This bit follows 'Meanwhile back at the Ranch' WARNING this bit is about the evil side.
How the other half live
Life on Earth was changing. The very foundations of people’s knowledge had been shaken. Earth had uploaded enough information through her ‘Sky Screens’, that all her skin bound life forms were rapidly becoming self-sufficient. Although Governments were struggling with the seemingly lack of control of their subjects, life forms themselves were thriving. Individual ‘Core Homes’ were being built, with underlying tunnels connecting them to large complexes of Core scrapers, like roads to towns and cities.
A true ‘Earth Unity’ had begun. With it came an unthought-of bonus, the descendants of Rhynio were becoming quite obvious. They were the ones who did not help, the ones that repelled the order of assistance. Though the news was not all good, these devolved creatures were forming bases of their own. Instead of being places that supported and even enhanced life, these bases were dungeons of iniquity. It seemed impossible that these chambers could be built amongst such chaos, but they were.
And within that chaos of the ‘Ullimunatu’ a leader clawed to the top. Yelpiron was his name, Human was his form. A direct descendant of Dr.H.H.Holmes with barely any evolution to his devolved brain. To say this man was a murderer, was an immense understatement. In his early adulthood he had built entire hotels specifically for the purpose of murdering his guests. He would lure innocent people to "Murder Castles" where he had rigged all of the bedrooms with gas lines, soundproofing, lime pits, etc.. ‘He would then proceed to torture and murder them, ultimately selling their body parts to medical schools.’
Rynios descendants were forming neurological problems of their own. Certain strains had developed an adverse chemical reaction in their electro-chemical process and were compelled to attain it. In effect they had become addicted to their cause. Such an addiction, if confined within its own kind, leads to a ‘dog eat dog’ kind of scenario. It makes it harder to win a battle, when your army is illiminating each other. Yelpirons wrath of induced terror, was so dark that it was controlling 'death addicts' and all he used was isolation. This is something such addicts cannot bear, as then there is no one or nothing for death around them.
So the Core-scrapers of the Dark contained many, many cells; small and empty. There was much less light and ventilation. The devolved animals in these constructions were not farmed as such, but more given a permaculture environment where they ran wild. This gave the addicts the fix they needed when the need arose for nourishment. Yelpiron used this as a form of privilege, to entice better behavior from his followers. Often the younger less intelligent of the Human forms were added as a source to hunt for nourishment.
For most dark forces the ultimate rise in the ranks was to be included into the raiding parties. These raids were targeted towards single unit positives, the positive descendants of Cyano that could not make the journey to the giant Core-scrapers and had made little Core-homes of their own. Home invasions had become the terror of Global War. Most were ended by Machete, but some, given as trophies for good conduct, were taken alive. Yelpiron laid claim to the youngest victims, as they were his favorite delicacy.
During these raids all livestock that could be salvaged were taken, as it became plainly obvious that the needs of the ‘murder addicts’ far outweighed the needs of nutrition. Much meat was being wasted and rare was the Dark force that was willing to preserve it. Flesh from hunting and raiding would be secreted back to tiny cells. Hidden away as treasures for it's aroma of death, reminding the devovled entity of it's fix.
In the beginning these raids were rare, but over time they became more regular; as if Yelpiron was training up his army. Earth Haven had formed a Global Police Force to assist the positive single units, Red had been elected the High Commissioner of it. But the filtration was not yet complete, and Earth was not willing to upload the technical details of highly advanced weapons. This would be done when the magnetic force field had shut down and all roads between the Dark and Positive Cores had been blocked.
For now Red’s greatest ‘tools’ were Niqua and Adelo, they spent their days and many nights with him, acting as a speaker for Earth and the links loyal to the cause. Often working such long hours that it physically weakened Niqua, and Red prompted by her scaly little friend, would always insist that it was he who carried her to her quarters for rest. Adelo seemed quite adamant to play cupid between the two, though to all others the little creatures point was mute, as it was obvious that a strong bond was already formed between them.
But Earth had armies of her own, the insect regiment, the battalions of birds and bats; all creatures, winged or not were very useful in the course of reconnaissance. Of course, although positive in descent, all creatures have the ability to harm and illiminate. There were positive descendants even of the Mosquitos, snakes, crocodiles and sharks; and the Human descendants of Cyanos line were equal in strength and intelligence to those of Rhynios.
But despite these evil raids becoming more and more frequent, and also more and more successful against Red’s best Global force’s efforts; a new motto was forming. Who hasn’t heard some Hippie screaming out ‘Save the World’! But now, the motto was rapidly becoming – ‘The World will save us’! As indeed it was often Earth, who was the one to alert single positive units to an oncoming raid. Though she had not formed a lot of super-conscious communicative links with many Human Beings, holding more trust in the unconditional love of their four legged ‘best friends’.
There were many Canines commissioned with communications to Earth. At least one in every household of domestication, and all that dwelt outside of the domestic situations. A fair amount of Felines also fell within that bracket, and again all that existed in the natural wild environment. Even Aves, particularly those within the Parrot family, where given a strong bond of knowledge – these were extremely helpful in their natural locations.
This left few places for the devolved animals to retreat, they were forced, in droves, into the dark Core-scrapers. To be used for the purposes of appeasing addicts more so than the needs of nutrition. In a way it was lucky that these devolved brains perceived this as almost natural. Not all of these creatures were like lambs to slaughter though, many were like tutors in dangerous, heavy, hand-to-hand combat. Some even taught intricate strategies, for there was no other way to defeat their lives and taste the sweet drink of death.
For instance the hippo is responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal & can end crocodiles. Usually weighing a thousand to two thousand kilogram, extraordinarily bulky males can reach up to 3.2 ton, measuring 1.3 – 1.5 meters in height, 2 – 4 meters in length and a girth about the same size as its length. Yelpiron created a Core-scraper dedicated to this species for the purposes of training in heavy hand-to-hand combat.
The only other animal in that Core-hold was the ‘Black Mamba’; the most dangerous and feared snake in Africa, being most-advanced of all the snake species in the world. Their venom apparatus and method of delivering that venom is also probably the most-effective and most-evolved. It combines speed, unpredictable aggression, and potent venom making it an extremely dangerous opponent and a brilliant strategy instructor.
Once the necessary skills involved with exterminating the Hippo – an animal commonly known as huge; with skin that can be up to 2 inches thick and has special sub-dermal glands secreting a reddish liquid which protects that skin against drying, overheating, UV radiation and infection. Also having a thick layer of fat under that skin which even more obstructs serious injuries during fights {When dried, the hippo hide is so tough that it was once used for sharpening diamonds!}
Having a massive head that widens at the end into a large lip up to 2 foot wide, the mouth of which hides giant jaws which can be drawn apart as far as 150 degrees! Holding 36 teeth, upper and lower ones abut, grinding together and keeping sharp. The lower canines, or rather tusks, are twisted and up to a foot long, weighing up to 3 kg. They grow almost horizontally and allow the hippo to stab its opponent comfortably.
Combined with the skills to end the Black Mamba; the longest species of venomous snake in Africa and also the fastest moving snake on the planet. Its venom is one of the most rapid-acting. In cases of severe envenomation, it is capable of ending an adult human in as little as 20 minutes. Besides the relatively high speed with which it moves, the black mamba can strike accurately in any direction, even while moving fast.
Its bite can deliver up to 400 mg of dendrotoxin. A toxin that disrupts the exogenous process of muscle contraction by means of an electrogenic transmembrane procedure located in the plasma membrane of all animal cells. Effecting rapid onset of dizziness, coughing and difficulty in breathing, and erratic heartbeat. Death is due to suffocation resulting from paralysis of the respiratory muscles. Without rapid and vigorous anti-venom therapy, a bite from a black mamba is fatal 100% of the time.
A devolved entity that had refined their personal skills and knowledge to best these most efficient opponents; became ‘Permanent Raiders’. It put a whole new twist on the more commonly known abbreviation of ‘PR’; though within a darkened Core they did indeed improve public relations – they were Hero’s . . . and all the World, both positive and dark needs Heroes.
Though without close scrutiny, just as a Human looks like a Human, a dog is a dog, a cat a cat and so on and so forth. Devolved animals were also used in raids, in the gathering of information. Just as in the positive ‘Scrapers’, there were entire constructions dedicated to the animal kingdoms in the dark ‘Cores’ as well. Mostly the species were pitted against each other, devolved Canine against positive dog, devolved Feline against positive cat and so it continued.
Armies of animals, with regiments specified by species, where forming – both positive and dark. These armies far out-numbered the mere Human life forms. Many regiments were not as unconditional with their allegiance to man-kind. There were regiments of many kinds, who proffered protection to Flora alone. Plants are not as inanimate as you may think, they may not have the ability to move, but they, in that force of statue status, have developed the utmost ability of patience. No other life-form can ‘lay in wait’ quite like them.
Plants are often a great source of poison, which can be used as self-protection or in a trap. All forms of Flora have a communicative link with Earth, this Universal link back-fired against the devolved consciousness’s of this kind. Of all the descendants of Rhynio, Earth was able to physically change the floral kind. These life forms embed themselves into the very flesh of Earth and they are completely reliant on her for the nutrition that sustains them. With minute chemical changes to the likes of mineral content, Earth was able to visibly change the color of devolved plant-life.
The chemical change that Earth created, overdoses the chlorophyll that is within devolved flora – though in reality they are still green, the level of that coloring agent is so high that they appear black. The entirety of these plants, from roots, stem, bark, leaves and flowers, appear so black that they have a fluorescent radiation of darkest blue. A side-effect of this Earth effort was a statistical illumination. A third of all flora darkened within weeks of the chemical change.
Chlorophyll absorbs deep-blue and red light, so that the rest of the sunlight spectrum is being reflected, causing plants to look green. Green plants reflect mostly green and near-green light to viewers rather than absorbing it. They do not use a large part of the visible light spectrum as efficiently as possible. A black plant can absorb more radiation of this light, and this could be very useful, if extra heat produced is effectively disposed of. There were no known single biological pigments able to absorb the whole spectrum of visible light.
That was until Earth had made a similar mistake to Cyano’s. With a forced physical transformation of devolved plant life, she had unwillingly created a life form that could withstand the surface radiation of any solar storm. It was thought that during the century of high levels of all forms of radiation, including heat, all forms of life that had not descended – would perish. It now seemed the ‘Black Flora’s’ would not only survive, but flourish. It was unknown if they would be able to interfere with the life forms harboring underground.
