✧ Chapter 56 ✧

Upon directing the portal to take them there, they immediately fell onto multiple bouncy colorful gelatin trees before sticking a proper landing.

This woke up both Cherry and Peppie out of their time trances too.

“Am I dreaming?” questioned Cherry.

“I hope not, cause this place looks a lot like Jelly Jungle,” replied Peppie.

Both Styra and Eternika were glad to see that she recognized what this place was. It meant they had to be in the right world for sure.

“Surprise! We’re in Tartropolatté! You’re back home now Peppie!” exclaimed Styra with glee.

The small red bunny stared around with joy. Uncontrollably hugging Styra’s face, she was beyond stunned at the fact that everything was back exactly as she remembered it. Even with that making her more happier than ever, there was a certain sadness that came from it as well.

“I wish your other friends could’ve seen this place…” she said with tears of something pink coming from her eyes.

“Woah, woah, woah! What is that?!” yelled Styra as she had never seen something like this before.

“According to the game manual’s character guide, Peppie can cry tears of any sort of sweet drink depending on the mood. I believe that is pink lemonade for when she is sad,” stated Cherry.

Feeling bad about what happened, Styra decided to initiate a better idea that had been in her head for awhile.

“It’s going to be difficult for all of us. Aoki, Miri, and Hiroto didn’t deserve what happened back there. Returning isn’t necessarily going to do us any favors if Voltaze is there though. We need a way to make sure they are alright. Eternika, maybe you can teleport the surviving members of our team here too?”

“I can try and see if I can narrow down their locations to the convention center we were at. If they are somewhere else entirely though, I am going to be unable to do anything. I have never visited this planet we are on right now before so I cannot pinpoint where we even are. Layers of The Omniverse are categorical yet sophisticated in nature when it comes to determining a base reality to an alternate one,” disclosed Eternika.

As the weapon mustered up the power within itself, Solar Ninja and Chelbie appeared in front of them.

“Aughhh! Why the hell is everything so pink and bright all of da sudden?! And that sugary smell?! Yuck!” yelled Chelbie as she had a hard time comprehending what had just occurred.

“Your shouting isn’t making my arm feel any better…” mentioned Solar Ninja out of irritation.

“Well you talking about your arm isn’t making me feel any better either…” muttered Chelbie under her breath.

Although Styra was enthusiastic about seeing that Kade and Chelbie were alright, she was concerned at not seeing Flight or Hisa at all. The same could’ve been said for Snowflake and Compass.

With the two new arrivals coming to terms about where they were, the loud sounds attracted a lanky-looking figure that was peeking and crawling around through the gelatin bushes.

Cherry, who was closest to the noises, patted Styra on the shoulder to get her attention.

“Styra… I think we have a problem…”

Everyone glared behind themselves at what Cherry was telling her about. From their perspective, a tall humanoid being stood up out of curiosity at what it was seeing. It wore puffy white mittens that had a red lining decorating the middle and white boots with blue cuffs that sported a peppermint symbol on the sides of its heels. The creature’s body was made up of lollipop sticks and a swirling peppermint-flavored lollipop head with no visible face present.

While mostly everyone got defensive, Peppie was filled with delight when she turned around to see who it was.

“Mister Lollipop!”

Mister Lollipop began to speak with a country accent similar to a stereotypical carnival dealer.

“Golly Gee, if it isn’t Peppie herself! Whaddaya doing out here at a time like this?”

“It’s a really, really long story... All you need to know is that these new friends of mine helped me make it back here and we’re about to visit Princess Candiere. Why are you out here in the Jelly Jungle?”

“Swell that you asked that! I was just strolling around Lollipop Treetops wearing my sweet fedora hat that the princess sent me as a birthday present. I was going to send a letter about it to the mail guy, when those forsaken gummy monkeys snatched the gift and my letter! I saw them heading over here, but I’d be dandy to say it’s probably lost forever.”

Solar Ninja began to groan out of annoyance from what was happening.

“Sorry to hear that, but we can’t be going on side quests for a fedora hat when The Omniverse is being threatened. Not only that, my sister is captured by Voltaze and now we have no way of knowing what has happened to her or anyone else that was helping us.”

Thinking about the intertwined situations, Styra realized that there was someone else that would be a major help to them if done right.

“Wait, that’s it! Eternika, remember how you said Cherry was the key?”

The weapon was confused by this out-of-pocket response she suggested.

“Perhaps… She needs training though, so I do not exactly see what you are getting at?”

“We can split roles. Here’s how we could do this. You can communicate between our new two units. Chelbie and Kade can go to Diamondion’s castle which is where the shard that powers Compass is hidden. If you insert it back into that machine, it would be able to fix Kade a new arm and Chelbie’s boots. Are you guys with me on this so far?”

Kade nodded his head in agreement as it would technically help him achieve a reasonable goal. Chelbie however, seemed a bit nervous about it.

“Uhhh Styra… I’m literally in bad shape. How is that going to work out?”

“Good point… Fortunately, the both of you can travel in a Kra Forcefield. Kade can get the shard and you can alert him about any dangers that you see. Fair game?”

Chelbie gave Styra a thumbs up as the plan sounded foolproof to her.

“Fair game.”

With the first unit’s plan out of the way, Eternika sent the two of them to Frostice while Styra explained the second unit’s role.

“Alrighty. Now as for you, Peppie, and I, we can train Cherry to catch those gummy monkeys and retrieve the fedora hat for Mister Lollipop as a goal. Once we’re done with that, we visit Princess Candiere so she can help us. Everyone cool with that?”

The majority of unit two seemed to agree, but Cherry was a tad bit worried about failing to catch the hat to begin with.

“I don’t know. I am more brains than brawn in a scenario like this…”

Styra, who understood how hard it was to train in preparation for something bigger, hugged Cherry as a way to comfort her.

“Remember the dream you told me about Cherry. It may not be millions of people or Ararima right now, but he really needs our help. This… Is your time to shine.”

In that moment, Cherry finally digested her fears out of reminding herself that it was true to a certain degree. Especially with Ararima in mind specifically.

“I’m ready,” she said with a boost of confidence in her heart.

∗ ∗ ∗

Flight and Hisa awakened with no idea of where they were after hearing something suspicious.

“You two are an interesting case…”

When the both of them woke up fully, they found themselves floating in the middle of The Singularity Stronghold. Voltaze stood with his back turned in an ominous way.

“What do you think got you both here?” he asked.

The question their enemy was asking made Flight curious. As a result, he decided to try and interrogate him to give Voltaze a taste of his own medicine.

“Can’t say I’d believe any reason you’d give. Why would you expect anything more?”

A small sarcastic chuckle came out of nowhere from Voltaze.

“What a way of telling me you don’t know how to interrogate someone. Your desperation is truly just as dry as your friends’ habitual ignorance.”

“We know you’re using The Eternal Lights to read our minds!” exclaimed Hisa.

“And? You’ve made it pretty clear you are scared to admit what I already know.”

“What are you even talking about?!”

Huffing with a smug laugh on his face that transformed him into a nightmarish entity, Voltaze accessed Ynadith’s collection of multiverses before narrowing it down to the universe where he destroyed StarSpace.

“I know where you come from. That is why we met to begin with. Then you were abandoned on another planet because a stupid guardian got insecure of their elite battling status. You can guess how that turned out…”

“How do you know all of that then?” asked Flight, who was still persistent on finding out what his motives were.

“You think you’re going to gain anything by asking that question. Jokes on you. Accept it, there is no hope for either of you at a time like this,” said Voltaze.

“Then why lock us up if you hate imprisonment? Doesn’t that make you hypocritical?”

Being asked this in particular, raised an abnormal level of aggression in the beast’s eyes as his hatred began to build.

“It’s only fair to give those that gave me torture to receive the same punishment. Omnikra believing that The Guardians Of The Omniverse are capable of changing is beyond fallible. If a weapon that I am supposed to wield is blinded by this mentality, that makes everyone that worships a deity just as sickening,” he said, alluding to the fact that his kind also mistreated him.

Both Flight and Hisa were beginning to relate with his statement. The Great Invasion was the most similar situation to this that affected their entire lives. Whoever orchestrated that war had to be basing it on a harmful belief that killed billions of innocent people on StarSpace beforehand.

“Voltaze… We know what that’s like. Things can change though. Like Omnikra renaming itself to Eternika for example. Flight and I have also suffered through The Great Invasion when we were little. It was a war we never had a choice in stopping until we grew up. My brother died at the hand of whoever sent those machines to our home. If we work together, we can change that. As a matter of fact, I’m almost more certain than anything now that it was UVOCA that tried to kill us.”

Thinking about their backstory, Voltaze started to empathize with them. Although, he was capable of seeing their side, he could only see his way of breaking The Omniverse as the right conclusion. By sending Eternika to The Lucid Light, he was starting to get impatient about not already getting the confirmation that it arrived there by now.

Checking The Eternal Light Of Time at once to affirm if they had completely made it through the Paralysis Portal, The Eternal Light instead notified him with one word:

Missing.

“What?! Impossible! How can that even happen?! You were supposed to know everything about their whereabouts dammit!” he yelled in a fit of rage.

A mutual silence filled The Singularity Stronghold until Flight attempted to suggest something new to reinforce their point from earlier.

“We told you before, things can change. That plan isn’t the best course of action. Think about every—”

Voltaze immediately grabbed Flight and Hisa by their necks as he began to reveal how broken he was inside.

“You two planned this from the start, didn’t you? Lying just to manipulate me. I know what I heard and I’m not going to let these guardians off the hook that easily. Fortunately, I have a new idea that will progress my plan. Creperus! Send Sapphirion to me!”

The moment he said this, The Guardian Of Darkness could be seen emerging from the burning atmosphere with a corrupted meshing of bright noisy colors that could be seen in its eyes. As for Sapphirion, he had been wrapped in one of its tentacles.

However, The Guardian Of Space did not look much like himself either. It was as if he was now infected with the same thing Creperus was.

“Since you both are ethereal hybrids, this should work just as intended,” said Voltaze.

Unable to move out of the gravitational hold, Flight and Hisa were each injected in the heart with Creperus’s tentacles. Their eyes began to fill with the same chaotic energy that affected the two guardians, causing them to lose a sense of self.

“Now… To figure out where the outcasts went,” whispered Voltaze to himself as he opened the interactive maps of every single multiverse at will by using The Eternal Light Of Darkness.