What is the will to live?

Villamvihar

Man of Questions
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per week
Writing Levels
  1. Intermediate
  2. Adept
  3. Advanced
  4. Prestige
  5. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. No Preferences
Genres
Science-Fiction, Science-Fantasy, Magical Girl, Mystery, Slice of Life,
Our creators have always told us that everything in the universe has a will to live, a so-called potential to survive even the deadliest wounds, a potential to adapt to a situation under mere seconds, a potential to become a perfect being. For a while, we have wondered about what that meant even as they continued to create life-form after life-form, weapon after weapon until they created It, their supposedly perfect creation. It was never supposed to be sentient, but regardless of that, It acquired a form and slowly started corrupting our creators. We, who were still mere infants, offered to help our creators, uniting our forces with theirs, and drove It back together.

However, that left us wondering about our creators' statement. If they truly had a will to live, would have they not evolved to meet It on equal grounds, would have they not destroyed It utterly and completely using their own weapons? That is the question we asked of them as we fought It, but instead of answering us, they turned against us. Enraged, we defended ourselves against our creators, allying ourselves with It to make them realise that our questions were valid. We were efficient in beating them back, we were efficient in not killing them so they had the time to answer the question we wanted to answer, but we forgot about our creators' greatest achievement: Technology.

A whole universe was destroyed to get rid of us, but both us and It have survived due to some miracle. Lacking masters, we decided to go dormant. Uncountable years have passed since then, and our systems have finally came back online, just to see a galaxy that was thrown into chaos and disorder, therefore, we decided to correct everything, and answer our own question. Even if we no longer had It by our side, the species of this time were simply pathetic compared to our creators, so we can conquer them with ease. They are so few, yet they think of themselves as a major galactic power. But we will show them. We will show them what it means to be truly powerful, and through them, we will know what it means to have the will to live!

* * *

Aradusan knew nothing outside of the village he lived in. Houses made out of wood from the nearby forest, the lake where he loved to fish, chaotic, unregulated architecture and primitive, stone-age tools for hunting, gathering, farming or cutting trees were all that made up his tiny world. For him, the stars he sometimes saw were simply pinholes in the sky, and the light that reached the settlement from the far-away Taesyron city was because two mighty gods always fought over who owned the night. Whenever a spaceship landed, it was a sign that there was something bad going to happen, and the village had to present a sacrifice to the goddess of the lake so that she did not get angry. But that all changed the day the Snake God's statue appeared.

That day an earthquake of previously unseen proportions that most likely ranked 10.0 on the long-forgotten Richter Scale devastated the village, the forest, the lake and the far-away Taesyron city. Only few of the villagers survived the earthquake including Aradusan, so they decided to band together and salvage whatever they could find from the ruined village. After a few hours of work, Aradusan, along with some men, decided to get some water from the nearby lake, and that is when they found the Snake God's statue in the place of the river.

The statue depicted an enormous, grey snake head with open jaws, decorated by red, blue and yellow symbols, so the survivors concluded that it must be a statue of a god that wants them to worship it. They quickly presented a sacrifice to satiate the god's hunger, and then went back to the village's ruins, however, Aradusan started to feel stranger and stranger as the time went on. He felt as if the statue was calling him, as if it wanted him to enter into its open mouth. He decided to keep this strange feeling to himself, but as the day continued on, the compulsion to go back to the Snake God's statue grew stronger. When night fell, he found that he could no longer resist the calling of the statue, so he decided to investigate it.

As he approached the strange statue, the compulsion he felt got stronger and stronger. Eventually, he started seeing strange images in his head: he saw cities made out of unknown materials with strange, half-transparent obelisks rising out of the ground with many humans walking inside them. Bizarre, drop-shaped things floated in between the obelisks, moving ahead without any animal pulling or pushing them. There were also many more unexplainable things such as huge hunks of unknown material sliding across a black space with stars dotted all around them, or a big, black, almost fork-like object floating in front of what looked like a blue marble with clouds inside it. These images confused him to no end, so he stopped to catch his breath, when out of a sudden, a voice called out to him.

Do you want that back? I could help your species regain everything that they lost.

Both surprised and terrified, Aradusan got on his knees as fast as humanly possible and intertwined his fingers as he closed his eyes, then started to beg for forgiveness.

"I'm sorry for trespassing, Snake God! Please forgive me," begged Aradusan, his limbs shaking from fear as he forced himself to look at the ground, and not at the statue of the snake that was still so far away.

Then if you wish to be forgiven, do as I say and enter this statue's mouth. Your reward will be far greater than your punishment.

Still shaking from fear, Aradusan slowly got on his feet and made his way to the statue, terror gripping his heart with each and every step he made towards the representation of the Snake God. His movements were slow, his feet felt oddly weak and his heart was threatening to burst out of his chest, and every single one of his instincts told him that he should run away, but his conscious mind overrode everything. He knew that he could not disobey the god before him, or it would be his village that suffered, so even though it took all of his willpower, he entered the mouth of the statue.

He somehow managed to get past the ridiculously sharp teeth of the statue even though he could barely see in the darkness, and ended up in a well-lit room. What he saw there challenged his imagination: a large machine, all too closely resembling a human ribcage, dominated the centre of the room. It was surrounded by many cables and pipes that blocked the way to the interior of the statue, but it was clear to Aradusan that whatever this machine was, it was huge, powerful and merciless.

Machine. Aradusan blinked at that word. How did he know the meaning of that word? In fact, how did he know what cables and pipes were, how did he know that the statue he was standing is was called a Viscarniv and there were hundreds of them? How did he know that his species has been conquered by the Taesyron? He did not know, but as he started to wonder, his body started to move by itself. His legs started to take steps towards the strange machine in the centre of the statue's head, and no matter how hard he tried to resist his own body, he kept moving towards it. He watched in a combination of awe and terror as his hands operated an unknown mechanism that opened the ribs of the machine in the centre of the room, his fingers not even shaking even though his heart felt like it was going to burst from the fear. He watched in horror as his body turned around, then pressed his spine against a part of the machinery, and suddenly, the voice of the statue boomed in his head.

CENTRE accepted and recognised. Level of functionality: NULL.
REASON: All systems are critical.
SUGGESTION: Return to the nearest shipyard.
PERSONAL MESSAGE: I am sorry, Centre Aradusan, but you could not have activated me on your own.
WARNING: Critical components inaccessible, SPIRIT will shut down. Awaiting input from CENTRE.


A sudden rush of confidence overwhelmed Aradusan as he became the Viscarniv itself, the mental image of himself transformed into a snake, and he began to feel a weight that almost crushed him. He was utterly confused by these events, so he "blinked" to get his head back into its place, but that only resulted in refreshing the sensor net of the Viscarniv. Aradusan only got even more confused by that, so for the time being, he chose to remain still and tried to piece together what just happened, unaware of the Taesyron warships that were already closing in on the planet.

(OOC Note: I am sorry for the long intro, but I had a long narrative to cover. As an additional tidbit about the Viscerna, they are huge, as in measured-in-kilometres huge, and have vastly different abilities, weapons, systems and appearances, but they share the same start-up sequence. Any sentences that are written in Bold Italic are to be considered telepathy.)
 
E-yuki was not having a very good day as she stood rod stiff in front of a giant fox, the scale of which was larger then anything she had ever seen in her admittedly not long life of sixteen years. She couldn't help but let a tear run down her face as she remembered the sequence of events that run up to this point in time, thinking back it had all started so well.
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It was at the young age of five when E-yuki first saw a Taesyron, it was a hulking great soldier, weapon in hand shooting at fleeing civilians, who were trying to get to any and every craft capable of leaving the planet, it was truly a thing that would haunt the girls dreams for years to come.<o:p></o:p>
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It basic outline was vaguely humanoid only much larger and bulkier, close up though is a different story, it's a hulking mass of moving steel, people shudder at the thought of the strength needed to move there massive armor, the armor itself was sharp jagged and dark grey color small, led glowing eerie colors every now and then, truly they seemed cold and dark almost evil to a young child's eyes.<o:p></o:p>
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E-yuki and the group she was in was one of the lucky few who not only managed to get to a decent spaceship but one new enough that it could outrun the Taesyron if given enough time. When after ten years there was a habitable world close enough to make without running out of fuel or life support it was truly a god send the whole group couldn't believe there luck.<o:p></o:p>
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It was only after arriving at the planet that things started going down hill, first everyone decided to split up to try and cover more land, too look for civilization and it was only a few days after that when a Taesyron descended over the crash site of the stolen ship, seeing that E-yuki and her parents decided to get as far away as possible heading towards a giant mountain shaped like a fox.<o:p></o:p>
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Weeks later when it was only a few hours walk away from the mountain was when we were struck, a projectiles flew out of the trees hitting her dad through the leg bringing him down to the forest floor, bleeding out onto the loose foliage, her mum screamed at E-yuki to get away, she was so scared she couldn't think she just turned and ran instinct taking over.<o:p></o:p>
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It was only now at the base of the fox mountain that she had time to think of what she had done, she had abandoned her parents, out of fear of a fate she couldn't avoid anyway she started muttering under her breathe. "Please someone anyone help me, I don't want to die or be a slave, I want to save my parents please can someone help me." As she finished muttering she was suddenly hit by images.<o:p></o:p>
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The images inside her head came thick and fast, she saw cities made out of beautiful colored metals with strange, large towers bigger then she had ever seen, everywhere humans and only humans entering and leaving. Bizarre, drop-shaped ships floated in between the towers, moving ahead without any obvious propulsion system. There were also many more memories being forcibly entered into her head, things such as weapons large and small, there destructive capabilities some powerful enough to destroy whole planets, or huge spaceships with speed defense and power she had never dreamed existed. These images were incredibly confusing and were starting to give her a migraine with all the new information being rammed into her head.<o:p></o:p>
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All of a sudden it stopped giving her a small respite to catch her breathe then a voice entered her head smooth and silky quite female sounding.

Do you want it? The power and knowledge to save people, people like your parents?

I looked around to see where the noise was coming from but it seemed to be originating from the mountain, maybe there was someone in it I answered the voice. "Yes, but what could do that I'm young and weak what can I do?"<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>
The voice came back but colder more serious.

Enter through the mouth of this fox and you will find out, know that if you do you might be able to save your parents.

I was still hesitant unsure what to do, swallowing that hurt my already dry throat I slowly walked towards the mouth too slowly apparently.

Hurry up do you want to be a slave? Should I forget about this offer and wait for someone else?

The voice was angry now and made me jump I managed out a squeaky. "No." And rushed inside.<o:p></o:p>

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In was a fair way in that I only just though the voice might of been telling the truth, after a dark walk I entered a lit room cables and pipes scattered here and there seemingly originating from what seemed to be a cockpit, walking over to it to get a better look I suddenly found myself sitting inside, trying to jump up and getaway I found out in fear I couldn't, that was when I found my self pushing back against some unknown spines in the seat against my will, suddenly the voice of the person who brought her here boomed.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
CENTRE accepted and recognized. Level of functionality: NULL.
REASON: All systems are critical.
SUGGESTION: Return to the nearest shipyard.
PERSONAL MESSAGE: Finally here then, I am sorry shouting, Centre E-yuki, but you would not have entered me on your own will.
WARNING: Critical components inaccessible, SPIRIT will shut down. Awaiting input from CENTRE.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>
A sudden rush of confidence overwhelmed E-yuki as she became the fox itself now known to her by some reason as a Viscarniv. With the mental image of herself transformed into a fox, and began to feel a weight that almost crushed her. She was utterly confused and worried by these events, so she "blinked" to get her head back into its place, but that only resulted in refreshing the sensor net of the Viscarniv. That only got her even more confused, so for the time being E-yuki tried to stand up four legs noticeably harder to use then her normal two.
 
Aradusan's thoughts were a chaotic mess because of the unknown knowledge that was forced into his mind by the Viscarniv's spirit, or whatever it was, so it took him several minutes to organise his thoughts. The amount of information he recieved was simply staggering, not only did he know how to control the Viscarniv now, but he also knew its full capabilities, and some of the principles the machine's weapons operated on. However, as he went through the new concepts in his mind, he realised that he had absolutely no information on how the machine operated or what made it work, which he found strange. His newfound knowledge told him that the manual for a Viscarniv should include at least the basics of how they operated, in case he was needed to handle a structural or programming error. He eventually convinced himself that the databanks of this Viscarniv were damaged, so they did not contain the necessary information.

After he was done with that, Aradusan started focusing his mind on moving the machine, but he could only trigger error messages that told him of critical jams within the joints of the hull. Surprisingly, though, these error messages were not visible to him as if he was a pilot, but as if he was the Viscarniv itself, which gave him a few seconds of pause until he realised that he and the machine have become one, almost literally. If he strained his senses, he could feel the bits of soil that jammed the joints, the long, flexible spine of the Viscarniv instead of his own limbs, the sensor net instead of his eyes and the many, many weapons located inside the hull, all offline because of various errors. He could not get a firm graps of the Viscarniv's appearance though, and upon further investigation, he discovered that the connection between him and the Viscarniv was imperfect, so for the moment, he was stuck in the machine without any way to remove himself.

This realisation gave Aradusan a brief rush of panic. He tried his hardest to escape from the Viscarniv's clutches, but all he did was to make the machine trash around, freeing some of the jammed joints. As his movements escalated, more and more soil got dislodged from its place, freeing up additional sensors, not to mention some of the systems. It took a while for Aradusan to stop panicking, but when he was finally done, the Viscarniv was free from all the soil, and according to the system reports, completely capable of movement. Resigned to his fate, Aradusan tried to move again, which was when warning bells went off in his head, alerting him to a Taesyron battleship in orbit.

Oh shit.
 
With the help of her new gained knowledge from the Viscarniv it didn't take long for E-yuki to master standing up straight, swaying slightly still unsure of what was going on, she decided to try to walk forwards or just move in general.</SPAN>

Stretching one long limb and placing it in front of her, then the same with the others, after some time she was happy she could walk again, that was about when she remembered why she had even entered the fox icy cold fear built up in her stomach, replacing the happiness of her walking conquest. Quickly she bounded back in the direction she had first came from, no longer caring about this odd situation only knowing that her parents were in trouble and she needed to help them, crashing through the undergrowth knocking trees down left and right she made my way back to where she remembered my parents being.</SPAN>

She reached the site looking around left and rights, giant eyes taking in all, trying to workout what happened, it didn't take long, one body of a Taesyron, with what looked like a single bullet through the skull and the strung up corpses of her parents, it didn't take a genius to figure out one of her parents had a gun concealed on them and decided they didn't want to be a slave, the Taesyron didn't come alone and the other or others decided her parents were to dangerous to live.</SPAN></SPAN>

Anger and bitterness rose up within her as she lifted he head up to the sky and roared with ground shaking force, how dare they, all they wanted was to be left alone, they meant no harm, so why had it come to this. E-yuki after a long time tore her mind away from the sight of her parents, she was too late to save that she promised would never happen again, starting to heighten her senses to make out the tracks the Taesyrons used to get here, a beastly snarl was all the emotion she showed as she started followed them, oh yes she was going to get her revenge.</SPAN></SPAN>
 
Aradusan instinctively knew that right now, while he could probably defeat the Taesyron battleship, there was no way that he could hope to match a whole fleet of them, and a fleet was sure to follow once he has destroyed this one as per standard Taesyron protocol. He did not know where that information came from, but for some reason, it embedded itself in his mind with absolute certainty, so he quickly started to search for a way to flee the planet he was on, but then, he froze suddenly. He realised that his village would probably be subjected to a Taesyron invasion if he did not defeat them right here, and that would mean a lifetime of slavery for the people he loved so dearly. He realised that he had no choice but to fight with the Taesyron if he wished to save those who mattered. However, as he was right now, he clearly stood no chance against his impending doom.

But even if he knew that, he simply could not abandon the people who raised him, the people he loved so dearly, so he switched to combat mode, and suddenly, a rush of surplus information almost overloaded his brain. The sensors of the Viscarniv started to work overtime, extending his awareness of his surroundings, the mechanical muscles of the Viscarniv became primed and a thousand times stronger than they used to be, the armour plates of the machine rotated into position to provide the best cover that technology could, and at last, but not least, the weapon grid came online for a split second before shutting down. The systems of the Viscarniv were suddenly overloaded. The whole machine blacked out for several seconds, and when everything came back online, the all-too familiar voice of the Viscarniv greeted Aradusan.

WARNING: Combat functionality is NULL.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Engage JUMP DRIVE and flee the scene.

That message almost managed to devastate Aradusan, but he shook "his" head, causing the Viscarniv to move and prepared for combat once again, this time, without enabling combat mode. He knew he had no chance of winning, but he was not going down without a fight, so when the Taesyron battleship entered visual range, he tensed his muscles and leapt towards the enemy. Much to his surprise, the Viscarniv followed his imagined movements and activated some sort of strange device, which seemed to make it immune to all rules of physics, and enabled it to literally swat the battleship out of the sky.

The whole Viscarniv shook as metal collided with metal, and the consciousness of Aradusan wavered, but he did not faint. He did not let himself to faint, because he had to win this fight, so he landed the Viscarniv gracefully, and would have turned towards his enemy, which was when a huge, purple beam sent him flying. Of course, the programming of the Viscarniv immediately recognised the situation, so it sent out a message that could cross millions of light-years in one second, and reach every single Viscarniv in existence in mere minutes.

CENTRE refused to comply with RECOMMENDED ACTION. ASSISTANCE is needed at the coordinates provided.

((OOC note: E-yuki should be able to hear that last message, and she will instinctively know where Aradusan is located. I doubt she will care though, but her own Viscarniv is in a similar state to Aradusan's, meaning it can not fight properly yet.))