Cosmic Crisis 3 - A New Enemy

Chapter 28 - Great Escape

Carina lost her balance temporarily as the room started to shake violently. Everyone else fell as well, and pieces of the ceiling started to fall.

"What's happening??" Reena cried, clinging to Goten.

"The room is breaking apart." Carina spoke, her eyes filled with deep concern as she tried to formulate a plan.

"We don't even have our pressurized suits!" Ceres cried. "Andromeda has no atmosphere."

"We're not on Andromeda." Carina replied. "We're in some kind of sub-dimension of space-time."

"But I thought..." Reena trailed off.

"Andromeda was just the port. Hermes needed a base of a certain mass in order to sustain it." Carina explained, and looked to the ceiling.

"When did she get so smart?" Trunks whispered to Sirius. Sirius just shrugged.

Carina turned to Reena and then to Sirius and Ceres.

"You three." She said. "You can create your own atmosphere using a ki shield. Do it now."

The three guardians lit up and created their own respective shields about five feet in diameter.

"What about us?" Goten asked in a panic. Before Carina could answer, Reena grabbed him and held his body close to hers, locking his ki onto hers and causing the shield to grow, encircling the both of them. Ceres did the same with the bewildered Trunks. Carina finally formed her own protective encasement.

"What is going to happen?" Reena asked.

"We're going to be sucked into a void." Carina replied. "Don't panic or you will lose your safeguard."

The room continued to collapse, imploding inward as chunks of stone were pulled inward to a core. Even Orion's body was pulled from the floor and literally ripped to shreds from the force of the pull. Carina closed her eyes and looked away while the others watched the grisly scene with horrified expressions on their faces.

"That is what will happen to you if you don't keep those up." Carina said, pointing to Reena ad Goten's shield.

The energy and mass of the core grew, radiating black energy as it pulsated.

"It's a black hole!" Reena shrieked. "We're going to be pulled in!"

Carina looked over at the black hole with a horror-struck expression.

Finally, the room broke apart completely and disappeared into the core of the black hole, which continued to grow in size.

"That's impossible. How can a black hole form from this room alone??" Ceres cried. However, her voice was only heard by Trunks and herself, since sound waves do not travel in voids. Carina looked at the three guardians and started to shout at them, but they couldn't hear her.

"Get away!" she shrieked. The others looked at her, wide-eyed. "Get away from here!"

Suddenly, an enormous hand of black lightning rose and appeared behind Carina, who was too busy shouting at the others to notice it. Reena's eyes widened and she screamed, pointing at the mass of energy. Carina looked at Reena in confusion and started to turn her head slowly. However, before she could see what it was, the hand-like darkness slammed into her and enclosed her body. Carina's face twisted into an expression of pain and terror before she was pulled into the black hole, her light disappearing completely.

"NO!" Trunks cried, trying to break free from his shield and follow, but Ceres held him in place.

"Don't try to follow her, you will die too!" she said.

"Let me go!" Trunks cried. "I'm tired of watching helplessly!"

"There is nothing you can do for her, Saiya-jin." Ceres said solemnly.

Carina floated in the endless darkness, her body suspended and inert. The white wings on her back had fallen limp and hung lifelessly underneath her.

"What a shame to see such a great power in the hands of such an incompetent combatant."

"You Sidra-jins never die." Carina's voice spoke, though her body remained unconscious. "When will you learn that taking away the essence of this world will not grant you unlimited power?"

"You, Shiroi no Tenshi, represent everything I have grown to hate. Light, purity, even justification. It is useless in the end. All that matters is that I come out the winner, and you re the loser. When I remove you from existence, I will have no more obstacles."

"You can kill the body, but you can't kill the soul." Carina replied. Suddenly, in a flash of light, she was awake again, and her eyes fluttered open.

"You are a fool to stand against me. Don't you know that a black hole has such a strong gravitational pull that no force can escape...not even light."

"I would be a fool to give up. You cannot win with such a dark, negative heart and mind." Carina replied. Her hair draped behind her back and fell forward down her shoulders. She was covered in nothing more than a simple blue bodysuit; her legs and arms were bare.

"You are pathetic! It amuses me to see you struggle."

Carina narrowed her eyes.

"That's right. You grow angry because you know you fall short. Just give up."

"NO!" Carina shouted. "If I gave up I would be letting this entire world down! And I would never...ever submit to you."

"We'll see about that."

Then, a bolt of black lightning formed and shot into Carina, knocking her backward. It surrounded her form and sent terrifying pain shooting through her nerves.

Carina cried out in anguish as the pain surged through her. Her skin felt like it was burning off of her body.

"Have you had enough?" the voice inquired.

"N...never." She replied, breathing heavily. Her breaths were cut off as the darkness struck again, piercing into her with its venomous claws.

Sirius, Reena, and Ceres all floated in the void of space, watching the black hole as it condensed. Suddenly, there was a thunderous rumbling, and the black hole exploded outward, consuming everything in its path. The guardians tried to flee, but they were sucked inward. Reena and Ceres opened their mouths to cry out, but their cries came to an instantaneous halt as they were frozen, suspended in time, as were the others.

The blackness continued to expand at an insane rate, consuming entire worlds as it spread through the universe. Hundreds of billions of ki's were engulfed and terminated instantly.

On Earth, the sky grew black and the ground crumbled as a terrifying rumbling sound surrounded the planet. The oceans dissolved and volcanoes erupted, surrounding the planet in fire. Men, women, children, the unborn, and the dying all breathed their last as the planet exploded and crumbled, swallowed by the darkness. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, comets, moons, and the sun were all surrounded and broken apart. Then, the wave passed over, and everything was silent.

Carina trembled as the black lightning removed its deadly grip on her for an instant.

"You friends are gone. So is your world." The voice said menacingly. "Now give up."

Carina's eyes snapped open and she inhaled sharply.

"COWARD!" she screamed as tears formed in her eyes. "I will kill you if I have to die myself!" Her anger rose and her body regained its white glow as her wings perked up and spread outward, a small span of four feet. She raised her head and looked straight ahead into the darkness. Her aura continued to grow and her hair raised above her head as raw energy surrounded her.

"You can't stop me, princess." The voice spoke. "You have failed your friends and your universe."

An image of Hermes appeared in front of her, followed by images of her friends being sucked into the void and trying to scream. Then, an image of the Earth exploding. Finally, she saw...no...that was impossible. It almost looked like...

"Kira!" Carina screamed. Sure enough, there was a blurry image of her little purple-haired daughter. She looked into the eyes of her mother and smiled sadly before fading from existence. "No! Kira come back!" Carina cried.

"She is dead, you failed her as well." Hermes said.

Carina glared at Hermes with one of the most hateful and bitter expressions she had ever produced.

"You brought your own death upon yourself." She said lethally, a voice that would send chills up the spine of any person.

Just then, black lightning erupted from the fading image of Hermes and struck her body once more. However, it was deflected with ease and ricocheted off, fading from eyesight as it traveled through the void in the opposite direction.

"Stupid girl! Prepare to meet your end!" Hermes hissed, sending more black energy toward her. It surrounded her body and exploded. Hermes smirked, but his jaw dropped open slightly when he realized that she was still floating in the void, unscathed.

"Omega...." She spoke, her voice echoing off of the last syllable. "Super...."

"DIE, BITCH!" Hermes roared, sending a massive energy wave at her.

"NOVA!" Carina screamed at the top of her lungs. As she finished her attack, her ki exploded outward, incinerating everything in its path. The white light engulfed the black void itself. Hermes' face twisted in anger and then in pain, and he exploded. The light surged outward, covering everything it touched, as it ran on the same course the black hole had taken.

Carina felt her body being ripped apart from the energy surge.

"Not yet..." she whispered, and closed her eyes. After a few more moments, she screamed and was torn from existence altogether.

The white light blanketed everything, finally coming to a standstill. In a final flash of brilliance, the light balanced the darkness perfectly, compiling with the negative energy as they formed into one mass again. The universe.

"Wake up Carina..." the soft, feminine voice spoke. Carina opened her eyes and looked around. She was floating in space. Millions of stars glittered brightly around her. She still had wings on her back.

"W...where am I? What happened?" she asked, looking around. "I'm alive?"

"Not yet." The voice replied. It formed a woman's figure and in a flash of light stood a woman with long, gold hair.

Carina gasped.

"M...mother?" she asked. "You're alive!"

"No..." she spoke, smiling. "I'm not. But my spirit is restored and so is everyone else."

"But how? I don't understand."

"You created the balance of good and evil that is needed to sustain the universe." She replied. "Now everything has returned. The timeline has fallen back into position."

"What now?"

"You must wake up." The woman said, and placed her finger on Carina's forehead. Carina closed her eyes as the warm light surrounded her body and tranquility embraced her