Chapter 7 – True Power
Inside the vial Yakko's soul apparently was communicating with the other souls and after conversing with the souls he was currently saddled with (Wakko, Minerva Mink, Thaddeus Plotz, The Hip Hippos, Katie Kaboom and her little brother), he made attempts to talk to souls in other vials. At least that was my theory... The little bb sized soul was bumping against the glass and was probably actually Wakko's soul for all I knew.
Still trying to catch my breath with a knot in my stomach the size of New York, I made an attempt to stand up. When I finally was on my feet, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my shard of the Blood Star. "One left that never absorbed its intended soul." I said holding the piece in the air. Coluv looked at me in awe, like he was impressed and thought I was a genius or something. He then began to chuckle at himself a little bit and then broke out into a maniacal laughter. "So that's why it didn't work before." He said whipping a tear from his eye. "Very clever, little one." "Here! You can have it back." I yelled as I tossed the shard as hard as I could at him. He simply caught it in mid flight and rather than trying to shove it down my throat, he touched it to the jewel on the bottom of the handle. The shard was absorbed through the jewel and transferred into the glass, where it automatically fused to complete the Blood Star Crystal. Coluv then chuckled and told me, "Do you understand why the Blood Star was designed to absorb souls?" "I know it was used as a death penalty for your planet's most dangerous criminals." I answered. "Very good, but wrong." I was confused. Exactly what part did I get wrong? "It's worse than a death penalty." Coluv then added. Imagine being trapped in a red space, neither living nor dead. Unable to move, breathe, or even blink your eyes or scratch an itch. No hunger, no thirst, unable to even feel or smell." "You act like you've been trapped by the Blood Star before." I snapped back. "You are right, I haven't. But I studied its power and even found the journal of one who was affected by the blade's power at one point. It was marvelous." He boasted as he stretched his arms to the sides. "You've caused me enough trouble. So, I'm gonna let you experience it firsthand." And with that he lunged at me intent on slaying me with the Armageddon Blade.
As if time had slowed down to a mere crawl, the moment passed by in what seemed like forever. Coluv lunged at me with the intent of trapping me in the Blood Star, from behind him, all of the vials of souls burst like M80's all at once as the souls increased in size and brightness and jetted straight for me. Before Coluv even reached me, the souls of all of my friends and my brothers had converged on me all at the same time, causing an enormous burst of power, tossing piles of junk away from my body and literally tearing the building to pieces.
I opened my eyes to find myself in a weightless yellow space surrounded by spirit images of everyone that had been slain by Coluv. Yakko was located on my right side and Wakko in my left, both of them just beyond my arm's reach. I observed myself and noticed that rather than wearing clothes, my body was illuminated to cover up anything private. (Censors!) "What is this?" I asked. "The afterlife?" "Not exactly." It was as if I could hear Yakko's voice in my head rather than in my ears. It was really strange. "I got to talking with everybody else, and uuuuuhhhhhhh, we decided that you might need our help." "When many are as one, the blade's true power is revealed." I said to myself.
Outside of my spirit, Coluv was blown away from the eruption of power and sat up with slight pain. He looked in the direction of where the eruption of energy had come from and thought he could see an image in the smoke and dust. When the dust began to settle, the shape was clearer to him. It was me. But somehow I was changed by the convergence of all of my friends' souls. Instead of being a nine year old girl around the height of three-foot-four, my body had matured to a version of myself in my mid twenties and stood at around five-foot-seven. It was clearly a mature body, due to the fact that it had fully bloomed size C's under the golden hoodless cloak with a shiny pink shawl covering the shoulders and breasts. Shoulder guards were attached to the sides of the shawl that were light blue with gold lining for the trim. On my head sat a battle helmet that only a beauty, like myself, could possibly pull off. The front of the helmet was a golden plate that came to a point nearly touching my nose and rounded over my ears and was mirrored on the top of the front plate. The center of the front plate came to a crease and the sides of the plate came down to my cheeks and wrapped around the back of my head. Light blue colored metal on the sides of the front plate came to an oval shape and had five light blue long wing-tip feathers attached to each of them. In the center of each side piece was the Japanese symbol for hope carved into a large silver coin. The top of the helmet, that covered my scalp and ears, was light blue in color with a lining that emulated the shape of the front plate.
"What in the world is going on? What happened?" I asked the other souls. "We're still in the dark about this as much as you are. But, this is your body so...you're in the driver's seat." Yakko said to me. As I looked around, I noticed that the souls had me completely surrounded and had formed a spherical shape each soul being about two feet apart in distance. The souls also had absolutely no definition to them. It was just a shining light blue light with a shape according to who it was. The silhouettes were also tucked in a fetal position and incased in a sphere of clear light. I also noticed that each silhouette also had eyes made of red light and also had red light in the same likeness as the wound inflicted upon them. For instance, Wakko was taken by Coluv pressing the jewel against a cut in his arm, so the spirit silhouette of Wakko had a red light in the likeness of that cut on his arm. Yakko however, was taken by Coluv pressing the jewel against a stab wound in his stomach, so Yakko's spirit silhouette had two red lights in the likeness of the stab wound. One in the front of the stomach and one in the same spot on his back. Most of spirit silhouettes had stab marks on them. However, Slappy's was a slash mark leading from her left shoulder and ending up near her right hip. The mark had gone completely around her shoulder and traveled along both her front and her back, and she clearly was not happy. "We need you to get this guy for us." Slappy said in a mean tone.
Back outside, Coluv was irate. "What happened? Who are you?" When I tried to answer, I found it super difficult to control the body and its movements and functions. Simply moving the mouth and vocal chords was tiring. The first thing that happened was the body opened up the eyes on its own in response to Coluv's voice. If one were to look at the eyes they would have described them as glowing a deep crimson red, as if malice had the ability to show itself through my eyes. "I am she whom you had failed to slay at the waterfall." I managed to say. However, I actually wanted to say my usual introduction. "I am also they who you have slain without mercy or without reason." The voice added on its own. The voice in this body was slightly metallic sounding, but at the same time it was my voice in three different pitches. "This is absurd! Creatures like you shouldn't have even come into existence." Coluv stated. His eyes blood shot with hate and fear. My body again somehow responded by itself. "We were born, we live, and we eventually die. That gives all creatures a right to existence." The already irritated Coluv just got even more enraged by that comment. "No, it doesn't. I decide what may exist and what may not in my new world. And I say, 'you aren't allowed to exist'!" He shouted as he readied the Armageddon Blade for a killing blow. I struggled to move my legs and dodge the strike, but I just couldn't seem to move.
Despite my body looking so trim, it felt like my legs weighed a ton. Eventually, I gained slight control of the body and was able to parry the Armageddon Blade with the Valkyrie Star Sword in my right hand by simply bringing the arm up and twisting the wrist to aim the tip of the sword downward. Stunned and surprised, Coluv looked in awe for a while at the piece of armor covering my arm. It was an arm guard that spanned from my wrist to my elbow. From the wrist it tapered down to a point over the back of my fist. (Which was covered by a silvery green glove that went up three quarters up my entire arm.) A section of the arm guard was gold in color that started on the inside around a quarter of an inch from the edge and tapered up and came to a point in the front. An oval ruby jewel was located in the center of the gold piece on the back, where it could be plainly seen. The rest of the arm guard was light blue and the end of the arm guard, was rimmed with a gold cap.
Coluv then jumped back around fifteen feet and extended his left hand toward me. Flames ignited in front of his palm and then began to spiral around themselves eventually forming a ball that continued to grow in size. Again I tried to move the body with no success. How am I gonna even fight this guy if I can't move this thing? When I looked around inside my spirit, I noticed that most of the spirits were trying to seize control of the body to attempt to exact their own revenge. Suddenly, I remembered the words that Vuloc had told me before he vanished. "Revenge works against you where justice helps." Now I needed to convince everyone to let me handle things without making it sound sappy. "In the driver's seat, huh?" I sarcastically retorted to Yakko then turned my attention to the entire group. "Hey everyone, you need to stop trying to exact your own personal vendettas on him. You're only making it harder on me." "Maybe it's just you." Slappy retorted in a mean and rude tone of voice. "This guy thinks he's so perfect. We'll I'm gonna show him perfection upside the head." A number of other voices began to murmur together doubting not only me, but each other. Each wanted to exact their revenge on Coluv for the harm he had inflicted upon them.
"Do you think it will help? Us letting you handle things? I'm afraid you'll get hurt again." Wakko said. When I looked at his spirit silhouette it didn't have red eyes, but white glowing eyes and his red wound mark had vanished. I looked at him and felt at ease that he was worried about me. "I just need you to trust me." I said to him. "Oh, kay. I f that's all you need, then I trust you." Wakko responded. Listening to his little brother talk like that sort of inspired Yakko. "Is that it? Just trust you?" He said. I just smiled at him and said, "Trust me to do the right thing." Yakko's eyes faded from red to white and his glowing stab wound instantly faded away. "Ok, sis. Do your little thing." Somehow that little display made sense to a few others and their eyes faded from red to white as well.
I still didn't have much control of my new body yet, because when Coluv fired his now basket ball sized fireball, I still wasn't able to dodge and it collided with my stomach and exploded on contact, destroying both my golden cloak and my shiny pink shawl. They both flew backward as they caught fire and burnt to cinders behind me. The tow shoulder guards that were attached to the shawl fell to the ground and 'clunked' as they bounced once and away.
Underneath the cloak and shawl I wore a light blue suit of armor. The breastplate was shaped perfectly to my new figure. The benter was lined with a gold ribbon that split and followed under the breast line. Under the gold ribbon, was a large ruby colored stone shaped similar to a shield. The rest of the breast plate followed my rib line and ended with another gold ribbon capping it all off. The tops of the breast plate also were capped with gold ribbons. The breast plate still exposed the collar line and was held on by leather straps gold plates covering them near the shoulders. Attached to the shoulder straps were shoulder plates. Shaped like my shoulder muscles, colored light blue and capped off with a gold lining around the edges. Under the breast plate I wore a silvery-green blouse that the only part seen was just beneath the under arms. Attached to the back of the shoulder straps was a silvery-green cape. (Starting to see the theme here?) Across my waist was a gold armor belt that tapered down into a point in the center. Attached to the belt first was a shiny pink skirt. The skirt was only attached to the belt until it draped down and exposed my hips, in which hip plates shaped like an elongated version of the shoulder guards were attached. The center of the belt had gold diamond shaped chain links attached to it. (Around five large ones.) On the hips of the belt there were rings in which had golden chains attached to them that led from the hip to the bottom of the second diamond shaped link in the middle chain. To top it all off, my armored boots had a gold rim on the top, in which a smaller version of the breast plate's red jewel was located and attached to each boot. Silvery-green metal lined the jewel and tapered down into a point on each boot as well. The rest of the boot was light blue metal with gold colored souls. (Eat your heart out Wonderwoman.)
"This is impossible!" Coluv was flabbergasted. "How did you become a Valkyrian?" He then shouted as he extended his hand toward me once again. This time light blue electricity charged in front of his palm and built up in size and power. This time I fought hard for control of the body and was actually able to move it for a time. When Coluv's lightning shot directly at me, I extended my left hand and caught the lightning bolt. (Don't ask me how, I think it was an instinct of this body.) Bringing my arm back and placing my own energy into the spell, Coluv's lightning bolt suddenly turned pink. When I shot my arm forward again I fired the lightning spell back at him, the pink lightning seemingly traveling in random directions but still maintaining its course. Coluv dodge rolled to the right just as the pink lightning struck ground and caused an explosion.
"Did I just do that?" I just asked myself, surprised at what I just did with the pink lightning. Skippy's eyes then began fading from red to white as he said to Slappy, "Maybe she can pull this off, Aunt Slappy." "What does she know? She wasn't around to save you when you were bleeding to death." Slappy retorted. Most of the other souls' eyes began to turn white from the display of control I had over the body during that instance. I found that the more people who allowed me to simply control the body, the easier it got to move.
While Coluv was stunned with my redirecting his spell, I began moving the body some more. First, I lifted my left hand and turned my head to look at the fist. I opened and closed my left hand, balling up a fist and uncurling my fingers to get use to moving them all at once. Coluv watched as my eyes faded from glowing red to shining yellow, indicating that I was gaining more control of the body. With a fist clenched, I stretched my left arm out, spun the fist over so that the knuckles were facing the ground and bent the elbow of the arm, raising my fist up to my eye level. Then I decided to use the right arm and the sword up and quickly swung it downward three times. Each time the sword was quickly brought down it cut through the air and made a high pitched whipping noise as it did.
Realizing that I still didn't have very good control of my new form, Coluv sought to maintain his advantage. He quickly stood up from his kneeling position, and dashed in toward me. He swung the Armageddon Blade inward and I brought the Valkyrie Star up to parry. The two swords clashed and left a loud ringing in the air as they did. Slightly surprised that I didn't go flying from his sheer bruit strength, Coluv began pushing as hard as he could against the Armageddon Blade in an attempt to bring me down to my knees by simply overpowering me physically. It worked. Physically, I wasn't as strong as he was and it was only a matter of time before my left knee touched ground.
The struggle wasn't going to end there. Once Coluv had me down to one knee, he grinned an evilly and placed the palm of his left hand in front of my face. Flames ignited in front of his palm and quickly began dancing around each other, soon forming a ball of flames. He meant to strike me with the fireball at point blank range and deliver maximum damage. I made a quick attempt to stand up and move away at the same time, but I wasn't fast enough to escape harm. The fireball was launched, just as I moved away and it struck me in the right side, denting my armor and burning my skin. The force threw me to the ground and I slid a fair distance before stopping. My side was throbbing and my breath had escaped from me for the moment.
"Not good." I said to myself realizing that I was still being held back by others who were still trying to exact their revenge. I attempted to stand up as quick as possible, but almost as soon as I stood to my feet I was struck by another fireball. It struck me in the arm and exploded on impact, causing me to be flung backward once again. I was tossed as I spiraled horizontally in mid air. My right shoulder guard, pieces of my right shoulder straps plating, tattered pieces of my right glove and the broken bits of metal from my right arm guard, all scattering as I twisted my body and landed on my feet with enough force and balance to slide back another six feet.