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| Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3 |
Ingrid wanted to be discreet, and not change the timeline. Yeah, it could be
their chance to prevent all this horror from ever happening, or the result
could be even worse than before. There is no way to know which path you’re
on until your fate is upon you. That’s why the representatives from the
various Sixth Key cultures are all here right now. They were trying to
prevent themselves from meddling with their people’s futures. And now their
worst fears might be realized. She and Onyx were hoping to slip in, rescue
the fabled red fruit, and sleep away unnoticed. But that’s no longer
possible. The regular blue magnolia fruit pod that they took to get here was
more powerful than they knew. It has brought with them a bunch of noisy
gold. Killjlir and Andrei come around the tree, ready for battle, surprised
to see the two of them, but even more surprised by all this random treasure.
“Was this all about a heist?” Andrei questions. “Are we trying to thwart a
heist? Are we doing a heist?”
“This has nothing to do with anything,” Ingrid explains. She looks at the
garbage strewn about the ground. “This is a transport error.”
“Fair enough,” Andrei decides. “You’re dressed differently. Yet you left
about thirty seconds ago.”
“A lot has happened since then,” Ingrid replies. “It’s been longer than
thirty seconds for me.”
Ayata suddenly appears. “How did you beat me back here?”
“I’m from the future,” Ingrid says plainly. “And I need you four to do
everything that I say. We don’t have much time before the enemy arrives.”
No one argues.
Ingrid looks over at Killjlir. As terrible as she feels about her new friend
being injured, it’s even worse to be considering urging them towards the
fall. Unfortunately, she really has to hope that this is all predestined,
and she’s just working on closing her own loop. Killjlir has to climb that
tree, and they have to fall, so they can float down the river towards the
tunnels, and set this whole time travel rescue operation in motion. “Climb
the tree on that side. There’s a red fruit at the top that we need.”
“Yeah, I was starting to climb it when you showed up.”
“Good,” Ingrid decides. “I’ll be climbing on this side. This is a stealth
mission. One of us has to reach it.” She looks at Ayata and Andrei. “You two
have to fight, and keep them from catching us, or even spotting us.”
Andrei tenses up. “Understood. Get on up.”
“What do I do?” Onyx asks.
Ingrid winces. It should be obvious. “Hide.” There’s only one vertical
object on this island, and it’s the tree. Luckily, there’s an alcove at the
base for him to curl up in. He might still get caught, but since he’s a
pacifist, they may not hurt him, especially since they’re planning to blow
up the tree anyway. It all depends on how psychotic the First Explorer’s
human agents are.
Here’s how the timeline should go. When the enemy comes, Ayata and Andrei
hold them off while Ingrid and Killjlir go for the red fruit. Ayata and
Andrei lose, but don’t die. The attackers plant their bomb, and bug out.
That hopefully leaves enough time for the five of them to escape too.
Onyx gives Ingrid a boost up to the first branch while Ayata does the same
for Killjlir on the other side. Ingrid is just starting to reach the foliage
when evil Tamerlane Pryce and the other chick show up, but Ingrid can’t see
them. It doesn’t sound like they see Killjlir, though, so they must have
scurried up far enough already to be concealed by the leaves. Meanwhile,
Ingrid quickly moves too high up to really hear the conversation. This close
the tree, her ears are overwhelmed by a low hum coming from it. It’s only
now occurring to her that it has been doing this the whole time, but it felt
so natural and normal, she didn’t notice before now. The trunk lets out the
sound consistently while the leaves echo it back as they rustle, like a
sound visualizer. She keeps pulling herself up, branch by branch, trying to
stay as quiet as she can. These people absolutely cannot know that there is
any hope in saving all of this beauty.
As she’s heading up towards the very top, she notices that there aren’t any
other fruits up here. They were thinning out, and now they’re gone. It feels
like a wasted opportunity. They’re going to need to get out of here as fast
as they can, and they’re certainly not going to be able to outrun it. They
could try to jump into one of the rivers, like Killjlir incidentally did in
the future past, but she was severely injured, and only survived because a
magic branch kept her alive, and she happened to float towards the
underground bunker. Ingrid doesn’t even know which river goes that way. No.
They don’t just need the one red fruit. They also need blue fruit
pods, at least one each. She’s so high that she and Killjlir can finally see
each other. They stare for a moment, not knowing if it’s safe enough to
utter a word. There’s no need. Ingrid just points at them, and then points
upwards. She points at herself, and then downwards.
That’s all Killjlir needs to know. They nod, and get back on their way.
Ingrid carefully starts heading back down. She’s not carrying a bag, or
anything, so the best way to handle this is to find a branch that happens to
be holding several pods, and just break that whole thing off to keep them
all together. Another thing comes to her mind. They’ve both been up here a
long time. She occasionally hears the clanking of gold, strongly suggesting
that the fight is still going on down there, but should it be? Shouldn’t the
tree have exploded by now? She tries to multitask, and think back to when
she experienced this before. After evil Pryce and that woman disappeared,
Ingrid and Iolanta continued to fight each other, but it didn’t last long.
And the explosion wasn’t long after that. No, this timeline is all wrong.
They’ve changed things. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but maybe it means
everything. If she could only hear better what’s happening down on the
ground, she would know what to do.
No, it definitely doesn’t matter. She needs these fruits. That’s her only
job right now. She’s found the branch that she was hoping for. Five pods are
hanging from the tip, which is precisely how many they require. It’s too
thick closer to the trunk, though. She’s going to have to crawl farther out
to make a clean break. She would much rather inch her way down, but she
doesn’t have time for that. The explosion could happen any second. She
slides out there as fast as she can, but before she can reach her goal, the
branch that she’s standing on cracks first. In a last ditch effort, she
reaches out for the bundle of fruit pods, and takes it in her grasp. She
falls with it through the branches below, and crashes down on the ground.
Her head hurts, not like a simple headache, but sharper and tighter. It’s
concentrated on one very specific spot. Ingrid tries to reach up to find out
what’s wrong with her, but she can’t move her arms. She’s either actually
paralyzed, or just too injured to move right now. It’s cold, though. It’s
cold and wet.
Onyx’s face appears above her. “Don’t move,” he whispers. “I won’t lie to
you, it’s pretty bad. We’re gonna get you fixed up, though.”
“What happened to me?” Ingrid can feel her own mind being blanketed over by
confusion. She’s trying desperately to hold onto her wits, but they’re
slipping away from her in realtime. She’s dying, and her brain is turning
the lights off one by one.
“You fell on a crown. It’s jammed into the back of your head,” Onyx
explains.
She can still tell that she’s holding the bundle of fruits. Hopefully she’s
lifting it up towards him, so he gets the idea. She can’t leave, but
everyone else should be able to. “Where are they?” Ingrid struggles to ask.
“They’re inside the tree, trying to set off the bomb at the heart, as
they said.”
“And the others?”
“Ayata and Andrei. They’re pretty hurt too, but I’ll feed them the healing
sap as.”
Someone else walks up. Ingrid can’t turn her head, and moving her eyes isn’t
enough. Onyx doesn’t look happy, though, so she’s guessing that it’s one of
their enemies. “You get away from him.”
The woman whose name Ingrid still doesn’t know steps into view. “You think
because you changed the timeline, you’ve made things better?”
“You know?”
“I’m omniscient, you insufferable dimling,” she claims.
“Why are you doing this?”
The woman pulls her face into an evil grin. “For this.” She swings
her hand into view, showing that she’s holding the red fruit.
“What is it to you?” Ingrid questions.
“It’s an end to my competition,” the woman answers. Ingrid can see her
fingernails begin to pierce the skin of the red fruit pod. Unlike the blue
ones, it does appear to contain juice. It looks a lot like blood as it’s
running down the side of her hand, and her arm. She twitches when a stick
bursts out of her chest. Her blood starts spilling out too. Some of
it spurts and drips on Ingrid’s face.
“Did you see that coming?” Killjlir asks, having been the one to
impale the defiler.
The woman hasn’t stopped smiling. “Yeah. Sure did.” Her hand opens.
The magic red fruit falls into Ingrid’s mouth. For some reason, her reflex
is to bite down. It feels a lot different than the other one. As she
noticed, it’s juicy, and maybe is indeed made of blood, since it has a bit
of a metallic taste, but with a pleasant sweetness to it. The juice runs
down her throat, into her lungs, and her stomach. Her whole body pulsates
with a power that she’s never felt before. Still, she can’t move. She just
begins to know what’s happening around her without being able to see it.
Everything starts to move in slow motion. Killjlir angrily tosses the woman
to her side next to Ingrid, but falls to their knees, having also been injured
prior to this. Onyx lunges towards them to help. Ayata and Andrei are both
lying on the ground a few meters away. They’re reaching out for each other,
but they’re probably not gonna make it. As soon as Tamerlane steps out of
the tree portal, a fire sparks at his feet, and rises up the trunk of the
magnificent magnolia tree. As it’s shooting up to the sky, it billows out,
and threatens to engulf the lands as it did the first time they tried this.
Time moves even slower...and slower.
The power surging within Ingrid intensifies. It too spreads out. Two primal
force of nature, preparing to battle it out on this one tiny island. Or
maybe not. Ingrid’s energy reaches out for Onyx and Killjlir, as well as
Ayata and Andrei. It forms a protective bubble around them, but it doesn’t
stay put. It drags them all together into a single entity, and spirits them
away just before the wrathful fires can consume them all.
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