Seulgi and Seungwan soared through a sky of black and red as the world collapsed below them. A sharp, empty ache gnawed at Seulgi’s heart like terrible hunger. It pained her to pass over the communities she’d helped, the faces she recognized, the people she’d connected with, as they were besieged by Geulim Ja’s minions. She was plagued by fleeting images of herself descending, drawing her blades, and joining the mortals in defense of their planet. Each one made it harder to maintain her course. How could she just abandon them like this?

    We have a larger goal. The faster we slay Eodum, the more lives we save, Stardust said, steadying Seulgi’s emotions. Besides, they aren’t without help.

    Seulgi supposed Stardust was right. It wasn’t much, but Moonbyul, Solar, and Tyler’s crew had all gone to assist in fending off the hordes. Adding herself to that number wouldn’t help nearly as much as she believed it would. She was better utilized cutting off the evil at the source. That was, in this case, Bristol University’s own Bridge Tower.

    In the distance, the formerly reflective tower jutted from the landscape, transformed into a burnt-black pillar of pandemonium shrouded by thick, pulsating fog. Eodum’s smoke, tinged with streaks of red lightning, flowed skyward, pouring from shattered windows to fill the sky with eternal night.

    Both Seulgi and Stardust were terrified by the prospect of confronting Eodum, but that terror was kept in check by anger, indignance, and anticipation. Here was the beast that had invaded their home, murdered countless innocents, and enslaved Seulgi’s beloved.

    At a signal from Seungwan, Seulgi dropped down, landing atop the Main Ave student center. The streets below were deserted aside from the corpses of several nights of battle. A hot breeze drifted the stench over to them, causing Seulgi to wince.

    “We need some sort of plan,” Seungwan said, gaze fixed on the tumescent, crackling monster ahead. “We can’t just charge up to him with swords and start hacking away.”

    Stardust cocked an eyebrow. She and Seulgi spoke in tandem, a doubling of voices, two pitches laid over one another to create a single, harmonic tone.

“How do you know that won’t work? You said you’d never seen him in person before.”

“I don’t, but…” Seungwan swallowed hard, eyes filled with fright, pretty face stricken pale. “What could we even do, Stardust? Where would we begin? Stars, I’m… I’m scared.”

Seulgi paused, wondered which personality Seungwan thought she was speaking to. That led to a brief but harrowing sequence in which Seulgi wasn’t sure who she herself was. Stardust was as close to her as she’d ever been, so near to her own personality that it felt as if they were bleeding into each other. The conflicts were few: anxieties that Stardust didn’t harbor, condescending beliefs that Seulgi didn’t share, and of course the battling affections for both Joohyun and Seungwan.

Steady. We have work to do. Existential crises can come later. Stardust said.

The words themselves didn’t mean much to Seulgi; it was their intention that made all the difference. No edge to them, no scorn. Jesus Christ - or “Stars!”, as others might put it - Stardust was trying to soothe her.

Stardust put a hand on Seungwan’s shoulder, took a lock of her auburn hair, twirled it around a finger. The shorter Representation looked as if she were about to cry. Both Seulgi and Stardust felt for her, the former on a platonic level, the latter on an affectionate level.

“We have to do something, Wan,” Stardust said. “Do you see the destruction around us? The world will be destroyed if we don’t act.”

A blast of thunder rumbled above them, and red lightning danced its way through the sky, striking a nearby building. Seulgi raised a shield of silver Vis, forming a bubble that deflected the debris exploding outward from the ruined structure.

Seungwan stared at the shield as it retracted back into Seulgi’s palm, seeping like liquid through her skin and returning to her body.

“Normal Vis doesn’t do that,” Seungwan said. She sounded mildly awestruck.

Seulgi nodded. “Something’s changing inside of me. Like some sort of internal contract is close to being fulfilled… um, if that makes sense.”

Seungwan tilted her head to the side in a look of pure confusion that Stardust found adorable. “It doesn’t.”

“Maybe it’s a Chosen One thing,” Seulgi said, shrugging, “I wonder what would happen if I tried using it on Geulim Ja.”

Both women turned and looked up as another streak of lightning crashed down. Rather than the bloody stains that the rest of the electrical phenomena were hued with, this bolt was a flash of violet, and fell with a slow irregularity that made Stardust narrow her eyes.

The impact of its fall caused a tremor in the earth, shattering the blacktop in a starburst of fissures. Pernicious smog hissed from the figure at its end: a clump of semi-solid tentacles, dripping with Eodum’s slime-like essence. They parted like a grotesque curtain, revealing a misshapen figure that may have been a human at some point in its pitiful existence. Its body was a thickened, hunched structure composed entirely of darkness, resembling a burnt skeleton. Its face retained a shred of humanity, with skin of bloodless white, a mangy, hairless head, and pools of leaking sludge in place of its eyes.

The beast’s tendrils flared out to either side as it released a screeching, hungered bellow, sights set on the two Representations above.

At Seulgi’s side, Seungwan paled further, appearing as though she were about to faint.

“That has to be Cade. Eodum’s chief Sirdar,” she whispered. “He’s… horrible.”

Stardust grimaced, formed twin blades of shining silver in her hands, and stalked to the edge of the rooftop. Cade locked eyes with her, stepping forward with twitching, beastial movements that suggested a complete lack of sanity.

“Prepare yourself, Wan,” the silver-haired Representation said. “I believe it’s time to test out these new powers.”

***

    Sooyoung clutched her lover tight as they careened through the multiverse. Time and space passed them, angled walls of countless scintillating tinctures, flying by at a million miles an hour. Joohyun was beside them somewhere. Sooyoung didn’t dare to turn her head in order to get a better view of the older Representation, but she could sense Joohyun’s presence nearby. To their front, Jennie led them, a strobe of purple-white that seemed to cut across dimensions - both Astral and mortal - with two swords of opposing color. Her movements consisted of minor adjustments, tilts of her sword and kicks of her legs, but Sooyoung could feel the weight behind each of them. Any slight deviation from the path and they would be sent completely off course, hurtling through the mostly inhospitable void of the gaps between universes. Places where even her new golden Vis wouldn’t be able to save her from the suffocating void of eternal nightmare.

    Sooyoung gritted her teeth and held Yeri closer as a bout of turbulence shook them.

    Christ, I hope Jennie knows what she’s doing.

    They’d only adopted this breakneck, dangerous speed after hearing about Seulgi’s message, along with its abrupt end as Eodum did whatever black magic he used to block their communication. Concerned as she was about the state of her planet - and more importantly, her friends - Sooyoung almost regretted mentioning the message to the others. Yeah, they would get to Earth faster in theory, but what if something went wrong? What if they ended up falling into the darkness? What help would they be then?

    After what felt like both an eternity and a fraction of a second, there was a dreamlike rumble that shook Sooyoung’s body, mind, and soul. She felt a lurch, a multiversal yanking that seemed to come from directly behind her navel. Yeri began to scream, and Sooyoung had to clench her jaw hard in order to avoid doing the same. Briefly, Sooyoung saw the void of the space between universes, and she felt herself beginning to slip toward it. At the forefront of her mind was paralyzing mortal fear, generated by the child in Sooyoung. The eleven-year old Sooyoung, sniffling in the offensively sterile interior of a funeral home, three caskets in front of her, two long and one small. Alone in the universe, never to see her parents or brother again, all because of a stupid, stupid accident, less than a second of slipped attention…

    Sooyoung shook herself violently, golden Vis trailing from her hair as she fought to keep a clear mind.

    What brought up these memories? Why did they come now, at such an inopportune, critical moment?

    “My dad’s trying to stop us!” Jennie cried, “Hang on, everyone!”

    Sooyoung tensed hard against the angel in her arms, the tiny blonde who experienced the same cosmic listlessness and pain that Sooyoung herself had felt all those years ago. In that moment, clarity came to her. Golden, crisp clarity, tearing her from the darkness. She couldn’t afford to let the weight of her past bring her to ruin now. Yeri needed her. Seulgi needed her. The world needed her.

    Someone had to be strong.

    They broke into the Astral Plane, purple backdrop flecked by the far-off diamond chips of stars. A erse, powerful gravity dragged them toward the Earth, where the rumbling shadows of the eternal night formed a screen crisscrossed with scarlet sparks. The surface wasn’t completely covered, as Blackstar had been, but they had no time to find a safer landing spot. Having failed at throwing the girls into the void, Eodum apparently decided to switch tactics. He was trying to draw them into him, probably hoping to strike them down with lightning or suffocate them with the eternal night.

“Can you get us through the eternal night without having to jump in and out of the Astral Plane?” Sooyoung yelled, turning to Jennie.

With a start, Sooyoung realized that both Jennie and Joohyun were unconscious. They fell listlessly. Yeri was limp in her arms, head tucked against Sooyoung’s chest.

“!” Sooyoung yelled, body flaring gold as she struggled against Eodum’s pull, hauling herself vertically so that she could grab and hold Joohyun, who was nearest to her. Jennie was out of arm’s reach. Sooyoung tried to shape her Vis into a kind of third arm to grab the girl, but her racing thoughts made it impossible to concentrate.

“Get up, guys! Come on!” Sooyoung yelled to Yeri and Joohyun, shaking them.

    Both responded by grimacing and writhing about, and Sooyoung cursed again, redoubling her grip on the pair, barely managing to keep hold of them.

    Sooyoung could feel the proximity of the eternal night as they approached its deadly depths, a dark presence that wanted to capture them, hold them, and crush them until they were drained of all life. Sooyoung pulled Joohyun and Yeri as close as she could, then allowed her Vis to erupt around her. A golden capsule surrounded them, creating a comet of energy like a flowing shield. She tried to extend it, to catch Jennie in it as well, but the girl was simply too far away. With a final, rueful glance at Jennie, Sooyoung shut her eyes and braced.

She prayed - to who exactly, she wasn’t sure, maybe herself - that it would be enough.

    Silence captured them as they dropped into the eternal night.

***

    A trio of comets - white, silver, and black - clashed in the sky. Shockwaves from their collisions sent gusts of cosmic wind across the landscape. They zipped from location to location, white and silver beating against black, moving toward the west. A path of destruction was generated in their wake: chunks sliced from buildings, craters in the middle of streets, trees felled as bodies struck them. Without the sunlight to eclipse their glows, the three warriors flashed out against dead clouds, screaming bursts of color that gave pause even to Earth’s final defenders, even to the mindless drones that made up Eodum’s army.

    Stardust would never admit it openly, but Seulgi was willing to state the obvious: they couldn’t beat Cade. Yes, the silver Vis they utilized was powerful, seemingly endless in volume and able to be controlled by sheer reflex. Yes, Stardust’s offensive skills matched with Seulgi’s evasion made for a masterful balance of fighting styles. Yes, having Seungwan by their side during the fight was, under normal circumstances, a guaranteed win. In sum, what enemy could hope to stand against the combined might of Stardust and Seungwan?

    The answer was Cade.

    He was tenacious, tireless, and vicious. He bounced through the air as if it were a canvas made of rubber, performing impossible stunts to avoid Seulgi’s attacks. The strikes she did manage to land were nonlethal, cutting away tendrils that grew back immediately. On an individual level, Cade’s attacks did little, but they were delivered with such rapidity that there were several occasions where both Seungwan and Stardust had to pull back from the fight to avoid being overwhelmed.

Though Seulgi and Stardust’s silver Vis didn’t seem to decrease in amount, it did take on a type of tight, muscle-like weariness that was difficult to ignore. At times, she tapped into her regular Vis - that is, the type of Astral energy that glowed white rather than silver - but she could feel that depleting with each use. Seulgi didn’t have an opportunity to question it; she was too busy avoiding Cade’s relentless bombardment of oozing tendrils. The weariness brought on from using her new powers bled into her physical being. It wasn’t enough to cripple her, not yet, but Seulgi knew that neither she nor her alter ego could match Cade forever.

    Minutes into the duel, Seulgi began to notice something troubling about Seungwan. The auburn-haired Representation’s glow - a bright opal at baseline - was beginning to dim. It wasn’t terribly noticeable in terms of radiance, but the toll on Seungwan was evident. Her movements began to lose their grace as she slowed. Slashes without followthrough, guards broken early, dodges that lacked urgency. Stardust noticed it before Seulgi did; the silver-haired Representation had been fighting by Seungwan’s side long enough to understand the subtleties of her fighting style.

    With a sudden change of direction, Stardust allowed both of her blades to dissipate, grabbed two handfuls of Cade’s thrashing tentacles, and delivered a Vis-enhanced kick to his chest. The Sirdar flew back and crashed through the window of an office building.

    “Quickly,” Stardust said, motioning Seungwan over to an alleyway, partially hidden from sight by a cluster of trees. Seungwan offered no protest; another sign that something was wrong.

    Together, the two Representations landed in the shadowed alleyway. A single one of Eodum’s minions lurked there, jumping out at them from behind a dumpster. Absently, without so much as a stutter in her step, Stardust executed the monster.

    “What’s happening to you?” Seulgi asked, glancing up to make sure they weren’t being followed.

    Panting slightly, Seungwan gave a shrug and a shake of her head.

    “I have no idea… it feels like, with each passing second, my Vis is being depleted,” she said, looking down at her hands, “And I can’t recharge it.”

    Stardust frowned. “I’m not having that problem.”

    Seulgi looked inward, observing the reserves of their Vis. Their new Vis, the innate silver one that didn’t seem to lessen, remained constant. Tired, but constant. Their old Vis, that of the same color and quality of Seungwan’s, was almost completely drained.

    “Actually, I am,” Seulgi cut in, pushing an annoyed Stardust to the side for a moment, “My silver Vis is fine, but my white Vis isn’t recharging, either.”

    Seungwan nodded, gesturing upward. “I think it might have something to do with the eternal night. Eodum might be blocking our access to it.”

    Stardust swore. That complicated things greatly. Not only did this mean that Seungwan could no longer fight efficiently, it also meant that the other Representations - namely Moonbyul and Solar - were in grave danger. She couldn’t be sure about Summer, Evanie, or Tyler, but they weren’t her main concern right then.

    “That means that the others will be running out of power, too. Likely at a faster rate than yourself,” Stardust said hurriedly, grasping Seungwan by the shoulder. The auburn-haired woman’s eyes lit up with dire understanding. “You need to go find them, make sure they’re safe, and take shelter. At this point, we need to wait for Sooyoung, Joohyun, and Yerim to return.”

    Seungwan swallowed and looked away.

    “Sooyoung seems to have gained similar powers to Seulgi and I. Perhaps she and I can manage to throw something together,” Stardust said, aware of her lover’s hesitance but purposefully ignoring it.

    Seungwan pressed into a thin, grave line. “Managing to throw something together” was the equivalent of flying by the seat of their pants. Winging it.

    A shadow passed over them, misshapen, streaming with tentacles to its rear. Stardust and Seungwan ducked down, releasing their Vis in order to mask themselves.

    “You have to go now,” Stardust said, placing her free hand on Seungwan’s other shoulder. Brown eyes, robbed of their usual calm and filled with a frantic energy that they’d never held before, met her own. “I will hold Cade off.”

    “I can’t leave you,” Seungwan said, shaking her head furiously. “You won’t be able to handle him alone.”

    Sensing what would happen next, Seulgi retreated to the back of her mind, keeping herself alert to their surroundings in case Cade located them.

    Thank you, Stardust said sincerely.

    Stardust took Seungwan by the chin, tilted her head up. She absorbed the shorter woman’s features, etched them into her memory. Lethality hidden by softness. The natural, petaled beauty of an oleander flower. Stardust kissed Seungwan hard, a deep, full kiss that sent their hearts aflutter and made their bodies melt with the wonder of sensation.

    It was over quickly, far too quickly for Stardust, but she understood that it was for the best.

    “I will be fine,” Stardust said as Seulgi came forward again. She hovered in the air, an easy feat to accomplish with the silver Vis. “We don’t have another choice.”

    Seungwan nodded. There was reluctance in the gesture, but she didn’t hesitate further. She was a creature of pragmatism. She knew what had to be done.

    “Wait until you feel us clash, then go,” Stardust said, turning away. Seulgi took over, continued, “Good luck, Seungwan.”

    When Stardust took off, she refused to look back. As she waited for Cade to approach, she felt a private sense of impending doom. An idea that, regardless of what came of this madness, her fate had been predetermined from the start. A cosmic alignment of notions, the Mother of the Multiverse sighing resigned breath into Stardust, one that spoke of a bleak future.

    Let it come, then, Stardust said, gritting her teeth and summoning her blades. Seulgi drew up beside her, and that brought her comfort.

Stardust floated patiently as Cade tore through the air, closing in. She’d always operated in a solitary capacity, scorning help from others, a slave to her own ego. Now here she was, putting herself in a precarious position in order to defend others. How soft this planet had made her!

Stardust’s scowl transformed into a small smile. By some miracle of the Stars, she was okay with that.

Seungwan had been wrong, in a way. Stardust would not fight alone. Not tonight. Not ever again.

In a shower of silver light, a gleam of hope against the eternal night, Seulgi Stardust sprang into battle.

***

    “Bogum! Look on TV!”

    Bogum sprang up from the couch, hand reflexively reaching for his rifle. He relaxed when he saw his mom standing above him. Her back was turned so that she was facing the television, foot tapping rapidly with worry. His dad was beside her, holding her shoulders with tense hands.

    The television - which had been growing increasingly unreliable to the point where it was almost useless - had come to life. The display was grainy, probably would have been indistinct if whatever brave soul controlling the camera hadn’t been so close to the action. Clouds of an evil black streamed across the screen, red lightning jumping across their margins like a scene pulled straight from a horror movie.

    The focus of the shot wasn’t on the sky, however. It was on the shining figure that stood before it, mane of alternating silver and black streaming behind her, two swords of fluid light held at her sides, thin eyes focused on the tentacle monster she fought. Seulgi’s face was different - fuller in some areas, with a hardness to her jaw that hadn’t been there before - but not nearly as altered as it had been when Bogum had seen her transform in person. It still looked like Seulgi… just an enhanced version of her. Hadn’t she been covered in white, not silver, before?

    Bogum’s mother gasped as Seulgi and the monster clashed again, a dizzying flurry of swords and tentacles that was impossible for the camera to track. 

    “Where’s that broadcast coming from?” Wendy asked, hurrying over to get a better view. She looked extremely disturbed by what she saw.

    “New Jersey, I think,” Bogum said, unwilling to tear himself from the spectacle on the screen. Was that really his sister? The way she fought reminded him of the old fighting cartoons they’d watched as kids, with unreal choreographies and heavy blows that would have killed a normal human.

    Seulgi dropped down, kicked the tentacle monster in its back, and sent it flying toward the Earth. In a flurry of light, she shot down after it, disappearing into the city of Brunswick.

    There was a blur of motion as the cameraman scrambled to find a better angle. It didn’t matter, anyway; the display became grey static with seconds.

    “Those clouds…” Joy said with a visible shiver.

    “That’s the eternal night,” Wendy whispered, rubbing the taller woman’s arm.

    The sliding door opened, causing Bogum to start. Yerim entered, short hair was ruffled by the wind, cheeks blushed with exertion. As always, her magical crossbow was slung across her back.

    “’s going down, guys,” she said, motioning hurriedly for them to join.

    Bogum stepped out into a stale breeze, immediately recognizing that there’d been a change in the atmosphere. A fog had come over the sky, obscuring the sunlight, allowing only tiny hints of its normal blue to struggle through. It wasn’t nearly as thick as the clouds he’d seen on the TV, and there was no red lightning, but it was enough to darken the world considerably. Like a dusk without the sunset.

“What’s happening?” Bogum’s mom asked, still clinging to her husband.

“We aren’t sure, ma’am,” Wendy said nervously as she tucked into Joy’s arms, “But we’ve seen something similar to it before, on another planet. A long time ago…”

A hand grabbed Bogum by the arm and turned him. Jumpy as he was, he almost tried to resist it, but despite its small size, there was a strength to it that he could do nothing against.

It was Yerim.

“You said you knew a woman named Sooyoung, right?” she asked, voice saturated with desperation, almost to the point that she sounded crazy. “Best friends with your sister?”

“Uh, yeah,” Bogum said, the intensity of Yerim’s stare putting him on edge.

Thankfully, Yerim released him and marched over to Joy and Wendy.

“I’m going to NJ to see what’s going on,” Yerim said, unslinging the crossbow from her shoulder. “I think… there’s something I need to do.”

Wendy furrowed her brow, but Joy nodded as if she completely understood.

“I felt it, too. Something is different about this iteration of me. Like she’s two people at once,” Joy said softly. “Do you think she’s…?”

“I do,” Yerim said solemnly, tying her hair back into a tight bun. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s a strong sensation, like a far-off buzzing, calling to me. I need to go see her. Just to know.”

Yerim reached into a pouch at her hip and pulled out a cloth mask. She tied it behind her head, obscuring the bottom half of her face from view. Then, she threw the hood of her jacket up.

“Good disguise,” Joy said with a grin, “I can barely recognize you.”

“I don’t want to confuse them. There’s probably another Yeri in this world.”

“We’ll stay behind,” Wendy said, looking over at Bogum and his family apologetically, probably sensing that they were all hopelessly confused. “In case things get worse here.”

Yerim nodded, then stepped up onto the bannister of the deck, balancing on the tips of her toes like an impossible ballerina.

“I’ll see you around.”

Bogum’s mom gasped as Yerim leapt from the deck, only to gape in awe as the crossbow-wielding girl danced over the air, feet supported by mobile sparks of light. She glided toward the mountains, gaining speed with each step, moving like a supersonic roller skater. In seconds, she was little more than a speck in the distance.
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Something's clearly going on with Stardust and Seulgi here, Not-Yeri is on her way to NJ, Sooyoung and company are all in grave danger, and the eternal night is beginning to spread across the planet. Everything's starting to come together! What do you think is gonna happen next?

Thanks for reading, and remember to upvote and comment if you like the story!