As was promised, you will now discover what happened to the Iifa Tree. I'm SERIOUS this time. And you will find out a lot more too! So sit back and enjoy.
The leaf came to a sickeningly fast stop, and it took Eiko and Vivi a while to regain their composure. After doing so, they both moved over to inspect the barrier. It seemed to be floating over the path of the leaf, and it glowed a strange golden color. Vivi tapped it lightly, and it made a ripple effect. He then tried to put his hand through it, but found that it just molded around it. Eiko and Vivi exchanged confused looks.
"Well... what do we do now?" Vivi asked.
"We press on! Duh. We have some stuff to find out! Now let's go!" Eiko exclaimed, grabbing Vivi's free hand and tugging him along in a forceful stride.
"Ah! Let go! I can walk by myself, thanks," Vivi said, a little indignant.
"Of course you can. So let's go!"
And without another word, they moved off of the platform and into the cavern that it sprouted out of. It branched off in two directions, one moving horizontally and the other one angling downward. Deciding that they didn't want to go down any further then they already had, Vivi and Eiko proceeded down the horizontal cavern. It was made entirely of rock, but the floor had been flattened out. And, it seemed as if the walls themselves were giving off some sort of pale glow. Eiko ran a hand along one wall, and it started to slowly change color.
"It certainly doesn't seem like this was a natural occurrence, huh Vivi?" Eiko asked, looking to him as his gaze wondered about the tunnel.
"Well, I had my doubts ever since the beginning. But this floor is the clincher for me. I mean, everything else pointed towards the work of a person, but it could have been some sort of fluke. But this has no other explanation then the purposeful intentions of someone... or something."
A gust of wind seemed to blow through the tunnel.
"Vivi? Um... I get the feeling we're being watched," Eiko said, concerned.
Vivi nodded a bit. "I have to agree with you on that. But... by what?"
"I think you mean who."
That was a new voice. Eiko and Vivi froze in their tracks, and started to turn around.
"Stop right there," the new voice commanded.
"Now. You have come into our home, so we will have to disarm you. We wouldn't want any fights breaking out, would we?"
"W-what do you mean, disarm? We're completely unarmed!" stammered Eiko. Neither she nor Vivi could see the source of this new voice, but the could tell that it was flat and almost emotionless, but with the faintest trace of happiness on it. It was male... they thought... but it was hard to tell. Whatever it was started speaking again.
"Now, we can't have you lying like that. You are both mages; we will now nullify your magic. Do not move, unless you wish for a more painful restraint."
Before Vivi or Eiko could even decide on what to do, the rock around them changed color to an iridescent glow. The odd light enclosed the two, and within only a few seconds it faded back into nothingness. Vivi looked at his palms, and Eiko did the same. Both realized that they had indeed been stripped of their magic.
"You may turn around now," the voice told them, and they did so. What they saw was rather difficult for them to take in; it didn't seem to be male or female. It had no hair, and its face was completely bland. Its eyes were a dull gray, and its body form was impossible to make out, as it was covered in a robe that seemed to hang like a curtain from a rim around its shoulders. Even its arms were encased in a similar material, and only the faintest traces of fingers could be seen. It stared back at them with an almost smiling face.
"You must have questions. If you wish to find out anything, simply follow me. You must come to the resting room. Ask me what you will on the way."
And with that, the pale-faced thing brushed past Vivi and Eiko, leaving them rather dumbfounded, but following in hot pursuit.
"What is your name?" Eiko asked, thinking that maybe it could betray something about its gender.
"People call me O."
Vivi and Eiko blinked simultaneously. "O? Um... isn't that a little short for a name?" Vivi inquired.
"There is no need to brandish a lengthy name. They cause jealousy for the sake of quality, anyway."
"Jealousy? Your name is O because you worry about people being jealous? So weird..." Eiko commented.
"What makes it, as you put it, 'weird'?" O replied.
"Ah... never mind that. How long have you been living here? And where did you come from?" Vivi asked.
"This has been our home for two weeks now. We are nomads, and go from place to place. Our last home was a place called Jyria."
Vivi and Eiko exchanged confused looks, somewhat frustrated that they had to look at the bland back of O's head and robe.
"I've never heard of Jyria," Eiko said.
"Of course you haven't. Jyria is a different world," O stated, as if this were not a large deal. Eiko's mouth dropped, and Vivi just stuttered a bit before he could form his response.
"A different world? How did you come here?" he asked.
"Our vessel transgressed the inter-world plane, and located Gaia. Knowing our impact might cause disruption to living things, we searched for the largest mass of dead material we could. What used to be a gigantic tree-shaped entity was that mass, so we landed our vessel here. As a consequence, it was reduced to particle dust. But we have found this area to be a perfect place for our new home."
(Author's note: Not to insult the intelligence of any of you readers, but for those of you who didn't just figure it out, the Iifa Tree was incinerated as the vessel of these freaks landed on Gaia.)
Eiko leaned in to Vivi to whisper to him. "Why do you think that they left their old-world? Maybe they're really here on a mission of conquest!"
"Maybe... but let's just stick around for a little while and find out more," he replied. She nodded in response.
"I will now ask you to please hold your questions for later. We have arrived at the resting-place; you must rest. You will find yourselves to be very much revitalized when you awake."
O stepped aside. Eiko and Vivi stepped cautiously into the room, and observed that the rock was now covered in a bright, white substance of sorts, that was metallic in nature. All through the room were beds; but what was truly irksome was the fact that these beds extended back through the room farther then the eye could see. And all but two of them were filled with sleeping creatures of the same race as O. Eiko and Vivi shivered a bit.
"You want us to rest in here?" Eiko asked, a slight quiver in her voice. O nodded nonchalantly.
"These are optimum sleeping conditions."
Eiko shook her head. "I'm sorry, but that idea just freaks me out. They look like zombies! Now I've got some more questions, Mister O, so you better stuff your nappy time and listen up! Or I'll-"
"Or you'll what? Attack me? What for? What do you hope to accomplish by doing that?"
(Author's note: Should you not be able to tell by now, this concludes that O is a male, as he had no problems with being addressed as a male. Now back to your regularly scheduled fan fiction reading.)
Eiko stopped with her mouth open for a while, and then Vivi came to back her up. "She'll beat some sense into you, that's what! You'll tell us what we want to know, or you get hurt. It's a simple concept."
"Yeah!" Eiko finished. O chuckled softly.
"Oh my. You don't seem to realize that whatever pain you inflict on me will be returned to you one million fold. You see all of my peers back there will not take kindly to me being hurt."
Eiko and Vivi then realized that they were indeed seriously outnumbered. And with their magic gone...
"Hey! Vivi! How are we going to get our magic back?"
"Um... I don't know."
They both looked at O with long faces. O continued to chuckle softly.
"You don't get your magic back. Magic is something to be jealous for, and thus can start fights, and can be used to inflict more pain. In the ideal world, neither jealousy nor pain may exist, so no person in that world can possess magic. Now, you will sleep, and join the ranks of the perfect, or you will be discarded as unfit. The choice is yours."
Eiko was outraged. "D-discarded! Me, unfit! I don't think you know whom you're talking to, O, but no one EVER calls me unfit! You are going to pay for that!"
Just as she was about to charge at O, however, Vivi grabbed her by the shoulders. "Eiko! Get a hold of yourself! Violence isn't going to help us here! If we kill him, we won't have any way to get our magic back!"
"But, he called me, your loving wife, UNFIT! We have to do something!" Eiko protested. Vivi closed his eyes and shook his head, and Eiko started to calm down.
"Your friend is correct, miss. I do know how your magic may be brought back to you."
They both watched him. "We're listening," Vivi said.
"There are those who would oppose our purpose. We have a division of warriors who stay separate from the others and train to defeat our enemies. Should you join us, your strength would be valuable."
Eiko and Vivi both wore disgusted looks. "You actually think that we would fight our own friends?"
O shook his head. "Once you join us, you have no friends, nor enemies. For either relationship activates its counterpart, and this will inevitably lead to more conflict. The perfect world thus has no love, hate, friendships, or rivalries. Only the desire to bring those misguided ones under our supervision."
Eiko gagged, while Vivi just stared at O with a horrified look.
"What kind of monsters are you, that you would sacrifice love for the sake of preventing conflict? Why don't you just kill everyone? Wouldn't that do the same thing?" Vivi asked. O grew bored.
"We are not so vicious as Necron. We wish, in fact, only to preserve life to its fullest, for it is what gives the universe purpose. In fact, we know of your success against the destruction of Necron, and thus concluded that your planet is full of power, and the ability to do harm. This is why we chose Gaia as our next target. Now, I am tired of answering your questions. All will be made clear to you once you join us. And since you will die if you do not, there is no more point in your interrogation. So I ask you one more time: do you join the ranks of our warriors, or do you sacrifice the gift of life?"
Vivi just shook his head softly while he looked down at the floor. Eiko screamed at him. "You jerk! Of course the answer is no! And we'll be back, and we'll stop all of you and your evil! Just you wait and see! Come on, Vivi, we're leaving!"
O just continued his soft chuckled. As Eiko and Vivi rushed out of the room, a portion of the rock ahead of them began to glow a strange, brownish color. And the second they ran past it, their motion came to a slow but sure stop, until they slumped down on the floor and fell into a deep, dark sleep. O proceeded to take them back to the resting-place, and put them in the two empty beds. What diabolical things he would do to them from this position, only time would tell.
Well...? What do you think? If you think this is going in the wrong direction, then I will redo this chapter and make it even better. But if you like where this is headed, then review and tell me so I can be all happy and enthusiastic and exited so that I can do another chapter!
