Earthbound (Giygas)
Oct. 31st, 2007 10:43 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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kinkfestTitle: The Emergence
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eiviiaru
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence and violent themes; spoilers for the end of Earthbound. Also, song lyrics near the end, although this isn't a songfic.
Word count: 1576
Summary: Apotheosis. Supernova.
Prompt: Earthbound, Giygas: Thirsting for power/revenge - "I built the end of me. I built a tower to heaven."
A/N: Whoo! In just under the wire!
This is the final part of the little trilogy started with Larvae, from the 5th, and continuing with Chrysalis on the 11th. Once again, Giygas is spelled "Gyiyg" for cross-game compatibility. I apologize in advance if this is a failure; I got a little too ambitious with it, I think. Oh, well. Here goes nothing.
Sparks. Sparks in the darkness, growing closer.
Even inside the Machine, Gyiyg can smell their hope, so liberally laced with terror and pain. He yearns to have that fear within proximity, to tease it away from the dross of hope and make it shine. Such potential there. Such perfection.
"They're almost here," says Pokey, redundantly; Gyiyg knows the human already figures him for gone, but Pokey may yet be surprised. (Or vindicated, whispers the rational-voice, so soft these days.) "Won't they be surprised to see me here?!" He laughs -- the grunts of some great dying animal.
The Machine constricts him so. Gyiyg has accepted it as a necessary evil, one last receptacle before he can complete this work and be done with the Earth, and he knows full well that he is beyond being constricted -- beyond solidity, nearly beyond matter -- but it is still tight, binding, holding him. It is a shell he has outgrown, and he hopes he can trust this human to free him of it.
The sparks grow closer. It will soon be time.
***
Turn off the Machine! Turn it off!!
Gyiyg flails, his rage lashing at anything close; the robots scatter before him, and even Pokey scuttles back, the clacking of his battle-machine's legs echoing in the cave. Why hasn't he turned it off yet?! The process is complete -- the apotheosis -- and he cannot stand this mechanical thing, this shell, this prison any longer. An end must be made!
The spark-of-Ness charges, its bat striking home and splintering the canopy of Pokey's machine. Gyiyg drinks deep of his lackey's panic, and Pokey's words are nearly lost in the rush of power.
"... must feel pretty stupid..."
His self-justification, bitter and sweet at once. Red.
"... you'd be so petrified with fear..."
Oh, but they already are. They carry the knowledge of their deaths, and now it is time. The world runs red, red, red.
"So, do you want me to turn off the 'Devil's Machine?'"
YES.
At last at last at last, Pokey throws the switch, and the machine around him retracts into its membrane. Gyiyg is free, and all the world is red indeed. In spite of it, Pokey is still speaking, self-aggrandizing to the last: "... he isn't even aware of what he is doing now..."
Fool! Pokey cannot hope to know -- no human can hope to understand the Apotheosis! He has not lost his capacity for reason, merely discarded it in the service of a greater and more beautiful thing. He will end, here, and Earth will end, in an explosion of fury to shake the cosmos. Even far Homeworld will feel it, and there, and there --
Understanding grips him, shakes him with the force of ancestral memory. This is what triggers hatching! His rage, his destruction, will wake the eggs and fuel them on. One like him went supernova for his own hatching, and now he will repeat it for a new generation of hungry larvae. This purpose has lurked in his genes and in his subconscious before he even knew of Earth, and now it has reached its zenith. He has constructed his final glory -- a monument that, in the great conquests of his spawn, will span the galaxy.
Apotheosis is complete.
Almost forgotten, Pokey's tiny voice still struggles against the storm: "And you... you will be... just another meal to him!" For once, the human is right. A final meal, a final reward: one last pleasure before the world burns.
Gyiyg surges forward.
***
How joyful it is, their power colliding against his. It is so futile -- so perfectly human. Glowing above the other sparks is Ness, shuddering with a power his robot shell cannot maintain. Gyiyg wills him to break it, to find his Apotheosis as he has.
What passes for his voice is something between a rumble and a moan. "Ness..." But the spark is heedless, focused on some last lingering hope of victory. Gyiyg presses his point, repeating the name in a growing sing-song: "Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness..." He sequesters a portion of his consciousness to run it as a subroutine, a burbling mantra over the rapture to come.
The robots shrink back only slightly, and Gyiyg realizes the true tragedy of this meeting; without human bodies, the sparks will not show their fear in the human way, with twitches and moans and smells. What satisfaction will that bring? None at all! Gyiyg howls his frustration and levels his mind at them again, smashing into them and sending the feeble shells flying. One of them -- the one with the rocket launcher, the one who burns the dimmest and the strangest -- struggles to right itself, servomotors failing to obey. The light in its sensors dims as Ness and one of the others rush towards it. The last, forgotten and heedless, seems to have been lost entirely; perhaps Gyiyg has already maddened it? Yet its spark seems to hum resolutely on. Gyiyg readies another assault --
And something new floods the cave, something that lances into Gyiyg with a power he cannot name. It is carried in a strange and distant thought: Jeff... my son... I'm sorry for everything I've done. Be safe, and come home, please...
The pain is immense, and Gyiyg recoils, feeling his systems being disrupted. He only barely notices the fallen robot clamber to its feet, battered but unbroken.
Don't worry, Dr. An-- Dad. I'll be home before you know it.
Gyiyg shudders, feeling remnants of sanity shatter and crack away.
***
Try as he might -- hammer away at the sparks, scream, burble -- the bolts of white-hot thought continue to thunder down on him. He wills the Earth and its Chosen to give in, and yet the crumpled shells remain standing, four fighting as one. The thoughts they summon overwhelm him: thoughts of hope, concern, compassion. Love. The sparks' fear is falling away; they are growing certain, now, and every human voice of hope shouted into the darkness rings like a shockwave through Gyiyg's structure.
Not right, not right, not right. By now, there should be panic, storms, death by water and fire and thunder; all Earth should shudder before him. Ness should be consumed, be one with him, and Ninten should be shuddering in repentance for his wrongs finally righted with apocalypse. Ninten, and his whole sorry cohort of larvae --
At the thought, images flood to him, longed for but wrong, wrong, wrong:
The silver-haired one, grown tall and lean and laughing, walks with a crowd down a half-lit nighttime street. A hand claps him on the back, and there is a booming voice: "thanks for the round, Loid! Next pub, I'm buying!" Fuzzy, beaming joy.
curse them
Soft music and twilight. The muscled hand seems huge as it pulls up the tiny blanket to cover the larva, already half-asleep. "Goodnight, my boy," that bass voice rumbles, and there is a flicker of reflection, the contentment of the calm after a long storm.
Ninten where is Ninten
Ninten is on a narrow bed, curled up next to the shape of the golden-haired one, and he is making a small humming noise under his breath. "Mmmm?" says the creature next to him, rolling over to face him.
"Nothing," he says. "Just... happy, here with you." In the half-light, the ring on her finger glints golden, impressed with the marks of
no not now please not now
Ninten pauses. "It's strange," he says, "but I have the song in my head. You remember how it goes..."
"Of course I do," she says, and when she hits the first note, he joins her. Their love flows in waves as it builds
And it is in Gyiyg, running through Gyiyg, and no no no love is the power love is the beauty
There is silence when Ninten kisses her.
love is the magic
In the quiet room, a shadow at the door, and a voice: "Come to bed, Teddy. Josh'll still be there in the morning."
"You're right. I just... I like to watch him sleep. Sometimes he seems too good to be real. Sometimes this whole life does."
love is the glory
In a pool of light on the street, another hand on the back and another voice percolates into the silver-haired one's fuzzy joyful head: "hey, Loid! Whatcha say you break off the pub crawl and we talk a while?"
Startlement. "Pippi? You didn't tell me you were going to be in town!"
Bright red hair, a black dress, a smile. "It was a surprise. Now, c'mon; I'm not legal yet, and you've had enough already."
love is the melody we all can sing
love love love pounds into Gyiyg, tears at him, collides with his rage and sends steam and sparks flying through what is left of his mind. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts... and then his pain reaches a crescendo, crashes, and falls away.
Gyiyg is happy.
He loves. He loves Ninten, he loves Ness, he loves their hangers-on; he loves Earth, beautiful and terrible and raging. Love has conquered him. Gyiyg howls: not in pain, and not in frustration, but in bliss. The robots stand stock-still, tottering on what remains of their metal shells, and watch.
All the red, red world fades away: into blackness, first, and then into shining pink and pearl-white.
"Welcome home, Gyiyg," whispers Maria.
Author:
eiviiaruRating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence and violent themes; spoilers for the end of Earthbound. Also, song lyrics near the end, although this isn't a songfic.
Word count: 1576
Summary: Apotheosis. Supernova.
Prompt: Earthbound, Giygas: Thirsting for power/revenge - "I built the end of me. I built a tower to heaven."
A/N: Whoo! In just under the wire!
This is the final part of the little trilogy started with Larvae, from the 5th, and continuing with Chrysalis on the 11th. Once again, Giygas is spelled "Gyiyg" for cross-game compatibility. I apologize in advance if this is a failure; I got a little too ambitious with it, I think. Oh, well. Here goes nothing.
Sparks. Sparks in the darkness, growing closer.
Even inside the Machine, Gyiyg can smell their hope, so liberally laced with terror and pain. He yearns to have that fear within proximity, to tease it away from the dross of hope and make it shine. Such potential there. Such perfection.
"They're almost here," says Pokey, redundantly; Gyiyg knows the human already figures him for gone, but Pokey may yet be surprised. (Or vindicated, whispers the rational-voice, so soft these days.) "Won't they be surprised to see me here?!" He laughs -- the grunts of some great dying animal.
The Machine constricts him so. Gyiyg has accepted it as a necessary evil, one last receptacle before he can complete this work and be done with the Earth, and he knows full well that he is beyond being constricted -- beyond solidity, nearly beyond matter -- but it is still tight, binding, holding him. It is a shell he has outgrown, and he hopes he can trust this human to free him of it.
The sparks grow closer. It will soon be time.
***
Turn off the Machine! Turn it off!!
Gyiyg flails, his rage lashing at anything close; the robots scatter before him, and even Pokey scuttles back, the clacking of his battle-machine's legs echoing in the cave. Why hasn't he turned it off yet?! The process is complete -- the apotheosis -- and he cannot stand this mechanical thing, this shell, this prison any longer. An end must be made!
The spark-of-Ness charges, its bat striking home and splintering the canopy of Pokey's machine. Gyiyg drinks deep of his lackey's panic, and Pokey's words are nearly lost in the rush of power.
"... must feel pretty stupid..."
His self-justification, bitter and sweet at once. Red.
"... you'd be so petrified with fear..."
Oh, but they already are. They carry the knowledge of their deaths, and now it is time. The world runs red, red, red.
"So, do you want me to turn off the 'Devil's Machine?'"
YES.
At last at last at last, Pokey throws the switch, and the machine around him retracts into its membrane. Gyiyg is free, and all the world is red indeed. In spite of it, Pokey is still speaking, self-aggrandizing to the last: "... he isn't even aware of what he is doing now..."
Fool! Pokey cannot hope to know -- no human can hope to understand the Apotheosis! He has not lost his capacity for reason, merely discarded it in the service of a greater and more beautiful thing. He will end, here, and Earth will end, in an explosion of fury to shake the cosmos. Even far Homeworld will feel it, and there, and there --
Understanding grips him, shakes him with the force of ancestral memory. This is what triggers hatching! His rage, his destruction, will wake the eggs and fuel them on. One like him went supernova for his own hatching, and now he will repeat it for a new generation of hungry larvae. This purpose has lurked in his genes and in his subconscious before he even knew of Earth, and now it has reached its zenith. He has constructed his final glory -- a monument that, in the great conquests of his spawn, will span the galaxy.
Apotheosis is complete.
Almost forgotten, Pokey's tiny voice still struggles against the storm: "And you... you will be... just another meal to him!" For once, the human is right. A final meal, a final reward: one last pleasure before the world burns.
Gyiyg surges forward.
***
How joyful it is, their power colliding against his. It is so futile -- so perfectly human. Glowing above the other sparks is Ness, shuddering with a power his robot shell cannot maintain. Gyiyg wills him to break it, to find his Apotheosis as he has.
What passes for his voice is something between a rumble and a moan. "Ness..." But the spark is heedless, focused on some last lingering hope of victory. Gyiyg presses his point, repeating the name in a growing sing-song: "Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness..." He sequesters a portion of his consciousness to run it as a subroutine, a burbling mantra over the rapture to come.
The robots shrink back only slightly, and Gyiyg realizes the true tragedy of this meeting; without human bodies, the sparks will not show their fear in the human way, with twitches and moans and smells. What satisfaction will that bring? None at all! Gyiyg howls his frustration and levels his mind at them again, smashing into them and sending the feeble shells flying. One of them -- the one with the rocket launcher, the one who burns the dimmest and the strangest -- struggles to right itself, servomotors failing to obey. The light in its sensors dims as Ness and one of the others rush towards it. The last, forgotten and heedless, seems to have been lost entirely; perhaps Gyiyg has already maddened it? Yet its spark seems to hum resolutely on. Gyiyg readies another assault --
And something new floods the cave, something that lances into Gyiyg with a power he cannot name. It is carried in a strange and distant thought: Jeff... my son... I'm sorry for everything I've done. Be safe, and come home, please...
The pain is immense, and Gyiyg recoils, feeling his systems being disrupted. He only barely notices the fallen robot clamber to its feet, battered but unbroken.
Don't worry, Dr. An-- Dad. I'll be home before you know it.
Gyiyg shudders, feeling remnants of sanity shatter and crack away.
***
Try as he might -- hammer away at the sparks, scream, burble -- the bolts of white-hot thought continue to thunder down on him. He wills the Earth and its Chosen to give in, and yet the crumpled shells remain standing, four fighting as one. The thoughts they summon overwhelm him: thoughts of hope, concern, compassion. Love. The sparks' fear is falling away; they are growing certain, now, and every human voice of hope shouted into the darkness rings like a shockwave through Gyiyg's structure.
Not right, not right, not right. By now, there should be panic, storms, death by water and fire and thunder; all Earth should shudder before him. Ness should be consumed, be one with him, and Ninten should be shuddering in repentance for his wrongs finally righted with apocalypse. Ninten, and his whole sorry cohort of larvae --
At the thought, images flood to him, longed for but wrong, wrong, wrong:
The silver-haired one, grown tall and lean and laughing, walks with a crowd down a half-lit nighttime street. A hand claps him on the back, and there is a booming voice: "thanks for the round, Loid! Next pub, I'm buying!" Fuzzy, beaming joy.
curse them
Soft music and twilight. The muscled hand seems huge as it pulls up the tiny blanket to cover the larva, already half-asleep. "Goodnight, my boy," that bass voice rumbles, and there is a flicker of reflection, the contentment of the calm after a long storm.
Ninten where is Ninten
Ninten is on a narrow bed, curled up next to the shape of the golden-haired one, and he is making a small humming noise under his breath. "Mmmm?" says the creature next to him, rolling over to face him.
"Nothing," he says. "Just... happy, here with you." In the half-light, the ring on her finger glints golden, impressed with the marks of
no not now please not now
Ninten pauses. "It's strange," he says, "but I have the song in my head. You remember how it goes..."
"Of course I do," she says, and when she hits the first note, he joins her. Their love flows in waves as it builds
And it is in Gyiyg, running through Gyiyg, and no no no love is the power love is the beauty
There is silence when Ninten kisses her.
love is the magic
In the quiet room, a shadow at the door, and a voice: "Come to bed, Teddy. Josh'll still be there in the morning."
"You're right. I just... I like to watch him sleep. Sometimes he seems too good to be real. Sometimes this whole life does."
love is the glory
In a pool of light on the street, another hand on the back and another voice percolates into the silver-haired one's fuzzy joyful head: "hey, Loid! Whatcha say you break off the pub crawl and we talk a while?"
Startlement. "Pippi? You didn't tell me you were going to be in town!"
Bright red hair, a black dress, a smile. "It was a surprise. Now, c'mon; I'm not legal yet, and you've had enough already."
love is the melody we all can sing
love love love pounds into Gyiyg, tears at him, collides with his rage and sends steam and sparks flying through what is left of his mind. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts... and then his pain reaches a crescendo, crashes, and falls away.
Gyiyg is happy.
He loves. He loves Ninten, he loves Ness, he loves their hangers-on; he loves Earth, beautiful and terrible and raging. Love has conquered him. Gyiyg howls: not in pain, and not in frustration, but in bliss. The robots stand stock-still, tottering on what remains of their metal shells, and watch.
All the red, red world fades away: into blackness, first, and then into shining pink and pearl-white.
"Welcome home, Gyiyg," whispers Maria.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:59 am (UTC)Incidentally, would you mind if I compiled these three into one fic, edited and expanded a bit, and submitted it elsewhere? I have some ideas for an epilogue that were kind of off-topic for this one, and I'd love to explore them.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 05:38 am (UTC)(Oh, and...er, you like Exalted? And Unknown Armies? Eee, those are pretty much my two favorite RPGs ever.)