Summary - Immortality is bestowed upon the ambitious
Word count - ~1k
Some short backstory/history that I want to include in the rewrite of my AU
Cw : brief mentions of blood, body horror (in all honesty I don't know what to call it but it's weird)
It was the end of the world.
Dorotheos stands between the piles of smoldering ashes that were once his home, head tipped up to the sky.
A beast - no, a God - floats in front of the moon, watching the destruction it has caused with simple, detached sentiment.
This is what he’s been searching for. The picture of immortality and endless power. The creator of the universe.
Arceus.
The God descends to the world it has ruined and the air ripples with barely restrained strength.
He should kneel. He wants to kneel. He decides that he will face the Creator’s wrath without succumbing to it.
‘You are the one that has been seeking me out’
The voice makes him tremble, and he now wishes - somewhere far in his mind - to kneel.
It was not a question, but he feels the need to answer.
“Yes,”
‘You desire immortality. You desire power. And in those desires you no longer care for lives other than your own.’
The God hovers just off the ground in front of him, its head tilted down to fix him with eyes that have seen things he can only dream.
‘In punishment, I will make you live until you learn to respect what is given to you.’
The Creator’s stomach begins to glow, eighteen plates appearing from within its skin to form a twisting circle in the air.
‘These plates are pieces of my being. I give them to you so that you may learn the worth of a mortal life.’
A plate floats forward, and as if by instinct he reaches out to touch it.
At first he feels nothing, but a moment later the plate begins to glow.
He was burning at the spire, his veins have turned to flame. He doubles over and screams, the edges of his vision tinted red. His hands are glowing, as if he had been set on fire starting from the inside.
Another plate floats in front of him and in a desperate attempt to get the sensations to stop he lunges forward to touch it.
A sudden steadying calm washes over him, the previous heat dissipating in favor of a gentle pulse.
It would have been pleasant, had he not begun to choke. Fisting a hand in the fabric of his tunic he coughs, spitting water out onto the ground in front of his feet. Through freely flowing tears he looks up at the third plate. Were his life not spilling between his fingers he wouldn’t dare to touch it.
Nothing happens immediately this time, but he still braces himself as the fourth plate approaches. As he reaches out to touch it he notices his hands, the skin having split to reveal slowly blooming flower buds between his coiling tendons. Blood drips out from within the closed petals, but he’s unsure whether it's his own.
He quickly reaches for the plate and his body seizes as his fingers brush the cool surface.
Small shocks coarse through his body, steadily growing stronger until he can’t stop the painful twitching of his body.
The fifth plate cools his body to the point of being painful, his fingers turning a sickly shade of blue as he shakes.
The next three plates don’t have any remarkable side effects - in comparison with the first five - and he revels in the short reprieve.
The ninth plate that approaches him has a purple sheen to it, and he promptly falls to his knees when he touches it.
This plate rivals the pain of the first intertwined with the horrors of the others. His fingers have become blanketed as if dying, but he barely notices anything outside of the twisting of his stomach. He feels the need to vomit, but his body won’t allow it. Instead he is forced to live with whatever is making him sick.
After that the tenth plate seems like a blessing, simply robbing him of the air from his lungs.
The eleventh plate makes his head throb, whispered voices flickering in his mind too quick for him to understand. Just as it’s beginning to drive him mad the twelfth plate floats down to him.
This one is much like the third, nothing remarkable until he begins to feel something beneath his skin. Something appears to be pulsing, pulling his skin taught over wriggling lumps that had not been there before.
In a panic he reaches for the thirteen plate.
He blinks his eyes open to stare at his own body.
His eyes are glassy, faded from their normal light blue to a soulless black. His mouth is open in silent scream and his body hangs limps.
Though his physical body is in pain, his spectral form feels none of it. It’s rather peaceful, he’d be satisfied to simply remain like this.
It seems that the God doesn’t agree with him and his spectral form has to watch as the fourteenth plate floats close enough to his body that he somehow manages to touch it.
He gets shot back into his body, falling backwards.
Propping himself up on his elbows, his breathing starts to speed up.
He’s shrouded in complete darkness, a suffocating blanket that has his chest tightening painfully.
When a faint light appears he desperately reaches for it.
Again this plate is not painful, but he stares in disbelief at the scales beginning to appear on the underside of his arms and - after a quick brush of his fingers - on his face and neck.
The sixteenth plate changes the scales to solid sheets of metal that meld seamlessly into his skin.
The seventeenth plate makes him cough out absurd amounts of a sparkling dust that sticks to every surface it comes into contact with. It scratches his throat until he begins spitting blood, gasping for air as his fingers brush the final plate.
‘It is complete. You no longer need any form of substance to live, be it nutrients, water or air. But in return, every century that you are alive, this process will repeat itself. The effects will get worse, but you won’t be able to die.’
The plates return to their master in a flash of light, and it watches his with green eyes bordered by crimson
‘You can wish on every star in the known world, you can pray until your knees bleed and your voice is but a whisper, you can hope until all you feel is hopelessness, but you will never die.’
Should Animals be Used for various Experiments/ Testings??
Animals, from the fruit fly to the mouse, are widely used in scientific research. They are crucial for allowing scientists to learn more about human biology and health, and for developing new medicines. The use of animals in scientific research has long been the subject of heated debate. On the one hand it is considered morally wrong to use animals in this way solely for human benefit.
