Chrono Trigger: Twins of Destiny Chapter 18
The Saidiar
By Mox Jet
It was hard to breath. Tyrion could feel his body being crushed by some unknown force. Around him was a ring of fire that he could not see past. The heat of the flames was all around him, hot enough to singe his skin. He could hear a voice calling his name, but he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. He looked frantically for its source, but found no success.
“Help me,” it called. “Ty, help me!” He knew who it was.
“Rachel!” he screamed back, knowing he was going to find her no matter what it took. Bracing himself, he ran through the flames, looking for where Rachel’s voice was coming from. It kept calling him, begging for assistance. He cried aloud for help.
Suddenly, he was in her house. The fires had abated, but her screams had not. Now, though, it was not so much in fright, but in pain.
Upstairs. He ran for the stairway. Sprinting up the stairs, he found himself in a familiar hallway. The screams still echoed from behind the door in front of him. Her room. The door was closed. He tried the handle. No luck. He lowered his shoulder and bashed into it a few times. Still nothing. Her screams intensified. Tyrion yelled in anger and lifesteam energy filled the area. He became surrounded in green energy and again lowered his shoulder and rammed his body into the door. This time, it caved inward and he fell into the room.
On the right side of the room near the bed he saw a man in black, his pants at his knees, his arms pinning a screaming body to the bed. The body was struggling, but there was a second man holding it down by the shoulders. Undoubtedly, it would be his turn next. Only the remaining man, the third, saw Tyrion enter the room and saw the anger in his eyes.
“Tyrion!” Rachel’s voice called again.
“Eargh!” Tyrion yelled, hurling himself forward, literally flying through the air at man that first saw him. The man did not even have time to move before Tyrion had slung his knee into the man’s gut, grabbed him by the neck, and hurled him into the wall to the left. The men ravaging the girl still didn’t turn, even as Tyrion surged at the third man with a side kick to the mid section. Ty felt three ribs crack beneath the force of his blow as he continued to pummel the man with his right leg, eventually grabbing him again and throwing him on to the floor. He jumped on top of the felled man and began to wail away on his face, feeling bones crack beneath his fists each time. Once….twice….three times…four times….and on the fifth punch, he hit with such power that he punched straight through the skull, blasting past brain matter, eventually hitting the floor after going straight through the man’s head.
“Tyrion!” the voice came again. Rachel! He looked up and saw the men near the bed. The first one he went for was the one that was between her kicking legs. He grabbed him from behind and pulled him away from her, winding up and punching the man in the face, crushing his jaw and forcing about a dozen teeth out the other side of his mouth. He then spun around and backfisted him with the same hand, this time in the neck, outright crushing his larynx. The black-clad man gasped for air but none would come. Tyrion focused his lifestream powers into his hands and delivered a double palm strike to the man’s midsection. The lifestream then spiked forward from each hand, tearing two gaping holes through the body in a flash of green power. Bloodied innards spilled out of his back side as the man collapsed.
He turned to the last man, who had readied now a knife and was preparing to strike. Tyrion shot his gaze up, jumped vertically, and hung upside down on the ceiling for a moment. Then, kicking off from above, he shot down and prepared to act. The man predictably swiped the knife at him, but Tyrion was able to grab knife over the man’s hand, flip behind and overpower him, slitting his throat with the knife. The body crumbled to the floor as its blood spurted up into the air.
He finally looked back around towards where he perceived Rachel to be, but as he did, his surroundings changed again. Suddenly, he was back at the M-1 base, possibly in his own dormitory. There was still a bed, and out of the corner of his eye he saw that there was still a figure on it. Much like before, it was a girl who had most of her clothes off, but as he finished turning he found himself staring into Lina’s eyes. She spoke.
“Tyrion?” she asked, smiling. “What’s wrong?”
“But you were…?” he stuttered, feeling extremely confused.
“…It’s a family,” came her voice, but her mouth didn’t move.
“Some family,” came another voice, vaguely familiar.
“What are you doing, Tyrion?” Lina asked, still smiling, her mouth matching her voice this time.
“It was just…I could have sworn that…” he didn’t know what to say.
“They did it, Tyrion,” Lina said. “It wasn’t Denegrad at all…” her voice began to fade, and along with it, the rest of the images he was surrounded by. The walls began to lose shape and the furniture sifted into nothingness. Lina’s near-nude body also began to disappear and he could have sworn that the whole room was getting hot…far too hot. Something was coming. He could feel a rumbling. It was just like the other dream…the one of Armageddon. Then, the beams came, and he screamed.
.
He awoke in a startled fright, springing up into a sitting position. He was in a bed with white, freshly cleaned sheets and no idea how he had ended up there. His hair was out of its braid, extending in a knotted mess down past his waist. Gazing around, he appeared to be in a hospital room of some sorts. There were other beds next to his, vacant, but similar in structure. The walls were white as snow, just like the sheets, and rose up to a relatively low ceiling. Looking down at himself, he saw he was still in his flight suit. His leather jacket, though he could not remember if he was wearing it before, was somehow hanging on a chair next to him.
“Welcome back to reality, sleeping beauty,” a voice came from his right. He turned to see Lina standing there, also in her flight gear. Her hair was neatly brushed and hung down her back rather elegantly. Suddenly hit with the mental picture that his dream had given of her, he winced briefly.
“Where….are we?” he asked, still in a daze. “I mean….I remember fighting those guys and blanking out…but how did we get here?”
“My guess is that we were brought here by whoever owns the place, smart one.”
“No need to be sarcastic,” he said defensively. “I was just wondering if you knew more than I did.”
“Actually, I woke up only a few minutes before you did,” she said, chuckling. “I was in the bed right next to you. No one came in to seen me, either. I suspect they’ll send someone in to welcome us. They managed to sneak up on me…they must be pretty good. They’ll probably be monitoring this room right now and they’ll know that we’re awake.”
“Did you see me go down?” he asked.
“I saw you let loose that nasty Nova-esque spell and annihilate the communications facility along with the opposing army. I gotta say, Tyrion, I’m pretty sure I’ve got my hunch on why you’re here.”
“You told me you’d tell me what you thought after we got through all of that.”
“Yeah…I did, didn’t I?” she asked. She sat down on the opposing bed, casually swinging her legs back and forth over the edge of the bed. “It’s about how you saved yourself form going splat after the skydive.”
“What about it?”
“The energies you shot off…how much of them were you controlling?”
“Not much, to be honest. It was mostly just reactionary. It was like something went off inside of me and I just exploded with energy.”
“Has that ever…happened before?” she asked. He thought about it for a moment.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “Once before. When Kallar was first trying to get a hold of me. I remember, it was the same feeling. I…out ran a car.”
“What were you driving?”
“No…” he shook his head. “I was running. I out ran it.”
“Hmm…” she mused, hand on chin. “Yes, I think I understand. That’s definitely it.”
“What?”
“This is gonna sound kinda weird…but just bare with me. See, I think, or at least I think that M-1 thinks that your some kind of missing genetic link.”
“And that means?”
“Your energies, especially those that saved from the fall…they resemble something I’ve only felt in one other place. See…how much do you know about Ithilmar?”
“Not terribly much,” he admitted. “Only what I’ve learned in class.” Lina took a deep breath.
“Hmm…well, okay, here’s the gist. Ithilmar’s a nation in the sky, right?” He nodded. “Well, they kinda need an incredible amount of power to keep it up there. Now, where they used to draw the energy from I’m not sure, but about 22 years ago, that energy supply started to run out. Fearing the inability to keep themselves in the air, Ithilimar, under the leadership of Queen Jara, began to search frantically for an alternate power source. That’s when they found him.”
“Him?”
“Geminus. M-1 doesn’t even know much about him, but we know that he’s some sort of bizarre creature, possibly even an alien, and that he emits incredible amounts of power that they refer to as Black Energy. Jara realized that this would solve all of their problems…”
“And so she made a pact with the devil,” entered a new voice. Lina sprang off of the bed and spun around to see two men standing in the doorway. They were bore garbed in brown, weather beaten cloaks with hoods that were drawn back.
“Holy shit!” Lina screamed, her eyes widening and her hands coming up into a fighting position. “Saidiar!” Tyrion instinctively jumped into a fighting position.
“Are they bad?” Tyrion asked, his hands raised and energy subconsciously being gathered.
“Hardly, friend,” the man said. “We have no intention of hurting you. Please, be at ease.”
“Don’t listen to him, Tyrion! These guys hate Ithilmarians! They’d kill their own mothers if they were from Ithilmar!”
“In truth, we mean you no harm,” the other man said, extending his arm in peace.
“But I’m not Ithilmarian,” Tyrion said. “What would they have against me?”
“Ironically, it's because you might be more Ithilmarian than you know,” Lina said. “In fact, I think that’s the key to all of this. That's what I realized!"
“At the moment, we only offer an explanation,” the second man said.
“Now, wait a minute. I know I’ve heard that one before. I’ve had people trying to give me explanation far too many times, lately,” Tyrion said, already beginning to form scents of distrust. “Why should you be trusted anymore than anyone else?”
“Because you already trust me,” a new, this time familiar voice said. A recognizable trench coated figure walked into the door and put his hands into his pockets. “And you can trust them, too.”
“Tristan?!” Tyrion exclaimed. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Watching your butt like I told you I would,” Tristan said in mixed seriousness and sarcasm.
“And I told you I didn’t need any help,” Tyrion rebuked..
“Umm…with due respect,” Lina interjected, “Apparently, you did need help. But more importantly, who the FUCK is this guy?”
“Lina, meet Tristan Tenser. Tristan, this is Lina Esrevni.”
“A pleasure,” Tristan said, making a curt bow.
“Very cute,” Lina said bitterly, then turning back to Tyrion: “But that still doesn’t explain anything. What the hell do the Saidiar want?”
“Please, just calm down, Mr. Esrevni,” the first Saidiar said. “We intend to explain everything.”
“Tristan, I thought you worked for Ithilmar,” Tyrion said, now slightly confused.
“I…do,” Tristan said, momentarily forgetting his cover.
“Bull shit,” Lina said. “No Ithilmarian would ever be in cahoots with the Saidiar.”
“Tristan?” Tyrion asked, looking for an explanation. Tristan realized he had been caught in an unfortunate trap of lies. True enough, even Tristan Tenser couldn’t evade anyone forever.
“It’s…true,” Tristan admitted. “It was a cover.”
“So you’re actually with these guys?” Tyrion asked, even more confused.
“Not….quite,” Tristan said. “But these gentlemen want to explain something.”
“Just like you’ve wanted to?!” Tyrion shot, getting angry and pumping his fists up.
“For the last time,” the second Saidiar said. “Please allow us to explain!”
“Don’t listen to them Tyrion,” Lina said, looking back over her shoulder to him. “It’s a trick. If they meant us no harm, they wouldn’t have had to knock us out to get us here.”
“But if we had meant harm, we would just killed you then!” the first Saidiar pointed out.
“Trickery!” Lina exclaimed.
“Tyrion, you have to listen to these people!!” Tristan said. The room then exploded with bickering from all sides, the rising din clouding out all reason. No one was even listening to each other, anymore. The noise grew louder and louder along with the frequency of obscenities. His head beginning to pound, Tyrion could take it no longer. A great swell of power gathered into the room and he became surrounded with a dull black-blue light. If everyone hadn’t been yelling at each other so loudly, they would have noticed a minor power surge as Chaos Energy was fluctuating into the room. The power centered itself around him. Then, he burst.
“EVERYONE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!” he screamed, the energy expelling itself in a surprisingly passive flow, passing through everything in the room but causing no harm. Everyone’s vision momentarily went blank as a power that seemed extremely cold and extremely hot at the same time passed over them. In a second or two, their vision returned and their bickering had ceased.
“Okay…” Tyrion said, breathing heavily. He pointed to the two Saidiar. “Who are you?”
“My name is Grev,” the first one said. “And this is Io,” he pointed to the other man.
“And what is it that you do?”
“We are, as the girl says, Saidiar,” Grev said. “We are an Anti-Ithilmarian organization. We are opposed to what they do and what they stand for.”
“And that is?” Lina asked.
“Namely the subjugation of the surface dwellers and the use of energy from Geminus.”
“So you know about Geminus, too?” Lina asked.
“Your nation is involved in much deeper problems than even Jara knows,” Io said. “The problems of Geminus are rooted deep in this planet’s history. Your queen is blind to them because we believed that she herself is possessed by the demon.”
“What??” Lina asked, somewhat shocked.
“It’s quite true,” Tristan said. “This beast who calls himself Geminus…he is channeling his will through this woman Jara. She is what we call a Vessel. While she still thinks she has some will of her own, she is almost completely controlled by the Lavoid, Geminus.”
“Lavoid?” Lina asked.
“Wait a minute,” Tyrion cut in. “Who’s this ‘we’ that you talk of? And hold on, Lina. Ithilmar is ‘your’ nation now? I thought you said you didn’t align with them anymore!”
“You weren’t supposed to know,” Lina said, lowering her head. “But M-1 is just the Ithilmarian military.”
“And I'll tell you who the ‘we’ is,” Tristan said. “But only if you promise to have an open mind.”
“So you really aren’t with these two men?” Tyrion asked.
“The Saidiar?” Tristan asked. “No. Though my organization is not terribly unlike them. We both stand for eliminating something that subjects the weak to its will through similar means.”
“So…what are you?” Tyrion asked, now almost slightly afraid of the answer.
Tristan let out a great sigh and shot a glance to Grev. Then, with great effort, “Where can we go to sit down?”
.
Tyrion, Lina, Grev, Io, and Tristan gathered in a meeting lounge. The walls were no longer hospital white, but a more inviting beige. Green wall to wall carpet covered the floor. Arranged neatly in a somewhat circular fashion, a group of couches and chairs filled the room. There were no windows and no paintings on the wall. All the light came from a series of overhead fluorescent bulbs.
Tristan was the only one standing. He had arrived at the Saidiar base about an hour after they had brought Tyrion and Lina in. He was surprised to have found that these Saidiar actually knew a great deal about the Lavoid of this planet, Geminus. Even more to his surprise, they actually believed him when he explained his true background: that he was working for an organization dedicated to the destruction of the Lavoids.
The trick was going to be getting poor Tyrion to believe it. The girl, Lina, seemed to have a clue about Geminus and what was going on in the government. Tyrion, though, would find all of this difficult to grasp. The fact that his beloved Nisai Ryu had been involved with all of the scandal since the beginning wouldn’t be taken easily, either. Tristan had managed to find out about their history from the M-1 computer databanks. He wasn’t sure who’s side they were really on now, but he knew they had been involved with Ithilmar until the Saidiar rebellion many years ago.
The Nisai Ryu, it would seem, had the goal of finding the Son of Geminus. While cryptic to the people of Celes, Tristan knew that that could only mean Tyrion. Even more screwy, the Son of Geminus also appeared to be called the Avatar of Adrekel. This would bring him to investigate the workings of the Griever Sect. Though the jury was still out on them, he would get back on his investigation once Tyrion’s safety was secured.
He had gone to the Saidiar to recover Tyrion, of course. However, he also needed to procure the battle data that lay in the Armour, Cyoren. Jack needed that along with Tyrion if he was going to establish a proper file for the boy. The Saidiar seemed rather willing to comply to his requests. All of this made him rather worried as to why they were being so cooperative. His proof of knowledge of Geminus might only mean that he was a ranking official in Ithilmar to them, and they might not have believed his rather true story of the LEA at all. If this were the case, they were probably planning to double cross him. However, at the moment his task needed to include explaining the situation as it stood to a bunch of people who had very little concept of Lavoids and Planeswalkers. All said, this would not be an easy day.
Realizing the task ahead of him, he paced around the room for a little while struggling to find the words with which to explain what was happening on Celes. He figured he should start from the beginning: the Lavoid.
“This…thing,” he said, still pacing. “This creature called Geminus is in fact a being not of this world. It is what we call a Lavoid: a species of parasites that invade worlds, embed themselves deep in the crust of these planets and then absorb the life forces out of them. Then, when they are through, they will rise to the surface and let loose a magical based attack that typically wipes out 90% of the surface population.”
There was a moment of silence.
“And…that’s it?” Lina asked bluntly. “That’s your story?”
“The gist of it,” Tristan admitted. “Though the key part is the ending. It’s what we want to avoid here.”
“Again, though,” Tyrion cut in. “Who’s we?”
“While this might be difficult to comprehend,” Tristan began, “You see, I am also not from this world. I come from a planet called Elosia. On my planet, there was a Lavoid that did manage to complete the scenario that I outlined. Those of us that survived formed a resistance against it. Then, when it had been destroyed, we set out to take similar action against the rest of its species. After two years, were came here, drawn by your Lavoid, Geminus. You see….these Lavoids live only to destroy. Their existence itself is simply not just and must be stopped.”
“So…you’re a space man?” Lina asked with a raised eyebrow, holding back laughter.
“I suppose you could say that,” Tristan said, somewhat insulted.
“And why are we believing you?” Tyrion asked. Tristan became serious and crossed his hands over his chest.
“Because I can tell you what you are,” Tristan said very stoically. He looked Tyrion in the eyes and Tyrion felt momentarily mowed down by his gaze. Here in this gaze was that same power that he had demonstrated when they fought. It was not the joking Tristan that he had mostly interacted with. This gaze was that of a cold, calculating genius with a purpose. Slowly and with a bit of fear, Tyrion nodded.
“Do you ever feel like you’re being pulled somewhere against your will?” Tristan began, beginning to pace around the room but never letting his gaze leave Tyrion. “Like something from your past is urging its way into your present? Like you’re answering to a greater calling? Do you ever have dreams of great destruction and feelings of powers that you can’t control? Do you ever wonder why you are the only man you have ever known that has blue hair?” There was silence. Ten, then fifteen seconds passed, and Tyrion closed his eyes, finally speaking.
“Yes…I do…” Tyrion admitted. “All of those things. Every last one of them. They’re all true.”
“Do you want an answer?” Tyrion opened his eyes and looked up.
“Yes.”
“Do you promise to consider it openly?”
“Yes,” he nodded again. Tristan closed his eyes. Next came the line that he had been practicing over and over again.
“Very well…” He opened his eyes again, gazed briefly around the room, then settled back on Tyrion. He breathed deeply. Then, in as sure a tone as he could muster: “You are the son of that Lavoid, Geminus.”
“I knew it!” Lina exclaimed, jumping up from her seat. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
“You knew?” Tyrion asked, looking at her. Then, back to Tristan, “Wait, how can that be?”
“You don’t know your real parents, do you?” Tristan asked. Tyrion shook his head. Tristan then nodded. “It’s because you were created by something we called Lavoidic Fertilization. The ‘Black Energy’ which you were talking about earlier actually has the power to fertilize a human egg, producing an offspring that is half human and half Lavoid.”
“That’s preposterous!” Tyrion exclaimed. “Look at me! I look completely human.”
“Externally, yes. Planeswalkers all look human. What makes you different is a section of DNA on your Y chromosome called the Lavoid Factor. This DNA is added via the Lavoidic Fertilization and these genes code for a multitude of things. Physically, they code for your blue hair and purple eyes. Inwardly, they code for much more.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, uncertain what to believe.
“The energy you possess. Your extreme speed. Your bone and muscle density. Has a doctor ever pointed out that your liver operates on an unnatural level, that your ribs are wider than a normal human’s, and that your lungs and heart are about 85% more effective?
“I was told the ribs were a growth defect…and the other two were results of excellent physical fitness.” Tristan shook his head.
“Your extreme tolerance for energy and your aptitude with Lifestream. All of these are abilities and traits that come from being what you are: a Planeswalker.” Tyrion looked at Lina with a somewhat helpless glance.
“What about this did you know?” he asked her.
“Only that you were connected to Geminus in some way. I figured it out, like I said, when I realized that your energies were close. Also…I must admit that I pried slightly farther into your head while you were knocked out. I managed to pull out some experiences that would lead to a similar conclusion.”
“Such as?”
“Your origin,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure what it means, but when I looked in there, what I found was images of the royal palace in the Rentrenek, the Capital of Ithilmar. Someone was trying to hide you, Tyrion, much to the dissatisfaction of the Queen. They were trying to hide you, and…your brother.”
“My brother?”
“I don’t know what his name is, but I’m sure you have one,” Lina said. “It’s you two that M-1 seemed to be looking for so desperately. They need you two for something.”
“His name is Teclis,” Grev said, finally speaking up. “Teclis Spelman. He looks a little different than you, but he is also quite powerful. He casts difficult spells with great ease and is capable of channeling quantities of energy that would kill a normal man. I’ve seen the energies of Geminus, too, and I know what is said about them. There is a legend that there would be the coming of a being calling himself the Son of Geminus and he would bring great terror to the world. I had never been a believer in it until I saw Teclis, then you. Ironically, it would appear that we have not one, but two of these Sons of Geminus; it is a situation of biblical proportions that appears far too similar to the coming of the Avatars of Adrekel.”
“Where is this Teclis?” Tristan asked, picking up a lead on the other twin in the most unlikely of places. “I must speak with him.”
“We don’t know,” Grev admitted. “We lost track of him a few days ago.”
“Damn…” Tristan muttered.
“You want him, too?” Tyrion asked Tristan.
“Our leader…” Tristan said. “His name is Jack. He is one like you: a Planeswalker. When he found that there were beings similar to him on this planet, he wanted to find them. That’s why he sent me.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Lina cut in. “This still doesn’t explain why M-1 wants him. I mean, sure, they might want him as a super-soldier. I can understand that, but it seems to me that there’s more to it.”
“That’s what I’m aiming to find out,” Tristan said. Then, with a grin: “I don’t suppose you two would want to help me, would you?”
“Do we have much of a choice?” Tyrion asked. “I mean, I don’t know what to believe, but my gut tells me that I need to get to the bottom of this. Only with answers will I really know the truth.” Lina seemed more trepid.
“I must admit…I’m interested too,” Lina said. “But this is way weird…I don’t know how this stands up to M-1 protocol, and Tyrion and I really should be getting back to our unit.”
“You’re not going back,” Grev said sternly.
“No look here, buddy,” Lina grunted, turning to Grev and making a fist. “I know you’re powerful, buy I’m willing to take my chances if you want to fight. Don’t try to stop me or I’ll-”
“We can’t go back,” Tyrion said, cutting her off. “Or at least, I can’t go back. Not after seeing what they did. They risked the lives of innocent people simply to see me fight. That’s not something I want to be a part of. I’ll find my own way to revenge Rachel. I don’t need people like that to do it.” He looked to Lina. “What will you do? You know they figured your for a casualty too, don’t you? They chalked you up to be just as unimportant as Shanil or Brian.” Lina was taken aback.
“I never….looked at it that way,” Lina said, her voice admitting defeat. “But they’re still my family.”
“No!” Tyrion said, putting his hands on her shoulders and shaking her a bit. “Can’t you see? They’re no family at all! They’re just users. They were using you to get what they wanted from me!”
“But I…” she trailed off. For the first time since Tyrion had known her, Lina Esrevni was at a loss for words.
“Right,” he said stoically. “That’s what I thought.” He looked to Tyrion. “We’ll help you get to the bottom of this. I want answers, and I know Lina does too.”
“Good,” Tristan said with a nod. Then, to Grev: “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“We can begin to gather information as soon as you are ready,” Grev said. “I’ll give you a little history background in the mean time, but please make yourselves home while you’re here. I suspect you’ll find the accommodations better than that of a M-1 barracks.” Lina exhaled loudly, putting her hands on her hips.
“Well, since we’re here, where’s the food?!” Lina questioned. “And I want to take a shower. A long, hot shower.” Life seemed to have quickly returned to her.
“Ah, follow me, Miss Lina,” Io said, motioning towards the door. “We’ll have everything made to your liking.”
“Good!” she shouted, marching out of the room following Io. They could still hear her voice as she walked down the hall. “And it better be a damn good shower!”
Tristan looked at Tyrion with a raised eyebrow.
“You and here aren’t…?”
“Oh, God no,” Tyrion said with a laugh. Tristan then considered what he had taken in about Lina. Powerful…yes. Genetically superior…possibly. Could she, a pint sized loud mouth (not terribly unlike his friend and former traveling companion Rayith) really be the one?
“Interesting,” Tristan mused. “Interesting indeed.”
.
“I took it personally! She’s nothing like me. I’m at least five foot three!” –Rayith, after hearing Tristan’s comment