READ NOVEL ONLINE Prologue – “Punch! Punch! Punch Till Your Soul Burns Out!”
"It's over, Star Lily!" The Dark Queen Melrondia gloated. The smoke was still clearing away slowly but she saw the sparks from Star Lily's barrier fizzle weakly. Her Mana signature was dangerously low, and the worry on Melrondia’s face was turning into a huge smile as she realized she had literally blasted the Starchaser out of Star Lily. A gust of wind blew, worsening the nearby forest fire around them revealing her dark silhouette against the backlit fires.
“How am I supposed to go home like this?” The dark-haired Starchaser said as she stepped out of the smoke. “It’s not like a barrel to wear-” she was interrupted when a barrel from the nearby (and now-burning) factory rolled by. “Can someone get that for me?”
The other Starchasers; Star Rose, Juniper, and Tulip were just barely getting up, pain racking their bodies. Everyone had barely enough time to put up a Barrier to disrupt Melrondia’s Annihilator Beam, but just as the destructive stream of raw energy shattered their barrier Star Lily leapt forward and created a second Barrier all by herself.
Thanks to the second barrier, the city far behind them was still intact but their Raiments; protective dresses that also doubled as a suit that enhanced their physical and magical abilities, were now damaged. Star Lily having taken the brunt of the attack had hers completely gone.
Melrondia broke out in laughter as she saw the naked Starchaser still standing defiantly, she was utterly defenseless and powerless now, the farce of her still acting cool and defiant made it even more hilarious. “Bwahahahahaha! I’m gonna make sure to vaporize your pretty face next.. Because you piss me off, Ingrid!”
Ingrid Blair, Star Lily, shrugged as she saw Melrondia charge up another blast. “Yeah, well make it quick, Queenie. It’s my day-off tomorrow and I’m thinking of applying at Fluffy Land's…”
“Awww boo-hoo, Happy Dino's switching theme parks.” Melrondia mockingly said, referring to Ingrid's mascot character. She fired a volley of blasts at Ingrid, who nimbly dodged them despite not being enhanced by her Raiment. “I’d spare you, Ingrid, just to see you run late and lose your chance. But sadly you’re going to have to stand them up, Permanently!”
“You wish.” Ingrid said, catching the last of the Crimson Lances Melrondia fired at her with her bare hand. The impact sent her skidding backwards, the rough rocks on the soil cutting her feet, but she remained standing upright and crushed the energy shot. Ingrid smugly held up her hand, showing a shimmering layer of her Mana shielding it before putting it behind her hip, her other hand coming forward and beckoning at the Dark Queen. “I could put this on my CV: Ingrid Blair, caved the Dark Queen Melrondia’s face in.”
Melrondia’s face darkened with pure rage “YOU WILL DIE HERE, STAR LILY!!!” she channeled from within herself her massive stores of Mana.
“Lily no!!!” The rest of the Starchasers cried out, seeing the horrific injuries on the hand she hid behind her back. Lily however, needed to do this. She needed to buy her friends time.
Ingrid Blair took one last look at her friends.
"Smell ya later, losers."
Charging forward to meet Melrondia head-on, she used the last of her life force to Transform one more time...
When she first was offered this power, Ingrid thought it was going to be like her guilty- pleasure, Magical Girl trope where it took five minutes of ballet and transformation. In reality it was very fast, almost instantaneous.
Yet not fast enough, Ingrid thought to herself. The wisps of energy flowing to her were barely catching up as she sprinted forward. She may not land a blow on Melrondia but at the very least she could use herself as a shield when the Annihilator Beam went off.
A sharp crack rang out and Melrondia stumbled, but it did not interrupt her channeling. She growled in anger and saw that Star Lily’s slime familiar Cecil had shot her with one of those big sniper rifles. It felt like a hard punch to the face but that was all it could do, despite the fact that she had allocated all her energy into this powerful attack. Anger quickly turned to amusement, however, at the thought that, of all of the Starchaser familiars, the lowly slime had the balls to assist his own even if it killed him.
Not that she needed to deal with Cecil, he was speeding along to meet with Ingrid and she knew why. He was going to put all of his mana to help her Transform. After all, she reasoned, Ingrid barely had any mana left.
Good, let them both die in this next attack, she thought darkly.
“ANNIHILATE!” Melrondia screamed, a huge beam of pure energy shot out from her hands, catching both Ingrid and Cecil with the beam, she felt both of their mana signatures go out like a light.
Then she felt a tug, which despite her Dark Queen physiology felt like it almost pulled her arm out of socket.
Her beam imploded into itself, generating a localized black hole right in front of her. A glowing white hand grabbed hers and pulled her in.
It was Star Lily.
Her body was gone but her soul had taken form, mimicking her previous appearance. With wide glowing eyes literally burning full of murderous glee, the fallen Starchaser pulled her into the unknown portal with unstoppable force.
How long they kept falling was hard to tell, but Star Lily kept a grip on the would-be conqueror of Earth and viciously rained punches and headbutts for as long as her soul kept burning.The void around them was a swirl of darkness and multicolored lights which flickered and trembled as each strike Star Lily dealt had the force to shatter a planet.
Melrondia stopped resisting after the first few punches but Ingrid kept going. She felt hatred for her life being taken, she felt joy that Melrondia would no longer pose a threat to anyone, she felt relief that Earth was saved, she felt fear for Cecil; what had become of him?
The rest of her thoughts had faded but she was sure she was still punching, her “body” still acting on it’s down despite her mind finally succumbing to nothingness.
A second after the black hole had collapsed into itself, Star Rose had managed to stagger over the edge of the crater where Ingrid and Melrondia met their mutual demise. If she had only recovered much faster, if she had only…
Star Rose’s Raiment dissipated, she was back to being Athena Lovell, not a strand of hair or a thread of her black summer dress singed or frayed. Ingrid had taken all of the damage onto herself and despite the massive pain that obviously came with it she stood and kept fighting. She felt so ashamed.
Movement caught her eye, emerging from the grass was a small graft of Cecil, the minature slime weakly crawled onto the ground, tendrils seeking nourishment. With shaking hands she picked up the bravest familiar in the world… it had barely any life left and started feeding on her Mana like a hungry newborn. It couldn’t even speak.
It was holding onto something; a blue ribbon, Ingrid’s ribbon. It was a habit of hers to discard it when she thinks she might not make it out alive. Time and time again Ingrid came back to claim it from Cecil, but now, a small mewling slime, a shadow of the lively Cecil was all that was left.
Athena collapsed to her knees and let out a heart-rending wail.