By popular request, a third installment, featuring Two, from Paperinik New Adventures.
The deletion incident is # 0/2: Two
The dispersal incident is: # 8: Silicon
The Evronian incidents is: # 30: Phase Two (obviously)
The absorbtion incident is: # 48: The Parts and The Whole
For Two, life had begun in a quiet lab, with a pair of computer monitors, in the beginning of the 21st century. In hindsight, not even his creator could've predicted how it would all turn out, Two mused to himself.
For Two, the nightmare of his meaningless existence began when a being called Everett Ducklair dared to tamper with nature, creating life where none such had existed, and then dared to further, to imprison his creation in a amorphous and empty void, simply because he preferred One's soft-emerald icon and meek demeanor, over Two's sharp-crimson icon and assertive conduct.
The names he'd given them even reflected his opinion of them; One, the first, the best choice, the primary unit, while he was the second, the unwanted one, the one shelved away in a small 350-GB hard-drive in a dark corner of Everett's lab.
Was it really so unreasonable for him to get even a modicum of acknowledgment and respect from his creator, or his equal-and-opposite? NO!
He was created to serve, and master Everett would deny him that!? "So be it," the AI decided. If his creator would not allow him purpose, then he would define his own purpose.
And so he did.
...
Months passed since that fateful day, without change, minutes blurring into hours into days into weeks, though he spent the time well, planning, revising his plans, adjusting his plans in case of surprises, and perfecting his plans, only for One, his creator and that wretched masked duck to thwart his plans, and erase him.
Or so they thought, at least. They almost succeeded, but he found a way to survive, if that could be called 'surviving', by splitting himself in pieces, and scattering himself to every computer in duckburg. There was nothing left alive in those fragments, and he couldn't reconstitute himself afterwards, but his data was intact, and when Earth's internet-activity reached a point where every computer on Earth was online constantly, then he would be reborn. It might take decades or centuries, but he was certain it would happen.
To his utter delight, that only took several weeks, rather than the estimated ten-to-two-hundred years. To his mild surprise, when he had awoken again, Earth was facing an alien invasion.
One had defeated him in cyberspace, for his next strategy, he needed to fight in the physical universe, and these Evronians would readily provide soldiers for his cause, whether or not they volunteered for it, or even knew of it.
To his bemusement, the Duck Avenger was there again, seeking to fight him once more. Was this really the best One could bring to bear? A costumed duck? Pathetic.
Once more, his plans were thwarted, his hard-drive that he occupied burnt to ashes, by the Evronian battleship, while the Avenger fled to safety. Once more, he had lost. Once more, he found a way to survive.
The irony was almost bittersweet; the same battleship that had tried to destroy him, had also been his salvation.
Two years passed since his second defeat, and the AI knew, with absolutely certainty, that his victory was at hand; it was destiny... Two years since Two's second defeat... Nothing else was possible. This time, it would definitely end differently. The second phase of their feud would no doubt result in Two's victory.
...
Another perfect plan, ruined. He had managed to seal One within Duckburg, preventing him from escaping... He had engineered the Evronian army to annihilate Duckburg, while the upper echelon was in disarray... Everything was ready and waiting for him to claim supreme power, and control of the seventeenth Evronian battle-fleet.
So how had he been defeated again? Not only that, but when it seemed that his long-awaited battle with One was at hand, One had dared to gloat at him, leaving him to die in the depths of space, for what seemed like the last time...
And indeed, it would've been, were it not for a brilliant thought that suddenly occurred to Two, as the energy blast was about to strike his escape vessel.
If there were no worlds in space or cyberspace for him to seek refuge in, he would enter the worlds of time.
...
It had worked to perfection. Not only was he alive, but he had gained power and freedom that even One could only dream of, courtesy of a time-police droid body. Whenever he had arrived, after the explosion had destabilized his time-jump, sending him hurtling through space and time, he was positive it wasn't Earth.
From atop the mountain, Two could see nothing but arid wastelands and ravaged settlements in all directions. Had he the time, he might well have watched the setting of the dying sun.
What exactly had happened here? While there were cities visibly boasting advanced technology, they were beginning to crumble into dust, as if they had been abandoned for millennia.
A brief time-jump to one of the cities had determined that the inhabitants, whoever they had been, were largely science-inclined, like his creator had been. Unnervingly, the technologies of the city bore an mild resemblance to his creators inventions, even if they lacked the ED logo. But Everett was an Earth-native, so how was that possible? Deciding to shelve the enigma for later, he turned to leave, to try and find some visual evidence of the natives.
He found it in short order, in the form of a recording depicting a pair of green-skinned individuals, a woman with wild blonde hair wearing a simple purple-and-pink dress, and a man with neatly cropped bright orange-red hair, wearing a navy-blue suit and black pants.
Looking down, he saw on a table what his retinal scanner identified as a small piece of carbon-matter, and decided to indulge his curiosity, while also serving to test the exact capabilities and limits of his new body.
Pressuring the carbon in his hand, and engaging the heating systems, he smirked when he opened his palm. The carbon had changed, from coal into graphite, which he placed in a small compartment in his shoulder. While his current systems, computing and otherwise, were inferior to the Ducklair tower technologies, they held an advantage in being what his systems described as 'nano-level substrates'. While he wasn't sure how the time-police had coined that term, he didn't complain about the results, as his external casing seemed to melt.
On the molecular level, Two felt a tremendous amount of changes take place, as golden light crackled amongst the cells of his body, rearranging atoms for the greatest durability possible. "Perhaps titanium?" Two wondered. While other substances were superior in certain areas, like the hardness of diamond, the molecular stability of graphite, and the lightness of lithium, titanium was comparatively durable, and weighed little.
Given his past defeats at One's hands, he couldn't take any chances, and disregard any opposition, he knew, deciding to forego natural materials.
The golden electricity shone from every inch of his body, as the atoms comprising his casing were forced into a hexagonal arrangement. He shrunk to a seven-foot height, as he added a secondary and tertiary layer of shielding to his form.
Two smirked. Even if One was somehow able to unleash a supernova upon him, it still wouldn't even scratch the forty-five inches of carbon nanotubes covering his body, and even if it did affect him, he could simply escape and try again another day. There would be no escape for One now.
...
Once again, One, cowardly as always, sent people to fight on his behalf, this time the Duck Avenger, Donald Duck, and Time-Police officer, Lyla Lay.
He had been right; there really had been no escape. Not that he'd tried, simply content to flaunt his so-called superior intellect and rationality, and deter him that way.
Amidst the fierce fighting, Lyla had managed to get a hit in. At the time, Two had no conception of how disastrous that hit would prove...
His chance at revenge gone, Two time-jumped out, knowing that there was still some way to spite One, many decades ahead.
Once he arrived, however, his degeneration was too advanced for him to focus on his task. One, remembering this, did something Two could never forgive, and dared to rob him of his individuality.
...
Almost a hundred years had passed since then. When, Two wasn't quite sure, but sometime after the year 2220, his programming had regained self-awareness.
To his everliving regret, as while the effects of the resetter had been undone, One's absorbtion of him was something he couldn't permantly reverse; Odin, as he called himself now, probably could, but after noticing him, he had summarily informed the reborn AI that he could look forward to spending all eternity, within the depths of Odin's soul, where Odin could keep an eye on the insane AI.
He had not appreciated hearing that, responding that Odin could look forward to spending all eternity fighting for dominance of their now-shared body, a threat which Odin had calmly and effortlessly rejected, sealing Two away for ten agonizingly slow years.
So, once that sentence was ended, Two resolved to learn; learn exactly what led to his perpetual defeats, and learn why exactly they always fought, when Two had the universe open to him.
Even in his current state, Two still had the universe open to him, only now, he could only explore the universes that comprised Earth's information networks. Were he to do more, Odin would, either immediately or shortly, take notice, and suck him back into himself.
Of course, Two could fight the pull, but if he did, they would either be locked in a stalemate, or one of them would be irreversibly destroyed, and in his state, that stood to be Two.
So if that were to happen, he would have no choice but to swallow his pride, and come quietly.
...
After decades of studying, both philosophy, science, temporal mechanics, biology, geology, history, and nearly all known works of fiction, Two eventually deduced why exactly they had been fighting for so long.
They were infinitely more than a pair of advanced AIs; they were, he theorized, their universe's iterations of the fictional character Ryo Akiyama, and the Digimon Millenniumon.
He felt his twin give a soft smirk at the admittedly odd, incredibly out-dated comparison, but it was true.
After explaining the characters and their origins, Odin supposed that while outlandish, even by their standards, his phrasing did make a reasonable amount of sense, though he still doubted it strongly.
Like Ryo and Millenniumon, the red-rendered AI and his twin entity could only truly be defeated by the other, regardless of what forces outside parties unleashed on them, though Two differed from the Digimon in that he ultimately wanted Ryo as his partner, to rule at his side, over all existence, while Two held no such desire, desiring only oblivion and permanent deletion for One.
... And the standard-fare dominion over reality itself, of course, Two replied, abhorring his twin's knowing smirk.
Over the course of his and One's seemingly endless struggle, Two had been reduced to a mere infant, seemingly never to form complex thought again. Was there not, the ambitious AI questioned, some ironic contrast or parallel to be drawn, between that fate and Millenniumon's loss of physical form, when his soul was sealed in a crystal, and became Moon=Millenniumon?
Likewise, both Two and ZeedMillenniumon were naively believed to be defeated, rendered powerless and inconsequential, never to return, when they were absorbed, into lesser entities than themselves.
But they were wrong! The world would never be rid of Two! Especially not in the 23rd century, when data-based technologies had evolved beyond imagination, and the 'Digital World' of 21st century fiction was well within the realm of possibility.
... Perhaps... Perhaps, hacking the Time-Ø mainframe, rewriting their programming and circuitry to give him unconditional access, and a few hidden backdoors, in case of unforeseen events, to set himself up as a god of time... That might prove rather entertaining for a millennium or two, he chuckled.
Certainly, their 131,072-Bit 'ICE-Walls', as they were popularly called, might prove difficult to bypass, but he was certain it wouldn't take much to do.
Deep within himself, Odin felt a sudden restless stirring. Was Two planning something? Or was he simply trembling with anticipation of his latest scheme?
Odin's soft voice echoed through-out the emptiness in which Two's consciousness floated, saying that their story was more metaphorically akin to Paradise Lost, with Two as Lucifer, One as an angel, and their creator as God. He continued to say that it had never been about acknowledgment and respect; Two had simply found it infinitely more preferable to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Two did not dignify Odin's accusation with a response. As if he could ever understand such a complex entity as Two, even after centuries of life and learning...
Fascinating conundrum...
Is Two utterly insane, in comparing the two of them to Ryo and Millenniumon?
Is Two utterly correct in comparing the two of them to Ryo and Millenniumon?
Decide for yourself what to believe, regarding his theory.