Have you ever wondered how the world began? Geologists say the "Big Bang". Religious associations say "God's creation". In either case, the theories have flaws. The ideas human minds have developed to just rid the mysteriousness of the past they forgot. In truth, we have lived a thousand times, and if I have anything to do with it, we shall live a thousand more.
All to no avail, most of man-kind will forget the life they had before, as well as their mistakes. Man caused the demise of the world, only to be given a gift of a new world, that they will tarnish and burn, all to start over again. Who decides to start the world over? Who is chosen to make the call to end all life, only to have it be born from the ashes once again? Who remembers how, time after time, to reset the world? Well, I know the truth, because I was chosen to remember.
No matter how many lives that I live to the end, I shall never forget. No matter how many mistakes I make, I will never regret. I am a human, but one who has seen the world decay a thousand times, from the eyes of nature itself. Through the eyes of it's inhabitants, as they have been watching and living alongside the world since time itself began. We bend the will of the Earth itself to defeat the force trying to take over in order to maintain balance. Eon after Eon, we have been there, changing the world in protection of the Natural world from the dominating life form of the time.
There have been 5 major instances where we have been called to action. Each one, leaves a mark on the life force of the Earth. Each a severe drop in total amount of creatures on Earth. First call sounded in the late Ordovician period, the third largest impact on the total balance of life on Earth. The creatures in the depths of the oceans were attempting an over-taking of the land species, by altering the natural flow of forces. Simply changing the currents of the Earth, can send the temperatures and environments into a tailspin. The plan of the Neptune's Rebels began to take effect, the world began to cool rapidly, causing land life to die off. That is when we were assembled, the strongest of us were called together. We combined our efforts in one massive movement. Our heroic leader made a plan to move the continents, to form Gondwana, the largest super-continent, second only to Pangea. With the large land mass, the land didn't cool as quickly, due to the low surface area meeting the ocean, thwarting the Neptune's Rebels plans. Gondwana's formation had a major side effect. It cooled the oceans massively, causing major deaths of the Rebels. Our first mission, and we succeeded to prevent one race dominating the other.
The second uprising occur ed during the end of the Devonian period. Neptune's Rebels attempted another rebellion. This one wasn't nearly as planned out as their first had been. We easily overtook them and decimated their numbers by 70%. We withheld decimating them further than we needed to.
The third call was sent out during the Permian Period. Neptune's Rebels learned their lesson from their failures. Neptune's Rebels made an alliance with the Terrestrial Foundation. This formed the largest uprising ever witnessed. With the land and oceans being hostile territory, it was hard to keep record of any development, or get any real plans transferred from one point to another. Here is where even the current human technology and knowledge can't come up with reasoning as to what happened. I was there, so I know what happened. To us, it's called "The Lost Mission". It was the most desperate plan we have ever attempted. It was so risky, that we didn't keep a written record, in fear of the enemy coming into possession of it, and thwarting our job. Many plans were believed to have played out in response to the coalition of ocean and land life. It may have been the combination of these plans that resulted in our victory. For the fallen, a hole was blown in their populations. Our plans hit the headquarters of the Terrestrial Foundation, and killed off 70% of them. We also managed to strike the Neptune's Rebel's multitude of bases causing extreme casualties. Up to 96% perished due to their attempts to start genocide. The remaining members of each group surrendered and were spared. This impact on the world sent a message that the natural forces are not to be fought, but befriended.
The fourth call came in the late Triassic period. This was where the organization of the beings on Earth became more advanced. The enemy mixed in with the ally, making it difficult to determine who was a friend or foe. Just as in the Permian period, we used many different plans to defeat the uprising. As in the first mission, we willed the Earth to change temperature, to heat up instead of cool down. Volcanic eruptions heated the Earth, causing a large fraction of the enemy to kneel. It is unknown as to exactly how many of the enemy fell due to deception amongst even the allies. Regardless, it was a chaotic take down, and one of the smallest. This was a very minor mission, but one that was needed none the less.
The most recent mission was ordered upon us in the late Cretaceous period. This age was the shining example of evolution at work. Dinosaurs were beginning to grow feathers and take flight as birds. Or was this change a new form of defense. The uprising consisted of dinosaurs, trying to dominate the Earth because of their size. However, that would be their downfall. We felt helpless due to the size of the beings we were fighting off. This time, they were large, and there was so few of us. We didn't take action, but simply prayed to find a result. Our leader had a vision during his sleep one night. Nothing on Earth would save us, but something from the outer space would. So, we prayed for the Universe to send us a weapon to use to defeat them. We knew we were heard, when we felt meteors raining down and striking down the enemy, but leaving our kind untouched. The meteors brought great joy to our kind. We knew that we were being compensated for our efforts of the past, and when we needed assistance, our deeds were repaid. The dinosaurs that had no developed feathers were defeated in mass numbers. For the first time, the plant life was also affected in a major way.
In each of these missions, the population seriously declined. However, after death, life can always shine through. Over time, the populations increased, bringing about newer and further evolved populations. Many of our kind died as well in the efforts of saving the world we were entrusted to protect. When someone passes away, they are reborn somewhere on Earth immediately, forever becoming a normal being on Earth, forever.
If you stay alive, your memories survive, and you still serve the Earth. As time goes on, the lifeforms present on Earth changes. Our old forms don't serve as a protection from our limitless lifetimes. Thus, we go through a transformation known as "The Shrouding Metamorphosis". This change alters our form to match that of what we will it to be. I have gone through so many, I forget what I began as. The ones I do remember were a Triceratops, a Saber-toothed Tiger, an ancient crocodillian as well as various mammals and birds. However, these beings aren't going to work in the current world. Our leader's brilliance came up with the perfect camouflage.
"You need to become the enemy in order to be free from the effects of them. They protect their own. So, use their protection for our own gain."
That was the wisdom of our leader. I looked up to him immensely. He was always so strong, confident, wise, and not to mention he is the best fighter among all of us. "The Divination", or the silent voice of Nature, speaks to him in the form of visions. He is linked to Nature directly. One day he had a vision of tree fading as time went on. Two legged beasts were tearing them down. This suggested that these beings would soon evolve, and begin to take over. In that vision, he learned that The Divination is sick and can no longer speak with him, or assist us when we will it. That is when we realized we would need to fight with our bodies, and not our minds.
Thus, that is how we managed to transform into the "human race", disguise ourselves amongst the enemy. Our leader received a message that Nature would grant each currently surviving member a new strength; two forms. We could now transform into our "Primitive Form" and our "Camouflage Forms" at will. We were each to choose an animal to switch between when we see fit. I chose the Tiger. Our leader chose the Wolf. At first, the humans worked with nature. There were bands of the humans early in their history, that they respected nature and worked alongside it. We worked with those beings. We are immortalized as gods in their folktales and anecdotes. Our numbers managed to spread across the globe, infiltrated governments and established powerful niches in the human society. We were watching the humans, behind their own lines of defense.
Recently, we have seen their world decline rapidly. They were killing the land itself, not just the animals living on it. They erected factories, and automobiles. Over time, human populations became concentrated into cities, life has ceased to exist in mass numbers across the globe. Now there are pods of life, massive cities sitting on the empty landscape. The land between the cities was ravaged by the hand of man. War torn land speckled with craters, or land so dry and desolate of nutrients. Man has brought the land to it's knees and now they are trying to survive on the smallest bits of land left profitable. I have seen it happen, I have lived it all.
The worst threat to us, is our own kind. If one of us tells the non-chosen about their duty, the world would turn to disarray. If normal beings knew about our pending choice of killing everyone in the world, we would be hunted to extinction. That is exactly what has begun to happen. Information leaked of our existence, and our numbers are severely declining. So, we have been meeting together again, to form clans, in order to protect ourselves. I am currently in the clan with our leader. I am glad to be fighting at his side. He is my inspiration. This is why, I am telling his story, as he witnessed it. This is how we fought to survive. This is how we fought for the land itself.
I am Nature. I am the World. I am an Ally. I am an Enemy. I am an animal. I am a human.
I am one of the Paladins of Rapture's Cosmos.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
If you made it this far, I commend you. What you have just read doesn't seem quite like the "Wolf's Rain" right now. It does seem like it is a lot of historical junk, but it merely catches you up on things upfront instead of throughout the story. It also just catches the reader up on the history of this group; "The Paladin's of Rapture's Cosmos". I liked the fact in Wolf's Rain that animals are disguised as humans. The lynx creature in the series made me think of how many other animals could be disguised as humans as well. So, this fan-fiction came to be. Now, if you have any questions, feel free to message me about them. I'll try answer you as best as possible.
Stay tuned.
|Darkus|