Chronicle 53

On the surface of the central moon, Lunar Lightning watched the unfolding of his forgotten treachery. The other Lunar aspects joined him and there was a nervousness oozing from Howard, who was floating back and forth between them and the screen. The Moon King stared straight ahead at his children, no interest shown for the replay of events below. His energy was more intense now, however.

In the Crystal Realm, Lunar Void’s body blinked forward with a flash of blackness. His fist connected with the chin of the Realm Lord Verinnia. Void surrounded his fist, expanding at the moment of contact. But there was no damage. The crystalline ape was not amused. She reached from underneath Void to grab at his feet with two lower arms and as he was distracted dodging, grabbed his head with a single upper arm.

“VOID!” Lunar Lightning shouted. They disagreed on their father’s intentions, but were close otherwise, sharing many millennia on neighboring moons. He blasted forward, shattering crystal behind him where his energy was discharged. His heel cracked into the wrist to free Void’s head. The hand was now connected only by a single crystal.

With the arm opposite the damaged one, Verinnia grabbed Lunar Lightning across the back. Her hand was big enough to span arm to arm, trapping his upper body in her grasp. Void returned LL’s favor by pulsing void at the forearm. When the emptiness cleared, the crystal remaining was colorless, lifeless. He flew at it head first and shattered it completely. Lunar Lightning shook off the lingering crystal hand.

“Your King greed’s for power more than I.” Verinnia spoke. Of course she could, but Lunar Lightning hadn’t considered using words here. “So I must be the next to fall. The next to feed the central moon. Have you ever asked yourself what he does with it all? All the power he saps from the other realms…”

Lunar Lightning glared at Lunar Void, hoping he’d look back.

“You speak of greed. Look around. Your realm is dying to feed you.” Void said.

“I preserve them.” Verinnia replied. She began to speak again before another blow to the chin came. Lunar Void flashed out before getting grabbed again.

“Wait!” Lunar Lightning pleaded. “Void!”

Void flashed into Verinnia again. The lack of damage she was taking on the head indicated a need to attack elsewhere. He was wise to begin striking at the limbs. Leave her defenseless.

“Void!” Lunar Lightning repeated.

Lunar Void appeared beside him, Verinnia a good distance from them in a defensive position. “Why do you question him?”

“Why don’t you!?”

“We were nothing before him. We owe him everything.”

“And what if he wanted to destroy the universe?”

“THEN HE SHALL HAVE IT!” Lunar Void vanished in Verinnia’s direction. In a second, he appeared behind her and radiated Void to cover her entire back. 

She was slower than he, and as she turned, so did he. The crystal on her shoulders was drained of structure, of reality itself. Void crashed into her back with a knee and all of her arms detached, the crystal floor below taking the brunt of their fall. Little crystal critters that still were delivering their energy to her were crushed, light fizzling out.

“I know your future, Lunars.” Verinnia stated, kneeling in defeat. “Once all the Realms are his, he’ll come for you. He’ll absorb your power because everything else just isn’t enough. Perhaps an eternity will pass where you will carry out horrors such as this before you are the subject of them. But that moment is etched in crystal.”

Lunar Void hovered above Verinnia’s sunken head. There was a mass of light at the center, likely accounting for the enhanced durability of her chin. She was silent as he began to bombard her with void strikes. His fists were hidden in a sheet of absence. Pure nothing clacked against the crystal ape skull over and over and over.

“Stop.” Lunar Lightning said. He looked at the light in Verinnia. It wasn’t a singular point, but many swirling lights. She was preserving them. The light wasn’t stolen from her crystal subjects, it was stored within her. If she was destroyed, they’d all be killed. “They’re still alive. She didn’t take from them, she’s protecting them. He would never do that for us.”

Lunar Void appeared to hear, but didn’t stop the onslaught.

“STOP!” Lunar Lightning blasted the crystal expanse with thunderous voice.

Lunar Void ignored the call again.

The moment a fist touched Verinnia’s impacted skull, Lunar Lightning put an arm tight around Lunar Void’s neck. He spun his cape around, meaning to transport only him back to the Lunar Realm. Because he was making contact with Verinnia, the three of them appeared in the Court of the Moon King together.

“Father!” Lunar Void choked out. “Help!”

Verinnia fell slowly to the central moon as Lunar Lightning restrained Void. Howard bounced away, protecting himself from the energy battle going on between the aspects. Void energy was stifled by the lightning emanation, and vice versa.

“Lightning. You’ve done well bringing Verinnia to me.” he waved a hand at Howard to collect the giant crystal ape torso. “What of Void?”

Lunar Lightning hesitated. Uncertain if truth was his best course of action. “He serves you blindly. He was prepared to erase a realm of souls by your will.”

The Moon King raised an eyebrow. A rare facial expression for the Realm Lord.

“The Crystal Realm wasn’t collapsing on its own. It was preparing for you.”

“Correct.”

“You seek to take the power of every realm then?”

“I do. For us.”

“And what will happen what this realm is the only one remaining? Will you kill your children, take our moons?”

The Moon King’s dark side spread to cover his entire body. Lunar Lightning had never seen him this way. “Are the moons not mine to take? Are you not mine to kill? Should I not reap what I sow?” His voice carried in an unsettling way in the realm. The moons surrounding were still as he spoke, no longer revolving the central moon.

Lunar Lightning released Lunar Void as the Moon King spoke. Void flashed out and back in near the Moon King’s eye. He must have realized what would ultimately be his fate, deciding to surprise attack the King.

Two enormous fingers closed in on Void in no time. When released, the being within the suit was gone. Void energy leaked from him and filled the realm, spreading before dissipating. The Moon King immediately absorbed the Void Moon, a blank space within his Realm, gaining its power.

Between that moment and the next, Lunar Lightning took Verinnia from Howard and jammed her into the Moon King’s neck. Vengeance filled his mind. He pumped lightning into the Realm Lord’s crystalline body, channeling it toward the largest light within. The crystal burst in a great explosion, sending everyone flying away from the central moon.

The screen below returned to a simple, glowing lunar surface. Lunar Lightning looked down at his gloved hands unable to reconcile that they were the same as what he was watching. But now he knew why he did it.

“What happened then?” Lunar Lightning asked in a flat tone. “How did I lose my memory?”

“Howard.” the Moon King ordered.

With a glance, Howard activated the screen again.

Lunar Lightning tried to end the Moon King and was restrained by the other aspects. As they held him, the Moon King struck him with moonlight.

“Leave this Realm, my child. You’re not ready.”

He was warped out of the Lunar Realm and forbidden to return.

“That’s not right.” Lunar Lightning said, looking at the aspects surrounding him. Watching this false history connected fragments of memory he had been toying with. “They’ll see the truth.”

“So be it.” the Moon King nodded at Howard.

Lunar Lightning took control of the vision below. He showed the other aspects the actual events.

Lunar Lightning appeared inside the Crystal Realm after exploding the Realm Lord. Though she didn’t survive, he transported all the light within her back to their home. The wisps found their old bodies, or new ones amongst the rubble and skittered about freely. The Realm would choose another to rule, but it would take time.

Knowing his attack wouldn’t have killed the Moon King, Lunar Lightning had to return to end it. The aspects would never be free if he remained. He spun and appeared in the Court of the Moon King again. With a body wrapped in lightning, he propelled himself at Howard and the hole in his father’s neck.

From behind, the other Aspects grabbed his legs. Stopped not by the Moon King, but by those he sought to save. Seemed they saw it differently.

“Fool.”

The Moon King grabbed Lunar Lightning by the head, a mere hair between his fingers. Darkness fled the King’s body and he was calm for a moment. Lunar Lightning didn’t say a single word as the mask was pulled from his head.

There was silence as his energy crackled outward from his suit, the other Aspects just watching.

And that was it.