✧ Chapter 39 ✧

On the opposite end of this journey that Styra was ready to begin, a lost friend of hers stayed in a world called Animearth. Her name (Vanilla) was now replaced with a new one.

Cherry Brooks.

She had grown to be 16 years old; an age in that world when people were allowed to live by themselves. Lying in her cherry-themed bed on a rainy night, she had been smothering in wet tears for three hours straight. The heavy raindrops outside were inaudible to her as she had changed a lot since then. Her fine curved bob hairstyle was now dyed a bright violet red rather than the natural auburn color it normally was. She wore her red glasses and a honey yellow cardigan sweater. Registering herself into a prestigious high school called Dream Academy High, she decided to sign up to get more educated in her current interests which delved into astronomy because it reminded her of Star.

Silent memories caused her to have flashbacks of her past life. She remembered being separated from Star when she went through the dark door after her. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t find out where her best friend went after that. Instead, she ended up inside a strange abandoned library. This place was where she would find out about the secrets that lied there. The labyrinth of red tall empty bookshelves stood atop a purple carpet floor that was decorated with images of vanilla flowers. Along the way, she would see creepy crayon drawings on the shelves which would lead her to a table in the middle where a book titled “Tales Of The Time Keeper” existed. She kept this book with her, heading straight back to where the portal was.

Vanilla would end up finding another UVOCA base called Liquatics Laboratory. Inside Testing Room 5750, she would discover a pair of luminous mint green e-glasses and five super stella cherries in a measuring cup which would inspire her to change her name. Three attempts later, Cherry had come to learn that eating one of these special fruits allowed her to travel to one world of her desire. Every time she thought of Star’s name when trying to find her, it led to a world with the word “star” in its name instead. StarSpace was one of those planets. Since she knew nothing about Star being reborn as Styra, it furthered the problem.

Looking to the book for answers couldn’t help her confirm what was real either. These mysterious empty pages she held gave her almost all its information by dreaming about it. Otherwise, only one page was visible in the middle of the book. Unfortunately, it ended up being a horrifying illustration which seemed to have been created by someone at UVOCA. They had agents there behind some sort of cult which worshipped the deity who they vaguely called “The One Born Of Nothing.”

It was apparent that the same cult struck again when a group of four former classmates and one freshman student of the school revealed themselves to be working for UVOCA. She assumed the sole reason came from them being bribed into causing all of the past murders at Dream Academy High under this stealthy organization. These five threatened her life and made a friend she had just met named Ararima Haniki eat one of the super stella cherries while the other cherry was squashed and thrown into a toilet. Cherry had been pinned down before they took her pair of e-glasses (which had a tracking device), telling her that she and anyone else that was told about what happened would be killed. Little did they know that since then, she had begun building her own replica of it. She wanted to save Ararima because at no point was she going to be safe in a different world that she didn’t know anything about.

Cherry had to do something fast.

Sitting up from her bed, she stared at her e-glasses again which were next to a small window. As the dark clouds drizzled with more rain across the city known as Centreplex, her brain began to link this moment to a flashback.

Before she ever came to the Pearl Planetarium, her family lived in The Halbert Mansion. She did not remember why they lived there but those days seemed like happy ones. They would celebrate every single holiday together. There was no such thing as school either. Her parents were the ones responsible for teaching her everything. It sounded like such a simple life for her to grow into.

The day before her suspected visit to the planetarium, she had looked out the window at night and saw a pale man wearing a dark cloak. His head was bald but his smile was ever so unnerving. He would look at her from the window but it was as if no one saw him except her.

His presence was also noticeable on that day when a bright light flashed through Animearth. It caused the world to stray far from its regular orbit and a bit farther away from their sun. She had a vision intertwining with that very same view from the window. Only this time, there were words written into the grass outside the mansion reading the word “Traveller”.

Trying to figure out what role The Traveller played in this scenario suggested that they were the true mastermind behind the murders at Dream Academy High. The question was, who could possibly be The Traveller? She never recognized or even knew the name of said person. She was going to need Ararima to help her solve it because she was just as interested in serving justice to those that died wrongfully at the hand of these murders.

She previously recalled the plan Ararima came up with that she hoped was correct. If it was true, she could save the missing students and Ararima as well. However, she was well aware that UVOCA could easily have intel on the likelihood of her trying to put it into practice. What if they were steps ahead of her?

A last resort would be to figure out the dream she had nights before she met Ararima. In the dream, she heard a voice that was distant from her. The syllables created strange triangular shapes that shifted around in tandem with its words. It was reading the book’s chapters at random points in her sleep cycle. She felt puzzled at most. Her memory caught one time specifically however that mentioned who she suspected to be herself in the story. Many things were made clear that resonated with her. The telescope she used to watch the stars was mostly evident in proving this. Near the end, that name “Styra” stood out amongst the babbling which could have been mistaken for gibberish, but it meant a lot to her.

Standing from her bed and finally walking up to the mirror in the bathroom, she found her midnight cats Chime and Jingle rubbing next to her legs. Their closeness and affection gave Cherry a sense of faith. She proceeded to stare intensely at herself, pushing the worries away from a broken childhood that only held a light in was the darkness of her memories.

“Don’t worry Star. I’m keeping my promise to you no matter what happens,” she said before sprinting for her green jacket in the closet and leaving her house.

∗ ∗ ∗

While everyone prepared for the journey across The Omniverse to potentially find the anomaly, Styra was sitting in one of the cargo seats within the ship trying to figure out how exactly to balance who she really was. If she could face all of those problems the best way she remembered how, there was one solution to all of this that remained. It depended on her hoping she would be right because against all impossible odds, she wasn’t exactly as powerless as she may have overthought previously. If anything, her mind felt more clearer today rather than hearing The Eternal Lights chatter random words in her mind. She preferred sticking with a recent friend of hers that understood what she was going through.

“Eternika? I have a question… Can you still read my thoughts?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Cause I want you to promise me that we will never leave each other. I don’t care what happens. My life is at stake and the only part of me that is left is you.”

The weapon was not too surprised by this. Initially, it was awaiting something like this though to help it focus against The New Guardian’s lore.

“Of course Styra. I have had enough of The Lucid Light anyway. We will create our own fate because we are The Judgment Warriors.”

Styra thought to herself about what Eternika just said about them being Judgment Warriors. That sounded like an interesting team name.

Beside that, traveling outside The Omniverse was going to be her toughest challenge yet if she wanted to save not only the guardians she made friends with, but every world in existence. Wearing a suit that was connected to The Lucid Light felt awful right now, but the armor was still a part of her past that she needed to solve. She wasn’t going to wear it everyday though, much like the astromask Chelbie made. It would only be used to protect her identity. That way, they couldn’t stalk her so easily.

Knowing Eternika’s bond with her was stronger than the Eternal Lights combined, she had to decide on how to process a new set of powers she would have to work with. She may have been human to almost no one’s surprise, however, that didn’t eliminate the parts of her that were like a curse. Most notably the time disconnect from The Omniverse. If The Kra Force wasn’t responsible for her connection with Eternika, what was?

What even was The Kra Force at its core supposed to be?

Thinking about this deeply, Eternika answered exactly after she had pondered it from hearing her thoughts.

“The Kra Force is simply your soul force Styra. The power within it emits the ability to turn your body into a reality shifting entity by gathering star energy. Remember the Embbods? They do the exact same thing. Their Kra Force uses stars to create a forcefield that protects them from colliding into another universe.”

“Hmm… That’s something I’ll take note of. Thanks.”

Just as she was saying this, her direction of focus eyed Flight and Hisa sitting together in the cockpit while making advances towards one another to keep their spirits up. The romance between these two caused Styra to daze off with both of her hands holding up her cheeks on an arm of one of the cargo seats. A lingering desire touched her heart. Almost as if she started to fall short of something she wanted to feel.

Meanwhile, Chelbie talked to herself upon entering the ship in annoyance after witnessing Sapphirion further complaining outside while Creperus and Diamondion were trying to get him to understand the issues he had been causing.

“I swear, why do I always find someone angry acting like my old classmate Grumpy Gordo? Actin’ like he’s so serious when he’s actually all scared over nothing. Guy must be scared of his own shad—”

Chelbie started to notice Styra’s interest in seeing Flight and Hisa having a relationship. Looking closer from behind her, she began to fill in the blanks of what was going on.

“Ohhh… Looks like someone wants to get lovestruck,” she whispered.

Styra panicked that Chelbie was behind her and began to blush in embarrassment as she didn’t know how to express that part of herself particularly well around someone else. Even Eternika for that matter.

“Eep! H-how long were you standing there?”

“About twenty seconds. I could’ve watched a lot longer if I wanted to though. Heh. Don’t get me wrong by the way. I don’t mind love, but all the kissy faces and smoochie woochies is kind of a bit much… Like I don’t think I would ever really fall for any person. Besides, my date is with drivin’ and ridin’ at full throttle! What could be more better than that?”

Eternika nudged a bit of itself into the conversation to support Styra’s feelings.

“I think whether we like it or not Chelbie, we should let her decide. I fully believe she can find love if she wants to. At a time like now though, it would be best for us to focus on keeping The Omniverse together. Regardless, maybe we can help you find your soulmate. We will have to wait until we get to the right world to do that. So long as it doesn’t interfere with our mission.”

With all of these thoughts of finding a lover to obsess over, Styra told Eternika and Chelbie that she was going to go somewhere by herself for a good while to calm her heart down.

Walking steadily through the grasslands, her body was beginning to recover from the shock of near death earlier after these positive feelings rejuvenated her soul. It was reminiscent of the time she did the same to stand against Amethion after being thrown through the Zuropa Museum.

The Kra Force was slowly returning as she was happy to see it come back when she decided to close her eyes and try to float off the ground again. Even though this was a good thing, she wouldn’t be getting any of The Eternal Lights back since their bonds with her were broken.

Dilemmas within her mind began to build as she took off her suit out of frustration with what she had been wearing. She proceeded to roll up her sleeves to her elbows and open the buttons on the white dress shirt she wore to let herself feel the air flowing around her. The crisp cool wind blew past as she raced toward the sky and flew faster than she ever did before. Putting her hands behind her head while floating next to the clouds which were surrounded by the starry atmosphere, she began to wonder a few things.

“I never really imagined that how I feel would affect my powers this much. Maybe I’m just tired of hearing bad things happen all the time. If only I could find that one who I can really share my life with. I don’t really mind who they are. I just want to show them everything they have always wanted to see, yet it all just feels so far away.”

As Styra started to fly off through the night sky, she sang a beautiful song about being loved. While dancing across Wisteliah, she entered a part of that world where it was the evening.

Finishing the lyrics, she softly wrapped her arms around a cloudy-shaped humanoid figure which she created. It was like an insert for whoever her potential love interest could be. As her eyes began to sparkle and stare at the empty reality that was, the wind would blow it all away. It was as if everything was taunting her. She felt the pain of being that detached from the feeling of love itself. After having endured so many struggles, she found it hard to believe that it would ever happen.

“Whoever you are out there… I love you,” she said as a heavy wave of loneliness settled in.