I, Hoardikai

[Phovos]

Okay, be patient with me on this one. This is an idea I had recently, which follows the life of Vrey. Vrey looks like one of my Phoviverse species, a Vakan, but is in fact a Toa Hordika. From a world where all Toa are Hordika. These Toa have dubbed themselves as Hoardikai, rather than calling themselves Toa at all. Which explains the title. It's written in a style similar to shows like "How I Met Your Mother". It's complicated though, since the other characters all need a bit of describing, which I plan to do in this first chapter.This story isn't really laugh-out-loud funny. It's more slightly amusing, like that Tahu VS Tahu story, which was actually quite depressing.Anyway, let's get started......"Vrey! You have a lot of explaining to do!"Vrey glanced around the room. By his feet was the unconscious body of a large, spindly, Makuta-like being. In the corner was a headless, red, animal-like body. His audience comprised of four other beings. Tahnok was the first, a large, white, silver and blue creature, who called himself a Vahrga, which was, apparently, the male version of a Bahrag. He looked like a Toa Metru crossed with a Bohrok, with a stupidly long tail. Behind Tahnok were Phovia and Phovos. They were both female, reptilian beings. Phovia was a large, red 'Thanatian', one of the dominant reptilian species in this universe, with huge jaws, large red eyes and heavily clawed feet. Phovos was more Toa-shaped. She was also a lot shorter, barely two thirds of Phovia's height, with pretty blue eyes and green skin. She was much more organic than the rest of them. She even had breasts. Finally, there was Eric. He was a... Vrey wasn't sure, there were lots of species in this universe with similar names. He was an... Ethravok. Yes, an Ethravok. He was dark blue and looked similar to Tahnok, as if Tahnok has been stretched on a rack. Eric's arms and legs were long and spindly and he was lightly armoured compared to the rest of them. He also had a small, skinny tentacle for a tail."Are you done describing us now?" Tahnok growled as Phovos and Phovia prodded the body in the corner. "You've got a LOT of explaining to do. Like, why the ###### are these Hoardikai after you? You're a Vakan for crying out loud!""I think he's dead, Jim..." Phovos smiled as the headless body slumped forward. "Good job in killing him, Phovia.""Thanksss. He desserved it." Phovia replied.Tahnok ignored them and growled at Vrey. "Get talking."Vrey sighed. "Well, first off, my name isn't Vrey.""It's not?" Eric interrupted. "So you have a normal name like me?""No..." Vrey replied. "My name's Pohatu. I... I'm a Hoardikai... Just like the one Phovia killed. And just like the one standing by my feet..."Everyone's jaws dropped. It was a good couple of seconds before anyone spoke."So, erm..." Phovos hesitated. "How did all this happen?""Well, if you'd let me explain.." Vrey mumbled."Fine. Start explaining." Tahnok growled again."I'm going to get some popcorn!" Phovos interrupted before disappearing behind a corner."Very well..."..."It all started a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Actually, it was a pocket dimension. You all know what a pocket dimension is, right? No? Well, it's a universe inside a universe. You all probably know of the Canon Bionicle Universe where all the Toa are nice and everything turned out good. This isn't that universe."There was this fancy planet that a bunch of Great Beings lived on. But everyone started fighting and the planet was broken into three. So the Great Beings built this giant humanoid machine in space, so it could all be put back together."The thing is, this machine was powered by special cores and stuff, which in turn needed to be maintained by a variety of species that the Great Beings created to look after the place. The main creatures were called Matoran. Little, hard-working critters that did the majority of the work...""We already know about that stuff..." Phovia interrupted. All that Bionicle nonsense...""No you don't!" Vrey or Pohatu or whatever his name was replied. "This is different. Also, author, call me Pohatu from now on."The author nodded and Pohatu continued."Along with the Matoran, there were other species too. Makuta and 'Titans' were originally built to do heavy lifting jobs that Matoran couldn't do on their own. But there was this one Makuta who got all annoyed at being used and tried to rebel, and killed like 50 Matoran. Luckily, the Great Beings dealt with this Teridax guy really quickly. But they decided to make something to protect the Matoran. They made the first Toa, a being called Helryx. They made her animal-like so she would be more stealthy."The thing is, the first Toa was a success. But as more Toa were created, they started getting other ideas. That's when things started to get bad...""So, is this to be continued?" Eric asked."Yeah... This is a LOOONG story..." Pohatu sighed.

[Phovos]

Eric snorted and his head tipped to one side. Tahnok growled and bashed Eric's head, rudely waking him up. "You know, Ethran, it's rude to fall asleep while someone's telling a story!""Don't call me Ethran!" Eric replied. "That's rude too. You'd hate it if I just called you Bohrok all the time.""Easy boys..." Phovos butted in before letting Vrey continue."Thanks, Pho," Vrey smiled as he started talking again. "Okay, you know what Toa are, right? They defend Matoran. Well, defended. The Toa I knew..."So, the first Toa was fairly normal. She was quite happy doing patrols and protecting Matoran and killing and eating bad Rahi. These Toa needed to eat occasionally. Heck, everything needed to eat. But most creatures were vegetarians. The Toa though weren't. They got more energy from flesh anyway. This Toa was such a success that they started making more of these Toa...""But if they were such a success, what happened?" Phovia asked."I'm getting to that!" Vrey growled. "Anyway. The first actual Toa Team was where the problem started. The individual Toa were okay at first. They'd been cranking out more and more Toa. It was later on that someone decided to but a bunch of them together. Thing is, as a group, the Toa began talking to one another. They started saying that they were sick of being used. They wanted more power."I'm not sure on the exact date, but it all got going after a rogue Makuta, one of the few that had followed the deceased rebel Teridax, decided to attack a village of Matoran and try to enslave them. This Toa team were sent there to deal with the situation. No one knows what conversation happened there. But the Makuta was killed. And possibly eaten. Didn't get a chance to jump into another body...""Makuta jumping into other people's bodies? Really?" Phovos blinked."Yes. They take control and you wake up years later, with a big blank spot in your memory. But those Toa killed him. The group also pushed the idea of having more Toa teams so they could take down bigger targets. Sounded rather innocent back then. Things were peaceful for a while, but there was stuff happening in the background. In particular, the appearance of the Hunters, a collection of beings that had helped out the Great Beings and wanted to be recognised the way the Toa were..."Tahnok grunted. "This sounds familiar. Like the Dark Hunters, I assume.""Indeed. But these Hunters weren't ever evil. Just slightly twisted..."

[Phovos]

"Where's that popcorn you promised me, Phovos?" Eric asked, licking his lips.

 

"When on earth did I promise you popcorn?" Phovos hissed back.

 

"Who cares about popcorn?" Phovia, who had grown bored and started playing on Tahnok's tiny laptop (without his permission, mind you...) sighed. "Vrey... Pohatu, get on with it so I can get back to playing Saints Row: The Third without having to listen to the rest of you."

 

"Why are you playing on my laptop?" Tahnoj butted in. "And what's with all these sentences starting with questions?"

 

Pohatu or Vrey or whatever he's called just rolled his eyes. "As I was saying before the long interlude that lacked popcorn, I was going to mention the War. Thing is, the Toa, or Hoardikai, as they were starting to call themselves, had been very secretive in their movements. No one knew yet that they had changed and were all starting to work together, almost as a nation. A lot of the Hoardikai had gone to Metru Nui to live there. One group in particular were actually quite powerful. I don't remember their names, and most of them died early on anyway, because they'd been caught killing or eating Matoran and a Makuta had quickly executed them. But there were four of this group left. Lhikan, a Fire Toa, Nidhiki, an Air Toa and Naho and Tuyet, two Water Toa.

 

"Thing is, Tuyet had found something. A Toa Stone. An object that can..."

 

"Let me guess," Phovia interrupted. "It turns a Matoran into a Toa."

 

"Yeah. You're right. But this was a really powerful stone. It could make a whole team of Toa. And Tuyet wanted to keep the stone for herself, to create a new, pure group of Toa who didn't kill. Lhikan on the other hand, just wanted more Toa to join his ranks. So, in an attempt to get the stone, Lhikan started killing and leaving Matoran around, framing Tuyet. When a group of Titans arrived to arrest Tuyet, she attempted to use the stone to make herself more powerful and escape, but Lhikan blocked her and knocked the stone. He was about to catch it when Nidhiki stopped him, letting the stone shatter into six pieces, which were washed away by a wave created by Naho.

 

"So Tuyet was hauled away to a prison near the submerged city of Mahri Nui, and Lhikan started bringing more and more Hoardikai to Metru Nui. But the Great Beings and the Makuta were beginning to notice what Lhikan was doing. The Hunters, seeing an opportunity, attacked Metru Nui and invaded. Honestly, no one expected this. The Matoran, in desperation, hid in the Archives, using whatever they could find to keep both Hunter and Hoardikai away. Both sides lost a lot of people. And things were starting to look bad. Metru Nui was almost in ruins.

 

"But then something unexpected happened. Nidhiki sneaked off one night and went deep into Hunter territory. He'd often do this, with Lhikan's permission, to try and find information about the Hunter's movements but Nidhiki always came back empty handed. That night though, Nidhiki didn't come back at all. Turns out, he was sick of his Matoran-killing ways and wished to stop Lhikan. Of course, Lhikan discovered this when Nidhiki lead 20 Toa to their deaths, then allowed Naho to die. Furious, he captured Nidhiki, siphoned out his elemental abilities then threw him into a lake of protodermis (which Metru Nui pretty much floated in), leaving the good Toa to die.

 

"Eventually, the Hoardikai won the war, but their numbers had been decimated. The remaining Hunters fled the island. The Hoardikai though went underground, spreading themselves out in an attempt to both protect their fading population and to find a new base. Lhikan remained on his own on Metru Nui, in search for the six lost Toa stones..."

 

"What about Nidhiki?" Phovos asked.

 

"What about him?" Pohatu replied.

 

"Is he dead?"

 

Pohatu shook his head. "I'll get to him next time..."

[MT Zehvor]

 

This story isn't really laugh-out-loud funny. It's more slightly amusing, like that Tahu VS Tahu story, which was actually quite depressing.

 

 

 

That story's entire goal is to make you suicidal. That's iBrow's secret plan.

 

At any rate, this is an interesting comedy/epic crossover. It's very well written so far, I'll definitely give you that, and the story is obviously well thought out as well. I have two main complaints about the comedy at this point, which I'll go into more detail with.

 

#1: It kinda seems far more like an epic than a comedy. Now yeah, I know it draws from the same style as TvT, but I think what made TvT have so much appeal to suicidal people is that while it kept an epic plot line going, the main humor of the comedy came in the form of the actual characters' personalities. It's not that the act of, say, one Bionicle electrocuting another is funny, but it's the rather insane and deranged personalities that go into that scene that make it funny/slightly amusing in the first place, which brings me to my next complaint...

 

#2: Perhaps this is just me, but I think this might work out far better if the first couple of chapters were spent fleshing the characters out and giving us a world to enjoy in the first place before going off and giving us some backstory. Now I'm not against the idea of backstory at all, backstory is an incredibly important concept of any epicomedy and I'd be the world's largest hypocrite if I advocated against it. It's just that, at the beginning of a comedy/epic/crossover, it perhaps doesn't work as well because we haven't really been introduced to the world, or the characters yet, and backstory rarely helps introduce people to either. It can flesh out and dig deeper into the world that's been built, but it rarely works out well as something to kick things off with.

 

Just ask anyone who somehow managed to avoid not falling asleep during the opening wagon ride in Skyrim. Ugh.

 

Anyways, this isn't to simply rant on the comedy and say it's terrible. It's got a ton of potential, and these are just my honest thoughts.

 

Don't hate me.

 

-MT