Chapter Text
Goma has been crying for possibly hours or even weeks; he couldn't tell...
The only other living being in the Shadow Kingdom, Goma's companion, licked his cheek in an attempt to comfort him. The purple boy glanced at him, giving him a soft smile.
"There has to be someone left...right?" he mumbled, "but...we would have seen them..."
His companion tilted his head and then nudged the diary in Goma's hands.
Goma looked at the diary and opened it again. "...They're still out there, right? Grandpa Spectre is still alive and the pirates too!" He wiped his tears into his glove and turned his attention back to the diary. He had to find out where the Spectral Space Pirates were.
He continued reading, starting with the day, the Space Pirates arrived back on the other planet.
"We came back to that planet," the entry read, "and weirdly, we were following an asteroid that was heading straight to the planet. What we didn't expect was what the impact would do to the ship."
————
Once the asteroid hit the surface, the ship was met with an explosion of light and when it died out, the four Kais found themselves in a huge colorful tunnel. The ship itself was transported somewhere...
What even was this place?
"This...this wasn't supposed to happen," Spectre mumbled.
"What the sky was supposed to happen then?" Foolscap asked frantically, "we flew into an explosion!"
"We were supposed to get what's inside that asteroid once it landed, the Cosmos Stones. This wasn't supposed to..."
Out of nowhere a big feathered creature made out of light formed in front of the ship, floating at the same pace as they were.
"What is it?" Gavro wondered.
"A parvaco? Or something..." Foolscap assumed.
"Maybe," Sheer exclaimed.
"Please...forget about the Cosmos Stones..." a mysterious voice said, presumably coming from the creature.
Sheer's eyes widened and her expression turned blank. "That voice..." she whispered. It was a sound that made her blood boil immediately.
I-it couldn't be...
"Sheer...you have to stop...now..."
"That thing knows you?" Gavro glanced at the pale Kai.
The black-haired panted, listening to that mysterious voice begging her.
All of a sudden, her body acted on her own; wings spread and she flew to Spectre, pushing him away from the controls. She sped the ship up, aiming at the creature, shattering it with the ship.
Once the light was gone, she finally realized what happened. Her heart was racing like crazy.
"What do you think you're doing?" Spectre snapped at her.
"S-sorry, boss..." Sheer backed away, looking at the floor, "t-that thing..."
In the place of the light creature, an exact copy, but dark, was formed soon.
"Another one?" Gavro murmured.
A voice spoke up, but this one was different, it was deep and steadier. "You did well not to listen to her. She only wants to deceive you."
"Zepar?" the green Kai recognized the voice.
"Okay, how many of these things do you two know?" Foolscap commented.
"What happened? Why did we end up here? What is this place?" Spectre questioned the creature.
"This is the time warp; a place that connects all of time and space. That's the power of the Cosmos Stones. ...I should have expected that. But there is still a way of getting them. Follow me..." the dark creature told them, flying into one of the holes in the tunnel.
Without hesitation, Spectre plotted the course after Zepar.
The colors around the ship soon disappeared and so did the dark feathered creature.
The ship was suddenly in space again, floating near a planet, but this was a different one. It seemed familiar, but it was gray and seemed dead...
The Space Pirates were staring, not sure where they were when a tall female body appeared in the room out of nowhere. Short brown hair, gray skin, dark marks on the face...
"Zepar?" Spectre called her.
The other three turned their attention to the woman, frozen in shock. How did she get there? Who was she?
Boss called her the same as that winged creature, so...that must mean that that thing is a Kai...
"What is this place? Why did you take us here?" Spectre asked her.
The woman looked at him and replied in a deep voice. "It's better if you see for yourselves."
The boss understood and set the course to the surface of the planet.
With the ship hovering near the surface, they all were teleported onto the planet and to their shock saw what was actually going on.
The place was indeed dead; all there was...was nothing but rubble from tall advanced buildings and homes, everything in complete ruins.
The Space Pirates couldn't keep their eyes from the destruction...
"Is this..." Gavro didn't dare to finish...it was too horrifying to be true.
"Our home..." Sheer breathed out instead.
"What...what is the meaning of this Zepar?" Spectre asked her without turning his eyes from what used to be a city.
"When you left, my little sister decided to destroy everything on this planet," Zepar started explaining.
"No..." Foolscap let out weakly, tears filling his eyes.
"This is only a few hours after it happened. Everyone is gone. The creature you saw in the time warp before I appeared was the culprit, my little sister, Ronwe Blade."
Hearing that last name was enough for Fools to snap. "Blade?!" He shot a death glare at Sheer who didn't react to him at all; her body tensed up at Zepar's words instead.
"What do you have to do with this?!" Foolscap yelled at her, "you know who this Ronwe is?"
"My mother," Sheer replied, unfazed.
"Everyone's dead because of her! Do you realize that? Ream is gone! She's gone because of you!" Tears streamed down the man's face, his throat slowly becoming sore.
Gavro suddenly grabbed Foolscap's shoulders. "No; they can't be dead. Someone had to survive," he said shakily.
The slim man jerked from his grip. "Are you fucking stupid?! Look around! There's no way anyone could have survived this?!"
"Zepar?" Spectre spoke up, his voice was seemingly calm, yet close to unstable, "you said that the time warp is a place where time and space meet, right?"
The tall woman nodded.
"That means we can time travel...doesn't it?"
"It does," Zepar confirmed, "I can navigate through the time warp; that's how I was able to give you your little pet, however, those holes in the time warp lead to already established eras and there is only one that would take you to the moment close to the tragedy, the one that we used. There isn't a way for you to time travel to stop the extinction."
"There has to be," Spectre growled, his cheeks and beard soaking with tears, "I'll give you anything, but find me a way to save my husband and grandson!"
Zepar turned her head away from him, looking up into the sky. "The Cosmos Stones could help you. Each of them contains a power compared to the universe itself. You can use them to destroy my sister and then bring everyone back."
"Give us the instructions," Spectre immediately told her.
A smirk formed on Zepar's face.
————
"They were all gone..." was written in the diary, "Ream is dead and it's all that bitch's fault! If Ream was still a Space Pirate, she could have been alive. She wouldn't have been left behind... The worst part is that Sheer doesn't seem to even care! She caused this; Ream trusted her so much and this piece of garbage of a Kai doesn't even shed a tear!"
Some of the following words were hard to read as Foolscap presumably cried while writing.
The next few entries were unsurprisingly full of grieving.
One entry mentioned what Zepar told the Space Pirates about the Cosmos Stones. There's 7 of them, each of them had a different color, yet carried the same amount of power. They could have time-traveled to the point prior to the collision, wait on the surface of the planet and destroy the meteor, but that was insane and risky. Even with the weapons their ship had, no one could guarantee that it'd work. Zepar suggested going after the Stones in different eras when they were the most accessible. The only problem was that despite having a working time machine now, they had no idea about the beings that were about to come after...
But that changed one day...
"Something has joined our crew today," the diary said, "something that looks so similar to us, but he has no wings and his ears are different. He says he's something called a 'human' and his name is 'Seth'. His body just randomly hit our ship, so we took him inside. Boss seemed very interested in him and even gave him Meraki's old clothes. ...maybe Boss is moving on?"
Goma frowned and his hands shook when he read that line. Who even was this Seth...?
"So, it turned out that humans are the dominant creatures on that other planet, which they call 'Earth'. He was also very intrigued when it came to Brontikins and the other creatures. Seth called them 'dinosaurs' and told us that he could help us get more and even how to control them. When Spectre revealed to him our plans with the Cosmos Stones, Seth agreed to help us, being aware of a few historical events that could be connected to the Stones. He also mentioned something about being able to get a radar for us, but that it would require a little bit of work. Boss just blindly follows what this guy is saying."
The young boy quickly closed the book, growling. "He already forgot about grandpa Meraki..."
No... No, if he forgot he wouldn't try to bring everyone back, right?
Goma shook his head, looking back into the diary.
According to the following entries, they time-traveled to the age of those dinosaur creatures, capturing more once the Gel Jarks build enough cages. Seth was then let to do his own research and...he showed them how to turn them into cards and summon them, even giving them some special attacks! Each of the Kais then received a hexagon-shaped device that allowed them to use the cards. Seth even managed to give dinosaurs armor the pirates could activate.
However, there was a little catch with those devices—there was no telling what could happen if they overuse them...
Seth managed to find a few places where the Stones could be but to specify their location in those periods they needed the radar. Seth told them where and when to find two humans they could use—of course, Gavro grabbed a house with four extras.
The extra humans weren't that much of an issue itself, but it resulted in one. As they went after the first Stone, something the human history called the Raiden Ball, a group of children got in the pirates' way, supposedly looking for their parents.
The Space Pirates grabbed four Cosmos Stones—actually, three of them were taken by just Sheer—and it was after that fourth one when things started to get fishy.
————
Foolscap and Gavro weren't that dumb not to notice that something was happening behind their backs. Both Sheer and Spectre knew Zepar prior to the time warp incident. Not to mention that Zepar herself kept appearing and disappearing randomly.
What even was she?
After the three Pirates brought the fourth Cosmos Stones onto the ship, Sheer seemed different. Usually, she's cold and takes all the praise, but this time, she was more like a body with no soul. This mission was different, of course. Sheer suddenly turned against her colleagues, and then she just came back with the Stone as if nothing happened.
That day, Fools and Gavro were walking through the ship's corridors when they heard Zepar's deep voice from one of the rooms they walked past.
"What was wrong with you down there?"
"I...I don't know," Sheer's voice replied.
The two men stopped and glanced at an opened door. Carefully peeking into the room, they saw Zepar towering over Sheer.
"You interfered with the mission," Zepar said coldly.
"I got the Stone, that's all that matters, isn't it?" Sheer snapped.
Zepar glared at Sheer. "I thought I made myself clear." She moved closer and closer to Sheer while the small Kai backed away, stopping only when her folded wings brushed against the wall. "Nothing endangers the quest for the Cosmos Stones! What happened there?"
Sheer looked away. "...nothing."
"What happened?!" the deep voice asked a bit louder than before and when she got no reply, she yelled her demand. "Answer me!"
The tall woman's wings spread, but instead of being Kai-like, they resembled the ones of her true form. The feathers were ruffled and falling off at Zepar's slightest movement.
Sheer pressed herself against the wall; she couldn't run away.
The gray Kai's expression softened and she detracted her wings. "Just tell me what happened," she asked Sheer, reaching her hand to the black hair, "you can trust me."
She brushed Sheer's hair from her left eye, but as soon as she did that, her hand got slapped away.
"Don't!" Sheer yelled at her, "never touch me like that again."
A quick smirk crossed Zepar's face and in the blink of an eye grabbed Sheer's throat, lifting her to her eye level. "YoU Are tHe onE TakiNG ORdeRs fROm mE!" Zepar screeched, her true form taking over her appearance.
Still watching the scene, Foolscap and Gavro gasped quietly, their bodies frozen in fear.
Zepar's features slowly turned back to resemble a Kai; her feathers faded away like smoke. "You might seem perfect, but you're still weak." Her grip tighthead, receiving fainted groans from her niece. "Your amnesia revealed something you tried to hide; your true feelings."
"...don't remember..." Sheer let out with choked sounds. Her eyes were wide opened, staring into Zepar's.
"Those feelings made you betray me. I don't take kindly to traitors," Zepar whispered, letting go of Sheer's throat.
Sheer's body collapsed to the floor. She was shaking and panting, holding her bruised neck.
"You want to bring back the girl you love, don't you?" Zepar spoke up again.
The yellow bow straightened at the mention of the girl, responding to Sheer's emotions, but it swiftly went down, just like Sheer's ears as she glared at Zepar, nearly hissing.
"You can't do that without me," Zepar reminded her. She kneeled down and tilted Sheer chin to have her looking at her. She smirked devilishly. "We need each other to succeed. Keep that anger inside you; you'll be able to let all of it out on your mother soon."
Sheer only hardened her glare. There wasn't anything she could have done.
————
"We did nothing. We just watched as Zepar abused Sheer. I don't know...it was possibly fear, but...also my anger towards Sheer. I have no reason to help her, right? She doesn't care about me, so why should I care about her? She tried to kill me!" the diary continued like that for a few more pages.
This was something Goma just didn't understand. Sheer was still willing to help Zepar despite getting treated like that... Sure, they were all doing it for the other Kais, but still...
The whole "bringing everyone back" made Goma wonder if the Space Pirates really succeeded and he's just somewhere where that power can't reach, that's why he's alone. Or maybe they didn't manage to get the Stones yet and everyone else is trapped in the same place with him? That means there would be someone else, but there isn't...He never met a Kai in the Shadow Kingdom.
As he continued reading, he found out that the Space Pirates failed to get two Stones and Seth was sent to get them from those kids. He succeeded and only one Stone was left.
"We were about to get toasted for the Black Cosmos Stone! Brontikins straight up just shot a volcano and made it erupt! We nearly died and Boss just screamed at us for running away. I get that he's desperate to get his family back, but he doesn't have to sacrifice us for that!"
Goma's ears lowered; he already noticed that in some entries, his grandfather was acting strange. He pressured the pirates more than before, he was hell-bent on getting those Stones.
Unlike the first entries that were all clearly written at the end of each day, ever since they entered the time warp, the entries were just random bits with no dates. The next entry made it evident...
"That bastard! Seth just betrayed us... He took all six Cosmos Stones that we had! He joined those little brats! I can't believe we trusted him. We might've lost our chance to fix everything... Spectre didn't take it well. He cried and screamed for so long. His anger was something I've never seen before. He snapped. In a fit of rage, he contacted the kids and yelled through the time warp. He lost it..."
Goma clenched the diary tightly, holding himself back from throwing it at the ground. This Seth guy broke Spectre's heart just like that! He put all his trust in this guy and all he gets is pain!
If Goma ever gets his hands on this human-!
Wait, does that mean...? Is Spectre okay?
The next paragraph seemed to be a new entry after Foolscap calmed down a bit...
"We didn't get the Stones back. Those kids wanted to trade six Cosmos Stones for their parents, who managed to ruin our chances by talking those brats out of it. We're trying to find them again thanks to the Cosmos Stone detector. We have to get them. We're so close, it can't just end here. I just want to see everyone again. I want all of this to stop..."
Goma flipped the page and it was empty. He went through the remaining pages in the diary, but what he just read was the last entry...
This was the end.
He shook his head. This couldn't be the end!
What happened to the Space Pirates? Did they fail? Are they still on their mission?
Goma laid the diary down, looking at his companion. "They have to be out there... There's gotta be a way to get to them. They can time travel! And this place isn't affected by time itself. There could be a connection!"
He turned towards the dark void beyond the small island he lived on.
The boy frowned determinedly and spread his wings.
————
Foolscap finished writing his last entry just before the Space Pirates caught up with the enemy and most importantly Seth.
The three pirates called out their dinosaurs equipped with armor and were sent onto the surface. The attacks of their dinos defeated the enemy easily and they even destroyed the building Seth ran into with all the Cosmos Stones.
That was their moment.
Spectre left the ship on his own craft and used it to beam all seven Stones up and that's when they merged.
Their enemies yelled at them to stop, only being able to watch from the ground.
Once the Cosmos Stones connected, a dark smoke surrounded them and created Zepar's true form. The creature sent out three bolts of lightning of energy into the dinosaurs, powering them up. Each of them was surrounded by some sort of dark purple smoke.
Then Spectre brought out even Brontikins in his grown-up form and did the same to him.
The dinosaurs roared loudly...possibly in agony, but that didn't make the Space Pirates stop either.
They came on the ship and fired their weapons at the bird-like creature, giving Zepar power to absorb.
As the Space Pirates were sitting inside the ship, she expanded, the smoke slowly consumed the ship.
"That's right, Cosmos Stones—store your energy!" Spectre said happily, talking to the three through a monitor, "revenge will be ours!"
It all seemed so perfect, but then the whole ship started to shake uncontrollably.
"What's wrong?"
"Something we didn't count on is happening," Sheer exclaimed nervously.
"Honestly...I'm a little scared," Gavro admitted.
Foolscap gulped. "Yeah... We can't control this at all, can we?"
"Hey, do something about it you three!" Spectre yelled at the pirates.
The smoke made its way into the room where the three pirates were, they held onto their seats tightly.
They heard a loud scream from Spectre. They stared in horror at the screen as it turned into static. The smoke slowly crawled to them, soon touching their feet.
Gavro was the first one to get grabbed. He let out a choked yell. The other two glanced at him, seeing the smoke holding the buff man down.
Sheer immediately spread her wings and flew up, avoiding the dark matter. Foolscap was about to do the same, but the smoke got him, pulling him back down.
The room was getting filled with Zepar's energy, leaving Sheer no way to use to escape; she could only listen to her crewmates scream before the room became silent. She pressed against the wall as hand-resembling matter reached for her, grabbing her whole body.
————
The three of them opened their eyes; they were standing in a place completely surrounded by Zepar's energy. The pirates looked at each other, not sure what was going on or where Spectre was. There was complete silence—none of them dared to speak.
The silence was broken by Zepar's deep voice coming from all different sides of the place. "Imbeciles. You really put all your trust in me and my old promise," Zepar's voice mocked them, "I do admit that back then I was willing to help you, but you decided to summon me in the wrong century. Humans...changed me, affected me. Their hate and desire for power are so strong... Don't worry, I won't break my promise; you'll get your revenge on my little sister and you'll see everyone, all your loved ones... Things will just go very, very differently."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Foolscap spoke up.
"And what is this place?" Gavro joined in, "where's the boss?"
However, they didn't get the response they were looking for. A loud screech was heard from the darkness; all three covered their ears, it was something unbearable.
Once the noise died down, Zepar's voice replaced it. "Trust...hate...everyone...you..." she mumbled seemingly nonsensical words together, her voice echoing through the whole place, "loved...imbeciles...very...everyone..."
"We have to get out of here," Sheer decided.
"And how do we do that, genius?" Foolscap snapped at her.
The black-haired spread her wings. "I have no clue." She glanced away from the slim man, looking right in front of her. "But we have nothing to lose at this point," and with those words, she flew straight ahead.
"Nothing to lose? I have something to lose!" he screamed at her as she disappeared in the darkness, "my life! I'm not trusting you with that-tch! Gavro, we gotta-" Foolscap turned to his crewmate, seeing him walk the other way into the darkness as well, not even listening to Fools. "You've got to be kidding me!"
He spread his wings, ready to follow Gavro, but then...a weak voice called him.
"Fools..."
He knew that voice too well and waited for so long to hear it again.
Turning to its source, he was a figure approaching. A female... Air force blue colored shoulder-length hair, grayish-blue skin, long nose, dark blue eyes...and one wing.
Foolscap couldn't believe his eyes. He fell for the same trick before when they all went against 50 Gel Jarks; there is no way he gets decided again. He had his arm in front of him and shot out his tiny harpoon weapon. It flew straight towards his little sister, scratching her cheek. Unlike a Gel Jark that would revert to its original form, Ream stayed the same, making her way towards his while blood poured from her fresh wound.
The man's body was shaking. He wasn't sure whether it was due to fear of what this thing could be or the relief of seeing his sister again.
He fell to his knees, tears running down his face as he watched his dead sister smile at him.
————
Separated from the others, Spectre experienced a similar meeting. As he wandered through the darkness, a pink male Kai appeared right in front of him.
Spectre's heart dropped. The man he sacrificed so much for was finally back by his side. With eyes full of tears, Spectre rushed to his husband, cupping his cheeks and resting his forehead on his.
He was too far gone...
"I thought I lost you forever... I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise," Spectre whispered, "but now we can be together again. It's all over now; we're-"
Meraki suddenly pulled away, revealing a young purple boy and an adult green Kai standing behind him.
"Goma! Trouble!" A smile formed on Spectre's face. "This is perfect! It worked! You're all back. We can now use all this power to get everything!"
"I thought we're your everything," Meraki finally spoke up.
The smile disappeared from Spectre's face.
"You already had everything in the world and yet, it wasn't enough for you. You just had to listen to her and seek more. And what did it lead to? Nothing but death."
"Wha-what are talking about?" Spectre asked, making a scared step back.
"Zepar's sister tried to stop you, not knowing who Zepar chose. She decided to kill the whole planet to prevent Zepar's plan from succeeding. You're the reason why we're all dead. And after all that happened, you proceeded to help her."
"I did all of that for us!" Spectre cried out desperately, "I sought out the Cosmos Stone to reset the universe! To bring people I love back!"
"If only there was someone in this world who would love you," those words shattered Spectre's heart.
His eyes widened in complete shock, his breath was lost, his chest hurt indescribably.
"Who could love someone who caused everyone so much pain? Not even that Seth wanted to be with you. Everyone left you."
He was too weak to fight those words back.
He was so broken he accepted this as the family he once had...
————
Sheer was flying through the place, convinced that there must be an end of this place, a wall. Anything...
Nothing, but the flapping of her wings was heard when suddenly something hit them. She let out a yelp, her wings unable to carry her. She collapsed to the ground, landing on her arm.
What even was that?
Sheer was getting up, but her body froze as she heard a male voice near her.
"A Kai is useless without their wings."
Her head shot up, seeing a man towering over her. He was pale, his hair was short and dark brown, his eyes were small and bright magenta, staring at her.
Her eyes widened, her body trembled, unable to move.
"No...you...can't be..."
The man smirked and stepped on Sheer's hand. "Why are you still alive?" he asked her monotonously.
Sheer let out a chuckled. "Because you failed to kill me, father." She pulled her boomerang out of her dress, throwing it at the man.
He jumped back, avoiding the weapon while accidentally freeing Sheer.
The black-haired got to her feet and caught the boomerang as it came back. "I'm not that easy to defeat."
"Are you sure about that?" as the man said that his body was blown away like smoke and a body of a 12-year-old child replaced him. A child with the same eyes as Sheer.
She made a step back when she realized who the child is. She had an old and blurred memory of them... A memory that haunted her for years.
"You could have saved me, big sis," they told her, making their way towards her.
"Maybe..." Sheer replied.
"You did nothing."
The child stopped in front of her. Looking at their face for a while, she let her guard down, letting her arm hang along her body, her ears lowered in guilty.
"I did nothing. I was too weak back then," Sheer admitted.
"And you still are," the voice of her father sounded again, making Sheer's eyes widen again.
In a blink of an eye, the man was standing in front of her, hitting Sheer's stomach with his knee, knocking her away. Sheer's body hit the ground once more. At the impact with the ground, she let go of her weapon. When she noticed, it was too late—her father already picked the sharp boomerang up.
Sheer quickly got and charged at the man, but once she got closer, half of her vision got obscured by blood. With a swift motion, her father swiped the boomerang right across Sheer's left eye, leaving her with a scar.
The woman collapsed on her hands and knees, one hand covering her scar. She panted uncontrollably, her vision was getting blurry, she felt exhausted...
"Still weak," the man's voice faded in the distance; he disappeared.
"Interesting, isn't it?" Zepar's voice said.
Sheer glanced up but saw a human, not a Kai. A tall pale human woman with long gray hair, wrapped in a long brown coat, which, despite her height, was still being dragged on the ground.
"Despite wanting to forget about your past, it still affects you," Zepar's voice came out of the woman's lips. Could that be...her human form?
"The fact that random, seemingly weak humans are still stronger than you made you angry; that's why you tortured them like that. Isn't that right? The girl with the Yellow Cosmos Stone was so determined to save her brother—she did more for her sibling than you did, yet she was a mere human. The other girl, the one you thought had the Red Cosmos Stone—she was willing to do anything to save her father. None of your parents ever cared. You saw something you had in common with those two, but they had the courage you never did. They made you feel weak."
"I'm not weak!" Sheer yelled out, her voice echoing through the whole place. She slowly got back up and making steady steps towards Zepar, her body still shaking.
Zepar just smirked and at that moment, a sword hit the ground a few feet away from Sheer. The small woman froze on the spot. Then another sword fell a bit closer to her. And then another and another, each of them getting closer and closer.
Sheer stepped back but found out that there is nowhere for her to run. Out of nowhere, a pit appeared half a step behind Sheer. With one wrong step, she nearly lost her balance.
She couldn't fly away, her wings were still wounded... She could jump, but...her fear of falling...
She shook her head. Ream wasn't afraid, then why should she be? This could be a way of seeing her at least one more time...
The pale Kai made a step back, falling off the edge.
The ground was closer than she thought, but her back still hit it hard, making her moan in pain.
Sheer hardly stood up. She looked around—the place was still nothing, but the energy the dark creature was made out of. Although, there were two human women standing before Sheer.
She recognized them and those purple outfits. They were the people Sheer stole the Light Blue Cosmos Stone from.
The shorter one of them approached Sheer, who stayed still. She leaned to the Kai and brushed the black hair away, revealing Sheer's bleeding scar.
She let her... Usually, anyone other than Ream is asking for death by doing that, but strangely...not her... She reminded her so much of Ream... Both of these women treated her as a friend; something only Ream did. ...and Sheer betrayed them as soon as she remembered her mission.
Maybe she doesn't deserve others to care about her...
A third woman appeared beside the taller one, but this one was a Kai. Once Sheer's eye spotted the Kai, her expression softened. She stumbled closer to her and smiled weakly.
"I'm sorry for everything," Sheer whispered before falling to her knees and wrapping her wings around herself.
The dark matter slowly surrounded her.
————
Everything hurt... Voices echoed in their heads... Their bodies felt unstable...
Then there was a sudden flash of light and the Space Pirates opened their eyes, seeing the same place as before, but this one was made out of the white matter just like the creature Zepar called her sister.
A human woman with pale skin, shoulder-length wavy black hair, blood-red eyes was standing not that far from them.
"Who are you?" Spectre asked her as Sheer already made her way to her.
The woman chuckled softly and tilted her head. "I'm not an enemy. Not anymore." Her expression gloomed a bit when Sheer got closer. "I never meant to endanger you, Sheer... I was only-"
Before she could finish, Sheer got the hold of her boomerang in her dress and slashed the woman's neck. She didn't bleed, instead, the body flickered as if it was a hologram.
"Never meant to endanger me?!" Sheer snapped out on top of her lunges, "you left me with a man that tried to kill me! You left when I needed you the most! You tried to kill me yourself without hesitation!"
"Only to stop Zepar. She manipulated you...killing you was the only option. ...but I only knew about you being involved; the identity of the other three was unknown to me. I also had no clue you already left the planet...so, to make sure you're stopped, I decided-"
"You decided to murder the entire planet!" Sheer finished for her, tears running down her cheek.
The men were speechless and just watched.
"There was no other way," the woman, Ronwe, tried to explain.
"I don't care about your 'no other way'! You killed the first person that ever cared about me! The only person I ever loved!" Sheer cried, her voice cracking, her body shuddering, "do you think saving us from Zepar's control or whatever the fuck happened changes anything?! Why do you suddenly pretend to care?! All of this is your fault to begin with! If it wasn't for you, everyone would have been alive! If it wasn't for you, my father wouldn't have abused me... If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have been born and everything could have been better! ...Zepar wouldn't have used me!"
Losing her breath, Sheer had to brace herself not to collapse. All different emotions were mixing inside her; anger towards her mother, happiness that she finally has a chance to tell her all of that. ...and sadness...because she let out all of her suppressed emotions.
"...you promised..." Sheer whispered so quietly no one else heard her, her head hanging down as she sobbed, "you promised, Ream..."
She let everything out when she was ready, but...no one was there for her as they promised.
"I'm aware that...for a god, I've made a lot of mistakes... I even repeated some of them among the humans..." Ronwe admitted, "thankfully, Harc never went through the same as you..."
Harc...? Did Ronwe have a human child? Of course. She doesn't change...
Sheer glared up at her, her eye piercing through her mother, her ears lowering.
"I was a terrible mother," Ronwe said, reaching her hand to Sheer's face, "I just wanna do one good thing for you." She touched Sheer's hair and as soon as she did...
Slap!
Sheer slapped her mother with a swift motion. "Never touch me like that again," the small Kai growled.
A smile formed on Ronwe's face. "I understand..." and with those words, the light flashed again...
The next thing Sheer knew, she was stuffed in Spectre's pod with the three men flying through space.
It lasted for possibly days. They could only float through the emptiness of space and listen to Spectre's off-key singing. There was really nothing left...
Or that's what they thought...
Something out of their calculations happened, a black hole started to suck them in. It wasn't clear whether it was an accident or Spectre really lost it and piloted them right to their death... No one of them even panicked that much at that point; there was nothing left for them to do, was there...?
————
The pod suddenly hit the ground, shattering the glass, making the Space Pirates fall out. The place was nothing but the rubble and darkness of the space.
"We're alive?" Gavro murmured confusedly, lying on the ground.
"If you don't feel pain after death, I guess so..." Foolscap responded, lying under Gavro, "can you get up now?"
"Sorry..."
The buff man got and Fools soon followed, jumping to his feet.
Sheer leaned on the pod to hold herself still, but then she noticed Spectre who struggled to stand up. The three pirates rushed to help him up.
Spectre's eyes were closed; he felt the hands of his pirates dragging him up, but there was one extra pair he felt and when he opened his eyes, he understood why. A boy was helping him get with the pirates.
A boy with black and white hair, purple skin, and golden eyes...
"Have I lost my mind completely?" Spectre asked, staring at the boy.
Foolscap let out a surprised squeal. "No, I think we're actually dead."
The boy laughed and finally spoke up, "I have no clue if we're dead or alive, but I'm real!"
Spectre stared at him, dumbfounded, for a while and then hugged the boy in front of him, crying. "Goma! I can't believe this! I missed you so much you little imp!"
"I missed you too, grandpa! I've been stuck here for who knows how long. Time is quite obscure here..." Goma started explaining, pulling away from Spectre, "I forgot everything about you, guys...but thanks to Foolscap's diary I remembered!"
"A diary?" Gavro asked teasingly.
"It's a journal!" Fools snapped.
"I found out what happened to you and figured that there could be a way of getting to you," Goma continued, "this whole place can overlap with the real world and randomly bring some things, even living beings, over. I thought I was by myself, but with the 'journal' and regained memories, I knew I wasn't. And when I actually set myself on looking, I did find people."
"Wait, you mean..." Spectre whispered in disbelief.
"Exactly," a male voice said.
Looking to its source, the Space Pirates saw them.
Sheer froze, losing her breath.
She walked over to Sheer, her dark blue eyes glowing happily. She gently brushed the black hair from Sheer's face, revealing the scar over the closed eye. She was taken back by that a little, but she smiled despite that.
"I told you to be careful," she reminded the pale Kai.
Sheer didn't reply; her bottom lip trembled, her eye filled with tears, and suddenly her arms wrapped around the woman in front of her.
"You promised..." Sheer whispered, receiving a tight hug in return.
After everything that's happened...this was the moment when Sheer couldn't hold back.
She felt weak, but that didn't matter. She wasn't afraid to admit her weaknesses...