✧ Chapter 55 ✧

“Eternika?! Are you okay?!”

Those were the words Styra asked as she helplessly watched the weapon in its physically deconstructed form. The edges of the blades had a mint green light that outlined it.

Failing to recover from the hit, the duo ended up receiving multiple devastating blows by Voltaze. With each attack, he attempted to control Eternika’s mind by breaking down its mental defenses. The weapon could hear his reasoning in its thoughts, which was in service of the essence of chaos itself.

Beyond this, Voltaze attempted to convince Eternika of its hatred for the guardians, even acknowledging that the weapon had been wronged by Prism. So much to the extent that he unveiled his backstory of being mistreated by his own kind who worshipped such a corrupt deity.

Although Eternika was starting to understand why he was terrorizing The Omniverse, it began to mention from experience that not every guardian was in agreement with Prism’s intentions. Furthermore, Styra and Eternika were already against Prism. This caused the weapon to offer a chance for Voltaze to join with their team in pursuit of fixing The Omniverse’s system rather than breaking it.

However, things quickly escalated from the overture Eternika was proposing. Voltaze didn’t see a point in fixing The Omniverse because it was owned by Prism, who had practically broken it multiple times over. Unlike Strage who wanted to reconstruct the way everything functioned, Voltaze’s plan included being free from existence in itself. It happened to be that every reality would be affected by this due to The Lucid Light pressuring him to achieve this objective in order to fulfill the supposed lore.

No matter how much either side tried to persuade each other, the consequences he envisioned did not sound right to it.

Over the course of this battle came an unexpected struggle for The Judgment Warriors. Peppie used her magic to the best of her abilities to keep the convention center’s ceiling from crashing. Every Kra Forcefield holding the people inside had broken simultaneously from Voltaze cracking through Eternika’s Kra Shield. As a result, Cherry was out in the open with multitudes of people running past her to leave the place.

She noticed Cat and Otodo leaving but had no clue whether or not to chase them down if she wasn’t yet trained to. She instead decided upon trying to help everyone leave by pointing the overwhelming crowds towards available exits. During this time of uncertainty, Aoki, Miri, and Hiroto then popped up in her field of view after seeing such a familiar face wear an outstanding costume.

“Cherry? I didn’t know you do cosplay too,” stated Aoki.

“Are you sure that’s for cosplay? It looks more like actual armor,” added Miri.

“That is because it is armor…” cemented Hiroto.

Seeing these three idle around next to her made Cherry extremely uncomfortable knowing that they would be in danger if they didn’t leave.

“I don’t have much time to explain it to you all, but you need to escape now. Your lives are at stake if you stay here,” she warned while looking back at Styra who was teaming up with Solar Ninja and Chelbie to stop Voltaze.

The fight continued inside the Arctic Blossom Rink as he knocked back the three of them into snowy areas of that place. Solar Ninja, seeing hand-to-hand combat wouldn’t be enough to defeat this challenge, pulled out his signature weapon that had the energy of a million suns packed inside:

The Golden Aurora Katana.

He began to pose a taunt where he would stoop down and use his left hand to point his finger up next to his mouth. The right hand, being used to draw the sword he was wielding, aimed towards the ground.

This was known as The Whispers Of Eagles taunt which would also trigger a special attack against any enemy. Voltaze standing in the middle of the rink, balled up his fists once again, recalling this stance from his training in UVOCA’s facility.

“Clever of you not to only reveal yourself as an agent of UVOCA, but one of their lowlife pawns,” he mentioned sarcastically.

“I am not who you think I am,” replied Solar Ninja as his body started to sprout large flaming wings from his back.

Hot flares proceeded to cover his entire essence rapidly before flying over to strike an impactful hit. Voltaze, blocking this attack, continued to send condescending remarks against Kade during their face-off.

“Your kind’s ego has always been flustered by the intelligence of specimens far greater than themselves. You think you can contain what you have yet to understand. Unfortunately for you, I don’t cower to being amused by the idiocy you’ve been demonstrating.”

Pushing Kade backwards over the rink’s barrier, he jumped over and did a twist kick to outplay every maneuver that came afterward. Even with flying as an option, Voltaze timed his reflexes to catch Solar Ninja in the air, swinging him around with both arms. In one final swoop, he slammed Kade onto the ground and then crashed him through the doors of the Ulunar Shopping Center, breaking off the cyborg’s right arm which held his sword.

Meanwhile, Styra’s recovery got slower from interacting against this new power Voltaze was shoving down everyone’s throat. Eternika also gradually seemed to be fighting off the mental pressure it had been undertaking recently. If they were going to do this right, they had to target their enemy’s weak point.

“Styra, we need to find out what Voltaze’s weak spot is. Maybe Cherry could be of use right now,” said the weapon.

“Are you sure she’s ready for this? Y’know I don’t want to lose her if things go south, right?” she asked in anxious trepidation.

Pausing with uncertainty at first, Eternika finally let out an answer.

“It is the only way left. She is… The key.”

Looking in the direction of where Cherry was, her eyes opened wide with shock at the sight of her friend trying to run with Aoki, Miri, and Hiroto to the nearest exit.

Flying as fast as she could to help them, Voltaze suddenly caught onto both of her legs with one hand. Trying to aim for other trajectories to get free from his grasp failed to work in her favor as well. Eternika, finding the strength within itself, went about attempting to distract Voltaze. The four blades spun around him as quickly as possible to obstruct his view in every direction.

Amidst this, Chelbie had been hidden away near the bathroom as she had gotten some pretty bad injuries and needed time to heal.

Peppie, on the other hand, was able to reconstruct most of the convention center’s damaged ceiling back together. She began observing the view from below where she could see Flight and Hisa were still stuck in midair.

She flew over to them to try and release them from the gravitational hold using her magic, but couldn’t get them to budge out of it.

“Peppie, go and help the others. Nothing else can be done here. It looks like they might have a chance at stopping Voltaze if you go over there,” said Flight.

Hesitation started to outweigh Peppie’s acknowledgment of what Flight was saying. She really didn’t want to leave them behind like this.

“They are not going to be happy if I just give up like that though. I don’t want him to murder you two. You did nothing wrong. I’m not much of a fighter either. I don’t know if I should try to just fly and get them out of here, or fight which would go horribly wrong.”

Hisa and Flight looked at each other wondering how to approach this dilemma that Peppie was having. In a matter of seconds, Flight turned toward her again with an encouraging statement.

“Fight or flight? That’s like walking on air. If there’s one thing an experienced space pilot can tell you, it’s to take your flights into the fights. Do what you must to see the good that you can give to others. Being open to that kind of perspective, it will help a lot more than you’ll expect.”

Enlightened by this moving response, Peppie nodded with solemn thanks before flying over to where Styra, Eternika, Cherry, Aoki, Miri, and Hiroto were. Diving down at a really high speed whilst spinning herself into a magical projectile, she knocked Voltaze upside the head.

The impact caused him to get ricocheted within Eternika’s surrounding attack. This lasted for awhile until he finally got blasted outside into the evacuated city streets.

All seemed well for the team’s given efforts to stop what was about to happen. That was until three piercing whistle noises could be heard inside the convention center. The Judgment Warriors faced where the sound was coming from in horror.

Voltaze killed Aoki, Miri, and Hiroto without any remorse.

“No!” shouted Styra in a panicked voice upon seeing the dead bodies turn into red bursts of sparkling light.

Snow started to descend from an eerie fog that was developing in the night sky. The remaining team members tried to attack Voltaze once again, only to be frozen in time by the now more chaotic energy of The Eternal Light Of Time.

“Try as you might, there is nothing more you could have done to prevent it. The Eternal Lights have gotten stronger ever since I’ve broken them out of their prison. Prism will be next and all of this will be no more. As for you…”

A large red glowing ring opened into the hallucinatory soul vacuum known as the Paralysis Portal.

“This thread tears through every single layer of The Omniverse. The only escape you’ll have is… The end of your existence.”

Voltaze raised his closed fist in a climatic fashion. Without mercy, he plunged Styra, Cherry, Eternika, and Peppie inside.

“No one will miss you, Judgment Warriors,” he said with a monstrous smile on his face.

Inside the Paralysis Portal, rushing hues of red abominations plastered the entire view as Styra’s mind fought through the time trance after it learned to do so before when Amethion had done it to her.

By being awake, Eternika was also able to see where they were headed.

Not long after, the immunity kicked in as the duo worked together to save both Cherry and Peppie from imminent doom by creating a Kra Forcefield for all of them.

“What do we do now?” asked Eternika during the drop down.

Styra, thinking on this question, knew she would have the ability to manipulate time inside the portal to lead them somewhere else. Their only option, rather than go straight back to Animearth where they wouldn’t even stand a chance, was one candy planet in particular…

Tartropolatté.