Sorry it took so long but...hehehe...I kinda been making this story up as I go so I got writer's block...BUT! now its going to be juuuuusssssst fine :D

Chapter 6

It was days before a security force large enough to prevent another invasion arrived in Gran Domingo and began to properly fortify it as all naval fleets sailing the oceans were called to secure the quarantine zone.

Santiago did not wake for a whole week, the fighting had taken a toll on his brain and because his tree had used his powers to save themselves it had also left him drained and exhausted. After the week long coma taken for repair and rejuvenation he still felt weak and stayed awake just long enough to feed. He had been surprised about what had taken place during his coma. Elder Noah was constantly sending him pregnant mothers to feed him, of course he would mind wipe them of the event, “sacrifices” elder Noah had once called them jokingly.

Many more weeks went by like this before he finally recovered enough to start staying awake for more than a few minutes. His infantile brain had grown and repaired itself well enough that the strain it had experienced once was now starting to fade. During his time of weakness he had been taking refuge in elder Noah’s estate rooting in the inner gardens of his manor which was located about ten miles outside of Sezaria.

During the fighting Santiago had taken many spire seeds but almost all of them had been exhausted of energy, all except for one. This one seed Santiago had planted during one of the few moments he maintained his consciousness for more than ten minutes. As his consciousness would come and go through the weeks he forced the seed to take root and begin to grow. Each day that passed the seedling grew several months worth expanding high and wide. The speed of the seedling’s growth had in fact sunk the ground around its roots as the nutrients of the soil was absorbed to fuel the forced growth.

This seedling was bonded to him and like all bondings the same law applied, if it died Santiago and even the Black Tree would die.

months passed.

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“Elder!” one of the men who tended elder Noah’s gardens called out to him entering his study without knocking.

“What is it?” the elder asked rather annoyed that he had been disturbed. He had a lot of work on his desk and it was starting to seem like a hopeless endeavor to finish all of it before day’s end.

“The sapling growing beside the big black tree just got swallowed by it,” the man said rather excitedly. “It just uprooted the thing and this giant maw opened in the middle of its chest!”

Elder Noah didn’t bother dismissing the man, instead he ran outside to the inner gardens where the giant black tree had taken root. For a man of his position and age running made him look ridiculous but he didn't care, for the first time in months the black tree moved and not just to take in the daily dose of pregnant mother milk.

People looked at him as if he had lost his mind as he rushed out the main doors practically ripping them off their hinges from the force of his exit. He stopped before the black tree and his hopes rose, the tree had taken mobility form.

It raised its arms high and then lowered them, but only slightly so that they were level with its shoulders. A mass of psionic energy burst forth from the tree, elder Noah felt the force flow through him like a powerful static charge.

“What is going on?” the elder asked the tree. “Is your master awake?”

For a moment there was just silence.

“I...am,” a small voice replied, it was a telepathic transmission, one that felt fully human.

“What are you doing?” the elder asked worried as the force of the psionic aura emanating from the tree did not diminish.

The tree suddenly brought an arm around to its trunk and like the gardener had said, a giant maw opened in its middle. from it came forth a strange sapling, it was no more than six feet and a few inches tall with horned branches. Its bark was brown but its legs were the soft green of a seedling. On its head was its canopy with just a handful of maturing seeds and one human eye. The bark on its head was black meaning it came from the big tree. Around its chest, its trunk, was a chain that wrapped itself in an X over its chest and back forming a wheeled bundle on its back. This bundle quickly unwrapped giving the sapling the thing it was missing, arms.

“Through me my father will see the world and what it has become,” the jagged crack that formed its chin parted and moved much like a mouth. The voice was deep but dry as if the sapling was a pack a day smoker.

What followed next from the maw of the giant tree was the baby he had seen before but this time he was not wrapped in a bundle of nervous roots. The power was still there though, he could feel the crushing pressure of his mind, he wondered if his own mind could survive a mental onslaught from this infant. He much doubted he’d win an exchange of mental strength.

“Will you tell me now who you are?” elder Noah asked as the baby came to a stop at chest height a few feet away.

“All in due time,” the infant said, the voice was as if a whisper fading with every syllable.

The sapling took the child in its chain formed hand and handed him to the elder.

“He sleeps now,” the sapling said and sure enough the baby appeared to be asleep. “He is weaker in this state and requires much care. Elder brother hides his presence, no one will remember these past moments. In my father’s stead I will witness the world for him. I will travel from city to city and town to town.”

By elder brother elder Noah figured the sapling to be talking about the black tree.

“What will you do as you travel?” he asked holding the infant tightly in his arms.

“Turn the wheels of change,” was his reply.

“I see,” the elder scrunched his brows in worry.

“Come,” the sapling motioned for the elder to head back inside. “Brother grows tired of holding the people of this place in stasis.”

“I see,” there was so much to process that at the moment he simply followed the sapling.

The sapling, Brown Tree, had ventured out setting forth first for Sezaria just a day after his brother, Black Tree, gave him his eye. The eye was once the eye of their father which had been part of his body that was no more.

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After the events of Gran Domingo word spread far and wide of the war hero that piloted the giant black tree. Word reached all the corners of the world from major cities to even the smallest of villages.

The survivors of Gran Domingo that began reconstruction erected statues in honor of the pilot, but since all they knew of him was the black tree small scale versions were erected in major parks and in the city square. Those who could not live in peace after the battle sent letters to elder Noah’s manor requesting that the pilot of the black tree take them as disciples and warriors. The number of letters were so many that every time the mail was brought to Noah’s house it had to be brought in a wheelbarrow and sorted by several hands.

Santiago accepted the request of many, but only in return for the erection of one massive academy and only those who wanted to follow behind him could build it. During construction Santiago made it absolutely clear that only the strength of their psionic abilities could be used, any who did otherwise would be barred from the academy. The academy itself was to be built just outside of Gran Domingo in the hills that were between Gran Domingo and the old outpost used during the battle as a refuge.

Students of all ages would be accepted and to make it clear that Santiago would be dedicated to the academy he moved the black tree there where it could plant seeds on fertile grounds. The saplings that would grow from them would be the beginning of his legions, he was born a fighter and made a general before the world changed around him, he would marshal armies on the field of battle just as he was born to do.