Chapter Thirty-Nine: The tree of life and death

 

Thunderchild's POV

"Damn this cloud! We could run straight past the Illustrious at this rate!" I yelled as thick grey cloud drifted across the gaping hole in the front of the bridge, I could feel the moisture from the clouds, there was a bright flash of lightning and I could just about see the other Terran airship in the near distance.

"Where do you think he's going?" asked Jara as she brought a bottle of water for me to drink, I smiled at her and took a swig from it before looking at the navigation readouts on my console.

"Well...according to this we're about to hit the Outer Continent, I can't say there's much on that continent. Black Mage Village, Madain Sari, Desert Palace...and..."

I stopped suddenly as I realised the most likely destination for Lawrence.

"What?"

"The Iifa tree..." I groaned, rubbing my temples.

"Of course...that explains this weather...but I thought the tree was dead." said Jara.

Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as we were buffeted by the violent crosswinds, driving ever deeper into the storm. I had to make constant visual checks on our position in relation to the Illustrious, it would be so easy to be knocked off course by the wind and then we'd land up running around the Outer Continent in circles.

"Damn this cloud." I hissed again as the Illustrious appeared in the distance to the left.

 

Nagy's POV

"Just keep us in the wake of the Invincible." I urged the helmswoman as the wind smashed violently into us.

I looked at the propellers turning rapidly at the side of the ship and was surprised to see a golden glow streaming from them like a cloud of dust, I blinked and rubbed my eyes but it was still there.

"Looks like a high level magical build up." said Mizrah softly as she followed my gaze.

"Yeah...something big is charging up..."

I rolled open a map and nearly fell over as the Red Rose was knocked to starboard.

"Keep her steady!" I yelled, even though the helmswoman needed no reminding. There was a general sense of anticipation on the bridge, everyone knew something was happening, something big but they didn't know what. No of us knew what except the mad man in the lead Terran ship.

I focused on the map and followed the pencil line of our current course; the rest of the Lindblum fleet was milling behind us, ready and waiting should they be needed. I really hoped that they wouldn't be needed at all, that we could end this without having to fire a single shot in anger but I seriously doubted that would be the case.

"What's this Iifa tree?" I asked Garnet who was sitting in a chair staring out of the window.

"It was the entity that created the Mist that plagued our continent, and in one case, the whole world. It is also a gateway into Memoria and the crystal world."

I rubbed my goatee and looked at the small ink tree on the map towards which our line was firmly pointed.

"Does it still produce Mist?" I asked

Garnet shook her head in relief.

"No thank goodness, Zidane was able to shut it down."

The thought plagued my mind, why was Lawrence heading for a dead tree? What was it about the Iifa tree that he was so interested in?

"So...the tree is dead?" I asked just to confirm what I knew.

Garnet nodded.

"Yes, it did a lot of damage in its death throes, I thought it had killed Zidane and Kuja, but I was wrong."

It just didn't make sense, and Lawrence didn't do anything without it making sense and being a part of a larger plan.

I thought back to what Sam had said about Lawrence’s plan to create a new universe. How was he going to do that from a dead tree?

Then the cloud in front of us cleared as we approached the Iifa tree and the answer was revealed to me.

 

Thunderchild's POV

"What the hell?! That tree is DEAD!!" I yelled as I saw the mist swirling from the bottom of the Iifa tree. A tall and huge tree which could house an entire city, but instead was home to zombie monsters and other morbidities.

"Look! The Illustrious is heading for the top of the tree." said Jara as she pointed out the hole in front of us.

"What the hell is Lawrence playing at?" I asked myself as I pushed the Invincibles engines to the limit to follow him.

A bright glow at the front of the other ship caught my attention, four specks of light emerged from the Illustrious and floated upward towards the very top of the tree, I blinked and pressed the controls for the view screen to magnify and then swore as I remembered that there wasn't a view screen.

"Jara! I need some binoculars!!"

Jara ran to the back of the bridge and rummaged around in a storage cupboard before bringing back a pair of binoculars which I quickly placed to my eyes to focus on the four specks of light and my mouth dropped open at what I saw.

 

Nagy's POV

"Oh my god! It's the genomes!"

"Wha?"

Garnet was on her feet; snatching the binoculars from me she pointed them at what I had just seen, the four Angels of Death in trance, under Lawrence’s control it would seem. This was an unforeseen and frightening consequence, it made failure of our mission to stop Lawrence that more desperate. As if to underline my point the Invincible shot ahead up the side of the Iifa tree, its engines streaming fire and smoke as Thunderchild worked the Invincible to destruction.

 

Thunderchild's POV

"'The four Angels of Death shall unite and turn the blue oceans red.' THIS was what that was about! Oh my god...Lawrence was planning this all along. Furys emergence, the chaos on the Mist Continent, no-one would have stopped him."

"He's going to open the gateway, I just know it." said Jara, her knuckles going white as she gripped the edge of the control panel.

"And when he does he'll enter the crystal world...and in there he can rewrite..."

"...the universe." concluded Jara.

I slammed my fist down hard on the panel.

"Not if we can stop him first...come on, there must be more power we can use."

"There's weapons and shields." suggested Jara, I nodded.

"Do it."

Lightning stuck the wing almost as soon as the shields went down; setting the whole wing edge on fire but there was nothing I could do about that. In the shaking view I had of the outside world through the hole in the bridge I could see the four specks getting larger.

Suddenly a white ball of light appeared above the tree, above the four Angels of Death who were spinning in a circle directly below it.

"He's using the genomes to open the gate," warned Jara. "We have enough power for one shot."

"What are you talking about Jara?!" I asked in surprise and alarm.

"We have to stop them Yissan! If they open that gateway and Lawrence gets to the Crystal world then we'll have failed and the whole universe is doomed!"

"I'm not firing on them! Not Domino!!"

Jara put her hands on my shoulders and shouted at me.

"They're under Lawrence's control!!! He created them Thunderchild, they're his puppets! And if you don't fire then they will be the creatures who bring the end to everything...it's no longer just a question of Terra and Gaia, we're talking EVERYTHING!!!"

She shook me a couple of times to emphasise her point.

"Dammit Jara! I'm not firing!! We'll follow them in, stop Lawrence and JUST Lawrence. The genomes are innocents, caught up in something they don't understand! I will not kill them just because they are under the control of someone else!"

"Thunderchild, for the love of the gods, listen to me! You have to stop them now!"

I looked at her coldly and shook my head.

"NO!!"

"Then you have damned the universe, we are all dead."

"We've cheated death before Jara...both of us...and we'll do it again. If I can get you to them, can you reverse Lawrence’s control?"

Jara nodded.

"Of course, it's just a simple matter of..."

"Then take that power from the weapons and feed it into the engines, we have only a short amount of time before that gateway shuts and we're going through it!"

Jara sighed but did as I ordered, I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing though, or if, as Jara had said, by refusing to kill the four Angels of Death, including my beloved wife, I had just let Lawrence exert his will upon the universe. There was an icy chill in my stomach as the clouds surrounding the white light began to get drawn into it, like water into a whirlpool. As I watched, the white light grew and as it grew it changed into a dark purple with flashes of lightning illuminating the clouds surrounding it. The shaking of the deck became more violent now as the shockwaves from the opening of the gateway reached us, we gained distance on the Illustrious slowly as it moved forward into the purple light which was now wide enough to take two airships, and as it did there was a white shockwave which knocked the Invincible sideways slightly but I hastily altered course back towards the gateway, I noticed that the Illustrious had gone, sucked deep into the light and I accelerated hard, probably too hard for the condition of the airship but it couldn't be helped.

"It's closing!!" warned Jara as I noticed the edges of the purple sphere were disappearing, I saw the four genomes being sucked into the gateway as well, they looked as though they were being battered in the violent winds and shockwaves surrounding the portal.

"Can we get one of them in a teleporter?" I asked as one of the genomes, Mikoto I think it was, disappeared into the portal.

Jara shook her head.

"Not if you want to make the portal in time." she said.

I saw Domino being sucked in backwards, she even tried using Phoenix trance to fight her way out of the pull of the purple vortex but it was not enough and she was snatched end over end into the light, I felt so helpless, so useless that I couldn't help her the one moment she needed my help the most.

I vowed vengeance for her suffering but was relieved to see that she was still alive.

There was a low pitched rumbling as the Invincible got up close to the portal, I felt an arm link through mine and looked to my left, Jara was looking anxious, almost scared as the light filled the bridge, I smiled at her and took my arm away, placing it around her shoulders instead as the world blurred and went completely out of focus before switching to a bright white.

 

Nagy's POV

There was no way the Red Rose could make it to the portal in time, we simply just didn't have the speed, instead we were forced to sit back and watch as the Invincible charged ahead after the Illustrious, shockwaves shaking us violently as we slowed down on approach to the tree, behind us, strung out across the sky, was the Lindblum battle fleet, wary of the Iifa tree and the energy discharges surrounding the portal.

The Illustrious disappeared, sucked into the portal, stretched and elongated as it disappeared. I figured it had to be a trick of the light because there was no way a human being could survive a journey like that, and according to what Garnet had said as the portal opened, she had travelled through it before. She was also relieved to see Zidane alive although understandably disturbed that he was under Lawrence’s control.

Then the Invincible forged ahead into the portal as it began to close in around it, the blue and gold paintwork of the heavily damaged Terran ship stretching as though it was suddenly going at a great speed and then, like the Illustrious before it, the Invincible was sucked into the portal which then rapidly closed with a loud crash and a bright flash of light.

As soon as it closed, the sun shone through the clouds around us and I could see blue sky through patchy holes in the heavy cloud.

"Good luck Thunderchild...for the sake of the universe...good luck." I whispered.

 

Thunderchilds POV

There was a sound like the sea in my ears, at first I thought it was the sound of blood rushing through my veins, but then I realised that it actually WAS the sea. I opened my eyes and looked around; I had been washed up on a storm battered shore. Blinking against the bright sunlight I looked up and saw Gaia in the sky, sparkling like a bright jewel.

“What the hell?” I asked myself.

I stood up slowly, feeling as though a thousand Behemoths had danced on me, and nursed my aching joints until I reached a compromise between total agony and enough pain for me to walk, and then I looked around to find a landmark to walk towards.

There seemed to be a small hut up the top of a steep hill which led up from the sandy bay in which I had now found myself and so I started walking towards it, every step an effort because of the way I felt.

As I walked I put some thought into my current situation. If what I had head from Zidane and Garnet had been true, then I was in Memoria…again.

But it didn’t make that much sense, Memoria displayed either the memories of Gaia or the memories of whoever was in it, and I had never seen such a place before.

I knew this was Terra but where on Terra was it?

As I trudged up the steep hill I also wondered where Jara could have gotten to, she had been standing directly by my side when the Invincible had entered the portal but now she was nowhere to be seen, I hadn’t even found any footprints on my way up the beach.

Was this some kind of deserted island?

Finally I reached the hut and opened the wooden door which creaked loudly in the otherwise undisturbed tranquillity of birdsong and breeze.

Inside there was a bed, a table and chair and a small electrical stove in the corner. On the table was an open book, I raised an eyebrow as I saw it, it was unusual to find paper books on Terra, unless I had been transported back to the days when paper was still used, even so, even I don’t have memories of that time.

I sat down and began to read the scrawly handwriting out loud.

“Day twenty-five, have noticed some interesting variants in the DNA of some of the ape species, perhaps it is related to the disease which is prevalent on this island. I must take many more samples before the species die out altogether.”

I frowned and shook my head. This was the diary of a field-scientist, and judging by the words used, this scientist was mainly a biologist.

I continued to read, choosing an item lower down the page.

“Day thirty. Contacted the Research Labs to request a further month to study the species, but they refused my request. I feel so helpless to save this species from extinction, or even to preserve some memory of it, I believe that in time this species of ape may turn out to be the closest link to humans ever found…but time is something none of us have much of. Especially the Wardins Ape.”

This entry confirmed that this part of Memoria was on Terra but it didn’t confirm where, when or whose memory it was, although I was beginning to have a strong suspicion I knew the answer to the last question.

“I’ve never heard of the Wardins ape…” I muttered to myself quietly.

“That’s because they went extinct before we were born.” Said a feminine voice from the doorway, I turned to quickly see who the voice belonged to and relaxed as I saw it was Jara.

“Where are we?” I asked.

 

“The Pagos islands, the last refuge of the Wardins Ape until their extinction. That entry was right, the Wardins Ape was the closest link to humans and we used that very same information in the biggest project we ever did at the Research labs…” she whispered, her face blank as though in a trance but I could see she was just reliving old memories.

“What project?” I asked

“Project Recall…the creation of the genome race.” She replied, confirming my worst suspicions.