"Hm, the only reason I'm here is that I'm still waiting for the boat to come, that's all," Hops said, jumping down from the gate.
"You know that kid?" Tren asked.
"We, we go ways back." Jamal managed to mutter, before coughing some more.
"You sure you can fight?" Zim doubted.
"Yeah," he managed to say, getting off the gate, before barely landing on his feet.
"Should we help hi-" Swern begin to question before another guard commented.
"Let him fight, he knows when he can stop. Plus, we can join after they fall."
They watched as Jamal slowly moved closer to Hops, who began moving towards the army. As they got closer, Jamal felt he had enough energy to go into his "sparking" form, which he entered.
"Don't hold back." Hops said, handing him a vial.
"Where'd you get this?" Jamal said with shock.
"We can talk later, right now you know what you got to do. After all, someone's going to need a father in their life."
Jamal just looked at him, before nodding. Not hesitating, he drank the contents. Very quickly, he felt all the pain and exhaustion disappear from him before it quickly began to hurt severely, causing him to stop and clutch for breath.
"You good? We need to hurry, or is it going into effect?" Hops looked behind, as Jamal was beginning to twitch.
Suddenly, he felt a burst of energy like never before, and taking advantage of this state, he closed his eyes and concentrated deeply. He could feel the heat surround him as he became engulfed in fire, but he felt hotter and brighter than before. Opening his eyes, he looked around to see streaks of blue fire surrounding him, but still mostly surrounded by a dark red of fires.
"Blue eyes, huh? This better work." Hops grinned, before looking back ahead, at Youden getting up again.
"Enough playing games with these children. Clearly, you really had some training, so let me end this ridiculous conquest." Youden cried out, as darkness began to surround him, with dawn approaching.
Before he finished reaching complete strength, Jamal grabbed his neck and forced him straight to the ocean floor, creating a wave large enough to expose it. Reaching there instantly, Youden barely had time to block the rapid attacking Jamal, who still didn't say a word as the attacks prevented the water from coming back down again.
Kicking him back up, Jamal grabbed him and slammed him across the side of the sharp cliff, before creating a full-powered fireblast from one hand, and firing it through his army. It was so strong, that it left a path of destruction ten miles away.
By now, Youden's army was disorganized, and they quickly began the retreat to gain more forces to try again. Jamal watched as the clouds began to darken, and an object slowly began to approach him. He could see the ground lash out and begin moving towards his direction and the town.
Not even afraid, Jamal got back on what remained of the gates, with the other guards staring at him.
"You need help?" Zim stuttered to him.
Jamal just looked at him, his fire swirling around him and his eyes blue from power, before turning back at the full-power Youden. Hops reappeared to his side, eager to end this once and for all.
"You think we got this?" Hops said, with the approaching Youden.
Jamal just nodded, and they both rushed towards him. Youden screeched back at them, as he sent hundreds of sharp shards of frozen water in their direction. Jamal simply blasted the entire area away, melting the shards instantly, continuing his approach. Hops was on the ground below, as he sped up underneath Youden before leaping behind him.
Youden turned around just to see Hops kick him in the face, causing him to back towards Jamal, who created a five-story sword of fire, flaming wildly. He sliced in his direction, but Youden protected himself enough to prevent himself from getting sliced in half. With that, Youden used the ground whips he formed and directed them at the duo.
Both Jamal and Hops quickly moved out the way, as they did their best to avoid the town.
"Forget this at this point, I won't be defeated by some stupid children," Youden shouted, while bloodied, as he raised his hands to the sky. Slowly, the clouds began to make way for an asteroid the size of the city slowly crashing down towards it.
"I'll kill everyone so we all get nothing!" Youden laughed in a maddening rage.
Jamal kicked his hand, causing it to break and forcing Youden to scream in pain, while he kicked off him for Hops to deal with and towards the asteroid. He could feel himself getting low on the energy, so he would make sure this final attack would count.
Getting in front of the city, he eyed the asteroid, already heating up and covering the city in its shadow. Aiming carefully, he quickly made a sword from blue fire, and for this one attack, let all the extra power be ready to be consumed for this attack. This allowed him to finally be covered in a deep colored blue fire, as his eyes wisped with its energy.
With the sword complete, he quickly slashed in the asteroid's direction, faster than most people watching could see, as it instantly broke into multiple chunks. Satisfied, he condensed his hands and created a bright ball of fire, with its light illuminating the entire city. Finally completely charged, he fired the blast straight into the chunks, causing them to instantly break down and disappear with the blast reaching all the way to space.
Meanwhile, Hops was exhausted but so was Youden. Severely weakened by his underestimation, Youden began to float away to the capital. Hops was already back on the ground and leaped to go after him before a wall of earth blocked his path. If he had a bit more stamina, he probably would have dropped him, and ended the man's run at taking Saputa, but there was nothing he could do in his current state. He looked back at the city, to see Jamal's blast dissipating, and the fire from his body disappear.
Making his way to him, he finally noticed the destruction around him, seeing craters and dirt pushed back as far as he could see. There were dozens of dead bodies and chunks of metals from those vehicles they brought, but it didn't matter. They held them off, and that was something to be proud of.
"Good job." Hops patted Jamal's back, but he didn't move.
The guards didn't notice this as the ones still alive rushed up to him in delight with them all cheering him on for this work. The city people cheered as several rung bells for the victory that occurred and for those that participated. Jamal finally snapped out of the state he was in, and looked around at everyone cheering him on.
....
It was a long ten hours, but Jamal finally was making his way back to the house with Hops.
"You're not coming back, are you?"
"Can't yet. I'll be on the boat though. You can tell Ula I'm sorry, and I mean it. But that was some good work out there." he said on the warm fall day.
"I got you. But if you didn't bring that, we probably would have lost. And plus it gave me back my energy, so I'm not really tired or hurt that much or at least thanks to the healer."
Laughing about everything they thought about, they finally made it to the street with the house.
"I'll see you next month," Jamal said, shaking his hand.
"Oh yeah," Hops promised, before heading to another road.
Jamal continued his walk down the street until he finally reached the house. Getting past the broken glass, he opened the door, to see no one inside.
"Hello?" he called out, to no call.
He continued looking around until he heard a door open behind him. Turning around, he could see them all coming in with supplies only to see him already there.
"Dang, we shouldn't have gotten what you wanted," Brat told Fonda, who just shook her head.
"Huh?" he asked before Ula rushed up and kissed him.
"You just can't resist a fight can you?" she said, once she moved her head back.
"Just doing my job is all. At least they won't be here for a bit. Enough for us to escape safely at least."
"Oh Jamal." she laughed, before kissing him again.
This day would later be known as "Day Of The Defenders" on October 15th, and reminded those with powers that even in the worse circumstances, that one could overcome and accomplish more with them. Jamal and Hops, along with others, had taken on Youden, and by sheer strength were able to overcome and win the battle to live another day.