Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Four: New Battleopolis!]
04-19-2012, 05:18 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.
Hans Silverman was severely disoriented. The last thing he could remember clearly was a sense of imminent violence as the awakened gathered in the park, and that he was being followed. Just as he'd decided it would be prudent to rapidly relocate, oddly cheerful people materialized all around him and then his vision and all of his instruments recorded... beige.
And now he was here. In... beige. Directionless, formless, infinite beige. More disturbing than the monochrome monotony was the fact that he could not distinguish his outside from his inside. Unable to move or voice his discomfort, he panicked, silently.
A few minutes later, he realized that the beige in front of him (or at least, the beige he could see - he was still having trouble determining exactly where "forward" was) had a small imperfection. A black dot marred the homogeny before him, and as he watched it, it grew, and slowly took the shape of a man. As the man approached, Hans felt deep dread well up within him. For the man wore his face; or rather, Hans wore the man's face.
The Hand of Silver studied him, and as he did so, Hans realized he had a body again. And the beige seemed less a formless infinity and more like... a small room. Hoss smiled. "Better?" he asked. Hans nodded. "Good. I suppose you know who I am." Hans nodded again. "You're... me. Or rather, I am you." Hoss chuckled. "Almost. I'll explain once I bring myself into this conversation." Ignoring Hans's perplexed look, Hoss held out a silver orb, and activated it. A flicking rectangle appeared above the orb, and yet another Hoss - albeit a bald, unaugmented, dirty-looking one - looked out at them. "Hello, me" said the Hoss in the beige room, smiling. "You, yourself and I need to have a little chat."
The bald Hoss glanced over at Hans, then back to his greeter. His eyes narrowed, as he considered the possibilities. "Either there is a contestant very similar to me in another battle, or..." he trailed off, and the smiling Hoss's smile grew even wider. "Yes," he said, "I'm speaking to you from very near the end. I thought you might appreciate a little foreknowledge."
The bald Hoss let out a small sound of excitement. "Ha! I had to execute the Billion Year Plan without any certainty that my carefully-laid plans would work as I expected, but now... I never imagined I'd have confirmation of success!"
The Amalgam Hoss grinned. "You'll have more than that, if you follow my instructions. But first..." he looked over at Hans, "I have some explaining to do. You may have noticed Hans here. He shares our face, our memories, our technological abilities, but he is not us." Hans grimaced. They were talking about him like he wasn't there. From his memories, that was not a good sign. Hoss continued, "We are currently in what has come to be known as a 'Cameo Round' in Grand Battle circles. Contestants from any battle, alive or dead, will often make an appearance. Hans 'awakened' a while ago, but as you can see," Hoss gestured towards the hoodied man, "he lacks a certain... something."
The bald Hoss's eyes narrowed. "I can see that. What I would like to know, however, is what you... all of you... are doing in a Grand Battle in the first place."
Amalgam Hoss raised a hand, placatingly. "Patience, younger self. I will explain.
"An indeterminate and ultimately meaningless amount of time ago, our new Plan entered its final stage. Unfortunately, completion remained perpetually out of reach. The newly-formed amalgamation could not fully remove itself from this level of existence; a small portion of us remained stuck in 3-space, and a sizeable majority of the remainder could not escape the multiverse.
"In order to determine what kept us bound, we stretched ourselves throughout the multiverse, seeing it and understanding it in ways we never had before. We stretched ourselves so far, and poured so much of our focus into the multiverse, that when the miniscule portion of us that was stuck in 3-space was abruptly pulled through several higher dimensions and entered into a Grand Battle, we were caught by surprise. The event proved, however, to be rather serendipitous.
"We observed the battle through our 3-space fragment, and what we saw provided the answer to one half of a question that had plagued us since the formation of the Amalgam. A contestant in the battle was composed of an intriguing mineral with an infinite half-life. He had lived every permutation of his life an uncountable number of times, and had thus been through this particular battle, with us, in a never-ending cycle.
"Fragmented entities were not as severely affected by the infinite loop, but a non-causally-bound, multidimensional, unfragmented entity such as ourself was most definitely affected. All it took was a single permutation of the battle with our trapped 3-space fragment, and we were chained by his unending loop. So long as the loop continued, we could never escape 3-space."
"He died last round, and the loop with him." The Amalgam Hoss couldn't help but smirk. "Now, only a single obstacle remains. And to remove it, we need Hans." Hoss gestured once more towards the quieter of the trio. "During our exploration of the multiverse, and of ourselves, we discovered that one of us was not quite like the others. There was a strange... remnant within him, of something much older. Initially we believed this to be our only obstacle; we could not attain transcendence because the origin of this remnant would not let a piece of itself go. Yet we had no way to purge the anomaly, nor were we even certain if we'd actually identified an anomaly at all. Until Hans.
"You see, the human in the Amalgam who possessed the remnant was, and is, me, and thus, you. But Hans does not." Both Hosses now looked directly at Hans, who looked back, expressionless. "He is you and me, but also... not, at the same time. Which makes him the perfect candidate to receive my remnant." Hans's poker face broke, and he took a step back. Amalgam Hoss smiled at him. "Don't worry, this is a good thing for you. Not so much for me; I will become as you are now, essentially." Hans and the bald Hoss on the screen both frowned. "That hardly seems ideal," the bald Hoss remarked. Amalgam Hoss smiled. "I won't be needing it anymore. The Amalgam's time in this plane is ending, and humanity's journey will soon be complete. There will be nothing more that I can do, so whatever it is that this remnant gives me, I won't need it. Our species won't need our help any longer."
"However, I am getting ahead of myself. There are still a few points of interest the Amalgam would like to... reinforce. The first of which is the Network." Amalgam Hoss gestured, and a cluster of beige globules appeared in the room. "Hans, come over here, you'll need to see this as well. Now, this a rough approximation of the local multiversal structure..."
---
A shadow now fell across all of New Battleopolis, as the Amalgam's tendrils wove their confusing way downwards, beginning to form a dome around the city. The shadow was not dark, however; an eerie, oily beige light seeped down from the roiling canvas above the city, whose dimly-lit streets were slowly emptying as the Amalgam's fragments vanished, one-by-one, to return to unity.
Hans Silverman was severely disoriented. The last thing he could remember clearly was a sense of imminent violence as the awakened gathered in the park, and that he was being followed. Just as he'd decided it would be prudent to rapidly relocate, oddly cheerful people materialized all around him and then his vision and all of his instruments recorded... beige.
And now he was here. In... beige. Directionless, formless, infinite beige. More disturbing than the monochrome monotony was the fact that he could not distinguish his outside from his inside. Unable to move or voice his discomfort, he panicked, silently.
A few minutes later, he realized that the beige in front of him (or at least, the beige he could see - he was still having trouble determining exactly where "forward" was) had a small imperfection. A black dot marred the homogeny before him, and as he watched it, it grew, and slowly took the shape of a man. As the man approached, Hans felt deep dread well up within him. For the man wore his face; or rather, Hans wore the man's face.
The Hand of Silver studied him, and as he did so, Hans realized he had a body again. And the beige seemed less a formless infinity and more like... a small room. Hoss smiled. "Better?" he asked. Hans nodded. "Good. I suppose you know who I am." Hans nodded again. "You're... me. Or rather, I am you." Hoss chuckled. "Almost. I'll explain once I bring myself into this conversation." Ignoring Hans's perplexed look, Hoss held out a silver orb, and activated it. A flicking rectangle appeared above the orb, and yet another Hoss - albeit a bald, unaugmented, dirty-looking one - looked out at them. "Hello, me" said the Hoss in the beige room, smiling. "You, yourself and I need to have a little chat."
The bald Hoss glanced over at Hans, then back to his greeter. His eyes narrowed, as he considered the possibilities. "Either there is a contestant very similar to me in another battle, or..." he trailed off, and the smiling Hoss's smile grew even wider. "Yes," he said, "I'm speaking to you from very near the end. I thought you might appreciate a little foreknowledge."
The bald Hoss let out a small sound of excitement. "Ha! I had to execute the Billion Year Plan without any certainty that my carefully-laid plans would work as I expected, but now... I never imagined I'd have confirmation of success!"
The Amalgam Hoss grinned. "You'll have more than that, if you follow my instructions. But first..." he looked over at Hans, "I have some explaining to do. You may have noticed Hans here. He shares our face, our memories, our technological abilities, but he is not us." Hans grimaced. They were talking about him like he wasn't there. From his memories, that was not a good sign. Hoss continued, "We are currently in what has come to be known as a 'Cameo Round' in Grand Battle circles. Contestants from any battle, alive or dead, will often make an appearance. Hans 'awakened' a while ago, but as you can see," Hoss gestured towards the hoodied man, "he lacks a certain... something."
The bald Hoss's eyes narrowed. "I can see that. What I would like to know, however, is what you... all of you... are doing in a Grand Battle in the first place."
Amalgam Hoss raised a hand, placatingly. "Patience, younger self. I will explain.
"An indeterminate and ultimately meaningless amount of time ago, our new Plan entered its final stage. Unfortunately, completion remained perpetually out of reach. The newly-formed amalgamation could not fully remove itself from this level of existence; a small portion of us remained stuck in 3-space, and a sizeable majority of the remainder could not escape the multiverse.
"In order to determine what kept us bound, we stretched ourselves throughout the multiverse, seeing it and understanding it in ways we never had before. We stretched ourselves so far, and poured so much of our focus into the multiverse, that when the miniscule portion of us that was stuck in 3-space was abruptly pulled through several higher dimensions and entered into a Grand Battle, we were caught by surprise. The event proved, however, to be rather serendipitous.
"We observed the battle through our 3-space fragment, and what we saw provided the answer to one half of a question that had plagued us since the formation of the Amalgam. A contestant in the battle was composed of an intriguing mineral with an infinite half-life. He had lived every permutation of his life an uncountable number of times, and had thus been through this particular battle, with us, in a never-ending cycle.
"Fragmented entities were not as severely affected by the infinite loop, but a non-causally-bound, multidimensional, unfragmented entity such as ourself was most definitely affected. All it took was a single permutation of the battle with our trapped 3-space fragment, and we were chained by his unending loop. So long as the loop continued, we could never escape 3-space."
"He died last round, and the loop with him." The Amalgam Hoss couldn't help but smirk. "Now, only a single obstacle remains. And to remove it, we need Hans." Hoss gestured once more towards the quieter of the trio. "During our exploration of the multiverse, and of ourselves, we discovered that one of us was not quite like the others. There was a strange... remnant within him, of something much older. Initially we believed this to be our only obstacle; we could not attain transcendence because the origin of this remnant would not let a piece of itself go. Yet we had no way to purge the anomaly, nor were we even certain if we'd actually identified an anomaly at all. Until Hans.
"You see, the human in the Amalgam who possessed the remnant was, and is, me, and thus, you. But Hans does not." Both Hosses now looked directly at Hans, who looked back, expressionless. "He is you and me, but also... not, at the same time. Which makes him the perfect candidate to receive my remnant." Hans's poker face broke, and he took a step back. Amalgam Hoss smiled at him. "Don't worry, this is a good thing for you. Not so much for me; I will become as you are now, essentially." Hans and the bald Hoss on the screen both frowned. "That hardly seems ideal," the bald Hoss remarked. Amalgam Hoss smiled. "I won't be needing it anymore. The Amalgam's time in this plane is ending, and humanity's journey will soon be complete. There will be nothing more that I can do, so whatever it is that this remnant gives me, I won't need it. Our species won't need our help any longer."
"However, I am getting ahead of myself. There are still a few points of interest the Amalgam would like to... reinforce. The first of which is the Network." Amalgam Hoss gestured, and a cluster of beige globules appeared in the room. "Hans, come over here, you'll need to see this as well. Now, this a rough approximation of the local multiversal structure..."
---
A shadow now fell across all of New Battleopolis, as the Amalgam's tendrils wove their confusing way downwards, beginning to form a dome around the city. The shadow was not dark, however; an eerie, oily beige light seeped down from the roiling canvas above the city, whose dimly-lit streets were slowly emptying as the Amalgam's fragments vanished, one-by-one, to return to unity.