Chapter 15: The Ultimate! The Smartest! The Cutest! Galaxy Rider Saturn Makes Her Debut!
Exiting the portal from Jupiter with Kairi in tow, Mew wiggled his arms around, barely a feeling in his muscles.
"Woof!" He exhaled in shock, "What a rush!"
He turned to see the portal slide aside then looked at Kairi. She was still in a state of shock too dire to break with words alone. So Mew bent in and snapped his fingers a couple times in her face. She blinked and blabbered as her consciousness slipped back into her body.
Mew gently put his arms up to his chest and greeted her with, "Welcome back!"
She stared at him with eyes wide open. Mew casually told her, "Not every day you get to watch a moon crack open like a walnut eh?"
His canned laughter got no reaction out of her. Instead he drifting thoughts dribbled out of her mouth with a frightened but curious vibe to them, "D-Do you fight people like that all the time?"
Mew cocked his head and answered, "Not at all!"
"What?!" This jolted her eyes wide open, "B-But you're supposed to be...!"
"The Elemental Overlord?" Mew closed his eyes and giggled through a grin, "Make no mistake I'm 100% bona fide! ...I've just, you know, never had to strut my stuff until now."
"A-And yet you beat her." Kairi's tone didn't feel like either admiration or fright. She shook her head and let out a terse sigh, "You're a freak of nature."
"And once you've trained enough you'll be a freak like me too!" Mew cheerfully proclaimed, inciting outrage in the girl.
"I can't break a planet with my fists! That's insane!"
"You don't have to break a planet to be strong. Being strong is..." Mew pointed a finger up to his cheek and gave it a couple love taps. Then he struck it up in the air and turned to lay a hand on his chest.
Kairi tilted her head and assumed, "Keeping your heart healthy?"
"No," Mew playfully shook his head then looked at Kairi while adopting a more heartfelt tone, "Its about listening to your heart, and doing the right thing."
"...And just what is the 'right thing'?" Kairi murmured insecurely a question Mew didn't have a definitive answer for.
"That's something you got to learn on your own." He said, feeling that would suffice.
"Hrmm..." With a wistful growl Kairi lowered her head as she slowly turned for the stairs going up and said, "L-Lets just keep going."
"Ok!" Mew sharply returned to his peppy self and thrust a fist towards the sky, "Saturn, here we come!"
A silent trek up the stairs followed. Upon reaching the seventh floor of this monolithic Pyramid they were greeted by a sublime sight. The walls, the floor, the pillars, they all had been converted into a cybernetic material complete with pulsating multi-colored lines. Parts of the walls detached into cubes and re-inserted themselves into other parts of the room without breaking the symmetrical pattern.
"These floors keep getting weirder and weirder..." Kairi sighed and drooped her shoulders. In contrast, Mew stood up straight and had a jolly laugh at this room.
"Haha! I could've made bank betting on one of the Planetary Aurians being a tech genius!"
Kairi just glanced at him and grumbled, "Wouldn't this be the time to assume we'd be fighting a cyberspace AI or whatever the hell you said two floors back?"
Her comeback was weak and forced but her memory was spot on. Mew gave her an acknowledging nod then said, "Hey who knows, could be a little of both!"
He stared at the portal on the other end and whispered as his body trembled with anticipation, "There's only one way to find out!"
He jiggled his head around then sprinted straight for the portal. Without a clue as to where he'd land he leaped and dove in feet first. As the old saying goes, "Fortune favors fools", and he was shot out of that portal onto a floating rock made mostly of ice. The landing was hard and cold, yet somehow, also relaxing.
"Aaaah...Just what the doctor ordered." As the back pain seemed to die down he started to lift his head and saw thousands, possibly a million other alike rocks floating about. They formed a ring around the Milky Way's second gas giant – Saturn. The planet, while not as intense as Jupiter, still gently tugged at Mew's body from this far out.
A couple seconds later Kairi ran out of the portal, planting her legs directly behind Mew's laid out arms. Mew looked up Kairi's shorts and by pure accident saw something he really shouldn't have.
"Pink...?" He whispered as his face turned the same color.
As his danger senses tingled he stood right up before she could look down. He waited until he stopped grinning to turn around, where he found Kairi glaring at him as he's gotten used to her doing. She was clearly suspicious but instead of saying anything to that effect she grumbled, "Do you like looking like an idiot?"
"Message declined, please try again!" Mew replied, figuring he'd take a crack at sounding like one of those electronic answering machines.
"What. Ever." Kairi grumbled as she turned to look at the planet.
"So where are they this time?" She wondered quietly. Mew felt something coming from beyond Saturn's pull and looked up. A star in the sky was speeding around getting brighter and bigger every second.
After some serious deja vu Mew pointed at it and said, "I think that's them?"
"Aack!" Kairi instantly ducked to the ground and covered her head with her arms. Mew however squinted at the object closing in and thought, "Wait a tic...That ain't a person!"
Jumping out of hyperspace as a silver streak was a black ship as round as a donut with a sandy texture that glistened like stardust. It was only as big as a battleship and had a cockpit fit for one.
Kairi peeked her head out from cover and slowly stood back up. There the two watched as the center of the ship glowed violet and sent a beam straight down to the rock floating ten feet away from them.
A person's silhouette appeared in the light, becoming a solid figure as the light slowly went back to the ship like an unveiling curtain.
From the bare feet with violent painted nails and skinny clean shaven legs alone the person was clearly a woman. Around the kneecaps the bottom of a pure white lab coat revealed itself, with the girl's hands tucked deep into the bottom pockets. Her choice of clothes underneath the open coat were super short jean shorts and a light-purple tank top.
She had no figure filling out these clothes but once they got to her face it was clear age wasn't the problem here. She had bright red lips and velvety lavender hair hung down to her knees. Her eyes were the same color, but were hidden behind thin lensed rectangular glasses. Overall she was about a foot shorter than Mew but looked to be his and Kairi's age exactly.
"Hmhmm..." The girl's nose twitched and she closed her eyes with a smile. Then she whipped her hands out from her pockets and slowly brought them to cross near her chest. The bottom of her coat blew up, like it was caught on a breeze.
"Bwahahaha! Welcome!" She yelled boisterously as her eyes flared open. With her dominance over the conversation established the gal looked her sheepish guests straight in the eyes.
"What's the matter?! Have you been captivated by my magnificent visage?!" The gal talked with the kind of voice one would take when they're pretending to sound like a grown-up. Her forceful tact and loud voice got Kairi groaning in misery right away. Mew, however, looked up at the girl's ship for a moment then pointed towards it.
"Actually I was more impressed by your ship. What'd you make it out of? An asteroid?"
The girl swung her head back up then leaned it back with a prideful sneer, her hair partially draped over shoulder.
"Naturally!" She declared as a matter-of-fact, then with eyes squeezed shut and head held high she detailed, "The asteroid's astrodynamic composition makes it perfect for FTL travel without fear of burning up on re-entry from hyperspace travel!"
The girl pinched a smile and touched the bridge of her glasses, and the lens fogged up instantly.
"An observation most commendable yet predictable!" The girl leaned her head in partway to reveal a narrowing glare behind her glasses, "Elemental Overlord!"
Mew trembled at his feet and with a wobbly, humbled grin at being recognized for once retorted, "Ah, so my reputation precedes me!"
"Indeed!" The girl exhaled her brilliance with every yell, "You thought you could deceive me and my comrades but your treacherous ways end here, villain!"
"V-Villain?!" Mew sputtered while laying his fingertips at the sides of his chest, "M-Me?"
"Don't take me for a fool! Do you know who the hell I am?!" The girl crossed her arms and started to laugh.
"...Well-"
"Who do you think created the instant matter transporters to each planet?!"
"Wel-"
"WHO do you think made it possible to breathe on not one! Not two! But EIGHT different planets?!"
"We-"
"And who?! Just WHO?! Do you think is responsible for keeping Sancturia afloat and cloaked?!"
"W-"
"Only the most rootinest tootinest! Coolest! Smartest! Bravest! Cutest gal in all the cosmos!" Suddenly a bunch of fireworks went off behind the girl as she boasts her name to the high heavens, "Tremble before my awesomeness, and despair evil-doer! For you face the one! The only! Planetary Aurian of Saturn!"
Even more fireworks went off to eclipse the smoke of the last batch, only this time the light flared to spell out her name.
"Catherine Ceepeu!" She exclaimed with her hands swung up to the ends of her fiery bright name.
After which Saturn somehow mustered some semblance of restraint for her guests to take the time to bathe in her glory. Mew and Kairi's eyes were locked up in awe, with the boy's grin beginning to tremble with excitement.
"'Different' huh?" Mew was feeling something he hadn't towards any other Planetary Aurian so far. No, it wasn't love. Even Mew had his limits on handling energetic personalities and on a scale of 1 to 10 Saturn ranked a 20.
"Its like...When I look at her, I know we have to fight. Not because she's in the way but rather..." Mew's fists tightened up all on their own and he finally firmed his lips into a smile, "I think we share the same ideals."
"That's it! I'm out! Later!" Kairi tried to escape this madhouse through the portal but Mew hooked his pinky into her shirt's collar and held her back.
"Come on, just endure it. I'll try and make it quick." He tried to assured her. Kairi pouted but held her ground. Mew then stared over at Saturn and saw the girl still beaming with pride.
"So you're the brains behind Gravitus' operation?" He said as he held his pointer finger towards her upside-down.
"That's right!" Saturn didn't hesitate to answer, "And you're the miscreant who's been giving him a lotta trouble these past couple of days!"
Mew took a bit of pride in himself grinning while he responded, "Maaaaaybeee?"
"I will not tolerate your evil ways any longer! This is the end of the line for you!" Saturn proclaimed, her resolve tougher and denser than any asteroid.
"Ok then..." Mew flipped his hand to flutter his fingers towards himself, "Bring. It. On!"
Saturn nudged her nose and her glasses fogged back up. With a big old smile she proclaimed, "Excellent! Let us make this the fight of our lives!"
There was a sense that their minds were linked by not just the same ideals, but the same feeling of excitement towards battle. Saturn raised a carbon wristwatch to her mouth and a small holographic sphere projected off of it.
"Ship! Do the thing!" She threw her arm back down and turned towards the planet. Mew and Kairi watched as her ship pointed its center at the planet's rings and glowed bright white. A beam blasted down and the ship hurtled itself one full rotation around the planet in less than a minute. The beam sealed up practically stone and chunk of ice in a smooth cage of aura.
The aura squished the rings down to a more thin streamlined form without breaking any of the rocks. Kairi's jaw dropped and upon catching a glimpse of that Saturn exclaimed, "Impressed? Of course you are!"
Saturn crossed her arms towards the planet and said, "Welcome to the coolest skating rink this side of the Milky Way!"
She then leaned in at Mew to add, "And your final resting place! Now come...unless you're scared to die!"
Saturn tucked her hands into her pockets and hopped towards the battlefield. Mew followed along and the two glided down onto the ring. Mew took one look back at Kairi to make sure she was watching, then landed gently like a feather.
Saturn put a little more flair into her landing by leaning forward and pulling her hands out to make her lab coat flutter like a cape. She then twisted her body straight towards Mew and asked, "Did you ever imagine that you'd die seeing such a pretty sight?"
"The planet or you?" Mew said, mostly joking in regards to his opponent.
"I'm not pretty! I'm adorable!" Saturn exclaimed, "Unlike your heart, which is ugly like a swamp!"
"Heh well, if you're going to teach me a lesson, then you're certainly not dressed to impress!" Mew stated, waving at her bare legs in particular.
"HmhmHM!" Saturn hummed mischievously while tapping the side of her glasses up, "The fire of my soul rages like a supernova! I am the Reaper of Justice, here to ferry your corrupt soul to Hell!"
Saturn thrust her watch up to her chest and squeezed her fist tight, "You may have bested Seth and Jupes, but their spirits live on inside me! Our voices united, crying out for vengeance and JUSTICE!"
The outer ring of her watch disengaged and out flushed a plethora of bright orange rays of light. She swung her hand out and strained her lungs exclaiming, "Now gaze your eyes upon the true form...of the instrument of your defeat!"
Saturn thrust the watch above her head and shouted, "Recognize! Code: Galaxy!"
"Rider! To action!" The watch responded in kind, causing Mew to drop his jaw and stare on in disbelief.
A black leathery mesh flew out of the watch in multiple strands and wrapped up Saturn's body like a mummy's bandages. Her long hair and coat were tucked into the suit with ease. If then compressed the excess air out to fit her skinny frame before sealing the creases up into a uniform state.
Three orange rings energized outward around her wrists and ankles and straight lines glowed across the body. Finally, after the back of her head had been covered up, a triangular metal grate slid up from the neckline to her nose and a star-shaped glass plate covered her eyes, the points extending out past her face.
Saturn slowly crossed her arms then suddenly slammed them against her chest, an explosion of energy going off behind her as a texture accurate scarf enveloped her neck.
"The heroine of the stars...is here! I am...GALAXY RIDER SATURN!" She exclaimed, her voice booming with heroism.
Mew stared and had this unabashedly giddy look on his face. He stood up straight and started clapping his hands while laughing uncontrollably. Saturn met his supposed insanity and taunted him on it, "What's the mater? Are you shaking in your boots?!"
"Are you kidding?! This is amazing! You're so cool!" Mew exclaimed, but then with a tight grin he swung his arms out and left his body wreathed with flames like he never had before.
"But you'll have to try harder than that if you want to scare me!" He denounced her tactics as childish and briefly adopted a more villainous tone, "Besides, I eat goodie two-shoes like you for breakfast!"
"A pity!" Saturn swung one arm out and flicked her fingers towards herself, "I always longed to test my mettle against an Elemental Overlord! But you stand on the wrong side of the law, and bring shame to your predecessor!"
"Maybe! But it is MY justice that shall reign supreme on this day!" Mew took a step back in his head and thought, "Ooookay, starting to sound a little too super villain-ish here..."
"That's what you think! But I eat justice for breakfast, lunch...AND DINNER!" Saturn boasted with an echo in her voice.
"Oh my god get a room you two!" Kairi could faintly be heard yelling from this far away.
Saturn then spun around and waved her hand towards herself. With a short hop she was able to levitate off the ground, upon which she exclaimed, "Catch me if you can, villain!"
She then bolted forward as an orange streak of light along the translucent track. Mew widened his eyes and despite knowing the futility of blurting it said "Hey! Isn't that supposed to be the other way around?!" and ran right after him.
He worked his legs to the bone catching up with the battle suited tech wizard, a series of words he never thought he'd string together in his lifetime, and locked eyes with her. The two let out increasingly louder hums until their heads were bent to the back of their necks. They then swung their heads down, slid back a little, rammed shoulders with each other, and flexed their muscles a bit while wearing competitive scowls.
Vs. The Techno Minded Mistress: Aurian Saturn!
They kept up this high-speed showdown for about ten whole minutes as they rounded the circumference of the planet. Both sides tried to shove the other off the ring but barely made any progress. Mew grit his teeth and growled, "Tough suit you got here! What's it made of?"
"Hrrghh! Wouldn't you...like to know?!" With one hard grunt Saturn shoved Mew off her shoulder and sped a little ahead of him. Mew staggered behind a little as his mind quickly wandered towards the suit's specs.
"I can't sense anything from that suit, not even electricity. Whatever its made of...is completely foreign to me!" He then kicked up the pace as they finished their first lap around the planet.
From the corner of his eye he saw Saturn's cheeks perk up behind the glass as she suddenly whispered to her suit a single word: "Double".
Faster than Mew could blink, Saturn's speed doubled down and she vanished from sight. When Mew finished blinking Saturn returned, having leaped into the air to drive her right foot into Mew's chest. All of course, while yelling out "SATURN KICK!"
Mew expunged the air in his lungs and went tumbling around mostly on his back. He dropped on his feet and swung his right arm up to block Saturn's second kick with her left foot. It took all the strength he had in that arm to stand his ground and keep her at bay.
Luckily, his other arm was happy to pick up the slack and swung up to snatch Saturn out of the air and drop her to the ground. But right as her back landed she fired boosts out from her feet to pull away and drag Mew face-first onto the ground.
Saturn stood right up to leap and swing her right leg straight up by her face. Identifying this move as a deadly axe-kick, Mew widened his eyes and planted his palms on the ground to perform a handstand, twirling around to repeatedly pound Saturn in the gut with a whirlwind of kicks.
Or so he thought. He only got a couple kicks in before Saturn dropped her leg down and kicked the heel of Mew's shoe to repel away to safety. She slid back then darted straight for Mew.
He grinned and pressed his palms on the ground, simultaneously flipping back and laying an electric mine in his place. Saturn ran right into the trap and her suit got completely zapped for it. Mew landed and whisked a hand across the bottom of his chin while wearing a sneer.
"Haha!" He proclaimed with pride.
Saturn's suit vibrated and shook the electricity right off, upon which she crossed her arms up to her chest and yelled even louder, "HA! HA!"
"Huh..." Mew piped up a little then with a glistening smirk flicked his right hand up and snapped his fingers. A large lightning bolt descended upon Saturn, who zipped to the right out of its way then charged straight at Mew, striking him across the left hip with a punch.
When Saturn looped back around for a second round Mew bent down and slammed his palms on the ground to create a fiery eruption around him. Saturn pulled away then wiggled her nose as she raised her arms up level with her chest.
"Try this on for size!" She exclaimed as she ground her wrist rings together, causing them to vibrate intensely and release an ear-piercing, high frequency pulse.
The flames subside as Mew has to assign his hands to the role of protecting his eardrums. Even then it felt like they were being scratched at by a pack of tiny cougars. He twisted his head back and ducked his body down just in time to dodge a left hook to his face. Then he hopped and kicked his legs up, twisting his body around once before landing straight back up.
He then danced back, flailing his legs up one at a time to hold his opponent back until he could get his footing. The noise subsided the moment he got his footing, but then Saturn clocked him one in the face.
Mew tanked that hit stone-cold and creased his lips into a grin. Saturn pulled back when Mew tried to uppercut her in the chin then set the rings around her wrists ablaze. She punched them both out in quick succession, sending frayed beams of energy towards his head.
Mew's face skirted the edge of the beams as he slid in closer, though Saturn kept speeding back in short bursts to maintain distance. After a couple more beams from her Mew ducked and scraped his right fist along the ground to set it on fire.
He missed his mark aiming up Saturn's gut and chest, but amidst her swift retreat Mew was able to hide a smile behind his burning arm. For as before he set his fists aflame he slid a few seeds out from between his knuckles, and they landed at Saturn's feet.
Thus with a snap of the fingers Mew grew the seeds into a series of vines that wrapped around Saturn's body. For a brief moment, Mew swore he glimpsed her blushing before he commanded the vines to slam her down left and right.
"Not! Today!" Saturn grunted between slams. All the rings on her suit glowed then expanded outward to slice right through the vines like a hot knife to butter.
She then landed and twirled around as the vines decayed behind her. She swiped a finger before her nose and remarked, "There's always a time and place for that kinda stuff! But not when there's justice to be done!"
"Now then..." She hopped about and thrust her fists towards Mew to get pumped up again, "Engarde!"
She coated her right arm in aura shaped like a lance head and thrust straight towards Mew's chest. Mew turned around and drew his sword over his head to block it, anticipating ahead of time that she'd speed right past him and attack from the other side.
As she carried her momentum forward as he predicted, she threw a nasty surprise into the mix and left Mew hearing a rapid string of "Beeps" behind him.
Mew mistakenly held his sword up by his face and saw that she detached the lance onto his blade and turned it into a bomb. With quick thinking he tossed the sword out like a boomerang hoping to intercept Saturn's return trip.
Yet she not only leaped over it, but used the bomb's explosion to propel herself higher and forward. She dove straight for Mew's face feet first but he slipped out of the way in the nick of time. She landed, spun, and dashed back over to attack.
Mew deflected her fast hooks with his hands but failed to protect his legs from being swept by the twirling kick of both her legs. Bent down afterwards, Saturn twisted her right fist down by her butt and set her wrist rings ablaze. Then she rose and slammed her fist straight into Mew's gut. On the exact moment of impact the energy exploded from her wrists one ring at a time, adding a lot more pain to the punch.
And after the blasts went off she ejected air from her palm to drop right back to the ground without letting gravity have a chance.
Mew grimaced and thought, "After Jupiter...this doesn't hurt so bad..."
But Saturn would try and make certain to correct that soon enough. As Mew started to drop Saturn bolted right up to his location and grabbed him around his arms and legs, ensnaring them both in a cocoon of aura wrappings. She then turned them upside-down and spiraled towards the ground at rapidly increasing speeds.
"This feels...familiar." Mew couldn't help but shake off that vibe even as his head was driven into the ground and broke what bound him in place.
Saturn bounced off unharmed while Mew fell flat on his back. He quickly used the curve of his heels and the momentum of his fall to get right back on his feet. Then he started rubbing the back of his head and turned around.
Saturn could freely take a break to brag and boast about herself, "Hahaha! Is this really the best an Elemental Overlord can do?!"
Mew hung his head a bit towards the planet's encased rings then cracked a grin at the ideas spinning in his head. He swung his right hand out and pinched two fingers together, matching her boast with a nonchalant, "Not really, no."
He then cleanly snapped his fingers and widened his grin. But after a few seconds of nothing happening Mew fluttered his eyelashes then snapped his fingers a couple times. Saturn crossed her arms and leaned her head back to look down on him, breaking out into one magnificent guffaw once he stopped snapping his fingers.
"You thought you could use the planet's rings against me! Too bad! For I am ten quattuordecillion steps ahead of you!"
Mew let out a "Tsk" then swung his hand down and proclaimed, "This must be the power of your Drive then!"
"But of course!" Saturn couldn't help herself from getting a little into the details, "My Containment Drive cannot be broken by neither man nor god!"
Mew grimaced and let out a slight groan of disappointment. Then with a droopy sigh he thought, "Normally I'd be mad she told me her power...But I get this strange feeling I haven't seen everything that Drive can do yet."
She came flying right in swinging her arms around his body. Quick, blinding punches were the name of her game, and Mew was struggling to beat them back with just his hands. He glanced back and saw his sword still on the ground then swung his arm back to call it into his hand.
Saturn retreated as Mew swung his sword down overhead, following through with a horizontal swing midway to lash out a wave of flame towards his opponent. He then dispelled his blade upon Saturn slicing through the flames with a kick.
She held her leg up and rolled the lower part of it around. Mew was drawn to it, as he expected some manner of trick to come from it. Nope! She just bolted forward and hit him right in the face with a simple kick.
Mew staggered back and lifted his head slightly as Saturn short hopped back and dropped a huge smoke bomb upon him. The view for a hundred feet around became obscured in smoke. A relatively thin cloud, Mew noted, with nothing that was bad to breath in.
Saturn came flying in, exposing herself with the glow from her rings. Mew drew his sword and easily swung it around to deflect her incoming attacks. But the moment she failed she came flying back in for another go. Her rings put on quite the light show inside this smoggy veil that was dissipating via the force of his swings.
And yet this display exposed Mew to a crucial fact he was overlooking. As he pressed the edge of his blade against a set of rings that came dangerously close to his face, he saw past the ignited sparks that the sets of rings were flying independently of one another.
"A diversion?!" He blurted out as he shoved the rings away and with one firm grunt blew aside all the smoke with wind.
Saturn didn't hide. She faced him head on and sprinted forward, her upper body leaning in towards the ground. With a boisterous cry of "That's right!" she rose and aimed to grasp his neck in her right hand.
Mew leaned back and tried to swing his sword to retaliate, but she was just too swift! And her aim wasn't quite as true as Mew had predicted. For leaning back left her true target ripe for the picking.
"Now give me your face!" She exclaimed as with a minor readjustment she had her small fingers firmly grasped around the sides of his face.
Carrying her momentum forward allowed her to pull Mew right off his feet and drag him along in the air. Mew swung his hands up to try and pull her off by the wrist. She responded in kind by fortifying her hand with an aura construct resembling the hand of a mech.
"No escape!" She declared as she squeezed around tighter. Mew closed his mouth and conserved air with slow paced breathing through his nose, trying to use his quick thinking to come up with a way out.
Unfortunately Mew's quickly coming to understand that he's met an opponent who thinks on a much faster level than he could ever hope to match. If she was a high-spec gaming PC, then he wasn't even a typewriter in comparison.
"Activating vibrators at the atomic level!" Saturn's hand started to glow a dim shade of red.
"Accelerating vibrations to three point one-four times the normal limit!" The glow grew brighter until it was a scorching mix of orange and yellow, the hand leaving a burning imprint across Mew's skin.
"HERE I GO!" Saturn roared as the pressure contained in her hand looked set to explode, "This hand of mine is burning red!"
Mew widened his eyes and thought, "Oh no fucking way."
"Its loud roar tells me to grasp victory!" The hand cracked at the seams and, unable to contain this explosive power for very much longer, Saturn dragged Mew's body to the ground and suspended herself above to hold him down.
"ERUPTING! BURNING! FIIIIINGER!" With one valiant yell ignited by the flames of her soul, Saturn commanded the heat contained within her hand to collapse upon itself and detonate upon Mew's face, climaxing in a furious cry of, "HEAT! ENDDD!"
Mew was sent hurtling across the ground by the explosive blast, his head consumed with a burning heat borne of her passion for justice. It was so hot, that smoke seeped off his skin and left black char marks when it subsided. He grit his teeth and slammed his arms against the ground to grind to a halt, leaving the skin on his elbow burning red.
He pulled himself onto his feet and let out a ghastly cough, expunging a bit of soot from his throat. He then rubbed the bottom of his chin free of a bit of blood and stared straight ahead. His eyes took a moment to readjust, but when they did he saw Saturn only a few feet away with her arms crossed as an expression of triumph.
"You survived! But I am only mildly impressed, villain!" Her wayward way of delivering praise didn't shake Mew too much.
"Hehehe..." Mew closed his eyes and let out a somewhat unhinged chuckle. Then he swung his head up high, crossed his arms against his chest, and casually said something that'd take any girl by surprise.
"Hey! If you aren't busy later, do you want to go out on a date?!"
To Mew's credit, the unshakable Saturn did momentarily pause upon hearing that. But after a couple blinks of her eyes she burst into laughter and exclaimed, "Rule 140 of Heroism: Never date your enemies!"
Mew reeled back a bit in shock and quickly rolled his shoulders while swinging his hands up beside his face, "Eh, it was worth a shot."
He then swung his fists up and narrowed his eyes, his gaze full of vigor. Saturn laid her hands down by her hips and declared, "You still think you stand a chance now do you?!"
"Hahaha!" She laughed with her head reared all the way back, "I, who stand in the full light of the heavens, am not the least bit phased by your dark determination, miscreant!"
"I guess she's got every right to laugh me off. I haven't even scratched her battlesuit," Mew squinted his eyes to give her body the once over, "But I don't care how smart you are. Everything's got to have a weakness."
Saturn snapped her fingers up by her face and created two triangular-like pods out of aura. They looked pretty complex in design, having a lot of little intricacies that would take hours to dissect if they were real. But for now they served Saturn's purpose as little turrets that buzzed around Mew and pelted him with energy blasts.
Mew swung a fist up to the right and used a bullet of compressed air to penetrate one of the pods. Saturn closed the distance and drove her fist down at his face. Mew turned in time to grab it and, while tanking a few hits from the remaining pod, summoned his sword and attempted to slash her suit.
He knew she'd break free with a kick to his gut, but even her speed couldn't save her from taking a cut across the gut. But it mattered not, for there was no lasting impact. The suit sealed itself back up like a zipper, and Saturn laughed his efforts off.
"Nanofibers son!" She boasted gleefully, "They instantly react to any outward damage done to my suit!"
"Somehow, I'm not surprised..." Mew limply dispelled his sword then threw his fist back to punch out the other pod while Saturn bragged, but then raised his brows in intrigue and thought, "Only outward damage eh?"
Mew cracked his knuckles and finally felt he had an idea worth exploring. He held his fists up and rushed Saturn with a few quick punches. She gracefully evaded them and retaliated by detaching her rings from her wrists, treating them like sharp flying discs.
Mew kept on the pursuit and swung his body around the blades. He leaped, twirled and slipped between a couple of blades and landed without breaking his stride. Saturn hopped back up high and recalled her rings the moment she landed on a slanted vertical platform of aura.
She bent down and stuck to it, pressing her fists against the platform and pounding it with blasts from her rings. It didn't appear to have any effect from an outward glance, but the insides of the platform pulsed like a stone bouncing on water with every blast. She was building up, no, containing, the pressure of her blasts until finally...
"BLAST AWAY!" The platform released all that built up force upon her legs and sent her hurtling straight at Mew like a comet. Mew barely swung his body out of the way then grit his teeth to brace for what was to come next. The platform expanded out into a dome that allowed Saturn to freely rebound in a confined space around Mew.
Her chances of successfully striking him only increased with every blow landed, and though he valiantly held his ground there was only so much punishment his body could take. She hit her mark true on his back and plowed him into the ground, where Mew briefly heard a snap coming from his spine.
Saturn used her fists to handstand on Mew's back and spin him around so fast that his body eventually looked like a hockey puck. Fitting, as when Saturn had her fun she hopped off and tossed him straight into a makeshift goalie's net. Upon landing she thrust her fist up and an explosion went off behind the net, with her ship blaring out a "GOOOOOOOAAAAL!"
Mew weakly grumbled and then started to lift his body up. Then Saturn swung her fist down and out came the iron bars to hold him in. She crossed her arms and declared, "Enjoy your time in jail, cretin!"
Mew narrowed his eyes then threw his right hand up to punch the net-jail combo off of him and give him the freedom to stand. Saturn lowered her arms slightly and with a "Feh" remarked, "Why must your kind always be so gosh darn stubborn?"
"It just comes with the territory!" Mew chuckled with a smirk.
"Hmph! Be that as it may, your tenacity will prove to be your undoing!" Saturn went charging right in for another round, not having a care in the world how she tackled the problem as in her mind, Mew wasn't a problem.
It was a mentality that Mew would soon have her second-guessing on, for as she came flying towards him he cracked a grin and quickly swung what seemed like a normal punch into her gut. She scraped his hip with a punch and then sped past him.
Mew turned around and watched as she started to slow down, her body trembling from head-to-toe.
"W-Whoooa!" She hollered, seemingly unfazed, and tip-toed her body back around. Mew rushed her and threw another simple punch into her chest, knocking her a couple feet back and making her quiver even more.
"That's the ticket!" Mew held his fist in place and his grin grew wider. However the specifics of his plan would quickly come under scrutiny by Saturn, whose cheeks widened with glee.
"Hahaha! Unable to best my brilliant suit head-on, you have chosen the coward's way out by attacking my cute little body with small earthquakes!" Saturn swung her head up high and exclaimed, "But its a fools errand! Watch...THIS!"
Her body started to vibrate all over, all at once. Glistening her expression with a big wide grin she caught Mew's full attention and explained herself, "My Vibro-Suit was designed to handle every element you can throw at me! Lightning bolts? I'll shrug them off! Fire? Not even an ember! Earthquakes? I'll match them with a counter-vibration! And best of all...!"
She closed her eyes as her voice started sounding a bit shaky and lucid, "It provides me with a full body massage to keep the good times going...Awwwwwww yeah."
Mew scoffed and smirked then pulled his fists up back to his hip. Saturn glared straight at him and remarked, "And still you believe you stand a chance! Ha! I will have you know that I haven't even used 1 trillionth of my true power!"
Saturn flipped back three times like an acrobatic to put a hundred feet between her and Mew. Upon landing her scarf morphed into a long tattered cape and her glass visor glowed with a thin neon light. She grabbed onto the side of her cape and whipped it off.
"Eat...THIS!" And in that same motion she threw her right hand up and from her massive supply of aura created a thick, circular drill that towered over her at about fifty feet tall.
Mew stood in the shadow of the drill once again feeling awe at what she's chosen to manifest her spirit. The blazing light of the drill shone down upon Saturn, obscuring most of her in shadow. But what couldn't be hidden was her smile, nor the determination in her iron stance.
The vibrations from her suit fed into the massive drill and caused it to start spinning. And once it was a mighty whirlwind of pure willpower she lowered it towards Mew and started to run at him, exclaiming at the top of her lungs, "GIIIIIGAAAA! DURRRRILLL..."
Mew, having the time of his life as his heart raced against his chest, grit his teeth and fought against the immense rotation of the drill to stand his ground. He dragged his arms towards the front of his chest and exclaimed, "You're not the only one who can pull tricks from other sources!"
As he wrapped his arms up in a coat of some purple metallish material, Saturn slammed the tip of her drill into him and punctuated her attack with a long, drawn out, "BREAAAAAAAKAAAAAAH!"
The force of the drill struck the surface of Mew's arms and immediately the metal responded. All that force, all that willpower, reverberated right off of it in one gigantic pulse of raw power. Cracks riddled the gigantic drill whole and shatter it apart into glass. Saturn, unfortunate enough to be on the other end of it, widened her eyes and was slammed head-on by the entire shockwave.
She fell to her back and went sliding hundreds of feet away in seconds. When things seemed to die down Mew lowered his arms and sighed in relief, "Oh thank god that worked..."
He then rushed in closer to Saturn's location. She suddenly sprung to her feet, struggling to stand upright. Mew paused a few feet away and cautiously awaited her next move.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" A very, VERY high-pitched squeal was the last thing he expected. Saturn grabbed onto the sides of her face and bent down, swerving her hips around as her excitement appeared almost...orgasmic.
"And they all said that vibranium was a MYTH! Hahaha! This is an amazing discovery! This'll change...EVERYTHING! HAHAHAH!"
"U-Uhhh...Are you ok?" Mew said, sounding genuinely concerned that he accidentally knocked her brain out of place.
Saturn firmed herself upright, crossed her arms against her chest, and exclaimed with all her usual boisterousness, "I am more than ok! It seems I have underestimated you!"
Mew blinked at her a few times as she went off on a brief tangent, "I have decided to name you as a worthy opponent! For once, you may hold your head up high and feel blessed by the prestige I have honored you with!"
Mew tilted his head to the right and stuttered, "Umm...Does that mean I beat you or...?"
"Oh heck no!" Saturn blurted, "You may be a worthy opponent...But you still have chosen to fight for the wrong side!"
Mew turned his body a little aside and, feeling like he'd never get another chance to do so, waved a hand out to ask, "What drives you to fight on like this?"
Saturn raised her head up slightly and took a moment to think. With her eyes gazing towards the thousands of stars she exclaimed, "To see the evils of this world be wiped away and everlasting peace restored a heroine can never stop! Even when the odds are stacked against me a million to one, I will fight for that one in a million shot of seeing a brighter tomorrow! For you see, justice is defined by those who win..."
She firmed her gaze upon Mew and slanted her eyes to boast, "And so I...WILL NEVER LOSE!"
She swung her arms down to her hips and a powerful hiss released from her suit. Mew jumped away on instinct, feeling as Saturn's power was skyrocketing to heights that dwarfed the other five Planetary Aurians combined. The orange lights on her suit started to be overtaken by silver, and the back of her suit burst wide open to expunge a pair of feathery white wings of aura.
"PROTOCOL NEO...ACTIVATE!"
"T-This is...!" Mew dug his feet into the ground but the waves of energy started shoving him further and further away. He watched as the wings on Saturn's back blossomed out into thousand foot long manifestations of her own justice. This angelic strength bathed over the battlefield and yet brought to Mew's mind a feeling of unrest.
"This is bad!" He began to realize.
The next nanosecond later Saturn had plunged her fist into Mew's stomach. The boy didn't even have any feeling from the punch even though such a mighty blow should've sent his innards flying out of his back. With a cocky smirk Saturn pulled her fist out and left Mew to cobble over in pain.
"This is...MY FINAL TECHNIQUE!" Saturn yelled as with one flap of her radiant wings she took flight high over the planet. The strength of her wings, for as gentle as they moved, pushed away the gas clouds compromising the planet.
Then she spread her wings far and wide and made sure that no one would miss her declaration of victory, "MOONLIGHT...BUTTERFLY!"
She took all the strength she had gathered and dove straight down towards Mew. The boy laid one hand on his stomach and felt the weight of his opponent's power crushing down on him from above.
"Move damn it...!" He demanded of his legs, which were frozen stiff in place. Saturn was approaching fast. There was little time to think of a plan out of this.
Mew's eyes started to close, but he thrust them right open and went, "No! Gotta think! Come on!"
His eyes closed again, and "D.'s" smile flashed before the darkness of his subconscious. He furiously opened his eyes and swung his head up to meet Saturn's descent with a roar. With his other free hand clung into a fist he threw out one gigantic punch at the exact moment that his and Saturn's eyes met.
The light from Saturn's wings collapsed into a massive singularity of energy as bright as a newborn star. What felt like an eternity passed in a second as the singularity burst apart, releasing a shockwave that cleaved half the gases off of the planet and spread them to the dark depths of space.
In the aftermath of this climatic clash of wills only one could remaining standing tall. And upon Mew's fist, with the last of her energy flickering out from her suit, laid Saturn on her stomach. She was silent as her battlesuit's pieces retreated into her watch, and her flowing hair draped over her body and obscured her face.
As Mew's arm fell limp by his hip her chin rested upon his shoulder and she heard his slow, ragged breathing. What she couldn't see however was the brief yellow tint in his eyes, which was joined by him grinning like a madman. But then with a shock to his heart the grin disappeared, and he was left motionless.
Saturn weakly raised her head and laid her spindly fingers onto Mew's arm. They were cold, and her voice was devoid of its usual vigor.
"Does this mean...that my justice was wrong?"
Mew quietly shook his head and sighed out, "Beats me...But I do know that you lost the battle."
Suddenly Saturn perked right back up to her feet and bounced off of Mew with a smile. She closed her eyes and remarked, "Indeed! But this can only have been a learning experience!"
Mew stared at her and started blinking as she thrust a finger right up to his face. Another finger nudged her glasses up as with a wicked smirk she declared, "The rules are the rules, so I guess I can let you pass this time...But make no mistake! We...ARE NOW RIVALS!"
Once she drew her hand back Mew started laughing and proclaimed, "Sure! Why the hell not? I always wanted to have a rival!"
"Next time I will not lose!" She declared while whipping a stamp out from one of her many pockets and planting it firmly on the back of his hand. The stamp represented her doing her arm cross pose in her battlesuit, and was much, much more detailed than every other stamp thus far.
Mew looked up at Saturn and she wagged a finger in his face, telling him with a high degree of animosity, "You may have beaten me, but you will never foil Gravitus' plans for peace!"
Then with a kinda playful wink she tapped down on her watch and was caught in her ship's transport beam. From there she only had time to yell "FAREWELL!" before she was carried off. Then as her ship zoomed off to parts unknown, the effects her Drive had on the planet's rings started to fade.
"Oh! Guess I better scram." Mew made haste to fly back to Kairi's location before he'd lose track of where she was.
Upon landing on the stone he trotted up to her in a casual manner and placed his hands in his pockets. She was staring at him a little timidly. She was still a little freaked out, but Mew supposed that after seeing that level of insanity once it wasn't so bad the second time around.
He grinned and asked, "Soooo what did you learn?"
Kairi squeezed her eyes shut and let out a ten-second long sigh, setting a new record. She then rubbed her forehead and grumbled, "I learned that you're all insane..."
"Naaaah, we're just having fun is all!" Mew cheerfully proclaimed.
Kairi glanced at him from the corner of his eyes and wondered aloud, "Fun? Cause that sure didn't look fun near the end there."
"So things got a little heated and we took out most of Saturn..." Mew said nonchalantly, "But I'm still standing right?"
"...Right." Kairi mumbled something under her breath and then turned to Mew and raised her right hand towards him.
"Well, congratulations on your victory." This was some pretty sudden praise coming from her. But Mew gladly accepted it and started to raise his right hand up shake it...
"Ooooww!" But he forgot that it wasn't just hurt, it was broken. From shoulder to fingertips he felt every bone in his body aching and every muscle fiber on fire.
"I knew it!" Kairi suddenly reeled her hand back and with a bit of anger in her voice said, "You're hurt!"
Unless the pain was affecting his mind, Mew could've sworn she shouldn't legitimately concerned for his own well-being. Yet with a lighthearted chuckled Mew wiggled his mangled fingers around a little and remarked, "Ah its no big deal. I've recovered from much worse!"
"Liar." Kairi said accusingly.
"I'm telling the truth," Mew's overall relaxed attitude kept his lie strong even as he dug himself a deeper hole, "I'll be fine in no time. We can still train when we get back."
Kairi squinted at him and ruffled her lips into somewhat of a frown. She then turned towards the portal and walked through it. Mew let out a sigh of relief but felt a twinge of guilt for lying to her like that. Though he did believe his own lie a little, and assumed that his arm would be fine before tomorrow.
Before he headed through the portal however, he was disturbed by the words Saturn left him with.
"You may have beaten me, but you will never foil Gravitus' plans for peace!"
"Peace, huh..." With a narrowed glare Mew slowly entered the portal and found he couldn't stop thinking about that word...
Next Time: The Curse of Life