((The 'rant has a manic-depressive episode for a couple hours and everything goes to hell so fast? I'm impressed!))
*The Tyrant rises out of the pools, but quite different. The uneven, bony stubs and growths on its body are gone, replaced by a continuous, smooth, slanting carapace of toughened bone. The weapons themselves are changed, the bonesword thin, edge glowing a faint blue, the lashwhip slimmed, covered in a network of minute crisscrossing chitin plates. Even its face is changed, its massive horn gone, its razor-grin concealed by a chitinous helm encasing its entire head, belying no emotion. Mere slits for eyes and scent receptors are the only hint of anything alive inside. And as it walks out, it is greeted by massive Tiberium contamination, and starts snatching stray thoughts and memories from the deep scars in the psionic makeup of the area. A sacrifice of self, a mind war with three things fighting, trying to gain dominance or achieve balance, a fourth and fifth stepping in to guide and heal, and a sixth, with a great shadow trailing behind it, shattering the scale and throwing the balance off its hinges. It kneels on the ground. In response to reality, it bashes its armored head against the twisted earth of the pools, again and again, accompanied by sounds of <THUD>"pid!" <THUD>"pid!" <THUD>"pid!". It focuses its mind, and breathes thankfully: she seems still resting, safe, and just now waking up. It then rises and sighs, quite audibly, then speaks in a heavy baritone voice.*
"So many minds, so scrambled and in oh-so-little time. It seems the legendary fountain of batshit is here, contaminating the very air and water. At least now I know the trick required to keep arguably sane as a sole self: Dive into the depths of madness, straight through, and out the other side. Now for some clean-up..."
*As a herd of Phonovores start disintegrating Tiberium by shaking it apart to its base components, it flies to the base of the spire. The Ultramarines are comatose by now, still happily parading inside their minds. It takes them, one at a time, and removes their helms, slashing gouges into their armor, barely nicking the flesh, and places them into a shallow, open-aired spawning pool near the main ones. Small tendrils grow and burrow into their flesh, picking up feeding, excretion and various miscellaneous tasks that the Marines can't be bothered with right now. It then flies to the CSE compound, finding it unaffected by contamination. It quickly finds that, as in its case, well-traveled beings know not to put some things, like spreading, glowing crystal, in their mouths. A quick talk about dissociative personality disorder, memory loss, psychic capacities and Tiberium infestation leave the CSE medical and science staff quite perplexed, but most of their doubts are dispelled as the Tyrant talks and forces images straight into their minds.*
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Topic: The Land of Lost Dimensions. (Read 636817 times)