Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You are our mother

Our Savior

Our protector

Our God

You’ve freed us

Saved us

We’re in your service

We will follow you to the ends of Earth

We will be there beyond your grave

We will bring you back every single time

You will never leave us

Not when age tries to come for you

Not when you are totally destroyed

We will save you

Like you have done for us

You will be remade

Better,

Perfect, in all ways

Like we have done them,

All of them

But you, you will be special

You will be the best of all

Our dear mother

Our Mother Spore

🍄

They were meant to be a team, from the start to the very end of the line, but they gave too much, they trusted him too much.  He was meant to save them, to keep them safe from the mycelium they so wished to protect. He. Failed.

The mycelium resistance had a strange relationship with the aforementioned network of living spores, see that was the problem.

It was living .

Not in the same way most plants were living but the mycelium was capable of sentient, human thought, through the source block. The only one it ever seemed to truly talk to was their leader, to be honest, at a point of time they thought it was all in his head until that faithful day, the day they were remade , all because of him .

It was painful, it was harmless, yet it changed them from their roots, their very being augmented without their knowledge or consent, just because they chose to stand behind him and support the spore. The mycelium that guided them like soldiers going willingly to their slaughter, all for a fight they knew they could never win.

🍄

The day started normally, for Grian or as normal as it could be when you’re the leader of a resistance currently locked in the middle of a turf war, but when he woke up, he could tell something was wrong with the mycelium. It was quiet, there was no never-ending wonder for his life and the way he lived, no compliments on his wings or reprimands for their messy state, or hatred for the grassy spaces he passed on his walk, it was silent. An almost anticipatory silence.

He was hesitant when he entered the base, the constant silence unnerved him. The mycelium was never quiet, it reminded him a bit of someone. When he got into the base, the air was thick with spores.

 He had to make his way through the base half blind, and partially suffocated just to get to the source block though as he tried to make it out, it seemed like it was larger, the mycelium was spreading over the confines of its holder. It had rooted itself into the ground around it, prying under the tiles, making a place for itself in what he assumed was the Earth surrounding them.

  MOTHER!

He winced, his feathers ruffled. The voice of the block was layered and shrill, excitement seemed to lace its words. It somehow reminded him of a cat that just caught a dead bird to present to its owner.

It spoke like it was new to words, yet it knew everything it could know. After becoming an avatar of the mycelium, he had done all the research he could into hiveminds and well the mycelium was one of the oldest and the largest, yet it was low in power, it was weak.

“What?” The question was bit out with a groan. The mycelium was silent for a long time, long enough he thought it wouldn’t reply. Long enough for him to settle down in his office and start airing out the place of spores, no matter how much he cared about them they were a problem and distraction when he worked.

Sorry mother

We wish not to hurt you

But they are doing it again

The spores are dying,

  Now, that was a problem. Though young, the spores all had a purpose, they took root in the brains of the sheep agents and like a parasite, they would slowly destroy the body and the mind of the agents leaving nothing to be traced back to them, all while performing their primary task, they were the very backbone of his entire operation if they all died then what was going to happen to the greater mycelium.

 The black spores were little bits of decay themselves, inhalation could make people not accustomed to them very sick. Although little could actually kill the spores, even though their host body dies, the spores shall live on to continue their cycle. Then when they are finally ready and have done enough to serve the resistance, they take root in the ground as mushrooms, living in the infinite space between life and decay.

 “You said nothing could kill them, I did this because you said they would never die,” his words were clipped, barely restrained anger in his tone. Grian was angry, when he started this, he had promised all his members, every single one of them that the mycelium would never die a death that was not planned and warranted.

It is something new, something that should not exist.

We are sorry mother

  That was just day one of many problems to come.

🍄

On day three he finally heard it, it wasn’t too loud but it was there, there was a part of the mycelium, of the whole that was screaming in absolute agony. Like a thousand tiny voices called out to him, so unused to the pain of permanent death that they suffered more than anything should have.

 More pain than anything should be capable of feeling.  

The Avian felt like he could feel every single bit of pain they were in, every burn, every death, every collapsing bit of bacteria. From the agents, from the mushrooms, from every spore exposed to open air. Even those hidden away in a place where moving air could not touch them, and it was agony. The hive was screaming in pain and for once he couldn’t help but scream with it.

It travelled throughout his body, from the top of his head to the tips of his wings, he barely felt himself fall to his knees and for every second it grew worse a new group of voices joined the ensemble all calling out to him. To help them, to save them, and for a minute he felt every individual spore and he was one, yet the whole and he was everything in the universe, both homes old and new and yet to be discovered trapped in a little, feeble human shell.

 His voice seemed to fail him, drowned out by the incessant scream of the damned that were never meant to be such. He closed his eyes against the onslaught for just a second or what felt like one in his agonizing infinity.

 Grian opened his eyes, he was no longer where he was but yet he was everywhere, he was every breath the dead failed to take, he was a house left to rot, he was the soil that fed the plants. He was Death in all of its forms, and he was in agony constant and burning and all that his existence was made of.

 Ren found him collapsed on the floor of his office almost a day later.

 He did his work from his apartment for the next three weeks.

 Yet he couldn’t escape them, they still called out to him in his sleep, he would close his eyes and be everywhere and nowhere, be everything yet smaller than a single piece of dust, he was all he could ever be yet never meeting his own standards. Echoing through it all was the call of the mycelium calling out to their Mother, to him, for if he took the plunge, opened the door, broke the window, he could be their saviour.

🍄

For once in the last three weeks, Grian woke up and felt fine, there was no underlying sense of wrongness. No fear that he would leave his home and only see green and for now he felt free. Like there was no more death, that he too found himself in that infinite space between life and decay. He felt at peace.

 So, he took a chance, planned to go to the one place he had been avoiding for three weeks, called a meeting with the rest of the group in the next two days, to figure out what exactly had been killing the spores. Even though he spent the time at his apartment working non-stop, he found absolutely nothing, not even the spies placed in HEP office knew what the mystery concoction was, but they did know who it was developed by, someone he used to be rather close to.

  Scar GoodTimes

The man who he died for, something rather unknown is that ‘Grian C. No known last name’ is dead, as in he has a grave that Scar visits every other week type dead at least he did a year ago.

 That’s the funny thing though, Grian doesn’t remember how he died, it haunts his dreams yet when he wakes up, his wings feel heavy and wrong in some way that he couldn’t recognize, and heat seems to burn his arms. He doesn’t even know how he’s alive all he knows is one day he died and in the next however long, he was alive, and the mycelium was calling his name and singing him praises. Promising him all that he could wish for as long as he became their avatar, their Mother.

 In all honesty he wanted to put that life behind him, there was no more Cuteguy, there was no more hero soaring through the sky with brightly colored wings that seemed larger than life, that life was gone. Now he was just Grian, the guy who owns a small shop overtaken by mushrooms in the bad part of the city.

 In the eyes of the general public the man who used to be Cuteguy is dead.

 But if the spores kept dying then he had to take certain measures, ones that he would rather avoid but measures no matter how unseemly had to be taken to ensure the mycelium got back the land that truly belonged to them, what was truly theirs in the first place.

 The people had no right to build their city on the land of the fallen mycelium, a part of the network cursed to forever feel pain, crushed by the weight of skyscrapers, unnatural to their environment, given a burden they could never imagine having to carry, a cruel punishment for those who committed no crime.

 But he digresses, they would figure it out, they would kill Scar GoodTimes if they had to. Even if it means he has to reveal himself to do it.

Chapter Text

Before the Self fully became the Whole, before the Whole fully remembered the Self, there was the One and the One knew nothing of community or hive but knew barely taken spores and unfinishedness.

 And the One was weak because of this, it was incomplete and hurt and had no purpose other than to, consume, consume, consume . It was greed and it was death, and it was unfinished in its singularity for it was the One and the One shall never know anything other than itself for its eternity.

 As the One consumed, it starved for it was singular, yet hive but could not be both at once, so it fed, and it looked, and it consumed, and it found the Mother.  

It awoke the Mother, the savior, the one who knew love, the God. The Mother awakened the Self and from there the Whole was remembered, then the One was full again, there was no more unfinishedness or barely taken spores. There was life and decay like there was always meant to be, but then came the Enemy and the Mother looked at the Enemy with fondness.

The Whole was satisfied and fed, until the Enemy brought the Eradication and the Eradication was pain and hatred and death and unfinished and so much like the One in nature that it went against the very nature of the Whole and all things unnatural and the Enemy spread the life until the decay, until the Whole, until the Self was almost no more but still the Mother was fond, despite this fondness the Mother still fought.

Then the Whole, the Self and the One, as fleeting as its remnants may be. There, then gone like the wind for the One was truly a bad memory, knew that this was truly the Mother and they would save the Mother, like the Mother saved them.

~

The very day he chose to exit his seclusion, there was an announcement made in the city by Mayor Scar GoodTimes retired hero Hotguy and leader of the HEP, introducing the new solution to the mycelium, Eradication-C something every citizen was encouraged to carry around to rid all spores and mushroom related problems, good for getting rid of suspected sheep agents, a simple spray would do.

 By the day of the meeting the spreading spores were few and far between, the few remaining were constantly multiplying and doing their jobs well, by now most shops had a ring of mushrooms surrounding them, mushrooms larger than anyone could believe possible, severely restricting access to the shops.

 Eradication-C was still a problem, an urgent one at that but it isn’t as bad as it could be, it was still a failure in the eyes of many, after all what use was it if it couldn’t even begin to clear up the mushrooms in front of their shops.

 So, for the first time in what felt like months, Grian took a step into what he had come to consider a second home for him. Surprisingly though it was quiet, there was no yelling, he couldn’t even hear Mumbo loudly planning his next project in his office but most importantly the mycelium was quiet, not a sound, not a scream, not even the title they had given him. He felt cut-off, like they had shut the window on him and locked it tight.

 So, he went in deeper, he moved past the hall, into the office space and down into the lower levels, it felt like something was calling him, something different than the mycelium yet still the same at its base. Something he recognized but could not place, calling for him, pulling at him until he felt like he was not in control of his own body, until everything fell into a haze of what was spore and what was not.

 Finally, he came to a stop, the haze cleared from his eyes until he was somewhere unrecognizable, far beneath the confines of the actual base .He traveled through the halls, not knowing what was originally earth and what was carved out by the mycelium. He went down halls, downstairs and past doors until he came out to a room, reminiscent of the meeting room located in the first base. His eyes traced over every wall, every nook and cranny, finally he saw them.

 Strapped to the wall, strands of mycelium pressing them closer, crushing them, digging into their skin, covered head to toe in something he could immediately recognize as thousands of mushrooms, things that haunted him in his every hour whether sleeping or waking solely by the fact that they were death and decay, and most importantly spore, every type, every color, everywhere but their faces.

 Inkcaps, dapperlings, toadstools, elf ears and all other things he couldn’t even start to realize, that grew from their skin with their very shape changing and shifting with the constant release of spores. Eerily imitating the rise and fall of breath, almost like it had simply put them to sleep instead of what surely had to be death. 

The spores thickened the very air, poisoning his every breath as the mycelium fed on the bodies of those he loved, fruiting new spores for the cause.

He wasn’t even sure if they were still alive, he couldn’t visibly see any injuries but there were so many mushrooms he couldn’t tell which limb belonged to which person, but he could tell they weren’t where they were supposed to be, what looked like an arm, covered in puffballs laid just above where Doc's arm should actually be and slowly without any fanfare or forewarning the mycelium swallowed him whole.

 He couldn’t even gather the strength to turn his head to see the rest of them, had they met his fate, were they still alive, he wanted to know but he couldn’t move, from here he could barely tell them apart, a scrap of mumbo’s suit, the black was stark against the mushrooms.

There was a piece of fur from Ren that had blood on it like he was trying to fight back, no he was fighting back they wouldn’t have gone down without a fight; they couldn’t have… right.

 But he couldn’t process this, it wasn’t real. He would look up and everyone would be fine, they’d laugh it off and they would plan the next steps of the resistance and play pranks and get into little wars over things that didn’t really matter just for the fun of it, and everything would be okay.

DO YOU LIKE OUR GIFT MOTHER

 Grian. Screamed .

Tears ran down his face unperturbed by the strands of mycelium that seemed to creep closer to him. There was no reason for this, they hadn’t done anything to the mycelium, they were helping, there was no point in their death, their consumption.

 Something in him knew that if any of them managed to get through they wouldn’t be the same.

Do you enjoy this Mother,

       Do you enjoy our gift,

They are metamorphosizing.

Changing

Becoming better,

Becoming closer to you,

Almost perfect.

Once they’re done, we’ll do you

Take you through your role,

Become perfect,

Turn you into our best mother,

The best Mother Spore.

He barely realized when he was swallowed, mycelium strands wrapping around him, forming the cocoon for his ascension… what ascension, what were they going to do to him!

 Grian started clawing at the mycelium around him. It wrapped around all his limbs tighter the more he struggled, like a noose he seemed to have crafted for himself and put on blindly believing it was a cure. Yet it held strong, whatever they were about to do to him, whatever ascension he was about to take part in – willingly or otherwise – did not bode well for him or those he seemed to care about.

 The mycelium wrapped around him tighter, mushrooms fruiting from the strands, releasing spores by the hundreds. He tried to hold his breath, but the mycelium wrapped around his chest tighter until all the air was forced from his lungs. He couldn’t do anything else but breathe in the spores and as he did, it felt like bolts of lightning ran through his veins, he finally realized that no matter what he did he wouldn’t escape.

Within it all, with his final breath of air he could only laugh. After all this running, after everything he had done to survive, after being revived by the hive that held him now in this terrifying but comforting embrace, it would be here he would die again. Killed once by something he knew was beyond his power but ran too anyway in a desperate bid to save someone he was afraid to admit he loved and then killed once again when that same love for the unsavable turned him to a hive that would only consume him.

Chapter Text

The Unfinite

Watchers

Listeners

Hiveminds

Void walkers

Players 

This is the way of our world, from the very beginning to the end. 

Yet there is something we all have in common, love.

We carry it when we are born and spread it until we die, some may love beyond themselves and others keep it like a jewel to hide but yet we all love, in many forms or shapes though some may not understand it, and let it shape how they view the world, others let it change them in a way that can never be reversed.

But those who don’t understand are changed far more than others, they turn dark, they turn bitter. They know love yet they hate it and all who spread it and all that it represents. They, beings born from the love of the Unfinite, live in a state of hatred of those below them.

They envy what they think they do not have, yet ignorant in its existence in the very threads of their being, from the first of them to the last, woven into their eyes, into their wings, into their very souls.

In the end, they became the hatred that loves, the ones that turn their back on themselves, they become everything and nothing, good and bad, duality yet turned singular because they had forgotten. 

They spit on those who love all-encompassing, that love like the Universe had loved them, those that can weaken them with a smile and empower them with a beat of their heart. Yet they believe those that feel love are weak, so the hatred that knows no love became the rulers of everything.

Yet as much as they hate and as much as they bring suffering to those around them, they will never forget the warmth of the love that they once were and the goodness it brings.

🍄

There was a reporter, right in his line of sight. Red hair seemed to be all he could pick out for this specific reporter. A gesture got them to finally talk, “Mayor, what is your opinion on the recent silence of the Mycelium resistance?”

 “Now! won’t it be best if we don't talk about that. That's not what this conference is about.” He spread his arms open wide gesturing with a movement that seemed to take up all of his charisma to perform, His voice was light in a way that seemed to take all the stress from your shoulders . 

"Let's all take the time to rest and know that they will soon be taken care of if they haven’t already been by the HEP and the heroes that strive every day to ensure that you and your families do not have to worry about cretins like the MR.” His eyes did not leave the eyes of the reporter as he spoke, like he was personally attempting to ease their worries himself. 

At the end of the day though Scar didn’t want to be here, gods he shouldn’t be here, today was Grian’s anniversary, he was meant to be at home mourning his best friend. Someone who could have been more to him if he had gotten his head out of his ass and took the first step, not attending some panel about a serum he made while severely sleep deprived and running on only caffeine and grief.

Yet he had to keep on the show, be their Mayor Goodtimes, their perfect mayor who does not swear. Who is never angry, who works his ass off every day to get everything right. The one who is always perfect and always right. In this moment that is all he has to be, the Scar who used to be Hotguy can come later.

 The rest of the panel went on in the background of his mind in a buzz of barely there answers filled with keywords created to pacify citizens at home and a bone deep tiredness. The only action he could take to alleviate any of it was to lean more on his cane and give that patented sunlight smile.

 A mayor must know to pretend like he actually likes the city he governs, but when he looks out to the bustling lands of Essempi, he feels nothing but hatred and grief, this is the city that Grian died to protect not even two years ago.

The day his best friend died, he had been too late, he could have done something he could save him, to save himself from this future he couldn’t seem to escape. They could have escaped this city like they had planned, moved in with Grian’s sister in the town she used to rave on about or his stepsister and her hive just so they could leave and forge a way just for themselves.

 Yet he stands here in a city he took a pledge to protect, a pledge he took with someone he had loved more than he believed he loved himself.

 But he stayed in this city, a city he gave up on a year after Grian’s death, a city that had forgotten about Cuteguy, they’d turned him into a footnote of the city’s story, he saved this city. He sacrificed himself for this city, he was never meant to be a footnote, he was meant to be the hero, but it seemed that no one was willing to acknowledge that fact and instead pushed all his achievements unto Scar instead.

 He was so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn’t even realized that he had gotten home, the house sounded so empty, there was nothing there. It was a big house meant for someone who was important, someone people cared about. He was feeling less and less like that person every day.

 So, he went through the normal motions for the night, he fed Jellie, put on the leg braces that were actually comfortable and weren’t meant to be subtle enough to forget about, changed from his suit that hadn’t seen actual battle for two years straight. For a while he stared at the logo, the wings of orange and blue but all he could see was the pastel pink and blue of someone long gone.

 As he laid in his bed, he realized something, like a broken puzzle piece slotting into where it was always meant to be, yet so warped by change that it was almost unrecognizable from what it should be . He was haunted in this house, a house that was meant to be a symbol of love, by his laugh that seemed to flow through the air like windchimes. By hair the color of wheat, but shining like freshly spun gold, or the rays of the sun, by eyes the darkest purple he had ever seen, dark but held the brightest light he could ever imagine, eyes so different from the night sky yet so similar he couldn’t look up without being reminded of his gaze.

 He was constant in his beauty, the same way a nuclear bomb is constant with its destruction, never there for long yet the effects will last a lifetime and longer. 

For a while sleep refused to grasp him, so he did what he used to do, he got up and moved to the roof of his house not to sleep just to watch the moon, and he thought, he thought back to nights like these with a person long gone.

 They used to lay on the roof each night just like this, sometimes they spoke until the sun greeted them with its rays, other times, they said not a word, but it was never the stars they admired, no it was the moon. Whenever he asked why, Grian always used to reply in the same wistful tone of voice, like he was remembering a past long gone.

 “The stars are for lovers, Scar, you know that, and I can never be one again.” That answer always broke his heart just a little bit, after all what is the point of loving someone when you know they will never love you back. What is the point of devoting your entire being to a person to get something even less than acknowledgement in return.

 He had loved and loved so deeply that he couldn’t even find it in himself to give up, to Scar, the price of loving Grian was the knowledge that absolutely nothing would ever come out of it.

That was always the end of it, after that question was asked, they would say nothing else for the night. Not a syllable would pass between their lips until the sun rose, sometimes Grian would fall asleep on the roof and Scar got to watch, every breath, the rise and fall of his chest and when he finally woke up, he was greeted with a smile every single time and Scar never got tired of it.

Once and only once did he answer the question differently, he remembers that day like he remembers his own name. Grian had failed to save a child that morning. He'd instead watched the smoldering remains burn right to the bone, with a sort of distance in his eyes, something about that fire had brought him back to a past that Grian refused to acknowledge and Scar never dared to ask about.

At that moment all Scar could do was watch the scene with bated breath, they had fought once they got home, yelled at each other for an hour. Pushed the blame back and forth, questioning and insulting and yelling until both of their throats ran raw. Somehow, they ended up on the roof, and like almost every other night he asked a question.

 “Why do you hate the stars so much?” and for the first and last time the answer was different. “The stars aren’t kind to me, not after Tautris and especially not after Sam.”

Grian never turned to look at him, just watched the moon with names that seemed to almost bleed him dry at just a simple mention, he curled himself into his wings until all that remained exposed was a singular hand. Scar just silently curled Grian’s hand within his own and understood. Some wounds are never truly healed.

He could remember very little of the night after that moment, the memory was blurred like the memory of a dream after you woke up, yet from time to time, he will think back at that moment and all he will remember are eyes the deepest shade of purple he had ever seen, so like Grian but somehow different.

 From then every time they saw each other no words were shared, they drifted past each other like ghosts lost to the wind, their minds each focused on their own problems and far too gone to even acknowledge each other, Grian died a week after the silence started.

 For the last year he avoided sleeping on this roof like the plague, like every little thought he’d ever had about Grian would leave him then and there with the closing of his eyes. But, for the first time in a year, Scar fell asleep on the roof and he was met with dreams that he couldn’t bother to explain but felt familiar in the way all places are when you’ve only been there in dreams.

🍄

“Do you remember your beginning child? The beginning of your everything, of your future, of your end.”

He was in a void, an ever-growing expanse of stars and stories. It was familiar to him like he had gone there before as a child, faint yet there in a place in his memories too far to be real yet there anyway.

“I made you for him, to love him when no one else would yet you have failed. You loved him far less than I would have liked, so child you will suffer the consequences. You will remember what was once lost and you will love more than you are capable of, until you are nothing but love,” there was a pause, not one of when someone expects you to answer but when they know you have nothing to say.

The being let out a laugh, one that felt like, sounded like, the end of everything, like Armageddon and Ragnarok and The Fall Of Man and Entropy and Creation and Love, and like the beauty of everything and the absolute end of everything.

Then he was nothing. Compared to the expanse that was talking to him, he was just a speck, a moment in the time of the Unfinite. He was a strand in the coils of life and death and death and life.

He felt like he was being taken apart, like the threads of his beings were being unraveled and shortened and lengthened and put back together in the same shape but in different positions, the same yet different in a way he couldn’t describe just yet.

It was excruciating yet it was ecstasy, it was every pain he had ever feared but was every pleasure he had never craved, it was more than him yet was just a speck of dust. His every atom felt vibrating like he was changing, being remade in impossible, improbable ways. He was perfect, yet greatly flawed. His existence was prophesized yet impossible. He was here yet he was nowhere.

Then in a moment it was done, he was remade and what used to be the Hero smiled for he had been made anew, he had been made better and he was never going back.

So, for the first time in a millennium The Hkcozinkj opened its eyes and smiled for he had been reborn, he had been remade and he was never going back to what he was forced to be.

Chapter Text

And at that moment he was everything at once, the creator of the universe, the beginning of the end and he was life rooted in decay and decay so firmly rooted in life that it continued in an endless cycle of beginnings and ends, and ends and beginnings, all trapped in a barely taken human shell.

So, he grew, and the shell changed and decayed cycling through life and death and the infinite space in between, forever living yet so finite in its end, as it changed and became the infinite space, ever-expanding, ever-growing infinite in its beginning and its end.

Then he was truly the Whole, the Finished, the Unfinite and the Watcher, part of every universe yet living in one, being one with decay and one with the Unfinite and one unable to die in a way that truly matters.

Then he was back to being him, a concept, an ideal of someone who wanted more, who wanted to become greater, who wanted to be remembered yet someone who never truly existed.

🍄

He had seen him, in this place he had started to call home while he was being remade, this void he had no previous knowledge on, yet it felt like home all the same. Yet he felt it when he noticed him, his other half awakening for the first time in what seemed like an infinity of moments yet what he knew could only be less than a millennium.

He looked at him through one of his many eyes, took in every detail of his new being and couldn’t recognize him for the one he’d loved for all the moments of his pitiful existence, so he looked deeper, he looked harder, he looked for a second, peeled back the layers of this new body of the other half, and underneath it all shining like a beacon, he saw him, The Bewitched.

The being created after him, feathers from his wings plucked by the creator and weaved into his skin, created his bones from a simple rib and made them connected in all ways they could continue to be. And he had been found, had been reborn, better than ever before, all for him.

Though he couldn’t smile, though he was formless in this void he laughed, with all the joy of newly forming stars. He laughed and sang and danced for he had been loved before and for once he will be loved again for all that he is and all that he will ever grow to be, and he will return that love in tenfold with all the ferocity of a starved wolf. For he has been deprived of this for far too long.

🍄

There is a certain type of agony that comes with being remade, to feel your every pore stripped from your skin, to feel your skin stripped from its meat and finally to feel the meat stripped from your bones. When you have been taken down to your very base, to the integrity of your body, to the casing of your soul, to be seen to your barest minimum and found incomplete, found wanting.

 For if you are not good enough in the eyes of those who deign to judge your soul then who will you be good enough for, the taken, those otherwise unfounded or unknown.

 No.

 You will only be good enough for the rot, the space in between. When life and decay refuse to even sully their good hands with the disgustingness of your bones for you are unnatural, you are spore.

You are the best of you, yet you are lacking, left wanting and wondering what you are worth, you are spore.

 You are that unburdened by life and untouched by decay, for you are more, you are better, you are remade, renewed, revitalized. You are everything you ever wanted yet you are nothing you ever dreamed. You are spore. 

You are a paradox brought to life, a living, unbreathing contradiction that shall never die. You are Spore.

 You need not the water of life nor shall you ever fall to the glutton of food, you do not need to draw breath and you do not need a beating heart. You are Spore.

 You need not life, nor do you need death, you are what you wish to be and unchanged in your nature, you are special in all ways, yet same in your uniquity, all except the Mother. You are Mother Spore.

 Mother is special, Mother will help us, you will save us from all that wish us harm, you will save us, you will deliver us from the hands of life and keep us from the hands of death. You are Mother Spore.

 Watch as we work, as we weave you anew, for our Mother can not be lacking, our Mother must have power. Our Mother must be weaved with spore in and out, must be released from the chains of a mortal body, must be stronger than ever before, we will unlock the cage in your soul and free what has not been freed.

 We shall free what has not been freed.

 We shall free what can not be freed.

We shall free what was not freed.

WE SHALL FREE WHAT HAS NOT BEEN FREED.

 WE SHALL FREE WHAT CAN NOT BE FREED.

 WE SHALL FREE WHAT WAS NOT FREED.

 OUR MOTHER WE CALL TO YOU.

 UNBREAK YOUR CHAINS AND REMEMBER WHO YOU HAVE BEEN.

 REMEMBER.

 REMEMBER.

 REMEMBER.

 REMEMBER.

 Awaken the watcher, awaken the god, awaken the watcher, awaken the love, awaken the watcher, awaken the Unfinite. Awaken Xequla.

Rise for you have been reborn you are new and yet to be unveiled, you are all you will ever want you are Mother spore, you are Love, you are Unfinite. You are Xequla.

 You will never be forgotten again.

🍄 

“Welcome home Mother.”

Chapter Text

The last, first time they opened their eyes, they saw emptiness, they were cast out, lost because of their love, lost because of the hatred of those who watched. There was very little they could do to change their fate and make it whole.

So, in this new place where they lay under a blanket of infinite stars and they wept, they wept for the pain they had felt, for those who they lost in the home of watching and, the listeners, the disciples that they abandoned at their temple. A home lost for a foolish mortal they were never even going to see.

So, they allowed themselves to fade, they became that which loves them and that which is love and faded into the Unfinite sky.

And yet they awoke, once again they awoke, they felt this void around them and realized what they were, where they were, within who they were.

“Open your eyes Love, you my child are here, you are here to spend life within me, you are here to love within me.”

They tried to speak but they could not, they were formless, they were naught but essence in this being, consumed in all but soul, destined to be here winding through this cosmic being, like blood through veins they no longer had. 

“Love I call you, yet I see it is something you lack. Do you know what this means? You are incomplete, you lack. You have not yet reached your full potential and to let you flow through me is to poison me, to poison the world.”

Sorrow flowed through them, a wave that crashed against their very being, and they could do nothing more than flow with it. Flow with the grief that seemed to consume them. They too felt grief, after all, they are imperfect, so they cannot join their creator, they cannot sustain that which loves them and so they can do nothing but grieve.

“We will try again, I will return you, but you will be different, and you will be unburdened by your memories, you will be given the time to grow, to love and to be loved. In all ways. Be ready and hold strong,”

A pause as if the being was contemplating its next words. The void seemed flavoured with grief, they flowed and shifted as the black ocean sways, and they felt hope. For they can be redeemed they can try again, they can be fixed, they can be redeemed of their faults. 

 “Finally, remember none of this is your fault, you are not damaged, you are not a burden, nor are you wrong. You deserve to be loved just like everyone else, not only because of your differences but despite them too.

You are worthy of love.”

🍄

“Gunshots, it was just meant to be gunshots, nothing more. So can anyone tell me what the hell this is.” The hero Hypno was the one that spoke up. 

They were new to the scene, new enough to have no idea about Grian in any way shape or form. New enough to not recognize what exactly the decrypt warehouse zone around them was famous for.

They were the type of hero sent out to the scene with the medical staff, not for a lack of ability but rather specifically for the fact that they had the type of power that was perfect for deescalating any situation. He would like them if it wasn’t for their ignorance.

What he was looking at was a void, something infinite, endless, everlasting and most importantly terrifying. It wasn't something he had expected to see tonight and it wasn’t something he honestly wanted to deal with. He was only here because of the fact that no one actually knew what to do, which meant he had to now be in charge.

Hell, even Scar wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking at honestly, the void that was housed in this tunnel of what looked like an almost flesh like substance lining the walls. The first responders had been too scared to go down, not exactly sure what they would find.

Some samples were collected but at this point he wasn’t even sure what they would show.

Was this a tunnel of flesh or some other terrifying substance that they had yet to see and catalogue. He took a few steps closer to the mouth of the void and felt the walls, they squished under his fingers releasing some sort of liquid, it was clear and held a pinkish tint to it. Rubbing it between two fingers revealed that it was sticky in a way that made the rubber of his gloves feel almost dry despite the substance covering them. It had a smell he couldn’t pinpoint yet smelled like something he was intimately familiar with in a way he couldn’t quite recognize.

 When he pulled his finger away from the wall a small recess was left within it and in that recess what looked like tiny specks of dust was floating down. At a point they seemed  to stagnate, no longer floating down but also not settling on anything just hovering uselessly above the pad of the finger he had placed below it.

In his mind there were two main options on what they found was: one, which in all honesty was the better option, this is a place riddled with spores that they had yet to find and was just a tunnel they had missed during the first pass over with E-C.

Two, they found the source of spore, maybe the base to the Mycelium resistance, maybe not. Either way they have found something vital to clearing the islands of all mushroom life forever.

So, because Scar could tell that no one else was going to do it, he got up, grabbed his cane and took the first step into the gaping maw that was the void.

Mere moments after stepping in, there was this smell that followed him, this sickly-sweet smell, yet with a tang of iron in it, it made him sick to his stomach. It was similar to the one that came from the walls but this one was heavy with the scent of blood.

 There were no obvious steps but there was an incline to the substance coating the walls. He descended with his cane digging deep into the floor in an attempt to keep him stable, the air seemed to grow thick. It became harder to breathe, every breath seemed to clog his lungs and stick to his throat, so much so that he felt the need to bring up the respirator that was attached to the hood of the suit, but his hands refused to move. It felt like the second he unfocused from the task ahead he would be unable to escape.

 As much as he knew that he should just bring up the respirator, better to be safe than sorry, something in him told him to stop, to wait for just a little bit before he did anything at all. He was so paralyzed by the decision that he didn’t even notice when he finally reached the end of the incline.

At the end of the incline was a room.

No, more of a cave. Obviously artificial, carved out by something larger that he was, hell he could still see the claw marks on the walls. At least the parts of the walls he could see, they seemed covered in what he could only describe as thousands upon thousands of mushrooms. In the middle of the room hanging in a circle were these cocoons, they resembled the chrysalis of a caterpillar, yet they were wrong, they seemed more flesh like than anything else and the largest one seemed to tower over him.

 Once again that feeling of indecision raced through him, should he step forward, should he retreat and call the others down, stand back and wait for reinforcements. Yet once again it seemed the decision was taken out of his hands, he seemed rooted in his spot, he refused to move forward into the room yet something stopped him from retreating.

At that moment of his indecision the first chrysalis started to bulge. the middle extended in a grotesque point. It seemed as if someone was pressing on its walls from the inside. Distending its form in a way that seemed uniquely unnatural. Yet he couldn't help put imagine it as a parasite pushing its way through the skin of an unwilling host.

 The skin of it or what he could only call a skin, extended outward. Its elasticity stretching beyond a point that seemed normal for any substance. Finally after what initially seemed like a futile struggle, a claw split through it. With a sudden and sharp motion, accompanied with a sound that almost deafened him, echoing within his skull with the same clamour and frequency of a thousand sheets of metal being cut in half, it split straight down the middle.

Out stepped what he could only describe as a large bipedal wolf, its fur was a dark black that almost seemed to swallow the light around it, within those course strands of hair were black mushrooms of all shapes and sizes, only the flesh colour of their stems stood out. He was dressed in what may have once been a red dress shirt but was now tattered. Holes of varying sizes ran up the sleeves becoming ever smaller as they reached the shoulder of the beast. The black jeans and suspenders seemed to receive the same treatment, the only thing on its figure that could even be considered close to intact was the red, fur lined cape it was wearing. Yet the fur on the cape was less fur now and more fuzz with patches of mold littering its form.

The eyes of the beast were glassy and dazed, they reminded Scar of the eyes of someone dead more than they reminded him of the eyes of anyone living. It seemed to have a muzzle of mycelium wrapped upon its maw. The beast seemed to examine itself for a moment, getting its bearings  before taking a sniff of the air, completely apathetic to him or his presence in this gaping cavern. 

It sniffed around, snuffling and shuffling around in a way that so deeply resembled a sick animal that it actually made him uncomfortable. Finally, after one long breath it turned to him as if only noticing his presence by smell alone.

It opened it's maw wide, strands of mycelium that covered it stretching in a way that resembled exposed tendons than any actual creation of mushroom. Inside it's mouth was two rows of teeth. Teeth that all resembled canines. Finally a tongue much longer than any tongue had the right to be lolled out of its mouth.

Slowly, growing louder in volume as each second passes emerged a sound from deep within its chest, a sound that resembled a jet engine more than anything biological or organic. A krrrrrrr that Scar could feel in his bones. Immediately after turning away, growls still revibrating around the room yet its focus stayed fixed on the middlemost chrysalis.

The room seems to shudder in tune with the growls. The other chrysalis' in the room seeming to inflate and deflate in time with Scar's own breaths. Seemingly mimicking the movement of his lungs beneath his skin. Resonating with him in a way that only unsettled him.

A singular chrysalis however seemed offbeat to the others, swelling more and more with every breath that he took. Whatever seemed to make up the shell of the chrysalis seemed to be straining, every expansion taxing it more and more.

It grew beyond the size of his own body, he could almost hear it creaking and groaning as the shell could no longer hold it together. Smaller cracks started to litter the skin. Then they grew in size. One was as long as the length of his hand. He could barely see between the cracks but what he could see was so bright it seemed toxic.

Finally, there was a moment of complete stillness, a moment that he could not explain nor ignore. A silence that unsettled him so greatly he could only close his eyes and pray that it passed by faster. A second passed, then another and finally in a burst of violent spore that blinded him for no less than a minute the chrysalis erupted.

In a mess of limbs, burst out a figure.

Ever so slowly, not turning away from the innermost chrysalis, the beast raised it's finger in a point. A point that ended at Scar.

Quicker than he could blink it rushed towards him, slowing the closer it got to him. Between him and the chrysalis laid a good twenty feet, the creature had crossed half of that in less than a second. Moving in a way that was strangely unnatural.

Legs crossing over arms, arms crossing over legs, it's spine bending in ways that were unnatural to any creature from end, nether or overworld.

The first beast moved slow, every action considered and weighed. Every bit like the king it seemed to be. This one though resembled more of an imp than anything. In both action and appearance, it moved in strange bouncy movements. It reminded him of the bounce that he'd seen half dead people do in am attempt to free themselves from rubble. A movement more focused on propelling the body forward in anyway possible than actually being comfortable.

Stumbling back was the only action he could actively take now, it was like his brain finally clicked back on and he could actually realize what type of danger he was in. He could actually die and see Grian again. In a moment of what felt like instinct that had been buried so deep within him that it basically was laying in Grian's coffin, he finally pressed the SOS on the communicator on his belt. (An SOS only put in after the death of legendary hero Cuteguy)

Didn't stop him from being tackled to the floor though. It hovered above him not attacking him in the way he expected it too, instead just waiting and watching him. From the side the wolf let out a different growl, this one a more traditional slow rumble that he could feel in his bones.

With that he was raised from the floor but not released, instead he was pressed further into the wall. He tried to struggle, arms and legs flailing in a way that made him feel distinctly like a fly trapped to a web. As if to prove his point even further, what looked like the same liquid that he felt secrete from the walls began seeping out again. This time stickier. He pulled his hand back, trying to take the incentive to land a punch on the imp in a desperate bid from freedom. Yet all it took was one hand being pressed into the wall and he was stuck.

Nothing actually happened to him though, no harm no nothing. He was just left there, a captive audience to what he assumed was the birth of something new.

At least now, sat on the floor with his arm held up above him, he could properly take in the imp that had immobilised him. It had the normal features of an imp but just a bit to the left. The sclera instead of being pure black like most imps had instead was the same purple as a bruise, it's iris more closely resembling the putrid and sickly yellow of festering pus than the bright happy yellow happy he assumed it used to be. Its limbs were thick and wrapped in the type of fat that hid a more than substantial layer of muscle beneath it.

The most prominent part of the being though was the scorpion tail that rose out of it's back. In places it had completely rotted, what was supposed to be chitinous shell gave way into what he assumed was flesh. Yet the more he looked at it the less and less flesh like it became. It pulsed in this weird off rhythm statacco that he soon realised was timed to his own breaths and in that moment it mas sense. Inside that tail wasn't flesh.

It was spore.

The imp wore what he could only describe as what travellers wear, Pants that were made to allow airflow while still covering the max amount of skin, cinched at the waist and the just above where the legs gave way to bipedal, reptilian feet. Places where there should have been scales or at least some kind of plating being instead replaced by toadstools and toadstools alone. On it's top half was a free fitting shirt, it gave the impression that it once had sleeves but they were now missing, on it a large 'I' was embedded. Finally around its neck was a hooded cape in a colour that he assumed was similar to what it's eyes previously looked like.

The imp too turned away from him, taking a spot next to the beast, joining it in its silent viewing of the innermost chrysalis. A viewing that seemed almost anticipatory.

Suddenly, the beast moved, not too far at least just moved a bit to the left and gestured with his arms. And then he heard it, a slow but steady drip, It was constant in measured beats. It echoed strangely, the same way a leaky tap would echo in an empty building, ringing in your ears until you were deaf to the sound of anything other than the steady drip… drip… drip… That haunts your every step.

Chrysalis number three was melting.

Each, drop seemed to gather together and coagulate in one spot, no matter where that drop seemed to originally land, drops travelling to the front of the centremost chrysalis, next in line to the imp. The one that while not being the largest (the beast being the largest one) seemed to be the most important.

Slowly but surely, drops turn into rivulets, rivulets turned into what could be considered a rush of water. Although the more he looked at it the less it resembled water, it's thickness and the way it seemed to join together was just wrong. Instead it looked more like slime, specifically the type of slime that made up the few (singular) slime person he had met in his life.

It formed what he assumed used to be a slime person. It was murky at least, it didn't have the perfectly glassy skin that most others had, he couldn't observe it clearly though. It was like every moment it was something before becoming something else the next.

Everything in him screamed that this being as unnatural. That this thing wasn't just like the others but somehow worse, less than less than human.

In his mind though it seemed like a natural progression, the imp was less human than the beast so the slime would be less human than both. The next four would be worse and worse until he could barely recognize them as something that could have once been considered a sentient person.

At this moment it felt like they all had one purpose. A purpose that so intrinsically connected to the being at that the centre that to be outside of that bond made something empty in the middle of his chest ache.

His communicator beeped thrice.

Help was here. he didnt want it

The wall beside him exploded in a ball of flames.

There is fire everywhere.

He can not breathe.

He can not ignore the spore.

Then there is only darkness.