I made it to 100,000 words, everyone!

Chapter 40: The Coming of the Sandstorm

The next several days went by slowly. Sig had found Jak passed out in the Wasteland after he had wandered out there for whatever reason, and the Wastelanders were returning, their fight in the desert finally coming to an end. With the action dwindling down, it only made the days seem even emptier, feeling even more so like they were just sitting around and waiting, which really, in the end, was what they were doing. Just waiting for a victory whose odds seemed much too slim, or a failure that would result in the deaths of even more people and the destruction of yet another city. Not to mention the fact that the war would still not be over once Spargus had fallen. No, it would turn to another city next and another, and if they were unable to save Haven City or Spargus, what odds did the next poor fools have?

At least the planning was able to pick up again now that the Wastelanders were back, as Sig could now go about picking those he thought would be best for the attack, while Torn was tasked with briefing them on the layout of the citadel and anything they needed to know about what may lay in wait for them inside it. It was for this that he had to ignore the multitude of thoughts swarming through his mind, thoughts about the failures of the past and thoughts of the future as he wondered whether or not this would be enough and what would happen if it wasn't.

These people, too, were putting themselves in danger, just like all those who had died before, and they needed to be as prepared for what was to come as possible. But, did it matter, when Jak didn't even seem ready? With him nearly dying of dehydration out in the desert and his refusal to speak to Ashelin, as she had yet to so much as even catch sight of him since their arrival in Spargus, forcing her to get her information on his condition from Samos, it seemed the Jak they needed right now was no longer around. He had been strange lately, especially after the bomb had gone off and Dark Eco had covered Haven City, and Torn couldn't shake his doubts that Jak wasn't the answer here, after all. At least, not right now, not until he got better, and none of them could say when Jak would be himself again, not even Samos, and the Green Sage would be the closest to understanding the nature of Eco, even if Dark Eco wasn't his specialty. It seemed Light Eco was what Jak needed at this point, and they couldn't wait around until he got it. And while Ashelin was well aware of Jak's state, she was still insistent that he was what they needed, despite all evidence to the contrary.

She knew Jak wasn't up to the task, and yet she kept repeating that they needed him, the same thing over and over every time Torn questioned her on it, even when her eyes said she wasn't certain of what her mouth was saying. Jak was their only hope, she said. He had always come through for them before, even when the odds were impossible. And Torn had to agree that Jak had managed to do things he would never have thought a human was capable of. But, right now, they'd have to get by without Jak. They had no choice. And yet she wouldn't just admit it. Why couldn't she open her eyes and see it? Jak wasn't always the answer. Besides him, Torn was the only other person that had fought one of their enemies. If anyone other than Jak stood a chance against them, it was him. Maybe he hadn't done much fighting while he was at the citadel, but it was something. Which had to be better than someone who would wander out into the desert for no good reason.

And now there wasn't much time left. Another day was ending, and he wasn't sure how many more they could let slip by before striking Gol and Maia directly was no longer a good option. And Jak still wasn't ready, and Ashelin needed to see reason. Why did she have so much faith in Jak, especially when he couldn't even be relied on to speak to her in person when she went looking for him? And yet, she refused to agree to his going. They had known each other too long for her not to depend on him. It almost seemed she depended on him even less now than in the past. It didn't make sense, and he would find out why. This time she wouldn't avoid his questions.

Torn spun about from where he had been standing by the glass doors of his room, staring out at yet another city that could very well cease to exist if something wasn't done soon, and marched towards the door. He went out into the hallway, stopping for only a moment before he headed for the door to Ashelin's room. He knocked, to hear a distant "Who is it?" in response.

"Who do you think?" was his reply, and when nothing more was heard from inside, he opened the door to find a room similar to his, but with a different arrangement of furniture and a somewhat different style. He scanned the room to find her, but saw no sign of the Governess until his eyes caught the curtains rustling in a slight breeze, one door to the balcony left open. He made his way across the room and outside to find Ashelin on the balcony, leaning on the rail on crossed arms, in a way that seemed much too casual for someone with the knowledge of what was coming.

He found himself breathing much too heavily and yet, watching her there, at peace as a gentle wind moved her hair, he couldn't help but delay in his next words. After watching her for a few moments longer, all he could manage was, "Are you still sure about Jak?"

"I don't know if I'm sure about anything lately."

He stared at her. No denial that everything was fine. No insistence that Jak was their best chance. His lips moved, but there was nothing to say.

"But, we don't have many options right now," she continued, "All I know is that we have to try something, even if that doesn't seem too promising, either." Her head turned to look at him. "And I'm well aware of your views on the matter, but believe me, I have thought it over. You may think I'm being foolish, and…" She returned to gazing out at the city, and in a quieter tone, added, "And maybe I am."

"Then, why? Why do you still think Jak should go, when he nearly committed suicide the other day? And yet you think I'm not up to the task."

"That wasn't my reasoning for refusing you permission to go."

"Then, what is?" And I don't need your permission.

She gave a quiet laugh. "Can't a girl keep a few secrets?"

He frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

But, she simply tapped the top of the railing beside her with one hand. "Come over here."

He stood there for a moment, watching her, though from this angle, he couldn't see her expression. He stepped forward and stood beside her, and now that he could see her face, it still told him nothing. He would never understand women.

Now that he could see the city below, he noticed Wastelanders patrolling the streets, no one from Haven City currently in view, no doubt to avoid the Wastelanders they surely still looked upon with fear and suspicion. They had no right, though. The Wastelanders had fought for them. Many had died for them. No longer could they see these people as criminals. They were people just like anyone else, that wanted to survive, that wanted to keep their city out of harm's way, but were also willing to risk their survival for someone else, for people that looked on them with scorn and saw them as something less than human, as something that had no right to exist. That was why people had been banished to the Wasteland in the first place, to rid the city of those they didn't want, and while those people had indeed largely consisted of criminals (or enemies of the Baron that hadn't been simply executed outright), that was no longer the case for many who had grown up in the desert. And while the Wastelanders may have come to their aid more to stop an invasion they feared would eventually turn on them, it didn't matter. They had risked themselves for Haven City, and for that, Haven's people were indebted to them.

"Spargus certainly takes some getting used to," Ashelin said, as if reading thoughts Torn himself had thought. "I can probably learn to like cactus fruit and leaper lizard, but limited showers is something I may never grow accustomed to."

Torn tried and failed not to think of Ashelin showering, and based on the smile that appeared on her lips, she knew it.

"And they have terrible liquor," was all he could come up with in response.

She laughed. "I knew you would say something like that." She straightened up, her hands still resting on the railing, and she turned to him. "Do you remember when we first met?"

Of course, he did. He had just become a KG Commander when he met the Baron's daughter. The first thing he noticed was her fiery red hair. The second was that her demeanor matched it. He nodded.

"I thought you were a jerk."

He looked over. "And I thought you were a spoiled, little princess." She lived in a palace, after all, and his first impression upon speaking to her was that she was a snot. That didn't, however, keep him from looking at her whenever it didn't seem like she'd notice.

"Well, it seems only one of us was wrong."

"Hmm." He couldn't help but smile. She was right. He was a jerk.

And then one day, the Baron left his men to die when the Metal Heads invaded what later became known as Dead Town. His growing suspicions that he was serving someone who cared only for power, who had no concern for the citizens he ruled over or his soldiers, were confirmed when all those people were sealed outside the city, soldiers and citizens alike, with orders that, under no circumstances would anyone go back for them. Those people were as expendable to him as the buildings that stood in that lost section of the city, and so Torn had resigned the KG and joined the Underground. And the day he found that Ashelin had joined in the fight against her own father, that's when his feelings towards her changed.

He continued to look out over the city, noticing how the sun had gone far enough west that it was surely turning to evening, to bring soon enough the end of yet another day, one day closer before they would see if they had anything left to hope for. If this didn't work, there wasn't much left but to keep fighting and wish for a miracle. But, Jak couldn't be depended on this time, at least, not now, when they needed him so desperately.

"I love you."

Torn's head jerked to the side, but Ashelin wasn't looking at him, her eyes still directed at the city and the desert around them. When he failed to respond, only then did she look over.

"Well?"

"You're not going to make me say it, are you?"

She continued to watch him, and he attempted to look away, but he could still see her out of the corner of his eye.

"I am the Governess, after all. Don't forget that I can command you."

"And as your advisor, I have to advise you against it."

She considered him a moment longer, and then he felt a pain in his foot as she stomped it with her own boot. He jumped up, suppressing a yell as best he could.

"What was that for?"

He backed away, limping on his sore foot, and she came at him with an amused tilt to her lips. But, before he knew what was happening, she directed him to the railing, backing him up against it before she was moving forward to grab him by the arms and pressed her mouth to his. And while it was unexpected, he certainly couldn't say it was unwelcome. And then it was over, and when she moved away, her smile was gone, and as she looked into his eyes, he saw uncertainty, something he never wanted to see in someone normally so sure of herself.

"Don't do anything stupid." Her voice was low, and if they weren't so close, he may have otherwise missed it.

"I won't." He'd do what he had to. He could promise nothing else.

Her eyes remained focused on his, as if trying to see in them if his words were true, before dropping her gaze, her hands sliding down his arms until they were back at her sides. He watched her, and as much as he wanted to stay longer, he had other things he had to do. But, it was necessary. It was bad enough that others had already died, but he couldn't allow this war to take Ashelin, too. If it continued as it had been, it very well could take her life, as well, and he couldn't just wait around for that to happen. He had to do something. And if Jak wouldn't…

"I have to go," he said.

"What?" She spun to watch him as he walked by, and he heard her footsteps as she followed him. "Go where?"

"I just have some things to think over." And talking to Jak would help him decide on what needed to be done. And he wouldn't do anything stupid. But, in desperate times, what could really be considered stupid?

It took some pushing from Maia to get Gol to begin work on designing the next Dark Eco bomb, this one meant for Spargus. By his calculations, the bomb he had in mind had enough power to level all of Spargus and ravage the desert around it, while scattering Dark Eco all throughout the city and the surrounding area, with the added potency of a Dark Eco gas that would poison whoever it came into contact with that they had created quite by accident in a past experiment, the formula for which he had kept for later reference. And he wished he hadn't. Transporting the device would be much the same affair as with the robot, by adding boosters to make it fly and enabling it to work by remote-control so they could set it off from afar, though it would take some doing to get it to fly properly. A giant ball was not so conducive to flying as a robot was, but that was something he could figure out later, he supposed.

It was a strange thing, the Dark Sage's melancholy, even when faced with the imminent destruction of both Spargus and their greatest enemies (as long as they didn't get away in time, of course, which was why he decided it would be best to make the bomb extra powerful, to try to prevent that possibility). Considering they could find a way to get it to the city without alerting anyone until it was too late (which, again, he wasn't in the mood to think over right now), it wasn't likely the boy and his rodent would have time to escape (even though they always managed one way or another, regardless of the odds).

The worst of it would then be over. They'd rebuild, finish off any remaining threats, and the world would be theirs. It was simple. Almost too simple. And yet he couldn't concentrate on this endeavor fully. It was stupid. Even if that girl had to be sacrificed, it was worth it. Maia was right. The odds that she had survived through everything were slim anyway. So what was bothering him so?

And so the design for the bomb was only completed at Maia's urging, and the work began, but never did they work on it for long before the Sage found some reason to excuse himself. He had notes to go over before they could continue. Or his back pain had gotten the better of him. Or he needed to check on their servants. Or the state of Haven City (not that anyone was going to bother returning there anytime soon, but that wasn't the point). And she knew. She knew these were just ways to delay the completion of the bomb, and she would shake her head and continue her work on her own or take a break. She wasn't as adept at building machinery as he, so at least the progress would be slowed while he was away. But, what she didn't know was that, while he was indeed trying to put off work on the bomb, he also had a second reason for leaving. To get away from her.

And while he hovered within the walls of Haven City one evening, back in the section originally set aside for crops, where the soil had since absorbed the Dark Eco, he thought these things over as he inspected the changes that had occurred here since the explosion of the bomb. The Dark Eco had turned the air purple, filling the place with its sweet scent, and had begun to creep up and down the walls of the buildings and the walls of the city itself, changing them purples and blacks, the colors blending together into a painting only Dark Eco could create. But, the most interesting changes occurred when Dark Eco came into contact with living things. And this section offered the greatest variety in transformed plant life.

Grass that spiraled and twisted, growing long and changing nearly to crystal, while the trees grew into strange shapes, the bark turning to scales, and bizarre leaves weighed the branches down with their weight, the branches drooping to the ground before, with some renewed strength, growing back up again. And fruits and vegetables grew larger, some pulsing, while others sprouted tendrils that swayed in a nonexistent wind or that crawled along the ground, twisting around to grab at anything they came into contact with.

It was beautiful, and while Gol held up one tendril with his gloved hand, the plant beginning to curl and rattle in warning, he thought of the things that troubled him and pondered over why these things troubled him. The whole world could be like this. It was so close, the end to his goals over the last several centuries. The fruition of their goals. With Maia's plan, they would succeed, just as he dreamt of for so long, these thoughts the only thing keeping him sane during their imprisonment in the silo. So why would he be willing to risk that? Was he indeed growing soft, or did he simply never have the same fire that Maia had?

He tugged his hand away as the tendril wrapped around it, rattling and hissing at him, as he floated away, just several inches off the ground. This is what they had worked so hard for, but wasn't there some other way of achieving their goals? There still indeed may be a way to kill the boy and the rat without the bomb. If he could go to Spargus and… He had fought the boy alone, and Maia had fought the boy alone, and neither had managed to kill him. And going into enemy territory wasn't the best idea. He sighed. What could he do? Was there anything he could do?

And Maia… Why? Why was she so willing to hurt her? That woman. She was the only one that ever accepted them. Even their parents didn't. But, why did the woman? She hardly knew him, and yet she was fine with who he was. She hadn't even wanted him to leave after that long and strange month they had spent together. Why would their own parents turn against them and the people they had grown up with, but not a lone woman out in the middle of the Wasteland that he had just met? Maybe she didn't accept him, as he had thought. Maybe it was all just his imagination. What didn't make sense was often not true, and yet all signs pointed to his suspicions about her being accurate, no matter how baffling it was. Maybe she was just stupid. She knew who he was, but simply didn't understand. That was the only thing it could be. And yet he couldn't shake his reluctance to risk hurting her, and he couldn't change the new light in which he had been seeing his dear sister lately.

The Maia he had known long ago would never have hurt someone, let alone been more than willing, even eager, to kill them. She had been distressed enough when some of her flowers had died, flowers she had taken care of for several years before some kind of mysterious fungus had managed to wipe them out, and she had been beside herself with worry when she found a stray cat that had been injured, likely by a Lurker (how the thing had wandered through the woods all the way to their remote village, he had no idea, but it was obviously someone's pet, based on its friendly nature and the collar declaring its name to be Noodles). She had actually taken it in and nursed it back to health for a good several weeks, the thing giving him the worst case of allergies and the most uppity looks, before leaving, the two of them never to see it again. She had fretted over it for some time, his efforts to comfort her by reminding her that the cat was just ungrateful doing nothing to make her feel any better, even if that was no doubt the case.

And now Maia could kill without a second thought. It was necessary now. They were at war. Even before this current bout of fighting, they were at war all their lives, trying to fight the prejudices people had against them. But, not all killing was necessary. They only needed to kill those that stood against them. Only the people that hated them needed to die, or else it would only be more difficult to transition to a world transformed by Dark Eco. It was vital to their goals and so must be done, but in their new world, they needed people that didn't fear Dark Eco, and that woman was the only one he had ever found besides themselves. Killing her would be counterproductive when people like her were so rare.

Not to mention the thought that nagged at him most of all, his certainty that Maia would have never even considered such a thing before. Not when she used to have so much compassion, even for that blasted, snooty cat. She really had changed so much, with her willingness to kill someone who was not even against them and her increased desire to get into vicious quarrels with him over things he wasn't even aware had happened. In some ways, she was not the Maia he knew long, long ago. It could no doubt be the mistreatment they had received for so many years that had changed her so, but the change had occurred nonetheless.

He wheezed, his head tilting up to face the sky, tinged purple with the mist around him. A breeze brushed his face, humid from the Dark Eco. He had no choice but to press on, if he wanted the entire world to be this way, to be beautiful, the way it could have been three hundred years ago. Maybe then Maia would change. Maybe when she no longer needed to fight, some of her fire would die down, and they wouldn't argue so much anymore. And she would start to sing again. The fight was almost over. The fight that had begun when they were children. But then again, maybe their troubles had gone on for so long, there was no hope for Maia to become again the gentle soul she once was.

He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. Why did he bother to think it over so? There was nothing he could do right now but continue and see what became of their future. He was helpless to stop that woman's demise; when Maia wanted something, she almost always got it, and he had learned that any efforts against her were pointless. If he was helpless in this instance, he was also helpless in changing his sister. What could he do but wait and hope? Maia was dear to him, and until that time, if it ever happened, he would have to deal with her changes. Most of them weren't bad. And soon enough, he would be over their newest quarrel, the woman forgotten, as they went about the next phase of their plans. He would be over it someday, but he wasn't yet.

Gol spent some time longer in his oversized garden, inspecting the new plant life and making changes where he saw fit, the sun starting to go down as he went about his work. He had spent several hours out here, and Maia must no doubt be amused over how long he had been off "pouting" today, as she wrongly dubbed his actions to be. Perhaps enough time had gone by. His eyes scanned the area once more, an early glimpse of their future world, when everything would be perfect, before teleporting back to the citadel. If Maia was still working, then she'd be in the robot's old storage room, which had since become the location of their newest project.

He peered into his lab before confirming she wasn't there and entering, padding over to the windows, a hand going up to rub his aching back with his knuckles. It was about time he returned to work, but his eyes and his body were weary, and his mind, as well. Their method was unbeatable. What was another delay? He watched the sky change to oranges and then to the most intense crimson, almost a violent color in how vibrant it was, as he took notice of a wall of dust on the horizon. He leaned forward and squinted. A sandstorm loomed in the distance. Once of many they had witnessed since coming here.

It was miles wide, stretching all the way across his field of vision, seeming to rise up to the sky itself. The thing was moving in the direction of the citadel, looking like it must surely be sweeping up all in its path, eating up everything, leaving the desert even more desolate than before. He could just imagine how it must suck up the sand dunes, consuming them and growing larger with each new acquisition, only to then drag the sand miles across the desert before dropping it all again. And for some reason, he couldn't take his eyes off of it, watching as it drew closer, no doubt moving faster than it appeared to be.

Eventually, he managed to tear his eyes away, heading with a sigh back to the depths of the citadel to see if Maia was still hard at work on the bomb, but as he walked, he couldn't help but wonder if this sandstorm might bring more than just sand and wind.

I enjoyed writing the scene with Torn and Ashelin, even if it's corny and involves more of that wretched smooching. Please review.