Chapter 37: Memory Seed and Flash Roots
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Scene 1: The Ashroot Lands
The Ashroot airship crashes at the edge of Bloom-territory.
Metal groans. Vines twitch. The crashed Ashroot ship opens like a scab.
They emerge — half-flesh, half-forgotten. Spines wired. Voices cracked like dry bark.
Mai Heiko steps into the green mist.
Mai Heiko (to her crew):
"We're not saviors.
We're verdicts."
Behind her, the crew readies fire-roots and ash-spears.
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Scene 2: Reen's Divide
Inside: The Mind Mirror Field.
Crown-Bloom walks barefoot over shards. Each mirror reflects a different Reen.
Some crying.
Some monstrous.
Some peaceful.
Kenji (appearing in glass): "You wanted to be everything. Now you're everyone."
But then —
One mirror glows.
Gift's face. Holding the seed. Steady.
Root Avatar (voice slicing through):"Choose wrong… and I'll prune you to memory."
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Scene 3: The Vault Breaches
The rest of the crew—Jakku, Gift, Matthew and Maiku go back to THAT PLACE.
Bridge of bone and bloom. Vault walls breathe. Surrounded by Spliced Vessels in stasis.
Gift holds the seed. It pulses like a heart. Containing not just memory but a trigger.
Maiku (whispers): "It's not just memory.
It's ignition."
Then —
A Stemwalker rises. Towering. Bark-muscle. Blade-arms. Tall 16ft tall to be exact. Not fully mutated a but crazy.
Matthew charges — wings wide —
And is torn apart.
Slashes stack like thunder. Blood roots. Matthew is loosing blood way too fast. Matthew is slashed so much to the point where his body can't move and his body entered a state of shock.
Jakku and Gift just watch in shock and their dragon companion is getting completely cut to pieces.
Maiku flares into Sky-Fire Awakening Mode, fist glowing.
But before he strikes—
Time bends.
Flash.
Gift and Jakku move like lightning incarnate.
They don't see — they become.
The Stemwalker once enormous loses it's hand, leg, eyes and knees faster than the eye can see. Then vital organs—the ribs, lungs, heart and head. The beast was slaughtered in less than a second.
The two are so fast you could not even see who landed the finishing blow.
Maiku (stunned):
"...How did you—"
No answer.
Their bodies shake.
The adrenaline exacts its price.
Jakku and Gift drop to the ground.
Maiku grabs some vials of medicine and some med kits and bandages Matthew.
He approaches Gift and Jakku
Jakku : "What happened?"
Maiku : "You guys killed it."
The two gasp in shock.
Maiku(curious) : "What the hell happened to you guys. You guys were so fast I would need my Sky-Fire Ascendancy Mode to track how fast you guys were."
Maiku : "What happened you have some special genes or something."
Gift : "No, but I do think I have a somewhat reasonable explanation—Basically, me and Jakku went into the state of fight or flight however I think due to the intense pressure of the situation and how our bodies have been honed through training our brains made a fault in the way it sent electrical signals."
Jakku : "I think it pumped so much adrenaline to the point where we moved too fast for the human eye."
Gift : "Let's call this ability—Flash."
Maiku : "Wow!!"
Matthew wakes up injured but he has the ability to fly and slightly fight.
Note: Flash — a survival glitch turned godspeed. 25% stamina drain. Dormant, but waking.
The crew continue on.
The Vault opens deeper.
Inside: Soil.
But not just soil.
Bloom-soil. Glowing. Breathing. Remembering.
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Scene 4: Requiem of the Withered King
Jiro wakes — ragged breath, burning blood.
Florin and Irogi argue like old ghosts:
Florin: "Weaponize him."
Irogi: "He's still man enough to break and plus he can kill us at any moment if he wanted too."
Jiro groans. His blood sizzles on Root tendrils.
Jiro:"Pain remembers. So do I."
He smiles. It's not kind.
Jiro (to Florin):"Study it. The Root. We're not killing it — We're replacing it."
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Scene 5: The Seed is Planted
Gift kneels.
Places the seed into the glowing soil.
It vanishes — not buried. Accepted.
Inside Crown-Bloom:
She gasps. Clutches her chest.
Green fades.
Blue flickers.
Reen (internal):
"...I remember your name."
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Scene 6: Root Avatar's Goodbye
Root Avatar senses the shift.
Smirks. Amused.
The calm before storm.
Root Avatar : "Well, I tried threats. I'll try silence next."
He turns to Stem-Born Jakku.
Root Avatar (flat):
"Come."
Stem-Born Jakku hesitates.
But follows.
Before leaving, the Root Avatar gestures once.
No words.
The Spliced Vessels open their eyes.
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Scene 7: Last Light of Hope
Suddenly the group is surrounded.
Matthew — barely standing.
Maiku, burning on fumes.
Gift and Jakku, flickering from Flash backlash.
The Spliced close in.
Then —
She appears.
Crown-Bloom.
No…
Reen?
She walks forward. One eye glowing green.
The other, softly blue.
Undecided.
Split.
Battle erupts.
Jakku leaps cuts their heads but they're too many.
Gift launches daggers and cuts them but they're too many.
Maiku holds them back the best by using Sky-Fire Awakening Mode—smashing brains, breaking limbs but they are just too much.
Matthew tries to blow a fire ball but it's a weak one
THEY ARE SURROUNDED.
Screams and roots. Blood and data.
Then —
Black.
Silence.
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Final Line (Voiceover / Internal):
"And from the rot came one bloom...
still undecided."
To Be Continued.....
Narrator (somber, reflctive):
"Chapter 37... Memory Seed and Flash Roots."
This was no tale of victory. It was a reckoning. A bloom on the edge of rot. A decision still unmade.
From the scorched edges of the Ashroot Lands to the fractured mirrors of the Mind Field, truths bled through bark and bone. The Vault opened not just to memory, but to ignition — a buried heartbeat waiting to burn.
Matthew fell, torn and bleeding. But in that chaos, a phenomenon bloomed — Flash — a glitch of survival so fast it outran death. Not a power born of gifts, but of instinct. Of fear weaponized.
And even then, it wasn't enough.
Jiro stirs, his blood boiling against old commands. Reen splits, Crown-Bloom fracturing with memory and identity. The Root Avatar watches the world tilt and smiles — not in malice, but in inevitability.
They planted the seed. But they did not choose.
Now... the soil remembers. The vessels awaken. And from the rot… something stirs.
Undecided. Unclaimed. Unforgiving.
"And from the rot came one bloom...
still undecided."
The roots run deeper than they ever feared.
To be continued...