"Watch out!" Elutia steered the Ragnarok aside, dodging a glowing beam emitted from Earth from behind.
"Nice save! You could have made a great SeeD," Raddie said, still frightened that the spaceship almost hit.
"Curse the SeeDs!" Elutia blurted. "This is not good. Another magic has been returned. Only a few magics left. Drive faster!"
"We're going at lightning speed! I'm as worried about her as you are."
"I'm not worried," Elutia grunted.
"Then why are you so tense?" Raddie chuckled.
When he turned to Earth, she had woken him up in the Ragnarok. It had taken Raddie quite a while to flush out all the Sleep spell from his system, obviously cast by Acma to ensure he couldn't wake up before reaching Earth. The magic return ritual had happened days before his arrival. Healing magics disappeared one by one, followed by protection spells, and then offensive ones. It was different from everyone's original expectation that all the magics would disappear all at once. Hence, a couple of military forces took the chance to evade weaker lands. The SeeD force was busy helping balance these forces. No one cared about Acma's fate, besides hoping that the ritual would end soon.
Elutia had convinced Raddie to go back to Testa. It was hard to believe, but he knew the dark sorceress had a change of heart, knowing that Acma must have been fighting all these days.
Soon, they reached Testa, which now appeared visibly as a giant floating temple.
"Stay here," Elutia said. "I'll go in."
"No way."
"With zero gravity and no magic, you're useless. Wait here. Keep the ship around. There's a chance we'll go home..."
She had reasons Raddie couldn't debunk. He knew he shouldn't be a burden to two powerful sorceresses.
"I'll come in once all magics are gone. Hynespeed, Elutia."
With that, Elutia put on the spacesuit, bringing an extra pair and a few oxygen tanks, venturing into the sanctuary.
Elutia propelled herself into what seemed to be an endless hallway lit up by giant runes on one side. Apparently she was following a giant circle, each section signifying a magic that had been erased from Earth. Monster corpses got bloodier, indicating Acma had a harder time defeating them. Then she reached a dead T-Rex, and that was the end of the bloodshed. She kept going and going. No more runes to light up the hallway.
Holy. Flare. Meteor. Ultima.
If she had to be the one to die to return Ultima, so be it.
What happened?
Acma wasn't dead. She knew, for she still felt pain all over her battered body collapsed on the ground.
Basilisk growled in pain when she saw her son's blade pierce through his own chest. Blood drooled from his mouth. He backed into a corner, lifeless.
Acma could no longer move. Zyma's blade had reached her flesh and heart, but not as deep to kill her. In front of her dull eyes laid the object that kept her from instant death.
Her real Zyma's Triple Triad card.
Her Telekinesis under crisis must have bounced the blade back to the illusion of Zyma.
"Son, come back to me!"
Basilisk released a light from her mouth and blew it into Zyma. After the blinding light, a more familiar form of him appeared in front of Acma.
"WHO DARED TO WAKE ME UP FROM MY SLUMBER SHALL FACE HELL'S JUDGMENT!"
"Kill her!" Basilisk growled, redirecting Aczyma to the badly injured Acma in her tattered spacesuit. He immediately charged at her and she cast Holy, probably for the last time.
"Don't you dare touch my sister!"
Suddenly, a familiar voice echoed, followed by a bright sphere appearing between Basilisk and Aczyma, then expanding to a huge green sphere that lit up the hallway.
"Elutia?" Acma murmured.
"Are you alright?" Elutia flew towards Acma and shielded her from the beasts. "Can you run?"
"No. Why are you here?"
"To see how you get crushed, obviously. Isn't that your lover?"
"And his mom, too."
"You've got quite a weird taste, sis. But didn't I kill it before?"
"They don't seem to come from our same world," Acma explained.
"Perfect. Then I guess you don't have any problem with me killing them." Elutia said.
"Sis, why?" Acma cried as she looked at Elutia, then glanced at the two powerful GFs emerging from the dissipating green light of Ultima.
"You've done enough. Let me take care of them. Who knows? Maybe we can both go home together. Your fanboy is waiting outside."
"I'd love to. Hold my hand. We'll do this together. Let's perform our first Duo."
Each moment passed by in a way that made Raddie feel like an eternity. He prepared the sleeping pods, filled with cooling fluid that would preserve open wounds. Injured space travelers used these equipments to stay alive on the way back to Earth for better treatment.
He parked the Ragnarok far enough from Testa's entrance, which seemed to draw magic from Earth.
Silence.
Then another source of light came into the temple. This time, the channeling last longer and seemed to be a mix of magics.
Is this over?
As Raddie was about to leave Ragnarok, the control panel emitted an alert. Something was close to Ragnarok's safety zone.
Raddie was puzzled, approaching the screen to make sense of what could have come to this open space. The images were blurry, but he could make no mistake in figuring out that two people in spacesuits were lingering outside Ragnarok's entrance.
"Elutia and Acma?"
Raddie thought, then waited no more to welcome them back.
It turned out they were not the twins, but also no strangers to him.
"Raddiante Smailes. Do as we say, and tell no one about this. Let's hope for the best."