Chapter Text
Taiga gaped at the sight of the blue Ultra hanging in the air, golden energy rippling off of him, pushing waves of water away in scattered sparkling arcs. The figure was -- unmistakingly -- an Ultra after all, but his otherwise-unassuming appearance chilled Taiga more than the misty water still shimmering around them. Taiga and the others only knew this Ultra, or at least this version of him through reputation.
Anxiously, Taiga searched his mind, trying to recall if his father Taro had even given them directions in case they would come across this Alternate Isotope. Did he even consider that possibility? Or was he in denial about having to face him once again, like that time on Earth, when Tregear had led them into a trap, and captured his father to-
The sudden snap of anger which lashed through Taiga’s mind shocked him. He tried to bury it as best he could, at least keeping it from his face as he met Tregear’s expectant sneer.
Still, he wasn’t sure what to expect of this new, or rather older version of Tregear. The power he wielded before them now seemed far different. It wasn’t the same darkness from that terrible demon, Grimmdo, and that realization calmed his frantic thoughts only slightly.
Instead, he began to wonder what kind of demon Tregear made a deal with for power in this timeline.
A disappointed tsk broke the silence of their standoff like the crack of a glacier. Tregear cast his hands out, almost apologetically. “Is this truly the best the Space Garrison could send out? Ultra Warriors who can do nothing but stand there staring dumbfounded in the face of their enemies?” He forced a single laugh before they could answer him and continued, “Is that what passes for courage in the Land of Light nowadays? For shame!”
“The Absolutians are our enemies, Tregear.” Ginga stated, squaring his shoulders. “They’re just using you to get to the Devil Splinters, you know that-”
A crack of lightning cut him off from further argument. Ginga threw an arm up only quick enough to barely deflect the bolt of energy. It skimmed, smoking, across the edge of his Strium metal greaves, landing with a thunderclap among the trees on the far side of the lake.
The interruption broke what frozen spell that seemed to hold the others, including Taiga. They all dropped into fighting stances at once, ready to charge. But still, something seemed to restrain them.
Treagear likewise remained motionless, one arm extended, still studying them through his narrowed gaze. His cyan blue eyes flashed with rage, reminding Taiga of a more familiar visage. He could instantly picture the crimson glow behind those eyes, and the blackened bars of his mask. Taiga wondered, if this was the same Tregear who had fallen once before, how close was he to that breaking point once again?
The glare dissolved into amusement just as suddenly, as if Tregear was amused by the show in front of him. “You think I’m being duped by the Absolutians? Oh you really are fools if you think I believe anything they have promised.”
“Then why are you here? Is this all some stupid game to you?” Rosso shouted.
“A game… yes, perhaps. But you have all fulfilled your parts admirably, I wouldn’t want to insult you just by calling it a game. I merely wished to satisfy my curiosity, about the Absolutian’s Cascade Rays, and how they match up to the best and the brightest stars from the Space Garrison.” He enunciated each of the titles with venom.
“So what do you think?” Blu spoke up eagerly.
“Wait, Isami, what-?” Rosso broke into a double-take, glancing between his brother and Tregear.
“What’s your conclusion? You think you have enough evidence to refute your null hypothesis?” Blu grinned, then made a gesture pointing back to the group. “...Or do you want to see if your results can be replicated?”
Taiga broke his stance upon another realization. “Wait… you mean, all those Absolutian soldiers? You sent them against us? To die? Just to satisfy your curiosity?” He tried to ignore the way his voice cracks hoarsely, turning back to Tregear.
Another wave of searing light and heat slammed into the group. This time, the waves of water heaved and boiled before splashing around the group. Even with his fiery Tri-Strium armor, Taiga staggered under the unexpected pressure.
“And you, child-” Taiga heard the address both aloud and telepathically this time, driving into his mind with newly sharpened hatred. “The only reason you are here is to satisfy your father’s hypocrisy. As your leader said, the Absoutians are your enemies, and look at how you wage war on them. You are the ones who destroyed them!”
“Because you sent them against us! You didn’t even raise a finger to help them until the battle was over!” Rosso attempted to step forward, but was buffeted back by another crack of golden energy.
Tregear’s expression twisted into a grim smile, like a knife’s edge at his challenge. Taiga noticed him clench the device in his hands, a shimmer of green and gold energy wavers over its crystalline windows.
“And what a fantastic battle it was, for you Ambassadors of Light. Did you not stop and think of anything other than the thrill of battle , even for one second? No… of course not. Even now, you’d rather find someone to blame for that guilt, the shame you must surely feel,” He narrowed his gaze at them, then raised his voice, projecting almost theatrically to an unseen audience of shattered trees around the shoreline. “You call this a game? Well, if it is one, then I have already proven myself the victor. None of you are fit to be called Ultra Warriors.”
“I don’t care what you call us, I’m getting that Devil Splinter and going home!”
The instant Rosso rose out of the water, into the air, a different spark of gold drew Taiga’s attention again. A glint of light from the disturbed, white-capped water around the lake.
It was only then, he realized, that the Choujuu had disappeared from Tregear’s side.
Rosso’s feet had barely left a ripple on the lake’s surface. The armored carapace of King Crab slammed into him, plunging him back into the water with a roar. The others scattered, diving away or streaking into the air, only narrowly avoiding Aribunta’s reappearance behind them.
The disarray only lasted for another second before they regrouped. Blu dropped underwater after his brother. With a flash of muted blue light, the surface of the lake rippled upwards, then collapsed, imploding with a massive whump. The two brothers surfaced, and squared up with their backs to each other, guarding against his next strike.
Taiga glanced around at the melee, looking for an opportunity, sword at the ready as water sizzled and spit away from its flaming edges. Aribunta had lunged into the group but Victory’s own blade had intercepted the Choujuu. The sword caught against its spiny armor, wrenching one of its limbs to the side with a crunch and a pained screeching cry from the monster. Yellow fluid seeped out from one of its joints, hissing as it dripped into water. Victory was caught awkwardly by its swings now, and Aribunta pulled him to the side, off-balance.
Just as Taiga leapt forward to Victory’s side, another light shot past him -- red and iridescent silver. Ginga had cleared the battlefield, and flew straight to Tregear. In a whirling flash, his trident appeared. At once, Ginga brought down its sharpened edge -- against the device Tregear held. With only a hairsbreadth of air between them, Tregear ripped his hand away. Another ripple of golden energy followed him, he almost seemed to be sliding around Ginga’s thrusts, each one trying to hook the control device away from Tregear.
It almost looked like… a hologram .
Suddenly, Taiga realized from his angle, the projected illusion wasn’t hiding Tregear entirely. He could see the smear of refracted light, only slightly off-center from where Tregear appeared to be.
He’s only focused on Ginga. He’s not hiding himself from this angle… Taiga thought.
Then, another realization. I have a clear shot at him.
I can end this fight now.
Slowly, almost as if he was moving in a dream, Taiga pulled the greaves of his armor together, and braced himself. He raised his shoulder, sighting alongside the edge of one hand, just as he had practiced hundreds, thousands of times before--
Something pulled him backwards from his shoulder, twisting him away. Taiga lashed out on reflex, but the interruption grabbed his other hand, wrenching it away. He realized he was staring straight into the piercing yellow eyes of Victory.
“Wh-what are you doing, I was helping Ginga!”
“Hikaru will be fine,” he intoned, assuredly. “But the choice you were about to make-” Victory pushed Taiga’s hand back towards his chest, still tightly gripping his wrist. “-Is a scar you will not heal from.”
“What? What scar are you talking about?”
“Each moment in time is a crossroads, Taiga. A limbo, where a choice must be made. Do not make this choice.”
“Tregear chose to fight against us!”
“Maybe that is the choice he made, long ago. But what does an Ambassador of Light choose instead?”
Taiga tried to shrug off Victory’s intimidating glare, unsuccessfully. He glanced back towards Ginga’s battle again, on the verge of panic. Ginga was fighting skillfully, of course, as he always has. But Tregear still had his illusion up…
Or did he? Taiga no longer saw the shimmer of the energy curtain displacing Tregear’s image. He was still using the control device, but it no longer seemed like he was controlling the Choujuu. It was held like a weapon, sparking with energy as Tregear deflected Ginga’s trident. Here, a stray lash of energy struck across Ginga’s chest, sending a scatter of sparks. Taiga flinched at the sight, but Ginga continued on without a cry of pain, still pressing the blue Ultra.
Tregear now appeared angry, vengeful, and hurt. Desperate, being forced to rely on a treacherous power that was not his own…
Just as Taiga did, once.
Victory dropped Taiga’s wrist with one final appraising look.
“Okay, I get it. But we can’t just sit around and do nothing though!” Taiga shot his own look of frustration back towards him.
Victory nodded silently, then his yellow eyes narrowed, seeing a faint orange glow some distance behind the dueling pair. The Devil Splinter was still laying there, forgotten in the shallow water during their battle.
The orange light was obscured once again, with a splash as Tregear was knocked away into the water. His device landed only a second afterwards, with an ear-splitting screech and a pop of smoke when it hit the surface of the lake.
Two more screeches erupted around the Ultra warriors. Without the power from Tregear’s device, the two Choujuu collapsed into a foul pile of brownish-yellow mire, and sank under the waves once again. They ignored the sight, still standing warily against Tregear who pulled himself upwards, breathing heavily with rage, and grasping the devil splinter in place of his control device.
He only spared one glance of hatred, some measure of the golden energy sparkling behind it, then shot back into the sky. He had already disappeared from sight when one final telepathic message echoed behind him.
“You’ll see one day! You’ll see how shallow all of this really is! Just keep pretending to be good little soldiers under Taro’s command, the Garrison will do nothing for you except to bury your corpses when you face true power! Then you will know.. I was right.”
The bitter hiss of his words faded a moment later, and silence engulfed the planet’s surface along with lengthening shadows. The others caught their breaths, and wiped the last of the murky water away from their eyes and off their shoulders. Taiga still stood hunched and chilled on the muddy -- but solid -- shore of the lake.
“It’s my fault he got away with the Splinter. I… I could have stopped him if-”
Ginga cut off his apology with a sharp clap on his back. “Nothing’s your fault, kid. The Splinter wasn’t our goal in the first place, remember? It’s up to Astra and the others now, to track where he’s gone to.” He turned to the others with a grin. “We forced Tre’ to turn tail and run, and everyone can go home safe now. Sounds like a job well done to me!”
“What’ll happen afterwards though?” Rosso still appeared worried, despite Ginga’s grin. “Will we have to chase him down eventually?”
“Eventually? Yeah, sure I guess, but that’s for Taro and the others to figure out…” Ginga held up his Strium brace, preparing to deliver the good news.
Abruptly, a different message cut through, prefaced by a buzz of frantic static.
"--kzzzrfft- uys! GUYS! Can yall hear this? Wherever you’re at, hold up a second-”
“Wait, that’s Fuma!” Taiga burst out. “What’s going on?”
The line went dead again, but a whistling streak of light appeared against the darkening sky only a few seconds later, leaving a stark white line of clouds behind him.
“Fuma!” Taiga welcomed him as the slim, blue Ultra straightened up. “We were just about to go back to the Land of Light, what’s the hurry now?”
He turned with an uncharacteristically grim look on his face, pointing back in the same direction from where he had flown. “They found another Devil Splinter, it’s an emergency!”
“An emergency for us? Are you kidding?” Blu sighed. “We literally just got beat up by Tregear for the last one, and now-”
“It is DEFINITELY an emergency! The place where they found it… Grigio’s there!”
The group shot upright. A million new questions arrived, but only one course of action was demanded.
Fuma nodded at them, fear evident on his own face. “Your sister’s in danger!”
“Isn’t this the Kaiju Graveyard?” Ultraman Nice raised an eyebrow patronizingly when the others had all landed together, on the small, lonely asteroid in an equally lonely corner of space.
“Wait this is a graveyard?” Grigio practically yelped and looked around anxiously. With a name like that, she expected monstrously-sized tombstones to cover the ground underfoot. She wasn’t sure if the barren expanses of craggy hills and dark rock outcrops around her were reassuring, or made more ominous by the thought of dead Kaiju lying just out of sight in unmarked graves.
“Oh don’t be such a baby , it’s not dangerous here at all!” Ultraman Boy scoffed, then scrambled up a small incline to look over the next jagged valley. “This place is a perfect secret base because all the grown-ups tell us not to come here, there’s nobody else around!”
Zearth, who had already appeared ghostlike with a pale expression, stifled a small scream as a transparent figure slid through the solid stones beside them.
“Okay, fine, nobody except the ghost monster thingies…” Boy conceded with a huff. “But they don’t bug you unless you bug ‘em first, it’s fine!”
“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Boy…” Nice began.
“You don’t trust me though, is that it?” He glared back. “You just followed me here because you think I’m just a kid and now you’re going to take me back then tell on me, right?” Boy pouted and then sat heavily at the top of the little hill he had conquered on this expedition.
“Of course we should go back, look at how filthy this place is!” Zearth tentatively scratched one toe through the black grit, glanced at another huge serpentine shadow passing over the ground, and shuddered. “That’s probably what’s attracting all the ghosts, this place is just so ugly and depressing!”
“I don’t know, I kind of like it.”
The others turned to stare at Grigio. Boy’s face lit up.
“It’s cool, right! I knew you’d like it, Miss Grigio!”
“I don’t know about cool, but it’s… peaceful. The stars are so pretty here too!”
“It’ll be fine if we just look around for a little while.” Nice agreed.
“Really?” Boy shot up again, excitedly. “I thought you’d be mad when you found out, Mr. Nice.”
“I was just worried about the thought of you playing around here. This part of the Kaiju Graveyard is harmless, but some of the… deeper regions are much more dangerous. You should be careful wandering around.”
“If we’re here, maybe we could go with Boy and make sure he stays out of trouble?” Grigio pointed to where he had disappeared over the ridgeline into the valley below.
“Ah… he moves fast. Maybe he’ll make a good Ultra Warrior after all.” Nice gestured for the others to follow him. He gestured again, insistently for Zearth, who reluctantly unstuck himself and trudged behind the others.
As they walked, with Boy darting over crevasses ahead of them, appearing in and out of sight at random intervals, Grigio wondered about the quiet atmosphere around them.
“Are the Kaiju actually buried here, Mr. Nice?”
“There are some places in the universe where the boundaries between our world and others are very thin. For some reason, the spirits of Kaiju, monsters, aliens and others seem to be attracted here, especially if they are… unable to move on to the other world.” Nice shrugged. “I’m a tinkerer and engineer, not a Kaiju scientist, you’d have to ask one of them about the details.”
“Well I guess it’s not the worst place to be stuck after death… it is very quiet here though.”
“Personally, I think they like it here. It’s probably a nice change of pace compared to the violent battles which ended most of their lives.
For a moment, Grigio considered calling out to one of the phantoms appearing out of the corner of her eye. In the next moment, she wondered if one of them would appear as a familiar, somber-looking woman in a black dress…
She nearly ran into Nice before realizing the Ultraman had come to a complete halt. Zearth ran into them both, backwards as he nervously watched for the first sign of danger, such as errant mud traps and quicksand pits.
“Where did Boy disappear to this time?” Nice called out, louder. “If it gets any later, your tutors will notice you missing!”
Immediately, his round face appeared off to their side, many leagues away. “Aw… but I just found something cool I wanted to show you guys! Can I bring it over?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“It’s a cool rock!”
Nice visibly sighed in relief. Zearth looked even more alarmed.
Grigio realized that her heart had begun racing the moment Nice stopped in front of her. She had thought it was just her concern for Boy going off alone again, but the feeling did not go away as he half-skipped, half-flew closer to their party. Instead, a pit dropped further in her stomach. Her mouth went dry, and she almost felt dizzy with fearful anticipation. She brushed it aside as nothing, just anxiety about getting home away from these ghosts.
And then she realized what Boy had brought over to them. The rock was large in his hands, a curved talon of glinting red amber, glowing sullenly in the cooler shadows of the small depression where they stood.
“That’s not a rock…” Grigio gasped, flinching backwards like it had burned her.
“Boy, put that down right now. ” Nice’s voice uncharacteristically hardened, far from the jovial exasperation it had carried until now.
Boy obediently dropped it, recognizing the tone.
“That’s a Devil Splinter!” Zearth cried out, pointing at it, lying immobile on the ground between the group.
“Are.. are we gonna die too like the Kaiju here?” Boy’s eyes widened like saucers. “Those things are cursed, right?”
“No, we’re not going to die, calm down-” Nice’s stern demeanor deflated with another sigh and he put a hand on Zearth’s shoulder, trying to press his panicking comrade to stay grounded. “It can’t hurt us by itself.”
“But it can attract other monsters, or might even turn the ghosts around us berserk!” Grigio pointed out.
The other three stared at her. Nice put his hand more firmly against Zearth’s shoulder, now trying to keep him from fainting entirely.
“Sooo… we need to figure out how to get it back to the Land of Light as soon as possible, I’m sure they know what to do with it!” Grigio attempted to smile more helpfully this time.
“Nooo, we can’t just do that!” Boy wailed, on the verge of tears now. “Then they’ll know.. They’ll know I was sneaking out here, and I won’t be able to come back and play here because they’ll think it’s too dangerous and… and-” he trailed off sniffling.
“Well, we don’t have to tell the whole truth, right? Maybe we could just say that… we got lost. And accidentally found ourselves here! Wait, that still sounds bad…” Grigio considered that for another moment. “Or what if we say we were kidnapped by some evil monster, and then it took us here, and we-”
“Only if I get to be the one who fought the monster and drove it off!”
“That’s ridiculous, no one would ever believe that, Boy.” Zearth interrupted, “Clearly, I should be the one who defeats the monster.”
“This is no time for making up lies everyone, this is serious!” Nice pinched the bridge of his head crest descending between his eyes in exasperation.
“Aw…” Zearth trailed off, sulking. “I never get to be the hero though.”
“No, Mr. Nice is right.” Grigio felt slightly ashamed at herself for slipping so easily into fibbing once again.
She had lied to her brothers to run away to the Garrison, because she was ashamed they were concerned about her safety. In many ways, she knew how Boy felt, that was why she decided to come out here with all of them in the first place. But now the reality of their battle stared at them plainly, with an ominous red aura, undeniable.
“If we just leave it here, who knows what else will come along, and then it’ll be our fault. We need to take it back before some other monster or alien finds it--”
“And what about a Queen?”
“I dunno, is there a monster queen? I’ve never-”
All four of them whipped around at the new voice, haughty and cold as the cloudless atmosphere around them. A set of burnished silver armor with scaled details appeared, stepping out from a shadowed overhanging rock. The starlight glinted off of blood-red edges and her darkened, lined face grinning from under an elaborate helm. A tight coil of leather and wire unfolded from around her arms, and creaked and she stretched it.
“Allow me to introduce myself then. I am Gina Spectre.”