Under the ground movement ignited. Tendrils long since static raced between rock and stone once more, black and red matter formed and twisted into esoteric shapes and designs. The surface far above crumbled as the matter that it rested upon for the past eons shifted and broke for the first time since time immemorial. Sinkholes hundreds of feet across and several hundred deep collapsed without warning across the plane, the rumble of earth shifting was deafening to any that might have heard the sound. Even as some of the surface sunk below the ground others erupted into spires of rock and biological matter that pierced the sky.
A forest of spires of rock and living matter stood upon the surface even as the land below shook and quaked from the rumbling far below. Rock broke asunder and shattered into dust as the movements became ever more vicious. Lava poured into chambers forgotten for eons by now and the last of the water of Earth trapped below the ground for uncountable years flashed into steam and raced up towards the surface.
As the steam raced forth it condensed back into water as it went only to push ever higher as the shifting of the matter below pushed it up ever closer to the surface. At last with a mighty push the capstones of rock that had sealed the water away all the years ago crumbled under its weight and burning water leaped into the air only to come crashing back down. As the water fell to the ground the tendrils shaped the land both under and aboveground to guide the water.
With a mighty eruption pillars of steam and water erupted across the land visible for tens of miles around. Water flowed into long empty basins once more as the tendrils acted of their own accord to shape the land and water to their design. As the yellow sun dipped below the horizon Yellowstone lived once more as the pools where reshaped by the might of the one below and filled with the last of the water of the Earth, the geysers spoke their existence once more as a full half of them erupted at once sending plums of water far into the air. For the first time in centuries rain fell upon the parched surface of Earth. The bands of humans that where within this area found themselves blessed with water and looked towards the source and began to move towards there. Some of the others looked towards the source and felt worry as they saw their end in the coming salvation, and yet a small group hastened their steps as their goal was near and they knew that this was a sign that they where on the correct path all of this time.
Within a massive cave lay a amorphous entity of flesh that seemed to be all but dead. This entity had once united the whole of humanity against his very existence, weapons of unmatched power where authorized to be used upon him. The resources of entire nations sent into the war against him. All brought to fight him under the cover of lies and arrogance of humans. He had shattered countless forces in the past entire militaries where gutted by his wrath and nations spent decades rebuilding from his path and yet even so many countless years later he lived on, hidden underground for all this time. If the nations of his time had simply thought to look under the ground he would have been found and yet they didn't and thus he and his few allies escaped their reach. Forevermore he waited asleep under the ground waiting for the day to reemerge to the surface. He wished to live among his kind once more and not suffer their fear and hatred and yet he had long since missed that time. Technology lay shattered upon the surface the world dying every day piece by piece, and the one that had once been thought to bring ruin to earth might be the only one able to truly save it.
Tendrils that hadn't moved for thousands of years suddenly shook with energy as their muscles contracted for the first time in so long, with a snap they sheared away the connections to the larger body of their mass and at once the heart of the creature moved. The mass began to compact inward as the driving mind behind it slowly began to return to awareness. From the mass came a rough shape then limbs and with a final impossible action the full amount of it was compacted into the shape of a human. Two other humans reemerged from the collapsing matter as the first began to form. Only a scant few hours after the beginning three humans lay upon the ground of the cave.
It felt like the weight of countless years had been placed upon his mind as he began to conceive of anything but nothingness. The voices that had been a constant companion to his thoughts where silent and the emptiness of their voices seemed to echo within the vaults of his mind. Long ago he had wished for mastery over the voices that he had with him, then he had moved from there to wishing for them to simply talk and not scream and now he wished for them to return to his mind and fill the void that their presence seemed to have masked over his entire life. Even as his mind began to function once more so do did their voices return to him, filling the vault that had been empty with sound once more and yet different no longer where they screaming their every thought but full comprehensible thoughts drifted within the vault now. Every second more minds reawakened from their long slumber dragging themselves forth and into the light of awareness once more.
"Well this is wonderful. We are now trapped in the bottom of a massive cave. Brother did you really have to do this and how the hell are we supposed to get out of this place?" Spoke Dana from the other side of the cave as she regained awareness of herself and the location that they where in.
"I doubt it will be as difficult as you think Ms. Mercer, I have reason to believe that we are closer to Alex's nature than that of normal humans in some areas. Even if that is not the case he will be able to either carry us up and out or simply grow a tendril to do the same. Of course that means he has to get up and that is taking him a while it seems" Bradley groaned as he sat up against the stone wall a good distance from where Dana sat.
With a groan the last member of the party spoke in a voice that had multiple tones to it, "I am awake once more. Ugh, this is going to take decades to reorganize my genetics, everything is screwed up or in the wrong place. So many new mutations to place in the correct locations, activate and master. I really loathe my nature right now. In other news the Hive is recompiling as we speak, I estimate about two thirds of all the minds in it are awake or some level of awareness currently. The rest will probably wake up in the next two days or so. And well, it seems that Blacklight has gone out of control during my rest, it seems that blacklight has replaced about almost all of the rock in the general area somehow. Hmm, from what I can tell based on how blacklight grew and the rate of continental drift we have slept for something around twenty two thousand years and some change. Hopefully that means the rest of humanity won't attack me on sight or detection."
"its great that you feel good and are happy but we are kinda trapped in this cave if you haven't noticed." Snapped Dana from where she was leaning against the wall. Walking over to the wall Alex placed his hand on it and with a squish the wall snapped open revealing a ramp leading up. "Not so much trapped as just a bit of a hike down from the surface. We should probably start the trek, even if it should only take a few minutes considering your physical abilities are closer to mine than that of a human. That reminds me I will have to teach you how to control your strength soon, but for now lets get out of here."
As the three made their way into the corridor form from the flesh of blacklight all three of them wondered what they would find on the surface. Alex wished to find a city of immense technology and people of intelligence so that he may join in the purist of science once more, Dana just wanted to find a place where she could be just another person and Bradley wished for a place where he could either rejoin the sciences or medical field once more. As they drew ever closer to the surface Alex's expression faded from its hopeful cast towards a mournful expression as he felt no echo of movement above through the rest of his body, no actions whatsoever stirred the surface of his massive form, as the final area peeled away from their path they saw the truth. A barren wasteland of rock and spires of rock and blacklight with geysers seeming to announce their arrival, the only sign of life was in front of them. In the cave they had emerged within lay a peaceful oasis with plants and animals scurrying around. "They are held together mostly by my existence. Blacklight it seems has discovered how to forge a working ecosystem while I slept, but its also only a sign of how far Earth has fallen. This small area of plants and animals is the single largest amount of movement within a large area. There are groups of what have to be humans walking towards this place with one in particular ahead of the rest." Alex whispered in an almost dead tone of voice, "I knew that this was a possibility but to see earth and our kind fallen so far even from our time is beyond my worst thoughts. Even Greene in her own way is horrified at this sight, but the hive is united for once in their horror." Looking up towards the sky Alex saw the stars and remembered the amount of time that had past spoke once more in a more hopeful yet still dead tone "Perhaps all is not yet lost for our people. The stars still shine and where there are stars are worlds. With the amount of time we slept for there could be countless worlds holding humans out among the void."
"What can we do here? We have no resources or supplies for a long term effort, we will die upon this dead rock. Ironic isn't considering that we have a person that can break the laws of biology and yet will still die to the same laws." Groused Dana as she took in the outside land. "Not necessarily. There is a good chance that blacklight could repair the world enough to allow for plants to grow and as we can see here it has the ability to forge animals. It is very much possible to restore the Earth once more, provided we have the time to do so." Bradley spoke with an optimistic tone of voice working to calm both Dana and Alex from their discovery of the state of the Earth.
"Our choice regarding the earth is currently immaterial, its more important to discover where the state of nations and people are. There are already minds within the Hive working to forge uplift plans using the science of statistics and archeology. I personally find it odd that there are people with such backgrounds in the Hive but I wasn't very picky during the Outbreak after all. Regardless, the most important thing is to figure out the general state of things before we start poking it. However, looking around I find it near impossible to believe that we won't be invincible at the moment." Alex spoke as the Hive forged plans in fractions of seconds only to cast them aside.
"What do you mean invincible right now?" Stuttered Dana as she of the three had the strongest connection to the rest of the species, and becoming something else weighted upon her mind heavily. Until now she had been able to push the new senses that she had gained to the back of her mind and their their trip from the cave to the surface had allowed her to deceive herself on just how fast they had moved, but now there was no way to hide from the truth.
"As I said before the two of you are closer to me in nature than normal humans. In comparison you are each more powerful than I was at first. You don't share my true nature but your bodies will evolve over time in conjunction with mine. If the calculations I did are correct you should each be able to reach speeds roughly around the speed of sound and handle anything up to a few kilotons of explosive force with little more than irritation. Your strength is similarly increased and I managed to pin down the gene that sends physics crying and added it to your genetic codes. The reason I think we won't have much problems here is the state of earth seems ruined beyond recovery and as such technology will either not function or very few will know how to use any items that yet remain and our bodies are great enough to withstand pretty much anything biological that I am aware of. As far as I know without high technology probably even Sci-fi level technology at that point we are pretty much untouchable. Which is probably good considering that there seem to be ten bands of people heading roughly towards us, with one band far ahead of the rest it seems. I am currently sending out tendrils to investigate them and the surrounding areas, but we have a larger problem; language barriers over twenty thousand years has passed and as such the odds of them speaking any thin that we know is only above zero percent due to zero percent being something that is impossible. Even with the Hive I doubt we can count on getting a translation workin fast enough so ideas?."
[] Guid the forward band to your position
- [] Consume a member
- [] Learn via brute force with the Hive
[] Trap all the bands in an ever shifting area via Blacklight until you know more about them
[] Simply consume random members of each band until you know the entire general information of the area
[] ignore the bands entirely and simply scout out the greater area
[] Write in