Chapter 66 – "We Rise Between Roots"
> "The soil remembers. So must we."
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Scene 1 – "The March of the Remembered"
The crew regroup back to Base.
They walk to a forest about 200 feet away until....
The ground trembles before they see anything. A red-hued fog creeps forward—thick with memory and the scent of sap. Then:
Root-fleshed Ones appear, limbs part bark, part bone. Behind them: towering Root Giants with sunken torsos. Root Beasts crawl beside them—formed of agony and old voices.
> Narrator: "They came not to conquer, but to restore what the world forgot. Even if it must die to be remembered."
Dion (whispers): "It's not an army. It's a resurrection."
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Scene 2 – "The Line Drawn in Ash"
The crew spreads into formation. Matthew commands from center and Dion is the assistant, Gift and Reen take flanks, Jakku and Maiku hover near the ridge.
Maiku: "We're not ready."
Jakku: "We're not meant to be. That's the point of resistance."
They draw a glyph in the planet behind them—a line not of defense, but declaration.
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Scene 3 – "Sky-Fire's Second Breath"
Maiku steadies himself. The Sky-Fire flickers violently, his wings wide and ready. Jakku offers his blood again—but this time Maiku refuses.
Maiku: "No more fate for fire. It takes too much."
Instead, Maiku channels choice—letting the fire become a weapon, not a healer. It scorches the front line, writing arcs of radiant refusal across the battlefield.
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Scene 4 – "The Beasts Remember Faces"
A Root Beast charges—its form resembling Matthew's old friend Kaguya. Matthew falters mid-strike.
Beast (in her voice): "You left me."
He doesn't kill it. He sings into it—a Roar of mourning. It stops, shudders, then disintegrates peacefully.
Reen (watching): "This war won't be won by blade alone."
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Scene 5 – "Reen's Memory Bomb"
Reen activates her calculative mind. She uses the environment to her advantage and her manipulative side.
Reen(to a Root-fleshed one, smirking): "Don't you just wish you were human. Normal. Smart. Not stupid. You monster!"
It falters and then she slices it's head off and then to finalize it's heart.
Dozens of Root-fleshed Ones seize and collapse, over-saturated with scrambled memory.
Reen (gasping): "These aren't weapons. They're memoirs."
Gift: "Then we need to start editing."
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Scene 6 – "Dion's Assault"
Dion leaps and slices like an electric current.
Dion: "Root. You will die."
Dion leaps and the Root-fleshed speaks like his mother.
Root-fleshed one(to Dion): "Hello sweetie."
He falters his head is almost cut off and then Jakku leaps in and kills it.
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Scene 7 – "Maiku's Memoryforge"
Maiku finds a moment of stillness. He meditates briefly, drawing Sky-Fire inward.
> Narrator: "Not all fire burns. Some smolders. Some becomes scripture."
He flies—channeling Sky-Fire into his body. He flies like a dragon punching through hearts not letting Root stop the remembering Sky-Fire.
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Scene 8 – "Gift's Parley with Pain"
Gift is confronted by a Root-fleshed One wearing the face of his father. They fight. He disarms it—but can't kill.
Root-fleshed One: "You never listened."
Gift (breathless): "I am now."
The Root-fleshed one nearly cuts his throat but he narrowly evades and and gets grazed on the cheek.
Gift kills it and then cries.
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Scene 9 – "The Grove Watches"
Down below, unseen: the Grove tilts slightly, watching. The trees breathe. The land leans forward.
> Narrator: "The planet is not idle. It watches its children argue over inheritance."
A few Root Giants pause, hesitating, their bark eyes blinking slowly.
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Scene 10 – "Jakku's Last Stand"
Jakku is surrounded. He plants his feet and prepares to die.
Then a glimpse of Lee his older brother, Kaguya his younger sister, his mother and his father. They look at him and tell him to keep going. His time has not yet come.
Lee : "Come on. Show them why you're my brother!"
Jakku's father : "My son, I refuse for you to die. It's not your time. You've been through it I understand."
Jakku's Mother : "But, hold on. You're the chosen ones to save our dear planet."
Kaguya : "Yeah! You can do it!"
Jakku sheds a tear and then....
Jakku roars out with all his heart and then....
FLASH!!
This is isn't just a flash of Ether. It's a flash of kicks, punches and Ether.
Lightning incarnate.
David's Law plays its part.
And the Flash finishes everything off.
Jakku(panting, shouting): "Survival's a weapon too."
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Scene 11 – "Echoform Choir, Again"
Matthew re-activates Echoform, this time with deliberate rhythm. His sound-ghosts sing in harmony, forming a wall of resonance.
They don't strike—they harmonize with the enemy's memory-voice, and several Root-fleshed Beasts collapse, peacefully undone.
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Scene 12 – "Between Roots"
The battle subsides. The air is thick with death and memory.
The crew stands in a forest—smeared in ash, glyph-blood, and loss.
Ahead: the True Root Body, 165 feet away—alive, pulsing with terrifying grace.
Behind them: the Root Avatar, 295 feet back—arms raised, praying to his own flesh.
They are trapped between origin and messenger.
Between awakening and vengeance.
> Narrator: "And so they stood—not as soldiers, but as consequence given form.
Between the body and the voice.
Between what was broken, and what still bleeds."
TO BE CONTINUED...
> Narrator (Closing Monologue):
"They called it a battle.
But battles are clean.
This… was remembering.
Memory has no front line—only wounds reopened, names unearthed, and ghosts too stubborn to stay buried.
The Root did not invade. It returned. And in its return, it demanded the truth:
Who do you mourn?
Who did you fail to forgive?
What have you forgotten to heal?
Each swing of a blade met not just bark, but grief. Every flame lit a truth they dared not speak aloud.
They did not win today.
Nor did they lose.
They endured.
Between roots, between memories, between what they were and what they still might become—
they stood as the last echo of a world that remembers.
And the soil?
The soil remembers everything."