Chapter 8: Gaia's Plight

I looked at the being in front of me "Gaia" as she tells me her story

" A long time ago, I nurtured life into my waters and onto the budding land masses springing up from them. I watched as it evolved from small aquatic animals with legs, to towering beasts capable of flight. I watched as life mostly died off and when it returned. I watched as evolution took its endless course. I watched as the first small land mammal with four limbs stood up and looked the sky, that same mammal being the first to make a weapon to defend itself against the other predators around it. i watched as it gathered more like it and formed a community relaying on themselves for survival. how they first discovered fire and it's usage..... time past and day by day, year by year they grew stronger and most importantly smarter. I watched them survive an ice age. how they came out and saw all it's true predators were dead and how they expanded and spreaded rapidly across my surface. how they build stone cities and walls for protection, and how they also hunted all the remaining beast that could pose a threat to them. from there is where the my current problem originates. without anyone to check them they only grew not just in population but intellectually. they started making things that hurt me.... at the time I saw it as a natural path in their evolution..... it wasn't until I saw how divided their race was and how they waged war on themselves that I got concerned. how they took more from me and didn't give back anything. how they polluted my land and waters....but what started scaring me was the special weapons they created to kill themselves.... but these special weapons by far had the most potential to harm me too and they uses it without abandon or remorse. shooting them everywhere destroying me little by little...then came my true nightmare...they made a machine capable destroying large swaths of land and damaging it for a long time to come, it became too much. when their earlier devices polluted me I pulled it from my lands and water to concentrate in one area as to not contaminate the rest of me....but the 'humans' saw that no matter what they did the land stayed fertile and the seas plentiful.....they didn't stop to consider their actions which led to them developing machines that seemed like it was solely built to destroy me. as they made more and I pulled more, the area of contamination grew to the point where it started pulling on the pollution itself. at first I thought of it as a convenient help and let it draw on all the pollution it could.... but it soon developed a mind of its own and started trying to kill me also. I had to cut off its source of strength and let the pollution gather on my surface...but the pollution grew quickly over time and i couldn't stop all of it from reaching the polluted being. when the humans made those land destroying machines the polluted being rejoiced as the pollution and contamination coming from those weapons was purer and could empower it faster. I tried desperately to keep it from it but the humans set off many in the name of testing them or actually using them on themselves. it soon became a losing battle for me as the polluted one some broke free from the prison I made for it and spread it's influence across the human race, expediting there already high pollution rate. and that brings me to my current situation.... the polluted one has a firm control on the human race to make them pollute more and not question if it's good to do so. they have spread pollution to almost every corner they can reach and some they can't as it has spread so deep in my waters and seeped deep within the land that it would take many....many years to clean, and then where would I put it as I can't....break down everything thrown away by them.... I feel like im suffocating and my surface in heating up. I can feel my power and influence over my main body falter as the polluted one expands. I am now forced to hide my gathered conciseness and avatar here to help sustain me and to hid me from the polluted one. if this is allowed to continue I can feel that I have a few years at most before it reaches a tipping point and i become like my dead sister next door. I don't want that....I want to live...I want to see one day my inhabitants truly evolve and leave for worlds beyond me... to that end I had to find a way to get rid of the polluted one but he is too deeply embedded....before my sister died she told me a of a meteor that came to her from a distance planet. this meteor had information in it that recorded your race. a race that bonded to planets and helped protect it and helped it and it's inhabitants grow. I remembered that story...and prayed to whoever was out there to send one of you to save me.....it took a while...but I'm still glad you came " Gaia said finishing her story and giving a run down in her situation

I thought it over

the humans of this planet...was there any saving them.... as they apparently are influenced by something else and trying to talk to them about it would be pointless.....

I would have to defeat the other being

" can you not just.....I don't know..move to another planet, like change vessels? " I asked Gaia hoping for a more easier way to deal with this

" I don't know...but I wouldn't consider it as this is my birth world and I am it. besides cutting my consciousness from this world may have unknown consequences " Gaia said seriously and I nod at her reasoning

....hearing her plight... I had no problem helping her....but how strong was this 'polluted one'?

I took a good look at gaia infront of me

a being that feels so alive and ...here....

but also look fragile....

sigh

i made up my mind

" how do we do this? make a pact i mean? " I asked both Gaia in font of me and cal in my suit systems