The Nightscape

Split Party

"No, as far as I could find out, there is no way to kill him. But we can seal him back inside that damn temple." Lyra confessed to them. Immediately, they all perked up, a couple of them speaking with hope and victory in their voices. 

"Really, we can end this?" Guy said, as though he hadn't dared let himself hope until she just said it. Ettie grinned, kicking at the dirt in silent happiness. 

"Shame we can't be rid of him for good, but I'll take that, alright." Jason said, punching his twin in the arm. It was only Anya who was watching Lyra, who saw that she didn't share their joy. 

"What's the catch?" Anya spoke her, her voice foreboding and worried. Lyra looked at her nervously and swallowed. 

"If we go ahead with this, then the Scapes will be torn apart again." She started, trying to pluck up enough courage to continue. But even that was enough to get one hell of a reaction. 

"We cannot let that happen! We all worked so hard and sacrificed so much in order to get back to our homeland, how can we simply let it all get pulled apart?" Francine said, utterly appalled at the suggestion. 

"And why can't we, Francine? Come on, you can't act like this is what anyone wanted. A psychotic, all powerful child with plans for world domination, not one faction with enough supplies and knowledge to even survive here for long, much less thrive, some of them already resorting to slavery and other horrible ways to get by- and beyond that, we didn't all work for this! The vast majority of people that were dragged back into the Scapes were second or third generation, with lives that they loved and cared for on Earth. Most people would love the chance to return there, some of us included." Guy said, his eyes flicking to Lyra for a moment with a guilty expression. 

"And, all that aside, there's something else. I got the information from my mother, so I don't know how reliable it is, and she only knows how it was done the first time, not if it would work a second time. On top of all that, in order to first seal him in the temple, a member from each clan had to be sacrificed. To be exact, it had to be the closest blood relative to him- those most responsible for his creation. Therefore, it would track that as the people who were responsible to free him, we will have to be sacrificed to seal him back in there." Lyra told them all. Deep down, she already knew that they would say no. That this wasn't going to happen, because they didn't want to die. Guy immediately glanced at Ettie and shook his head, and Francine let out a sigh of relief as she sat back. 

"Alright, well now I'm against it. We can't be expected to die to seal him away- not when we didn't even know what we were doing to begin with. Besides, Ettie is only a child. She shouldn't have been the one used to open the temple to begin with- I won't let her be murdered to fix a mistake that wasn't hers." Guy chimed in, ever the protective big brother. It was clear that Ettie didn't really appreciate it; at least if the way she flipped him off for saying it was any indication. He held up his hands in frustration, but the little sibling tiff was largely ignored by the others. 

"We can't just say that. We can't just say 'we didn't know, so don't make us fix it'. Because I'll bet anything that the people who created Zidros also didn't know what they were doing. What did your mother tell you about the reasoning behind them throwing him into that temple?" Anya asked, and it looked like Jason and Finn agreed with that point of view. Not that it mattered, as far as Lyra was concerned- this had to a be a complete agreement, or it would be pointless. She certainly didn't want to force anyone into sacrificing themselves. 

"She said that everything seemed fine at first, when he was only small, but then the older he got the more powerful and less human he became. In the end, he started talking about bringing the clans together and ruling over them all, and it raised alarms in the group that were raising them. The details aren't clear, but they made the temple and the lines and the alters in secret and sealed him inside. The representatives of the purple clan were the only ones who then told their clans the truth- hence why they knew releasing him wasn't a good idea. The other clans wanted to hide their mistake, and so the truth never got out." She explained, knowing that there a fair few gaps in the knowledge. Finn looked to the ground, a rather depressed look on his face.