Love is the most powerful force known to Humankind. It is from the wellspring of love that all of Humankind's hostilities and fear are cleansed into pure forms. Every primal emotion is a reaction to the environment, but love endures as the truth of the human spirit. No greater medicine could give meaning to all the suffering and struggling of Humankind against the forces of a contentious universe.
The world of Ruin followed the Downfall. An insecure world where hunger prevailed. All around were the greatest heights of technology, a blending of spirituality and science, but all in decay. All in vain.
Vast empty fields had rotted and become as dust. These had fed the masses of immortals that were the human species. All races as one, all of Humankind living forever. Served by an extinct race of giants; powered by mystical energies that nobody could fully comprehend anymore. They had called these fields the Bloom Fruit crops.
It was Desmond and Ronald that still worked in their respective organizations to repair the fields. It was desperation that made them work tirelessly in their laboratories with an army of scientists to attempt to make something grow. The world was starving still and the destruction wrought by Archaeon was a reminder that death loomed for all.
"I want to try something new." Ronald had said to the silence between himself and Desmond as they sat over their microscopes. They had stared helplessly at slides that showed no progress. The latest experiments had yielded nothing. Ruin was the name of their world and it insisted that death would come to all. Not by war or the predation of monstrous birds, but slowly through starvation and decay.
"I fear you might say something terrible. Something that is true, but terrible." Desmond looked up with tired eyes and looked at Ronald.
"We must do this: we must go to Solariel. The sighting cannot be ignored. Something must be there that we can use. Imagine that if it can grow on its own in such an inhospitable place then it must be able to grow in our fallow fields." Ronald sounded inspired. He ignored his worst fears in favor of a feeling of hope.
"We must contact Cabana. His warriors might be able to protect us, in case things go as they did with Archaeon." Desmond grimaced.
Moments later, on the other side of the world, Cabana saw the ghostly images of his friends appear. They wanted him to go with them and to bring his Robo-Tanks as security.
"We must be careful, then. They would have made a difference if we had brought them with us to the aviary where we found Archaeon." Ronald had said.
Cabana thought about this and decided it was true. If they had brought their army with them instead of small arms, it is possible that Archaeon would not have had its moment of rampage. But it was also possible that without the machines to defend the Overlords, things could have gone worse.
"I have since built two more Overlords already. Fear of things to come has given me personnel and resources that should be used for our more obvious problems. But people need to feel safe and twice we have suffered for our mistakes. I will only bring a few, leaving the majority of our Robo-Tanks to defend our homes." Cabana decided.
He also had something new and he brought that also. He had built a massive walking armor with plenty of firepower. He called the prototype mech a Guardian. It was controlled by Cabana from inside and was powered by the same kind of nuclear batteries as the Robo-Tanks. He hoped that whatever they wanted to find would be no match for his weapons and armor.
Desmond said as they stepped off of the industrial-sized carpets that carried the Robo-Tanks to the remote place:
"I hope this is where things get better."
"They certainly cannot get worse." Ronald hoped, under his breath, only to himself.
There was a gray haze over the scorched landscape surrounding Solariel. They were well aware that the tower of fire had long ago stopped its transgressions. Before the invention of better energy sources and the time and world called GAIA, solar power had reached its highest and most sophisticated form with Solariel. Now the burning, crumbling tower stood dead and cold. All around it the panels that were arranged to reflect concentrated sunlight from passing prismatic lenses in orbit were white tombstones. It looked from the distance that they were at as a ghostly monolith in a gloomy cemetery.
"What could grow in such a burned and desolate place?" Desmond asked Ronald.
The two men stood near each other in field-boots and sample-kits in their hands. Arranged defensively around them were Robo-Tanks and Guardian.
"Hurry up, please. I don't like the look of this place." Cabana spoke to them in their ear-pieces from within armor.
The men on the ground felt even more apprehension without command over Robo-Tanks and the protection of a mech. He needed no more haste than they were already feeling.
"Let's do this, then." Ronald began setting up a small field lab with his sample kit. He unfolded it and started to work with the soil at his feet.
"I am gonna have a look around." Desmond agreed to the tasks. One of them needed to start taking samples. The other needed to see if the rumors were true.
Satellite imagery had shown that this place had something like Bloom Fruit growing in the wasteland. Investigations claimed that something was actually here. Nobody had felt the courage to get closer.
An ominous implication was made that it was not Bloom Fruit any longer, but rather a mutated creature that had come from the Bloom Fruit. A mobile and carnivorous plant.
Desmond scanned the horizon with an image-analysis device. He did not see it himself, but the exact size and shape and ultraviolet spectrum of Bloom Fruit was indeed noticed and he turned the device back to the place where it had seen something.
There among the burned away trees and blackened ground was a towering bit of greenery. At first it seemed harmless, a mere plant, part of the landscape.
It was headed for their position. Some kind of bloom-thing. It filled Ronald with a sense of fear and dread as he looked up and followed Desmond's gaze to the towering plant. It was moving at a great speed, bounding towards them and bouncing. It had one great stalk that was crowned by three venus-flytrap looking mouths and each of these had a striped urn-bulb atop it. The thing had fifty-foot long elators that coiled and sprung in concert and propelled it across the ground like it was almost hovering.
"It is a bloom but with elators." Desmond said simply. He named the second great monster he had seen: Bloomelator.
"We will make short work of it. I doubt soft vegetable matter can withstand the firepower we brought." Cabana sounded optimistic. He ordered the Robo-Tanks to advance on the plant monster and to shoot it the moment it came within range.
The Robo-Tanks lined up in a row of nine units and marched towards their enemy. Moments later they were in a position between the humans and the plant and began to fire upon the plant with their cannons. While the explosions rocked and slowed it, they did little harm to the plant.
The shells detonated all around it and some were deflected to the ground before exploding. The robots tried a secondary ammunition with armor-piercing and these had even less effect.
"It has some sort of electrical field around it." Desmond theorized.
"How can that be?" Ronald complained.
"Some part of it is generating powerful action-potential in the form of a magnetic electrical shielding. It has enough biomass and a complicated enough chemistry to do so. Or perhaps this is somehow related to the instability of space-time that is associated with the creations of the empathicals. In less than one decade this thing has evolved as though over an immeasurable amount of time, and in ways that defy our understanding of physics and biology." Desmond postulated calmly. He had already worried that they would encounter something like this and had long-since resolved to face it and to try to comprehend it.
Ronald did not feel the same way and he tried to retreat to the industrial-carpet that hovered behind them.
Bloomelator was everything that Desmond could say and so much more. It was the wraith of Science and the avenger of Nature and it was the enemy of Humankind. The Robo-Tanks stood their ground to protect the humans behind them. It was another power of Bloomelator that took them. From the striped urns atop each of its mouths an energy was crackling and curling. The form of energy called Jacob's Ladder is what the bolts looked like as they powered up at the instinct of the plant.
It somehow sensed the electrical fields of the living creatures and also the Robo-Tanks and emitted a jagged and crackling burst of lighting towards the row of tanks. It missed and there was little effect.
"Return fire!" Cabana commanded his mechanical warriors. The Robo-Tanks obeyed and two shells got through the shields following the emission of energy from the plant. Gouts of acidic liquids gushed from its wounds, but hardened into amber scabs within moments. It seemed not to mind the damage and continued to progress at the same speed.
Bloomelator then fired a second bolt at the tanks and this one hit the end of a cannon and connected a prolonged attack of electric energy through the air. For almost three whole seconds the crackling electrical arc continued until the Robo-Tank had smoke coming off of it. The machine then fell over, disabled by the surge.
The eight remaining Robo-Tanks kept firing and again several times they were able to hit the plant directly after it had just fired off its own long-range weapon.
As Bloomelator got nearer though, its own attack became increasingly more deadly. Its third attack destroyed two of the defenders and its fourth took three more. The last two were ordered to sacrifice themselves to cover the retreat of the humans.
After defeating the remaining tanks, Bloomelator had reached their remains. It used its curling horsetail-looking elators to lift the heavy machinery right off the ground to one of its three mouths. It was drooling its highly corrosive juices onto it that were steaming as the liquid engulfed the tank. Then it feasted on the metal and the nuclear-battery inside.
"Attempting to override the stabilizing output for the battery." Cabana stated. He was remotely trying to self-destruct the nuclear-battery, hoping the explosion would destroy the plant. It didn't work. Somehow Bloomelator had fused the properties of the unstable energy source. When Cabana tried to blow up the other tanks at its feet the result was the same. The plant was absorbing energy faster than it could be released. "That's impossible!" Cabana complained.
"Get onto the carpet!" Desmond was urging their friend. Cabana's mech still stood on the ground between the carpet and the plant.
He tried to shoot rockets and other weaponry at it but the attacks were just as useless at those before. Bloomelator seemed possessed of more than just instinct as it rotated and fired back with its own arcing lightning. Guardian stood disabled as the plant approached and wrapped several of its elators around the mech.
"Go, get out of here!" Cabana was saying to them, but all they got was static. Believing he was dead inside the mech, they left anyway.
As the carpet became airborne, the horrid creature had burned and pried open the cockpit. Tanks were not its only feast. Relishing on pain and horror, the plant pulled the struggling human free of his crash-couch and ate him while he screamed in terror.
His friends watched this from above as they retreated and they too gasped in fear and loss at the sight of him getting eaten. Truely this thing was not just an ordinary plant, it was infused with hatred and evil.
"That thing...that thing..." Ronald had fallen to his knees and was weeping in horror at the sights of the day.
"Bloomelator." Desmond too, was shaken and he could no longer compose himself so calmly. He did not let himself succumb to the terror felt by his companion. He uploaded the images of their encounter, warning the world of the newest threat. Everywhere that had Overlords to protect it now activated each defensive warrior Robo-Tank.
As if in response there was a bulletin soon afterward. It seemed as though the most remote places where the old crops had fallen in the world of Ruin, more than one bloom-thing had arisen. Indeed there were at least nine of them, but none as towering or ferocious as the first one they had met.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
But the Robo-Tanks were still outmatched, even by the least of the bloom-things. And Bloomelator did not remain in its distant wasteland for long. Soon it had found its way to the starving colonies and seemed to feed upon all the terror it brought.
It chased humans, as did its counterparts, and held them to its acidic urns before it ate them, electrocuting its victims.
In its wake were trails of its amber waste. The stuff gradually decayed into a poisonous mist, thick and oily and spreading along the ground like and evil gray fog.
The other bloom-things were even more horrifying than the first, as their twisted nature became the scenes of carnage and terror across as many settlements as they found.
"Why are they now attacking? Everywhere they come to; it as if they are responding to our discovery of them." Ronald asked Desmond. They sat in their lab, where they had retreated, and watched the images of the rampaging monstrosities.
"Causality." Desmond said. His voice was weak and haunted and he stared into the dim air.
"What? Make sense of that for me." Ronald looked at him.
"Observers change what they observe, just by looking at it. We noticed them and in return they noticed us. Causality." Desmond explained slowly, with a pale countenance.
"That...that doesn't make sense." Ronald contemplated and then complained.
"They are not wholly of this world. They were created by beings powered by spiritual energy. The existence of these bloom-things, these Bloomelators...they are not natural. Why should their behavior make sense? If we could make sense of the world of Ruin, we could be GAIA again." Desmond explained in detail. He went on like that for some time before Ronald interrupted him saying:
"Names, titles, acronyms and hyphenations for so many concepts. If words were weapons we would have the arsenal we need to defend ourselves." Ronald glared absently. He was sick of labeling every new and strange thing, although it was Desmond that had named Archaeon and Bloomelator. Somehow naming the demons had given them power, instead of taking it away from them. Fear was spread even faster when the words were spoken.
"What do you mean? We do have an arsenal to defend ourselves. Look at what is happening." Desmond pointed. The images in the air before them hovered over the basin of liquid time-space. They watched events that people were sharing from around the world as they happened. The sounds, smells and sights were as if they were there, the more senses a viewer used to pay attention. It was like being there, almost.
Bloomelator-Rotting, as it was known, approached its fleeing victims across a desolate and dry landscape. As it closed the distance it stung them with jets of acidic sap that quickly hardened and burned into the flesh as amber. None were escaping. They screamed in pain and fear as it collected them and ate them, one-by-one.
Behind some toppled rubble was the mother of the youngest human, born just a few years ago. It was very rare for new humans to be born and everyone recognized the child: Svetlana. Her mother was covering the eyes of the child, protecting her from the sight of the terrifying creature coming for them. Bloomelator-Rotting passed their hiding place as it was attacked by Robo-Tank Thirteen.
The robot warrior fought to the death, but was no match for the ferocious bloom-thing.
After the brief battle the plant wandered away to where other humans were trying to reach the safety of some sleds and carpets. A second bloom-thing was coming towards them at the same time, Bloomelator-Flowering. It belched a cloud of poisonous fumes that left the people writhing in agony on the ground, a slow and horrifying death. Then the two Bloomelators began to feed on them.
"There is more than we can bear to witness." Ronald apologized and stood from where he sat.
"Have you learned nothing? This is how we are going to survive. It is the human spirit that will empower our defenses." Desmond growled in frustration. "Look!"
Ronald watched as a man lay under toppled rubble, trapped. Others had fled, leading the plant monster called Bloomelator-Blossoming away from the destruction. He was all alone, dying. He did not know that anyone was seeing his demise. He was experiencing dying-all-alone. In pain and half crushed he lay there as the sounds of the screaming victims of Bloomelator-Blossoming grew gradually more distant.
"I don't understand. What is it you think this does to protect us? How can all this horror save us from these creatures?" Ronald shook his head.
"What do you feel right now? What do you want more than anything?" Desmond looked from yet another unfolding scene of terror that had started.
A man shook with broken disbelief at the remains of his home and neighbors scattered all around him. He was babbling in madness and trauma in the aftermath of yet another bloom-thing. It had come, destroyed, fed and left. One victim had survived, but the cost was terrible. He was damaged inside of his mind from what he had experienced.
"I want to stop all of this. I want those things destroyed. I want...I want to avenge...to protect..." Ronald struggled with the fear and anger mixing inside of his heart.
"As do I. We are being ravaged for our attempts to survive. Punished for being alive...by these monsters. I want it too. I want to fight back." Desmond was looking at Ronald, searching the other for the same feeling.
"There is a way." Ronald suddenly unclenched and spoke his realization.
"I think so too." Desmond looked at a global trajectory someone had posted.
All of the bloom-things were converging on the Temple Of Humanity. Eventually they would all be there. It was as if killing crowds of people and laying waste was not enough. It was as if the monsters had a greater agenda, their paths leading them to the heart of human survival. If the monsters reached the Temple Of Humanity then they would be able to finish off their prey in the most complete way. Without the heart, the body dies.
"How do they go there? I mean why? How could they know?" Ronald objected.
"They are evil. Like I said, they are not ordinary things, not entirely of this world. They are imbued with some devilish purpose. This brings them, like gravity, to the center of all we have. They come to destroy us all, not just those they hunt, but all of us. They mean to destroy all of Humankind. That is why, that is how." Desmond did believe what he was seeing.
Ronald did not.
But they both agreed that there was one thing they could do. One final form of defense that was possible. And the same path meant to destroy all humans might also be the one that would save them.
It was a long time before the bloom-things eventually reached the Temple Of Humanity. Bloomelator-Unstoppable was the first one they had encountered and had the greatest distance to travel. After three of them had tried to cross the Northern Super Bridge the ancient structure was destroyed, dropping them into the North Pacific Ocean. It was presumed the monsters were dead. One-by-one they had emerged from the water, evidently able to swim after-all. Robo-Tanks were ready when the last one came ashore and damaged it greatly before it was able to charge up its electrical shields. Then it wiped out its obstructing foes.
Bloomelator-Unstoppable was located while in the seas and bombed from the air above. It was presumed to be defeated. Later it emerged from the waters and wrecked havoc on a seafood canning facility.
"I had hoped they could not cross the oceans." Ronald said simply. He said this many times afterward. Desmond worried that Ronald was cracking up from the stress. They both sat on a large stone bench overlooking the Pool Of Time.
In a radius surrounding the Temple Of Humanity the other bloom-things were waiting for Bloomelator-Unstoppable to arrive. Much speculation was discussed as to why they were doing so. The measurement of their energy indicated that they were quantum-entangled. Each was a temporal copy, a sort of paradox. The plants were all the same creature merged from different timelines. This was the dominant theory of the gathered scientists and anyone else that was at the Temple Of Humanity, hoping they could make a difference.
Sofar their combined willpower and emotions had done nothing to stop the plants. Ronald had stared at the Pool Of Time for so long that his eyes had become like a reflection of the still waters. No savior had come to fight the evil that gathered around them.
"They are going to erase all of this from existence. It is the only way to destroy all of this." Desmond looked around the campus of the Temple Of Humanity. He looked again at the great still waters and picked up one of the smooth white stones around it. He tossed the rock out and created a ripple on the water's surface.
"Bloomelators are all here. They are evenly spaced around us and the energy readings are off the scale we can measure it on." Sarah spoke from her equipment.
Desmond heard this, although she was talking to those nearest her. A deathly silence and stillness was in the air. Was this what it was like to be erased? Would the place they stood become a blackhole or something?
Suddenly Desmond realized it was going to take much more thought and feeling than he had believed. He walked forward without hesitation, even though he knew what would happen to him if he did. The temperature of the water was so neutral he didn't, at first, feel wet. It wasn't even actually water, but merely the absence of anything that wasn't water.
"Desmond, don't!" Ronald called after him.
"What are you doing?" Sarah said as she stood. She knew what he was doing and refused to comprehend it for a moment.
Then Desmond was sinking. He wanted to struggle or to turn and head back to shore and resisted the instinct to preserve himself. Then he was under the surface and there was no light. All around him he was in darkness, a void.
Raanu was there, like a ghostly figure. A memory alive in this place. Time and sequence and reality had very little law in such a place.
Archaeon was curled and sleeping and drifting nearby or far away and massive or small like a baby bird. Space and mass were equally meaningless. It was like a dream where nothing had to make sense.
"I have come here to find Unit Three-Sixteen." Desmond told Raanu.
The boy looked at him with bewilderment.
"It is like you are talking directly to me. It is like I can hear your voice inside my mind." Raanu said.
Desmond took a moment to realize what reality he was in. He was in a dimension of lines and color. He himself was a drawing on a page, a panel. He shifted himself slightly, changed the angle of his two-dimensional reality. He was in a different frame, no a different panel. He was on the page of a comic-book.
Raanu was reading his words and Desmond existed mostly in the boy's imagination. Archaeon was a sleeping dragon in the background. Desmond worried that if he tried too hard to break free of his role he might be lost. If the boy stopped reading or stopped imagining him, he would cease to exist entirely.
"A new threat has come to our world. We need Silver Swordsman." Desmond spread his arms and proclaimed. This dramatic appeal felt natural with his state-of-existence. He turned and saw that under the claw of the monster was the shimmering hero's remains.
They all seemed to be inside of some sort of cavern or ancient temple, or both. It was how the place was illustrated. Desmond could only see the parts of their scene that were directly in front of him. Two-dimensional reality was difficult to navigate.
"Welcome to the peaceful place, brother." was the voice of Svetlana. Just a few years had taken away her childhood. Now, still the youngest of humans, she was grown to womanhood. She was dressed strangely, her face painted with brown tears and her clothes were like the Cyclists, a robe of black and white patterns.
"I am glad to be here." Desmond read his line and then added carefully: "Will you help me to bring Silver Swordsman home?"
"We have found that all things may live together in peace, as long as a balance is maintained." Svetlana continued her monologue. It was as if she was only following her role in the comic-book's story. Could she respond to Desmond if he changed the story? Was it safe to make changes? It was difficult to say things that were not in his speech-bubble and easy to say things that he was supposed to say.
For the moment, Desmond decided to play along. He followed the script, page after page. Then he had an uneasy feeling. He knew the end of the issue was coming up. He had to have faith that Raanu would keep reading and that more issues remained. He hadn't had the chance to get help from Silver Swordsman. He wasn't even sure if it was possible.
Suddenly the world was vibrant and scaled carefully. Archaeon woke for a moment and so did Silver Swordsman and they posed in a battle illustration. Desmond felt small and terrified, flinching from the scene next to a mystic-expression-wearing Svetlana. It was simply the cover of the next issue, Desmond realized as they resumed their conversation and the two giants returned to their sleeping positions.
"If I wake up Silver Swordsman then Archaeon will follow?" Desmond asked.
"Whatever happened before will happen again and the ripples of time will echo forever." Svetlana nodded sagely.
"Alright. To save our world I must take this chance." Desmond told her. He looked to his hands and saw he held a bronze gong and a hammer with a bone handle.
"It is a good thing that I am here to say the words of binding." Svetlana warned him in a vague exposition.
"I would not have used the Chimes Of Tezchapel* without you here. Before he died, Ronald warned me that Archaeon would wake up too." Desmond read his words and was surprised by the plot points. Ronald was dead? He glanced to the asterisk note in the corner of the panel and saw it read: "* See issue #11" but had no further understanding. Apparently he had gotten the gong earlier and also Ronald had explained its use and then died.
"You are learning, brother. Don't repeat the same mistakes from your work on Solariel or the events that cost your friends their lives. It is time for you to use the Chimes Of Tezchapel." Svetlana raised her hands ritually as Desmond posed to do so.
Desmond paused for a moment and considered that he had never worked on Solariel. He wondered if she meant Aidan. But there was no time to consider this further, he was ready to strike the gong.
A terrifying sound-effect was emblazoned across the next panel and this was followed first by the glass grid face of the giant robot lighting up. Then the eyes of the monster atop Silver Swordsman opened.
Svetlana chanted unknown words without very many vowels and the creature began to fall asleep again. Desmond knew this wouldn't work because the cover art depicted a final battle between Archaeon and Silver Swordsman.
Silver Swordsman crawled out from under the monster and climbed to its feet and stood there towering over them.
"We must be going." Desmond told the robot. "Our world is in great danger."
"I am not going with you. I was banished from your world." Silver Swordsman replied.
Svetlana was still chanting. Desmond had an uneasy feeling that whenever she stopped Archaeon would rise up from its slumber.
"There is no time." Desmond gestured at a huge ornate stone archway with a perpetual waterfall for a door. He knew it was a portal back home. He also somehow knew that whatever spell was spoken by Svetlana, it only had so many words and when the words ran out, the spell's effect was over.
"Go!" Raanu's voice boomed throughout their reality. The boy was excited by the suspense. Although their world existed entirely in the mind's eye of the reader, the reader was helpless and powerless to change their fate. When the page was turned, all bets were off.
Svetlana was becoming drained and exhausted by her efforts and coughed and fell to her knees. She tried to start over and the creature began to awake. Archaeon rose up, panel by panel and detail by detail until it occupied a full page spread with the humans below it as mere stick figures under the surprised giant robot.
"Oh shit!" Desmond proclaimed. He heard Raanu giggling and realized he had again spoken words that he wasn't supposed to say. There was no speech bubble for the profanity.
Archaeon and Silver Swordsman became locked in a deadly battle with sparks flying everywhere. So much for peace and harmony.
"We have got to get out of here!" Desmond took Svetlana's hands and dragged her to her feet. As the battle clashed they ran for the exit. Each blow from the monstrous bird-creature drove their protector backwards on its feet, also towards the exit.
It was then that their reality shifted back to Ruin. Desmond and Svetlana were on the beach of white stones, soaked in the waters of the Pool Of Time. The skies were dark and the landscape was an obliterated wasteland.
Desmond tried to get to his feet and felt weak and sore. He coughed up some water and bile and looked around. The wasteland was littered with the skeletons of the dead, each sprouting evil horsetail plants from their ribs.
"Where are we?" Svetlana's voice trembled in disturbed horror.
"Home." Desmond felt a hot tear burn his chilled cheek and realized he had only tried to speak and cleared his throat and said aloud:
"We are home."