JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.
One clone tore through the battlefield, weaving with superhuman agility as he avoided projectile after projectile. Metal beams cut through the forest like missiles, each one slamming into the ground with an ear-splitting crack, spraying dirt and rock into the air. Ali's focus was clear—he was throwing the majority of his arsenal at that clone, hunting him down with relentless precision.
The clone vaulted off a branch barely thirty meters away from Ali—
SHHHHRRING.
—only for the entire branch to shear clean in half as Ali's chain sliced through it like butter. The clone found nothing beneath him, suspended midair, exposed. In that moment—
WHOOOOOSH.
Ten gleaming metal beams, sharp enough to pierce solid bedrock, caught up from behind, screaming through the air like reapers. The clone twisted mid-air, snarling, his right arm thrusting out—
CHIDORI!!!!
The screeching lightning around his hand swelled so violently the beams scattered, flung backward with raw destructive power. Sparks detonated from the collision, bark and leaves igniting around him from the sheer current.
But there was no escape.
STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB.
From behind, almost invisible until the last second—ten needles of iron, impossibly thin and sharp, zipped through the clone's chest, shoulders, and spine. His eyes widened, mouth opening to scream—
KRRRRZZZZZZZHHHHHHH!
The clone detonated in a blinding surge of lightning, his body unraveling into a white-hot electric explosion. The wave spread violently, crackling through the trees as trunks ignited, bark peeled away in molten chunks, and the surrounding forest burned under the sudden blast.
Ali's head snapped toward the explosion, his demonic left eye narrowing.
'This is fucked up… Kill them and they blow. Every one of them is a walking bomb. And that bastard in the sky is still firing spears like artillery…'
His thoughts cut short as he hurled his lightsaber at another clone who was zigzagging toward him. The blade spun through the air with lethal precision, carving arcs of destruction as the clone ducked and weaved between Ali's levitating metal beams that slashed in from every angle.
Up above—
The coin clone was fighting for his life. The skies around him were a constant storm of his own making, lightning spears shrieking outward in dozens, but they weren't hitting their mark.
Why?
Because something monstrous hunted him.
ROOOOAAAAARRR!
A colossal dragon's head, woven from shadow and black energy, lunged at him again, its jaws snapping with earth shattering force. It didn't fly like a normal beast—it jumped from portal to portal in midair, vanishing in bursts of black void before appearing behind or beside the coin clone, each attempt threatening to swallow him whole.
The clone barely spun the coin in time to fire another volley, each spear detonating against the shadow-dragon's teeth with booming shockwaves that shook the skies.
SMASH!
Down below, the ground clone spun to the side as a massive white fang ripped through a shadow beside him, cleaving a trench into the soil where he had just been standing.
But Ali was already there. He appeared in a blur of black aura, both hands gripping a massive metal beam as if it were a war-hammer. His muscles tightened—
WHOOSH—CRACK!
The beam swung with devastating speed, forcing the clone to lunge sideways, his Chidori arm raised and sparking.
AAAAAAHHHHHH!
The clone roared as he lunged toward Ali, lightning surging around him like a living tempest. Ali jumped back immediately, his body moving with inhuman speed despite the damage he had already taken. With no hesitation, he hurled the massive metal beam forward—
THHHHHHHHRRRRRMMMP!
The weapon tore through the air like a missile and impaled the clone straight through his midsection. The clone gasped, frozen for a fraction of a second—then Ali's instincts screamed.
Too close.
Way too close. But he chose to bare the damage just to get rid of this clone…
KKKKKRRRRRRRRRZZZZZHHHHH.
White light engulfed his entire vision.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion was colossal. Ali was ripped off his feet and blasted backward like a rag-doll, his body trailing smoke and flames as he tore through not one, not two, but eight trees as thick as houses, splintering them in half as if they were paper. The sound was deafening, the fireball consuming the battlefield with enough force to level a fortress.
He finally smashed into the ground, rolling violently until his body came to a smoking halt, the soil scorched black around him.
From within the lightning box, the real Mateo watched, a wicked grin on his face.
Ali rose.
Barely.
His body was a nightmare. Half his face was gone, skin burned away to reveal gleaming bone. His chest was caved in, ribs ground to dust, his flesh mangled beyond recognition. Both arms hung limp at his sides, charred to blackened husks. The sight was grotesque, almost inhuman.
And yet—
He smiled.
Half his lips torn away, half his teeth bare like a skull's grin, Ali still smiled as he lifted his head, his blackened eye locking onto the last clone still weaving through his barrage of projectiles.
'There's a reason they say lightning is the most destructive element,' Ali thought grimly, his voice low in his own mind.
Even through the agony, even as his smoking body struggled to hold itself upright, the iron storm around him never wavered. Every last beam, every last needle still hung in the air, still under his control, still chasing the final clone like a thousand fangs closing in.
The forest trembled as the last clone blurred forward, flashing between trees, zigzagging desperately through the air as Ali's weapons closed in. Spears, beams, and needles sliced into the ground where he had been a heartbeat earlier. But still Ali held the pressure, his ruined body unmoving.
Then—
VVVVMMMMMMMM.
The hum of the lightsaber.
It ripped free from the air, abandoning the chase. The chain slithered away too, both weapons breaking off their pursuit at Ali's command.
The clone faltered for just an instant, eyes going wide.
"Force Crush."
The words left Ali's lips like a death sentence.
The clone blinked away in a flash of lightning—
KRRRSHHHHHHHH!
The next instant, the entire forest seemed to collapse where he had just been standing. A dozen ancient trees, every one of Ali's suspended metal beams, and tons of uprooted soil and rock all slammed together at the same point with cataclysmic force.
BOOOOOOMMMMMMM.
It was like the earth itself had been weaponised against him. Wood shattered into splinters, rock crumbled into dust, and dirt churned into the air in a suffocating cloud. From above, the sight was apocalyptic: a colossal ball of debris — trunks, stone, soil, and greenery — suspended in the air by Ali's Force.
For a heartbeat, it hovered there, humming with raw tension. Then—
CRAAAAAASH.
The whole mass dropped, slamming into the dug-out crater below with enough force to shake the ground for hundreds of meters.
The clone exhaled sharply, sweat dripping down his forehead. For a moment, he thought he had escaped death's grasp—only for his instincts to spike again. His heart skipped. The air felt wrong.
Death had found him anyway.
All around him, twenty logs floated in a perfect circle, orbiting him like the walls of a cage. Their shadows stretched unnaturally across the forest floor, twitching and slithering as though alive.
A formation.
The clone's eyes widened.
Ali had prepared this for one reason only.
"No…" he hissed, tightening his stance.
He had no more Spirit left to flash away. The clone had used most of the spirit given to it by Mateo by flashing away and keeping his Chidori active strained what little remained. He'd have to rely on agility alone.
The moment he moved—
WHOOSH.
The shadows expanded.
Out of them erupted dozens of massive black fangs, each the size of a spear, lunging toward him from every angle. They closed in like the jaws of a giant predator, every single escape route sealed.
"CHIDORI!!"
The clone roared, his right arm exploding with lightning. He met the onslaught head-on, cleaving through the thick fangs as they rushed in. Shards of shadow flew apart like shattered glass. He dodged, spun, and leapt over the collapsing wall of fangs, clawing his way out by sheer destruction.
But fate was merciless.
SSSHHHK.
A single small fang, thin as a dagger, sprouted from the bark of a nearby tree. It nicked his side as he passed. Barely a scratch. But enough.
"Fuck—"
His body froze. The moment the fang tasted his flesh, the clone's lightning-infused form destabilised. His eyes widened in horror, his entire body trembling as cracks of blue light split across his skin.
ZZZZZZZZZZT!
In an instant, his form dissolved into pure current. The fangs around him didn't even have to land—the clone detonated on his own.
BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
A massive sphere of lightning erupted where he stood, engulfing the trees in a white inferno. Branches vaporised, trunks split apart, bark and leaves incinerated in a blast that left nothing but charred stumps and ash.
Ali's eyes narrowed from his vantage point, watching the destruction unfold.
'A flesh wound forced him to explode', he noted coldly. His arms flexed as muscle and sinew knitted back together. The blackened husks of his limbs peeled away, fresh skin regenerating seamlessly across his body. His face healed next, bone retreating beneath flawless flesh, his features restored until the monstrous burns were gone.
Not a scar remained. He looked just as he always did—sharp, composed, and impossibly handsome in a manly way.
But Ali's focus wasn't on the smouldering ruin left behind.
His gaze lifted.
High above, the last clone fought against Shadow. The massive dragon lunged through portals with teeth that could crush fortresses, but each attempt ended the same way—
KRAAAAAK!
A lightning spear tore across Shadow's maw, carving a gash deep into his scales. Dragon blood rained down like a storm, sizzling as it hit the ground. Shadow roared in fury, but his attacks couldn't land.
If he bit too close, the clone simply pierced through his jaws with lightning spears and escaped, leaving Shadow bleeding and enraged. All the dragon could do was harass—block vision, force the clone's attention, keep him busy long enough for Ali to finish the fight below.
Ali wasn't watching the clone's movements directly. His eye followed something subtler—tiny Spirit traces. The faintest echoes left behind whenever a clone dissolved. The trail was there, almost invisible, but enough for his Force Sense to track.
'He's up there somewhere…' Ali thought, his mind cold and analytical.
His body tensed.
'I've got two points of Spirit left. Maintaining Aura and Force at this level is bleeding me dry. He should have more—I know apostles of the elemental guilds are armed with artifacts and accessories that cut their cost of elemental spells and amplify their power. I'd be an idiot to assume he's out of Spirit.'
His jaw clenched.
'If I have a potion, then he'll have one too. Maybe more.'
The calculation was grim, but Ali's eyes sharpened. None of that mattered. The fight had narrowed to this final piece.
He didn't wait another second.
Ali's aura flared.
BOOOOOM!
The ground beneath his feet cratered as he launched upward like a missile, exploding into the sky. Behind him, hundreds of small rocks ripped free from the earth, carried by his Force, orbiting him in a massive swarm.
Each one was a potential weapon. Each one, a bullet.
'I know the weakness now,' Ali thought, eyes locked on the last clone above. 'All I have to do is land just a tiny amount of damage. That's all it takes.'
The clone's eyes widened as he spun the golden coin above his hand, lightning crackling violently around him.
SHRRRRAAACKK!
Four massive blue lightning spears materialized at once, shrieking as they flew straight at Ali.
Ali's grip tightened around his lightsaber. Black aura surged down its edge like liquid shadow, coating the weapon in a deadly haze.
The four lightning spears came screaming down.
KZZZZZZZZZZZT — BOOOOOM!
One after another, Ali's blade cleaved through them, deflecting the crackling bolts away. But each spear detonated on contact. The concussive blasts rattled his bones and the shockwaves tore burns into his arms despite the aura shielding him.
The electricity coursed through his nerves, violent and merciless. His muscles spasmed, his ribs vibrated, and his veins felt like they were about to split apart.
But Ali didn't falter. He didn't scream.
Years of horrible torture had forged his body into something close to unbreakable. He was more resistant to shock than most living things should ever be — but resistance didn't mean immunity. Every blast made his vision blur, every current left his chest heaving harder. Mateo's lightning wasn't just lightning. It was refined, destructive Spirit, honed to a level most Apostles couldn't imagine.
'Miles did say he was considered a monster like me… and no one truly knows where he could rank,' Ali thought, forcing his arms to steady.
The swarm of rocks that orbited him surged forward like a storm unleashed. They hammered the clone from every direction, a relentless wave of stone and weight. The clone flashed away, his body fracturing into streaks of blue, dodging one after another—until Shadow's massive maw split open beneath him.
The dragon's jaws snapped shut like a guillotine, portals bending reality to make the trap inescapable.
The clone's eyes widened. There was no room left to escape.
"Lightning Spear!"
He rammed his right arm forward, lightning roaring like a hurricane, and blasted a hole straight through Shadow's maw. Rows of titanic fangs shattered into dust, dragon blood raining as the lower jaw split apart in an explosion of light and gore. Shadow's bellow shook the skies, but at the same time—
TCHK.
A pebble. No bigger than a fist. It clipped the clone's back.
That was enough.
His body unraveled in a surge of energy, collapsing into wild lightning before the coin in his hand vanished with him.
Ali didn't bother floating in the air. His body simply gave in to gravity, falling back to the forest floor. He landed hard, boots cracking the soil, his chest still heaving from the punishment he'd endured.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
In the sky above, a ripple spread — a thin, shimmering shockwave of electricity that warped the air itself. The veil split open.
Mateo stepped out.
Not a clone.
The real one.
He descended with a grin carved across his face, electricity dancing off his body in erratic arcs. When his boots hit the soil, the ground quaked, and the air itself seemed to hum in resonance with his Spirit.
Ali felt it instantly. The pressure. It was suffocating, heavy, a storm pressing down on his lungs. Mateo wasn't hiding anymore. This was raw, unrestrained Spirit, flooding outward like a tide.
Ali's jaw clenched. His skin tingled just standing near him.
"You're not running off to refill your Spirit this time," Mateo said, his voice smug but edged with steel. He stepped out of the rolling cloud of soil like a god emerging from smoke. "Not this time. There's escape for you."
Ali smirked. "I wasn't planning to. But tell me…" His fingers twitched, and a stone lifted, orbiting lazily beside him. "…am I talking to the real you? Or should I test it?"
Mateo's grin widened. "Real. Real as it gets. I don't need a clone to finish you off now. You're drained, and I'm just getting warmed up."
He raised his arms wide. His hair lifted, floating in the static. His eyes sparked with rivers of lightning, his veins glowing faintly beneath his skin.
Ali tilted his head. "Can't say that was much of a warm-up for me. Think you can actually make me put in a little effort?"
The smile vanished. Mateo's gaze hardened into something sharp and lethal.
Then, his body trembled. His lips parted.
BZTTTTTTTTT.
Tiny threads of electricity began to crawl across his arms, his chest, his legs, his neck — weaving a shifting web over his body. The air around him thickened, the temperature spiked, and nearby trees ignited, leaves hissing and curling from nothing but the raw current in the atmosphere.
"Activate Skill: Electric Aura."
Ali's eyes narrowed as the aura exploded outward, making it physically painful to stay within range. Every inch closer would mean being electrocuted alive.
'Great,' Ali thought bitterly. 'Get close, get fried alive. Lovely.'
But Mateo wasn't done.
He straightened his spine. Lightning burst across his body like a cocoon of light. His voice bellowed, shaking the air:
"Activate Skill—GODSPEED."
The world went white.
A blinding flash of lightning consumed Mateo's form, hiding him completely. For a second, Ali couldn't see anything but light. The forest went silent except for the shriek of current, a sound so sharp it split the air like knives.
Then the glow began to fade.
And Mateo stood revealed.
His skin was no longer skin but lightning itself, glowing white and radiant like a storm given flesh. His hair, once dark, had turned a shimmering white, floating in the current that wrapped around him. His eyes no longer held pupils—only pure, blazing electricity, endless blue arcs firing outward from them. His aura roared with overwhelming power, a torrent of speed and destruction that threatened to tear the ground apart beneath his feet.
This was his most powerful form as a non-apostle, these were the monstrous Skills he obtained from the Hunter x Hunter world, specifically attributed to one of the protagonists of that world, Killua.
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