Where there's light...
Disclaimer: I do not own Golden Sun or any of the characters, I just like the games.
Hello again! Well, it's only been a few months, right? Heh heh... I'm very sorry to my few but appreciated readers, but there was finals and having a job and everything, plus a big stint of playing FF VIII that kept me away from the word processor, but I return! Just as it was predicted thousands of years ago...(rambles).
Chapter Thirteen: When Doom Hangs Over All
The party rode over the waters to Sol Sanctum, their final destination. The dark clouds hung heavy on the sky, the sea was unnaturally placid. No seabirds ever came to the ship to rest, no fish could be found in the waters. Everything seemed held down by the clouds, which were black as the darkest night where Sol Santum was.
"What is this? Where are all the animals? The sea is normally full of them!" Mia asked to no one in particular.
Isaac stared into the gray sky, a look of worry and pain on his face. "I don't know..." he replied softly.
Garet paced restlessly around, making occasional "hmph"s and "urrg"s. Picard concentrated on the steering, choosing to ignore everything else. Sheba, Ivan and Jenna were below decks, and Felix stared thoughtfully into the distance.
Finally Garet spoke. "Well, dammit, don't we have a plan or something? What do we do when we arrive? How do we go about getting the Gungnir and everything? WE'VE GOT TOO MUCH TO DO THAN JUST STAND HERE MOPING!"
"...Garet? Shut up, will you?" Isaac said tiredly.
"Yeah? What's the deal with you, Isaac? We got on this ship to Sol Sanctum and all of a sudden you just clamped up. There something you need to say, because I'm sick of you acting like the living dead!"
Isaac turned to face him, anger suddenly on his face. "You want to know why? This is it, Garet, the last haul. Our final battle, and I don't know if we'll live. What if one of us dies? Here, not a few miles from home, with everything about to end, someone dies. That's what I'm worried about! That's why I stand here, thinking about how we will live, how to survive!" He hardly raised his voice, but his words were enough. Shocked, Garet stuttered for a moment before turning around to resume his pacing, though now without much heart.
They landed on the shores near Vault, then walked on to Vale without stopping. The clouds over the ruin of Sol Sanctum were darker than night, lightning flashed in their depths without making a sound. No monsters attacked or could even be seen, the grass underfoot was withered and dry. Day and night were incomprehensible in this dark twilight, the calm before the storm of judgment.
After an amount of time unknown to anyone they arrived outside Vale. The houses were dark, no candles burned, no person stood in the open. They walked through the town, but saw no sign of any living person.
"Where are they? The villagers? Mom, Dad..." Garet whispered.
"They're gone, like they never were here." Picard said, glancing at another house, its door wide open but with no one inside.
Suddenly a bolt of lightening shot across the sky, and for the first time thunder could be heard. Ivan and Sheba suddenly stiffened, looking sharply up to the sky.
"The clouds, they bring a rain of sorrow, the wind is dark and terrible..." Ivan spoke, as if to himself. He then looked back to the group. "We have to run! The rain will start soon, and I don't want to be here when it starts!"
As the last words left his mouth thunder rolled again, and red rain poured from the sky, a rain of blood. Flies appeared suddenly, buzzing maddeningly over the stench of death that now filled the air. They ran as fast as they could towards the ruins, Mia being sure to summon Shade to protect them from the rain of blood. After what seemed like hours they reached the ruins, where in the place of the rubble now sat a giant tombstone, engraved in ancient writing. Here the rain no longer fell, but barely audible the moans of the damned could be heard in the tomb.
"Oh Gods, Gods no, don't let it open, I want to leave, I want to leave, Gods make it stop..." Jenna whimpered to herself, Isaac pulling her into a defensive hug to try to comfort her. "It's in Lemurian! The script, I'll try to read it." Picard exclaimed. They all stood back while he studied the engravings, then he spoke. "'Here lies all the dead of the world; once, now and forever. For all who live death shall come, none escape its grasp. Death shall last as eternal as Time itself, the eternal sleep destined for all. Thou who stand here shall know the greatest death, the Silent Shadow known as Thanatos, Reaper of Souls.' It ends there." Picard finished.
"Reaper of Souls...so what do we do?" Mia asked quietly.
Garet sighed, then proceeded to remove his Great Ax from his back. "What else? We fight death itself. Not too hard, eh?"
"Silent Shadow... Felix! MOVE!" Ivan yelled.
Felix leaped away without asking questions, and right where he had stood a skeletal hand groped in the air before retreating into shadow. Slowly the shadow drew up, revealing nothing more than a black cloak and hood, holding a sickle in its right hand that was nothing but bone. It stood before the group, saying nothing, doing nothing.
Isaac spoke up. "Are you Thanatos? If so, we have come to defeat you and your master. We shall stand against you now, and we shall destroy you!"
Thanatos made no move at first, but slowly it raised its left arm, revealing the skeletal hand, which was outstretched. It then pointed at Jenna, who began to shake and tremble in fear, shaking her head as if pleading.
It crooked its finger and spoke a single word; "Come."
Without a cry or even a gasp she fell to the ground, dead. The moans from the tomb grew just a little louder, a little more sorrowful as another voice joined the chorus of the dead.
"Jenna..." Isaac murmured, then cast a vengeful glance at Thanatos. "You bastard, you killed her! Titan's Blade!"
The giant sword crashed down from heaven, landing down where Thanatos stood. But it made no move at all, not even a flinch.
"Damn! Odyssey! Grand Gaia! Stone Spire!" Isaac shouted, throwing his most powerful psynergy at Death itself. But it made no move, again.
Tears began to fall down Isaac's cheeks as he attacked again and again, causing no harm whatsoever. The others joined in too, attacking repeatedly with the strongest moves they had.
"DAMN IT! Why in hell don't you fall? Even move? You killed Jenna, my love, and you don't even move or even react! IF YOU WOULD DO THIS TO ME THAN SPEAK!"
Thanatos did not speak, but seemed almost to shrug in indifference. In a blindingly fast movement it sung its sickle at Isaac, with Garet, Mia, Picard and Felix just behind. Everyone fell dead, their souls reaped from their bodies like the new grain.
Sheba began to scream, and before Ivan could do anything to stop here she lunged at Thanatos and began to strike it repeatedly with her mace. The strikes drifted through Thanatos ineffectively, and it merely touched her with its skeletal hand to kill her, as well.
Isaac stood stock still, panic and fury threatening to overwhelm him entirely. Thanatos turned to face him, and it stared at him beneath its forbidding, dark cloak. Ivan stood, knowing that now was the end of it; there would be no berserk Felix to aid him, no sudden blackout before awaking to victory, only death. Death by pitiless hand of this demon, that had made his friends only memories, and soon would do the same to him.
His friends, now only memories that lived in his heart.
Live...in my heart?
Time seemed to stop as Ivan was struck with realization.
'My friends live on in my heart. All people I've ever met do. They live on, they still support me, still help me, still care about me! I'm not alone, not now, not ever.' He looked at Thanatos, this time not with fear but triumph.
'I can do this! I can!'
Thanatos raised its sickle, preparing to make the final swing.
At the last instant Ivan rolled to the right, feeling just for an instant a terrible chill as the power of death flew just past him. It struck a tree, which instantly lost its leaves and shriveled.
'How do I kill Death?' Ivan thought, thinking hard.
Another jolt of realization hit him as he barely dodged another swing of Death's sickle, and almost felt like laughing if it weren't for the fact he was a hairsbreadth from being dead.
"You don't kill Death! You birth it!"
It was at that moment that his eyes caught some shining symbols on his staff, symbols that were foreign, but yet familiar.
'I've seen these before...' he thought.
Without knowing what he was doing, he spoke a single word. "Yggdrasil!"
Dodging a third wave of death, he quickly dashed toward Thanatos, his staff held at his side like a spear. He leapt up, over Thanatos' head, then brought the end of the staff down on top of it.
"I summon the World Tree, Guardian of the Nine Worlds! Grow, Yggdrasil!"
Nothing happened for a moment as Ivan stood suspended on top of Death, using his staff to hold himself.
The end of the staff thudded down through Thanatos, becoming a giant root.
Soon the whole staff began to grow, the shaft becoming a truck that grew to ten yards in diameter, twenty, thirty! In a matter of seconds it was as wide as a football field, the head of the staff shooting up almost a mile as it unfurled into branches and leaves. The single root dug deeper and deeper, sprouting other roots that snaked underground for countless miles. Ivan leapt clear and ran as fast as he could away from the sprouting tree as it continued to grow.
After a minute, the earth-shaking rumble ceased.
Ivan turned around and gasped in awe at the impossibly huge tree that towered over everything. The branches pierced the clouds, letting the sun shine again on the billions of leaves that swayed in the gentle breeze.
Thanatos was gone, and the World Tree, Yggdrasil, grew once more.
Ivan walked up to the trunk and gazed up it, feeling dizzy at the sheer magnitude of the tree.
"Oi! Ivan!"
'That voice...' "Garet?"
Ivan turned around to see his friends, every one, standing behind him. Isaac and Jenna stood together, wrapped around each other in a tight embrace. Garet stood nearby waving cheerfully while Sheba, Mia and Picard stood off a bit, looking bemused at their friend's cheer. Felix could be seen standing a far way back, looking into the sunrise.
Ivan stood stock still, unbelieving. Then his face cracked into a smile, then he chuckled, and suddenly he was laughing with sheer joy, tears streaming down his face as he looked upon his friends, alive again.
Garet looked confused. "What's up with you? We've still gotta find Thanatos, somewhere around this giant tree..."
Ivan abruptly stopped laughing, looking at him in bewilderment. "We've still? What?"
Garet looked at him again, as did the others, with a very quizzical expression. "Well, yeah. We haven't fought him, so we need to find him. Doesn't seem like the most fitting place for Death, though. What happened to the tomb?" Garet said, looking around for it.
Ivan stared. "You...don't remember?"
"Remember what? Picard read the inscription, Garet said something stupid, then this tree suddenly appears and your laughing like a mad-man." Jenna said.
'They don't remember...' Ivan thought. 'Probably better that they don't.' He smiled, then spoke.
"Thanatos is defeated, I think because of this tree. It's all over."
Picard looked a little disappointed. "Shoot, I was hoping for a little scuffle. This seems pretty anti-climactic after all the hype of getting here."
"Whatever! Let's look for the Gungnir, then. Gotta be around somewhere..." Mia said cheerfully. They all dashed out to search, except for two.
Felix walked towards Ivan, a look of gratitude masking a face that told of terrible pain. "I still remember, Ivan. I don't know why, but I do. I saw it all while I was dead, and I can't say it was pleasant. But you did good." Felix showed a weak smile, and patted Ivan on the shoulder. "It's best that they...don't remember." Felix said.
Ivan looked up at him. "Yeah, you're right."
They turned to face the sunrise, letting the new day wash the fear and pain away.
"Just a little longer..." Felix said.
End of Chapter Thirteen! I feel pretty guilty about letting my story sink into the dusty archives of Fan Fiction, so I'll get another chapter out in less than a week, faster if I get a review so I know people care that I exist. (Hint, Hint.) Thank You!