Storm doesn’t waste any time as the shield protecting her garden begins to
falter and fall apart. “Go to Pinesong,” she orders Briar. “Tell him to
reinforce that thing as much as possible. He can draw his energy from the tree if
he has to.”
“Do you have any weapons?” Ingrid asks after Briar disappears.
“Obviously not,” Storm answers. “This is meant to be a peaceful haven.
“Then I need to speak with the tree,” Ingrid urges.
Storm thinks about it, but only for a moment, because time is of the
essence. If these hostile forces breach the gate, they could destroy this
whole place without any resistance. The magical memory magnolia could be the
only thing standing in their way. “Goswin, I need your help,” she whispers
into her shoulder.
Goswin never appears. Ingrid and Killjlir simply find themselves swept away,
and transported to the island where the tree stands. They expect the
Tamerlane Pryce avatar to appear before them, but he seems to have other
ideas. A rounded rectangular portal appears on the trunk. No one comes out
and invites them in, but the implication is that that’s what they’re
supposed to do. They exchange a look, hold their breaths, and walk over the
threshold. The entrance zips up behind them. They’re standing in a circular
room now, like a castle tower, though the walls are not made of stone, but
wood. It’s shifting through translucency and transparency. They can still
see the conflux waters on the outside, and the expansive garden beyond, as
well as the trembling dimensional dome in the sky. The tree is big, but it’s
not this big. They shouldn’t both be able to stand in here with so
much room. This is either just a representation of what it would look like
if they really were in the trunk like chipmunks, or they’ve actually been
shrunk down into some kind of bizarre parallel dimension.
The Pryce avatar does not appear. Instead, it’s the Angry Fifth Divisioner.
“Do you always take the form of your enemies?” Ingrid asks.
“I take the form of anyone whose essence I have absorbed,” A.F.’s mouth
answers. “I do not see this man as my enemy. I do not have enemies.”
“That’s certainly how they see you,” Ingrid argues.
“They cannot kill me,” he replies. “They can only harm my agents.”
“Does this not concern you? Are we...dispensable?”
The tree smiles. “Your bodies are.”
“So we die here, you absorb us, and we just become part of your
transcendental oversoul; the wave returning to the ocean.”
“That’s a way you could look at it,” A.F. agrees.
“Hey,” Killjlir interrupts. “Are you going to help us stop this attack, or
not?”
“What’s happening is precisely what must.”
“Stop speaking in riddles, and vague nonsense,” Ingrid insists. “Tell us
what you want, tell us what they want. Tell us what the Garden
Dimension custodians want, what Goswin and his buddies want, what your other
human agents want, and what the other leaders of the Sixth Key want. Tell us
everything.”
He smiles again, like a seasoned parent, knowing that their youngest will
not understand until they’re older. He doesn’t seem annoyed, or frustrated
by all the incessant questions. “It doesn’t matter what any of you want. It
doesn’t even matter what I want? All that is is what is, and what’s
right.”
Both Ingrid and Killjlir roll their eyes.
“You don’t want riddles?” he goes on. “Then let me be perfectly blunt. The
garden will be destroyed. It’s the only way.”
“The only way to accomplish what?” Killjlir is just as annoyed at these
piecemeal answers. As Ingrid is.
“The only way to save it.”
There’s a loud boom behind them. They look back to see the pocket
dimensional dome collapse. At first, a hole forms at the zenith, then the
glassy walls recede back towards the ground, uneven, and occasionally trying
to go back up, like the bars of a music visualizer. Pinesong is likely still
fighting back, but they all fall in the end. The sun shines down on the
ground in all its glory.
“This is what you wanted?” Ingrid presses.
The A.F. avatar chuckles. He lifts one hand, and jiggles it to the left. The
view outside changes. It’s back to normal. The dimensional barrier seems
intact, though it’s so clear and uniform, it’s hard to make out, especially
through the wood walls of this weird tree interior dimension. He jiggles his
hand again, changing the scene to when the dome is gone, but the garden is
mostly gone too. There are a few bushes in the immediate vicinity, but most
of it is desert. “The early days.” He shifts the view again. The bushes are
burned. Fires rage in the distance. The garden is being destroyed. Another
shift, and the outside is a barren wasteland once more, but not because
Storm and her people haven’t begun their work yet. Everything has been
annihilated. The soot from the fire remains on the branches of the heartiest
of plants here, amidst the ash.
“Past and future,” Ingrid decides.
More like possibilities,” A.F. corrects.
“So it can be stopped,” Killjlir determines.
“Of course it can. I’m saying that it shouldn’t. When you look out there, do
you see death, or do you see life?”
“Death, obviously.”
“I would imagine,” A.F. says. “I see something different, though. I see
potential. I see a new beginning.”
“Are you telling us that this is a prescription burn?” Killjlir questions.
“They destroy the old, so that life can begin anew?”
“I’m saying that it’s a necessary evil. To protect the world, we destroy the
garden.”
Ingrid shakes her head. “The world out there, in this parallel dimension?
Onyx didn’t tell me what it’s like. It’s uncontrolled, though.
It’s...unprotected. Random.”
The tree laughs again at the dumb children. “Is that the point of life? To
be controlled?” He reaches up to swipe the scene away entirely, flinging the
view across the lands—out of the pocket where the garden once
stood—somewhere away from its borders. There is life here too, just like the
garden, though it’s unstructured, as predicted. Leaves are left unraked;
branches unpruned. It’s patchy and random, with brown grass in some spots,
apparent volunteers breaking up the flow, and some plants that are just
straight up dead. It’s natural, it’s wild, and it’s beautiful.
“This is a copy of Earth, isn’t it, but without buildings, or anything else
manmade?” Ingrid asks as she’s looking down at the dirt below.
“This parallel dimension was stuck in the past, about 300 million years
prior to the modern day,” the A.F. avatar begins to explain. “The land was
combined into a supercontinent known as Pangea. The rest of it, ocean.
Little moisture could reach the center of Pangea, leaving it as an arid
desert. Only the coastal regions were lush with vegetation. We don’t know
what this parallel dimension exists, it just does. The Gardeners
specifically chose it so as not to interfere with the delicate ecosystem of
a preexisting world. The center of this continent was nothing, just sand and
dirt, and they thought that it was up for grabs for this reason. They built
a pocket dimension right there, but pocket dimensions don’t have skies.
Their atmospheres are artificial, and must be recycled. So they
intentionally made the barrier thin, which gives it physical structure
within the world around it. The sun can penetrate, as can the air. And so
can seeds.” He gestures towards the vegetation outside the tree tower. “They
didn’t even realize it, but they were seeding life all over the continent.
Every plant that they planted is out here somewhere, surviving in its
natural state. Except for the newest specimens, of course, who just haven’t
had time to permeate the barrier.”
“So it’s not just a garden dimension anymore. It’s a garden planet,”
Killjlir muses.
“It’s the way every world should be. In my honest opinion,” A.F. adds.
Ingrid shakes her head. “You propose that we let the garden be destroyed,
because this is all out here anyway? Why wouldn’t our enemies just destroy
it too? Set a larger fire, and let it encompass the supercontinent. Couldn’t
be too hard.”
“They don’t know it’s here,” the tree claims.
“But they’re coming from the outside,” Ingrid reasons. “They’re on the
border. They could easily just...turn around and look.”
“They’re not on the border,” he argues. “They just needed to collapse the
barrier, so they could come from their own plane of existence.”
“Well, they’ll see it now,” Killjlir presumes. “Again, they’ll just turn
around.”
“Not if they stay near the center. Their plan was to engulf us in flames,
and let it spread to the center, but it is vital that they come to the
conflux instead, so their view is obstructed. You must lure them to me, and
make them set the fire at my feet. They’ll have no choice but to escape
interdimensionally, and they will never see what the world truly looks like.
That’s why I brought you.”
“Won’t you be destroyed?” Ingrid figures.
“Another necessary evil.” He sighs. “I’m a sentient tree with magical
powers. I’ve lived many lifetimes, and seen all of time and space. I’m ready
to go.”
“There’s gotta be a better way,” Killjlir hopes.
“If there were, I would see it,” A.F. contends.
Ingrid takes a deep breath. “Take us back to realtime, and realspace. You’ll
need to be able to transport us upon request.”
“Done. Easy.” With a wave of his hands, the Memory Magnolia transports them
back to the conflux.
They’re standing on the little island again, and they’re not alone. “Andrei.
Where are Selma and Ayata?”
“They’re helping everyone escape into the tunnels,” Andrei replies. “Weaver
and those other three don’t have their powers anymore, or perhaps just not
right now. They have to get out manually, but once they’re safe, they plan
to come back to protect the tree. Princess Honeypea says that it’s the most
important lifeform out here.”
“No,” Ingrid counters. “We have to let them destroy the tree. Trust me, this
is what it wants. Tell your partners to stay where they are, protecting the
others. You and Killjlir will stand guard here. Put up a fight, so it
doesn’t seem suspicious, but ultimately, let them through.”
“What are you gonna do?” Killjlir asks her.
“I’m bait,” Ingrid answers. “Take me to ‘em, tree guy.” She’s teleported to
a tunnel entrance. Ayata is there, fighting off Tamerlane and his partners
in hand-to-hand combat. It’s so pedestrian, fighting like this, instead of
with powers, or at least guns, but they may be just as restricted as
everyone else. “Get back to the tree!” she orders Ayata. “It’s the only
thing that matters! As long as it’s standing, they can’t destroy anything!”
Ingrid would sure prefer a gun in this situation, but if the tree wants the
garden destroyed, it better be destroyed. That means she can’t just kill all
of her opponents right here. Presumably, if these humans don’t get the job
done, this First Explorer entity will just find others to do its bidding.
After Ayata disappears, Ingrid takes her place in the fight, fending off
three attackers at once. They all appear to have impenetrable skin, but
they’re untrained and unskilled. She would send them all into the ground if
they weren’t superhumanly strong and tough. Still, she keeps going, because
that’s what they’re expecting out of her. She can’t just roll over, even
though the endgame sounds inevitable. Finally, they manage to punch and kick
her enough times for her to reasonably fall to the ground herself, and let
them run off.
“Get to the tree. I’ll finish this,” one of the women says. The other two
nod, and teleport away. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. The ruse should
hold.
Ingrid spits some of the blood out of her mouth as she’s kneeling in the
dirt. She extends her hand. “Ingrid Alvarado.”
The enemy shakes her hand. “Iolanta Koval.” She then pulls Ingrid up to her
feet. “You have some skill. Could you teach me?”
“You would have to not kill me first.”
“Good point.” Iolanta tilts her head. “I have finally figured out how to
stop your little tree god from subverting my temporal suppressive powers.
You ain’t goin’ nowhere anymore. You’re standing on your own grave.”
Ingrid takes a breath, and enjoys one final look at the beautiful garden
around her. She could have been happy here. “It’s so gorgeous...not the
worst place to die. So why are you trying to destroy it?”
She shrugs. “I have no strong feelings about it. This is just what the boss
wants.”
“You always do what the boss says?”
“Someone has to lead, someone has to follow. It’s what keeps the trains
running on time. Without the chain of command, it’s chaos.”
There’s an explosion a ways away, in the direction of the magnolia tree. The
fire is already spreading out from it, and heading their way. They both
regard it with different feelings. Iolanta is indifferent. Ingrid is
saddened. “That doesn’t look like chaos to you?”
“Let’s call it a controlled burn,” Iolanta decides.
“Yes, let’s.” Hopefully the magnolia used the last of its power to send all
of the humans standing there to a safe place, even Killjlir.
Even though they’re both totally exhausted, Iolanta isn’t finished. She
takes a pea shooter out of her breast pocket, and points it at Ingrid’s
head. She doesn’t get the chance to pull the trigger, though. A gunshot
rings out from somewhere, and blood shoots out of her neck. She falls to the
ground.
Selma is jogging the rest of the way up from the tunnel entrance, still
holding her firearm at the ready. “We have to go.”
“No, I have to make sure that this is done,” Ingrid argues. She’s watching
the fire in the distance. It’s coming closer as the flames begin to engulf
everything that made this place so beautiful. Necessary evil or not, it’s a
damn shame.
