ARChIVE: The Full Compilation

ARChIVE: Bloodrise
"To positions, everybody! Portal dilation in 5 minutes!" The intercom blared out instructions as people scurried around and the ARCHIVE powered up.

The Archive was a pinnacle of human achievement, and in this day of fallout, radiation, and cold, it allowed humans to see back into the computer programs that Mankind had created before the Great War and subsequent rain of nuclear weapons. It was a massive hypercomputer connected to a digitization array portal, and the technicians loaded the program, and sent things through, to see what it was like inside. Most of the programs were video games, as they had a coherent world to investigate.

Today, however, they were sending in humans. The program being investigated was something called Minecraft. It worked in such a way that if the technicians were to intervene in any way, the explorers would be lost.

"Alright boys! Look alive! You have agreed to go where no man nor woman has gone before! Into a computer program!" The sarge told the soldiers who were to escort the scientists in. Then the soldiers gathered weapons, and as the fell into lines near the Digitization Portal, the scientists came in, along with someone who had experience with the program from "playing" it. "Portal dilation in three... two... one...! The swirling energy expanded into sight and eventually filled the confines of the array. And the investigation team walked in.

The blocky world surrounding them was in stark contrast to the open areas of their Base Reality. It was filled with. . . green things and growing life. All pixelated, of course, but still, it was amazing. "Hey, what's that... brightly glowing yellow thing up there? Some sort of giant lamp?" "No, it's called Sol, the sun." "Whooaaa..." Then they heard a rustling. The soldiers raised their guns. but it was just a Pig. They did not know this, and tried to shoot it. The bullet passed through and stuck in the dirt. The humans started screaming in terror until they realized it was harmless. "We'll have to take one back through the portal." "Hey! is that a cave?" "Investigate!" The team hunkered down in the cave, but then the Sun started to dip below the horizon, and a Zombie spawned on the hill. Then, more mobs.

A pack of Zombies had spawned next to one of the soldiers in the cave, and pounced on him, and began ripping, tearing, biting. Blood splattered, and the others screamed as the unfortunate soldier screamed for help. They ran, tried to run back to the portal. The soldiers who got lost managed to survive the night. They were the lucky ones. The rest ran, but were shot by arrows, or the Zombies got to them. Screams, blood, gore all around. The smell of terror and pain was heavy in the air, as the last three people near the portal slipped and slid in the red ooze.

Then, a creature walked out of the shadows, completely silent. It was green, and speckled with lighter shades of green fading into a very light gray. It had no arms, and four stubby legs. It walked towards the three humans, it's face contorted into a sick upside-down grin, and eye sockets that seemed empty. The man who had played the game before knew that this was a Creeper, and ran to the portal. A second Creeper walked out of the shadows. The first detonated itself right next to the two soldiers. The second chased the man who played Minecraft. He had just reached the portal when it cought up to him, and the zombies grabbed his feet. He was halfway through the portal, and people standing near the portal rushed over and tried to help the man, but it was like tug of war, and the man screamed as his torso began detaching from his legs. Then, the creeper detonated, sending a shockwave through the man, and spilling his entrails on the floor. "CLOSE THE PORTAL!!!" "But there are still people in there!" "CLOSE IT!!!!" "Alright!!" However, the mechanism for closing the portal broke, and "I can't! it's malfunctioning!!!" The technicians who were helping the man screamed in terror and ran as fast as they could, but they could not stop the torrent of mobs seeking blood from pouring out into Base Reality.

ARChIVE 2: Aroboros
The technicians desperately tried to close the portal, but they could not! Something was holding it open as Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons, Silverfish, Slimes, Blazes, Ghasts, Magma Cubes, Zombie Pigmen, Endermites and Endermen flooded out of the portal. Zombies and Zombie Pigmen devoured all in their path. Creepers took down buildings. Silverfish and Endermites were smuggled among luggage as the humans attempted to flee. Blazes attacked wooden structures. Ghasts took down planes. Endermen teleported across the planet, bringing mobs. It seemed there was a super-intelligent entity controlling them all from behind the scenes.

Luckily, conventional human weapons worked here.

The battlefield was strewn with craters and gore. The Mobs were marching into the camp, about to devour the wounded survivors. A creeper entered a tent, and began to expand, but stopped and fell over as the magical weapon blasted its head into what could only be described as pixie dust.

Aroboros wanted this new, strange world for himself. He could not manipulate reality as well as he could in Minecraft, but he was still pretty good at it. And he hated the mobs. He hated them so much!

"Hmph!" he said, glaring at the cowering humans. He proceeded to mow down all the mobs with the Omnibolt, blasting them, slicing them into pixels, and sucked the humans there dry of life-force, and walked off to the next refugee camp.

Aroboros needed the humans' lifeforces to live, without them, he would starve. He was a virus, who hid as a trojan in Minecraft, and escaped along with all the other entities when the barrier broke. He placed no value in human life, only their life energy mattered. His eventual goal was to return to the portal and interface with the computer, and create humans out of nothing so he could devour them.

Aroboros came across a skirmish between three Blazes and a platoon of soldiers. Both parties died at the same time. He was in a bad mood. But killing cheered him up so much! So when he saw an army of reinforcements from both sides, he took malicious pleasure in slicing each side into chunks of meat and pixels.

The defenses of the ARChIVE complex loomed into view, but the defences were not the computer, the computer itself was like an apple seed, still in the apple, and the flesh of the apple was the defenses. Aroboros sprinted across the distance with ease, tearing up the ground into shattered dust.

Monsters still poured from the entrance. And he couldn't use the OmniBolt, because it could damage the equipment. So he put it away, and was forced to rely on reflexes and agility. And he was good at it. He dodged, jived, juked, and smashed his way through the stream of mobs, and worked his way up to the terminal room. However, once he got there, he found that the technicians' gore covered the controls, and he couldn't access it. He would need to go into the portal and create humans manually. But to do that, he'd have to get a specimen, scan it, and then recreate it. This was no small task.

And, as he was going to leave to go get a human, the flood of mobs slowed to a trickle, and then stopped. He decide to ignore it. So he left.

Humans were not hard to find, as there were still billions, and as he found a camp, he scanned them, figured out their anatomy. And then he returned to ARChIVE.

He entered the portal, ready to shape reality. When he entered, he began to make the humans, and shove them through the portal. Thousands. Millions. Billions. Trillions. Created, devoured. Aroboros grew more and more powerful. He eventually became so powerful that he Ascended.

He had finally achieved his dream of power.

He could finally do with the universe what he wanted!

But not, as he was soon to learn, without a price.

ARChIVE 3:The Controller
The Controller was pleased. Very pleased. Aroboros fell right into his trap! He had served his purpose well... so well, even, that the Controller considered not killing Aroboros. But then, that would be foolish. Aroboros was far too powerful now, the Controller would have to strike and steal Aroboros's massive absorbed life-force. Aroboros, however, was quickly becoming aware of things more than hate, prejudice and hunger. He was becoming... too sentient. So the Controller attempted to destroy what he had created, but could not. Aroboros was too strong for that, yet his power was still being drained into the Controller rapidly.

Aroboros woke up. He was standing there, in the Minecraft world. There, the Controller stood. "Well, you're finally awake. Well done, by the way, on getting this far." They stood, they glared. "Winner takes all, eh?" "Sure." And the fight began. Aroboros charged at the controller, who teleported behind him and impaled him, spewing sprites everywhere. "Well, that was-" The controller had begun to say, but was cut short as Aroboros stabbed him from behind. And the two began fighting like tempests of death, sparks and blood sprites as the two constantly shredded each other into red dust. It was a sight to see, truly. And some say they are still fighting, even these billions of years later, fighting, killing, destroying, each striving to dominate the other, yet they were evenly matched.