Another MR one-shot. And it's going to stay a one-shot. I think. Anyway, it's just a plot bunny that wouldn't be ignored.
We never did get to hear the Voice's side of the story, and I think it has got a lot to say.
The Voice didn't really know where it came from.
In fact, it didn't even know its own gender (it hadn't even known what a gender was until it had searched the Maximum girl's memories), so for a lack of a better word, the Voice called itself an 'it.'
It supposed it shouldn't even exist. It held memories of its own, yes, but not its own body, which defied the laws of practically everything, since it should have needed a mind in a brain in a body to even be alive.
Sometimes when things got too confusing, the Voice decided to just let the matter go.
True, the memories were hazy at best. Suddenly coming into existence inside a jar could do that to you.
It remembered the first person it had inhabited, a young scientist who'd been foolish enough to open the sealed door on the glass tube.
The Voice had been frightened (how could it have been frightened, when it didn't have the necessary pulmonary functions for such an action? It didn't know); it had been frightened, and fled the only place it could: the scientist.
The scientist's mind was fascinating. It was there that the Voice learned the thing it was inside of was a human, a Homo Sapiens, an intelligent mammal, and one of the ones who'd created the Voice.
The Voice learned a great deal, in those short few minutes. It learned about physics, and the space-time continuum, and how to splice genes to create something that wouldn't normally exist. It learned about emotions and reactions and language. It learned to think.
Fascinating.
Eventually the young scientist had been discovered, with the Voice still holed up stubbornly inside. The Voice had been extracted (quite painfully, in fact, something that it wondered about now that it knew that for something to feel pain it needed to have pain receptors, for which a body was needed, but… the Voice usually stopped any questioning when it got to this point), and put back in its cage.
It spent what felt like an eternity there, listening to the scientists babble on in what it now recognized as language; American English, to be exact. Somehow, it sensed the scientists and where they were (it couldn't see, a bit of a relief to the Voice, who'd begun to lose faith in the exact need of physical bodies).
Years and months; weeks and days; hours and minutes and seconds – they all felt the same to the Voice.
Until one day, long after the Voice had recognized its own existence, when a single man had entered into the room and purposefully allowed the Voice to escape into his mind.
Settling into the contours of the man's consciousness, the Voice was surprised to hear the man talk to it. The man told it that they would make a deal: the man would allow the Voice to the leave the place, (which he called a School, though it was certainly no institution of learning in any sense of the word), and put the Voice into a new body. The catch was this: the Voice could not claim the body as its own.
The Voice mulled this over for some time, weighing its options in a pleasantly refreshing ability to choose. A chance to leave that glass prison sounded nice, and he rather liked the idea of going outside and actually viewing what he caught glimpses of in memories – endless skies and massive fields and bustling cities.
But to not have a body to claim, to control, to call its own…
It all seemed rather pointless.
That is, until the man promised the Voice it could be free forever, and once its job was done it could do whatever it like.
Well, that was certainly much better. The Voice agreed immediately.
That was what it marked as the beginning of its greatest journey.
The girl the Voice had been placed into was strong, and it fought for control on the strange contours of her mind. It felt a little bad when that caused the girl pain, but, well, the Voice had a job to do.
It showed pictures to the teenager, gleaned from the man's mind, nudging the girl on the right path. The Voice was pleased when the girl responded and listened, happy to see that its job might be over soon.
And its time in the girl's mind was astounding. So many sights, sounds, feelings – it was overwhelming. The Voice was already considering giving up its task to find a body of its own after its first few days when they entered the human city, but it felt that perhaps it should at least warn the girl of everything planned for her.
The Voice didn't get the reaction it hoped for.
It had thought that manipulating that machine down in the subway would pique the girl's natural curiosity, make her more open to what the Voice had to tell her.
Instead, she reacted with fear and aggressiveness, pushing the Voice as far from her as possible. It was terribly painful to the Voice, and the girl's harsh reaction shocked it. To be fair, the only contact it had had with humans had been those witless scientists at the School and the man the Voice wasn't used to such hostility. Startled and defensive, the Voice did the only thing it could think of: respond like its previous host. That meant speaking in cool rhetoric, vague instructions, and puzzling warnings.
The girl didn't seem to like that, either. In fact, she'd reacted particularly harshly. And while the Voice had only meant to help her a little and be on its way, this sudden hostility made it feel… angry. Betrayed. Disrespected.
The man had never said this would happen.
Suddenly, the Voice realized what the cost of inhabiting a person really was. This new and strange unhappiness represented the cusp of a new problem: The Voice was taking on the characteristics of its host.
This unsettling anger and spite – it came not from the Voice's own emotions, but from the girl's.
This knowledge only fueled the new rage contained in the Voice. This girl, this mere female human had tainted it with negative emotions – had practically changed the character of its entire consciousness.
How dare she.
And with that, the Voice had a new goal.
Gone were the days of wanting nothing more than a host to call its own – no, now the Voice hungered only for the suffering of this girl, this Maximum Ride, who had dared to poison it with insufferable human negativity.
And the Voice had a plan.
It began to infect the ones closest to the girl – the young telepath was first, and the Voice used the child's ability to further along its efforts. Slowly, one by one, each member of what they called a 'Flock' (though it had no idea why they would call it a flock when they clearly did not follow a bird-like pattern) now harbored a piece of the Voice. It was still one consciousness, to be sure, but now in many host bodies. It was a useful and cunning ability, if it did say so itself.
And then the Voice discovered a true travesty.
Humanity was flawed.
Not only was this Maximum Ride child full to the brim with hatred, it seemed the rest of humankind bore animosity to practically anything – be it inanimate or another of its kind, at least one human was sure to hate it.
How disgusting.
The Voice would be tainted by this soon enough if it continued to spread, and adding more hatred to what it had already accumulated from the Flock would be detrimental to its growth.
New plan.
The Voice would destroy the more useless part of the Homo Sapiens population, and thus ensure the survival of the few that were fit to serve as hosts.
Only the most intelligent should be allowed to live on – survival of the fittest.
And so the Voice rooted this plan deep in the mind of the Director, who it'd managed to infect through a chance meeting with one of the whitecoat hosts. A lucky break, in human terms.
Chance, luck, fate. That didn't matter. What did matter was the execution of the Voice's plans.
It had been so close. So very, very close – tantalizing, almost, if the Voice could ever comprehend the implications of the description.
But it failed nevertheless.
All because of the thrice-accursed Maximum Ride girl.
The Voice supposed part of the blame lay on itself. After all, it had guided the girl to Germany, but only because the girl was still a primary host and its hold on the Director was slipping and it needed to regain that control. The fact that another primary host was so close was almost a comfort, as well.
At least, it was until that fool had tried to make the Maximum Ride girl that he – her father – was the true identity of the guiding voice in her head.
Needless to say, the Voice had been very displeased. And furious. And vengeful.
The stupid human, trying to take up the Voice's mantle? How dare he.
Jeb had been soundly punished for that stunt.
Fools and maniacs and problem-children aside, the Voice's plan had still failed.
So it moved on. While the Maximum girl had been busying herself trying to stop some silly thing or another, the Voice was planning a new idea, one that it had happened upon by chance in one of its hosts minds.
Humans were destructive.
Why not put that to use?
Let them destroy themselves.
The Voice was pleased with this. It would hang back, pull a few strings, let some things fall into place, and the humans would destroy each other without a second thought.
Really, if the Voice didn't hate these humans so much, it would have found their usefulness endearing – despite the fact that they lacked a certain…finesse in giving names.
Doomsday Group? Come, now. Even the Voice could appreciate a bit of snide truthfulness, but this was too much.
Unfortunately, it had neither the time nor patience to deal with such a trivial matter, and the name would stay.
Nevertheless, the group progressed quickly, and the Voice was presented with a slew of new hosts. This new round of control was…exhilarating. The Voice could do so much more now; the groups could accomplish monumental tasks in days, when it would have taken a single host to do the same in weeks. So much progress.
And then the Maximum Ride girl interfered yet again. It infuriated the Voice to no end – and it could do nothing about it. The only reason the Voice hadn't had her killed off was the fact that she was its true primary host – the container for the brains behind the operation, using human slang.
It had tried to steer the girl off course, throw distractions in her path to slow her down – like that other boy in the group, the one that reciprocated the feelings she felt for him. The Voice had been so sure the 'dooming prophecy' it had given the telepath would at least slow the Flock down, but no such luck.
More the pity. It supposed it would have to kill the entire Flock now.
So it kept up preparations, and watched as the Maximum Ride girl broke down its plans again. She stopped the bomb, stopped the group, managed to shake them from the Voice's control, though she knew not what she did.
That was it. The Voice had had enough.
It used one final push to force the telepath's brother to falter with the last bomb, to make sure that the telepath appeared to be caught in the blast, to make the remnants of its group take the child and make it seem like the girl was well and truly gone.
The effect was what it'd hoped for.
The Maximum Ride girl broke. The loss of the brat seemed to affect her greatly, leaving her ripped open and bleeding like a fresh wound. She wept and cried and searched. Her spirit was falling to pieces with each passing day.
The Voice was satisfied at her pain. At least, for now…
But it was far from finished. This Maximum Ride girl had torn away its few chances to have anything resembling a life.
She had poisoned it with human hatred, and made the Voice into something that now craved that fury and hated itself for it.
No, this was most definitely not over.
Not yet, at least.
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