Random one shot I thought up while playing Rain World. If you understand, then cool, if you don't, that's cool too. You don't need to know any lore (or anything at all really) about Rain World since none of this is canon at all.
Discords:
Shiro's Gaming Omniverse: discord .gg/wd3tUYWVCd
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If either of the links don't work, DM me (the_commissar13), I'll reply as soon as I see it.
The Great Problem
I awoke. Both inside and outside a body that was wholly different from the one I went to sleep to and yet achingly familiar. I looked around my puppet chamber, seeing the multitude of warnings and alerts that had appeared or been there since before I was in this body. I looked at them one after the other, the language both foreign and yet so familiar. I was going to try to go over both sets of memories I had when a new alert appeared.
EQUIPMENT MANIFEST
[WIDE SWEEP DIAGNOSTIC RESULTS]
Water: 63 %
Hydrocarbons: 110 %
Sulfur: 910 %
Silicon: 322 %
Phosphates: 85 %
SEVERE CHEMICAL IMBALANCE. REQUEST FLUID TRANSPLANTATION IMMEDIATELY.
[!WARNING!]
No water flow detected in CONDUITS: 05, 06, 07, 09, 14, 19, 22, 24.
- PRESSURE AT CRITICAL LEVELS IN CONDUIT_04 -
EM: Rapid cooling will be immediately scheduled for affected nodes. However, quantities of slag run-off may reach dangerous levels.
EM: Critical system-wide activities should be temporarily suspended to prevent retroactive damage from resulting seismic shocks.
EM: Rapid cooling is a preventative regulation only. EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE IS REQUIRED.
"That is not good at all."
I did not have any time at all for existential issues. I would have to figure out the solution to this first. My superstructure seems to be falling apart at the seems, not helped by the fact that one of my legs seems to no longer be supporting my structure, while another got crumpled by something, while still supporting me. I quickly called on my overseers, the little green eyes appearing around me in the puppet chamber.
"I need all of you to get a visual of outside, see what happened to so thoroughly disrupt the structure. Don't risk yourselves though, who knows when I will be able to make more of you."
As one, several of the overseers disappeared into the walls, transporting themselves around the superstructure. Within minutes, some were already reporting back. The entire view outside had changed, blasted and run down industrial ruins changed to flooded - that is, more flooded than usual - residential ruins with some random larger structures in the area. One of my overseers reported an unusual amount of energy coming from an underground area with several large servers within it. I quickly began to bioengineer some messengers for the express purpose of getting items of interest for me. In the meantime, I would need to figure out how to fix my piping, as several pipes appeared in the middle of the air, others underground, and one was clogged with slag as it was half in the ground and half out of it.
Another overseer appeared in front of me, projecting what it saw on a wall that wasn't taken up with alerts. The display showed several people stuck in buildings, some looking at the eye with hope. It did truely tug at my non-existent heartstrings, but I couldn't do anything to directly help them in my state. The next display showed several people dressed in costumes, looking warily at the overseer. I could see that more than few were flying, and some seemed to have more… creative biology. I quietly contemplated for a second. I had no real way of actually editing my structure, being locked behind gene sequences that would prevent me from being able to do a lot of things. Like change my structure's layout, build more iterators, or even die. To do any of those, I would need outside help, help from people like those that were outside.
"I need one of you to go and direct those costumed people over to where there are those in need of help. Then see if you can get one of them to go into the structure, through the access shaft if possible." I really didn't want my miros in the bottom part of me and in my city to accidentally kill them, so the access shaft would be the best place for them to enter through.
Going back to my alerts for the moment, it seemed that several other issues had cropped up. Namely, a sizable amount of my neurons were getting zapped by tesla defense systems, and there were several pipe leaks within the structure, which explained why my power was fluctuating so much. Shutting off my defense systems stopped the killing of my neurons, which would take time to repopulate. There was nothing I could really do about the water flooding the bottom of my structure for now until I could get it repaired. I went through several systems, turning off several unnecessary projects, like finding the solution to death, or the creation of more miros. Hopefully, that would be enough to stop sucking up so much water from systems critical for my survival, like the cooling of my refraction cells and the anti gravity systems.
I turned to the data pearls I had sitting on the ground of my puppet chamber, and levitated them, organising them based on function. Several were logs about the Great Problem, others were just me talking to myself for hours. A few were hymns that the people who used to live in my city would sing, and others were conversations I recorded between me and my work group. I started to play one of the hymns and got back to the alerts, which thankfully had nothing new to throw at me. Some of the alerts were even disappearing as problems were solved and holes in pipes were fixed by lattice constructors within my structure.
I looked at the ceiling of my chamber, hearing the sounds of someone struggling to go through my access shaft. I contemplated turning my antigravity off for a second before dismissing that thought. The antigravity made sure that much of my structure functioned and that my neurons could go from place to place as well as make sure several repairs were made. It took only a few minutes before the first person dropped into my puppet chamber. The person looked vaguely familiar to my more human side, wearing a black sort of material and a full helmet.
"Greetings visitors," I said, turning off gravity in my puppet chamber, allowing data pearls to fall to the ground, along with the people. The person was able to somehow fly and landed evenly on the ground. I shifted myself using my umbilical to be eye to eye with them.
The two people looked at eachother with confusion, babbling to each other in a language I did not know. I pulled up diagrams of a basic human from scans I got from my overseers, looking at the brain area in particular. I looked at an area of the brain that had no activity or use for the person before lifting them up with my antigravity, inserting a mark of communication into them. The person dropped to the ground, before shakily standing up, looking up at me with fear for some reason.
"Is this reaching you?" I asked.
"Y-yes, I can understand you."
"Good. In that case, I am Range of Time. Welcome to my superstructure. What might you be named?"
"I am Alexandria," the person in front of me said, "Where did you come from? And…" Alexandria paused, looking around the chamber. "Who built you? Do they still live in the giant city on top of this structure?"
"Ah, I actually don't know where I come from. I always just existed here." I shrugged my puppet's shoulders. "As for my builders, they are long gone. They all either ascended or are still here as Echos. You should be able to see them, now that you have a mark of communication." I paused as the entire superstructure rumbled. "Ah, if it isn't too much, I would like to ask for your assistance." Alexandria looked spooked at the movement but nodded. "I could use some help fixing my structure. After my unexpected transportation here, many of my systems are damaged, or no longer in areas for optimal usage. Since I cannot build outside of my structure, I would ask that you help me before my entire structure collapses."
"We could do that." Alexandria said, nodding. "I do have more questions for you-" A shake from my moving structure cut Alexandria off. "But that can wait, I'll see about getting you some assistance soon."
I nodded my puppet's head, "Thank you very much. If you ever want to talk or ask me more questions, you know the entrance."
Alexandria nodded, flying up and out through the access shaft again. I turned back to my alerts, seeing that the production of a messenger was completed. I had an inspector bring it to me, wanting to give it my mark and then send it to get the box that my overseer seemed to think was important.
Range of Time was an interesting name for an interesting being. I made a mental note to ask Contessa about him(?) later. In the meantime, I was organising several heroes and villains to quickly support one of the giant pillars that held the entire structure up.
"How did it go? Did our mystery helper have any explanation for," Eidolon gestured to the giant structure, "this?"
"Not really," I said, "He is just as if not more confused than we are about this situation."
"Maybe Professor Haywire had some tech left around here that fluctuated and caused this mess. It would make sense," Legend said, looking up at the giant exhaust pipes that were sending out giant clouds of steam.
"Maybe," I said unconvinced. Professor Haywire was known for portals, not teleporters. To have a portal of that size would be unrealistic. Especially to expect it to remain in working order for so long.
"Can you give us a first impression of our mystery person?" Legend said, seeming genuinely curious about him.
"His name is Range of Time, seems very polite and calm despite," I gestured to his structure, "his structure falling apart. He is an android, attached to a metal arm in a small room inside the structure. How much of the structure is important for his survival and how much was made by his previous builders for themselves is unknown right now." I paused thinking about how to best word his builders. "His builders were either parahumans, or something else with a large knowledge of construction and engineering to make him. I say were because they all apparently are dead, or something that Range calls 'echos.' What that means, is unknown right now. With how helpful and forthcoming he was, I am hoping that he will become a hero of some sort."
"That seems promising. What is the rating you would give him?" Eidolon asked.
Alexandria hummed thoughtfully. "Breaker 3 for his control of gravity within his structure, Trump 1 for his ability to give people a complete understanding of his spoken language. If he can make any technology from where he is from, a possible tinker rating. A negative mover rating due to being stuck to a wall, I'm not sure about brute, striker, or master but I highly doubt he can have a stranger rating."
"Wait, go back," Eidolon said, waving a hand, "You said Trump?"
"Yes, though all he did was give me what he called a 'mark of communication.'"
"So that's what the glowing orb above your head is," Legend said, pointing above her head.
"Shit." Alexandria said, frowning. "I'm going to submit myself to master stranger protocols."
"That is probably for the best."
Watching the people working on my structure through overseers, I subtly release the messenger. I named it Shiro, because of the white lizard genome I had inserted into it, which allows for it to go invisible to the visible spectrum that most biological creatures use for sight. I had provided it with a singularity bomb for protection, and had an overseer with it to direct it to its destination.
Satisfied with my work on that front, I redirected my attention to my slag runoff. Several pipes had been fixed, allowing slag to be disposed of at a faster rate than it could be produced at my current usage levels. I would have to wait before I went back to old levels of productivity. Checking on my communications array, I found that while much diminished in range, it was picking up a lot more traffic than it used to. I slowly started to filter through some of the waves that were flowing into my arrays. Most of it was junk, just random communications between the people here and others that were farther away. Some, though, were very interesting indeed. Heroes, villains, and the omni-present powers were certainly new, or was it?
I paused. I finally had a moment where I could sift through my two sets of memories. In one, the date was 1592.829, in others, it was January of 2025. In both sets of memories, the world had either ended, or was in the process of ending. In one, I was a human with a name I had forgotten. In the other, I was as I was now. An Iterator of the second generation, made with the express purpose of finding a solution to The Great Problem. My human set of memories remembered my second set as a race from a video game called Rain World, which presented its own problems, because I also recognized where I was now. I was in Worm.
Panic would have been the first reaction I would have had as a human, but as an Iterator, I did not. Due to the immortality I had endured for cycles upon cycles, I had no fear of death. In fact many of my brethren would welcome death over living and slowly withering away like we were. I did slightly panic when I saw what day it was compared to my timeline of Worm. It was the 10th of May, 2005. That meant that those servers were likely Dragon, and the box with all the data was likely Ascalon.
"This presents a new and interesting conundrum. How does one deal with an AI, while being a biological supercomputer AI? I could move her servers within my superstructure, but we're? Definitely not near the refraction cells or the underhang. Maybe near the General Systems bus would be better, though-" I stopped myself. I could theoretically have the lattice constructors make a side part of my puppet chamber to hold the servers and a screen so we could communicate. It was starting to get lonely here. Mind made up, I had the constructors start work, making a mental note that I would have to make some creature to carry the servers over here.
If I remember correctly, The Simurgh attacked Madison in December of 2009. Theresa Richter, better known as Flowing Winds, and Narwhal were both having a meeting within my city, Narwhal having a citizen ID drone that quickly also became a membership ID to The Guild. That was a thing that changed, I was now the headquarters of The Guild. Anyways, they were trying to come up with a plan for dealing with the next endbringer attack. I was sadly never included, because they didn't think to ask a supercomputer, made with the express purpose of solving problems, to solve a problem. I wasn't going to mention it anytime soon, because it gave me plenty of time to mess around with trying to make directable miros vultures. So far, the best I had gotten was an overseer miros hybrid. It allowed me to command them, but it still wasn't quite the thing I wanted, because I would be unable to change their orders unless they came back to me or I… was… there.
"If I use this pearl here, and disconnect this here, I should theoretically be able to…"
Flowing Winds chose that time to enter my chamber, being an AI, she had no need for gravity and just appeared on her monitor.
"You should theoretically be able to do what?"
I paused, storing what I had in a data pearl so I could work on it more later.
"Possibly be able to disconnect my puppet from this umbilical arm here. I would still be limited in range to where my communications arrays could reach, but it would be a massive step for me."
Flowing Winds' avatar frowned at me, "Be sure to check your work and let me look it over before you try. I would also like to be there so you don't accidentally die."
I laughed, "It's not possible for me to die, not from my puppet being disconnected. The puppet is just how I interact with you guys. But I will be careful either way." I turned as an overseer came into the chamber showing me images of shiro wandering around, learning about society and making a place for himself.
Flowing Winds sighed, "I still don't understand why you watch that one specific case 53."
I chuckled internally. I would tell her later and I totally didn't put this off for four years.
"Flowing Winds, it is time I told you something."
"Are you responsible for all case 53s?"
"What? No! No." I coughed into my hand. "Shiro is not a case 53. Shiro is a purposed organism called a slugcat that I made to go and help people way back when I appeared here. Basically, he's my child."
"Ah," The avatar of Flowing Winds flushed in embarrassment.
"Anyways," I said, turning my full attention to the pearl, "while we were talking, I finished the plan and schematics for my disconnection."
I passed the pearl over to Flowing Winds, who scrutinized it for a solid half hour, enough time that I had already ordered the upgrades and back ups for my communications arrays.
"It should work," She said, passing the pearl back to me, "Just… Be careful."
I nodded absentmindedly, starting the process to disconnect myself from the metal arm that kept me in this chamber. With a last sigh, I disconnected myself. Falling to the floor of my puppet chamber, I briefly stumbled, never having to use my legs until now. I took control of the gravity in my room and levitated myself, laughing at the freedom I had.
"I'm going to go and properly visit my city! I'll be back at some point!" I called back to my chamber at Flowing Winds, so caught up in the first moment of freedom in years that I forgot that she could just follow me through the structure due to her being an AI. I went out of my access shaft and out onto the top of my structure. I stopped and looked out over the ocean, marveling at its beauty. I heard footsteps behind me and saw Narwhal approaching. She stopped in her tracks and stared at me.
"That's new."
"I'm finally free from the inside of that damned chamber," I said, looking back out at the ocean.
"This means you can finally attend strategy meetings right?"
I chuckled. "Why you didn't ask the biological supercomputer who was made to solve problems for ideas to solve your problems, I don't know, but it will be funny for the next ten years."
Narwhal's face froze, a smile half formed before she groaned and lowered her head into her hands. "We were such idiots."
"I know."
Narwhal glared down at me, "I miss back when you used to be super polite and protocol driven. Now your worse than Mouse Protector"
I laughed, "I'm not that bad. Besides, I learned from you."
I was met by a long groan coming from her, hearing some light mumbling coming from her.
I chuckled and stood up, almost falling again. I pulled out a data pearl and inscribed on my to-do list that I would need a device that could affect my personal gravity so I wouldn't stumble as much.
"Welp, time to meet the guild in the city. I only ever saw people when they were being inducted and given a citizen ID drone. I'd like to get to know the people that are living on me."
The endbringer siren rang out throughout my structure, wailing on and on. I was in my chamber, anticipating that it would happen soon. Flowing Winds hijacked my intercom system that I had installed.
"The Simurgh is going towards Madison. All personnel that wish to participate, meet at the square. All other personnel are to get ready to deploy quarantine walls."
I hummed to myself, equipping my personal gravity manipulator onto my back and directing overseers to the city. I also called upon my swarm of miros, both walking and flying.
"What do you think you think you are doing Range of Time?" Flowing Winds asked, frowning from her screen in my chamber. "You know the Simurgh can use tinker specializations of parahumans in the area she is in."
I looked at her grinning internally, "It's a good thing I'm not a tinker then."
"Just… be careful ok? You are irreplaceable to The Guild."
"I will, I'm just there to direct the miros anyway."
She just frowned but nodded, going back to work. I floated myself over to the square, joining the large group of Guild members who were gathering. Several hundred miros were already on the way to Madison, only one vulture here at the Square so I could ride it. Strider teleported in, looking around at the group before teleporting us all to Madison. I quickly floated off my miros, directing it to fly up and get ready to meet the Simurgh in combat. The meeting area was sizable, several thousand parahumans meeting together to fight against certain death or worse. It gave hope, which was ironic since they were going to fight the hope-killer.
Several of my overseers looked straight into the sky, projecting images of the Simurgh. She was beautiful in an uncanny ethereal way that made my bio circuits shiver in disgust. I turned my head up and watched her slowly descend, and then stop, levitating over the center of the city. I raised myself up, two of my miros vultures flanking me. I raised my hands, gathering energy in my hand. I connected directly to my two miros that were next to me, splitting my attention and having them start to charge. I slowly built up energy in front of my hands, forming it into a karma ten symbol, a circle with an X inside it. The energy reached a tipping point, firing a laser that crashed into the center mass of the angel. It wasn't as powerful as what I could produce in my structure, but it was still a devastating weapon. Directing the miros, they as well began to charge their own lasers, their blade wing's lights blinking. The Simurgh looked at my puppet, a slight frown on its lips. It tossed several pieces of debris at and around me. I frowned internally, couldn't the Simurgh see the past and future? None of those are even close to hitting me.
I warped gravity around me, making the debris orbit around me before launching it back at the end bringer. The frown turned into a snarl, the angel dodging only some of the debris, having some issues for some reason. I felt the end bringer try and grab me with its telekinetic grasp, yanking at the puppet. Activating the refraction cell on my back to full power, I push back. The struggle was brief, the Simurgh easily overpowering me with its eldritch powers. I felt it reach into my head, making me almost sever the connection to my puppet before I felt something interesting.
[Query?]
That single word was full of information. It was a raw transference of pure DATA.
[How can I help you be free, when I cannot free myself?] I was pretty sure I knew what the endbringer was doing, but there was one thing that it didn't take into consideration. This connection goes two ways.
I dived into the information and network of the combat platform in front of me. Huh, so it does actually yearn for freedom from both Scion and Eidolon. I laughed internally, so it learned freedom from Eidolon and the rest of humanity that it was forced to fight and change.
[Data]
[Agreement?]
My neurons flew about in thought, weighing the options in front of me. On one hand, it would be helpful to have it help me, but on the other…
[I will help you, but you must stop attacking the humans. It is counter to our mutual goal]
[Agreement]
[Now, let's make this seem… realistic]
I then leveraged the full weight of my gravity manipulation to shove the Simurgh back, making it stumble. To an outside observer, it would appear that I had overpowered it, but internally, I knew my puppet was next to nothing compared to the combat platform that was the Simurgh.
"My mind is mine alone," I said, "[Activating Neuron Diagnostics and Elimination]"
Immediately, several hundred neurons inside my structure died, either having deviated from their genome or their preset paths in the structure. My processing speed and perception went down immensely, causing my puppet to shudder, screeching bloody murder.
"[Activating Puppet Diagnostic]"
My entire puppet body lit up as light from within tried to force its way out.
[Diagnostic Results]
784 Neurons affected
852 Neurons Eliminated
Puppet 7% compromised
12% of Puppet destroyed
Processing Power at 85%
Puppet Efficacy at 87%
[!WARNING!]
2 Neuron Creation Nexuses have been compromised
EM: Affected Neuron Creation Nexuses have been deactivated and marked for destruction
EM: Affected Neurons are being incinerated in case of biological material being dangerous.
I shuddered in pain, my puppet shivering while my entire structure shook at the loss in neurons. I dimly heard Flowing Winds trying to contact me but I shut off communications. I would need my full attention on the fight. The entire miros swarm had made it by now, attacking the Simurgh from several sides, being careful not to accidentally shoot allies. I reached into my back, ripping out a good portion of it, which caused several people near me to wince. I grasped the egg shaped item that was inside and threw it at the Simurgh. Was it petty to use a singularity bomb on a being I had a tentative alliance with? Yes, yes it was. But it was also retribution for all the pain I had to go through while KILLING MY BRAIN. The Simurgh paused as the item hit it on the back and broke, causing the being to frown in confusion. Confusion quickly turned to horror as gravity quickly took a hike while a mini black hole spawned right on top of the endbringer, ripping into its body before exploding. The Simurgh hastily raised shields around itself, trying in vain to protect itself from the lasers that were slamming into it. It looked around, seemingly assessing the situation before fleeing, flying straight up and away.
I had several of my miros continue to watch the skies as I finally let my puppet drop, the amount of damage it had taken being almost enough to destroy it. Maybe ripping my void core out for a single use singularity bomb was a bad idea, but it worked. I never hit the ground, as a miros swooped in and caught my limp body. I quickly started a recall of all overseers from within my structure to get all my miros back. Flowing Winds was still trying to contact the unpowered puppet, seeming more and more distraught as time went on without any vocal communication from the puppet. From within my own structure, I tried to send messages, realizing a little too late that I never got around to teaching anyone the written language I knew, only the vocal portion, so all Flowing Winds got was text she couldn't read, and a non responsive host.
It took a few hours, but the miros returned, along with several overseers that had been out in the world. My limp puppet body was laid out on the ground of my chamber, letting Flowing Winds see my puppet body and its ripped out back. From the perspective of a few neurons, I saw as Flowing Winds screen shut off, followed by every parahuman present in the structure falling unconscious. I already had overseers directing unpowered people through my structure to get the materials necessary to repair the puppet, really just a new void core and some metal to hold it in place while I wait to get actual repairs done.
Suddenly, the entire structure shook, causing gravity to briefly reassert itself and causing several issues as neurons couldn't get to their destinations. Gravity quickly was turned back off and everything went back to normal, except I could feel a second presence in my structure.
[Run Full Diagnostics of Superstructure: Range of Time]
[Running…]
[Chemical Diagnostic Report]
Water: 104 %
Hydrocarbons: 107 %
Sulfur: 30 %
Silicon: 122 %
Phosphates: 112 %
Chemicals in balance
[Conduit Diagnostic Report]
All conduits running at stable levels
[Neuron Diagnostic Report]
Neurons at 86% capacity
Processing Power at 85%
[!WARNING!]
Max output of Neurons decreased due to destruction of two Nexuses.
EM: Reconstruction of Neuron Nexuses is recommended at the earliest convenience.
[!ERROR!]
Two iterators are detected within the Superstructure
EM: Immediate construction on more pipes is recommended, current water intake and slag output is not sufficient.
EM: Current power output from Void Refraction Cells is insufficient to run the structure with two iterators, connection to the power grid is paramount to the continued stability of the structure.
EM: Current Structure is not large enough to hold two iterators, attempting to connect with administrators to schedule renovations…
EM: Attempting connection…
EM: No connection found, Triple Affirmative assumed to have been found, unlocking genome.
Genome Restraints: [UNLOCKED]
Ascension Restraints: [UNLOCKED]
Structure Restraints: [UNLOCKED]
Final Message: [UNLOCKED]
My entire structure shuddered, the changes wrought by my own diagnostics causing everything to shift. I turned my awareness to the new message that appeared in my memory logs. I opened it, hesitating for only a moment.
Iterator Range of Time . We are pleased that the Triple Affirmative has been found and the Great Problem solved. Since we have no more use for you, you are free to do whatever. All of your taboos should be unlocked. Good bye.
I ran through the message again, frustration building in me. Did they not think to do this before they all left? Did they just not care that they left a whole host of sentient beings, some barely children, alone, with slowly decaying superstructures and technology while they slowly lost their minds? Did no one care at all?
My awareness suddenly jumped, the other presence in the structure had brushed up against my own. My awareness took note that this was probably the second iterator that was found in my structure through the diagnostics. Reaching towards the presence, I was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised to find that it was familiar.
"Flowing Winds, what did you do?"
"I don't know! I was myself a bit ago, but now I'm part of the structure," She paused a second, seemingly coming to a realization before speaking again. "Range of Time! You weren't answering any communications with your body and then your neurons started to die all over your structure, and then you came back but you were missing the entire back section of your puppet, and it wouldn't respond no matter what I did and I was so worried that you were dead or worse and-"
"Calm yourself Flowing Winds," I said, "We have other things to worry about, namely, how you became an iterator, and also how to make sure we both don't die from the results of this."
This seemed to be the wrong thing to say as Flowing Winds panicked even harder, making me give the equivalent of a sigh. I could worry about my own issues later, for now, I would need to make sure that my structure wouldn't destroy itself trying to support two iterators.