They left the desolation of Hallis behind them and headed out into the plains around the city, once these plains were fertile farmlands filled with small villages Thunderchild explained, but now the wind blew sand in their faces and they were forced to pull their hoods up.
"Were the storms as bad as this?" asked Zidane as they bent double against the wind.
"Not usually!" came the reply
As quickly as it started the storm subsided and they were able to see their destination looming ominously over them, the blue crystal shining with a slight internal light. As they walked further, their mood became more downfallen, almost as though the tower zapped their energy.
It wasn't as large as the tower in Ankh-Morpork but it was a bit wider and it shone slightly brighter. Surprisingly for Domino, no-one intercepted them on their way there, it was almost as though Jara really was just waiting for them. Domino began to get slightly concerned that something was not right.
"So…where did you go while we were unconscious?" she asked Thunderchild after a while.
"Huh? Oh, just about, you know what I mean." He said dismissively
"I'm not sure I do." She said, confused.
"I just had a little walk around, is that so wrong!" yelled Thunderchild, a little angry.
Domino backed away from her husband, her hands held outwards.
"Ok, ok, easy, easy." She didn't have to ask what was the matter, after all grief had many, many outlets and anger was one of them…especially if it was combined with apprehension like this was.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Proeliator to her as Thunderchild stalked off ahead.
"I think he's a little apprehensive of what lies ahead."
Proeliator nodded slowly and said no more.
In fact the whole party carried on in silence for the next half an hour, walking closer and closer to the tower until they stood at its base.
"Something's wrong here." Said Nagy
"I know what you mean…she's too quiet." Agreed Proeliator.
Thunderchild walked up to the big double door and pushed hard on both doors sending them slowly swinging open.
"Thunderchild! What are you doing?" hissed Domino as the doors connected with the wall, sending a loud crash echoing through the hallway beyond.
Thunderchild said nothing but began walking forward, not even looking back, after a moments reluctance Domino followed him, and Zidane, Proeliator and Nagy followed her.
The hallway was made of the same blue crystal of the palace, a red carpet with gold trimmings led the way forward on a black and white tiled floor, it was as wide as four people and as tall as two, a short distance further and it opened out into a larger area.
I wonder if the Morporkian palace looked like this? Thought Nagy
Thunderchild was already almost at the other end of the corridor and Domino had to scamper after him to catch up, as Zidane, Proeliator and Nagy followed her there was a grating noise and the entrance doors swiftly swung shut, trapping them within the palace.
No going back now thought Domino as she reached the side of her husband and tugged on his arm.
"What are you doing?" she quietly said.
"I can hear her…she's calling me." He replied softly.
Domino could her it too, a voice chanting very quietly around them, filling the hallway and drawing them towards the light in the chamber beyond. She found it mesmerising but a little spooky.
The chamber they walked into was medium in size and in two heights, the same black and white tiling prevailed and the red carpet led up to a large sprawling red throne which looked as if it had only recently been vacated. Other lush furnishings were scattered around the room, a blood red curtain here, a varnished table there…and that voice was still there.
Looking around she realised that in her dazed state she had been left behind again and shaking her head walked forward towards him, straight into an invisible barrier.
Picking herself up off the floor she tried to walk over to Thunderchild again and was again flung backwards onto the floor, looking back she was surprised to see that Proeliator, Zidane and Nagy were also trapped within the same square shaped force field that she was.
Thunderchild, however, was not trapped.
"Thunderchild! Help us!" she cried
He didn't move, didn't even turn around to look at them, he just stood before the steps leading up the throne immobile. For a moment Domino thought that he had been petrified but then she saw a slight movement in his cloak as he swayed uncertainly.
"Please!" she cried, smacking her fists on the field.
But it was no use.
He turned around finally and sneered at her.
"Foolish genome…you really trusted me…" he said.
"I loved you! I still do!" returned Domino, falling to her knees.
What the…? Thought Proeliator Was he really working for Jara all this time? Had he only brought us to Terra for her? Was his fight against her all a ruse!
It couldn't be!
"You all trusted me…you are more stupid than you look…and as for your love genome? Heh, I have no use for such things from a brainless tool. I have real love."
And as he finished his sentence a voice spoke from the shadowy doorway to the right.
"Of course my darling, our true love…our one love. Good work Yissan…you led them right into our trap."
Jara walked into the room and embraced Thunderchild who eagerly returned her kiss, it was enough to make Domino want to be sick, she felt so…so betrayed.
Did he really lead me on all this time just to dump me here in the end? She wondered with a sickening feeling in her stomach, and what she saw in front of her was too much for her to bear, she hung her head low and shut her eyes, defeated.
When the two Terrans parted Jara turned around and walked up to her throne, Thunderchild followed her and knelt on her right hand side as she sat down on the throne.
"Funaho…come." Said Jara, clicking her fingers.
Funaho emerged from the doorway to the left of the room and knelt on Jara's left hand side, curling her blue tail around her.
"So," said Jara "It comes to this…"
Zidane stood next to Domino, his hands on his hips.
"We'll fight you Jara…all the way if needs be."
Jara raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"Such strong sentiments from a tool…strong but misguided…you see, foolish genome, there is nothing you can do to stop me. Face it you have lost."
Zidane stamped his foot and punched the force field with his fist, making something in his knuckles crack sickeningly.
"We won't give up!"
Jara leaned forward on her throne and stroked Thunderchilds brown hair with her hand, causing Thunderchild to smile and lean his head towards her hand.
"It is too late for such actions genome…I have everything I need. At my hands I have two of the most powerful creatures this system has ever seen…and they're both under my control. Aren't they?" she said, addressing the last words to Thunderchild and Funaho.
"Of course mother." Replied Funaho.
"I serve and love no other my lady." Said Thunderchild as he bowed his head.
Domino looked up, tears falling from her eyes.
"But you promised to live with me, you pledged to share your life with me Yissan! You married me! Doesn't that mean a thing to you!" she screamed
Thunderchild smiled
"I admit…agreeing to your stupid request was a foolish mistake, one that will be rectified when you are as dead as Gaia, but at the time, I had no other choice."
Domino shook her head furiously and put her hands over her ears.
"I refuse to believe it…I won't believe it!"
Jara laughed and leaned backwards on the throne.
"Look how the feeble utensil fails to grasp the inevitable." She stood up and walked over to where Domino was sitting on the floor, she stood barely inches away from the force field and folded her arms.
"Genome, you are pathetic…face the facts, you have lost him to me…you are nothing compared to me…you are a copy, a mere copy of my magnificence and a bad one at that. You're a degraded unstable failure…you disgust me with your presence."
Returning to her throne she sat back down on the edge of the chair and ran her finger along Thunderchilds cheek. Then she turned his head and brought him up to her for another passionate embrace. Funaho just knelt emotionless at Jara's knee while Domino was really physically sick this time.
"Has it really come to this?" said Nagy quietly
"What?" asked Proeliator, turning to his friend.
"Well…Thunderchild's weird behaviour since the grenade went off, and the fact he wasn't with us when we woke up…"
"You mean…?"
Nagy walked to the front of the force field, ignoring Domino and her condition.
"You poisoned him…didn't you? When we were all stunned, you changed him…like you changed Funaho."
Jara pushed Thunderchild away for a moment and glared at Nagy.
"Silence fool." She hissed
Nagy turned away and nodded to the rest, giving Domino a glimmer of hope, if it was merely a poison then there was an antidote, and the process was reversible.
"Jara…?" asked Thunderchild questioningly, hearing and understanding the question from Nagy.
"Be still my love…we will have our eternity together soon."
Thunderchild settled back down at her feet, apparently satisfied with her explanation.
"You see, nothing you can say will divide them from their loyalty to me. Soon, they will be my 'Angels of Destruction' as they bring the end to Gaia…you should be happy genomes, you are about to see the realisation of your purpose…the completion of the reason you were made. Or is it because in the new order you will be obsolete?"
"It's because what you're doing is wrong Jara, destroying one world for another is madness, how can you place a higher value on Terra than on Gaia?"
Jara stood up quickly and pointed a finger at Zidane
"You know nothing, You do not know what it is like to see your home destroyed around you, you do not know what it feels like to be the one left behind, a lone survivor of a swift and devastating attack."
"But I do know right and wrong, and what you're doing is not right!"
Jara laughed
"Don't lecture me on morals genome, you have no morals, you have what we programmed you with. Just a flick of a switch or injection of a drug and you'll turn back into a soulless killer, and is that so morally right!"
Nagy stood up.
"Well I wasn't programmed or made…and neither were you Jara, we were brought up by our parents, taught what was right and what was wrong through the years, sometimes by trial and error, other times by watching other people. Jara, nothing condones the massacre of an entire planet…by doing this you will show that you are no different to the Borg."
If the force field hadn't have been in the way it was quite possible Jara would have struck out at Nagy, as it was she sent a bolt of electricity at him, knocking him backwards off his feet and sending him backwards across the floor where he lay stunned.
"This is madness." Muttered Proeliator
Jara turned and walked back to the beginning of the stairs leading up to her throne, she clicked her fingers and both Funaho and Thunderchild rose and joined her.
"You truly think you can win against me?"
"We can try." Said Zidane
Jara raised an eyebrow and crossed her hands over her chest. The force field was lowered.
"Go on then…try." She said.
There was a moments pause and then Zidane ran towards Jara, his Ultima weapon drawn and raised, he got five steps before he was struck by a bolt of fire from Thunderchild and Funaho combined and sent flying back to Dominos feet.
"You see, my guardians won't let you hurt me."
Domino looked up and muttered something inaudible, and then teleported to a point just behind Jara, with her short sword already drawn. Her arm swung down, the blade aiming for Jara's back when a very familiar sword blade blocked her blow, her eyes tracked back along the blade to its owner.
"Don't even think about it genome." Said Thunderchild, as he quickly punched her in the stomach and sent her flying backwards with a physic kinetic force.
Jara laughed and twirled around.
"Anyone else want to be beaten? No? A pity, I hoped to have more fun with you…but that will come after the rising."
She hit a button on a device worn under her cloak on her wrist and suddenly the room around them disappeared in a white light, Zidane recognised the effect as a Terran teleporter.
When the light cleared they stood on the outskirts of another ruined city, but in the distance a tall mountain stretched up into the sky, but this mountain was not natural, Zidane could see wires and cables and pipes running up along its side.
"Behold, the harbinger of Gaia's doom." Said Jara.
"Truly impressive my beloved." Whispered Thunderchild in awe.
"But useless," said Domino "Without the crystal to power it, it's just a mountain of junk."
Jara chuckled.
"Yes…for a moment that bothered me, but then I discovered that our two companions here are brother and sister. I've known Funaho for quite some time, finding her as a child stranded on the Discworld, so close to her brother and yet so far. I brought her up as my child, I learnt her hidden powers, I enhanced them, and I refined them. These two people combined, are as powerful as the crystal…you see tool? I don't need the crystal when I have your 'husband' and his sister."
Domino shook her head, frowning.
"You're lying…you're bluffing, you don't know where the crystal is and you want us to tell you!"
Jara smirked and spread her arms wide.
"Well then, if I'm lying, you won't mind if I do this…Yissan, Funaho…show them your true power!"
Thunderchild and Funaho stood face to face, their noses almost touching, and then they slowly reached up both arms and held each others hands. A dull light began to surround them.
"What's happening?" asked Nagy as he slowly stood back up and regained semi-consciousness.
"I…I don't know." Was Zidanes reply
The light surrounding the brother and sister grew until only the silhouettes of their forms were seen, and a sudden wind gusted up around them, circling like a tornado. Even Jara seemed surprised by the reaction.
Slowly, Thunderchild and Funaho lifted off the ground and were drawn upwards into a pillar of light, Thunderchild in the form he took in Ultima trance, with a light blue tail and hair that matched Funaho's. Domino stood, totally aghast at her husbands change in appearance and power.
Then with a loud thunderclap and a blinding flash of white light, both Thunderchild and Funaho disappeared.
In their place, stood a giant dragon with wings that stretched nearly three hundred feet. It hovered for a moment, it's wings creating a miniature dust storm on the ground and then it landed next to Jara.
"My god, it's bigger than Bahamut." Whispered Domino.
"It's bigger than anything I've seen before." Agreed Zidane.
"We have to stop it!" yelled Proeliator, drawing his sword.
As if reading their thoughts the dragon roared and sent a powerful wave of energy at them, knocking all four backwards to the ground where they lay floating in and out of consciousness.
"Go dragon…power the assimilator!" yelled Jara as the wind around her began to gust, sending her hair and cloak into a frenzy.
The dragon roared and flew up into the air, away over the ruined skyscrapers and towards the giant mountain of a machine where it flew up above the level of the clouds.
"How did you do all this?" weakly asked Proeliator.
"All this? Most of it was Lawrence's idea…or Garland, the two were just as bad. I just had the knowledge and the patience…not to mention the power, to bring it to success. Now watch, as your future ends."
There was nothing any of them could do but watch as the machine powered up, hundreds of lights flickered on along the side and the air filled with static electricity. Lightning flashed inside and along the clouds which began to circle around the mountain, a hum which steadily rose in pitch ruled out all of the sounds around them.
"This is it!" yelled Jara, throwing her hands up into the air.
Then the hum stopped and everything went back to normal.
"Welcome back Terra." Said Jara with a smile, waiting for the weapon to fire.
Domino sat up, struggling to watch the awful scene unfolding before her.
The ground shook underneath them and a couple of fissures opened up nearby, sending burning rocks up into the sky and spreading flames around the area quickly.
But then the top of the mountain suddenly exploded, spending house size chunks of metal flying into the atmosphere, another colossal explosion followed, shaking the ground vigorously underfoot and almost knocking Jara off her feet.
"No….NO!" she screamed, her face white with shock and anger.
"Welcome back Thunderchild…" said Domino with a smile as the huge dragon flew out of the inferno of the former assimilator and returned towards them, crashing into a ruined skyscraper nearby and disappearing in flashes of white and blue light.
Thunderchild stood up, shaking his head, his mind was clear now…her spell over him was gone, and as he looked at Funaho he saw that she was back under her own control now.
"She's gone…her control over me…gone." She muttered
"Welcome back sister." Said Thunderchild as the two of them walked over to where Domino now stood, Zidane, Nagy and Proeliator slowly scrambled to their feet as they approached. Domino flung herself into Thunderchilds arms as he got near.
"I knew you didn't mean what you said!" she yelled
"Oh god, I'm so sorry, she…she had me under her control…some poison she injected me with, made me susceptible to her mind control…I'm sorry, I really am."
"So am I." Said Funaho.
"It's ok…you're both back, that's all that matters."
Thunderchild looked up at the hill on top of which Jara now stood, electricity arcing between her and the static filled clouds above, she just stood there, her arms braced out by her side, drawing power from the world around her.
"Now there's only one thing left to do." Said Thunderchild.