Hydris Lacuna, Hydris Lacuna, Calypso, Brennisteinn, South Pole Wall...
Two streams of data were perforating into the battle stage above the viridescent moon with Calypso's red sun hovering over the horizon. With Uzi landing closer to the bottom platform where Maverick once was before he was attacked; Uzi had now gained telekinetic control of all three platforms.
Uzi hitting the talking lion would be a bonus, but ve wanted to make him fall directly off stage to end the set match regardless of how many hearts he had. With Uzi's victory, ve would gain the opportunity to deprogram him like they did with Monica. Uzi's esper ability to turn code into a visual simulation... ve was able to see what the data streaming by was.
It was Camilo shapeshifted as a hydra and a snake made of smoke trying to fuse with Maverick.
"I understand now," Uzi said, still trying to hit the jumping lion while juggling a platform back to ver to have at least a bit more gravity to modify. "You can control Camilo as if he was a flesh bot of your own. And when you fuse with him and the last living yedaliuth..."
"...I become Dem1urge," Maverick said. "And fusions give an opportunity for us to appear at a different time and place on the eternal grid. In the same way some transformations cause a powerful surge of energy... our fusion can also break the laws of physics, computer simulations, and spacetime."
"I was given the primary objective to kill you by Alice... but I was left in the dark as to why," Uzi said. "Now I know why."
"Well think about it little arak," Maverick said. "This was perfectly tailored made to defeat me, however, did I know about this set up beforehand? I would never admit it to you if I did."
"It is..." Uzi said as ve by propelling verself upward to dodge a powerful slash. "It is an information war after all."
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My name is Uzi and I want to tell redhatter number sixty-two my favorite children's story from humanity. Being told this story in English, then retelling it in Brennisteinnian, then back to English will make this choppy so I apologize for the big words in advance. Maybe I will write it down and rewrite it to simplify it in the future!
Cough
Once upon a time, a supersoldier decided to send his consciousness back in time.
Conch shell?
His mind child!
Oh okay.
And his birth was like... like... a save point in a video game!
And the reason this had to be done was because humanity was trapped in the metaphorical tower of Babylon.
Those big words hurt mi head.
Sorry. Uhm... the myth was a metaphor...
Err...
The myth... was a way to understand human masses speaking nonsense. They would even forgot how to count!
Hahaha!
Imagine forgetting how to count!
Tell us more Uzi!
Paradoxically, their distrust of experts caused charlatans to become experts.
Paraduxa what?
Uhm... I will just keep going.
And the reason those charlatans were chosen was because they made the humans trapped in the past happy.
Haha Iker, you're a charlatan!
And you're still in denial about being gay Camilo.
The children erupted in laughter.
Silence fools! I have not finished this tale!
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
The children simmered down.
Cough
So mathematicians, doctors, teachers, physicists, computer scientists, philosophers... any actual experts...
Would find themselves in a time where there was more truth in fiction than non-fiction.
And when conservatives would begin beheading those who told the truth...
These save-file-loving time travelers found it more efficient to write a book than use esper shenanigans.
So the time travelling toddler wanted to learn his ABCs first, and because time was recoded a lot...
If one were to experience this story from Isunova...
That decision alone made humanity live happily ever after.
...
...And when the story finished being told across computer simulations toying with spacetime...
Under a monochrome metropolitan skyline with steam airships and androids in gold plates...
...
A batch of brain silhouettes in an aquarium vanished.
image [https://img.wattpad.com/1c9bacf67002c328e2bf4506a26819600be46693/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f47684973334c4b716463733245773d3d2d313430373639393338382e313761333633303866656237386431363538333234373935383532342e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
The reason Maverick held off on using his ravens and crows again became apparent.
For some reason, he was nesting them slowly under a platform that Uzi was juggling back to verself while he tried to leap once again towards ver.
At least more than twenty flew around the hovering platform using Maverick's influx, and Uzi let the platform drop in the direction of the moon to see Maverick's attack clearly.
However... ve prevented the only shield ve had against his next attack.
It became apparent as well that Maverick switched to Kaya mode faster than ver, as he let his summons succumb to the vacuum of space behind him. He was not going to miss his chance to land a perfect hit. His golden mane was now only an afterimage as a laceration was left across Uzi's fan-shaped torso. Vis bubble-wrap eyes winced and wriggled trying to find the talking lion somewhere over the gushing translucent blood, but he was now standing on the highest platform even though all three of them were falling.
Uzi was also thrown off because ve expected the blood to float in space; ve forgot that infusing it with influx would make it behave the way ve was more used to. Influx was more receptive to placebos than physics.
"It seems you will be out of bounds first," Maverick said.
Weapons were still spawning, however they were difficult to catch. Thankfully, Uzi was still counting the spawn timer in vis head, and more were coming. Uzi found a silhouette falling above vis and ve decided to... without hesitation...
Tear one of vis eight needle-arms. Ve was blurring the lines between kaya and anagami form as ve screamed in pain, still throwing the needle arm high in space through it all.
Ve was able to sense that Maverick...
"You really love my son don't you?" Maverick yelled, still confident in victory on his falling platform.
With an obsidian shard returning to Uzi, ve gained control of the artificial tectonic plates on Hydris Lacuna. Now with ve bashing them together continuously, with ghastly tremors overlapping, a continuous geyser of toxic ammonia was aiming at the talking lion.
Uzi then sacrificed vis levitating arm into the geyser to continue using vis telekinesis to keep carrying the extreme force of the rushing influx-ammonia, now a dancing snake of relenting acid and hydraulic force.
With three platforms and a flashing and spinning ammonia snake trying to take Maverick out of bounds, his kaya form was pushed to its limit. Golden afterimages were flickering all across them while Uzi continued to bleed profusely.
The chaos and the focus on staying inbound made it impossible to keep track of hearts, but it was only after Uzi realized that Maverick landed another slash into a major arak artery that ve understood what Maverick was trying to do the whole time. He was aware that there was a line of opening as Uzi kept trying to keep a line of vision with all the flying objects, and he became aware of that when he created the previous laceration.
Even though Maverick would choose the victory conditions with Uzi hitting the side of the stage... Uzi was not done trying to bring him down with ver.
It was seconds ago that Uzi severed the rest of vis seven limbs.
What made Uzi deal with all the tremendous pain from verself into an even more fatal condition?
2 platoon of course.
Uzi, I know about how you get treated in Brennisteinn, Iker had said while his brain floated somewhere in the cosmos, behaving more like a computer. He was probably in his early thirties. You can still work hard on pulling your bootstraps and acknowledge you are being mistreated; they are not mutually exclusive. I have to explain what bootstraps are don't I?
Yes please. Don't get mad if I start using your metaphor. It actually sounds like a swear word in Brennisteinnian.
He loves swear words, Renée had said.
Iker's kiss to his teeth and Renée's laugh echoed as seven severed needles stabbed through the silhouette of the lion. One pierced through his snout, and the rest pierced through his torso.
Uzi...
Uzi realized it would not be enough.
"I am sorry Uzi," Maverick murmured, floating in the distance with the sun Calypso and the moon Hydris Lacuna. "Admirable... but I will fuse into Dem1urge... nice try..."
The victory MWAOS terminal spawned for Maverick.
image [https://img.wattpad.com/1c9bacf67002c328e2bf4506a26819600be46693/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f47684973334c4b716463733245773d3d2d313430373639393338382e313761333633303866656237386431363538333234373935383532342e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
Even though vis consciousness data would transfer in a matter of sessions and was about to intersect with another stream of data that was both in a different time and a different place... a different simulation.
A body of a species that started as an ammonia life form, then became more carbon-based, was still trying to levitate into the bounds of the battle stage.
See, Uzi was so determined to fight for 2 platoon, that vis influx-after-death kept trying to levitate ve back inbound.
It persisted for so long, that the ammonia and carbon cells of the arak would keep floating above the moon for two centuries. Two centuries if one were to stand and salute to the little supersoldier on the moon the whole time.
And with the herald in maroon standing over superclusters like it was a turntable, with human hands and arak arms...
And with the final stroke of the lyre on the cosmic record player...
Uzi's corpse floated in between the spaces of the stars.