✧ Chapter 48 ✧

“Hey… Umm… I was just wondering something. Do you all want to stay at my house?” asked Cherry.

That was certainly something the entire team weren’t going to say no to. Twilight Terrace was great, but the risk of being caught here would likely surface eventually. The dilemma at the convention center also needed to stay under wraps too, so this sounded like the best alternative.

Plus, it was a hassle staying somewhere in secret anyway.

“May as well. First things first, I have a bit of fixing up to do,” replied Styra.

Instantaneously after saying this, she flashed through the room in less than three seconds before everyone noticed how cleaned the room looked.

“All tidied up and set.”

Compass nodded in approval, signaling Eternika who figured it was time for them all to leave. In mere seconds, the team teleported to Cherry’s home. More specifically, they had been brought to her living room which looked extremely organized.

“Woah, that TV looks so cool. Everything does, in fact. It even smells like sweet cherries in this house,” mentioned Chelbie as she used a remote that was laying on the table to turn it on and off in fascination.

“Y’know, the first time I saw a TV in this world, I thought it was a light box or some sort of portal that shows different realities,” added Styra.

Cherry giggled at this response which made Chelbie smile with a deep happiness she couldn’t necessarily describe. Even in that instance, there was another scent present in the room that she could pick up on.

“I think that is cherry vanilla? I swear I recognized that scent when we were in 4th grade because of the cherry blossom trees by the windows of our classroom.”

“You remember so well. Those were the most peaceful memories of my life. Of course, it always reminded me of how I got here,” remarked Cherry as she turned to face Styra who was occasionally playing around with Snowflake on the azure-colored couch.

During this conversation, Flight was tempted to add something important to the discussion.

“Greetings Cherry. I know we haven’t necessarily met before but I’d like to introduce myself and a few others before we talk about why we are here. Is that alright?”

Cherry nodded in anticipation of what they were going to say.

“Okay, so my name is Flight Takeshi. I am an expert space pilot of my home world StarSpace. Beside me is Hisa Night, expert interrogator who works at the same place I do. Over there standing on the right side of your couch is Compass, an AI equipped with navigational capabilities across our galaxy called GN-z15. Seems to be overpowered now from what I’ve been told. Beside that, we have a hefty situation that is threatening the future of so many lives.”

A feeling of uncertainty made Cherry unsure about what she was hearing. Still, the persistence within herself strived to make things right regardless of the trauma she suffered through beforehand.

“I want to help, even though I feel I may not be enough after what happened.”

Sympathizing with what was just said, Styra felt a sense of connection in her words. If she had guess, seeing that Ararima was missing, Cherry had some sort of regret that imposed itself on her.

A lingering feeling of failure.

Sitting down right next to Cherry, she began to hug her gently. She knew how much it hurt to lose and bottling up those emotions weren’t going to make it any better.

“You can tell us. We promise,” replied Styra.

Flight started to silently reflect on what he had just heard. It was bringing back memories that were significant enough for him to find solace in it all.

Meanwhile, Cherry glanced at her balled-up hands. The gradual shifting of thoughts made her shake her head out of dismay. She didn’t want to hold anyone down at a time like this.

“I feel it is my fault that Ararima is dead. A few people I thought we could trust betrayed us. Then there was that strange room that murdered people. I cannot forgive myself for what happened.”

Out of nowhere, a blast of pink sparkling energy came from the small bunny who had been laying asleep for awhile.

“Wait, who said murder?!”

Everyone was pleasantly surprised to see that Peppie had awoken from her trance. Albeit, for the mysterious reason none other than singling out a word that had been mentioned.

“Why does the floating rabbit speak of death?” asked Eternika.

Trying to process the situation at hand, Peppie finally let out her emotions on the unusual occasion.

“Okay… Just for the record Cherry, I don’t know who these new friends of yours are, but I need to get back to Candiere’s Cafe as soon as possible. First, let me work my magic to see if I can bring Ararima back to us.”

Immediately after, she closed her eyes and rubbed her two long ears together as hard as she could in order to channel the energy necessary to perform the task. In an unfortunate turn of events however, she instead found herself receiving a vision of The Traveller who stared at her happily while Ararima’s lifeless corpse stood there holding hands with him. This caused her to wake up out of hesitation as it was too frightening to witness.

“The Traveller has taken Ararima. She’s gone…”

Cherry felt her heart slowly pounding as if time had stopped. She started to uncomfortably wipe her own eyes before steaming with a pent up frustration at everything that occurred up until this point.

Although Styra understood that grief, especially after listening to many of her friends’ tragedies, she knew full well that dwelling on hopelessness wouldn’t solve the issue at hand. Her determination was set on stopping these problems from creating something much worse than what was already happening.

“I’ve listened to many stories of death. The Traveller knows what he did and if there’s one thing that I dislike more than anything at all, it’s what he’s doing to those that die. We don’t just have him to stop though. Do either of you two know anything specifically about the past of someone named Voltaze?”

Both Cherry and Peppie looked confused as they couldn’t really recognize the name.

“What does Voltaze even look like?” inquired Cherry.

Hisa immediately began to describe what Voltaze looked like after recalling the event in which her and Flight did encounter him.

“If I remember correctly, he has an extremely round head. Big eyes too. Also has large hands, a muscular build, and I wanna say there is this V-shaped symbol on his chest that glows.”

It was at this moment that Cherry became more alert than she had been previously. The past came flooding back and it motivated her to seize a chance at what their next step could be.

“He’s still alive… Styra, I know what we need to do, but it means none of us have a reason to fail this. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Please.”

A split second into this, Styra was quick to agree as her interest grew in following Cherry to get to know her more. That way, the secrets that were being hidden away all this time would help her understand more about what she was dealing with here.

“Lead the way,” she replied with beaming confidence.

Nodding her head in agreement, Cherry ran upstairs while uttering a few words.

“Follow me. I have something to show you.”

Styra and Eternika decided to tail behind her to figure out what she was referring to while everybody else would cool themselves off downstairs.

They reached the bedroom where Cherry’s cats, Chime and Jingle were sleeping on a rug placed in the middle of everything. Examining the surroundings of this tidy space, Styra caught eye of an ancient book that Cherry placed in her hands with a familiar-looking guardian etched on the front cover. The title was what made it even more alluring:

Tales Of The Time Keeper…

“No way… That is Amethion. He is a friend of mine,” she mentioned.

“Your friend? I only ever saw glimpses of him in my head then. How did you first meet Amethion?”

“Wasn’t really all that great at first to be honest. Eventually things worked out when I broke through one of his abilities and that’s when he decided to help me. I remember the first time I used his Eternal Light too. My thoughts would translate into powerful attacks that I could already understand. It was like some sort of hidden instinct I guess.”

“Interesting. I wish I could do things like that. Matter of fact, I have a feeling that what you experienced is tied to something I saw awhile back. Mind if I share?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Flipping through most of the seemingly empty pages in the book, only one contained a drawing that both Styra and Eternika realized looked exactly like what was marked on the Yraden in Perenorbius. The difference was, it had a more detailed presence of conveying its own meaning.

Even then, it was Eternika who recognized what it was upon analyzing the page. Almost as if histories of untapped knowledge were being rediscovered before itself.

“These dots… They resemble that of the Deveurxan language. It states that the writing in this book can only reveal one truth of whatever the seeker asks it by solving the puzzle in this drawing. In order to do that, we are to locate the worlds where each guardian of The Heptarion Force was sent before their timely end…”

Astounded by this observation, Styra wondered who exactly made the book as the illustrator clearly had to have knowledge about the future of The Omniverse. Not only could it possibly help guide them to where all of the missing guardians went, but it was also another potentially safer option to answering the long-awaited question about her mysterious past.

Compared to the time she had tried to collect The Ten Eternal Lights to discover her origins, she wasn’t going to let this new opportunity trample over the safety of her newfound friends after what she had learned.

“I have another request if you don’t mind. Someone crushed the only working one I had left,” interrupted Cherry in a timid manner.

Looking over at her direction, the two of them could see what was going on. She was tinkering around with the notes on her desk that laid right next to the prototype e-glasses she hadn’t yet finished. The first page revealed the name of this device under Project Stella:

The Optillica X2.

∗ ∗ ∗

Skipping across space-time, Voltaze had been trying to find The Eternal Light Of Space but didn’t get any success from the search so far. Apparently, he found out that The Eternal Lights that he collected couldn’t locate it due to how strong its bond with Sapphirion was. This increased his frustration.

“A bond so strong that I cannot even pry into their whereabouts. There must be an alternative to completing my goal. I feel it nearing. The problem is, it’s just as close as it is unbearably hard for me to keep track of.”

He knew weakening Styra like he did at The Ethereal Eye was going to be impossible to replicate since he already reached the highest state of immunity to death. He was more curious as to how she remained intact even after he stole the power of four different guardians from her.

Both The Heptarion Force and Alpha Guardians specifically were susceptible to losing their signature abilities by removing an Eternal Light’s connection from their armor. His doubts in The Lucid Light’s demands were once again surfacing as he already had a hard time trusting anyone at all after what happened to him in his childhood.

Although he was numb to pain, his past memories angered him more and more regardless. The trauma reminded him of being dropped off and taken into a Zethyrian slave cell at birth by his family as if they didn’t care. All of the other inmates dumped inside with him ignored his presence.

Almost as if he didn’t exist because he wasn’t like them.

The experience of these kind of tragedies up until now further hardened his heart, but it got worser when he became one of UVOCA’s experiments. Days after being poked with needles, he woke up unable to move and with a loss of certain memories to boot. Growling visciously, Voltaze tried to wrestle with this glowing mint green energy that tied around his arms, shoulders, and legs. Unfortunately, the more he did this, the more he started to hear an influx of voices that drove him insane. His vision would start to distort and spin into some sort of vacuum void until he couldn’t focus. Suffocating noises blurred the lines between reality. Minutes later, he would wake up in the same spot, but something was different…

From outside of the chamber that was made of ballistic glass, a smiling young lady appeared, standing with her arms behind her back. She had shining pink rose irises, light skin, and golden blonde hair in a special ponytail while wearing this fuscia-colored v-neck shirt with sleeves stretched to the middle of her forearms. Below it, she sported red denim shorts and a pair of white fluffy slippers.

Atop of her hair however was an electronic headband with two slits opposite of each other that seemed to indicate that something could be plugged into them.

All he could feel at that time was hatefulness. The moment she walked away, Voltaze noticed that he had gotten a bit stronger and older than before. He assumed the energy holding him down was the root of this phenomenon. That conclusion led him to see that they were training him to become a controllable weapon of their own creation.

Years later, these tests began to progressively improve for the UVOCA scientists gathering data. That was when the voices in his head became more easier to understand, revealing itself to be The Lucid Light.

According to this superficial deity, it explained that behind him was an artificial source of sentient power known as The Eternal Light Of Fractility which had the ability to break space and time through the wielder. UVOCA and Spessarion had been taking away inhabitants from their home planets for a long time and locking them in chambers to serve as soldiers in their army.

It didn’t take much for him to conclude that there was something off about it all after seeing VCDs walking with cages of dead corpses through the halls and past his cell. Eavesdropping a conversation between two UVOCA agents that passed him by, they mentioned that current test subjects were going to be killed in favor of the newer ones being brung in.

A day after those news, a sense of powerlessness befell him until he met the two girls named Star and Vanilla. His time with them did establish the reality of his memory being taken from him. He did develop hints of a concern for their lives until a strange transformation took over his brain. He knew UVOCA did it, but accompanied with that knowledge, The Lucid Light returned to make a deal to restore his memories in exchange for a request it wanted to fulfill.

Like lightning that struck a tree, he woke up out of the trance that was his mind and saw the real answer to his problem.

This metaphorical vortex he saw every time in his head was the key to finding what he needed.

And he knew exactly where to find it.