Volume 1, Chapter 8: Final Battle
You are reading the official Taiyou Con light novel, Reset!!! We Tried to Run an Anime Convention… and Broke the Universe!!! Starring Sunny, Ash, Sakura, Leon and the crew as they put on the con — and save the world while they’re at it. Volume 1 is The Invasion Saga! (Note: The events and characters in the Taiyou Con light novel is a fictional story. For real convention event updates, go to our Updates.)
Previously on… Taiyou Con: The Invasion Saga! After being lured into a trap by Evil King Barrel, Sunny unintentionally reveals the path to the Solis Core. However, the king has left her in a precarious position… She can stop him from obtaining the Solis Core or leave her friends in the clutches of the barrel cactus army. Which will she choose?
The throne room shook with intense fighting. Cactus warriors poured in from every direction, and their spiny limbs clashed with the Sun Squad’s weapons.
Sunny stood frozen for a moment watching the fading trail of light streak into the sky where Evil King Barrel had escaped.
But a scream jolted her back.
“Go after him!” Honoka’s voice rang out. Several cactus warriors had pinned Honoka down and waited for Sunny to act.
Sunny spun around and started sprinting toward her but stopped as a huge line of warriors blocked her off.
With several punches, Kenji’s quick bursts of fists knocked all of the cactuses off Honoka. She gasped for air as she sat up, her arms and legs bleeding.
“Are you okay?!” Kenji asked, crouching beside her.
Honoka groaned but nodded. “Sunny, you have to after that evil king!” she yelled.
More cactus soldiers flooded into the throne room. Kenji, barely upright and still aching from the cactus attacks earlier, staggered forward and wiped the blood from his mouth.
“We got this,” he said hoarsely. “We’re tougher than these weeds.”
“I can’t just leave you all here—”
“Reality’s depending on you,” Kenji said, as a cactus dodged one of his punches. “We’ll get ourselves out of here and join you later.”
Sunny looked around one last time—at Sakura firing arrows from behind one of the pillars in the throne room, Leon healing Honoka, and Ash sprinting around the room causing havoc on the enemy. They were all battered but were still putting up a fight.
She turned to face the window.
“I’ll see you guys in a bit,” Sunny said, “so hurry up and finish them off!”
Then she started running toward the window where Evil King Barrel had stepped outside.
She called out as she ran, “Solar! I need a ride!”
Solar spun around and flared on his jets.
“On it,” he responded as he flew over the barrel cactuses in the room toward Sunny. “Coming to you now!”
As Solar approached her at top speed, Sunny leapt onto his back and gripped his shoulders as his thrusters ignited even more.
“Follow that trail of light!” she yelled.
Together, they rocketed out of the throne room into the open sky away from the space fortress.
The sky started to turn orange as they soared across the broken city. Sunny thought to herself how beautiful it was up here.
“You know, I thought the craziest thing happening this year would be running an anime convention like Taiyou Con,” Sunny told Solar as she rode on his back.
“Taiyou Con does get pretty crazy each year! Do you remember the year when Teddyloid’s concert literally blew the doors off?”
“Yes! If we save the universe today, let’s not postpone the convention. Let’s just run it two days from now as a big celebration!”
Solar looked back at Sunny, “then let’s save the universe!”
The light trail veered downward heading straight for the convention center.
“Wait,” Solar said, his voice uncertain. “You don’t think… the Solis Core has been here the entire time?”
Sunny stared at the convention center. “No way… it’s been right under our feet?”
As they approached, they saw it—right in front of the convention center where the festival stage would’ve been. The ground had split open, revealing a massive tunnel glowing faintly.
The light from the Ancient swords dove into the opening.
“We’re going in,” Sunny said.
“Strap in,” Solar replied, diving headfirst.
The tunnel was surprisingly lit—not by any natural source, but by the very trail they followed. The deeper they went, the more it twisted and glowed with strange green and gold hues.
Soon, the walls widened, and a cavern opened before them. At the center of the room stood Evil King Barrel. His arms were raised, casting some sort of energy into the green object floating before him.
The Solis Core was shining brightly and growing in size. It spun slowly as it absorbed the king’s energy charge.
Solar surged forward. “Get ready!”
Sunny launched off Solar’s back mid-flight, her sword manifesting in a flare of light. It had recharged completely while they followed the trail, and it shined with brilliant reflection as she came down hard toward the king.
He sidestepped just in time, his mouth grinning as Sunny landed before him. Evil King Barrel circled Sunny and pulled out his own blade. “So you left your friends behind? Maybe you do have it in you to defeat me.”
“Solar, I need you to go back to the fortress and hack his computer panel on his throne and beam everyone back to the ground,” Sunny commanded.
“What about you? I can’t leave you here! I need you to fly you out of here if you get hurt or from the crystal’s explosion!”
“I have to end this one way or another, but our friends need to get off of that fortress. Come back for me when everyone’s safe!”
“I don’t know if I should…”
Sunny turned to Solar and reassured him, “I got this. The sooner you go, the sooner you come back.”
“Roger!” Solar flew back toward the entrance leaving Sunny and Evil King Barrel behind.
“So, you think you can defeat me? Or destroy the powerful Solis Core? You already lost!” Evil King Barrel launched a fireball at Sunny.
Sunny blocked the powerful shot with her sword and redirected it to the wall at the other side of the cavern creating a massive hole.
Wow, that was close!
Sunny looked at the king angrily and slashed at him repeatedly. He dodged again and again. He blocked her last swing, and the force pushed Sunny back as her blade vibrated furiously.
She looked down. Her sword’s energy had dropped from 100% to 83%. Each clash of the blades was draining it fast.
This isn’t working, she thought.
The king scoffed, “Why do you fight so hard against the inevitable?”
Sunny lowered her body and swung her sword again. The king blocked her attack again with ease as she stumbled back. No! 76%!
“Nothing is inevitable,” she said. “I learned that life is what you and the people around you put into it. Maybe you were once like that too.”
This time, it was Evil King Barrel that lunged at Sunny. Sparks flew as his sword struck her blade repeatedly while the Solis Core floated in the background.
“You have such a small mind,” Evil King Barrel said as he continued attacking Sunny. “I never shared such sentiments.”
The intense fighting raged on. Sunny dodged multiple fireballs as well as blocked his sword attacks. Back and forth, they traded attacks.
At one point, Sunny managed to kick the king in the face as he dodged her sword, but he returned the favor with another fireball toward Sunny. With no time to escape, she blocked it with her sword, but the force sent her flying at the wall of the cavern.
Her body hit the wall hard. Pieces of rocks from the cracked wall fell to the ground with her.
I can barely keep up with him! Time for plan B?
“Would your queen really want you to do this?” Sunny straightened up and tried to appeal to his good side. “Would she want you to make so many people suffer for your ambition?”
He snorted at her reply. “I do not care what she wants. She only existed to serve me. I will bring her back in this new reality so she can have the pleasure of obeying me again.”
At that moment, Sunny knew there was no appealing to his good side. Evil King Barrel was truly a monster. She knew what she had to do as she looked at the floating crystal in the middle of the cavern.
It must not be ready yet. Otherwise, he would have used it to change reality instead of fighting me.
“So you had realized the inevitable. You cannot defeat me and now, your only option is to destroy the crystal which… means your destruction as well.”
Without saying a word, Sunny rushed toward the crystal in the middle of the cavern. Evil King Barrel was caught off guard. He had expected a heroic reply, but suddenly he was a step behind Sunny.
Sunny looked at her sword, and the energy level was at 23%. She needed to strike the crystal as hard as she could with all of her might to end this once and for all.
Sorry, Solar. Looks like you won’t be coming back for me after all.
Suddenly, she saw Evil King Barrel in front of her blocking her path to the Solis Core.
“Did you think you can outrun me?!” The cactus king did a horizontal slash at Sunny, but she jumped over him and kept running toward the crystal.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him next to her. He raced past her and blocked her path once again and released a fireball at her. She dodged it. However, his sword came at her, and she had to block it draining the energy of her sword down to 15%.
I guess it’s now or never, she thought.
Another sword attack came at her, but she managed to deflect it at an angle causing Evil King Barrel to lose his balance. The deflection drained more energy from the sword, which was now down to 10%, but another idea ran through her mind at that very moment.
I don’t need to reach the Solis Core in order to destroy it!
Sunny came to a halt and launched the sword at the crystal with an immense force. Evil King Barrel watched as the sword pierced through the air and into the Solis Core. As the sword came to a stop, a bright light filled the cavern and dimmed. The Solis Core started glowing and dimming as pieces of the ceiling started falling.
“No!” Evil King Barrel shouted in anger. “What have you done?!”
“I guess I saved the universe from the likes of you,” said Sunny as she reached out her hand to summon her sword, but her hand remained empty.
That’s weird. I can always summon my sword back to me once it leaves my hand. Did it run out of energy?
She looked over at the crystal, and the sword was still in it. This was an opportunity for the king to strike her down. As he started to rush toward her, a giant rock from the cavern fell between them stopping him from advancing. The entire place was collapsing as rocks and dirt fell everywhere.
As the giant cactus looked around the cavern, he decided it was time to leave. He pulled out a small device and pressed a button.
“I will destroy your world,” said Evil King Barrel, “if it is the last thing I do.” An aura of light surrounded him and teleported him out of the cavern leaving only Sunny there.
Sunny ran up to the Solis Core and tried to pull out the sword, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried to unsummon it, but the sword remained in place as the crystal started dimming and shaking.
“Looks like it’s going to blow!” Sunny ran as fast as she could down the tunnel to the surface. Rubble kept hitting her on the head as she ran, but she ignored the pain. It was getting harder to see as the dust filled the area.
She saw parts of the tunnel had already collapsed partially blocking her way, but she kept running.
Am I going to die from the explosion or die from getting crushed?
The tunnel behind her started collapsing faster and would catch up to her soon. She kept running.
I am not going to make out.
As the sound of falling rocks got louder and more frequent, she saw a light.
Am I already near the surface?
The light grew brighter and brighter. It was Solar flying in fast toward her.
“Solar!”
“Hop on, Sunny! We are getting out of here!”
Sunny jumped onto Solar, and they both ripped through the tunnel dodging falling rocks and debris. Moments later, they both flew back out to the surface in front of the convention center as the entrance of the tunnel collapsed, filling up the giant hole in the ground.
“I guess that’s the end of the Solis Core,” she said to Solar. “Wait, how are you back so soon?”
“Well, I reached the space fortress and used the computer panel on Evil King Barrel’s throne to teleport the team to safety inside a nearby building. There were some security measures in place, but I managed to hack the system!” Solar landed on the ground so Sunny could get off. “Then I destroyed the panel and flew back here to get you!”
Utterly exhausted, Sunny sat on the ground. She saw the space fortress looming over the horizon and thought, this is not over yet.
“We still have Evil King Barrel to deal with. He teleported himself out, so who knows what he is up to,” Sunny sighed. “And I still can’t summon my sword. Maybe the Solis Core explosion destroyed it.”
She held out her hand, but the sword did not appear.
Meanwhile in the space fortress throne room…
“Bring every warrior back!” Evil King Barrel commanded his officers.
“Are we just retreating? We should make an example of these people on this world,” said one of his generals.
The king sat on his throne, and his heart filled with anger at the destruction of the Solis Core. Eons of his effort had all vanished in one moment.
“We are going back home and bringing a big armada back. This planet and their galaxy will feel my wrath,” said the king. “Take us out into space and charge the portal generator. The sight of this planet disgusts me!”
“Yes, me lord! We shall hide behind the moon. Since we arrived just recently, the generator will take a few cycles to recharge for the trip back to our galaxy.”
“We have time. This primitive little planet isn’t going anywhere.”
Evil King Barrel’s space fortress flew up into space and hid behind the Earth’s moon.
Back at the Mesa Convention Center, Sunny saw the giant ball space station fly up into the atmosphere and disappeared.
“I guess he left,” said Sunny staring into the sky. The sun was setting, and the Arizona orange hue filled the horizon.
“We won,” Solar shouted and started punching the air in celebration, “and with the crystal destroyed, there is no reason for him to be here.”
“I’m sure he has more important things to do than to come back, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”
“According to my analysis, the probability is low given all of the resources required to conquer a faraway planet of no value like Earth.”
Sunny looked at her dirty white dress and tried to swipe the dirt off it. The dirt didn’t move. “I hope you’re right,” she said.
“Now that we won, we still have one day of preparation left to put on Taiyou Con! It will be a great opportunity to bring the city of Mesa together after all of this destruction.”
“Let’s make it happen!” Sunny pointed at Solar in a playful manner. However, she was interrupted by a loud creaking noise. Both of them looked toward the convention building as the sound grew louder.
Then a rumbling sound started, and the convention center collapsed into a giant pile of rubble. Only the dust made a light sound in this tranquil moment as it floated in the air.
The two stared at the rubble in silence, and Sunny looked like she saw a ghost. She turned around and started walking away from the wreckage like a zombie.
“Let’s go find the others,” she said with a nervous laughter.
“Roger that! Think of it this way! Now you don’t have to run a convention after saving the entire universe. There will be no vendors to worry about. Oh, you don’t have to deal with putting stuff away either!”
“Solar, can I ride on your back again? Flying through the sky was one of the coolest things ever.”
Solar gave Sunny a thumbs up, and she hopped onto his back.
“Here we go!” he said as he powered up.
In a moment, they both blasted off and soared across the sky toward their friends.
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Thanks for reading the Taiyou Con mascot light novel series — a fictional story for fans!! For real convention event updates, guest announcements and more, go to our Updates.
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