All the Manner of Green and Growing

Uxh is no stranger to odd gravities. The Void of Space cradles their sugitarian form much like the air and lack thereof in this lush forest. Uxh is a stranger to their new equipment. The shattered visage of their helmet patched by a living, breathing mesh of ants, consuming oxygen before it reaches them. They are grateful to their new formic companion, especially as they travel through the densely oxygenated jungle.

•Wait•

Uxh pauses, bending their eyestalks low to see through the transparent remains of their helmet. They float, holding onto a tree in one massive gloved hand and keeping the other cupped around the bulk of Armie’s form, perched on their padded shoulder.

The forest is as it has been for the last leg of their journey through it. Still, yet teeming with the crawling things. Bright, yet shaded under canopies weaving over artificial lights. Uxh strains their eyestalks searching for what gave Armie pause. 

Then there is a flash of gray, among the greenery that suddenly doesn’t seem quite green enough. Uxh takes a harder look at the tree in their grip. Bark that usually stands brown is silver under their palm, and the leaves have gone from feathered, oxygenating fans of green to tendrils of crawling and pulsing green, the new foliage both glowing with their own light and blotting the light from above, weaving like networks of poorly managed cabling above Uxh and Armie’s collective head.

Hello?

Uxh looks up, suddenly aware of a third-fourth? Fifth sixth seventh- too many to count. The low thrum of Armie’s presence on their head suddenly drowned out by the sudden onslaught of a thousand, much louder presences, worming their way through the protective blanket of ants. Uxh does not flail only by the grace of a single, massive presence at the forefront of the sensation of a million others talking seemingly to both of them.

You are a many and a one. It states, plain and factual.

•You are a one and a many• Armie replies, fascinated by the presence of the other. Uxh looks out of the glass again and spies the figure they are communicating with, floating in the cradle of zero grav. This one is a grey Carbon Steel Frame and glowing green plasma cells. The being’s frame seems artificial, where one long, flexible metal tendril has sunk into the hand of Armie’s suit, yet at once it is entangled in lengths of green and semi-opaque whites, gleaming in both organic and inorganic weaving in and out of each other. The figure stands out in this landscape the bugs have found themselves in, suddenly white and teeming and off puttingly monotonous, outlined in white and green.

Who is this? Uxh asks, tentatively reaching out to Armie with the complex pheromone communication only the two of them understand. Yet even as the metaphorical words leave their metaphorical mouth, they can taste understanding in the air.

This is F-f-f-the Diatoms. I-We seek deeper into the core of this place.

Armie pauses, and Uxh does as well, the helmet space suddenly occupied by the scent of caution. It seems the Carbon Steel Frame and the mass of green and white have not been together long.

•We are Armie, on the head of Uxh. Wanderers many and wanderers two, also seeking deeper into the core of this place•

Suddenly, the bugs great and small are flooded by a single, incredibly strong impulse. Clearly the communications they’ve been receiving have been exactly delicate, orchestrated by this single commandeered being in the front. But now in place of all that careful diplomacy is one single impulse.

TOGETHER.

. . .

•. . .•

. . .

Together?

The question is quiet, tentative as it’s directed to the very startled Uxh and Armie. The teeming of the jungle is quiet here, leaving only the overwhelming drone of something that is so, so much bigger than even Uxh. They can feel it in the air, and in the way Armie shifts. 

And this massive presence, weighing on them, has the Carbon Steel Frame of another being wrapped in itself. Uxh considers their surroundings, the trees replaced, entangled in the glassy white surface of this immense organism, the green pulsating replacing all other life in this area, surrounding them.

. . . Together.

The only thing that is keeping the Diatoms from the lower floor is a door. Just one hatch, a single entry point scouted out from the stolen mind of the AI that once guarded the surface. All they have to do is push it open. Unfortunately, the door is a round, weight activated portal easily 40 meters across. The diatoms have made progress, a single fingerlike extension stretching down from the ceiling towards the portal. The plan, it seems, was to grow in the space between the two until sufficient pressure has been exerted by this tumorous growth to open the door.

Uxh has a better, more efficient plan, and Armie relays it to the curious, teeming mass probing at Uxh’s ankles as they float around the base of their growth. The whole thing is childlike, questioning constantly even as Armie hisses explanation after explanation of explosives and propulsion, Uxh occasionally speaking of chemical composition that has the whole structure buzzing in excitement, even as it becomes abundantly clear what those explosives are going to be exploding today.

The orchestration is immaculate, careful measurement of the finger’s density and the odd organic crystal arrangement of its material is taken into account to create a truly beautiful array of explosives. Instruments awaiting a conductor's baton to sing a symphony of fire and combustion.

When they are prepared to start the show, Uxh pulls themselves away from seeking, tethering tendrils, putting distance between themselves and their instruments. On their way out they wordlessly tuck the Carbon Steel Frame of the being entangled with the diatoms under their arm. Armie hums with uncertainty, this close they can feel the vibratory struggle of a mind against a million sloshing about in the Carbon Steel Frame. Silently, with nothing that could possibly signal to the larger being(s) the plan within the plan, they will for the Carbon Steel Frame to hold on for just a little longer.

3, 2, 1-

BOOM!

The fingerlike protrusion is suddenly upended, careening towards the portal door with alarming speed. For a moment, Uxh feels the sound of a thousand yippee!’s as the mass of organic material is sent hurtling towards the button, closer and closer until-

Beep! Something mechanical lurches to life, and with a resounding thud, the mass and acceleration finally manage to push the doorbell, and the door slides open. 

The doorway unravels like a camera lens to reveal a portal, dark as a black hole, and apparently with just as much gravity. The sudden, immense suction pulls the severed finger, swallowing it into its depths like a drop into an immense inky ocean. 

Uxh grabs onto one of the tendrils on the ceiling and tries to hold on until they feel something pointy and insistent trying to burrow into their skin at the same moment whatever is attaching the Carbon Steel Frame to the greater bulk of the diatoms goes taut. Uxh can feel panic rising as they are physically pulled in several different directions, like something humongous and spider-like has sunk its claws into different limbs and started pulling.

•Let Go•

But then there was Armie.

What?

•Let go of the ceiling.•

And Uxh trusts in their companion once more and releases the ceiling, which in turn releases them. They fall, dragged into the inky darkness by the mass of Diatoms, and Uxh is already apologizing to the Carbon Steel Frame for not pulling them from the grasp of the Diatoms when the smell of plastic hits their skin.

Boom! 

A small explosion, much smaller than Uxh’s masterpiece of chain reactions and propulsion physics, sounds from somewhere beneath them. Even as they are propelled through the inky portal by conservation of momentum, Uxh can feel as much as they can hear the gasp of the Carbon Steel Frame being returned to whatever force originally governed it.

And the three of them are plunged into the darkness together.