✧ Chapter 14 ✧

Knowing Amethion or Topazion, this guardian was both visibly taller and stronger than them. Its stern nature relied on one devoted focus. To keep every universe in check. The leaders of Aviatopolis caught patterns and sightings of him reappearing on their planet every night across different locations. Celeste told Styra all about the legends surrounding this Guardian Of Space.

People having rare encounters with it told authorities he was known as Sapphirion, but his motives were not yet discovered. Holding her impatience aside, Styra hoped he would be reasonable enough to understand the intentions of her current mission.

"Hello, Sapphirion. It's nice to meet you. My name is Styra and I am here because of Amethion who sent me to help collect all Ten Eternal Lights so I can discover my origins and change reality for the better. With that in mind, I must take up the mantle as The New Guardian and collect the Eternal Light Of Space. I promise to take care of it with respect and honor. We don't have to fight."

This kindness did not falter Sapphirion's goal. Prism told him to destroy The New Guardian. That was what he was going to do. To him, the fact that Amethion gave up his Eternal Light showed how weak he was. Disobeying his master would not happen here, regardless of how many of his siblings would fall to their certain demise. He proceeded to reject her offer.

"I deny your permission. It is the responsibility of every guardian within The Heptarion Force to maintain the protection of their designated Eternal Light. Amethion is not the one who created all Ten Eternal Lights. He will be punished harshly for promoting the destruction of the Omniverse."

Styra could see it now. This guardian wasn't incompetent like the others. Still, he ignored the possibility that she was in fact trying to help. She knew it was going to be impossible to heed his assignment to kill her. Figuring it inevitable, her first move was to test him. That way she would be able to strategize against his attacks. To start it off, she created multiple time projections of herself running around the runway at an indiscernibly high speed. The attempt to expose his power was more dangerous than she had asked for. Sapphirion's arms began to transmit mysterious blue pulses. He sent his fist slamming down against the surface of the entire ship, causing a terrible power outage below from the shockwave.

Suddenly, the ship and Styra got sent sky-high like a rocket due to a change in their gravity. Now everyone on the ship was at the risk of death if they were to reach above the atmosphere of outer space. Sapphirion flew a good distance away before this happened, watching as the ship headed for its doom. With the aid of the Eternal Light Of Time, Styra froze the movement of the Skyway Suite, thereby halting the force of gravity to zero. As for her, the pure energy inside herself broke free from the pressure of his power. Especially considering that the Paralysis Portal was already a challenge she surpassed in gravitational pull, this scenario was already pretty similar to it.

Overcoming this obstacle allowed her to do something she had never done before. Her eyes were closed due to anticipating some sort of downfall after having reached the vast cosmos. To her surprise, she was still within the planet's atmospheric range. The wind became one with her and it was more than amazing. This experience was extraordinarily breathtaking. The sense of peacefully unifying time and space with herself gave Styra the freedom to fly.

Sapphirion charged at her in a fiery frenzy while she dodged his air attacks in relative reflexive motions. Eventually, he started to consider the colors changing with that star on her suit when she fought. It was switching from pink to purple on certain occasions in order to effectively balance the use of her newfound power. All of this was happening before Styra began to taunt him after flying around him so fast that she was able to create a hemispheric pure energy field that closed in on him. It was enough to nearly break off almost all of his armor, except where the Eternal Light Of Space was held.

"Thinking about it now, you really need to let others live a little. What's the point of being the guardian of space if you're going to interrupt someone's privacy? Even I know when to leave someone alone without getting worked up about it."

In his defense, Sapphirion insulted her objective.

"You think your infinitesimal remarks are going to stop me? Clearly, your ambitions have blinded you."

Styra went in for another punch with the Time Shield in her other hand. However, Sapphirion evaded the hit, uppercutting and then spiking her down so hard that the Eternal Light Of Time was knocked out of her. They proceeded to fall from the ceiling of the ship and into the dining room where Celeste and Flight were. Styra almost went unconscious from the unexpected blow. As a result of this impact, everything onboard was reset to normal gravity from the time freeze being undone. However, the monstrous entity flew down quickly from above the ruins where she had laid weak, only to unexpectedly halt the gravitational pull of the ship once more. A squad of the Eveline Patrol officers rushed into the area, aiming their guns at him. Without a second to lose, he reversed gravity on them which ultimately didn't change the situation in their favor. To make matters worse, Sapphirion was able to catch a glance of Styra trying to stand and get the Eternal Light Of Time. In an effort to prevent what she was about to do, he grabbed her by the neck with one hand to assure himself that his kill would suffice.

Flight knew waiting there like he had done with Amethion in the alleyway or Topazion on the other island wasn't going to work here. Sure, in honesty, he didn't see himself standing a chance. A taste of it on home ground was enough to nearly end his life. He needed a strategy to save her. The Eternal Light Of Time was shining through the cracks of rubble behind Sapphirion. There didn't really seem to be any other way, even though these risky thoughts bombarded his mind with high awareness of the stakes at play. Then an idea struck him that could possibly work in hindsight. He whispered it to Celeste who immediately began to put it into effect when she touched her earpiece.

Almost everyone in the crowd was injured, cowering behind tables to avoid witnessing any more deadly confrontations. Meanwhile, Sapphirion lectured against her quest being supported by Amethion, with Styra struggling to break free from his grip.

"These Eternal Lights that you seek for the initiation of understanding yourself, are more than that. They have been fought over at the forefront of cataclysmic wars between worlds. A faithful guardian does not use what they are trying to protect at their own disposal. Such fraudulence is dishonorable."

Suddenly, an explosion busted in from the ship's window. Drift and the other machines began to fly inside and shoot many different types of weaponry at Sapphirion to have a variety of tactics play an advantage in their fight. This proved to only be some sort of distraction that while effective, couldn't harm him in the slightest. Although it was easy to destroy most of them, he had dropped Styra without thinking. Upon hitting the ground, the choke was not enough to injure her since having been submerged underwater by Topazion strengthened her immunity to suffocation. However, having an Eternal Light shot out so easily zapped this pain through her body in an instant. It started to develop more in her mind during the considerably stressful scenario.

Within the current situation that she was facing, realizing this now was too late. It became difficult for her to see that the light shining beneath the piles of heavily broken concrete was the Eternal Light Of Time. Trying to assert more logic under pressure caused her eyes to sting, her body to numb itself, and her brain to feel overwhelmed. A strange piercing chirp sound began to ring through her ears, weakening Styra's consciousness to no end. Flight could see Sapphirion was close to reaching the source of light, even with armies of robots charging at him. No matter how hard they tried, it was seemingly useless for them to even attempt to get in his way.

Almost everyone that was hiding behind the tables began to escape the dining room and run down to the lowest part of the air cruise. In a final shot at considering his options, Flight ran into the warzone. Celeste tried to stop him, but by then he was already far from her. He knew Sapphirion wanted that Eternal Light. To dissuade him of this option, Flight threw a grenade where the light was and proceeded to shoot Sapphirion with the Crimson Chargeon so he could distract him from catching it. The grenade exploded in the area opening up room for Flight to catch the Eternal Light Of Time. Unfortunately, the execution of this plan did not stop Sapphirion. He ran against Flight, ruthlessly pushing him with a gravity sweep to the side where he crashed him hard into a lot of chairs before hitting a steel wall. Blood seeped from Flight's nose with a few scars present on his hands and face. He also slowly started to lose consciousness.

Celeste, seeing all of these things happen, decided to fight with one last ditch effort to make the cause worth it if possible. Her metal back was infused with propulsion thrusters to help fly up underneath to avoid the guardian, as he was pretty close to grabbing it. In quick succession, Sapphirion caught her off-guard and used an overhand punch to knock her straight out the window. The thrusters were damaged from the impact, as the transhuman fell into the depths of trash below. With no one left to combat him, Sapphirion was victorious as far as he was concerned. He could now give the Eternal Light to Prism and have Amethion punished. Just as he attempted to grab it for himself, something interesting happened. The Eternal Light Of Time went through his hand. This befuddled him. He tried using gravity pulses to levitate it but this also didn't prove effective enough either. Sapphirion became so aggressively obsessive over grabbing it that his effort to do so caused the Eternal Light Of Time to burst into many light particles that went right past his hands.

They flew back to Styra's star in the middle of her chest. Being unconscious from the previous battle knocked her out but she still had a subconscious that remained alive and well. The Eternal Light Of Time had created a stronger bond with Styra because Amethion still had bestowed the power to her. As a result, it rejected Sapphirion's methods of capture. He could see that the Eternal Light Of Time itself was essentially rebelling against Prism. Rather than try to interrupt the process unfolding before him, he decided it was time to pay Amethion a visit. He didn't have his Eternal Light, so an arrest would be the simple yet impartial way to handle the situation at hand.

Sapphirion vanished to find Amethion, figuring to himself that he could leave this ship to fall as rudimentary to his judgment. He thought ahead, considering that Styra would continue to visit the other guardians. By then, Amethion would have his power taken from him by Prism. After that, The New Guardian could then be stripped of her abilities and captured without fail. As for the creatures on Aviatopolis who were jeopardizing every universe he helped to build, he counted on their deaths to be paid here. By the time Sapphirion disappeared, The Eternal Light Of Time itself decided to transfer Styra, Flight, herself, and the mysterious crystal glowing within Drift's broken body to enter another planet where the next Eternal Light could be found.

Even with that in consideration, it ignored the safety of others. Skyway Suite thunder-clapped into Aviatopolis like the asteroid that destroyed Perenorbius. Its impact across the globe led to an apocalyptic wasteland which created worldwide devastation so terrible that every organism perished at least within seven hours from the doomsday event. To make matters worse, without Styra or Flight there to stop them, a majority of the machines saw a chance to overtake Aviatopolis as they had planned beforehand.

One of these bots in particular decided to lead the cause in order to elicit dominance over more than just one planet as they had planned.