Fight for Power

Boop 2: Boop Harder

?-Orvtre-?

After some walking, Orvtre and Alternate Omicron were close to an area populated by other people. It was right around that time that they overheard something.

"So dark out there... so dark but I can still see them, even with my eyes closed I still see them," shuddered a Pikmin. "Why'd we come here?! The lights are gonna go out and they're gonna come and it'll just be so dark, why did we come here?!"

As it turns out, the source of that voice was a local who was currently freaking out and causing a ruckus, panicking and screaming in the face of another Pikmin. As the scuffle intensified, a group of Pikmin was drawn to the incident, surrounding the pair to watch how it would play out.

However, before it could escalate further, a mass of sand rose up and separated the two Pikmin from each other. A Brown Pikmin with a brown orb at the end of his stalk stepped out nearby, talking with the panicking Pikmin, the person he was fighting with, and the group of spectators around them. Orvtre called out to the Pikmin with the brown orb and waved hello.

"Hi Delta!" exclaimed Orvtre. "What's going on around these parts?"

"Indeed, I am also curious as to what recent events have transpired in this area!" Alternate Omicron concurred.

Delta turned towards Orvtre in surprise, and then turned towards Alternate Omicron in even greater surprise. "Omicron... ?" whispered Delta, before Alternate Omicron was immediately in his face.

"Ah, someone else who recognizes me! Oh, you have an orb at the end of your stalk just like I do! Say, would you happen to know why... " Alternate Omicron rattled off, asking Delta about topics such as the fallen colony, the darkness creatures, and various other matters.

Delta stood in a moment of shock before muttering, "Though, you're not the Omicron that I know."

Alternate Omicron immediately pulled on the verbal thread. "Is there another Omicron here? If so, where is he?"

"Omicron is... somewhere in this mess. Hell if I could tell you where. The innards of this wreckage are a maze, and he's deep inside it. The only way I've ever found him is by being guided there. As for what happened... heh... good question. I woke up to what seemed like the world falling apart one day. The colony came crashing down, from what I couldn't tell you. Something clearly attacked, but whatever it was, I never even saw it. Not before... not before something covered the sky and everything went dark. It all kinda... blurs together. We had to race to get the lights up just to ward those things off. Anyone who gets carried off by them... well, I've sure as hell never seen any of them again."

"How far does the calamity extend? Is the problem just limited to Dusty Desert, or is it something spanning further than that?" Orvtre asked.

"I honestly don't know. There's no natural light out there, and I'm not about to risk heading out into the darkness without a reliable light source. Anything not hooked up to the reactor is NEVER reliable, not out there. Those strings of lights you see heading out to the other crashed colonies are as far as anyone's been. There's been no contact from anywhere else, either, so I'm not exactly hopeful..." replied Delta.

Alternate Omicron noticed some of the broken-down equipment scattered about the fallen colony, deciding to go on a scavenging-and-repairing spree. He first put together some lights, before moving on to sensors, body armor, and various weapons.

"To think that there's another me here... I am quite interested in having a talk with him," said Alternate Omicron.

"Yeah, hopefully he'll have a better idea on just what happened here. We'll just have to do some detective work to find him... " replied Orvtre, who generated several clones, each of them emitting light.

The Pikmin who freaked out scuttled away from Orvtre, Alternate Omicron, and Delta, shuddering in a well-lit area alone. This was hopeless, hopeless! Sure, the others say that we should keep calm and think of a plan, but he could still see them.

He looked up into the sky. He whispered, "I wish someone would save me. I wish someone would give me inner light."

Do you seek salvation?

The Pikmin blinked. Who said that?

If you long for salvation, I will provide it.

An orb of light, almost blinding in its intensity, appeared before him.

You need only to bend the knee.

The Pikmin blinked again. Something was off about this whole ordeal. Something deep inside him was whispering, telling him that he must not bend the knee.

He must not.

He must not.

He must not.

And yet.

And yet.

And yet.

And yet.

He closed his eyes. Earlier, he had saw them. But now, now, by the light, he could see them no longer. Whether it was by cleansing or by blindness, he could not fathom.

One last whisper of resistance whispered from deep within him, reminding him that he, along with the others, should hold out, and work towards salvation with their own hands.

And yet.

And yet...

...

As promised, I shall bestow upon you salvation.

...

He had bent the knee. Somehow, he had sensed that he had made the wrong decision, but he could only move into the future now, towards whatever fate had in store...
_______________
X-Pluto-X

The last I remember before Shoutah and I ended up in our... current location is that we were headed towards Ludibrium. Just about everything between that and now is hazy. Feeling like your head was trampled on by a herd of giants will do that to you.

What I do know is that we were recently attacked by a pair of losers. One of them was an archer chick who called herself Artemis, the other was a Yellow Pikmin wearing sparkly clothing who called himself Voltgloss. The yellow "could attack with electricity", aka he sucked at that; it felt like I was being zapped by static electricity from a damn carpet. Archer chick was slightly more threatening because arrows, but Shoutah blasted her head off with a roar. Simultaneously, I headshotted Voltgloss with a bolter round to the face, and now the two losers are very, very dead. Keep in mind that this was all during our headache phase, so they were very unimpressive.

Headache is gone now, and we're... in the present day? Somehow, I don't think that's accurate. Examining the remains of our two "opponents" (in quotes because they sucked), I found out that they were apparently sent by the Terran Theocracy. The hell? They're all the way out here... wherever we are, that is.

"Tsk, to think those two were that weak... " clicked a voice. Said voice didn't belong to either of us.

I immediately dodged to the side as a dagger flew into my previous position, scraping my cheek and drawing blood from it. Someone else dropped down beside Shoutah and punched him in the gut, causing him to stumble back. Looks like we have two more opponents...

"Who are you?" I hissed. Our opponents laughed in response.

"I am Hubert," stated the dagger-thrower.

"I am Algora," stated the guy who punched Shoutah.

I fired my Bolter at them as Shoutah screamed at them, intending to fodderize them like I did the previous pair. To my chagrin, not only did they evade our attacks, they then stepped forward and counterattacked, stabbing Shoutah with several hurled daggers and punching me in the face with some kind of gauntlet.

I spat out a wad of blood. Unlike the last two, these guys may be legit threats...

<Alternate Omicron>

All these parts! So little time! It's quite curious, really, I've never seen any of these things, yet I seem to know how to fit them together. Not in the shape they used to have, maybe, but their new shapes are useful either way.

"I think I'm going to keep some of these," I muttered to myself, gathering of few of the improvised devices about my arms and shoulders. Curiously not heavy. They're a bit hodgepodge on account of not having a welder on hand but...

"The lights," I commented out loud, which got the brown Pikmin - Delta I believe? - to turn towards me, glancing at the lights I was currently staring at. They were flickering oddly.

"Damn lights are on the fritz again? Need to get some of the guys out here to fix them..." Delta groused, beginning to move before I grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him behind me.

"What in- let- since when were you this strong?!" Delta protested, apparently unable to break free of my grip as I dragged him to the edge of the light and pointed out into the darkness. It was barely visible out there, but there was a fallen biosphere where I was pointing, with no lights strung towards it.

"That one," I said insistently. "That one has a working reactor. And... something else. Something I need."

Delta narrowed his eyes as he peered at me. "How... do you know that?"

"The lights told me," I replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Delta snapped his head toward the still-flickering lights. A moment passed as he seemed to war with himself internally before coming to a decision.

"... Alright. I believe you. I'll gather up some people to get some lights out there and we'll see. If there really is another working reactor, that'd be a godsend."

"You won't be able to get the lights all the way there. Not in any reasonable timeframe," I commented, turning towards one of Orvtre's clones. "Fortunately, we have a light source that seems to keep those shadow creatures away, and doesn't need a power supply."

"I'm still going to get some others to come. Just in case," Delta insisted. That gave me some time to work with more of the scraps I found laying about and collect Orvtre, who gave me a rather different question.

"The lights told you? ... How?" was Orvtre's question. I opened my mouth, considered that for a moment, then closed my mouth and considered it some more.

"I can only surmise that it's some sort of code. One my brain specifically is encoded to recognize, perhaps in a method similar to my Experiment Capsule's information encoding. As I must assume the message came from my other self controlling the lights, this speaks volumes as to how much more he knows than I do. Quite exciting, really!" I rattled off rapidly. "That's mostly a guess based on circumstance, of course. I could be totally wrong."

This got further staring from Orvtre before shi simply shook hir head. It doesn't make much sense to me either... yet. How very interesting! Now then, back to the scraps. The shadow creatures will stay away as long as Orvtre keeps the light up, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

?-Orvtre-?

There's a lot to ponder regarding this alternate timeline and everything in it, so I'll start with the lights.

My first thought was that the lights might be using Morse code, but somehow, the encoding seems to be different. Now that Alternate Omicron pointed it out, I think I can pick up some kind of telecommunication being transmitted via the lights, like stumbling upon a foreign language one can't understand, but that you know is a language and know is means of communication.

After some time watching Alternate Omicron going about constructing improvised equipment, I offered to help him with his current task. With that, I helped Alternate Omicron in welding together the stuff that needed to be welded.

Before this, I had been talking with the locals, gathering all sorts of information. I had also noticed that there was a distinct lack of Captain. I soon found out why.

Miscellaneous info from locals: The lights flicker sometimes, and there's been more than one blackout because the reactor is faulty. Captain disappeared during one of these blackouts, last seen fending off as many of the shadow creatures as he could to buy time to get the reactor back up.

Aside from Pikmin, there's been no sign of any of the planet's other indigenous life.

There's an oasis that's partially buried under the wreckage of the colony. It's a bit contaminated from leakage from the colony, but fortunately the water purifiers are still functioning.

Some of the colony's defense drones are still active, and are extremely effective at fending off the shadow creatures. There's little in the way of materials to repair them with, so the residents try to use them sparingly. There's no sign of Adaptrix, Mara, or any of the other sentient machines.

For whatever it's worth, there's been absolutely no sign of the Old Gods or Seraph. They're not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

As for what time it is in this timeline, they don't really know. The lack of sunlight meant nobody's quite sure how much time has passed, and any clocks surviving on the colony have gone haywire. Delta's only point of reference would be that it was after this timeline's Omicron assaulted the Galactic God-controlled Ludibrium... thought he did note that the only person who could feasibly give a more precise timetable would be the aforementioned Omicron.

I took this opportunity to ask Delta about the Fist of Zeromus. Unfortunately, I didn't get really get any good info from him on that.

"Hmmm... like most everything else that came before the fall, my memory's a bit fuzzy. I know we beat them, at hefty cost. But the details are almost all lost to me... I can barely even remember the names or faces of the people who died," said Delta, regarding the Fist of Zeromus.

As for what happened regarding Omicron's assault on the Galactic God-controlled Ludibrium, Delta stated, "I know Omicron didn't win in Ludibrium, I can recall that much... they retreated in order to regroup, rebuild, and make another move... but I don't remember how long after that the crash happened."

"What do you know about the shadow creatures themselves? Have you ever tried to capture one for study?" I asked him.

Delta replied, "No chance of that. Any kind of light and they're gone like greased lightning, no matter what's in their way. Little bastards are always lurking right at the edge of the lights we do have, waiting for an opportunity. They're strong, they're fast, and they seem to be pretty well invulnerable in darkness; I've only ever been able to hold the damn things off, never killed one. Not sure anyone has. Then again, I've never seen them kill one of us, either; they just grab people and drag them off."

After I helped Alternate Omicron with the welding and various other mechanical work, Delta and a bunch of others arrived, holding various light-emitting equipment. After some time had passed, we finally got to the fallen colony that Alternate Omicron wanted to go to.

We did a bit of digging through the wreckage to find the reactor; meanwhile Alternate Omicron was looking for a particular object somewhere inside. From the looks of it, despite the damage, it's still got power thanks to the functioning reactor. The still-functioning lights inside mean there aren't very many shadows within.

This was the point where someone brought up that, regardless of whether or not we can run lights out to this thing, we're going to have to find a way to get the reactor hooked into the main line. That means either getting a line out there anyway, or moving it, which will kill the power to the sphere it's inside.

I took some time to consider this, before advising, "Hmm, I suggest waiting until we've fully explored this sphere before making a decision; we wouldn't want to cut power to it and then have it turn out to be something that's keeping Strosek in stasis, for example."

Delta froze up for a moment, before muttering, "... s***. I hadn't even thought of Strosek... is he even still alive at this point?"

"Hmm... what's inside the sphere anyways?" I wondered out loud.

"Oh, to know my other self's thoughts as he built it... but, hazarding a guess, it appears to be mostly experimental tech development. Military devices, of course, but also some for civilian use, and others for some use I cannot fathom as I am now!" Alternate Omicron replied. "I wonder if what I'm looking for is one of these experimental devices... Ah well, I suppose I'll know when I see it!"

I thought back to the fight that Libera had with the main timeline's Omicron. "I wonder if the Omnicron Warframe is in this sphere. It was referred to as his super-mega-ultra-prototype, representing a culmination of all his combat knowledge so far. It would probably fit the theme here," I noted.

"That would be an amazing find if it had an autonomous AI, but I think Omicron ran that one himself," explained Delta.

"Wouldn't be too much use anyway, it got pretty beat up at Ludibrium. I remember that much. Might be useful if we could find its weapon cache, though," elaborated a random Pikmin.

<Alternate Omicron>

Goodness, my other self was quite busy in his day, wasn't he? The multitudes of devices strewn throughout this sphere... incredible! Is that narcissistic, to praise my other self so highly? Hmm... Well, it's good to know that the reactor they wanted truly is here. That means the lights must have been correct, and the other thing I'm looking for is also here.

While Orvtre and Delta concerned themselves with how to go about moving the reactor, I went exploring with some of the others. They seem to regard me with a bit of awe, like I'm an alien or something. I suppose I technically am, what with this not being my timeline! I wonder how I compare to this time's Omicron...?

As we filtered through the sphere, I took the opportunity to inspect some of the devices still laying about. Some were damaged, no doubt by the fall, but there were plenty that were still in perfect condition. Alas, I couldn't quite figure out the functions of many of them, or at least, I couldn't figure out how to make them work. Perhaps some kind of safeguard my other self placed on them? One that did particularly catch my attention, though was a little black pyramid with a gold cap and gold bottom. I couldn't figure out what it did from a casual examination, but I decided to keep it anyway. Not sure why, honestly. Something to investigate later!

My search eventually brought me to what appeared to be some kind of control room, though for what I couldn't quite say. There were a great many buttons upon panels lined up next to some kind of pad, with the setup repeated several times. Out of curiosity, I pressed a button, and there was a loud pop of displaced air as a... spherical hole opened out of thin air over the pad.

"Oh. Oh my. That is a wormhole!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. So my other self had harnessed wormholes? Thinking nothing of it, I stuck my arm through. A thoroughly fascinating experience, as my arm suddenly found itself in some distant location. I wonder...

Struck by a sudden inspiration, I rushed back through the biosphere, headed back towards the reactor, calling out to the others as I went.

"There's a wormhole device!" I declared breathlessly as I returned. Hoo boy, I am not physically fit.

Delta was the first to respond, the others a bit slower to peek their heads up from around the reactor.

"Oh the uh... the transport system, correct? The one Omicron used to move people and goods around the colony."

Orvtre was the first to catch on.

"If the Transport network is still functioning... would it be possible to turn it onto the reactor? Just warp the reactor straight back to the main colony?" shi voiced aloud. Delta considered that for a few moments.

"It might be possible... but we'd need the exact dimensions of the reactor, to make sure we get the whole thing. We also need proper coordinates for our destination, although... there is a transport beacon at the colony. We can send a few back to get it to a good spot, then send the reactor to it!"

"I think it will take several of the Transport devices to handle something this large," I commented, working from a gut feeling. I'm still not sure how I know these things. "But I think I can handle networking them together to pull it off."

Plans for how to position the Transport devices were quickly worked through, and a few of the others sent back to the main colony to prep the beacon. It was quite a trek back for them, so we set up a signal for them to give once the beacon was placed. Meanwhile, I resumed my search through the sphere. After all, it's lights out once we move the reactor.

Nonetheless, I am frustrated in my attempts to find... whatever this thing I'm looking for is. I can feel a tug, an itch in the back of my head, pulling me towards something in here... but I can't tell where it's pulling from. Most annoyingly, my search continued to be fruitless long enough that the others had to demand my help with the Transport device, a task I grumpily committed myself to. Even once I'd finished my part and resumed searching, I still could not locate the damn thing. I just feel like it's so close...

Alas, my time ran out, and Delta made the call that it was time to move the reactor.

"I just... I need... I have to find this thing!"

"You don't even know what it is!" Delta shot back, seemingly just as agitated as I was. Being away from the colony this long was probably worrying him. But still...!

"But I need to find it!" I ground out, a twitch in my eye. From a logical perspective, I cannot understand why this irritates me so much, but it does! It annoys me so!

"I need to get back to the colony! You still have Orvtre here, just search after the reactor is moved!"

"AO, it's fine. I'll help you look," Orvtre offered, which eased off some of the tension from my mind. Not all of it, just some. I ran the statement back in my mind for a moment before turning to look at hir.

"AO?"

"Easier than saying 'Alternate Omicron' all the time," Orvtre replied with a small shrug. Hmm. Even in hir timeline, there is another Omicron, I'm the intruder... it would be confusing to just call us both Omicron. Well, I can worry about that later.

"Alright, alright, then just let me... let me make a few last adjustments and we can fire it up. It needs the right balance for the power flow, or it'll all probably explode when the reactor is moved and the power goes out."

Admittedly, our solution was a bit kludged together, the Transport pads having been pulled up and moved to around the reactor. A bit of hotwiring was sufficient to hook them back into the power supply, and some off the cuff coding had been done to make sure we got the whole thing at once. One shot, after all.

"Lights ready," Delta called, the whole group turning their lights on and getting into position before we cut the power, while Orvtre simply ignited a light over hir head. A final set of commands entered into the console, and I hovered my hand over the button.

"Well... here goes!" I said, a bit of excitement present despite the annoyance. I tapped the button, to a brief moment of silence. Then there was a very violent pop as the reactor simply vanished into thin air, followed by another pop as all the power in the biopshere went out, killing all the lights save the ones we'd brought.

All save one, that I could feel deeper in the colony. The rest of the colony's systems, filled with power, had occluded it. But I could feel this, like a physical force, and at once began a forward march towards it, heedless of the fact I had no light source. I barely heard the others call out, even as Orvtre rushed to ensure I didn't walked blithely into the darkness.

I didn't pay much attention to anything going on around me as I navigated towards it, seemingly led by a line straight to it, through doors, halls and rooms, until at last I came to a door I hadn't noticed before, one I couldn't have noticed had I not known there was something behind it. With the power out, the only option I had was to have Orvtre rip it open... carefully, so as not to damage whatever was behind it.

"Is that it...?" Orvtre voiced aloud as I approached it.

It was a slowly rotating double helix-shaped, glowing... thing. Like a very enlarged strand of DNA, glowing in green. Heedless of any kind of caution, I reached out to grab it. As soon as I laid a hand upon it, the glow brightened, and the object slid seamlessly through my gauntlet and into my arm. I could barely describe the rush that accompanied it. A flood of many emotions, of information, of possibilities, of futures and pasts and-

"Ow." I summed up eloquently from the floor, across the room.

"Well, you're awake at least," Orvtre commented as shi pulled me to my feet. I nearly tipped over, so shi instead moved to a more supportive posture, my arm over hir shoulder. "That kinda looked like it hurt."

"Ah, yes. That it did. But I suppose progress always involves some pain," I mused, my brain feeling a bit fried.

"Was that really the thing you were looking for?" Orvtre repeated. I nodded as we plodded made our way back to the entrance; Delta and his group had apparently already started their trek back.

"Absolutely. No question. That must be what I was looking for... now... now I just need to understand what I need it for. And for that... I think I must speak to this timeline's Omicron," I replied wearily. To speak with another me...

My train of thought cut off as we made it back to where we'd entered the sphere. In the middle distance, we could see a group of lights, presumably Delta and his group. Far off, the bulk of the reactor was clearly visible near the colony. All good and normal there.

What was not good and normal was the veritable sea of glowing eyes leering out of the dark in every direction in between us and those light sources.

"s***," Orvtre breathed, "There must be millions of them!"

"We must have... must have caught their attention when we blew the lights," was my only response. Thankfully, as before, they refused to move within the light Orvtre was producing, so we were able to hobble forward until my head cleared up enough for me to walk on my own. The sea of shadows parted around us, as the two of us - and Delta's group ahead, having not slowed down - made our way back to the colony.

As one might imagine, the colony's inhabitants were very antsy when we returned, the mass of shadows still gathered around. They shined lights out into the darkness in an effort to scare them away, but the mass would simply move away from the lights wherever they were pointed. They were, indeed, very fast.

"f***ing hell, where'd they all come from?!" Delta growled, "They've never shown up in these numbers before!"

"They are here as witnesses," came a voice... a voice from the darkness. To the immense horror of the colony's inhabitants, a shadowy figured stepped forth from the mass, into the light. As the shadows around it bled away under the light's glare, Delta stared in shock.

"Captain...?"

?-Orvtre-?

As for the reactions to Captain's return, there was a fair bit of confusion, some excitement, and rather a lot of suspicion, what with someone who was taken by the shadows managing to return, especially with the huge number of shadows that were gathered. Turns out that Captain's intent was to explain what happened and what he's learned in the time since he was taken, in particular what he's learned of the nature of this place.

"Are you okay?" I asked Captain.

"I'm quite alright, yes. Though I'd appreciate if the lights were pointed elsewhere," Captain stated, shielding his eyes.

"Why are the lights bothering you now?" I wondered out loud.

"Because I've been living in pitch darkness since I was taken and my pupils are the size of the entire desert," Captain replied.

"You said that these darkness creatures were here as witnesses? What do you know about them?" I questioned.

"And more importantly, why are there so goddamn many of them here?" Delta added.

"I'll admit I was confused initially; they pulled me to somewhere lightless, but never actually tried to hurt me. What's more, others that were taken were also there. Communicating with them has been an arduous process, but what I've learned is that they aren't attacking us out of aggression, but out of fear. I'm here now to show both them, and all of you, that such fear is unnecessary," Captain explained.

"Are... are you out of your damn mind?! These things have been attacking us since we got here!" Delta exclaimed.

"As I said, out of fear. I'm sure you've noticed that there's no natural light here; the only lights are those we brought with us. They are terrified of it. You've seen how they seek to avoid it. I'm not clear on whether they're harmed by it, but I'm quite certain of the fear they exhibit towards it. Their seeming aggression appears to be a misunderstanding based in that fear," said Captain.

"Why are they afraid of the lights?" I asked.

"I haven't quite gotten a clear understanding of that yet, though I suspect it may be largely a fear of the unknown. Then again, they do seem to be made of shadows, and shadows are the absence of light," Captain noted.

"Where did they come from, anyways? From what I can tell, they weren't here before Omicron's attack on the Galactic God-controlled Ludibrium," I wondered.

"If you want to be technical, they were. They've been here for quite some time. After all... we're not on our world anymore," Captain revealed.

"Then where are we?" I queried.

"That... is something you'd need to ask Omicron," admitted Captain.

"Do you know where he is?" I asked him.

"I do, though uh... well, you'll see," said Delta.

"Captain, what can you tell me about the war against the Fist of Zeromus? And about Omicron's attack on the Galactic God-controlled Ludibrium? Who or what caused Omicron's colony to fall, anyways?" I questioned.

"About... about the battle... Dammit, it's so fuzzy. I just can't remember any of the details. Something must have clouded our memories when we came here, even my implants can't retrieve the information," Captain responded.

"Would you happen to know what any of the stuff at that fallen colony was? Such as that double-helix glowing green thing, that little black pyramid with a gold cap and gold bottom, and a bunch of that other stuff there?" I asked him. "Additionally, would you happen to know where the remains of the Omnicron Warframe or its weapon cache are? What can you tell me about the Warframe itself? Or about the encoding that was used via the lights to communicate to AO?"

"Hm... I'm not privy to any of those. I'm more familiar with the various prosthetics Omicron made," replied Captain.