This is a send-off story for a series I started in 2011 on BZPower, and decided to write some sort of ending to. Long-time readers might recognize these guys through from… somewhere in MK4…
“I swear, we were gone for like five minutes, and everything has disappeared!”
Tahnok rubbed his large, blue eyes, trying to work out what he was looking at. The last thing he remembered, he had been helping to rebuild a village, after the Toa protecting it had sacrificed themselves to kill a Makuta. Or the Makuta. Tahnok wasn’t sure. But now though, there was nothing but emptiness. A vast, open space, with nothing more than a few scattered rocks floating around.
“It’s a good thing we don’t actually need to breathe…” Kohrak clicked as he clutched a familiar, golden mask in his hand. “It’s as if their gods just went and… destroyed that entire universe…”
“What in the name of the Queens did they do to deserve that?” Lehvak asked, not at all enjoying being stuck in space again. It conjured up old memories, mistakes form the past. “It was just, like, one minute it was all there, the next it was all gone!”
Nuhvok thought to himself for a moment, then offered the only answer he could think of. “Probably didn’t make enough money…”
“Money? What does money have to do with existence itself?” Kohrak snapped back. “You are really considering the idea that a franchise not making enough money-”
“I mean, that’s kinda exactly what happened!” Nuhvok flicked his buzzsaw claws towards Kohrak. “We weren’t even supposed to be there anyway. We’re the Bohrok-Kal. We died back in 2003. Yet somehow, we’re over twenty years old. We’re old enough to drink alcohol and have-”
A bolt of lightning flickered between the arguing Kal. “We’re Bohrok, we don’t do that…” Tahnok tutted. “Either way, it seems like some twisted writer has decided to bring us back to life for one last story that probably won’t go anywhere. So we’d better get that Olmak into gear and find SOMEWHERE to teleport to. Unless you want to spend an eternity here, floating in the dark.”
“Actually…” Gahlok raised his hand. “I kinda think we could do with some darkness floating. You know, as some kind of meditation thingy. Get our heads together and stuff like that.”
Lehvak though was having none of that. He was already panicking slightly, really not liking the feeling of no gravity again. And no, Nuhvok’s fat bottom was not helping with the lack of gravity in the slightest. “We can do that anywhere though! We don’t have to float in space! Not again!”
Tahnok sighed. “Lehvak is right, we can’t really just stay here. That would be boring. No one wants to read about six Bohrok-Kal floating in space.”
“No one wants to read about us Kal in general!” Nuhvok interrupted. “We died. Twenty years ago. And no one liked us, even back then. If it hadn’t been for the Rahkshi, the whole series would have gone under.”
“Nuhvok, brother, I love you dearly…” Kohrak grunted. “But please stop breaking the fourth wall.”
“Nu-uh, no can do, Kohrak! This story arc has been dead for nearly seven years, I can break all the walls I want. Except, well, there aren’t any… Okay, maybe Tahnok has a point, maybe we should teleport somewhere. But I’m all out of ideas.”
“And I kinda don’t want to infringe on copyright law by going back to a licensed universe or something…” Pahrak frowned. “Is Hero Factory still around?”
“Nope.”
“Legends of Chima?”
“Definitely nope.”
“Ninjago?”
“We are NOT going to that stupid place!” Gahlok shouted. “We’ve been through a lot, but I draw the line at ninjas!”
“Alright…” Tahnok tried to think. “What about the narrator… What was his name?”
“You mean Medic.” Nuhvok crossed his arms, getting tired of floating around. He pulled over a couple of floating rocks, which he and Pahrak melted together into a single platform, giving the six Bohrok somewhere to sit down.
“Pretty sure they were called Phovos…” Tahnok tutted.
“Only on BZPower!” Kohrak tried to explain. “Turns out, around 2016, they started using the name Medic on various social media, before switching to the name Retvik, only to have settled down on the name Arkay.”
“How do you know that?” Pahrak asked.
“Uh, Nuhvok isn’t the only one who can break the fourth wall sometimes. Arkay now also writes a gaming blog or something. Something to do with space ninjas.”
“OH NO NOT MORE NINJAS!” Gahlok growled. “I hate ninjas.”
“Why?”
“I’m allowed to unconditionally hate things. Can we get out of here already? I changed my mind, it’s cold and dark and Lehvak is right, we can rest and meditate anywhere.”
Kohrak took a deep breath, despite not needing to breathe. “We need some kind of destination. Otherwise the Olmak could take us anywhere.”
“Can you…” Tahnok hesitated. “Can you take us to, like, a nice beach or something? Somewhere where we can just, well, exist?”
“I can try…” Kohrak held the Olmak in front of him, then concentrated as hard as he could. Slowly, a portal began to form in front of them. Kohrak took a moment to steady himself, then stepped through. The other Bohrok all glanced at each other, then followed Kohrak.
The Kal found themselves on some sort of beach, just as Kohrak had promised. The sand was fine and golden and the sea was a deep, rich blue. A dull sun sat at the horizon, slowly sinking beneath the waves, illuminating the sky with a mixture of reds and yellows.
What stuck out though was a very large message floating in the sky. It consisted of three words, but the third word kept on shifting between two different spellings.
“Welcome to Heaven…” Tahnok blinked. “Or Deathven. It can’t make up its mind…”
The portal behind the Bohrok sealed up, and the Olmak in Kohrak’s hands faded in colour, turning a dull, cracked gold.
“Well, guess we’d better have a look around then…” Kohrak sighed, feeling rather tired, but at the same time feeling… good for once. “I think we’re going to be stuck here for a while…”