Hydra Hatched.

[12eyedgrace]

References:
"The Liberator"
Pentagon fractal
The Old Museum
Prologue to this.
More will be posted in the wiki later.

Silver Pearl
A pale silver sphere surrounds you all, its inside shimmering with faintly seen iridescent colors. In the midst of the sphere, the to elsewhere.
Contents:
Lysette
Frostbyte
Kehari
Mel
GrayZero
Leviathan-chan
Hydra/Beta
Hydra/Gamma
Hydra/Omega
Hydra/Psi
Hydra/Delta
Hydra/Epsilon
System

Around the curved room are scattered the members of Hydra. Sprawling, crouching, standing and staring at odd things, floating...
Epsilon lifts her head to those who have assembled. "Hi, hi." "It's going to get interesting." "I'm ready to regenerate the lover of Thnad."
Frostbyte and his retinue chitter in, all dressed in silver filigree finery.
System nods marginally. "Acknowledged."
GrayZero stays completely quiet. So much so that it'd likely be easy to miss her. Just watching.
Leviathan-chan just caught up via holography. Closing up the mini-keyboard she had sprawled before, she looks up and gleeps at all the interesting people!
Kehari wanders in and picks a empty space amongst the Hydra hordes, waiting and wondering.
Lysette drifts not too far above head, grappling herself against the wall, but loosely, getting quite a good view, or so she hopes.
Slowly, the mouth of Epsilon opens. A vivid patch of shiny black studded with pale teeth. A tiny tunnel. A gaping cavern
Frostbyte does not hurl any of himselves in to that maw, despite the temptation.
A vast void opening to depths lined with colored lights. And Epsilon begins turning inside to outside, colored darkness sliding across floors walls ceilings.
System regards Epsilon thoughtfully. "Was the lover of Thnad Alpha?"
Lysette's grapple remains snug on the wall, though she looks up to watch the darkness flow under it.
Kehari shrugs at System and watches the darkness flow over and around her.
"Does it matter?" Beta laughs and kicks her hooves. "It's a vastly tangled and incestous web we have here within us. Virtually everything has been reassembled into new combinations combining elements of the old."
GrayZero speaks suddenly. "Or to be blunt, it does not and cannot know itself." She grins slightly.
System laughs quietly. "Acknowledged."
Lysette takes a deep breath.. "And has anything been lost?" she wonders.
Completely consumed by the creeping darkness, the sphere interior flares with colors. It expands, walls withdrawing and uncovering to some familiar wastes. Architecture smooth and flowing and broken, shadows of creatures once dead, land devoured so that it is less than what it once was.
System regards the scene intently, head slightly tilted.
Lysette seems very subdued, and intentionally dispassionate in some way, her eyes only dimly glowing.
"Much." Gamma says. Her head turns, the sweep of her hair ringing with a melody nigh classical, echoing distant pasts.
System states quietly, "Great entropy has been introduced into the system."
"And is the object to regain, or replace the lost?" No movement from her, but that's definitely GrayZero's voice.
Fading, waxing, Psi flickers. "Both." A patch of exposed barren ground heaves. "If I was to return to what was, I would destroy again." A quiet trembling climbing toward disquiet thunder.
Mel is quiescent for the most part, eyes closed, tail moving slowly to and fro. As if waiting for a specific moment.
System folds (her) arms under (her) breasts. "And, as such, you seek improvement past your initial state."
GrayZero simply smiles.
Lysette's expression touches a frown for a moment, but she nods softly..
Delta's form tears, ruptures, spilling forth calculations reckonings digital data jetting glowing through once invisible vessels inside the darkness.
Psi flashes and is blown out as a candleflame. A wind begins howling, spiraling around.
System stands, dress blown by the wind, otherwise impassive and calm, a dark anchor of solidity.
Mel holds up a key.
Kehari holds her hair back from her face, looking around.
Lysette ends up plastered to a wall, staring down.
Mel slides a mask out of his coat after he unbuttons the first two rows.
GrayZero seems to be unaffected by the wind. She simply watches the Hydrae. And Mel.
Leviathan-chan's fins flap wildly, as she leans into the wind and squints her eyes.
Mel stands there with the two objects, reminiscent of "The Liberator" by Renee Margrite.
In a /pop/ Gamma is there before Mel, handtendrils spread wide.
Mel points the key at Hydra/Gamma's face, touching the tip to her forehead.
Hydra/Gamma blossoms, her mask cracking and shattering to the ground, silver glitter. Petals rain forth, fanned by the wind into a swirling storm.
GrayZero just watches, seemingly dispassionately.
System nods marginally. "And what shall the Hydra become..?"
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "It is out of my hands now. The only part left for me is my appointed role." And she smiles. "My turn upcomes."
GrayZero speaks softly. "Each with their part in the production..."
Leviathan-chan extends front claws to touch their tips on petals... with each petal touched a new color appears on one's surface, refracting kaleidoscopically. Levi smiles.
"Beta." The soothing voice of Omega is finally heard. "Unhinge yourself, it is time to bring out what you have been gestating."
Lysette's ears curve forward..
Frostbyte's throat-balloon inflates, he croaks in surprise, seven sets of ears strain forward to listen.
Kehari blinks quietly, ears swivelling.
Leviathan-chan cocks her head to the speaking one.
Hydra/Omega gently bows to all. "Would you like refreshment?" zie inquires, even as Beta progressively unsnaps tendons holding herself together, the effect more akin to loose leather being unbundled than anything.
System shakes (her) head slowly. "My status is acceptable, Omega."
GrayZero smiles. "I would consider popcorn for a moment, but ultimately I am in no need. I thank you nonetheless."
Mel seems to be looking inside the mask. The key is sticking out of Gamma's forehead still.
Kehari simply shakes her head, watching Beta.
Lysette reaches down to Omega.. "Yes, please.." she murmurs, all as she watches.. quite intently..
Leviathan-chan glows briefly, as though scanning herself, then shakes her head.
inhatti appears out of the opening hovering in the midst of the space.
Lemonade snaps to the hands of all, regardless of whether they had actually asked for it.
Frostbyte drinks it.
Leviathan-chan extends her tongue with a tentative curiousity...
Kehari sniffs at it.
inhatti drifts in. "Crowded, emptiness."
Lysette draws a slow sip from her lemonade, holding it with both hands.
GrayZero slips the glass underneath her cloak.
The sphere is a howling wind whipping over darknesses shining with colors. Ruins and corpses and wasted earth exposed.
Mel stares into the oblivion swirling in the back of the mask, iridescent and hypnotic, light tendrils reaching across his countenance.
inhatti drinks deep and giggles. A slim silhouette of latex, she seems amused by all this.
Hydra/Beta murrs, "Dear System, you have provided so many useful and valuable things. Most of all this." And she reaches within the gaps pulled open inside her, undoes yet more seals laid thick upon thick.
Leviathan-chan decides on lapping up the drink with abandon. Wouldn't be the strangest thing tonight!
System looks inside, tilting (her) head. "Yes?"
The thing Beta pulls forth is... derived from Prime. And alien. Masses of information disappeared into Hydra, the unnumbered anentropic probes that have come and gone or sometimes disappeared mysteriously, something from each garnered. Pentagons within pentacles within pentagons colored, fractaling and growing with a might that incorporates Beta right into it.
Frostbyte says, "Much is explained..."
inhatti, mischievous tamed malignancy, flips a syringe from the flowing clinging whiteness of her coat, draws a froth of green light from her arm, and throws the thing into Hydra's empty spaces. "Mooncat memories," she might murmur.
The syringe falls into Hydra's vast digestive system. Colors shift.
GrayZero raises an eyebrow, glances briefly towards inhatti.
System inclines (her) head. "I am glad to have assisted. A five-fold symmetry, rather than three-fold..."
[ inhatti, drifting and described: a softly smiling golden-gleaming mask upon a lithe latex girl. ]
Hydra/Omega, lone, remains within sight. The only regular avatar of Hydra still evidently there to be seen.
Gamma is a blossoming tree. Beta is a five-symmetried power-generator. Psi is the howling wind, Epsilon the colored darkness, Delta the data-conduits of light.
System states quietly, "What is your place, Omega of Hydra?"
"The hostess." Omega slinks toward Mel. "Please ready the mask." The sphere-room explosively expands.
Mel reaches up to his his own face, pulls off the front of it with a soft click, and replaces it with the mask he was holding.
GrayZero, for some reason, looks rather satisfied at this turn of events.
Leviathan-chan whips around 360 degrees, excited and incited by the sudden change.
More and more is revealed, at a relentless pace. Growth frentic yet steady. Everything newly exposed dance with nigh-electric energy obscuring their natures in the maelstrom.
System looks about, eyes cold, hard flecks of blue light in the relentless change.
"Thank you for donning the mask for your own safety of mind. We shall now extract the lost thing that shall call Thnad." Omega spreads into stars shooting off toward a great scarred spur protruding from the ground. Subjectivity dances distorting around it unfrozen in time. At the foot, a familiar one caught in the very moment of death.
Benjamin.
inhatti tilts her head. "Replacing of masks, new faces to show. Who will you remember being this time, shattered one?"
inhatti turns away. She might seem sad. Can she be that any more?
GrayZero speaks softly. "Does it really matter, in the end?"
inhatti says, "Yes."
GrayZero smiles.
Mel steps back. The entity revealed is a copy of himself. No. Worse. He is a copy of it.
Framing the spur, the Omega-stars flux with a power-surge.
You page, "The great ripple sweeps an arc racing shockwave across all the Mess. A keening, a calling to someone not you, and it is gone. Leaving you untouched, your business unaltered." to 10FC04, Ataxia, Charlie, Frostbyte, GreyZero, Induction-Coil, inhatti, Julian, Kehari, Leviathan-chan, Lysette, Mel, Misha, Sel, System, Syzygy, Torque, Trilogee, Untitled and Widdershins.
System regards this thoughtfully. "Almost."
GrayZero is grinning. It's more a self-satisfied grin than a sympathetic one.
Kehari just watches, trying to make sense of it all.
Leviathan-chan chews on her tail.
Silence for a moment.
Mel wanders over to the corpse, discolored by entropy in perpetual autumn, and lifts it. Benjamin was made of flesh, not plastic like Mel. A weird flesh, admittedly, but it becomes clear that Mel is but a parody, if noble, of what he once was, a universe ago.
But who here with a history that long is not?
Mel's mask cries silently, separated from its original body. The Hydra mask is less passionate, but still pained.
Obscurity says, behind Mel, "I made some great mistakes."
We all mistakes.
Mel doesn't turn to look at Obscurity.

In many ways, this falcon lacks notable features. Can you really be sure that this is not one of many by-passers of similar species you might have ignored in the streets and walkways? A simple, clean gray jumpsuit adorns *r. * lacks all trackable traces. No scents remain in *r trails, no footprints are left, no apparent presence exists on the datasphere. * does not even have a shadow.

GrayZero starts to speak as though she's reciting something. "It was a much more expansive place, once. Vast and expansive as is seen now, and yet with far more in the halls than we do see. It was the life and the breadth of the man, but the life ran out."
GrayZero continues. "He persevered by some Strange manner, however, and She came to enter his life. The framework came to be again, existing alongside Her. But it would come to pass that he was not the only one."
Mel muses, "Did you miss me?"
Obscurity turns *s falcon-head, *s gaze fanning around. "This is not the Museum, though pieces of it remain here. I tried to save it, I who destroyed it. My beloved creation."
GrayZero nods. "A simulacrum. A memory that was lost. And so Her mechanism was developed so that these memories could be collected, and perhaps a shadow of the original could once again be reformed."
A nod from Obscurity. "I did. You called me the most beautiful of your exhibitors. I wonder if my anger was equally as beautiful, or if it was hideous and horrible."
Mel muses, "You did not kill me ultimately. But so many needlessly were lost. Such a pyrrhic victory."
GrayZero bows her head. Evidently her piece has been said for now.
Obscurity extends out *s hand. "What can we do but start again?"
Mel muses, "What else can be done?"
GrayZero says softly, "Learning." Then a smile. "But you know this."
System inclines (her) head. "So we see. And what of Xi? Shall she be discarded?"
"Yes." Dust crumbles off one edge of Obscurity's beak. "I know. I now finally give up on hiding from it." The ground rings with the crack of a piece of head falling and breaking.
Frostbyte says, "Hide from even death. This is a miraculous skill."
Kehari says, "People hide from death all the time. What's so miraculous about it?"
GrayZero smiles at her daughter-in-law's words.
Frostbyte says, "Success is miraculous."
Kehari says, "You have a very low opinion of yourself."
Frostbyte says, "Unaided by Puzzlebox. Glorious attempt, miraculous skill."
Obscurity turns, her face breaking and crumbling. "I was Xi, System, as well as Thnad."
GrayZero's smile does not leave her face. "I am glad you are starting to learn respect for Her." This evidently directed to Frostbyte, although her attention does not appear to leave the crumbling falcon.
System blinks. "So you were Xi?"
The pieces lie at Mel's feet, becoming soil. The faceless thing that remains bobs its head. "It was another mask, System."
System nods. "Acknowledged."
GrayZero glances towards System, raises an eyebrow.
System folds (her) arms. "I await the outcome."
GrayZero smiles. Would she ever do anything else?
Glowing eyes open within the very ground itself. The Black Dog follows, oozing up and out. "Hi hi." "I'm ready are you?" "Oh, hey, all you people are here." "It's going to be so cool!" She rushes around with licks for all.
System ruffles at Epsilon. "I hope to see it, Epsilon." (She) smiles, licked.
GrayZero, still smiling, pats the Black Dog between its ears when it comes time for her lick.
inhatti has a wet, warm kiss for the canid Thing.
Leviathan-chan nuzzles the Black Dog and purr-hisses.
Frostbyte's minions scuttle back, but Frost proper pets.
Lysette's return lick is very rough, but it comes in a pleasant gesture at least..!
Kehari pats the dog's head carefully.
Everything begins revolving, spinning. "Don't worry!" "Dear Mel, it might not be all there, but it's not all lost!" "Just a momen--"
System smiles marginally.
Bright flash.
With a rumble, the new universe explodes outward from Epsilon.
Mel braces against the shockwave.

And all is different from before.

Ainran
A cool breeze glides across the field you stand upon. The field dark and light green chessboard patterned, ringed with trees climbing tall stately weeping willows. Rabbits in neat shimmering robes stroll and now and then strike colorful balls with hammers upon long handles. Nearby, a nestles within the arch of two bent over trees.

Around you, a pure expanse spreads out into the distance curling up in all directions into a vast sphere enclosing you. Forests, plains of greens beyond pristine. Housings blending perfectly, patterned perfectly: neat hillocks adorned with gentle white curls of facades. Seas spotted with white sails. A 'sun' in the very center of this great hollow space, soft white illumination filling everything with vividness.

A silver . A stretch of white. A tiny and busy. A solitary. All eternally close yet vastly distant. One long step away, one whisper away to anyone else here. All places are one.

Everything here... moves, revolves, with tight neat grace. The very atmosphere is permeated with a presence ever so subtle, a quieting. A careful hand tidying here and there but largely leaving things in place, to trace their beautiful courses. Peaceful happiness is the easiest course here.

System nods slowly. "It has returned."
inhatti dies in the blast. A golden mask thumps to the ground, still faintly smiling.
GrayZero glances about the area. "Hm. Nicely done, I think."
Frostbyte says, "Clean."
GrayZero turns her attention towards Mel.
System turns, looking to see if the Hydra herself is visible...

Somehow "undulating" is the perfect fitting adjective for her. More curves than straight lines, with a fluid flexibility to her softly reddish gold furred body, Hydra's shape lacks easily definable features of species. Mammalian, with the fur and the visible mammary glands.
Her head has a certain canine squareness, the ears distinctly pointed, the eyes three of red, black, and green. But fine darkly green vines sweep down in a very thick hair-like mass over her back, miniature wings one blackbird and one butterfly hovering just over it. Her hands are curls of tendrils. A tail long often wagging. Her legs lithe and massive, terminating in enormous cloven hooves.
Colors wreathe her, tumbling down in an open-fronted ankle-brushing coat of many-colored tatters wound around with masses and masses of buckles and lace. It has an amazing number of pockets.

System steps towards the Hydra, seeing the new being. "Hydra. I offer my sincerest congratulations."
Hydra laughs. "You do?" "I suppose you do." And she gives System a bear hug that would kill less durable beings.
System hugs back, tightly, smiling in pleasure.
Hydra is next to Mel, offering him a softer hug. "Mel. Would you once again accept me as an exhibitant for the Museum?"
Leviathan-chan looks back at the tree-portal and gleeps nervously.
(Inside the hole, you can see an angry humming.)
Lysette brushes a hand behind her head, drifting back to quietly watch, the hyena smiling faintly, but distantly.
System curtsies. "At a later time, then. I hope to speak to you soon, Hydra."
System disappears through the hovering hole.
Mel muses, "You are experienced enough. I can't refuse. And it might give you a focus again."
"I do not doubt that I shall get into mischief again." Hydra gazes slowly into the very near distances. "But I feel more sane. Less likely to be destructive or, well, brain-eating." She cackles lightly.
Frostbyte says, "Now Lysette holds the last of your previous incarnations."
Hydra smiles sheepishly. "I am afraid not. I absorbed that one, too."
Frostbyte says, "Rude of you."
Lysette smiles warmly.. "I hadn't expected her to survive this, honestly.."
GrayZero shakes her head. "Hardly. It was part of her originally. You've reabsorbed those bifurcated parts of yourself before, haven't you?"
Frostbyte says, "Not when those bifurcated parts were hidden and static."
GrayZero smiles. "So your qualification on whether or not it is rude has to do with whether or not they're good at staying away."
A placid look answers Frostbyte. "I needed all of myself."
Frostbyte says, "I do not attempt to steal back Lysette's bug-servitor."
Lysette shakes her head lightly.. "A lot of what I like goes away, though. Its just that I hadn't liked things so much until I got here, perhaps.." she laughs.. "Oh well, I will keep memories, but not let them pain me."
You hand Hydra-Beta Origami Deer to Lysette.
Hydra smiles. "Well, here is a memento. Mel gave it to me, but I think I will give it to you."
Lysette quietly holds the Origami deer, watching it with bright green eyes, which light it up.. Her lips part, but she can't think to respond, so she simply holds the fragile paper, and smiles softly, no noise at all, just a touch of emotion instead.
"There's a definite echo of Beta in there." Hydra's smile is deeper. "You can bring it back."
Lysette's smile touches her lips again, broken and lopsided as its always been. "A wonderful murr." she responds to the thought of echoes.
Leviathan-chan draws a spiral from the top of her head on up.
Hydra peers at Levi-chan's spiral drawing, then licks her cheek.
Leviathan-chan shivers delightedly and her fins ruffle.