「𖤓」An Inverted Image「𖤓」

2055 AD, Dimension Y-062, Earth

A red ocean’s tide shifted upon the shore of the once vibrant Hawaii. The ebb and flow never calmed, the water slowly ensnared Sky, who was curled up on the shore. The island had become uninhabited after a catastrophe happened years earlier. Sky thought about what she’d done, and what she’d planned to do. She stood, a commemorative shirt from one of her concerts stained red. Paradoxically, a tattoo on her left thigh had a symbol of waves crashing. Two waves stacked upon one another. There was a red, thorny bracelet on her right hand that painfully sunk into her skin. Occasionally, blood would drip from the area as if the bracelet had a life to it. Like a crown of thorns leaching into her skin. These symbols hid memories of her past relationships. All gone.

A voice whispered to her from the inside of her mind. “I thought you were supposed to be some sort of superhero. Can you only sing, human? Where is the bloodlust? The fight?”

Sky spoke out loud. There was nobody to hear her for miles. “I’m playing the only cards I have left.”

The demon living inside of her was called Ranuk. The bracelet around her hand was a form of a “soul bond”, a predatory deal that demons often make to force themselves out of irrelevancy. Gravity began to distort around Sky, causing her long, blonde hair to attain a sudden formlessness as it floated freely around her head. The light from all around was formed into a concentrated ball of burning energy Sky used to warm her body from the cool breeze of the shifting climate. Her powers allowed her to take the light from her surroundings and manifest it into pure energy. Thus her superhero alias, Stardust.

The sand began to shift behind Sky. With a bright flash, a woman appeared before her. The image of long, flowing pink hair and an eyepatch with an infinity symbol embedded within immediately made her recognize her adversary. Jackie, a member of the Dimension Regulation Units. Jackie and D.R.U. became like wardens over Sky's life once she found her own ability to slice open holes in dimensions. For some reason, of all the dimensional anomalies that Jackie had dealt with, she had a particular distaste for Sky. Sky was swallowed by Jackie's shadow. Her red-clad uniform made her blend in with the sea, and the stains of blood on Sky's shirt suddenly made her extra guilty. She was on her feet now, staring at Jackie, waiting for the onslaught.

"Sky. You jumped multiple dimensions not too long ago. Anything to say? You want to tell me what happened?" Jackie questioned with a smile. Sky already knew that she knew what had happened, she only reveled in hearing Sky repeat it.

Sky ignored and asked her own question. "Did you read the dimensions I jumped to?"

"Tell me what happened." She demanded threateningly.

Sky spoke like she was recalling a dream. Her words came out with little weight behind them. She explained like a guilty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "People came into the Legion's base of operations. I got to watch as every single one of them was killed. It was like clockwork for the attackers. I hid because I was scared to fight. I knew what would happen if they found me. So I jumped dimensions."

"Where'd you jump?"

"Your home dimension." Sky spoke up, trying to sound stronger than she was.

________________________________________________________________________

Hours earlier

Sky watched her heroes die. Were they heroes? Why did they die so fast? She’d been splattered with the blood of Godson, a superhero among heroes. She killed the attacker just as fast as he was ambushed. It was a young girl with metahuman abilities who Sky immediately and instinctually blew the head off of. She didn’t realize what she’d done until after it happened and the smell of singed flesh was in the air. Her senses failed her as the rest of the members of the team were butchered by a woman with a monster inside of her. Her instincts took her over. She wasn’t the strong woman she’d projected onto the world, she was a scared child playing dress-up with strangers. She did the only thing she could think to do, and sent herself nose-diving into a dimension away from her own.

As soon as Sky opened the portal she knew she was committing the cardinal sin. The one thing she could never do without true consequences. DRU would come after her. Jackie would track her down and kill her, or worse. The last time she used her power, she sent an adversary to a different dimension, causing DRU to clean up her mess. Thus, she was given her last warning. DRU as an organization was obsessed with order. Keeping everyone in their home dimension to halt the chaos of a hungry universe. Sky herself was a direct contradiction of that order due to her power of dimensional slicing. She fell into a dimension filled with colors that bombarded her senses, making the thoughts rushing to her mind even harder for her to process. She needed a bargaining chip, and the perfect one came to mind. She heard Ranuk begin to laugh in the cracks of her thoughts.

“Wow, Sunshine! I had no idea you would even think of this!”

Sky ignored Ranuk and took out an old model of DRU’s dimensional scanner. It looked similar to a Gameboy or a calculator. She typed in the name of a dimension and immediately jumped to the location.

_______________________________________________________________________

2055 AD, Dimension P-100, Earth

Ranuk chirped, “so how do you plan on doing this? You know where they live, right? I have some techniques in mind if you’d like to consult me!”

“I don’t take any pride in this! You know it’s because I have no better option!” Sky scolded Ranuk, her thoughts running wild. Using the sun’s energy to dance above the clouds, she flew above a village full of poor-folk. The dimension seemed somewhat behind the times, in a medieval sort of middle-ground between industry and god-like worship.

Sky thought about various ways to maim someone’s family. Or even ways to threaten Jackie with the truth. However, there was a truer answer that stood glaring her in the face. Don’t threaten an anonymous family that was likely impossible to find, simply threaten the world itself. These dark thoughts took root and seeded in her mind like parasites. She’d not even processed the blood on her body, or the shivers the night sky sent down her spine. Her hand glowed an ephemeral white, and she cut through the air as if the world had become two dimensional. She cut a large, white slice across the surface of the dimension. She began to think about those she missed as she made the dimensional rip larger.

Before she’d made the big-leagues of the Legion, she was part of a group that carried itself less on the boastfulness of being “heroes” and more on the values of doing what was right no matter the cost.

The waves on her legs shivered as she thought of Atalanta. She was likely living happily with her son in up-state New York. She was an old, slightly vulgar woman who dragged her along to go bar-hopping on her twenty-first birthday. At the end of the day Sky was ogling at Atalanta’s water-based tattoos she’d received during the civil war in the 2020s. She begged Atalanta to let her get a tattoo because she would see to it that it was done right. Atalanta humored her. She paid for the tattoo at the end of the day, and stayed at home with Sky during the agonizing tattoo recovery period. It meant there was no use of powers permitted, because heating up her own skin would likely ruin the job Atalanta “overpaid” for.

The only one she didn’t have a physical marker to remind herself of her presence was Kara. She remembered the first day she met Kara. She was tenderly watering an expansive flower garden she’d been building over thousands of years. Kara was an immortal ark of vast human knowledge. Sky imagined that Kara would be like other immortals she’d seen on film. Uncaring, tired, and hateful towards the world. Kara saw the love in the world, and she went out of her way to enjoy every second with those she considered close, because she would always live longer than them.

This time, Sky lived longer than Kara. She died when heroes were cited as terrorists and delinquents by the American government. They overturned the war on heroes, at the cost of many lives, including Kara’s. It was a waste of history, love, and remembrance.

Sky wondered what her old friends would think.

_______________________________________________________________________

2055 AD, Present, Dimension Y-062, Earth

On the ground next to Sky was a suitcase that Jackie recognized. It appeared industrial and all-knowing. Sky stood up to Jackie, almost shaking. Jackie passively waited for a response from Sky-her hand gliding over a futuristic firearm at her side.

Sky began to explain, “Violet Goslov betrayed DRU in 2045. She uploaded an AI of her consciousness into Pandora’s box. It means I’ve had access to various swaths of your data.”

Sky absorbed the energy around her. She rose above Jackie, standing over the crashing waters of the red ocean. Sky mouthed an apology to her friends and made a gigantic slice in space-time. Jackie flipped the handgun up and aimed it directly at Sky’s head. Like a premonition, she felt the heat from Jackie’s threat heat up in her forehead.

“Before you shoot, listen to me!” Sky half-yelled, her voice cracking and slowly failing.

The ocean began to boil. The tide rose, and waves crashed like lightning. It began to part as Sky turned the ocean into a seering mass of fire. Jackie decided against shooting, because at this range Sky would likely move out of the way. She was impressed with her enemy. For once, she had a plan, and a desperate one.

She pulled a mass of fire from the ocean. She held a small sun above her head. The fury pulsating from the blazing storm could likely scorch the entire island of Hawaii. She held it over the dimensional rip she’d created. Jackie could peer through it like a window. She recognized the pollution in the air, the people wearing rags for clothes. It was her home-dimension.

Sky’s voice became shrill as she threatened Jackie, “I found out about your original dimension. I’m not sure even your master knows about this. You have a family. Stay away from me, and I’ll stay away from you.”

“You’re going to scorch my old home?” Jackie questioned. It came out like a trick question. She was testing Sky.

“I could do it at any time. J-Just stay away from me! I won’t travel dimensions. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

Jackie put her gun away, and made her voice heard as she turned away, “I should’ve jailed you when I had the chance. You would’ve been so useful to us.”

Ranuk laughed as Sky let the tornado of flame fall into the ocean. She watched Jackie open a portal and disappear in a flash. Sky’s heart beat like a jackhammer. Something made her feel sick, and yet she felt thrilled at the same time. She flew through the air watching the red ocean slowly fade into the blue she was accustomed to.

“You make an old demon proud, Sunshine.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Rousing shouts and screams came from the door to Sky’s house. Galvanizing explosions of hope, fear, and passion poured from adoring fan’s mouths. As a superstar, she was larger than life. She was no longer the meek, reserved Sky Sako. She was a superhero-slash-popstar named Stardust. She bent the light around her to teleport into her home without making a sound, or alerting any paparazzi.

Sky’s house was nothing like her old homes. She’d lived in multiple suburban neighborhoods with her family, and later a run-down office in a strip-mall. Sky’s fame took off in 2051, when she and many other heroes were painted as villains by the corrupt government, when they were overturned, Sky was seen as a phenomenon. She’d posted some covers of popular songs on a bottom-barrel internet site that suddenly took off in popularity due to her involvement in the public eye. She couldn’t go outside without being asked about her life. Eventually, she grew tired of the fanfare and simply gave in. Her fame made it effortless to buy an excellent studio apartment in full for herself and her parents, who were getting to be in their fifties.

Beyond the muffled voices, her footsteps echoed across the empty rooms. The apartment was just barely furnished. All she had were the essentials. A bed to sleep in, a living room, and a kitchen set. For years, she’d left unopened boxes of her personal belongings stacked in her bedroom corner. She remembered the hours she’d often spend incessantly rearranging her various display items at her old room in her parents house.

Hot water poured over her head. Washing off the stink of sand and blood. She imagined the crowd outside hearing the pipes running, imagining the noise outside getting louder so they could get word on the traumatic experience she’d just gone through.

She wanted to make herself cry. But she couldn’t cry for those people who lost their lives. They knew what was on the line. It was like she witnessed it at a distance, like a violent cartoon. She would go to the weekly board meetings, participate in missions, and train together. It was more like she’d just heard about her friends who she went to the club with every other week were killed. Sure, it was scary, but there was something relieving about it. A relief of duty? No.

“Why didn’t I fight?” She questioned in her head.

Since she’d watched Kara and Freya die, nothing had been right.

Ranuk began to talk to her. She looked in the reflection of the shower door, where she saw his physical body shaded in black. Whether or not he was happy, he always had a sinister smile on his face. He had two eyes that were black slits, and a third eye that looked more human-like on his forehead. All these features were condensed on a head that was more like a rectangle or a trapezoid.

His voice was raspy, deep, and nasally. “What are all these feelings for, Sunshine? Let me remind you of our bond. If you were to die, you’d resurrect. Of course, I’d use your powers to escape to a new dimension and do whatever I please, but the fact still remains that you would be sitting pretty among all those dead guys if you just stayed up there and fought. Are you worried about what I might do?”

“You’re just asking me all these questions so I think about them and you get the answer to them. DRU would probably apprehend you as soon as you escape. You keep telling me the soul bond we made was a gift. So…I guess I’m trying to treat it like one.”

Ranuk ignored her and began to rehearse he and Sky’s thoughts. “Whoever is coming after you knows how to break the security of your little friends’ base. Nobody has ever been able to achieve such a feat. Which means…”

“They probably know my home address…”

Sky jumped from the shower and haphazardly put on clean clothes. She wandered up the stairs to the roof of her apartment with her phone to her ear. She pretended to prattle on about a made-up story. Her voice was loud and filled with a fake anger. The sound of the voices came in her direction, and she successfully flew into the air, being sure her fans took notice of her. She flew as if she was a carrot on a stick, and her devotees followed obediently. She landed in a more public area, where the paparazzi finally caught up to her. A barrel-shaped man pointed a microphone in her direction, asking for her updates.

“Stardust! Have you heard the news of the assassination on Legion headquarters!? Are you okay? Would you like to come with us to the police station?”

“Well…I’m quite shaken up, yes. But…”

A minority of voices spoke up that were much louder than the rest. “What will you do? Can we help? Let us help, Sky! Everyone is scared and we don’t know what to do!”

Another voice, “Sky, I have a background in computer science, I want to track these guys down as much as you do!”

More voices. It was a cacophony of questions all aimed at her. Most of all, with the tattered United States Government, the Legion was what kept an eye on threats. Now, the only person left to protect everyone was her, and it was her fans who came to her first offering their bodies and spirits to any cause she would endorse.

Her voice finally flickered to life, “I say we do whatever we can to find these people! If they think they can surprise us, they have another thing coming!”

_______________________________________________________________________

2050 AD, 5 Years Ago, Dimension Y-062, Earth

A demon, an immortal, and a metahuman. A voyeur, a nomad, and a rising star. Sky peered into the back of Kara’s skull as she hurriedly followed her. Sky’s comrade was in a panicked state as they ran through the woods and towards the nearby beach.

This was something that Freya liked to do. Sky had lived with Freya for years after the Sentinels disbanded. They’d opened a private practice called “Heaven and Hell PMC”. They would protect clients, track threats, and on occasion stop potential dangerous entities. Part of Sky knew that she wasn’t exactly the version of Sky that Freya knew.

Sky’s transition into the dimension was rough. The Sky she knew, the Sky who was herself was born in 2029 to unknown parents. The Sky who Freya and Kara originally knew was the Sky native to the dimension who was born in 2005. She was essentially killed the same year of Sky’s birth, causing ripples through dimensions. Sky Sako, as a baby, was kidnapped by Jackie and moved over to dimension Y-062 as a bandaid fix.

Jackie's been a silent, threatening presence in Sky's life. Better yet, there was a confusing fear that came with being an essential perfect clone of the original Sky. When Kara and Freya eventually met her and heard of her existence, they didn’t see an individual, they saw a lost friend.

Apparently she had similarities and differences to her dimensional counterpart, but overall Kara treated her like she was someone new. Despite her demonic lineage, Freya acted like a mentor to Sky. It was like a cyclical repeat of the past. Freya’d grown close with the old Sky, even starting a private superhero practice with her. Years later, the same thing happened. Again, she grew close with Sky to the point that they started a private superhero practice together.History’s repeat did not stop the disarray of life. Sky had to finish school, find a home, and find her place in life. As she followed Kara, she realized her place was almost “found” for herself.

Kara was a physical monolith of human history. She was living in the fourth millennium before christ. She was alive for the birth of writing, the building of the pyramids, and all human wars. Sky knew her as a true mentor who’d accepted her status as an immortal woman.

Crack!

Sky tripped over a large stump in the ground, face-planting on her face. Running came second to flying now that she’d been so used to having her powers. Freya turned around, she held a stick that doubled as a cane for herself. Sky climbed up it to get to her feet. Kara’s hand danced over a bruise on her cheek. Part of her face was scarred by fire. Her split black and white hair wrapped around her plump face, highlighted by large eyes that always had a stinging air of curiosity.

“Are you okay, Sky? We can always go back if…” Kara began to ask.

“We’re almost there, no need to use powers. We were trying to stay quiet, right?”

“Hop on then.” She half joked, offering her back to Sky. “You’re so used to flying that you lost your ability to run, silly.”

Kara piggy-backed Sky to the nearby ocean, where Freya was laying. A sword was brushed up and down as the tide shifted. Sky picked it up as Kara helped Freya to her feet. She’d been beaten nearly half-to death. She was a shorter, angry woman with fiery blonde hair. Her face had been heavily bruised and bloodied. Sky landed herself on the other side of Freya, helping to support her weight.

Her voice came out slurred and cracky, “did I beat him..? Tell me I beat him.”

“Seems like you lost. It’s alright, you’ll try again.” Kara admitted with a sigh.

This was the third time it had happened in Sky’s immediate memory. Freya was born native to Hell, a pure demon in a family of wardens who tortured its denizens. She was disgusted by what she saw as a child. Naturally, it led to a defiance of her father, and a lifetime of abuse, battles, and resistance.

The two girls laid Freya on the couch inside of Kara’s house. It was a small cabin hidden deep in the woods. The smell of smoke suffocated the house at the cost of a comfortable room-temperature. Sky had called Kara after Freya had suddenly made the decision to go to hell to confront her father. It seemed like something drummed up family drama, causing Freya to make a somewhat arrogant decision to travel to confront her father in person. If she didn’t die, it would mean Sky would have to care for her herself, which she wasn’t confident enough to do.

She called Kara, pulling her from her space duties. After the Sentinels disbanded, Kara traveled to space to see new worlds and help those in need. Despite being distant, she was a call away (though the reception in space is not very good). Demons are anatomically different from humans, and Kara’s thousands of years of knowledge had afforded her a good grasp on how to care for Freya when she injured herself. Kara looked her over, strategically feeling around her body for severe injuries. Kara unlocked a chest that was hidden deep inside of a closet, she cradled some candles, which she placed around Freya’s body.

“Can you…pick her up?” Kara asked, disgusted at what she had to do. Sky pulled Freya’s unconscious body off of the couch as Kara laid a large white tarp over her couch.

“I shouldn’t have pulled you away from Mars. I could’ve done all this myself…” Sky repented, Kara looked up with a melancholy smile.

“Mars can wait. I’m always happy to see your face, Sky. I’m not a demon, but I was born as a human with demon blood. My guts sure aren’t as weird as Freya’s, but some part of me is.”

“Well…What’s the tarp for then?”

“It’ll stop the mess.” Kara responded with a motion for Sky to step back.

“...The mess?”

Kara laid Freya over the tarp and snapped her fingers over the candles, which were arranged in a triangular formation around her. As she snapped, a red, demonic energy lit the candles and created a fine, red mist in the air. Kara held her arm above Freya’s mouth. She picked up a knife she’d laid on the side-table. With one quick slash, she sliced a hole in her wrist, pouring blood into Freya’s mouth. Blood spattered off of Freya and onto the tarp, sparing Kara’s house from becoming a preverbal crime scene. The cut she’d made in her arm quickly sealed itself up, and Kara sat down with Sky.

“We just have to let her rest for a little while. Taking in the fumes will help her get better. Since demons have nine hearts, they have to circulate a lot more blood to function. I hope that will help her.” Kara explained.

“Pfft. What would I do without you?”

“With all the insane things you deal with? probably nothing.” Kara joked.

They stepped outside, away from the stench of the demonic smoke. Kara seemed to be taking in the scenery of Earth, since she’d been away for so long.

“Well?” Kara started, preparing a question. “It’s been five years. Where’s the updates? In the time I was gone you would’ve…finished school, gotten a job, had your first drink, maybe a boyfriend? Come on! Give me the details!”

Sky chuckled. Her eyes immediately turned to look at Freya through the window, “After school, Freya seemed pretty adamant to keep protecting people like The Sentinels did. So we opened this private practice. We investigate crime, stop crime, and beat the bad guys down.”

Kara was pensive. She wobbled to and fro like she was weightless. She looked Sky up and down as she continued. Her eyes traveled to Sky, then to the clouds. Back and forth.

“Sky. I know it feels important to protect people. I’m sure there are plenty of people who’ve been saved because of Freya and yourself. At the same point, you’re repeating history. Sure, I see you as Sky. But there will always be parts of Freya and I that see you as the old Sky. It sure is an issue I’ve never faced in my long life. I want you to know that you should be one-hundred percent certain that you are choosing your own destiny. It’s you who shapes you. Not the image of you we have in our heads.”

Now Sky was silent. She’d already been reflecting on these exact thoughts. Her individuality was clouded by someone she barely had any relationship with.

“I heard this in a poem once. Kill the shadow. It refers to the idea of destroying someone’s past self in social circles. Even though you have your own consciousness, there’s this shadow that everyone casts over you wherever you go. It’s how others see you. Don’t let that image-the shadow, let you make the wrong decision.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Sky asked.

“A supervillain.”

Sky laughed, believing that she was joking, but Kara’s expression didn’t break.

“It’s quite a silly name. Darkstar. We had to face him some time ago. He killed a close friend of mine. He would kill anybody to achieve his goal, and he sure shook us. It’s why we disbanded in the first place. After he…” She trailed off, now remembering distant traumas.

“What happened to him?”

Kara’s cheery persona slipped. She was ashamed to respond with, “I don’t know.”

_______________________________________________________________________

2055 AD, Present, Dimension Y-062, Earth

Sky answered the plethora of calls from concerned friends and family. Her parents called her only to answer the phone crying to Sky on the other line. They’d genuinely thought she’d been snuffed out by her attackers. They begged her to quit the superhero life, but she knew too well that it wasn’t close to over. Even if she did quit, it wouldn’t tear the target off of her back. It was now that Sky had her fans doing anything she would ask. The type of power she harnessed began to feel intoxicating. She hadn’t mobilized any of them yet. She had no idea what to do or where to look.

Sky was on the precipice of change.

Her small group of Stardust supporters boiled down to a group of techies scrolling on computers. She’d asked them to see if they could find the identity of any of her attackers. As she wandered the streets, waiting to see if anyone would show themselves, she would be swarmed by fans. They questioned her and her activities.

“C’mon Sky! Let us know your next move! Will you be quitting superheroing?”

“Don’t worry, I’m hard at work at something new. I’ll let you guys in on something that the press can’t know.” She whispered to the group of college students, “I think the government could be involved. Part of me is scared that they’re trying to take power again…”

She flew away with a friendly wave. She expected that crime would worsen now that one of the most important groups of superheroes was snuffed out, but the streets and world stayed undeniably silent. It was like the game ended and she was the only one left playing it. The government had sectioned itself off into various branches. There was a new structure in Tallahassee, the city where she’d bought her apartment. It was simply called the “spire”.

Upon returning to her friends, she was met with good news. She walked into the secret base to see her fans celebrating something. It was a dark room she’d rented out and bought some bean bag chairs for. She’d supplied each of them with a computer so they could work their magic. She smiled at all of them as they knocked some beers back.

“What’s the celebration for?” She questioned.

“We found her! One of our would-be attackers!”

“Holy fuck, is that who I think it is?”

“I don’t recognize her.”

On the computer they surround, there’s a picture in black and white of an actor. It’s a stereotypical, alluring image of a woman from the nineteen-fifties. Her hair is messy but not too messy, her outfit eye-catching, but not so eye-catching that she’d be cat-called.

“That is Moria Epoch. I don’t know how, but she seems to have been brought here from the past. Time travel isn’t much of a stretch, right?”

Sky caressed her chin. “...Someone could’ve plucked her from another dimension too. Good work guys!”

“It’s our pleasure. Are you going to do the hero thing and have an epic final battle with Moria now? She must be one evil bitch if she was able to take down most of the Legion.”

Sky thought about her shadow-self. She hadn’t thought about what exactly she was going to do once she found the identity of her attacker. Would she kill them? Turn them into the police? None of the options seemed suitable to her.

“Maybe she’s responsible for the attack, but it doesn’t mean she’s the mastermind. Can I get more of a complete image of her? What was she famous for?”

“Moria was an actor and model. Born in the heart of Los Angeles, she was bred to be a star. She made plenty of money from her movies and modeling career. In nineteen-fifty one she was arrested because she killed her husband. Her followers rioted in the streets for her, claiming that he was an abuser and she had no choice. Either way, the case became so big that the only people who were left who didn’t know about it got her thrown in jail. I’m not sure why, but she ended up commiting suicide while she was in there. Maybe it was guilt?”

What she saw in the shadows was not an actor. It was a demon. She watched it eat members of the Legion. If it was truly Moria in her presence, she had something that surprised her team within. A demon. She later deduced that it was a hunger demon based on its behavior.

_______________________________________________________________________

There were minimal demons who resided in the United States. It was deduced that Sky’s fans would hack into an old United States database to scan for demonic energy. She insisted that she should pay them, but all they wanted was rare collector’s items from her Overture tour. The men who worked for her ranged in age. The oldest was in his forties, and was let go when the Government had massive lay-offs. According to him, the government would often scan for metahuman signals using a satellite. They would expand the capabilities of the satellite to scan for demonic energy after the war in the 2020s.

Sky looked in the mirror at Ranuk. “Congrats. It looks like you won. If I die when I have to fight Moria, you might be set free.”

“How excited I am, Sunshine. You know how this ends, right?”

“Jackie. She’d never lay off even if I threatened her entire planet.”

“Why go through all that work of threatening her family then? It’s a pretty evil act for a superhero.”

“To show her I’m not a coward. They’ve been trying to push me around my entire life. It’s time they feel the same thing I feel. I wouldn’t actually scorch her planet.” Sky insisted, putting her hair up.

“What if she called your bluff?”

Snap. She stretched and smacked her hair tie into place, turning away from the mirror.

Sky looked at her phone. A notification sounded, notifying her of the scan’s completion. She had a short window of time to track down Moria. It helped that Sky was picked up on the scanner as a demon due to her bracelet and Ranuk’s presence. She rocketed through the air, searching for the glowing red dots on her scanner.

When she wanted, Sky could fly at mach speeds using the everlasting power of the sun as her battery. She felt weightless as she saw wheat fields shake from her speed. Moria could likely hear her coming due to the shattering of the sound barrier. A crackling, echo of a screech came as she increased her speed so she could cross from east to west.

It seemed Moria was alone. She was in the abandoned city of Santa Barraza. An unknown tragedy befell the city years ago. Nobody except the homeless and the occasional group of bandits lived within. Sky landed in the center of a frozen city. There was an old cafe on the street to her right with the windows burst out of it. Moria sat at one of the stools, holding a cup of black coffee. She seemed to not be paying attention to Sky’s presence.

“Moria Epoch.” She called, “you and your allies murdered the Legion. Why?” Sky was calm, and spoke with conviction in her voice. She was not letting Moria run.

She nearly spit out her coffee when she realized Sky was present. She looked like she was ready to be photographed even when she was quietly drinking coffee. Moria wore a red and white-dotted dress with red velvet gloves and heels to match. Her eyes were almost concealed with a sun hat. Her voice was quiet, crackly and soft. It pleasantly trailed through the air.

“Oh…How did you find me?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m asking the questions here.” Sky demanded, stepping close to her, looking through the metaphorical glass window.

“I killed them because I was asked to. I can’t exactly tell you more. I guess you would call her my “leader”. She wouldn’t want me to say anything anymore. Who are you anyway?”

“Ditz.” Sky thought. “I was there. I killed the girl with the explosion powers. I-I’ll kill you if you don’t start talking. I don’t care who your leader is.”

Moria looked up at Sky with a face of horror. It wasn’t fear of her. It was about what she’d done to the one with explosion powers and what it would mean. “You killed my leader’s daughter. She says she’s heard of you. She’s probably tracking your family right now. We had to stop the Legion because they were too powerful. You should run while you can. This conflict is above you. If my employer didn’t do it, Darkstar would’ve.”

Darkstar? Where had Sky heard that name?

Moria continued. It was a seemingly strewn together combination of words. By the way she slurred her voice, she could tell she didn’t even care enough to tell a lie. “My leader turns out to be my granddaughter. She’s caught in a struggle against Darkstar. Killing the Legion was making room. If anyone gets in our way, we’ll just kill them. We know about your family’s wareabouts. Friends, family, fans.”

Moria took out her phone. She read off an address. “Five-hundred and ten east sixth avenue. That’s your parents address, right? We’ll find your location just as you can find ours.”

Everything sunk in. She was trapped within a conflict of two malevolent forces. They knew who she was, what she would do, and who she had in her corner.

Her voice was shaky as she half-shouted at Moria, “why? What grand goal are you trying to achieve?”

Moria didn’t answer. Instead, she took it personally. “I have a demon inside of me. It ate my husband. Sure, I didn’t like him, but he didn’t deserve to be devoured. I can only taste the souls of humans. This coffee? I can’t taste it. I’ll starve without the blood and bones of a human. Do you know how it feels to be constantly starving?”

“So you’re with these people because you want to survive?”

“Aren’t you doing the same?”

Moria slid her cup of coffee to the side. She stood up and walked into the street. The wind beat against her pale locks. Sly puffs of smoke began to come from her mouth as she breathed. Sky’s anxiety rose as her skin began to light up, waiting for a fight.

“I’m not really sure what my granddaughter wants. She insists she needs me. She insists I’ll hurt as little people as possible this way. After whatever is said and done, I can lose this hunger demon, and I can have a proper meal. I’m so tired of being beautiful. I’m going to completely lose myself. I’ll have sweets every morning till the end of time!”

A large mouth formed in the center of Moria’s stomach as what used to be her body was overtaken by a deep black. It was a large, smiling mass of malleable blood and skin. Perhaps Moria had been turned half-demon when she was taken over by this demon. Similar to Sky. Moria’s eyeliner ran as a watery tear came from one of her eyes. Her face seemed to lose any consciousness, all that was left was a demon with one directive; feed.

Sky was instantly surprised when she jumped forward at her with a newfound strength. The wind distorted around her as Moria effortlessly shifted her weight into Sky’s center. Dust and grime came lifting from the ground, implanting itself into Sky’s hair as she was sent flying. She shifted her own gravity and broke her fall on the skyscraper at the end of the street. She shattered all the glass that lined the building, creating a tight-rope of scaffolding. Glass fell around her like a snowstorm. Light bouncing off the shards created a brief darkness as Sky absorbed all the light around her.

She fired a beam of light that nearly overtook the city block. It would’ve turned Moria into a mass of dust on the street, but her newfound strength allowed her to jump out of the way of Sky’s blast.

“You’ve got to be willing to put it all on the line, Sunshine.”

“Fine. You want me to die, I’ll die for you, Ranuk.”

Sky fired herself off directly into Moria. She delivered a strike directly into her chest. Instead of feeling skin directly against skin, she felt her arm sink into the maw of a demon. It was like slamming her arm into a woodchipper. Her arm simply disappeared into the void that was Moria’s chest.

“Focus on the light.”

Sky closed her eyes. In the moment, the pain became simply another aspect of her. She began to absorb light from every surface around her. Sun rays, electricity, lightbulbs. With her free arm, she forced Moria’s head to the ground. She unloaded a blast directly into Moria, shattering the structure of the cafe beside them and incinerating the very ground below them into a deplorable pit of lava. It left a gigantic crater in the ground, and Moria’s body slowly came back to normal, letting go of Sky’s arm, misshapen beyond belief.

Moria’s voice was no different from before, “What now? Kill me? Take your revenge? People like you pretend to be good when you are just as deplorable as the rest of us.”

“Well…You said you were tired of being hungry all the time. How’s that for mercy?”

“It can be whatever you want to call it.”

Sky hardened the light in the air. A piece of diamond floated down from the air. She let it dance around in her hand before slashing it across Moria’s neck. She hated the idea of leaving an unrecognizable body for nobody to find. Once she was found, her death would hopefully set off alarms for this mysterious party.

Once the pain faded in, Sky began to feel the world close in on her. She imagined eyes from all around watching her. Cameras hidden from afar buildings spying on her actions. She was too known. Too public. If it wasn’t Moria who killed her, who next?

Sky knelt down and gently closed Moria’s eyes. She shed her coat from her back and laid it over her lifeless body. “Ranuk. I have a question. The soul bond requires that I die. So…I have two shots at life. Would that be right?”

“I guess if we are technically speaking, that would be correct.”

“Could I…transfer that life? Revive someone. You’d get set free, and I’d be back to my normal self.”

“There’s no demon handbook that says I can’t, and I like you. So I would be willing to take up that deal if you like. Of course, I’m a demon, and I’ll be set free to cause havoc in a multitude of dimensions. How would you like that?”

“It's not like I have a choice.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Sky stood by the Red Ocean, once again. This time, she’d come by boat. Like before, the ocean boiled as something came up from below the surface. It was a rocky, bloody egg. It was taller than Sky and took on a faint red glow. Sky’s bracelet disappeared from her mangled arm, and she let out paradisical cries she’d been holding in for much longer than she knew as the demon energy spread throughout her body. Her broken arm was covered in a snake-like red material, similar to the egg. It began to burn as Sky sucked through her teeth.

Her skin slowly settled, and in place of her once shattered arm, was a new, demonic appendage. It was a deep red, spiky demon arm and hand. Her hand had become spindly, with a claw made for scooping out intestines. It was hideous. Yet, it felt like a fitting punishment.

“Thank me for the new arm.” Ranuk parted.

A red energy exited her body, creating a slice in space and time, jumping to another dimension. She looked towards the demonic egg. A letter set on the shore just out of reach from the tide. With a flash of yellow, ethereal light, Jackie appeared behind Sky.

“We’ve got DRU agents surrounding your parents house. We aren’t afraid to round up those fans too. You knew this was coming. So why the hell’d you do it?” Jackie questioned, seemingly disappointed.

“Because I’ve outgrown my use to the world.”

Jackie slipped cuffs onto Sky’s arms and pushed her through the portal.

As the beach was vacated, the colossal egg cracked open, revealing the body of a human within. It was Kara. Her nude body fell to the ground. Perhaps it was a joke from Ranuk that she retained the burns she’d sustained thousands of years ago. She awoke on the beach as if waking from a long nap. She was horrified by the red ocean. Believing that maybe this was the dream she needed to wake from. She found the letter on the shore.

“Kara. I’m sorry to wake you like this. It seems like I only ask for your help when I need it. It’s now that I bring you back from the grave to clean up my mess. A plan by Darkstar is being put in motion, and I have no idea what it is. The heroes that were protecting the planet are dead. I don’t expect you to stop the war, but I’m counting on you to figure out what’s happening. I was in a corner. Please understand. By the time you are reading this I’m likely in DRU custody. If I ever free myself, I’ll find you ASAP. You are untraceable and unknown to the world. You’re an old hero thought dead. Even if you don’t rise up, remember humanities struggle, and hopefully we can start anew someday. Something big is coming, and I wasn’t strong enough to face it on my own. I’m sorry.”

-Sky

_______________________________________________________________________

Kara sat in the boat newly adorned with fresh clothes. She watched as the city of Santa Barraza came into view. She walked through the tattered ruins. A bygone society in a world of living societies, avoiding the cursed city. A TV flickered from a store as Kara made her way through. She saw the headline, “STARDUST FANATICS ATTACK THE SPIRE. FEDERAL STATE TO RAISE SECURITY”

Kara couldn’t believe what she was reading.

“Sky…What happened?”

End.