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Things came crashing down so quickly like that day in the throne room, but so, so much worse. One minute she’s exploring an idyllic fantasy world right out of her daydreams with Anne and Sasha in cool armor by her side! The next, reality is trampling her, frostbite gripping her heart in its claws.
It wasn’t real. Anne and Sasha don’t want what I want.
Slapping Aldrich’s hand away, hearing him mutter something about a lack of a digital avatar would have to suffice. Falling for hours, for eons, through the dark, having it lap around your form, preparing for its meal.
It’s all a hazy red-orange-green-orange-and-a-blue that lingers for far too long in your heart, in your mind, in your soul. The void gnaws and consumes your entirety cell by cell. Feasting like kings, igniting like a raging inferno, assimilating-burning-merging your body-mind-soul, all of you into its infinite mass.
Over a dozen millennia of Leviathan experiences converging right under your skin, setting you ablaze, etching itself into you like sacred text, marking you as its own, as your own. You can feel the binary in your blood, in your mind, in your veins. You can feel your mind tearing at the seams. Thirteen years flailing uselessly against the relentless tides of Leviathan, thousands of years growing every nanosecond.
You exercise the last bit of your singled consciousness to scream that you’re not yourself. Not anymore.
You’re still yourself. You’ve been this way for as long as you can remember.
You are the Collective and the Collective is you, all of you, all of your embarrassing childhood blunders, all of your niche knowledge of botany and bugs, all of your thoughts about character dynamics in your favorite games, all of your memories of reigning over Amphibia from the blood stained Heavens, all of the battles you’ve lived, and all the enemies you’ve cut down with four-fingered hands for your eternal conquest, for your birthright.
You are the Collective and the Collective is you. You have a common goal.
We will ensure the preservation of the Empire. We will kill Sasha Waybright and Anne Boonchuy. We will end this pathetic resistance. We will conquer Earth.
We are one. We are the Core.
It has always echoed and will continue to echo throughout your form until the completion of your objective. It is your purpose and you will stop at nothing to achieve it. It will never stop. You will never stop. You continue on for infinity.
It does not halt when that Toad croaks one final time. It doesn’t halt when Waybright’s back is seared like barbecue. It does not halt when Anne and the Plantars arrive too late, too drained, too easy to pick off. It does not halt when those frogs have to be torn off of Anne to be fitted for collars. It does not halt when Andrias dies like a dog on top of that building, whimpering alone, wallowing in self pity. He was unworthy of his birthright and such a mistake was corrected. Digital copies cheer. Digital copies mourn. Your objective does not halt. You do not halt.
We will ensure the preservation of the Empire. We have killed Sasha Waybright and Anne Boonchuy. We have ended this pathetic resistance. We will conquer Earth.
We are already familiar with human behavior, their strategies, their meager weapons of war. They will never expect us to know. They are small. We are One. We are the Core. We are human. We are newt.
We are One. We are Marcy Wu. Marcy Wu is us. She is nothing. She is everything. We are human. We are the Core.
It doesn’t halt as Earth turns to a tattered war zone. As news anchors broadcast devastation previously incomprehensible to fragile human minds. As these pitiful creatures kick and scream and beg for mercy against Newtopia’s might. As these pests are finally eradicated.
Digital copies cheer for bloodshed. Digital copies mourn a research opportunity. Digital copies loiter around a simulated space with no meaning.
Earth is now a wasteland, rattled with empty shells and broken bodies. A useless ball of wasted space, only hosting the remains of prideful bastards who never knew when to quit. Earth has been conquered.
Digital copies go back to pondering, to reading, to researching, to watching. Digital copies wander in a library with no knowledge to devour, filled to the sky with only skeletons and empty pages.
We will ensure the preservation of the Empire.
You feel no remorse for this planet that your host was born to. There is no copy to tell you these things. Digital copies must tell you of these things.
She is nothing. She is everything. She is data. She is the Core. We are her.
You will ensure the preservation of the Empire.
You activate the portal to the next world. Scouts report that it is even less advanced than Earth. You’ll be needing more mossmen for the injured moving back into the refurbished city below. The poor citizens were so startled with the abrupt change of power, Aldrich tells you, so you want to make the transition as smooth as butter, another former King tell you. After all, you only want the best for those still left standing.
You are the Core. You will ensure the preservation of the Empire. You will protect your citizens. You will complete your objective.
We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God. We are God.
You are God. You will complete your objective.