• • Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way
• June 7, 2026

Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way (Chapter 33)

Clayton Knight

Clash of the Gods

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Two can play at this game. I ascend to my sun form, the power of the sun flowing through me. 

Everything is heightened when I’m like this. On one hand, I have to be like this to survive a fight with another Guardian’s ascended form. 

Yet, I still have to hold back. I can’t just cut loose and start blowing things up unless I want to wipe out everyone around me. I need to lure him away, but away means the water outside of the city, and if experience has taught me anything, sunlight from a star millions of miles away isn’t going to help me as much as an ocean Womby is literally standing in.

Oh well.

Womby can probably just teleport his conscious to a different body of water, but me, I may need to get to the tunnel that the Rango entered through. I need to lure him to the small dock in the city. 

“You want a piece of me?! Come at me!” I yell at him. 

Womby doesn’t seem to be interested in talking. He immediately charges a swirling ball of water in his mouth. Now I have to remind myself, Womby is a water dragon, so when I mean mouth, I mean a jaw that is literally twice my size. That swirling ball of water is big, and then it turns into a water blaster straight at me.

I think of the high pressure water hose Zeke used to wash the car. I was messing with and some other neighborhood kid cut me. 

BOOOSHHH!

This punches a hole right through my chest. 

“Ack!” is the sound I make when I realize I am missing a solar energy lung. If it could put a hole in me, it would erase anyone normal. The stream of water then moves and cuts a line right through my lung.

I should feel the air rushing out, I should be suffocating, or being eaten alive by my stomach acid pouring into my intestines. 

There are a thousand different ways I should be dying right now, that unnatural ick is what I feel. What I don’t feel is pain. 

I barely feel my body stitching itself back together.

This is not the time to be thinking about this, but I find it ironic that even though Womby is currently way bigger than me, he seems to have an easier time creating accurate attacks. I can’t shoot back so close to the ground, the explosions would light up this whole stadium. Sunlight isn’t as kind to our surroundings as water. 

Womby goes to shoot me again with that stream of water, but since I see it coming I easily dash backwards to dodge it. 

My eyes may still be where there supposed to be, but I also sense what else the light touches around me. Even this deep under the ocean, the light of the sun touches all. And what that light tells me, is that Womby thinks he’s being a sneaky little shit with that tail of his.

He tries and fails to stab me with it. I don’t dodge, I punch his tail. When my fist touches the water of his highly detailed tail, the combined powers of my punching force and the heat radiating from my fist works in tandem to knock off his tail. 

I’m hit by steam as Womby’s tail turns back to water and travels back to him to recreate the tail’s tip.

I wonder if I concentrate I can simply propel a solar flare at him. I look into the stands and I see people are no longer standing behind him at least. I take the chance, and heat up my body. 

As I do that, Womby tries to douse me with his high pressure water blast, but it is too late and my temperature is so hot that the water doesn’t make it to me. I force a long solar flare to form from my body, resembling lighting, and direct it at Womby so I don’t hit anyone still trying to escape.

The solar flare burns its way through his head, and the Water Dragon lets out this ringing scream.

YEEOOWW!

Still, I force the solar flare to his core, and then I explode it in him. The dragon explodes and the water turns to steam. I’ve got myself some time for a plan. 

Then the steam immediately starts turning back to water, so okay, not that much time. I have some time to—

Another water dragon shatters the stage below me, and is inches from biting me in half. Like an idiot, I forgot about the water under the platform.

CHOP! 

Womby’s giant jaws close on my lower half and a cold frost just about freezes my solar balls off.

I look down as Womby flies towards the ceiling of the glass dome, the one that separates the city from the ocean. With me in his jaws, I struggle to keep from flailing around. 

I look up to see where he’s taking me. The fucking mad man is going to slam me against the top of the dome! I’ll melt, it doesn’t matter that Rivertans can breath underwater, the pressure will and force will kill on impact, let along the homes it’ll crush.

I get he wants to douse me out, but doesn’t he give a shit about these people? No, that’s the wrong question, doesn’t Lamberine want a city to rule? I should have known better, the answer is always no with parasites like him..

I charge up, tap into my own inner rage, and shine bright enough to melt Womby’s jaw from ice to water, and even some steam. 

Only a few months ago, if he tried this, he’d immediately turn to steam — not even steam — he would risk death. Now his own mind-controlled willpower is defying the heat of the sun. 

His jaw tries to wrap me in water, but the loose grip allows me to stop my movement with my own power of flight. I wrench my arm away and and pound him in the face.

BOOM!

The force of my punch connecting with Womby’s face creates a shockwave, which cracks the dome behind me, and I can hear the glass shattering throughout the city. 

People were hurt by that. 

Womby’s head reels back from the blow, obviously stunned. I need to figure out how to bring this fight somewhere else. I need to get him out of Ramone, and forcing him through the ship port tunnel isn’t a realistic option. I can teleport to anywhere in the solar system that light touches when in this form, including the surface, but I’ve practiced that maybe… twice in my life. 

‘You don’t have any other way. You have to take your chance now!’ Sera yells at me. How is she able to contact me? ‘Stop daydreaming and teleport, now!’ she screams in my head.

I recognize now that Womby is about to tackle me again, and I do as Sera recommends. I search to reach out for the light. In this moment I disappear.

I am not on Riverteria, and yet I am. I am everywhere in the solar system that this sun touches. I can feel everything, and yet it feels like nothing. There’s too much to comprehend, it’s like my whole body is static. 

I can tell the locations of every planet, almost every asteroid in the asteroid belt. I know the exact locations of individuals currently on the surface of Rivertia. 

I am light, and yet, at the same time, I don’t see jackshit.

I need to focus, and go back. I have to find my place on the surface above… above… above Ramone! Yes, Ramone. 

It’s not hard to find when I just focus, and then I’m there, or here. 

I float on air over the ocean. I bring my hand to my face and take deep breaths, not that I need to, but I should need to. 

Sera how were you able to talk to me? I ask her.

‘For some reason Womby isn’t blocking me. His demon is blocked through some unnatural process. For now I can help you.’ 

I don’t know if yelling in my head helps but sure.

Sera huffs before telling me, ‘How about this? Start fucking blasting the surface! Womby needs to come to meet the challenge!’

I hate when she tells me things I should have thought of myself.

Immediately I cut loose. I form two spheres of solar energy in my hands and send them forth hundreds of miles away from Ramone and me. Someone else would think to send a couple blasts closer, but I know that he will see them fine from here. 

It takes less than a second for these spheres of violent energy to cross the distance of several hundred miles, and then explode.

BOOOOOOOM!!!!

This is what I imagine a nuke sounds like. Two explosions bigger than the tsar bomb just went off because of me, and that was just icing on the cake of my limits. The explosions most likely killed some wildlife, but more than some will die if Womby lets loose.

‘Some? You just put several species on the extinction list,’ my demon berates me.

It was your idea! I reminded her.

‘I know, I just don’t want you to think you won’t get shit for that later.’ Then I look off into the distance, and see something disconcerting. 

Damn, I just set off two tsunamis that would make the… I don’t know, some big tsunami look like a tropical wave? I don’t remember their names.

‘Lituya Bay.’

The fuck is that?

‘Just pay attention.’

Then suddenly the tsunamis forcibly decrease in height, and move back down as if they had never even formed.

‘He took the bait,’ Sera practically celebrates.

Then suddenly I hear loud rumblings of water behind me, and feel a large shadow cast over me. 

As that shadow stretches farther and farther away from me I tell Sera, I don’t want to turn around.

‘You have to,’ Sera tells me.

Do I?

‘Yes.’

I don’t think so.

‘Just man up and turn the hell around.’

Slowly but surely, I do a 180, and look straight up at Womby’s water dragon head… 

… as it parts clouds.

I forgot something, ninety percent of this planet’s surface is water.

‘That’s a whole lot of water to beat the shit out of you with,’ she tells me.

“Yeah,” I groan out loud. “Crap.” 

I can’t even hear his roar, it’s like I’m already deaf.

He charges the same swirling water as before, only much more expansive obviously. Then he shoots it down straight at me.

“AAAAAAAAAAA-AAAHHHHHH!!!!” I scream.

I maintain my altitude against the cascading water as it piles down atop of me. Dousing me, snuffing me out. I feel my temperature drop as I barely manage to stay in the sky. 

He essentially washes away my sun form. 

When he’s done I float before Wombinal, a lightless speck of dust, floating before a god. 

‘What are we going to do?’ Sera asks me. ‘Do you want my power?’ Such an insulting thing to offer. ‘Well what’s the plan then?!’

Plan, the plan is I smash the shit out of him. 

I am light, I am the fucking sun. No one should be able to douse me. No one. 

There’s nothing but white noise as I transform back into my sun form, fueled by rage, and more chaotic. This time solar flares rage from all around me, drawing in the daylight making the world dim.

“You’re finished!” I charge a huge sphere of energy as I cross my arms. It stays there in front. In seconds, it goes from being able to sit in my hand to being the size of a house. Still, I charge it up as Womby charges up to counter.   

After a minute I hear more advice. ‘Clay, don’t!’ Sera warns. I don’t care to listen.

Alloya Ra’non

I make it outside after breaking up few fights in my way. That may have included running through some walls to break to the stands in time to dive into the water in the arena to save Terra. I fished him out and reunited with Hideo as the world was falling apart ten ways to Sunday.

I caused this, this was my fault, and I have no regrets about what I did.

I only regret not better preparing for shit to hit the fan. 

Terra looks Hideo over as the Reeky-tites explain to me what happened with Aleti, how she disappeared. My daughter is gone, and with Hideo out cold I have to find some other way to find her.

Then I see the blinding light above the city.

“What is that?” Torun calls out as he and everyone else tries to block their eyes. 

Not me though. 

“No,” I mutter to myself, “he wouldn’t go that far.” 

It’s Clay, and that is the kind of power to wipe Ramone off the map. He should be able to handle Womby. What’s happening up there?

From the recess of my mind, I know my demon is struggling with all of her might to send me one message.

I already know what it is. 

‘Throw up a barrier now!’ Rega screams before she immediately fades back to the depths of my mind.

I hope she hears me tell her, No shit.

I immediately gather the cosmic energy that is present everywhere I can reach. I must ascend to protect the city from this kind of power. What is Clay thinking? Has he lost his mind?

I become that shining blue-green woman I don’t recognize, the one I’d rather lock away. My cosmic form.

“My goodness,” Pekipsea gasps with a hand over her mouth. “Stunning.”

There is no time for me to take compliments. I fly up so fast that I reach the dome wall in seconds. I place my hands upon it, and start forming a barrier on the outside. I create one spot that spreads rapidly across the surface area of Ramone’s dome. 

I don’t know until it happens that I just barely make it. 

BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Riverteria shakes, not just Ramone, the whole planet shakes. I don’t know for sure if the other side of Riverteria feels the violent shake Ramone does, but I doubt they’re being dealt with leniency. 

When the pressure of an explosion wears down I drop the barrier. As it comes down it reveals that there is only smoke and dust surrounding the city. No water.

I look back and I see buildings that have collapsed all around Ramone. The place is falling apart. How will the Rivertans deal with this? Fight amongst each other? Help each other? I’ll have to find out later.

I have to get outside, before the rest of the world looks like this.

Clayton Knight

I open my eyes to a gigantic cloud of ash and smoke. I thought my first two explosions had huge mushroom clouds, this one eclipses that. This one can probably be seen from space. 

I fucked up.

‘You gave in to anger, and not even in a strong way, it was like a rubber band snapped,’ Sera berates me. ‘The thought of being beaten by the one called the fish dude was just too much for you, wasn’t it?’ 

No, that can’t just be it. I, how could I destroy so much for so… little? I hit my head with my own fist. How could I lose control like that? Who knows how much damage I did.

‘Maybe it would be better to say you gave into rage,’ Sera adds.

What’s the difference?

‘Rage is thinking of a hundred reasons not to kill a man, and then doing so anyway,’ she explains.

You think, you think I killed Womby? 

No, Womby and I were not— are not the best of friends by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t have killed him.

‘If you want to be sure, look for him.’

I don’t know how that could possibly work. Even if Womby is alive, he’s in pieces, or at least in water form. Still I can’t just do nothing. 

I’m no longer in my sun form. I don’t want to be anytime soon if I don’t have to. 

The power I can muster in my Human form is enough. I cross my arms, and fuel them with power. With my physical strength alone I swing my arm and blast the dust cloud away so I can see the land.

I only get rid of what’s at my height, cutting the cloud in half. I see steam coming from the ground for miles. Though at the end of those miles I see water rushing back. I wonder how much damage I’ve done to this planet with one tantrum. 

I look up and find that I can’t even see the sky, as the sky has been… blackened and the light blocked. A dust storm looms over a red sky instead of blue.

One could easily tell that the maximum force of my attack went upward towards Womby, as the mushroom cloud is pretty top loaded. Spanning the sky atop of a more modest width of a trunk.

‘Borrow some of my power,’ Sera offers as I forcibly feel a energy flow through me that isn’t mine. It’s unlike my own; I haven’t taken my demon’s power in so long. It feels like I’m being changed on the muscular level, and the change is not swift like it would be with my own power. 

Why are you giving this to me?

‘To make some clothes. You’re butt naked,’ she points out. That does happen when I turn into my solar form, though how would her power fix this? ‘Have I not said it before? It is unlimited, with no bounds. I can make anything if I were not chained to your body. Mildly changing the chemical makeup up of the air around you into clothes is child’s play.’

I feel her power leave my body and surround me. It looks like a red light is wrapping itself around me, and then it turns bright. In seconds Sera’s power appears and disappears, leaving me in my usual outfit.

How much power did that take? I ask.

‘The maximum that I can use while not in control of your body, so not much,’ she begins explaining.

I might have wanted that for something else, as much as I like wearing clothes.

‘Not  much else I could have done anyway.’

With that answered, I wonder what can fix the mess I made. If Womby is okay, he could take the water I turned to vapor and turn it back into liquid, but that’s not going to save much.

‘You have most likely killed any chance of life living within the radius of New Jersey,’ Sera confesses. ‘Like a nuke, though without the nuclear fallout. You could have done much worse, and that’s honestly not that much of the planet.’

That is still too much, I insist.

‘Maybe you can hope for a this crisis to unify people. Even still, it’s not like you enjoy staying on this planet. Being banned wouldn’t be the worst thing.’

Is that the only punishment you see coming my way? 

‘What else can be done to someone who can so easily do this?’ Sera asks me. 

Nothing honestly. 

I’m not a member of any government, and my species is not exactly in the Rivertans reach. They can’t take vengeance upon me. In a way, that only makes me feel more guilty.

Then I hear this plume.

I look up and a hole forms in mushroom cloud. I can’t see through to the sky, but I see something falling, and falling fast. I focus my eyes on it, as parts seemingly fall from it.

It’s Womby! 

He’s falling fast as water seems to be falling apart around him. 

Immediately, I fly to catch him. Womby is thousands of feet above the ground so I have plenty of time. 

As I grab his arm and shoulder to start decelerating us, he surprises me.

WHAM!

Womby swings and punches me right across my jaw, signaling that he is not unconscious, and still trying to kill me. 

Damn, how is he still able to fight?

‘Aren’t you just as able?’ Sera points out. Touche.

He goes to swing on me again as we fall, but I block it. My forearm rings, he’s never hit that hard before. I try to then push his arm away, but before I can do anything else he headbutts me in the nose, CRACK!, breaking it and splattering some of my blood around us. 

I let go of Womby’s shoulder and crack his dumbass across the face, getting a bit of his blood for myself.

In a second, it descends into a brawl where we trade punches and kicks in the air. I get some at his gut and face and he gets to do the same to me. Eventually, he kicks away from me by using both feet. 

We’re falling and I flip backwards as he shoots water from his body. They form long arms with spikes at the end, reminding me of giant crab legs. 

Fucker triest to stab me. One goes for my face, but I catch it with my arm. 

“Aaaaggghh!” Somehow I hear my scream over the wind.

My scream is silenced as another stabs through my thigh, then my left shoulder, and another into my rib….

They don’t go in too deep at first, but the ends of the water spikes start spinning like drills to go further and further. I don’t feel what I’m loosing, it’s numbed as quickly as its destroyed.

I need him to get away from me so I move my injured arm out of the way of my eyes. I charge up a lot of power, more than probably necessary. 

I send forth a heat beam at Womby, but I hit more than what I’m aiming for. I lose control of the spread and hit all of Womby, incinerating his water constructs. He’s pushed away from me, allowing me to focus my blast and add more power. I focus my blast on his chest and send him soaring away towards the ground. 

Smoke trails Womby’s body as he sails at a high speed to the ground. He hits the waterless seabed in less than a second and forms a crater. At first I think I went overboard, but water constructs start moving and shifting from the smoky crater erratically. The water constructs form arms and whip away the smoke to give me a clear view of Womby surrounded in a large bubble.

This fight is far from over, and I fly fists first straight towards him. It doesn’t take long to get to him now that I’m amped up. Seconds before I slam into him, I raise my arms over my head and slam down on him. 

I slam my arms at the perfect moment right before his arms stab me, before my torso connects with his water bubble, before we hit the ground. 

Dirt to blow up around us as I feel something fall out of me. I want to throw up but there’s nothing to puke. 

When the dirt blows away, the first thing I see is Womby on his back, with some water still between us. I immediately start savagely punching the water with flaming fists. The impact force pushes the water back until one fist breaks through the barrier between us and connects with his jaw. 

Before I can reel back another fist, Womby snaps up and sends out a hand that grabs my wrist. In seconds, the water starts wrapping around me like a bunch of lassos, at my neck, arms, legs, and torso, to try to pull me apart. 

I struggle against the strong water constructs as I pool power into my hands, covering them in balls of light. 

POP!

They explode and turn the water into vapor around me. I look down to blast Womby in the face but he uppercuts me in the jaw first, hard. 

I go flying and end up on my back. I hear Womby swiftly get up and run at me. I recover just as fast, rolling over my head to my feet in time to see Womby jump and try to slam his fist down on me. 

I dodge my head to the left to avoid losing my head. 

We collide and go rolling, his elbow behind my head, trying to crunch in my skull. I worm my arm between us to dig my fingers into his chest and hold him off the ground. I start punching his ribs as he punches me in the face with both fists.

After the second blow I wrap my arm around him and bend backwards to slam him onto his head. I roll so we are both on the ground, but also to knock him completely onto his back with me kneeling on him. I get a right hook across his jaw, then he shoots his arm out to uppercut me again, but this time I dodge and grab his wrist with my right hand. With his arm straight and bent out, I punch the back of his elbow, causing his arm to snap inwards.

“Aaaggghhh!!” Womby screams over the breaking of his arm. Then suddenly, a water construct shoots out of his arm like a sword and skewers right through me. 

“Ulgh,” I choke. 

The water just missed my heart, stabbing too high. I quickly fly backwards feeling the water blade come out of my shoulder.

I fly a dozens of yards away, and fall to one knee to clutch over my new bloody wound and feel more blood pooling in my mouth. This fight is not swinging the way I would have thought. At this rate, I can’t tell who will win with me not trying to kill him, and him definitely trying to kill me.

Womby bends his leg at the knee and grabs onto it with his left arm to pull himself to sit up. He struggles to his feet, but as soon as he can stand he instinctively grabs his arm over the break. I then see him whip his left arm back, and form a sword construct out of water. 

I charge up my left hand now with ball of light aimed at him. I charge up my eyes and prepare to blast him with the two.

It seems pointless, but I try to reason with him this one and only time. “Womby, I know we’ve had our differences, but please, don’t make me kill you.” He begins walking towards me. “Do you not see how fucked this all is?! I will put you down! I will incinerate you! I won’t let you kill me!” Then he starts running. 

“Please,” I beg.

Then I start running at him and try blasting at him. As we run at each other I get off a few shots. He dodges most in a spectacle of rolls, flips, and jumps, but I graze his ribs and his sword arm, causing the sword to dissipate. He clenches it back into a fist. 

Womby and I start getting close, so I pool my power into my left hand to fuel a punch instead. When we are within jumping distance, we leap up into the air, both ready to collide. This is it, we are going to punch each other in the face.

But we don’t make it to each other.

With a swift draft of wind, a cosmic Alloya flies between us, powers down and slams her open palms into our chests.

I crash backwards and roll to my feet… only to fall down again. 

Womby recovers even faster than me, he’s right on her with a sword. In a flash she turns right around, moves inside his swing, and wraps a hand around his neck. He chokes because of the force of her grip, stopping the momentum of his swing. Then she slams him down on his head with such power that a dirt cloud pops up.
Quickly she turns around, confused, but dashes at me, moving as fast as sound to stop in front of me and grab both of my wrists.

I didn’t even realize I was falling.

“Clay! You’re bleeding out!” 

I couldn’t tell if she was worried or angry at me. 

I realize that now. All of my wounds, the holes in my body from when we were falling, the skewer over my heart, the bruises, the sprains, none of it is healing. I look up past Alloya’s hair and to the sky. I realize that I don’t feel the sunlight hit me, as if it were night. The dust clouds I made still there. My own attack is the reason I’m bleeding out. 

Then the rain hits. 

As water hits my face I tell Alloya, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t realize…”

She presses her head against mine as she shushes me, “Shhh, it’s okay. I have you now.”

I mutter, in a raspy voice, “How are we going to help him?” in reference to Womby. “He wanted to kill me, not out of adrenaline or bloodlust, but from the start. How do we fix that?”