The Sketch Rift: The Eternal Crusade

What Wandes Did

"Isabel!" Thrush blindly called, his callused hands cupped over his mouth to maximize his voice's reach. At this point, he possessed little regard or care for the fascination of the kiwis. He only needed to find his younger sister. "Isabel! Can you hear me?"

A gathering crowd appeared behind him, pursuing him as he pursued someone he was beginning to doubt was there in the first place. Thrush had been bounding between the islands of the Great Sea via the Connected Crossroads, growing increasingly concerned with each return to the islands.

"Who is Isabel?" a wide-eyed kiwi child with glaring olive-colored eyes stepped out of the mob in an attempt to communicate, only to be yanked back by the long-reaching wing of her parent back.

Thrush tried not to listen, but the clamor continued to grow. Eventually, he had had enough of the hunt for Isabel. Knowing well that she would already have been caught if she had arrived in the Great Sea, Thrush headed for the Outlands; namely, to the Rainbow Bridge that connected Voltale Volcano and the Trook region, which ran diagonally. Wordlessly, he had arrived at the foot of the bridge within moments, and as he was about to make his next leap, he collapsed to the ground, for the crowd had grabbed his ankle as he hurled himself, now beginning to drag him back towards Old Kiwi's City. Thrush could feel his beard sag on the path, his expression convoluted with emotional agony. There was clear pressure building within him, knowing what the kiwis would do to maintain the former Un-Character's presence.

He allowed them to bring him all of the way to Old Kiwi's City's Main Street, where a great movement seemed to be building. "Tonight is the night," a distant kiwi was audible yelling into a speaker, "that the unrest in the Allied Council must burst. This is our last possible opportunity to unite the Great Sea for the first time since the Order of Tribes. All that must be done lies before us now."

Thrush's outrage continued to build, especially considering what he was now hearing -- almost everyone he knew had strongly favored the system of the Allied Council to that of the Order of Tribes, which descended into chaos fifty years earlier. It had been far less inclusive and disproportionately favored the opinions of the more "important" Tribes among the ten of them. Since he left before, this kiwi who was speaking now had obviously triggered an organization of some kind.

"Why are you taking me here...?" Thrush was beginning to feel more alarmed. Why weren't these kiwis taking him to an island more secure? There was already a kind of riot building in the city with this kiwi's words. A major uproar grew behind him, and Thrush was released, on his own to stand in the midst of these cryptic followers.

Thrush gradually stood and took a moment to identify the indistinct figure from afar who had been invigorating the masses. He stood on a podium, with his wings clutching his lectern, strictly staring with a creased forehead at the kiwi capital before him. His pink coat and his rhetoric reminded Soal gravely of both Mervis and the entirety of Lint Corp. "Representative Thrush, whom we see before all of us," he began another speech as Thrush stood to see him, both of them pained in more ways than one. "as the counter-protesters of our loyal cause arrive on the scene -- and all of you can go ahead and beat them away; I'll pay the fees for you -- the Catalyst has arrived, as well."

"Set this straight with me," Thrush clenched his fists. "Who are you, what is your purpose, and who is the Catalyst?"

"I, Oroy Wandes, am among the nobility of the Neo-Pollosian saviors," the harsh speaker introduced, "and you are the Catalyst, a symbol of the Allied Council's advent, brought here to burn for the suffering you caused us. Remember?"

"No, and please, I don't mean any harm," Thrush attempted to remain neutral, although he had already taken a side, his indignation boiling. "Wandes, you are aware of my identity, are you?"

"Exactly so," Wandes pointed snarkily to Thrush. "You are the Catalyst, is that not wholly true?"

"I mean... surely it... no, it couldn't have..." Thrush began to mumble, his tone quieter with each syllable.

"Are you not aware of the origin of the Lubreighan Fountain of Youth, Representative Thrush?" Wandes babbled on. "It was Gage's blood, which is now equally spread across the Great Sea in microscopic amounts. So, Un-Character, what sort of sacrifice do you request?" Thrush's throat became sore as he observed Wandes' Neo-Pollosians and counter-protesters clashing on the other streets, but not necessarily as armies would.

"Sacrifice? Wandes --"

And just like that, Thrush had vanished from Old Kiwi's City.