SILVER STARS

2 NOVEMDECILLION YEARS INTO THE FUTURE…

Humans now live in a post-degenerative realm, through a wormhole recently discovered in space travels just a while before the heat death of the Universe.

CHAPTER 1: THE THREE OF THE STARS

“Well, that was dramatic.,” Three girls stood in front of a bloody body, looking around for clues to who the murderer of the body could have been. The tallest and leader of the three, Australis, knelt. Her pink hair glittered as it captured the light and blew in the direction of a light breeze.

She sighed. “Why do we always have to witness these stupid rituals? We’re losing people one at a time,” Although there was nothing she could do to heal the body, she slowly picked it up, removing it carefully from the ritual circle.

“What do we even plan to do with this?” asked Phearexia, her fiery golden hair alight with the glowing sunset. “I… don’t know,” replied Australis, awkwardly. “Guess we’ll just have to leave it here,” said Aquarius.

The other girl in the group sighed, and stared out to where Silver County was located, beneath the sandy cliff they were standing atop.

Where Silver County was, there was a group of raiders, ruled by a harsh, strict, and snobby princess. Her name was Princess Virgo Diamante Silverscratch, and she also ruled over Star City, where the three girls- the Constellation Three- lived.

“I think we’ll just go back and let them deal with the body,” decided Australis.

CHAPTER 2: A SURPRISE ATTACK AND DISCOVERY

The next day, the two other girls woke up to find Phearexia in the library. She was poring over a book, taking notes and scribbling furiously, only to look up once or twice to stare at her lunar calendar to check a moon phase or make notes on her astronomy and star charts. While checking her globe and astral calendar, she knocked down her glass of water and a box of star-reading cards.

“Oops,” she murmured, too wrapped up in her work to even grab a tissue to dab her mess up. It was hard that Phearexia would be sucked up into her work, although she did usually get very serious with it.

Australis gasped and ran to grab a cloth from the table. “What’s got you so hardworking that you, as a neat freak, can’t even pause to pick up your mess, Phea?”

Phearexia sighed. “I made a discovery… Meet me at the breakfast table in fifteen minutes, and we’ll discuss it.”

“...And because of the colliding force at the point of the two stars, an asteroid will fall, causing a meteor shower in the future! Probably even sometime this month! Isn’t that just amazing?” Phearexia leafed through her stack of notes excitedly.

Aquaria’s head slumped onto the table, rattling the teacups. “I don’t get a single word she’s saying. Do you, Australis?”

Australis sighed. My friends can be sort of clueless sometimes, can they? “So basically what she’s saying is that there’s going to be a meteor shower in… the future,” explained Australis.

“I get it now…But she didn’t need to use that many words.” Aquaria said.

“It’s not a lot of-” Phearexia’s resonating was cut out by a ruckus coming from outside. Then they heard a villager scream. “It’s the Silver Raiders! Run!!” she screamed. Panic filled the atmosphere. “W-what should we do?” asked Phearexia worriedly.

Hyperventilating as her anxiety took hold of her, Aquaria gasped for air. While Phearexia went to comfort her, Australis used her defence charm. “It’s the last resort– I don’t have much power when they’re here.”

All the doors and windows locked instantly as if on cue, blue magic sparkling around them like an aura. While Australis held her powers, Aquaria was calming Phearexia. “Deep breaths…” she said, softly. “Don’t panic. They’re almost gone…”

When the commotion calmed down and the Raiders had left, the girls climbed out from under the table. Their house looked more like an earthquake had struck it more than a group of raiders had come crashing through their town. Their teacups had spilled but luckily hadn’t broken, and some of Phearexia’s papers were on the floor. Notebooks and books were lying open on the floor, and there were star cards everywhere, some out of their boxes. Australis, her magic weak, undid the defence charm.

The door swung open, where a silver, glittery envelope was sitting on the doorstep. You wouldn’t have thought it was from an evil kingdom if you didn’t know it was an evil kingdom who sent it.

Aquaria noticed it first, rushing over to pick it up while the others cleaned up the mess.

“Phearexia, you gotta come and see this.”

“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Phearexia, in shock. She clipped the letter to the bulletin board. It said:

“The raid shall be on the day a meteor strikes, sending the silver to invade the stars. Three girls shall hold the power to cure the meteor. Elements they shall need.”

Although it was a short letter, it made all three of them start to have thoughts and connections. But before they got thinking, Aquaria thought it was a good idea to check the outside by having a walk.

“Some stuff is… missing,” said Australis.

The planetarium mobile wasn’t hanging in its usual spot when they got to the Fountain of Angelic Wishes. Not even the coins in the fountain were there.

“They robbed the place,” realized Phearexia. “And they sure did a good job of it. All the coins are picked clean from this fountain—even the cent coins!”

Some civilians were beginning to walk out of their houses or shops, realizing that their goods were missing. “This is new,” said Aquaria. “And it’s not a good sign.”

CHAPTER 3: A BLINDING LIGHT

The very next day something happened. The light monitor woke them at 3am with a beeping sound. Aquaria moaned, turning to the other side of her bed. Hopping out of bed, she read the reading on the monitor

“High… Extreme light detected. Blinding. Do not go out,” she read.

“What’s going on?” asked Phearexia, still half asleep. Then the snow began to fall outside, gradually increasing into a blizzard. The wind howled as more snow pounded on the windows with a drumming noise as Phearexia flipped the curtains apart.

But before she grabbed it, Aquaria stopped her. “No!” she said, putting a hand to her best friend’s arm. “You’ll get blinded and that’ll be the end of your eyesight,” she warned, but with a relieved tone in her voice, as she was lucky she had warned her friend.

Surprisingly, Australis had slept through all this. “Should we tell her now or when she wakes up?” whispered Phearexia. Their leader had a reputation to get grumpy and weak easily if she hadn’t had enough sleep the day before, especially on an important mission like this, because it would take up a lot of her power.

“Later.” the both of them replied, looking at each other. They giggled, only stopping to realize just exactly how serious the situation was. Then they frowned, looking at each other. There was the exact same look in each of their eyes: “What are we gonna do?”

When “morning” actually arrived, all three girls were awake and alert. Phearexia and Aquaria had successfully managed to tell Australis what was going on, although it did take her a bit of convincing that it really wasn’t a dream. Aquaria was studying the star charts from the previous day, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Australis herself was eating breakfast with

Phearexia, who had her nose in a stack of books again, and was taking notes upon notes. Australis got up from her seat and dumped the bowls in the kitchen sink.

“Let’s go up to the library,” Phearexia said. As she climbed up the stairs, books in her arms, the other two followed suit.

As Phearexia took one book after another off the shelf, the light outside seemed to be increasing in intensity. “I can hardly see- it’s so bright!” exclaimed Aquaria, shading her eyes from the brighter-than-ever sunlight. The curtains had been closed and the blind screens were drawn, but the sunlight still filtered in through the smallest slits.

“There’s nothing we can do about it- and Australis, don’t even think about using your magic,” Phearexia warned.

Australis sighed. It wasn’t like her friend was being bossy or anything, but sometimes… “Wouldn’t it just be easier to use magic–?” she said, sighing loudly again. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to say “magic”.

A while later it was finally night, the only time when the mist and snow cleared. “You know what? We didn’t find anything good in our research so far, so since it’s nighttime, let’s go out for a walk!” said Phearexia.

“But didn’t you say it was dangerous out there?” asked Australis.

“The mist clears up at night,” explained Aquaria. “The starlight and moonlight aren’t strong enough to power it, so the mist and snow temporarily clears.”

CHAPTER 4: AN OMEN FROM SPACE

As the three girls walked out the door of their observatory and home, Aquaria looked up at the night sky.

“It’s so clear and beautiful,” she said. One thing that the girls didn’t know was that it was eerily and strangely quiet.

“And peaceful too– Wait, what is that thing up there??” shouted Phearexia, in panic.

All of a sudden, the sky flashed with bolts of rainbow lightning. An aurora borealis started up, circling a halo around the moon. A light rain started to fall, only it was bright, glowing crystals and not rain.

“What is this? This is an undocumented multiphenomenon!” A multiphenomenon, according to Aquaria, was a series of natural, weather, or space phenomenons happening in one event. It rarely occurred, but ever since the magnetic field had flipped 1 trillion years ago, it had started to happen frequently. Total eclipses would happen every year, and more stars would fall to Earth or go supernova. It was a constant whirlwind of changes made by Space itself.

The girls hurried inside, still in shock by what they had experienced. “This has to be some sort of warning- or an omen of some kind,” said Phearexia. She scrambled through her space fortune cards, drawn from a larger deck of one card for each year.

“Card number 144…” she muttered, rushedly shuffling through the deck. “There we go,” said Phearexia, reaching her hand out of the deck. “May the 24th, 2.67 NCD.” she read.

“An omen signifies doom for some near you tomorrow: Further doom shall reach until the 26th day.”

Aquaria looked worried at her friend’s words. “So…there was an omen after all?”

CHAPTER 5: FORESHADOWING

The next day, there was a mysterious surge. Australis guessed it was left behind by last night’s events. The mist had weakened a little, allowing people to go out for short periods before resting. It was a good chance for the girls to go out and post the weekly report and readings for the astral calendar and the community’s astral board. As they went to post the readings, the meters on the board went higher on the “surge” level.

“This reading is unnormal,” said Aquaria.

“Does that mean we should change the alert status to a large chance of potential harm or danger?” asked Australis, uncertain.

The surges were rising and becoming more and more unstable every moment, so it was hard to make an accurate prediction of the events.

“I think so…” said Phearexia. All of a sudden, she was cut off by a loud explosion of magical silver swirls.

A message on the city’s alarm notice later said:

“5 deaths recorded in the industrial margin area between the border of Silver County.”

CHAPTER 6: DELIVERING THE WARNING

The next morning was a pretty peaceful one to start with.

“My fortune card says that a prophecy shall be delivered shortly,” said Phearexia, taking a bite out of her blueberry muffin and closing the box with her cards in it. “What did you guys get?”

Since each box of cards was unique to each individual, messages were always different. Sometimes they would even form a message or a prophecy. “Oooh, is it good or bad, or does it not say?” asked Aquaria, intrigued. She pulled out her box and grabbed the card on top with today’s date. “Mine says this: Warn your people of a coming attack.”

Could it be a warning of some sort…?

Meanwhile, Australis pulled out her deck of cards. Swallowing her mouthful of tea biscuit, she shuffled through the deck and took the card out. “Your prophecy...” it read. “Enemies are arriving shortly. It is best not to make a big scene when panicking as it could spread,”

Sipping her tea, Australis remained calm and handed her card to Phearexia so she could evaluate the answers on all of their cards.

“Bad news-” she said. “It probably means the battle is tomorrow. We should go out and warn everyone.” The three girls jumped out of their seats, ready to start their next self-assigned mission.

As they walked out onto the streets, Phearexia started going off to people and telling them of the coming battle.

“Join the battle if you’re strong, or defend you and your family if you’re too weak,” she said.

“Join the battle against Silver County!” she called out.

“Join the rebellion against the kingdom who overthrew us! We are Star City and we should always be Star City. Not Silverstar Shore! Not Silver Sanctum! We are?” she asked.

“Star City!” people replied in unison.

“There’s no need to start a rally now. What good will that do us?” asked Aquaria confusedly.

‘Well, we planned to get people hyped to join the battle, so if they get hyped in this rally, it’ll give them more power tomorrow.” explained Australis matter-of-factly.

“Who are we?” shouted Phearexia loudly.

“We’re Star City!” the crowd below replied in pride.

“Look up there,” said Aquaria nervously to Australis. She pointed at the meteor, a giant rock in space. It was getting bigger and closer every day.

“That doesn’t look too good,” said Australis worriedly.

“Phearexia, draw back the sidelines and frontlines. We have an announcement to make,” said Aquaria, making a hand signal to her.

“Citizens of Star City!” she shouted to the crowd below. “Silver County is planning a large-scale attack on our home tomorrow. We need to fight back!”

The crowd roared back in anticipation. The entire city had waited for independence for a long time. And now everyone was ready as they’d ever been.

CHAPTER 7: THE BATTLE

The next day, everybody was getting ready for an all-out attack. Streets had been barricaded all over the city, and people were getting ready to face the attack. But meanwhile, with the Three, something different was going on.

“So you finally found out that we could transform??” asked Aquaria, quizzically.

“Yeah, we can transform- but it takes up 90% of our power, so we should only use it as a last resort,” answered Phearexia.

“That’s very last-minute, but it sounds like it works effectively on the Silver Princess,” added Australis.

As the girls got outside, the meteor glowed brightly in the sky. It seemed to be cracking and growing silvery in places.

Then, before anyone else could say anything, there was a loud rumble.

“DUCK!” Phearexia shouted.

Crash.

“Is everyone oka-” asked Aquaria, panting. Her heart was pumping hard, especially because of the shocking appearance of what was in front of her.

There stood Princess Silverscratch, in a shining silver gown made out of stars and dewdrop, holding her Ice Staff, and cackling.

“Did I shock you?” she asked, sassily. Her tone was overly poisonous.

Then Australis stepped forward confidently. “We won’t let you take Star City again! Isn’t that right, girls? Let’s take her down!”

All three girls memorized their movements and took their positions.

“Element of Fire,” shouted Phearexia.

“Element of Water,” said Aquaria, winking.

“Element of the Stars!” shouted Australis, completing their battle call.

“Can’t believe these girls still have time to fool around,” said Princess Silverscratch, faking a yawn.

Then all the girls linked hands, calling the powers deep inside all of them. Closing their eyes, their wings appeared, their outfits changing, and their hair growing longer and glowing now.

“Girls, let’s do this! Stargem Shower!” shouted Australis, leading a shower of stars to explode, their nebulous forms encapsulating and trapping every single evil thing in their way.

“Dreamcatcher Netblock!” shouted Silverscratch. Dew-like threads came out of her fingertips, weaving a dreamcatcher and trapping all the nebulous contents in it and shaking all the glitter out, turning it into silver glitter, which crept up on people and took the form of webs, trapping them in a sticky film.

“I won’t let you get away with this! Waves of Eclipse Moonlight!” shouted Aquaria. She summoned waves, sparkling with their starlight to take an eclipse-like form and wrap Silverscratch around and around.

“No! What are you doing?” she screamed.

“Taking our city back from the evil grasps of you!” answered Phearexia.

“I’ll take over here,” she nodded to Aquaria. “Flaming Embers Of Mars!” she called.

The fire spread out of her palms, engulfing Silverscratch in flames and extinguishing the water from Aquaria. Making the flames into a tornado, she spun Silverscratch around and sent her flying into a portal (supposedly leading to the moon).

But it didn’t work. Silverscratch stood there on top of the mirror, now in a completely different form. Her hair was longer, glowing up with moonlight, and her skin paler, her dress now with a long train. Her eyes sparkled with malice, glittering silver. But the scariest thing is that her wings seemed to be alight with silver fire, and her staff had grown larger, the orb on it also alight with fire.

“Now you’re scared!” she said, triumphantly.

“No, you haven’t seen my other side yet. I am a Timepiece Princess!” shouted Australis.

Say what?? thought Phearexia. She had heard of Timepiece users before as legends in books, but not real people, especially her friend!

As Australis flew up to the sky, she spun around, raising her Timepiece Pendant, and transformed, sending gold sparks and stars towards Silverscratch. Using her powers, she gathered all the energy inside her.

“Magical-Timepiece! Corona Australis Starshine Attack!” she shouted. Creating her constellation in the sky, it burst out with the most powerful light, swirling with the magic of the stars.

To be continued…

*Disclaimer: None of the universal/extraterrestrial/lunar events in this work is actually predicted to happen. These are all fictitious happenings made up by the author, and art is not made by the author.*