SIGMA1

After passing through the final ivory door where the corrupted distortions were much stronger than anticipated, Lyn and Alfaic found themselves in a rectangular corridor with totem-like carvings attached near the walls on the side. The silence inside the room indicated a lingering danger radiating from beyond the far side of the room, blocked by a machine-like door system blanketed by black obsidian. Turquoise glowing holes from the door flashed bright, forcing Lyn and Alfaic to approach it carefully.

"This is it," Alfaic said. "The distortion is strong behind that door. The Lord of SIGMA…"

Upon first approach, a flashing light from atop the mechanical door scanned Lyn from head to toe. Another glowing circular beacon flashed in the center of the room, forcing Lyn to extend her right hand outward to activate it. Once it performed a second scan from head to toe, Lyn's left shoulder suddenly spasmed and surged in a sharp yet brief pain. Alfaic took a quick notice, floating by her side to check her unusual symptoms.

"Lyn, are you okay?!" Alfaic asked. "Are you in pain?!"

"Battalion Gamma 52 accepted." A mechanized voice rose out, filtered by the aged unknown technology harboring the distortion from behind. The obsidian black door slowly opened.

"It's nothing," Lyn said, swiping her left hand with her palm to ensure to Alfaic that she was safe. "Let's move on." She insisted.

"Let's be careful, okay?" Alfaic said. "I'm worried about you."

As the door opened, revealing a small slit of the room behind, a blinding light blanketed the both of them, forcing Lyn to cover her eyes until she entered it completely. 

Upon entering the expansive room, Lyn and Alfaic found themselves in a picturesque garden filled to the brim with fresh grass and vividly colorful flowers blossoming beneath them. The breathtaking winds and sounds of the beachy shores flowed through Lyn's ears as she continued moving. The ivy tendrils were beautifully natural, blanketing and attaching itself to the exterior ivory walls around the expansive room. Winds blew the transparent white curtains decked around the opened windows. Flower petals and blades of grass flew around Lyn and Alfaic, surrounding them in a serene-like aura that ensured safety.

But as soon as Lyn locked eyes with the gallant tree, the source of life of Llafiella's entire kingdom, the aura dissipated immediately. A rush of unknown thoughts suddenly surged through Lyn's barely functional mind, causing her to think hard; only nothing came out of it. Memories flew in one by one in milliseconds, until she had lost sense of what she had been thinking of. Was it Llafiella? Elaina? The confusion started to strike her, until Alfaic voiced out a concern.

"There!" Alfaic cried. "I see it!"

In the center of the old tree, a gigantic statue of a crowned male holding onto a petite porcelain statue leaning sideways had ivy tendrils pulsating weakly around it. Sunlight from the windows perfectly nestled onto the porcelain figure's face, prompting Lyn to approach it to observe it more closely. As she approached the center, the distortion's aura began rapidly radiating around Alfaic's senses, but it knew that Lyn had a mission to be completed.

As Lyn approached the statue, she wielded Relámpago by her side. She took another step forward as her eyebrows slit and slanted downward, determined to end the palace's lifesource. Another step she took. And another, she took, until she found a bundle of peculiar shiny objects nestled by her right heel.

It was a nest of rusted lugnuts, along with a mermaid doll and its head torn apart.

"LYN!" Alfaic shouted.

A hulking ivy tendril extended from behind the gigantic statue, striking Lyn in the guts. She flew back against the entrance of the room, colliding against the door with her back. She gasped for air as a surge of warmness shot through her hands and feet. She collapsed on the ground with her palms on the grass. Relámpago safely landed by her side, stuck on the grass floor.

Something was wrong. Something was different. A sense of warmness continued to persist and its origin was located directly on her forehead. Touching the base of it with her right hand, a warm sensation attached itself to the tips of her fingers. She pulled it back, and watched as droplets of warm red blood dripped down upon the picturesque tulips and violets underneath her, tarnishing their health to death.

Lyn gasped softly. The sensation of blood. Her body continued to reject it, but she could not. It was a feeling she did not like. She could not accept it. Mortality.

Alfaic rushed to her side, observing the blood running down her forehead. "Lyn…" It voiced out in worry. "Is that… blood? But… I thought…"

Lyn snatched Relámpago by the handle and pulled herself up from the direct strike. Her legs wobbled maniacally as she struggled to pick herself up. Alfaic rushed forward and nestled its handle directly underneath her left shoulder, supporting her up. After a final press of mortal strength exuded from her muscles, she lifted her head back up and looked toward Alfaic with a stern stare.

"Thank you, Blade." Lyn voiced out with a bright and gleaming grin from her mouth.

"What… thank you…?"

A sudden rupture from the back of the room caught the both of them off guard. Lyn's wound from her forehead vanished and healed itself after some time had passed. Multiple tendrils from the statue ejected outward with poisonous flower nodes surrounding its mottled natural appearance. The sudden corruption from the crimson dew began escaping the vines, causing a rupture in chaos. The vines charged toward Lyn, sensing her mortality awry.

Lyn snatched Alfaic and Relámpago and leaped on one of the moving tendrils, riding it toward the back of the room. She aimed for the poisonous nodes wrapped around the tendrils and sliced through numerous ones, leaving behind splattered red dew that tinged Lyn's weakened skin with a sharp sting of pain. Lyn ignored it all, as the pain made her move even faster than usual.

As more tendrils erupted from the ground, reaching for Lyn's rear, Alfaic sliced itself outward from behind, striking the bundle of tendrils with one fell swoop to defend its wielder. Lyn leaped from tendril to tendril, cutting down the nodes until the tendrils began to subside back into the gigantic statue. After another tendril almost struck her leg, Lyn leaped onto the open windows, snatching the transparent curtains with her left hand.

"Lyn! It's coming!" Alfaic yelled.

As another tendril reached for Lyn's position, she anticipated the blow and pounced onto it, riding it with Relámpago jabbed directly into its mottled skin. She grasped the blade with two hands and sliced the tendril in half. She landed on the grass safely as the tendrils that she destroyed began to wilt and die, melting into ash and mud.

Another tendril jabbed itself forward, striking Relámpago in the center and forcing Lyn to the back of the room once more. Instead of colliding with her back, she extended her left leg back and kicked off with her foot to deliver one final slash toward the final node extended from the tendril that struck her. As the tendril whittled away, Lyn and Alfaic moved back as remnants of the ivy around the surroundings began to crumble and die.

"Are you okay?" Alfaic asked.

"I'm fine," Lyn said, brushing away the stinging dew onto the ground. Her face was covered with it. "Are you?"

"I'm… uh, well…" Alfaic replied.

The plant-like foundation around the room plopped down to the garden, tainting it with its deathly corpse. The room's ceiling began to collapse on itself, vanishing along with the plants guarding the old tree. Lyn and Alfaic backed away toward the entrance as the foundation destroyed itself from above, revealing the crimson sky and the tree stretching toward the hazy clouds above. The building was completely exposed, and the two found themselves on the corrupted lands, filled with the blood-like dew oozing from the picturesque grass.

As glass shards and flower petals collapsed onto the ground, the gigantic statue guarding the old tree began to crumble piece by piece as well. Lyn and Alfaic watched as the statue revealed the tree's beating glowing heart in the center of it all, pulsating weakly as it supported nothing but itself. However, the only object that did not crumble was the petite porcelain statue that fell to the grass below, frozen in time.

Lyn wielded Relámpago by her side, watching as Alfaic hovered beside her.

The tree's branches blossomed in rapid succession, revealing crimson dew dripping from above that rained down on the porcelain statue. The dew suddenly spewed outward, creating flying cicadas that surrounded the statue's outer layer. Bundles of cicadas rapidly flew outward until it cleared itself with time. The tree's blossoms wilted away once more until the statue revealed itself.

It was the same porcelain statue, with facial and body features presented to the two watching. It slowly began to rise and pick itself up from the grass on its own, with its stiff arms and legs extending forward. A queen's crown imitated in porcelain appeared on the statue's head. Its ivory white face revealed itself to have lifeless frozen eyes and lips, resembling a newly made porcelain and ivory puppet. Its joints creaked and crackled with each movement of its feet until it completely stopped as it reached the nest of rusted lugnuts.

A white flower petal from the tree dangled and rested upon the nest. Suddenly, a glowing body of spiritual energy surged from the nest, expanding it into a gaping hole where an unknown entity arose from the center toward the ivory puppet's hands. It extended its right hand out as the entity was finally recognized; an ivory regal blade, shaped much like a rapier, fell into the puppet's palm. After pulling the blade out from the spiritual hole, the puppet placed its left arm behind its lower back and raised its elbow toward its stomach until the ivory blade extended outward. It positioned itself in a dueling stance, preparing itself for combat.

Lyn pulled Relámpago back, assuming a combat stance as well with her feet shoulder-width apart.

"Let's end this!" Alfaic cried.

Lyn and the puppet charged at each other and clashed blades, delivering a rapid flurry of slashes so indomitable and mighty that SIGMA seemed to shake from the force of their speeds. Each blow that continuously followed was mightier than the last, until the mere swings of their blade began sending shockwaves of their slices that toppled the ivory tower's walls and foundations. Lyn, who had a neutral expression among her face, charged one final slash in an attempt to parry through the puppet's rapier, but doing so left her vulnerable among their flurry.

A colossal blow was dealt upon Lyn's shoulder, briefly stunning her senses. Yet the trade off allowed Lyn to deliver a piercing stab against the puppet's cheek, colliding through its porcelain skin to shatter it with Relámpago's almighty levin. The stab's force shattered the glass windows into mere dust. Lyn seemed to be victorious at her decision to leave herself open, but another unexpected surprise rose amok. The hollow shell of the puppet's cracked cheek released a crimson gas that siphoned Lyn's vision and her strength, reducing her to her knees.

The puppet seized the opportunity to take control of Lyn's neck in a hulking fashion, dragging her across the floral pavement until one final toss sent her out of the entrance's door. Lyn toppled over with Relámpago by her side, setting the new stage as the darkened husk of the crimson sun shone upon her.

As the puppet charged forward once more, Alfaic collided with the puppet's flank voluntarily to stun it from striking Lyn. This gave Lyn a brief moment to breathe and plan. As the puppet kicked Alfaic away from sight, it charged at Lyn once again; but Lyn was ready. She swept to the side and took a hold of the puppet's waist, delivering a powerful dive bomb toward the weak foundation that they battled upon. The intense collision with the ground caused it to collapse upon them, sending the two falling down Llafiella's royal staircases.

Ivy tendrils and thorns attempted to seize control of their master, but with distance separating them apart, the plants failed to retrieve their controller. The weakened old tree's strength began to dissipate, and the tendrils withered away the farther the two toppled down. Llafiella was nothing but a purgatorium, dying from the loss of its master's control.

Vapid voices and mutterings of accusations rummaged through Lyn's head once more. The accusations became louder and louder until they turned to ear-shrilling chants. The red-shawled infected that worshiped their crimson goddess gathered toward the breaking point, holding their mottled hands in prayer as their goddess descended from the skies. Yet when Lyn and the puppet collapsed directly on top of them, their prayers were rejected in exchange of utter chaos.

Ivy tendrils and thorns rampaged through the crimson dew floors, slicing and piercing through each of the infected until they were reduced to mere skewers on land. Sounds of their choking and whimpering of their rejection was followed by each of the infected twitching from blood loss.

At last, the ivory tower of Llafiella was no more; the establishment began to collapse and topple upon the splashes of dew. It never existed to begin with; it was nothing but a mere memory dreamt for a perfect life and an act of vengeance upon the people that tortured its master. 

Lyn emerged from the crimson dew as Alfaic returned back to her grasp from the sky. The puppet's ivy tendrils surrounded the new battle arena, preventing her from escaping. As she arose from the dew, the only thing that stood in her wake was the old tree's withering aura and beating core in the center as the final line of defense. As Lyn took a step forward, the porcelain puppet broke free from the dew's shallow ground, snatching Lyn's foot and dragging itself out. Lyn kicked herself back.

Multiple stained cracks of the puppet's weak exterior were showing signs of its weakened will. Yet in return, its tortured soul released more crimson gas that eventually made its way to Lyn's waking breath. The gas caused her to involuntarily drop Alfaic on the ground. She stood momentarily still as the porcelain figure stood in front of the old tree, extending its rapier out to continue the battle."Lyn? Lyn, what's going-"

Alfaic's voice was cut off after Lyn blinked a single time. The imbalance of the air. The spirit of the tortured. The soul and mind of the creator had returned, and its everlasting beauty sent Lyn to an expanse of yellow blossomed flowers beneath her feet. Pure white mist fogged her surroundings, leaving nothing but the tree in front to guide her.

It was not until another blink from Lyn's eyes that made her beckon to the tree's call. It wanted her to become its new master. Its new source of unfathomable power would rise again, and it would enjoy another eternity of memories.

The gas drew Lyn closer, until she found herself allured to the tree's illusion.

"You won't find anything there." A voice from behind Lyn snapped her out of the illusionary trance that the tree emitted. As Lyn turned around, a young woman with silky ivory hair flowing down her shoulders. She stood several meters from Lyn in a straight line, wearing a white soft gardening dress that covered her knees. A sunflower bracelet was gently wrapped around the woman's wrist, and her beaming yellow eyes radiated of purity and unsheltered innocence.

As Lyn fully spun around with her feet tarnishing the flowers underneath her, she could not help but sense a familiarity in the unknown figure. "What?" She said.

"Believe me, I've tried," The woman's soothing voice pledged. "For once, I wanted someone to listen to me, and all I had was that tree. Yet it didn't work out the way I wanted it to."

Lyn remained still, understanding who the woman was after settling into her presence.

"You should know by now," Elaina continued. "You've seen it all for yourself. The lies. The stalker. The bloodlust of those who befell my home. You've seen my family. My little brother. My little sister. In spite of this, I sense nothing but emptiness inside those eyes."

"Lord of SIGMA." Lyn identified, igniting her mind into the need to slaughter the lords. Her main mission objective. "You pose the threat."

"You're right," Elaina said. "But inside that empty mind of yours, you've felt it. You reject your emotion, and yet you feel something the moment you were exposed to the truth of my circumstances."

Elaina placed her right hand on her hip. "You gave the monster a chance and learned of your undying mistake. In that moment, you received a small grasp of some resemblance of will, which is why you stand here, in front of me. And all I must say is... is that it was fate that brought you here to me."

Lyn could not deny it. There was something that transpired a small glimpse of motivation to save Elaina. Whether it was Cethe's death, or the monstrous capabilities of her trust subjects, or her main mission objective to assassinate the Lords of SIGMA, there was a miniscule glimpse at another motivation. An intelligible one. One without the restrictions of her restrictive body.

"This tree…" Elaina's voice echoed as she approached Lyn. "My sister's introduction to my tale was not entirely a fib, yet she missed a crucial part in my upbringing. I offered gifts because the tree's voices promised me a prosperous life with the ones that I loved if I had done so. But the more I had done so, the more I sensed there was a harbinger inside that needed a soul to fulfill its motivations. An uncertain magic from within that created what I loved and wanted, twisting it into nothing but death and destruction."

Lyn and Elaina watched the tree from closeup. It was an illusion of the healthy version of the tree, surviving the age of the infected rampaging through SIGMA. It was before consequences of the offering of the gifts subsequently created the crimson dew that would transform its subjects into devoted worshippers of a false goddess.

"There is only one issue I must concur," Elaina said, approaching the tree as she walked backwards with her eyes rested upon Lyn. "My fate of being an immortal was already decided, and you arrive to take it from me, in spite of all the rejection of humanity. Does this mean… that you have learned what it means to feel something?"

"I…" Lyn said. "The infected destroyed your family and tore them from inside out. And I put a stop to their madness before the memories of your village vanished altogether. We did everything in our power to save the remnants of your memory, but-"

"Destroyed..." Elaina whispered. "Do you see how frail humanity is? An entire village, where its source of negativity was the only positive thing it ever lived for… is punished. This is what you must accept."

"I do not understand," Lyn mentioned. "You have shown me the truth of your fate. Your brothers and sisters dedicated their lives to preserving your name. Why have you chosen to alienate their kindness?"

Elaina grinned and exhaled a tired breath, distancing herself away from Lyn. She giggled as she placed the back of her hand against her mouth, eluding the subject from her family by seeking amusement at Lyn's question. "Preservation? Kindness?" Elaina rose her voice. "Such misguided, useless trivialities in our already dying world. Why feel anything... knowing that our inevitable fate is in the hands of death? In the hands of those monsters?"

Lyn froze, unsure of what to retaliate with.

"And you." She continued, pointing at Lyn's face. "Your existence is an immortal vein. You roam the lands, searching for your cause, and yet you know you cannot perish. Their time has passed. Why do you choose to side with humanity?"

Lyn could not reply. There was naught in her mind that clouded her words and her visions. Choosing the reason why she decided to listen, fight, sacrifice, and endure the past few days for Elaina's story was undefined inside her empty eyes.

Elaina retreated to the root of the tree, the essence of the unknown magic that she spoke upon that bequeathed the lands in bitter corruption. She gently placed her palm on the tree's surface, delicately stroking it to pamper and nurture it like a mother would to its newborn. She chuckled once and turned back to Lyn.

"Why not... join me in saving Mother Arc?"

mother arc

mother arc

mother arc?

"Have you forgotten your purpose? To damn humanity until every drop of life has vanished?" Elaina said, as a spiritual hole radiating from the center of the tree unveiled a silver version of her porcelain counterpart's rapier. After extending it to her side, she walked towards Lyn with a mischievous grin upon her face. The tree had extended its heart to Elaina's soul. 

"This world is imperfect, along with its slaves who have forgotten its true master in slumber." Elaina's corrupted voice darkened, mechanized from a filter that the tree provided. Mechanized angelic wings sprouted from Elaina's back. Her eyes plunged into chaotic orange, submitting into a grotesque transform that tarnished her peaceful appearance.

She hovered over the flowers with her synthetic veins pumping the tree's heart into soul. She sliced through the air with her silver rapier as her wings blossomed into metal feathers. "Then you shall be reminded of my mere existence! Hear my cries! My soul is for Mother, and only through Mother, shall you truly know your worth!" 

Lyn!

Lyn!

Lyn, damn it, snap out of it!

"Lyn!" Alfaic's voices shattered the barrier betwixt the illusion of Elaina's poisonous gas. Lyn found herself in the midst of Llafiella's shattered remnants, surrounded by the ivy tendrils that mechanized into pure constructs of corrupted metal overshadowed by the tree's true purpose.

"Finally," Alfaic said. "I thought I had lost you completely for a moment!"

Two steps from her feet, and the crimson dew suddenly vanished and transformed into a metallic platform that arose from the ground in a circle. A towering spherical formation shrouded Lyn and Alfaic as they ascended to the skies, blotting out the crimson sun. The tree, along with Elaina's transformed construct, ascended along with them. Once the sphere completely blotted out the light from the outdoors, bright red spherical lights from the top of the new arena set the stage upon Lyn, Alfaic, and Elaina's construct.

They found themselves in a futuristic mechanized thrall where nothing but the tree's true presence thrived. Elaina's construct, who remained suspended in air by her mechanized wings, was revealed to have had a massive attached mechanized tendril attached behind her that resembled the colors of the ruins where Lyn and Alfaic had first discovered each other's existence.

Four pillars beside Elaina's construct arose from the metal ground, revealing the statues of Cethe and Damian, along with statues of the rest of Elaina's mother and father. Lyn remembered Cethe's statue as the one nestled in the bundle of ivy in the village. With one snap of her fingers, the statues resurrected itself, turning the statues into mechanized beastly atrocities that floated to the top of the sphere, vanishing from their sights.

Lyn, who was in a moment of turmoil over her existence, reignited her indominable will and snatched Alfaic by the handle. She approached the Elaina's construct and pointed Alfaic at her. "I have not chosen to reject anything. Humanity or whatever happens to it does not matter to me. But if there is one thing that I have learned to despise, it is your deception." She coldly voiced out.

"You reject humanity, and yet you stand among me and my element in defiance?" Elaina's mechanized construct voiced out in bitter aggression. "What more is there to live for? The price of death? The unbridled resurrection of humanity, regardless of its death?"

"You idiot," Alfaic chipped in. "Your brother and sisters never forgot about you! They had the power to fight through the pain of you leaving! Humanity hasn't failed just yet; you're just saying that because you're not Elaina. You're just a monster created from that tree!"

"Then if you will reject Mother, then I will stop at nothing to erase your failed existence!" Elaina's construct roared.