Endless Sky ~New Beginning~

Chapter Thirty

Silence. Peace. Nothing.
OStar felt like she was floating in space, fast asleep. She wanted to stay asleep and relax, but she forced herself to open her eyes and see the world. What world? All she saw was darkness, yet she could still see herself. Her surroundings were remarkably similar to her destroyed universe, but there was no gravity, and all was black. There was no grey sky.
"Where am I..?" OStar mumbled to herself, aloud, looking around. A flash of white caught her eye and she quickly turned to face it.
"Pargenti!" she exclaimed, recognizing the white feline. The only difference was that she was over twice her usual size. Pargenti was no longer pocket-sized, not even Afina-sized. She was still smaller than OStar, but twice the size of OStar's little blue and grey friend.
"OStar? Why are you here?" she mewed, startled at her appearance.
"I have no idea, I don't even know what this place is..."
"You don't know your own mind?"
"My mind?" OStar stopped, confused as she looked around some more. It was pretty dark and empty to be someone's mind.
"Let me be more specific. This is the barrier that separates your memories and thoughts from those you have forgotten," Pargenti explained with a wave of her tail. "Fluffy told me to stay here for a while just in case any memories come out, but fizzle away before you could remember it,"
"Oh...?" OStar frowned, realizing now why Pargenti had been so silent.
"I guess being this far deep into my mind prevents her from hearing my current thoughts, or even see what I'm currently doing, let alone reply to it,"
"I have been here awhile, but most things I've seen are too confusing to explain," Pargenti sighed in defeat, her ears flattening. "It's all been snippets of conversations or flashes of colors..." the formerly small cat said, and started to float away, leaving OStar behind.
OStar tried to follow, but she remained still. Even flapping her wings did nothing to move her.
"Uh, help?" she called out.
"Just imagine you're moving, it's your mind after all," Pargenti meowed without looking back.
OStar didn't fully understand, but obeyed, imagining herself moving forward as if she were walking.
Miraculously, it worked. She'd started moving forward without actually moving her legs or wings.
Giving herself a little boost, OStar quickly caught up to her mental friend, floating at a steady pace next to her. "Do you remember anything that was said?" she asked.
Pargenti twitched an ear before nodding. "Confusing without context, but some I can recall were, 'It's gone, for the third time in a row' which sounded like Ethan," she mewed. "Another I think Ethan was, 'An unbalanced soul can lead to destruction,' and finally, a female's voice, 'Her name is Kabria.' That's all I can remember right now," Pargenti finished with a small purr.
"Kabria?" OStar tilted her head, frowning.
"I have no idea, not even the female who said it sounded familiar. It was a completely new voice," her friend sighed, shaking out her pelt. "I haven't seen anyone ever since I started talking to you, which sucks because all the ones I saw before I have forgotten..."
"Hey, it's alright. I've remembered more now than ever before. I don't think I would even be able to understand anything without you two," OStar said, trying to cheer up her kind half.
Pargenti gave her a small smile before looking up and stopping.
"I really don't think you should be down here,"
"Why not?"
"You can't control your body down here, it's either in a deep slumber or in the control of Fluffy," Pargenti huffed, the fur along her spine rising.
"Ah, damn!" OStar hissed, remembering why she was here in the first place. "That bastard tried taking control without my permission!"
"She did? I told her she should never do that!"
"Well, she apparently didn't listen. No offense though, but I doubt she would even listen to you in the first place," OStar meowed with a shrug.
"That's true," Pargenti replied, looking annoyed at how powerless she was.
"Don't worry, I don't think she can control my body at the moment," OStar ruffled her wings and nodded. "I did a little something that should've stopped her. I'll go see what she's doing now."
Her creation side nodded, motioning a paw upward. "Just float up, the darkness will eventually go away," she explained. "I'll still be here, waiting for anything."
OStar nodded again before rising up, starting off slow, but gradually increasing the speed. She watched as the darkness slowly lightened up into white with veins of silver.
Abruptly gravity seemed to have remembered its existence, making OStar suddenly drop a short distance to solid ground. She still yelped in surprise, landing awkwardly on her paws and puffing out her fur.
After the initial shock, she regained her senses and looked around, trying to find a familiar black pelt.
"There."
Hunched over, a black and red striped cat sat, lashing her tail around in fury. For a moment OStar was afraid of confronting her, afraid of getting hurt, or worse, killed.
"Suck it up," she told herself before padding forward, heading toward her crueler half. Cat sat there, unmoving besides her tail, until OStar was only a few feet away. She leapt to her paws and spun around, snarling with her back arched and fur spiked.
OStar flinched, yet kept her ground, quickly pulling herself together and straightening up.
"How did you get here?" Cat hissed, her tail lashing even more now.
"That doesn't matter. What matters is what you did," OStar hissed back, bristling her own fur.
This was her mind. Her body. She wasn't going to let some strange add-on control her, tell her what to do, and act like the boss.
OStar was the boss, not Cat.
She was going to make that clear now before Cat tried any more stunts.
The black and red cat kept her snarl, glaring at OStar, but didn't seem to have heard her thoughts.
"Good," OStar huffed, taking a step forward. Cat growled in response.
"I don't want to have to do this every time you try for control. I will let you have it when I need it. Not when you want it," she meowed in a stern voice, looking down at Cat.
Cat was practically the same size as OStar now, maybe even bigger since she had thicker and longer fur.
"Size doesn't matter, she's still not the boss,"
"This is my body. I decide what happens with it. If I don't want to fight Boston," OStar leaned close to Cat, "I won't fight him," she hissed, pulling back swiftly before she got her muzzle shredded.
"You're an idiot, all you're going to do is get yourself killed!" Cat snapped, flapping her wings slightly.
"I can manage fine, thank you very much!"
"You passed out mid-flight!"
"That won't happen again!" OStar growled, tempted to lash out at Cat.
"Violence isn't the answer. If I lash out, she'll attack. That's not the plan," she huffed, shaking her head.
"Stay away from my control. I don't want you trying anything unless I tell you,"
"Oh really? How are you going to make me?" Cat snarled, smirking.
OStar narrowed her eyes, black smoke quickly rising from her paws.
Cat's expression quickly changed from smug anger to an angry fear.
"You don't have the courage to do that," she hissed, backing away a few steps.
"Oh really? Test me and you'll find out," OStar growled, done playing games.
"Fine! I won't do anything. Don't blame me when you suddenly get hurt or even die when I could've easily prevented it," Cat grumbled, shaking her head.
OStar just scoffed, letting the smoke dissipate before she turned and walked away.
Would she really destroy Cat? OStar had never used her magic on another person, at least not as far as she knew. Would it hurt them? Would it be painless? What did it feel like?
She couldn't use it on herself. She didn't want to, unsure if it was even possible.
It didn't matter to her anyways. If Cat tried taking control again, OStar was going to get rid of her. It's not murder, it's simply forgetting. It's all in her own mind after all.
OStar glanced back at Cat, seeing her red eyes glaring daggers. She rolled her own eyes and kept going, somehow knowing where to go based on the tug on her paws. After a short walk, she closed her eyes, feeling the world vanishing.
A sharp pain stabbed her head, even worse than when she collapsed during the hallucinations. OStar wouldn't be surprised if her skull was fractured.
"OStar, are you okay?" a voice spoke, making her turn and realize she was in bed.
"Huh...?" OStar groaned, slowly opening her eyes.
She was in the medical room, the time unknown, but Roxxan was by the foot of the bed. The robot was now completely repaired, not a scratch on her, making OStar wonder how long she had been asleep. It didn't feel like long, it felt like at most ten minutes, surely not a few days.
"How's your head?" Roxxan asked.
"It feels like it's being stabbed," OStar answered honestly.
"Well I did what I could, you've got a pretty bad bruise there, but no skull damage somehow," Roxxan meowed.
"What happened?"
"I dunno, we came back late at night to see you, maybe dead on the floor. You slept all day yesterday," the robot answered. "So, I can ask you the same thing, what happened?"
"Uhh, ran into a wall accidentally," OStar lied, seeing Roxxan's expression clearly showing she didn't believe a word of it.
"Whatever, it's almost noon, I should be making lunch or something. You should come eat, it's been a while,"
OStar's stomach growled at the mention of food.
"Yeah, you need food, come on," the robot said, motioning her to follow as she walked off, leaving the room.
OStar slowly slipped out of bed, being careful not to move her head too much. The pain was already easing away to a dull throb, yet she knew touching it would send spasms of pain through her skull.
Staying behind Roxxan, the two padded off to the main room. Once there, OStar was quickly bombarded by her friends asking her if she was alright. Avaro being the only one who stayed back, refusing even to look at her.
That felt worse than the pain in her head.
Roxxan slid away and fled into the kitchen, leaving OStar to tell everyone that all was fine.
"Do you... Still have that box, Charlotte?" she asked once most of the people had returned to their former places.
Her friend blinked in confusion for a second before remembering. "Oh yeah, that thing! We tried looking into it, but nothing ever happened. It's just sitting on the table right now," Charlotte responded, pointing to the silver box sitting where she said it was on the table.
OStar expected Cat to say something about how lucky she was that it was safe or that it had better be safe. But the cat was completely silent, maybe not even listening to what was happening.
"Oh, thank the moons, I don't know exactly what it is, but it might help me with my memories..." OStar meowed, realizing with the looks of confusion, that she had never fully explained anything. The death of Mystic and her headbutting a wall into a near coma had delayed it.
"I... Think it's about time I cleared some things up," OStar laughed nervously, gathering up all her friends together. Even Estella happened to join, mentioning that Roxxan could hear from the other room. It was strange, discussing aloud everything that had happened in silence for the past week, but OStar did her best to explain. She kept Pargenti and Cat out of the story as well as most names like Kabria, Phillip, and Nura. She didn't know enough about them like she did Ethan. She only wanted to tell enough to be understood, not everything just in case she was wrong about something. A part of her felt bad for not giving all the details, but OStar wasn't ready to do that just yet. Besides, she didn't need to tell them her whole life. That was never the plan.
OStar told them about having odd dreams, the urge to go home and Boston's reaction when she went to visit him. She told them about her home and how she knew where things were despite the fact that everything was missing. She even told them what she believed about how she got her portal keeper necklace. Her friends seemed to understand, shocked by how much OStar had done alone without them realizing.
"Well, I wasn't entirely alone..." she thought, thinking of the two cats somehow living inside her head.
"She sounds like she's finished, so why don't you all come in here and eat?" Roxxan called out from inside the kitchen.
"Yeah, I don't have any more to say. I'm starving anyways, let's eat!" OStar exclaimed, her stomach growling again. "All right, thanks for telling us, OStar," Rual said, nodding at her. "It really did clear up some things."
OStar gave him a small smile, turned and headed off to the kitchen with the others following.