//------------------------------//
// Flying Through the Universe 
// Story: Battle of Wits on a Rainbow Road 
// by Fiaura 
//------------------------------//

Fizzy arrived through the portal and turned to see Caramel and Barley joining her but they were in space, looking at each other through small fighter craft that appeared to be made of gemstones. They looked across at each other, trying to see what they could do, the space craft appeared to be moving on their own down what looked like a literal burning trail of ions that resembled a rainbow.

Each of the craft moved along a different color of the rainbow, slice across each other as the rainbow road twisted and turned in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. They moved like model cars upon a magnetic spring path, racing forward.

“I’m going to prove myself, with or without you, no matter what you say….” Fizzy realized she wasn’t speaking but rather singing.  Her singing style felt like an opera, belted out with an orchestra that rose and fell with the emotions in her voice.  “No matter what has passed between us in the past, this is my day, my day, my dayyyy…..”

Caramel went to speak back but her’s came out as a song too but instead of opera, she found herself singing in heavy metal complete with guitar, bass, and drum riffs. “Listen here, Fizzy. You mean so much to us, we would not be complete, if you were not with us. Help us down from this place of misery, into somewhere better than this auxiliary. This story is out of control, I’m out of emotions it’s toll.”

They both looked at each other stunned. Unsure where the gravely heavy metal voice had come from on Caramel much less the rich slow opera of Fizzy. The craft coasted upon the rainbow that guided their gemwalls towards somewhere else, then they turned to Barley.

Barley was suddenly adorned in a T-shirt that left one of his shoulders exposed, he held a microphone off angle from his mouth standing on his rear hooves, with a baseball cap turned halfway around covering only one of his ears and several long pieces of jewelry hanging off of him. “Listen to my rap, Fizzy, these feelings are crap. We need to find a better way than this battle, it is leaving all of us far too rattled. We keep going from story to story, book to book but in the end is all this hate and anger really worth messing up our nook. You are our sister, maybe from another mister, but that doesn’t make you lose any luster. Come on now back to us so we can get back to the fun faster, this entire fight is turning us all into a disaster.”

Fizzy found herself dressed head to hoof in a hard oversized skirt, a heavy bustier with armor plating on the front and a large viking helm with horns entirely too big for her head sticking out of it. All gleaming in silvers, gold, and polished steel. She held a spear in her hoof as he returned her shot. “You cannot possibly understand my longing to belong, you pushed me into the back stage where everything felt so wrong. I must tell you here and now I will not take this as my last song, you will find out through our battle I am just as strong.”

Caramel dashed across the stars trying to maneuver her craft and found herself in full fake body armor with spikes and holding a microphone that shot flames from its base. “But you can be strong with us, together we make it better. You are making all this fuss, and yet we stand with you to the letter.” Though the song was made for someone to sing softer, Caramel was rocking out to it as if it were some heavy metal track with rock and soul in her voice she never knew she had.

“Why don’t you pick up your ears to what I’m putting down, you are NOT something we hide and want to make you feel like a clown. You are a devoted sibling, why are we even quibbling? You don't see this is a disaster, why can’t you just stop and answer? We want to just go on and give you a hug, not this attack on us as if I am a thug.”

The battle of wits continued, none giving ground. Where one would suddenly burst into opera singing, the others would reply in beastie boys style rap and heavy metal. The ships jumped onto new colors and started a battle between country, hip hop, and emo but I will not subject you to the exact details of the tragedy that unfolded there.

Instead I will tell you that they swept through the stars until all three were upon the same color. Now came the songs when they stood upon the green light became that of a technobeat. Each of them sang on key to show what they could become.

“When I look up at you and what meets my eyes, I can’t stand by while our friendship dies.” Caramel sang as they accelerated and Barley chimed in as best he could. Their outfits changed with the direction in music genre to match as they now wore badly done B-Scifi space suits from the 1980s.

“A starship shouldn’t idle nearby, it’s our time! We should crawl inside and turn the cockpit clockwise to our sunrise!”


Fizzy railed bag against them, “A voice in the back of my head, screaming this is a lie in disguise! You hear what I said? It’s all fading into nothing but the noise of light and sound. I need my way out!”

Fizzy danced above them, her mane of fire becoming a corona among the stars., “My firestorm ignites! I don’t deserve this life in the candlelight!  I will become the speeding satellite!  Halfway between the black and gray, my life is just going to waste away! I’ll take this road and risk it all on better stakes!”

Caramel chimed in hoping to bring her back. “Ya know so many moons away, I can safely say that my heart would never cause you to be betrayed. If we keep with these fears, we’ll be arrays of enemies unallayed. We must stand as one, a bond beyond the vast waves until our graves.”

Barley stepped up and tapped his foot to the keyboard beat that echoed in their ears, “Our mission is clear and it lights up our dreams, A thousand possibilities move simultaneously and yet our firelight must scream into the night, join us back, it’s our destiny!”

Fizzy howled in anger at them, “I’d gladly give up this false life for just one of justice, you acolytes. Light shines for me to see you left me blind as can be!” She holds up her hoof containing a fireball of her Nirik flames, hurling it out only for it to fizzle just before it hit the ship that Caramel was in. “Even in the endless black seas I can’t navigate, you will never be my mascot brigade!”

Caramel tapped her hoof to fire back, “Please Fizzy, we want you to know that your life isn’t a candlelight. It’s wrong for you to speed away and be our satellite. You’re right, halfway between the black and gray is no place for your life to waste away. We want to take this rainbow road with you, with all the stakes.”
Fizzy felt tears in her eyes, but her flames would not subside..

“Your black knight and dark side can hear our cries; You cannot let it all die here when we’re in sight, we fight for you because that’s what’s right! No fate but that which we are the maker, don’t let this next page be our relationships undertaker. Please come back and be our mascot brigade!”

Unfortunately, the three crashed through their respective portals, sending them to faraway places in the narrative. Only time would tell what impact this meeting would have on Barley and Caramel and their estranged friend, Fizzy.


(Song is a Mix-Up of Starlight Brigade)