A Phoviverse MOC Article – Part 1

The thing that got me into writing was Bionicle. The first forum I ever signed up for was BZPower, the original big Bionicle forum, and from there, I joined multiple writing forums (being an admin for one for years), eventually getting into writing for the Daily SPUF and also writing my own fiction, the Phoviverse. Now, I’ve mentioned both the Phoviverse and my original long-term Bionicle fan fiction, the Bohrok-Kal’s Ramblings, before, but, well, I also have a lot of, well, actual Bionicles. When I finally got my own apartment and was no longer sharing with my brother, I inherited 99% of his Bionicle collection and ALL the spare parts. Brother took the important sets: Brutaka, Axonn and Rahkshi Vohrahk. I got everything else, on top of my existing sets and MOCs.

Lately though, I actually revamped my Phoviverse, starting MK5. This was a soft reboot with an interesting twist: what happened in MK4 is still 100% canon in MK5, and, although the universe was essentially destroyed and reformed, remaking everything inside it as desired by the deities Kairos, Epani and Sini (while dragging in the unwilling Arkay as well), there were beings that actually survived this reformation because they weren’t in the universe at the time. The Doom Drum story arc marks the end of the MK4 universe, while Thantoamnesia introduces the new protagonists of MK5.

And, since I have a LOT of Bionicle parts, I decided to go and build the 10 remaining members of the MK4 universe, as well as the four protagonists of MK5. Here we go, starting with the survivors of the MK4 Phoviverse.

We start off with the Original Dessaron and Phovos. In the MK4 universe, Retvik, Elksia and Tenuk (original name Tahnahos) assisted the death god Arkay in an insane bid to stop the evil Whenvern and save the Goddess of Life. While they all went their separate ways, a massive cataclysm forced them into becoming deities themselves, and they were in the Periuniversal Void on a mission for Galyn when the MK4 universe died.

As the leader of the Original Dessaron, Retvik was a decorated General of the Stratos, the Rethan Military. As a young General, Retvik led his soldiers against an army of feral Vohra that attacked the city of Thre-Sypria. Not long after, while taking a vacation in an attempt to escape bad memories, Retvik found himself helping Arkay in a bid to save the Goddess of Life. After defeating the Whenvern, Retvik dabbled in various different jobs, before returning to his duties as a General. Unfortunately, Retvik was forced to retire when he was involved in an accident that gave him fire powers. After a brief run-in with an evil bastard named Litvir in an attempt to learn how to use said fire powers, Retvik bounced from place to place, before being captured by the God of the Void, Kenon. In a bid for freedom, Retvik made a plan to escape, but was caught and nearby beaten to death by Kenon, before he was saved by the old death god. Not long after, the universe was invaded by Kenon’s kin, and the Whenvern made Retvik into a god to fight them off. After the battle, Retvik ended up trapped in the Periuniversal Void rather than returned home like everyone else, and ended up employed by the Thantir Decay Lords, a group of former deities without homes to live in. Retvik ran into Arkay and, weirdly, Litvir, and they became Decay Lords themselves before being forced to part ways. Retvik later found Elksia and Tenuk, who had also been turned into deities by the Whenvern, they met up with Phovos and reformed as a new team.

Tenuk was originally Tahnahos tou Ahvran and was the heir to the Kronospast throne, but betrayed the powerful, shapeshifting race when he discovered that they were capturing mortals and experimenting on them on behalf of the Whenvern. Renaming himself Tenuk Diplastron, he joined the rest of the Dessaron, swearing revenge against his kind. After defeating the Whenvern, Tenuk defected entirely from the Kronospasts and lived in self-exile, taking the shape of a tall, blue Rethavok. While he was initially raised as a deity by the Whenvern to fight the Golden Armies, Tenuk was taken out of the battle by the Allmaker Kinisis, who determined Tenuk to be the purest example of his kind, and made him into one of her own personal Divine Guardians. Forced to be subservient to Kinisis, Tenuk briefly went back to calling himself Tahnahos until he broke free and was reunited with Elksia, but not before breaking Phovos free from Kinisis’s influence as well. Embarrassed about being the last Kronospast, these days, Tenuk keeps himself in the shape of a small, blue Voidborn, in order to throw others off.

Elksia Ksiou was a soldier that always just wanted to be a chef, and never really got that chance. She originally worked with the Silver Fangs, a branch of the Vrekan military that specialized in in border patrols, but was dragged into the war against the Whenvern when her unit was nearly killed in a Kronospast attack. Elksia swiftly put her combat expertise to good use and helped Retvik in saving several lost souls, then insisted that she help in defeating the Whenvern, to avenge her best friend Velos, who had been brutally murdered. While Elksia did get her revenge, as soon as the Whenvern was defeated, Elksia retired from active duty and wrote a book about what had happened. The book, titled “The Story of the Dessason”, was a massive hit and Elksia found herself suddenly becoming very rich, and retired conpletely, living a secluded life on her own. Retvik, Tenuk and Arkay eventually tracked Elksia down and offered her a home alongside them on Portalia, where Elksia remained, feeling happier and finding new love. When the Golden Armies attacked, Elksia was called back to battle, and killed hundreds of enemy soldiers before nearly being beaten to death. However, Elksia was saved by the Whenvern, who mistook her broken body for something else entirely. The Whenvern saved Elksia’s life but transformed her in the process, turning her into a Time Drake like the Whenvern himself. With her new time powers, she tracked down Tenuk and saved him from Kinisis’s influence, before meeting up with Retvik once more.

Phovos Tromou, also known as the Raptor of Palaestra, is an ancient Ksithan who was targeted by Kronospast cultists as a baby. However, they failed to assassinate her, and Phovos later discovered that she was immortal. No longer fearing death, Phovos grew up into a powerful warlord, uniting the Ksithans of Thanatia 2 under the banner of the Sixteen, before travelling to Portalia and carving out her own piece of territory. After decades of bloodshed, Phovos felt she needed to atone, then settled down and founded the city of Palaestra, where she set up the Arena, a place where Ksithans could fight each other in relative safety in order to solve desputes. When the Whenvern attacked, Phovos was the first being to offer her aid to the Dessaron, raising an army to fight off the Whenvern’s minions. After the war, the Arena was transformed into the Great Dessaron Battle Arena, and the idea of solving disputes via gladiator battles became popular across multiple races. Phovos remained in control of Palaestra and the GDBA, until she ran into problems with the Allbirther, who had kidnapped her and four others in an attempt to create her own personal death demi-gods. The four of them escaped, but before they could relax, all four of them were made into gods by the Whenvern to fight the Golden Armies. While the others all returned home, Phovos disappeared, only to reappear months later as Kinisis’s personal guard and body double. Elksia later saved Phovos, and she joined the Dessaron, replacing Arkay, who had vanished completely.

The second team, led by Decay Lord Litvir, only consists of two species: Rethavok and Skyavok. However, all four of them have powerful telepathic abilities, as well as a weirdly complicated romantic relationship. Unlike the original Dessaron, these four met up after the demise of the MK4 universe, but quickly became strong companions.

Litvir Kaldynik is an older Rethavok who was born with unnatural psionic powers and the ability to feed off the negative emotions of others. While he has never discussed his childhood, Litvir has admitted to having a vast number of siblings, as well as a twin brother. At first, Litvir was unable to control his powers, but, being a vastly intelligent individual, he created his own telepathic system in order to silence the voices in his head, and then went on to set up the 11th Legion, an off-branch of the Rethavok Military designed to capture and train Rethans with powers they couldn’t control. Unfortunately, mostly due to Rethan genetics, very few individuals were capable of being rehabilitated, and the Legion ended up becoming a shell, which Litvir used to create a Rethan-brain-powered computer system, in order to try and calculate a way of finding immortality, while also providing Litvir with plenty of negative emotions to feed on. Eventually though, several of his test subjects, including the recently transferred Retvik, managed to break free and kill Litvir. However, instead of dying, Litvir found himself trapped within his own computer systems, where he went back to work, trying to find immortality, until he was pulled out of the system and put into a new body by the God of the Void, reprogrammed to be loyal to Kenon. Litvir’s freedom was brief though, and he was soon raised up to fight the Golden Armies. Unfortunately, Litvir was never given an option to return home, and was instead handed over to the Thantir Decay Lords, where he ran into Retvik once more. Litvir quickly renounced his evil ways and worked hard to become a Decay Lord himself.

Teekay (numeric name TK0016KK) is a Skyavok super soldier and the former leader of the K-Class, the Skyavok military, mostly specializing in keeping the All-Ksa of the Skyavok alive and in one piece. Being an enhanced Skyan, Teekay started work at the age of 5 and took a grand total of three months off of work over the course of 25 years. However, distancing himself further from other Skyavok, Teekay actively worshiped the Thantophor, the god of death, and one day found the death god in his living room, bleeding from an unusual wound. While Arkay swiftly disappeared, Teekay booked the first holiday he’d had in years and went looking for the death god, before ending up getting caught up in a godly conflict and was badly injured. He spent two months recovering in a secret facility before retiring from his duties and giving up his worship of any god.

Relkir Rethianos, originally born as Elkay Theanon, is a genetic mess of a Rethavok that defied all odds and climbed the ranks to become High General of the Retha, proudly leading his kind. That was until he clashed with the godly Allbirther, Yisini, who demanded that Elkay hand himself over in exchange for the lives of one million other mortal beings. Elkay immediately accepted and was presumed dead, but it turned out he’d been experimented on by Yisini and only just managed to escape when her brother Arkay, the death god, destroyed her lab. The experiments left Elkay with adaptation powers he couldn’t control, so he fled Rethan territories out of fear and panic, before running into the Skyavok known as Teekay, who had just retired. Teekay took Elkay in and helped him gain some control of his new powers. As a thank you, Elkay made himself honour-bound to Teekay, promising to protect him with his life. After a fire burnt down their home, they fled to Portalia, where they met Phovos, who helped Elkay further with his adapting powers. Both Elkay and Teekay were taken by Kinisis and made into Divine Guardians, and Kinisis removed their memories. Not knowing who they were, they served Kinisis blindly, mostly as Guardians of the Southern Observatory, a place located at the bottom of the MK4 universe, where they would stay on guard and keep an eye out for potential threats. The pair would also sometimes be loaned out to the local Decay Lords, and weren’t present in the MK4 universe when it collapsed. Decay Lord Litvir took Relkir and Teekay in, and helped them recover their lost memories, while having them serve as his apprentices.

Eksi (numeric name EΞ1089ΞL) on the other hand was mostly just a normal Skyavok. While he did originally work in xeno-political affairs, mostly representing the Skyavok on neutral territories, and briefly working on the Great Battle Arena team known as Skya Squad One, Eksi always just wanted to help other people. After his arena team split up, Eksi went into medical school and trained to be a psychologist, and set up a therapy centre as soon as he was able to. While Eksi was initially made into a god to fight the Golden Armies, like the majority of beings that fought, he found himself returned home with nothing more than a headache, some nightmares and a thank you. Eksi went back to helping people, specifically those who had lost loved ones to the Golden Armies, until he one day ran into a mysterious Rethan by the name Kuta. Kuta stated that he was a Decayling, a young divine being that lived outside the universe, but he simply wanted to live a normal life. In exchange for taking Kuta’s place working as defense for a Life Oasis, Kuta offered Eksi all of his godly powers, and promised that he would continue Eksi’s work as a therapist. Eksi quickly agreed, and found himself serving Litvir and Litvir’s boss, the Elder Decay Lord known as Galyn.

Tahvra and Akah are the last two survivors, and they only managed to escape due to sheer luck. They were both part of the Southern Guardians (the same as Phovos, Tenuk, Relkir and Teekay), but they were the only two present at the Southern Observatory when the MK4 Universe fell apart. They drifted on their own for a month before they ran into the Decay Lords known as Kal, who helped them back on their feet and gave them sanctuary.

Now, before you say “hang on, that’s just a Toa Kopaka MOC!”, yes, Akah is basically a weird sorta parody of Kopaka, but only in looks. Akah is a member of a race called the Lanex, which were made in the image of Kenon, the now-dead God of the Void and while he does have ice powers, before he became a deity, he only ever used those ice powers to freeze himself and regenerate, hence his title, Phoenix of Ice. Akah was an adventurer who was captured by Anexartans and forced to fight as a soldier in the Anexartans’ slave army, until he fell into the hands of the Kronospasts, the Anexartans’ biggest enemy. While he managed to escape after the war against the Whenvern, Akah went into hiding, spending his free time saving other imprisoned Lanex, before Kinisis stole him away and made him into a deity, the same way he did with Tenuk and the other Divine Guardians.

Tahvra on the other hand is a Vohra, which is very loosely based on the Bohrok, namely that it’s a small, head-plated being with hand shields and an elemental affinity. Vohra though are very much fleshy beings that reproduce, and adult Vohra are huge. Males in particular are dangerous, feral beings. However, Tahvra was the head of security of a large Vohra nest and had kept it safe for years, so when he was given the choice to get himself neutered so he’d never grow up and become an adult male, he instantly took that choice. Except Tahvra had weird genetics,and every time he reached the age of 50, he’d suddenly undergo massive de-aging, revert to an egg and live out his full life again, completely unaware that he’d been serving his Vohra nest for hundreds of years. Allmaker Kinisis found Tahvra and cured him of his ailment, before making him into one of her Divine Guardians and ending up working in the Southern Observatory with Akah.

So those are the original survivors of the MK4 universe, but they’re not completely alone. There are other beings that also technically survived, as well as the new characters of MK5. But we’ll meet those characters tomorrow.