✧ Chapter 70 ✧

Using the core of the planet’s natural energy, a powerful flow of air began to gravitate towards Styra’s armor as it started to transform her physically.

As she began to rise into the sky, Voltaze wasted no time to try and intervene. However, he stopped halfway upon reconsidering his aggressive approach into the middle of something as strange as this.

News began to spread quickly across Revv. Everyone on Styra’s team (including Cherry and Hisa who during the spaceship ride had travelled pretty far from the galaxy they had been in) eventually caught wind of what was going on.

“Styra is transforming into what exactly?” asked Hisa out of curiosity as they approached the giant fractal portal where Creperus was.

“A type of space-time singularity. Although, I should mention this is not anything necessarily ordinary. She is… Distorting space-time itself. That seems to be only a fraction of what she might be capable of though,” explained Eternika.

“You don’t mean…”

Hisa’s words paused out of shock, only for Cherry to put one and one together concerning what she had gathered after revisiting Pearl Planetarium.

“If she’s warping the space-time continuum using preon stars, this means she could be forming into a cosmic force that can infinitely absorb light. Normally, a black hole. She isn’t just turning into a black hole though, is she?”

The weapon answered in light of agreeing that Cherry wasn’t wrong about what was happening to Styra. However, even it could tell that the escalation of events leading to this moment meant anything could occur out of the blue.

Meanwhile back on Revv, a dark essence proceeded to cover Styra’s body as she floated higher, clenching her fists whilst looking almost indistinguishable outside of the star symbol that remained on her armor.

Almost like a dark ethereal silhouette.

In the wake of an unexpected turnaround for The Judgment Warriors, Voltaze could also see remnants of a black hole transforming through this girl into a completely different entity. It was like what happened to him when he started to unleash this other side of himself.

Deciding to inflict more damage to potentially disturb the transitioning process, Voltaze created a swarm of clones all with the same base level abilities as he had currently. They flew and surrounded Styra with no hesitation.

However, an indescribably momentous wave of power (unknown to many except Eternika as the Dark Kra Force), pushed its strong rush of unseen energies up to the boundaries of The Void itself.

Voltaze’s impatience grew at the sight of his replicas struggling to attack what was now a Dark Kra Forcefield on full display. Unlike a typical Kra Forcefield though, this one was imploding his armies into fading storm clouds.

Seething anger arose through his mind, causing him to erupt into one of the darkest forms he used previously against Diamondion.

Teleporting instantaneously to her without any warning, a flashing charge of fractal energy was used in an attempt for Voltaze to jab through the forcefield.

Or so that was what he planned on doing at first…

Suddenly, after he completely one-shot his fist at her with the combined use of every Eternal Light he had in possession, another enormous implosion took place that dragged Voltaze into The Void.

Attempting to create a fractal hole in this space did not work for him because something much greater was dissipating all of the energy he was using like it was nothing.

“You think playing pretend will work?! Hiding in the dark won’t save you!” yelled Voltaze with extreme infuriation.

Upon him saying this, Styra’s Zethyrian form revealed itself while wearing a version of her iconic armor to fit this new physique for the first time. Even Eternika had leveled up into a dark version of itself too:

Dark Eternika.

“There is no need for me to hide. I’ve been here before you came. You just couldn’t see me.”

“Lies!” shouted Voltaze while trying to fight her, only for Dark Styra to completely flick him back out of this space like skipping a pebble across an ocean at over a billion times the speed of light.

Spinning out of control in the skies of Revv, he used the Eternal Lights to balance his positioning and movement to find out where she was going to attack him from next. Even this came off as challenging due to the fact that whatever power she was wielding was healing her suit with what looked to be the darkest form of dark matter he had ever seen.

Reaching a nearly desperate point of contention with his recent battle, he realized that her other friends were there watching them. Although he could imagine they had been planning something in the meantime, he noticed two specific people were missing.

And that was when he began to suspect what would have been an obvious ploy.

Viewing through Creperus’s vision, he began to see the StormStrike Zero right in his line of sight, albeit quite a far distance away.

As Dark Styra shot a Dark Kra Blast at him, Voltaze vanished into thin air.

Confused by the sudden shift in his disappearance, this prompted Dark Styra to question what had happened.

“Anyone have eyes on Voltaze?” she asked with heavy concern.

It was then that a gut punching realization came over herself as Dark Eternika was starting to form cracks of fractal energy again, causing the blades to create broken fragments of itself repeatedly.

“S-Styra, he t-took Cherry and Hisa! He used Creperus to overpower my abilities. I was able to get the spaceship to safety though. I sent it back to Perenorbius.”

Thinking of where he could’ve taken them, Dark Styra realized that Creperus had mentioned one place where it would have resided. The pieces of the puzzling events to her were all coming together now.

“The Singularity Stronghold…”

Both Dark Styra and Dark Eternika flew quickly toward the remaining Judgment Warriors that were helping to pull Chelbie’s monster truck out of a deep crevice that had opened up after the damage done to the highway.

“We’re going to Creperus’s domain,” notified Dark Styra.

“Why? What happened?” Flight asked insistently.

“Cherry and Hisa are being held captive.”

A deeply angering frustration resided within Flight upon hearing this, causing him to immediately lock in on the situation.

“Eternika, send Kade, Chelbie, and that vehicle back to Animearth. Find a safe spot for them to stay. The rest of us will head out. You can teleport us there too, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because I am done with giving second chances. We’re killing Voltaze. No holding back.”

The moment Dark Styra heard this however, a lingering dissatisfaction came upon herself when she remembered telling Cherry that they would keep their promise to help free Voltaze. He would still be punished, but in her mind he was not being evil for the sake of it. She could tell he was capable of changing.

Whether or not Voltaze would come to his senses like he did earlier at the planetarium was a bigger question.

“Wait, he’s not doing this to outright be villainous. He just hasn’t been in the right headspace. Voltaze was using manipulation as a coping mechanism.”

Flight stared at her with a concerned sense of confusion of what he was hearing.

“That being a way to cope is not an excuse. And listen, whatever promise you made then, was in the past. We are better off stopping this the right way before more lives are lost.”

“True, but just like not destroying the planetarium, we will need Voltaze for more insight into Prism’s plans eventually. Plus, he needs to let his inner traumas heal. Him choosing to help bring you all back, I don’t see that as luck or a mistake.”

Flight started to understand this point of view. Moreso, Cherry did make a similarly reasonable point about it. Voltaze didn’t jump back on his decision to capture him immediately. Even with Hisa in his clutches, something inside of him could potentially be resisting.

It was dangerous to consider.

Risky even.

“Okay, we’ll do it that way, but we need to make this quick and effective.”

Just as Flight became willing to choose this option, Chelbie suddenly clapped back in heated frustration as she had been listening to the conversation while staring at her beaten up monster truck.

Her sweaty fists remained tightly clenched with each heavy pulse of the heart weighing in on her mind.

“Are you crazy Styra?! My vehicle gets tarnished, the fucking Omniverse is gonna die, then you wanna talk about keeping a manipulative asshole alive who probably killed both Hisa and Cherry by now! Ain’t no way I’m just sittin’ it out either if that’s true. Capturin’ him isn’t gonna be enough if UVOCA has been doin’ that for years! He has to actually pay for his crimes!”

In trying to neutralize the outburst, Dark Styra attempted to reason with her.

“Chelbie, he will pay for all of this without a doubt. Regardless, death by itself is not the right answer here. I’ve talked to the literal version of that back when I was trying to rescue the three of you from being stranded.”

“And?”

“We need to know more about him from his perspective. Just as Cherry told me recently. You don’t destroy what you hate over your past. Especially if you can learn from it.”

An air of insecurity proceeded to build within Chelbie as she began to feel bothered by this very statement.

“Why are you asking me to let my guard down right now? At least Flight knows what type of fight we’re going through! I don’t even think you’re grasping just how serious this is at all. I shouldn’t even have to argue about this!”

Kade, who was becoming impatient with the bickering taking place, intervened.

“You both need to calm it. We have to get a headstart right now before it’s too late. Flight, I advise we stick with your original plan. Styra… He has had enough chances to change. Besides that, tolerating UVOCA’s HQ as intel does not mean Cherry insisted on holding Voltaze to the same importance. He cannot be reasoned with. Get that through your head for once.”

With the gravity of this issue causing her to question her own stance, that confidence which was invested in being loyal to the promise she made with Cherry years ago, was breaking.

This unkempt frustration with Kade always being against her, alongside being viewed as not taking things seriously made her want to say the most unhinged things on her mind.

Dark Styra’s face was becoming visibly angrier.

However, it was then that a memory came back that reminded her of the coldness she was also feeling from everything that happened recently.

What Cherry had said as Vanilla back then when they were in the vents trying to survive. It began to answer the emotions she was experiencing in this exact moment.

Maybe the promise she remembered was really misguided. She didn’t realize that it was this very memory that she drew out of proportion and was not giving herself room to see the real truth.

There was no way she could change Voltaze.

Even if she had established a sort of connection to their shared past, he was hell-bent on destroying everyone to the point that nothing could get in the way of this goal for him. Unlike Strage he wasn’t really capable of being reasoned with. Perhaps the entire time, he set it up to where she would fall for his manipulation time and time again because he knew about that promise Vanilla made.

He might have been able to connect the dots the entire time with the way she was trying to give him more chances. That sense of love and empathy she tried to give was something that he was going to take advantage of.

If anything, his betrayal was in fact far worse than UVOCA experimenting on her.

No.

She couldn’t stand for something like that at all.

“You’re right Kade… We’ve done all we can to get him to see he can help himself. I’ve been too blinded by that kind of love that I couldn’t accept the fact that his choices are his own to make. It’s about time we deliver on our name, Judgment Warriors. Let’s own up to it.”

Being satisfied with her listening to them, the group were lifted off the ground into separate Kra Forcefields that started to head towards the Singularity Stronghold.

During the trip, Chelbie decided to speak to Dark Styra for a bit after reconsidering how she talked to her.

“Hey, Styra… While we may have had some disagreements, I understand where you were comin’ from now. Just didn’t wanna see ya make a wrong choice that you might regret again. Like most of our team were getting on your case beforehand, even though you meant well.”

Looking back at Chelbie with a newfound sense of optimism in her friends, she smiled with a stronger determination than shown previously.

“Y’know, I appreciate that you all have my back to help me see through these situations clearly. Sometimes, when I feel a bit out of place in moments like this, I am reminded that what we choose to be is not something we should take lightly. Becoming so comfortable with our own past decisions that we think it really is all we can be. And that couldn’t be farther from the truth if I actually put in the effort.”

“Definitely wordy, but you got it down packed,” remarked Chelbie as they sped through the vast atmosphere of outer space.