trained soldiers. It takes a lot more than being flung into the air by a pillar of snow to kill us.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it does,” said Xocion dismissively. “Well, I hope you make it back to your allies alive. Good bye, Ackar, young Kiina. Perhaps we shall be seeing one another again very soon, if you survive your journey.”

A cold wind blew in at that moment, causing me to wrap my arms around myself. Kiina nearly fell over, but regained her balance just in time. When the wind passed, we both looked around. Xocion was gone, but that didn’t mean our troubles were over. Oh, no. They’d just started.

-

Kiina and I decided to go north, for Xocion had mentioned it was only a week’s journey from here to the pool if we went in that direction. There was of course the possibility that Xocion had lied but we didn’t want to risk it by going in another direction. It might not matter as we might just perish in the snow anyway, as Xocion had predicted. (It did take me a while to convince Kiina that we should go north, however, because she trusted Xocion even less than I did.)

Before we begun our journey, we checked the supplies Xocion had given us. There were five or six cooked fish, two bags of dried berries (which were somewhat squashed but still edible), a couple of loaves of flat bread, and, as Xocion had said, two bottles of hot water. Now whether it actually would last a day, we didn’t know for sure. To be safe, Kiina and I both ate for breakfast only as much as we needed. The rest we would save for later, but I wondered how we were going to survive for a week with only enough food for a day or a day and a half.

We started trekking through the snow after breakfast, heading north. But it was slow going, for the snow was undisturbed here. There were no roads or villages nearby, meaning we had to make our own paths through the snow. This quickly wore us out and in about an hour we were forced to stop and rest.

“This is ridiculous,” said Kiina, glaring at the snow like it was her worst enemy. “How does Xocion expect us to survive a week in this place?”

“Easy,” I said, sitting on a rock to rest my legs. “He doesn’t, which is why he brought us out here. He probably gets a sick thrill seeing us go through this.”

“If only we had some way of going through the snow easier . . .” said Kiina, her voice trailing off as she looked at my sword.

“What?” I said, bringing my weapon a little closer to my body. “What’re you looking at my blade for?”

“It’s so simple,” said Kiina, clapping her hands together. “Your sword can shoot flames, right? So why don’t you use it to create a path for us in the snow? It would be much easier than carving out a path on our own, after all.”

“You have a point,” I said, looking at my blade and wondering why I hadn’t thought of that before. “Makes sense.”

“Well, come on!” said Kiina, jumping to her feet with renewed enthusiasm. “Let’s get going! We’ll prove Xocion wrong.”

I got up and soon began melting the snow in front of us, allowing us to walk across the flat ground with relative ease.

But that didn’t mean our journey was completely free of trouble. A sharp, cold wind cut through our armor, causing both of us to shiver. As I was still using my sword to melt a path, I couldn’t create any flames to keep us warm. We were forced to brace against the wind, which seemed like it was trying to kill us (if Xocion was behind it, then it probably was). Not to mention the melted snow turned into water, which was freezing cold despite the heat of my flames and made the ground more than a little muddy.

We walked for hours, having to take occasional breaks due to the low temperatures and mud. Soon we stopped to have our next meal of the day, lunch.

We sat behind a huge boulder we found, which blocked the wind, fortunately. I planned for us to eat as much food as we had eaten at breakfast, in order to make our supplies last as long as possible, but Kiina started wolfing down more food than her fair share.

“Hey!” I said, snatching the bread from her hands. “We have to make this last a week, you know.”

“But I’m hungry,” Kiina protested, reaching for the food again. “I know we don’t have much food, but we can hunt for some more, can’t we?”

“Maybe, but thus far we haven’t seen anything edible,” I answered as I put the bread back in our bag, which I kept close to me to keep her from getting at it. “In fact, I haven’t seen any other living being around here besides you and Xocion and myself. It would be wiser to conserve our food.”

“I don’t care,” said Kiina, her hand still outstretched. “Just give me the food.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You can eat later, at dinnertime.”

“But that’s hours away!” said Kiina in shock. “And I’m cold and hungry and-“

“Just shut up, okay?” I said, cutting her off. “If we’re going to last more than a day out here we need to conserve as much of our food and water as we can. We’ll die in less than day if we aren’t wise with our supplies, understand?”

Kiina nodded, but I could tell she was still angry about the lack of food. I understood, but at the same time, I couldn’t just let Kiina eat as much as she wanted. She was still a rookie and didn’t seem to understand that sometimes a soldier has to starve in order to survive. As I doubted any of my words could pierce that thick, stubborn skull of hers, I chose not to explain it to her. She’d have to learn from the master teacher: Experience. It was the best way to learn anything, for experience never let you forget the lessons you learned from your mistakes.

So, after resting for about ten minutes, we continued on again. I still used my sword’s flames to melt the snow, but in another hour or so the flames sputtered and died. Panicked, I tried to light it again, but nothing more than a little bit of smoke floated out of its tip and it emitted no heat at all.

“Oh, come on!” said Kiina, looking at my weapon in anger. “Is it broken?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head as I examined it. “I think it just needs to recharge. I’ve been using it for several hours nonstop now, you know. Come to think of it, it’s amazing it lasted even that long.”

“It’s going to take hours to recharge!” Kiina groaned, glaring at the snow, like it had done something wrong. “And by then we’ll be frozen statues. Maybe Xocion will find us and put us in his palace, like he said he would.”

“We aren’t going to die,” I said. “What we need to do is try to survive as best as we can. We can’t just give up.”

Kiina looked doubtful, but surprisingly she said, “You know, you’re right. We’ve got to be tough if we’re going to make it through this. I won’t let Xocion make me a statue in his palace. I won’t.”

For once, I actually smiled. Despite our tribal differences, Kiina and I did agree on some things. Of course, that didn’t mean we were friends, but it did mean I didn’t hate her as much as I originally did. I would still have to be careful around her, though, because she was a Water soldier and I a Fire Soldier. We could never be real friends.

So I said, “Come on, then. I’m getting cold standing around doing nothing.”

-

Our renewed determination didn’t make it any easier to travel through the snow. My legs felt like frozen lead, my face burned from the cold, and my fingers felt like they were freezing together. Kiina did not look much better; but we continued on anyway, for stopping would only mean death.

Within a few hours, the sun set, covering the land in complete darkness. Luckily for us we managed to find a cave to settle in for the night. It wasn’t as warm or cozy as the cave at the Frozen Fortress, but it kept us out of the wind, anyway.

After we gathered what little sticks we could, I tried to start a fire with my sword, just to see if it had recharged yet. A tiny flame spat out, burning the sticks and creating a small fire, but my sword clearly needed to recharge for another hour or two. A small fire was better than no fire, I reasoned, even though it emitted barely any heat whatsoever.

As it was now dinnertime, Kiina and I shared another small meal, which was not enough to satisfy either of us. I kept the rest of the food and water next to me, away from Kiina for I could tell she craved more food. I didn’t trust her not to eat it.

Soon we both fell asleep. It wasn’t difficult for me to sleep, for I was so tired I could not keep my eyes open. We didn’t cuddle together or anything, even though it would have kept us warmer. It would have been very awkward, considering our different military and tribal affiliations. I was willing to work with Kiina to survive, but I wasn’t willing to get that close to her. I’d die before I did that.

-

The sound of someone eating woke me with a start. The first thing I noticed was what seemed to be a very skinny bear sitting next to me, stuffing its face with our food. It was making the loud chomping noises that that awoken me, not even bothering to be quiet.

I had no idea where the bear had come from, but I couldn’t let it steal our food. Without hesitation I fired a blast of heat at it, sufficient enough to cause it to jump into the air and yell, “Ow! That burns!”

I blinked. Since when did bears say, ‘Ow! That burns!’?

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and then looked. The ‘bear,’ it turned out, was no bear at all, but rather a slim blue warrior with a trident, clutching the spot where I had burned her thigh. She looked both sheepish and angry, like a child caught in an act of wrongdoing.

“Kiina?” I said, taking a double take. “What were you . . .“

An idea suddenly came to me, causing me to glance at the food bag at my side. To my horror, it was wide open and there was a fish and a half left. The second hot water bottle lay on the ground near the bag, almost completely empty, and the bread was completely gone save for a few crumbs.

I looked back up at Kiina. I was so angry I could barely talk. I just managed to say, “You . . . didn’t . . . dare . . .”

“I was hungry,” said Kiina defensively. “I woke up and I needed something to eat. So I thought-“

“You greedy, selfish moron!” I snapped, jumping to my feet. I pointed at the open satchel and said, “Do you think one and a half fish, some bread crumbs, and a half-full bottle of hot water is going to last us a week? We’re both going to die out here and it will be your fault, Kiina! Yours! Got it?”

Kiina also rose to her feet, looking quite fierce with her trident in her hands. “Oh, shut up! Did you really think we’d last a week with that stuff, which barely constitutes a light snack? Xocion purposefully gave us such a small amount of food just so we would die!”

“I don’t care why Xocion gave us that food,” I said, my sword at the ready. “You’re the reason we’re going to die when we both might have been able to survive for at least a little while longer. You’re the biggest glutton I know, and this is coming from the guy who knows Malum!”

“Glutton? You’re a naïve old man!” said Kiina, pointing at me with her trident. “There’s no way we could have survived out here with that amount of food and you know it.”

I glanced at the food again and said, “There’s probably enough food left in there for maybe one person. That means one of us has to go and I think I know who will.”

Kiina bared her teeth and said, “You.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You!”

I hurled a fire bolt at Kiina, but she fired a water blast at the same time. The resulting collision created a cloud of steam that blinded me. I looked around for Kiina, but the steam was so thick I could barely see even three feet in front of me.

So I listened instead. My mentor had taught me that, if you cannot rely on your eyes in a fight, you must rely on your other senses, including hearing. It was advice I hadn’t used in a while, but I was glad of any advantage I could get in a fight like this.I heard some footsteps to my right and, without hesitation, swung my sword, cutting through the steam. My sword hit something hard and I saw Kiina, my sword caught on her trident. She immediately pushed back, while I struggled against her.

Without warning Kiina moved to the right. With nothing to press against, I was sent stumbling forward. She smacked me in the back with her trident, causing me to hit the ground. I rolled to the side; just in time, for the tips of Kiina’s trident struck the ground where my head had been moments before.

I swept her legs from underneath her, sending her to the floor. I jumped to my feet, but was hit by a huge water blast that slammed me into the cave wall. Stunned, I slid to the floor and dropped my sword, which Kiina blasted away out of my reach with another water blast.

Kiina was on me in an instant, her trident at my neck. She looked me directly in the eyes, while I returned the look. I could see intense hatred burning in her orbs, while mine probably looked the same. I didn’t try to hide it. She was going to kill me anyway; no point in being dishonest.

“So,” I said, panting hard, “are you going to kill me? Or are you too cowardly to do even that?”

“I . . . I can kill you,” said Kiina. “I’m a soldier. A soldier . . . a soldier has to kill people. It’s what soldiers do.”

“I get it,” I said, with a satisfied grin. “You can’t kill me. You’re a rookie. You’ve probably never actually killed anyone up close, have you? Especially someone you know. You’ve only killed nameless foes you don’t know and never met.”

“Shut up!” said Kiina, miserably failing to hide her fear. “I-“

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said, without a shred of sympathy in my voice. “Some of the older soldiers I know wish they’d never killed anyone whose face and name they knew. Once you’ve done that, though, there’s really nothing else you wouldn’t do. So if you want to kill me, get it over with quickly. You might be able to survive longer on your own without me, anyway.”

I wasn’t saying any of that to throw her off or anything. I was merely stating facts, things she needed to know. Besides, if she’s got a conscience, she might just let me live. I doubted it, for the Water army was notoriously brutal to its enemies, yet I clung to that hope anyway. I really didn’t want to die, but if I had to die here, then so be it. Dying at the hands of an enemy was better than dying in the wilderness.

Kiina continued to stare at me. I saw her finger on the trigger on her trident that would send tons of water into my face, probably enough to kill me. Or maybe she would stab me in the face or throat with her trident’s sharp tips. The only question was when she planned to end my life, and I knew I was about to get an answer to that question very soon.

Hours seemed to pass as Kiina held her trident at my throat. I wondered what she was waiting for when finally, Kiina unexpectedly lowered her trident and took a step back from me, her head down. Surprised, I didn’t move immediately, for I wasn’t sure if this was some kind of trick, maybe stir up my hopes before striking the death-blow.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” I asked. “I’m your enemy, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not,” said Kiina, still not looking at me. “At least, not right now you’re not. If I kill you, I’d just die out in the snow somewhere. I can’t say I feel the warmest toward you right now, but I know it’d be stupid to kill you.”

“Really?” I said suspiciously. Her words sounded genuine, but I knew how tricky Water soldiers could be. “You won’t kill me?”

“I won’t,” she promised, looking back up at me. “We’ve got to work together if we’re going to survive out here. I’m sure we’d be giving Xocion exactly what he wanted if we killed each other. I don’t feel like pleasing him, so I won’t do it.”

Slowly rising to my feet, I said, “Are you sure? I am an enemy soldier, after all. Not that I want you to kill me, but-“

“Stop complaining,” said Kiina. “I’m not going to kill you. Though I’m so sorry if I disappointed you.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “You’re right. We’ve got enough problems as it is without trying to kill each other.”

Kiina glanced at the food bag and said, “I’m so stupid for almost eating it all. It’s gonna be harder to go on with so little food.”

I also looked at the bag and said, “You’ve got a point. Maybe we can hunt down some animals or something.”

“Maybe,” said Kiina doubtfully. “I’m so sorry I did that. I was just so hungry . . .”

No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stay angry at Kiina. It seemed unfair to me to remain angry at her, especially since she willing admitted her mistake to me. Remaining angry at her forever would not get us more food or bring us closer to civilization, so it was a useless waste of energy to be enraged at her.

So I said, “I understand. I’m the one who should be apologizing, because I started the fight in the first place. Easily the stupidest thing I’ve done so far.”

“No, I started the fight,” Kiina insisted, shaking her head. “If I hadn’t eaten the food in the first place, we would never have come this close to killing each other.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But I shouldn’t have attacked you. It wasn’t the right way to handle the situation.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Kiina. “Let’s say we’re both at fault and that we're both stupid.”

I chuckled at that, but then I felt tired, and by the look on Kiina’s face, so did she. “Now that we’ve got that all figured out, we should go back to sleep. We’ve still got six days of walking through blizzards and who-knows-what-else ahead of us. We’ll need all the energy we can get just to survive.”

“Yeah,” said Kiina with a yawn. “It’s the middle of the night. We really should be asleep.”

So Kiina and I quickly fell asleep. As I lay trying to fall asleep, I was unsure how I felt about Kiina. On one hand, she had just tried to kill me, but on the other hand, she hadn’t intentionally meant to do it. She really didn’t seem to be planning to backstab me, which meant that maybe I could trust her for now. I couldn’t trust her too much, of course, but I needed to trust her if I was going to survive the Northern Frost. If I couldn’t trust her at all, then my chances of survival were less than zero.

Review Topic

So, is it?I know the topic of homosexuality has always been hotly debated on BZP whenever brought up, but I've checked the rules for Epics, Short Stories, Comedies, and even COT and none of them say it is against the rules to write a fanfic featuring homosexual characters or characters of the same sex kissing or anything like that.Now I figure, if it is allowed, it goes under the same rules as heterosexual romance (i.e. no graphic sex), but I need to know for sure what the BZP administration's stance on this is, 'cause I plan to post a story sometime featuring two characters of the same gender kissing and I need to know if that is allowed or not. The rules say nothing against it, but I just want to make sure there aren't any unwritten rules that forbid it for whatever reason.Not trying to ruffle anybody's feathers or anything. Simply looking for clarification so I don't get in trouble.-TNTOS-

ok bzpower better not log me off when i try to review again http://www.bzpower.com/board/public/style_emoticons/default/mad.gifnow to retype everything“Fire only strengthens fire, making it even stronger than before! Mwhahahaha, power, power, unlimited power!"stupid demons to fight fire you have to use water ground or rockbut at that exact moment the planets aligned.i wonder if super planet was thereMata Nui had escaped through a plot hole.i guess Barix isint the only one who can use plot holescant wait ontil next weak

“You know,” said Kiina as they walked, “it seems kind of stupid to walk straight into what is probably a trap. We can’t go back, but I’m not the biggest fan of going forward, either.”Mata Nui stopped and said to her, “Stay here, then! I didn’t ask you to come!”This outburst from Mata Nui shocked everyone into silence. No one had ever heard Mata Nui shout angrily at his friends before. The only people he shouted at were the people he was about to kill, but they knew Mata Nui would never kill Kiina . . . at least not intentionally, anyway.“What’s your problem?” said Kiina, rounding on Mata Nui.“Oh, um, sorry,” said Mata Nui, scratching the back of his head. “I dunno, but the closer we get to the Great Volcano Night Club, the weirder I feel. It’s almost like going through adolescence again, except minus the zits and drama.”“I don’t know about the zits, but you’re wrong about the drama,” said Kiina, turning away from Mata Nui. “If that’s how you’re going to treat me, well, then I don’t even want to look at you!”“And if that’s how you’re going to treat me, then I don’t want to look at you!” said Mata Nui, turning away from her. “Your sister was always prettier than you anyway.”“I don’t have a sister,” said Kiina, still not looking at Mata Nui.“Well, if you did, she’d be prettier than you!” said Mata Nui, now pouting like a little child. “So there.”Bucket-head just watched the proceedings with a puzzled expression. Then he asked Ackar, “Um, do they normally do this?”“No,” said Ackar, shaking his head. “Most of the time they get along pretty well. Reminds me of my younger days, before texting and music downloads and Justin Bieber and all of these other things that all teens are crazy about. I once had a girlfriend when I was a teenager, but we broke up when she complained about my afro.”“You had a afro?” said Bucket-head, trying hard to imagine Ackar with an afro. He regretted it immediately, however, for it was a rather frightening mental picture.“Yep,” said Ackar, nodding. “But it was a wig, you see, ‘cause BIONICLE characters generally don’t have hair. It was a good wig, though, but after the seventies I sold it. Dunno where it is now, but I do miss it now that I think about it.”“So, should we do something about this?” said Bucket-head, gesturing at Kiina and Mata Nui, both of whom were still not looking at each other. “It might affect our progress if they stay angry at each other like this.”“You mean should you do something about this,” said Ackar, pointing at Bucket-head. “Me, I’m too old for teenage drama. You know how teenagers are; don’t listen to their elders and when they do they never do it right. Why, back in my day . . .”The rest of the trip was like this. Ackar kept reminiscing about his younger days, while Kiina and Mata Nui either snapped at or ignored each other. The only good thing about this was that no one was acting condescending toward Bucket-head, although he wondered if a high price had been paid for this peace. If Mata Nui and Kiina tried to fight each other, Bucket-head had no doubt they’d destroy the entire world, maybe even the whole universe if they got angry enough. And the destruction of the world would totally derail Bucket-head’s plans, so he had to get them to like each other again.I never thought I'd be trying to reconcile two Glatorian, Bucket-head thought. Nor did I think this comedy would become a romantic comedy, either, but I guess that’s what happens when the author is inconsistent with his genres. Time to get to work.-Bucket-head’s plan was perfect. Simply volunteer to scout ahead for any ambushes, find the ambushers, and then convince the ambushers that he, Bucket-head, was a traitor, and tell the ambushers to attack Mata Nui and Kiina specifically. That way the two would be forced to defend each other and would fall in love again and the world would be safe and Bucket-head's plan would not be derailed and I like to use the word 'and' a lot, if you couldn't tell.“Hey,” said Bucket-head as the group walked. “Considering we’ve been ambushed twice already, I think it would be wise if I went up ahead and scouted for any possible ambushes. Knowing Dah Element Lords, they have probably-““Shut up, Bucket-head,” Mata Nui snapped. “Or I’ll rip your face off and staple it back onto your skull backwards.”“Well, I’m going up ahead anyway,” said Bucket-head, who knew that Mata Nui was not bluffing. “And if I get killed . . .”“Don’t worry,” said Ackar with a smile. “We won’t miss you.”These guys really do hate me, Bucket-head thought as he ran ahead of the others.No matter how hard Bucket-head searched, there did not appear to be any ambushes waiting for his party. He kicked at rocks, slashed trees, and even sang a horribly off-key version of ‘The Final Countdown,’ but to no avail. All of the inanimate objects he saw appeared to be just normal rocks and trees and snow. No baterra or demons or anything anywhere.Great, Bucket-head thought. Now how am I supposed to help Mata Nui and Kiina get back together? And it’s funny, isn’t it, how there is never an ambush when you want one?“Actually,” said a rock next to Bucket-head, which had shapeshifted into a baterra and was smoking a fancy pipe, “we were waiting to ambush you and your friends, but when you came looking for us, we decided not to.”“Wait, so you guys are still in the area?” said Bucket-head, who had jumped a dozen feet away from the baterra when it had shapeshifted.“Of course not, my dear, stupid Skrall,” said the baterra, who had a vaguely British accent for some reason. “An ambush just isn’t fun when people expect one, you know.”“But I didn’t intend on telling the others that you guys were here,” said Bucket-head. “And how did you read my mind earlier, anyway?”“It’s not telepathy, my friend, if that is what you are thinking,” the baterra said, smoking his pipe. “It is the psychic power to discern the thoughts of others through a mysterious, unexplained ability.”“So it’s basically telepathy, then.”The baterra laughed condescendingly. “Oh, how stupid you Skrall are! I forgot how dumb you people are. Really, it reminds me of the time my friend Wattsan and I-“The baterra never got to finish its sentence, for Bucket-head had sliced its head off and then hit its head away in a random direction with his sword. His heart heavy, Bucket-head went back up the path, hoping Mata Nui and Kiina weren’t about to destroy the world.-Bucket-head saw an unusual sight when he found his group. Mata Nui, Kiina, and Ackar had stopped and they were talking to each other. Mata Nui was holding something in his hands; upon closer look, Bucket-head saw that it was the head of the baterra he had hit earlier. How it had ended up here when he had hit its head in the opposite direction . . . Bucket-head didn’t question it.“No baterra,” said Bucket-head as he approached them. “Well, there was one who spoke with a British accent, but-““No one cares about what British baterra!” said Mata Nui, his voice so harsh that a nearby tree broke into tears and ran away. “This baterra head had came flying out of nowhere and hit Kiina in the head.”Mata Nui gestured at a small, barely visible bump on Kiina’s head. Bucket-head doubted it hurt, but Kiina acted like she had broken her back she was groaning so loudly.“Oh,” said Bucket-head. “Well, that’s because I hit it.”“You mean you intentionally hit this baterra head, just so it could hit Kiina?” said Ackar in surprise. “I knew you Skrall are scumbags and all, but that’s seriously wrong.”“No, that’s not it,” said Bucket-head, shaking his head. “I didn’t intend to hit Kiina!”“So you intended to hit someone, then!” said Mata Nui, poking Bucket-head in the chest with the barrel of his gun. “Who was your real target? Me? Ackar? Lady Gaga?”“No, that’s not-““There is no need to justify your crimes, Bucket-head!” said Mata Nui, raising his fist. “I knew it was a mistake to let you join us. You’re really evil, trying to kill us all!”“Hold on a minute!” said Bucket-head quickly. “I’m not trying to kill you. It was a mistake-““You’re a mistake!” said Kiina, pointing at Bucket-head accusingly. “Mata Nui, do something about him!”“That I will, Kiina,” said Mata Nui, cracking his knuckles. “That I will.”Without hesitation, Mata Nui punched Bucket-head with both fists. The combined force was enough to cause Bucket-head to breach several hundred thousand dimensions before hitting the ground, dazed by the blow.“There,” said Mata Nui, wiping his hands together. “I think I taught him a lesson in respect.”“Are we gonna kill him?” said Kiina eagerly.“No,” said Mata Nui, shaking his head. “Not only is he still alive, but he’s one of the main characters of this comedy. We can’t really kill him, but there is nothing that says we can’t beat him to within an inch of his life.”“Eh, I think you already proved your point,” said Ackar. “I mean, I’m all for Skrall beating, but we’ve still got to fight Dah Element Lords and rescue Gresh and Berix.”“Okay,” said Mata Nui with a sigh. “Maybe later we’ll play break the Skrall piñata. How’s that sound?”“Sounds like fun,” said Kiina, nodding eagerly.“As long as the piñata has prunes,” said Ackar.“Okay, then,” said Mata Nui. He then addressed Bucket-head, who still lay on the ground, “Get up, you stupid Skrall. We’re going now, if that’s not too difficult for your stupid mind to understand. Stupid.”Bucket-head hastily got back to his feet and followed them. Mata Nui and Kiina were now holding hands and seemed to be happy with each other again. Bucket-head figured Kiina liked Mata Nui again because he had beaten up him.Wait, Bucket-head thought. ’Because he had beaten up him’ . . . ugh. Someone needs to alter the English language so we wouldn’t get confused like that.On one hand, while Bucket-head was happy that the world was not going to be destroyed, he wondered if he was going to have to get beat up every time Mata Nui and Kiina had an argument from now on. Getting punched through several dimensions had hurt enough, but he did have a plan. If it worked, he would be the one beating up them, not the other way around.Ackar suddenly whirled around and punched Bucket-head in the face.“Ow!” said Bucket-head, putting his hands over the place Ackar had hit. “What the heck was that for?”“Dunno,” said Ackar with a shrug. “Just thought you were feeling happy, so I thought I’d put you in your place.”With that, Ackar turned back around and continued walking. Bucket-head sincerely hoped his plan would work, 'cause if it didn't, he was going to be in a world of pain.Commentry:

The baterra laughed condescendingly. “Oh, how stupid you Skrall are! I forgot how dumb you people are. Really, it reminds me of the time my friend Wattsan and I-“

I'm not sure what I did, but everything is working normally now. The content box and buttons are working again, so I guess it must have just been a temporary glitch or something.Thanks for all of the suggestions, though. Y'all are really helpful .-TNTOS-