GuNNhead

As I continue my course in search of Kænus, I begin to think of the meaning of revenge. I’ve gotten a taste of it. I’m left to ask if it is really my driving force, or merely a feeling that disappeared as soon as it began, with bloodlust taking over. I know that I never cared for my planet, which is why I left. I have no connection to it, save for the obvious. Revenge is so petty. However, a hunt, or the removing of the life from another; that is what drives me. It fuels my own life. To give that death a path, even one with no ties, it is all I can do to keep myself. If only I could kill Celrdrrun again, a powerful death, so palpable…

Kænus. There is the path in which to direct this paroxysm of death that flows from every fibre of my being. The Network’s databases have very little on him. Whatever other atrocities he has committed must have been done in secret. Why my planet? No matter, death is death. I’ll simply scour the cosmos for eternity until I find him, and he will suffer my ire.

Until then, however, I’ll destroy whatever may cross my path. His last known whereabouts are across to practically the other side of the cosmos. As I set the course to the general location of his last philanthropic exploits, before he set a course for the unknown depths, I receive a transmission. It’s laughable: the luck; a challenge. Already there is a fool who has heard of my search and subsequent destruction of Celrdrrun. Perhaps they have their own rage-fuelled vendetta against him, and I have stolen their one opportunity for revenge, and so they have placed it upon me. I name a barren world that’s on the way to my destination, and it is accepted.

I arrive days later at the proposed meeting time. There’s an army waiting for me. Most likely the last remnants of a civilization dedicated to taking down Celrdrrun. The sun is setting upon the planet, the skies are a deep almost black-orange, a burnt hue. The earthen ground is a dry red. I smile inside my helmet as I leap from my craft into the upper stratosphere. I descend in flames with my arms crossed in front of my head and chest. I cross over canyons and cavernous volcanic mountain range. Their terrestrial air squadron is the first I burst through, burning scraps of metal, twisted, shower the ground. Once I’m within viewing distance, the ground troops begin to fire on me. The force is in the center of a large plane of craters beyond the barren valleys and mountains of burnt trees. The armies themselves are complex creatures, bug like; four legs with multiple bends, two arms created to rip and tear, holding gun-like weapons. Their lizard-heads are topped by a single large horn, and filled with rows of razor sharp teeth. Only coming within range now, their blasts still mostly fly past me, with only the rare one connecting, without enough force to do more than singe my armor.

[Activate: Surge Bullets]

My hand spins with the whirring of the surge bullets, and mows their numbers down. As I get closer, their screeches of war and pain are ear-shattering. My helmet adjusts, filtering it. I land, and send eye beams out into the crowd; the red lasers blast the ones closest to me away. Creatures of instinct, they drop their weapons that may have given them some advantage at this range (if they care not for their own) and lash out at me, screaming and flailing their talons. I enjoy the challenge of hand to hand combat as they claw and scratch my armor. Very few of them bite, which I find odd. They must have been marginally trained in combat, so there’s a commander amongst the cacophony somewhere. Later. I begin assaulting them with a barrage of fists, bursting through their black bug-like carapace with sprays of their green innards flying out. As their numbers begin to pile upon me, I begin my defense, blocking their attacks with my arms, and kicking their limbs off. Soon, however, their numbers begin to overwhelm my patience.

She had to give the plants a chance; for they could not communicate with these egomaniacal monsters on a level they acknowledged any longer, she had to give them a voice. But that too, went unheard. So she began to beset upon them herself, encroaching upon the cities, retaking the planet to save the lives of these inhabitants, even the lives of those who would ruthlessly eat only of her kind. She was selfless, always giving. Some had ventured into her depths, only to become a part of the food chain once more, either by their own foolishness, or taken in by a life form that used to be near extinction before her intervention, or taken by a large carnivorous plant. There were, however, a select few, who came to join her, and they now live in this ancient city in harmony. Some have gone back to tell of their findings, but, once again, were shunned. Speaking for ‘the plants’ was deemed insane, too outside of what their society was. Stupid, useless, pointless. Why, they would say, should we care of the plants? They do not have life. This society failed to see how intelligent plants were, because they would not do the things that they valued. The plants were not ‘at their level’. Below them.

They do have consciousness, they reach, they aspire, a plant’s life goals are as most life’s. They seek to draw energy from the sun, from the water, and they seek to live and prosper as most life. Those who have ever watched a plant grow up over the course of time should know this, but they do not, they ignore what is in front of their faces because plants can not make a sound. They are unrelatable because they do not have a face or form as theirs. She only wants to live in harmony, at a sustainable level. This other species was destroying the planet, and would kill themselves long before they would kill all plant life, or, perhaps simultaneously, as I was told before my venture into this jungle.

But what can I do? This is not my concern. I am fueled no longer by nutrients, but by death, it is what drives me; existential crises, deep space travel, destroying and mutilating those who challenge me or cross my path, that is the type of problem I face.

I know now what I must do.

I tell the beautiful flower that I will help in her battle for harmony, and, with that, from this maiden with the make of a tree, I take my leave. I rain down upon the populous city in a hailstorm of surge bullets. Gravity sphere after gravity sphere topple building after building. Wanton destruction of life. I find a ‘vegan café’. I take my exercise. I burst in through the window; they are weak, emaciated in support of their thick-headed eugenical genocide. “Life unworthy of life”. They break like dirt in my hands; not even enough to properly destroy. I pick them up by their head, and they explode in my hands. Their arms break with the slightest force, bone splintering, blood spraying. Their screams of pain are weak gurgles as they choke on their ‘health food’. This game is no longer fun, and I continue forth. Soon, the world’s armies beset upon me, and they too, fall. I continue carving my path of death the world over until the entire populous is within a sustainable range for the size of their planet. I enter each world leader’s headquarters personally; I rip and tear what security they have limb from limb in front of their faces, showering them in scores of blood and viscera. All who attempt to attack me die by my hand. I do what no creature should have the stomach to do. Billions upon billions lose their lives. At the end, with the entire world watching, I tell them what she had told me. Coated in death, I feel nothing.

She imparts to me the wisdom of ages. For thousands of years, they have cohabited in peace, aiding one another. She has used the animals of this planet to spread her seeds, while they have become nourished from her, and nourished her. There was a sort of unspoken understanding. All too soon, however, there was a replacement, something of more value than her ilk, technology. Countless forests were cut down, not to provide shelter, but simply because they were claimed to be in the way of progress, the ground below, torn asunder for minerals. She was once one of the people who took part in this, unknowing of the true damage. However, one day, in deep thought, she realized that their path was unsustainable, and journeyed here, a place she’d only read about, and became a goddess of fertility, merging her consciousness with that of the plants. All living creatures, she tells me, have a consciousness. Some simply eat one another because that is what they require to do to live. Certain ones take of her, and the others take of them. It was a cycle that went uninterrupted for countless eons. This new being, however, had a full consciousness, an ’intelligence’, or so they said. But it was clouded by egotism, and could not see anything beyond themselves unless it was that of imagination, unfortunately relegated to only that dimension.

That dimension is one I know all too well to be real. She continues. These beings would not take notice that they were destroying themselves, and so she took it upon herself to save them, take the burden of the world on her delicate shoulders. “They are wildly unnatural creatures, a flaw in nature, but, I, nature, truly want to accept them in all their unnaturalality.” She was most disgusted by the fact that some could be so blind as to not see the barbarism of their ways, when they, the omnivorous creature, would make a conscious decision to eat only of plants, relegating plant-life to be ‘unalive’ by their standards, even at the expense of their own health and well-being. They even went so far as to distort the plant life, make it taste of meat, make it taste of the milk of animals, pervert what she has provided to suit their twisted desires. She began to weep at her plight. A different form of life, placed on a lower tier by these ‘vegans’. How a creature could be so unthinking, so callous to that which is different, she could not answer. It was the worst form of bigotry.

The part most vile, she says, is that they do this in the name of ‘actual life’, to stop the death of ones closer in construction to their own. It’s sickening. They’ve been doing this long before the plants began forcefully encroaching on them. These people offer that their position on the matter is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose. Yet, they use plants as all of these, as only these. They are worse than the worst sort of ignorant. They gain support by promoting a myriad of things with charismatic oratory and propaganda. They ultimately want to establish a New Order of absolute veganism across the globe. To achieve this, they pursue a foreign policy with the alternate declared goal of seizing living space for the people; directing the resources of the state towards this goal.

As I travel through space in hypersleep, I feel a beacon calling out to me through the ether. She tells me of her planet. A civilized world, where she is being oppressed, her people, harvested for food. All she wants to do is live, and be free. I awake to find myself still in my craft. I rush to the control area to find that I’ve come to stop at a beautiful green planet, which, halfly, is covered by artificial cities, filled to the brim with beings. The like which called out to me? The same level, but less conscious of themselves.

I descend, unknowing what exactly it was that I was told during hypersleep, the visions crumbling away to my waking state. Upon landing, I am set upon by its people. Their way of life is being threatened, the buildings, cities, and roadways in which they inhabit are beset upon by a monster, one that used to devour anyone who would venture too far into the forests, a myth, but in recent years became anything but. It started reaching out, taking people, infiltrating and destroying the smaller, defenseless cities, branching out and overtaking their civilizations. They tell me of a possible epicenter deep within the jungles. Soon, if this plague persists, they will attack the unknown, and risk destroying the entire planet to preserve their way of life. I am compelled to intervene, if only to kill this creature that would wantonly take life as its own.

I head to the coordinates in my craft, and proceed alone. As I near my destination, large vines lash out from the trees, attacking me. I dodge hundreds of them, but one connects. Defending themselves. It affixes itself to me. I react instinctively.

[Activate: Gravity Blade]

I slice through the tendrils, milk and nectar splattering the canopy below. Threatened, they fire propellers that slice at my very armor; causing only slight scratches. Should a monster as described to me be not more powerful than this? I fire my eye beams at the remaining incoming projectiles, and they are quickly reduced to ash and cinder. They retreat from their attack, but not fully. They’re trying to communicate. I close my eyes while I hover. My suit is able to communicate on their level with my aid in concentration; or, without my interference, rather. I allow them to lead me, and I follow, to get to the root of the matter. Shortly, I come to a clearing of an ancient civilization that once ruled the planet. The stone structures have been there for millennia. Then, I see her: a beautiful woman, basking in the sunlight on a bed of leaves, high up in the air. Once I am close, she stirs, and descends towards the ground. I follow. Upon landing, I notice that her veins are of vines. Her long, entwining hair is adorned with flowers. She is an inhuman grace, with too earthen a quality. She is calm, serene. One with nature. I now understand this meaning. In all her nakedness, the eternally young bodied woman reaches out to me, and I take her hand. In an instant, I can feel her consciousness.