Donte's POV
Suddenly out of nowhere, Romaine and one of the Hunters were trapped in some kind of sphere. It had a galaxy-like pattern on it; just looking at it would make you feel like you're staring into space itself.
"What happened to them?" Shante questioned
"Your friends currently trapped inside of Alkali's Domain." the other Hunter laughed, "He's as good as dead. But don't worry; you'll be joining him soon."
I instinctually put up my hand in front of Shante to protect her, surging my body with power.
The Hunter put his hands together, forming a ball-shaped space between them. Shante and I watched as the flying enemy somehow made a small cannonball appear in his hands out of nowhere. The next thing we knew, the cannon ball was flying straight for us; we barely managed to escape the range of the explosion.
"You really are a pair of troublesome brats." He complained
"Donte, what do we do?" Shante asked
"The only thing I can think of right now is breaking Romaine out of that ball." I told her
"It's pointless." said the Hunter, making another cannonball, "Alkali's Domain is indestructible. None can enter, none can exit."
After dodging another cannonball, Shante and I ran straight for the sphere, both charging as much energy as possible without our suits to execute speed punches. But turns out the guy was telling the truth; when we hit the sphere all we ended up doing was hurting our hands, and it hurt like hell too. Not even a single scratch on the sphere.
"How stupid could you children get?" the Hunter laughed, "I told you it was indestructible and you went and hit it anyway. You simple minded fools."
Next he threw a whole bunch of cannonballs, even one on the sphere. Though we weren't noticeably hurt, our normal clothes were definitely being affected by the fiery explosions; if we keep this up for too long we might end up having to fight naked.
"Shante." I called, "We need to save Romaine. Let's use the drill."
"But, the Prince told us that if we tried using Zero Point Energy without our suits we'd get hurt by it too." She replied
"I know. He said that the suits are a conductor for our electricity or whatever and if we tried doing it without them then we could die. But does that really matter right now? You're telling me you're willing to let Romaine die in there just so we can live?"
"I..." she stuttered, "Fine..you're right."
"Shut your jabbering already!" Shouted the Hunter, throwing even more cannonballs, "Zero Point Energy? You kids couldn't even comprehend those levels of science!"
Trying our best to dodge all the explosions, Shante and I circled around the block multiple times. I don't even know if we can generate enough electricity to even form Zero Energy without our suits, much less control it; but there's no better option at this point.
Once we'd synchronized down the middle a couple buildings away from the sphere, I joined my left hand with Shante's right hand as we did our best to channel our electricity. Running to the target at full speed, the energy that was forming in our joint hands started burning, quickly getting worse the more we maintained it.
Somehow we'd manage to form Zero Energy, thankfully, but weren't able to control it beyond that; preventing us from forming the Zero Energy Drill. Instantly Shante and I knew we'd have to hit the sphere with the energy directly, no matter what it took.
I never before understood what people meant by the phrase 'my life flashed before my eyes', but as we got closer to the sphere, in less than a second all the most important memories in my life started going through my head.
"The twats actually pulled it of!" the Hunter laughed, "I may have underestimated you brats."
Now an arm's length away from the spherical cage holding our cousin captive, Shante and I drove forward our hands, releasing all the uncontrolled Zero Energy we had harnessed.
"Zero Energy Surge!" We shouted, putting in all or nothing
Once all the energy was released, Shante and I were met by three big surprises one after the other: the hand's we'd used to form the energy had no more skin, they were completely burnt. The point where we hit the sphere...it didn't even have a scratch on it...how could it have withstood Zero Energy? And on top of those, when our attention was brought to the sky, we were met with a bunch of cannonballs; even though we noticed them, it was already too late to react, and we ended up taking all the blasts.
From the first cannonball exploded, everything instantly went black.
Romaine's POV
"This is no good" I thought out loud, slowly rising to my feet
Even though I'm clearly currently under the effects of his ability, I'm still unclear on what exactly it is, so my Hyper Perception wouldn't benefit me at this point.
"I can't seem to harness my superspeed." I thought out loud, looking to pinpoint Alkali's ability
So somehow he's disabled my speed, on top of seeming to manipulate the environment itself.
"Listen man," sighed Alkali, walking up to me, "no hard feelings. It's just my job."
Though I foresaw his attack, somehow my superspeed didn't kick in when I wanted it to, resulting in him slugging me onto the floor.
For a seemingly normal punch, that hurt like hell. And for me, that was the last straw.
"Shiver Style." I whispered
In an instant, I increased my heart's speed by 100 fold. Before Alkali could react or catch on, I displaced myself in the air behind him, delivering a searing strike to the neck.
"Damnit kid." He mumbled, completely unphased by the attack, "Quit being so arrogant. What part of 'there's no hope left' do you not understand?"
Casually grabbing my hand that was still sandwiched between his collar bone and neck, Alkali tossed me over his shoulder, slamming me into the ground.
"Now die, like a good little brat." he muttered, raising his foot to crush my face
Gritting my teeth, I used Shiver Style again to bring me to 1,000 fold, teleporting away from him.
"This is no good." I stated
"Just give it up kid." He insisted
Even though I was using Shiver Style, I ended up vomiting blood as my heart was on the verge of collapsing.
"Not now body.." I whispered, "Just a couple more hours."
"This is just depressing." Alkali scoffed, "And here I was thinking you actually had some level of intelligence. Why continue to push yourself if you're aware it's actively killing you? Anata baka."
"Looks like I won't have to rely on my Hyper Perception after all." I thought out loud, spitting out the residue blood
I sincerely doubt he has any attacking abilities, if he did, he would've undoubtedly used them on me by now. I've already more or less deduced his ability, though I need to do one more thing before confirming my hypothesis.
Pumping my heart's power up to 10, I swiftly jumped backwards in the air, aiming my fist at Alkali.
"Alright body, don't fail me now." I plead, before switching to 100 using Shiver Style and firing my arm forwards to blast a projectile of air
Immediately landing on the ground and returning to base form, I had all but confirmed my speculations; on account of there being no air projectile.
"Your naivety is starting to get on my nerves." Alkali commented
Though there's a change that the air projectile could've not formed due to 100 Fold not being strong enough, I chose to believe that it would've formed, had not been for Alkali's ability; in 100 Fold I can perform the Xraya Palm, which on its own produced a massive air current earlier, so if I were to just strike the air hard enough in 100 Fold, it should've done something similar.
Trying to catch my breath and not get overwhelmed by bloody nausea, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself.
~Start Romaine's Theme (Midnight Ripple)~
"What's so funny, kid? Did the realization of the situation drive you insane or something?"
"No actually. I figured out how your ability works." I stated in a much grimmer tone
"Oh really?" He chuckled sarcastically, "Humor me."
"When we first got here, I was caught off guard I'll admit, though once I regained my senses everything became clear to me. You thought that all this time I was desperately trying to find ways to attack you, but in actuality I was eliminating different possibilities of the ability you could possess. I can still perceive things in super speed, so you're not able to counter X-Gene abilities"
"I'm listening." He harkened
"My speed when we got here: Electricity. Earlier when I clobbered you: Kinetic. And just now: Wind. Even the environment itself could be explained by it: Light." Sharply pointing my finger at him and taking a pose, I declared my conclusion, "Your ability, it disables any form of energy as long as we're inside this domain."
Bursting further into laughter, Alkali seemed genuinely amused.
"Sugureta! Sugureta!" He applauded, "So you're not as dumb as you seem. I do indeed possess the power to cancel forms of energy. But there's one key thing you missed: My ability isn't just limited to kinetic based energy, it also applies to potential based energy as well, such as chemical energy."
As if on command, my body suddenly collapsed to the ground, frantically battling high levels of exhaustion.
"All this time you were running around and didn't realize your stamina was being drained!" He mocked
Though my body gave out on me, I wasn't about to let it all end here. Recalling my first battle versus the Infernomancer, it was clear to me what needed to be done.
"Exhaustion is only your body warning you that it's near its limit." I stated, rising to my feet yet again, "But if those warnings don't reach my brain, then I can keep on fighting."
Just like the last time I performed this feat, shutting down my nerves severely reduced my motor ability, in exchange for not feeling anything.
"You bloody fool!" he ecstacized, "Even if you can get on your feet, how do you intend to fight me in that state?! Especially now that you're aware of my ability's effects!"
Of course I knew he was right, but I couldn't just give up. Taking my limp pose and barely raising my finger at him, I uncontrollably smirked at the sheer genius of his ability.
"No matter what happens Alkali," I muttered, "I can promise you, I won't die here."
~End Romaine's Theme~
Not even a second after, my body gave out for real this time, fully collapsing. I was left completely paralyzed; even if I tried shutting down my nerves again, my body doesn't have the ability to move.
"Heh heh, I agree with you on that one Romaine." a familiar voice softly cackled
"I..that voice.." I struggled to mutter, forcing my eyes to look upwards
"It's alright bud, I'll take it from here. Just this time though, so try not to die."
Considering I was now in a forced relationship with the ground and had barely any energy to even stay conscious, all my weakened eyes could see were my savior's shoes and..the end of his trench coat.
"Kyle..?" I questioned, turning my head just enough to see the rest of him
"I told you I'd always have your back didn't I?" He turned back smiling at me
"You always gotta be showing me up huh. Even in death."
"I do no such thing, I'm but a humble man. Now rest, I can handle this dude on my own."
~Start Kyle's Theme (Static Mind)~
"You sir." called Alkali, "Explain to me how you managed to get in here!"
"What do you mean?" Kyle smirked, starting to walk to him, "You saw me appear right in front of you."
"But it's impossible to enter or exit the Domain."
"Yeah that's the one thing about me," he quipped, coming to a halt, "I do the impossible."
Using his iconic unseen force, Kyle somehow managed to push Alkali onto the floor without even touching him.
"Even if you can affect me, you're still unable to harm me inside here." Alkali pointed out
"Tell me Tyler," Kyle stood over Alkali with his hands in his pockets, "have you ever heard of Einstein's law of Conservation of Energy? You're the scholar here so correct me if I'm wrong, but, 'Energy can neither be created nor destroyed'. So if I had a hunch, all the energy being 'disabled' in here is actually being redirected to the physical manifestation of your Domain."
Looking at Alkali's face, Kyle was right on the money. At this point, the once ecstatic Alkali was now shaking in fear.
"Which means I can just do this."
Without moving an inch, Kyle created some form of shockwave which rapidly went through the entire domain.
The next second that elapsed was the longest and most silent of my life, but in the second following that, the entire domain split apart like glass, shattering into countless pieces. As the sunlight pierced through the falling shards of glass, the sound of shattering glass echoed through everyone's ears.
"But..that's not possible.." Alkali whimpered, fearing his incoming demise
"I usually prefer to refrain from doing this, but you attempted to kill my bestfriend. So now I'll be ending your free trial of life."
Just as he used to do in the past, Kyle shut down Alkali's brain, seemingly killing him.
~End Kyle's Theme~
"You're as brutal as I remember, Kyle." I commented as he helped me up
"Don't say it like that, you'll make it sound like I've been gone for long." He joked
It was starting to feel just like old times, though that feeling quickly went away once we saw the state of Donte and Shante.