1 Isolated Paradise
Stripes of dust-dappled sunlight squeeze through the cracks running along the archaic walls and ruined ceiling.
In the centre was a stone figure of a mature motherly woman with an air of desolation, contrasting the warm light from outside.
Regardless of seeming to have been made from invaluable materials that would cause carnage even in the current time, like the walls that were saturated with age, the statue was littered with cracks and some pieces had fallen off.
She was posed as if she was peering down from the altar she was placed upon with love and tenderness, as if everything around her were her children.
She appeared so real in spite of her damaged body.
Facing north of her was a battered boy, drenched in water, his blue-purple bruised skin faded into his normal olive skin whilst the luminous light doused him. His soft breathing was peaceful.
If Dante was awake at this moment, he would be in utter shock. Jolted by the stature behind him that looked almost exactly like his mother[1]. However, at the moment he was unconscious and contused like a rag doll.
A few seconds later, the statue blinked. It was replaced with a woman with messy grey hair and cloudy green-blue eyes; her white robes rimmed with gold letterings that lost their glimmer covered her skinny and wrinkly body as her gaze was fixed on Dante.
"This boy..." Gaia muttered as she studied his face deeper with her eyes that now radiated benevolence and hope, "... is Dante?"
Her eyes widened, unable to maintain her composure she appeared next to him.
"My child..." Her eyes focused on his face that felt familiar but at the same time not.
"You... haven't broken your promise... Good child, so full of valiance and are a royalty of nature." She looked at Dante with a weak heart.
Gaia took a deep breath, her wrinkles loosened, before lifting her ancient, flattened palm— a tall tree, full of life, sprouted, bearing a big, plump, crystal-like fruit.
It looked very much alike a pear, it was more around than a typical pear. It glowed vibrantly, pulsing, as if it was a heart.
Gaia's eyes gleamed with affection before fixing her sight on her child, again. Her body seemed to have aged to the point she was feeble like a grass in the strong wind.
"I will give you my inner heart, Dante... but always remember, mother is always with you..." Her body fell, it lit ablaze into a small green light with blue hues like a flame, gradually fading into a small
sliver of flickering light.
Within a second, it vanished from it's original place, shooting into Dante's forehead who suddenly burned with a white light.
His body, nourished with Gaia's soul, recovered and improved, now held unimaginable potential.
Dante's original stick-like figure vanished, replacing it was a body of a young man who's age could not be deciphered. His alabaster coloured hair, something he treasured, as he did not have the luxury to see his own appearance, grew into the lustrous and hair Gaia once had in her prime.
His ice blue eyes, masked by his eyelids, grew more bright, brighter than the sky. Like Gaia, Dante had the disposition of a mother, emanating beauty and benevolence.
Yet at the same time, there was something different. Though appearing to be Gaia's young male replica, Dante had something else. A sliver of serenity, like the sea that vanished after a single passing of time.
Not only that, a golden outline of a trident appeared on the back of his right hand. It twinkled with blue and faded, leaving no trace of it's existence behind.
Dante's mind was fuzzy, the last remnants of his peculiar dream were chased away by the awareness that he was awake, again.
"Hack!" Dante was abruptly thrown into a coughing fit once he attempted to speak.
"I'm—cough—still alive?" Dante gasped for air whilst his eyes examined his changed body.
"This? This isn't me!" Dante exclaimed in fear.
"No!"
Standing up, Dante examined himself before pausing, it was hard for him to accept it.
"Why... did it awaken?! Mother is still alive, she isn't dead!" Dante bellowed in disbelief.
His shout echoed through out the shrine.
"...Something must have happened. That's right, mother had no choice to, either she was on the verge of death or she was forced to give it to me..."
Dante clenched his fists in thought, his body was unfamiliar to him like everything was.
His sight, sense of power, scent and feeling felt unreal.
More importantly, he needed to know what happened.
Turning his head to find where he was, his pupils dilated in horror and helplessness as he recognised the letters at the bottom of the altar.
GAIA, THE MOTHER OF LIFE
"So that's it?" He laughed softly, mocking his intelligence.
"That's right... no wonder that son of a b*tch Denion ordered his Jhaals to destroy Gaia... It's because mother didn't awaken from her sleep when he tried to summon her..." Dante's eyes turned cloudy.
"Plop, plop..."
He silently cried. His eyes stared at the place where the statue disappeared.
"So... I'm the last descendant of Gaia, eh? Quite funny... My life is a complete joke, full with misery..."
"What am I going to do after I get revenge?" Dante huffed. His heart clenched in pain.
It felt heavy, it was something very familiar to him yet he could never get to used to it.
"Emperor Denion..." Dante trudged out the temple, past the pillared alley.
"If I can't kill you, I'll ruin you. I will make the whole universe see you as a joke of an emperor even if I must perish," Dante mumbled.
The toll of witnessing another death of his close one was too heavy for him.
With a small sigh he looked at his right hand and clenched it.
"Denion will come after me if he knows my existence... considering I have her blood and legacy, my rate of growth will be vast, like the sea... hehe." Dante grinned with expectation before being serious.
"He should be a little stronger than mother meaning it'll still take a long time... I still have to reach a certain rank of strength to unlock the first layer... until then... I'm a chicken he can order his minion to butcher."
Dante's eyes cleared and he finally saw the exit of the shine.
It was very bright and the limited scene he could see was extremely picturesque.
The creases of the cloak of green had clots of a variety of flowers swaying in unison.
It looked very warm, soothing and nice to watch.
Dante felt a strange sensation pump through his body. He felt as if he was with his real mother again. The warm embrace of a mother, which had long been forgotten by him, caused the negative emotions within him at the moment to vanish.
Dante closed his eyes for a moment before resuming his walk to the exit.
It seemed as if his soul shuddered in delight as the spilling of a warm radiance that rejuvenated his body and mind.
Time quickly passed, still stood there in a daze, Dante finally woke up.
Speechless with surprise he dashed to the flowers only to crash into the hill itself.
Dirt and grass slapped his face whilst entering his mouth and his body was imprinted in the surface.
Again, coughing, Dante climbed up the hill to get a better look at the flowers only to spot a hole with clear water and a lotus floating on it.
The lotus had leaves with a gradient of white and yellow.
"It looks so pure..." Dante mumbled before taking the lotus by its root extremely carefully.
He didn't bother using any ounce of his power as he couldn't control it yet.
Dante placed the lotus on the back of his right hand and the mark reappeared whilst the lotus vanished, bringing the water with it.
Dante blinked in surprise before noticing the mark was a trident.
"Sea and water?" Dante tilted his head before realization struck him.
"I can use this against the mecha Denion sends out, heh."
Every mecha required a human or Deni to operate it hence there should always be seams where the water can enter and destroy the inner workings of the mecha.
If the metal was too strong, Dante could simply engulf the mecha in water and pressurise it, causing the machinery to crush and kill the operator.
Dante's eyes glinted fiercely in contrast to his appearance.
"Now... I need to find out how I got here, into this isolated paradise," he muttered.
