The canyon was not just silent; it was dead.
In the narrow, winding gorge where Cobra and Racer had been separated, the air hung heavy and gray, smelling of sulfur and old, dried blood. The plants on the canyon walls hadn't just withered; they had turned to gray dust that crumbled at the slightest touch.
Standing in the center of the path, floating a few inches off the ground, was Mortis, 'The Nihilist.' He didn't look like a warrior. He looked like a specter. His robes were tattered, his skin was a pale, sickly gray, and his eyes were hollow voids that seemed to suck the light out of the air.
"Why do you run?" Mortis asked. His voice was like dry leaves skittering on pavement. "Motion is just a delay. The end is the same. You are already dust; you just haven't realized it yet."
"Shut up!" Racer screamed. He was vibrating, his feet tapping a frantic rhythm on the stone. But he wasn't attacking. He was terrified.
"I can't get close," Racer hissed to Cobra. "My speed... the closer I get to him, the heavier I feel. It's like running through molasses. My skin starts to itch. My hair is turning gray, Cobra! If I stop, I die!"
Cobra was crouched on a ledge above, his face grim. His massive snake, Cubellios, was wrapped tightly around him, hissing in agitation.
"I know," Cobra growled. "I can hear him. I can hear his... nothingness. He doesn't have a heartbeat, Racer. He doesn't have muscle tension. He's just a void. Every time I send a poison mist at him, it vanishes. It doesn't disperse; it dies."
Mortis is as powerful as Brain, and right now he's toying with them. He raised a skeletal hand.
"Senescence Magic: Wither."
He didn't aim. He just expanded his aura. A wave of gray energy washed over the canyon. The rock beneath Racer's feet turned to sand instantly. Racer yelped, using his speed to leap away, but the sole of his boot crumbled away, exposing his foot to the biting air.
"He's forcing us back!" Racer yelled. "We're running out of canyon!"
---
"We have to hit him now," Cobra said, his eyes narrowing. "I have a plan. Listen to me."
He leaned in, whispering so low only a Dragon Slayer could hear. "His aura... it pulses. It's a heartbeat of magic. Decay, pause, decay, pause. It's fast, milliseconds, but it's there. I can hear the rhythm. I'll use my Sound Magic to create a deafening roar—a sonic solid wall. It won't hurt him, but it will vibrate the air particles so fast his decay can't latch onto them instantly. It'll create a tunnel. You use your max speed. Don't think, just run. Aim for his throat."
Racer nodded, sweat pouring down his face. "A tunnel of sound. Got it."
"NOW!" Cobra roared.
He leaped from the ledge, his mouth opening wide. "Poison Dragon's... ROAR!"
But mixed with the poison was a high-frequency scream, a sonic drill that pierced the gray atmosphere. It hit Mortis's aura and, miraculously, pushed it back. A clear path opened up.
"GO!"
Racer ignited his engines. "Dead Throttle!"
He vanished. He moved faster than he ever had, a blur of red and white, shooting down the sonic tunnel Cobra had created. He was a living bullet, his knife drawn, aiming for the Nihilist's neck.
I have him! Racer thought. He's wide open!
Mortis didn't move. He didn't dodge. He simply tilted his head, a dry, rasping chuckle escaping his throat.
"Did you think I wouldn't hear the change in your heartbeats? The spike in adrenaline? The desperation?"
Mortis guessed the plan.
Just as Racer entered the kill zone, Mortis didn't block. He disrupted it.
"Respira: Absolute Stagnation."
Mortis didn't push the decay outward. He pulled it in. He condensed his entire aura into a dense, black sphere right in front of his own body.
Racer, moving at supersonic speeds, couldn't stop. He ran straight into the wall of concentrated death.
"NO!" Cobra screamed.
Racer hit the black mist. His momentum died instantly. His uniform disintegrated. His skin began to crack and peel, turning gray. He screamed, a sound of pure agony, as he fell to his knees, aging fifty years in a second.
"Racer!" Cobra jumped down, landing beside his partner, trying to pull him back.
"Two insects in the web," Mortis whispered. He extended his hand. The black mist expanded, swirling around both Dragon Slayer and Speed Mage. And was about to finish them both. Be dust.
Cobra fell to his knees, his vision blurring. He felt his strength evaporating, his joints locking up with instant arthritis. Is this it? He thought. Beaten by a ghost?
The mist closed in. The end was seconds away.
---
"MEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"
The shout didn't come from the canyon. It came from the sky.
A blinding, sparkling blue light exploded in the center of the gray mist. A canister, thrown with precision, shattered on the ground between Mortis and the fallen mages.
PSSHHHHHHHT!
A thick, pink, sweet-smelling cloud erupted, expanding violently.
When the black rot touched the pink cloud, it didn't decay. It... bounced. The pink gas was infused with so much magical vitality it acted as a physical barrier against the entropy.
"What is this... stench?" Mortis recoiled, covering his nose, his concentration broken.
"It is not a stench!" a smooth, heroic voice boomed. "It is the scent of JUSTICE!"
Striking a pose on the high ridge, backlit by the sun (which he had somehow found in this gloomy canyon), was a short, stout man in a white suit. Behind him stood three handsome young men.
The Trimens and Ichiya had come.
"Blue Pegasus has arrived!" Hibiki announced, his fingers flying over his Archive keyboard.
"We won't let you hurt our allies!" Eve shouted, summoning a flurry of snow.
"You look terrible, darling," Ren added, smoothing his hair.
Ichiya intervenes. He jumped from the ridge, landing (somewhat clumsily) in front of Cobra and Racer.
"Are you alright, my wild friends?" Ichiya asked, flashing a sparkling grin.
"Yeah," Cobra wheezed, clutching his chest. "You came just in time."
Mortis glared at the newcomer. The pink cloud was dissipating, but the damage was done. His victims were still alive.
"You interrupt the natural order," Mortis hissed. "You are loud. You are bright. You are... annoying."
"I get that a lot!" Ichiya posed. "Men!"
"Die."
Mortis swept his hand. The entire canyon floor turned to gray sludge, a wave of decay rushing toward them.
"Hibiki! Eve! Ren! Defensive Formation!" Ichiya commanded.
"Right!"
Eve stepped forward. "Snow Magic: White Wall!" A massive glacier of pure, white snow erupted, blocking the sludge.
Ren added his power. "Air Magic: Cyclo-Barrier!" A tornado surrounded the snow, blowing the decay mist upward.
Hibiki used his Archive. "I'm downloading his data! Ichiya-sama, his magic is 'Senescence.' It works by accelerating time on a cellular level. But there's a limit! He can only decay things that exist within his perception of the 'present.' If we move faster than his perception, or hit him with energy that renews itself faster than it rots, we can hurt him!"
---
Ichiya nodded, his face turning surprisingly serious. "Excellent analysis, Hibiki! Now, listen close, men!"
He turned to Cobra and the recovering Racer (who was slowly de-aging thanks to Ichiya's medical perfume).
"You two. You have the power to kill him. But you lack the stamina to get close. His aura drains you before you can strike."
"Tell us something we don't know, old man," Racer spat, though he stood up, testing his legs.
"I can fix that," Ichiya said, holding up two vials. One glowed a furious red, the other a vibrant purple.
"My Power Parfum and my Fleet-Foot Parfum. They don't just buff you; they overcharge your cells with life energy. For three minutes, you will be overflowing with so much vitality that his decay magic will have to burn through that before it touches you."
Cobra's eyes widened. "A shield of life-force?"
"Exactly! But we need an opening. Hibiki, Eve, Ren! You will provide the distraction. Cloud his vision! Overload his senses! Cobra, you will listen for the exact moment his heart... if he has one... pauses to cast a spell. Racer, you carry the payload."
"Payload?" Racer asked.
Ichiya pointed to his own fist. "Me. You carry me. We're going to punch him together."
"Here he comes!" Ren shouted.
Mortis was tired of games. He floated into the air, spreading his arms. The gray sky began to rain black ash. "Senescence: World of Dust."
Everything the ash touched vanished.
"NOW! TRIMENS!" Ichiya roared.
"Snow Magic: Blizzard!"
"Air Magic: Vacuum Slicer!"
"Archive: Information Overload!"
The three Blue Pegasus mages unleashed hell. Snow blinded Mortis, wind buffeted him, and Hibiki projected giant, flashing holographic images directly into Mortis's eyes.
"Useless tricks!" Mortis roared, waving his hand and rotting the snow to water, the water to vapor, and the vapor to nothing. But it took him a second.
In that second, Ichiya smashed the two vials on the ground.
A red and purple aura exploded around Cobra, Racer, and himself.
"I FEEL... THE POWER!" Cobra roared, his muscles swelling. The poison in his veins turned a vibrant, neon purple.
"I'm back!" Racer yelled, his speed returning tenfold.
"Cobra! The signal!" Ichiya commanded.
Cobra closed his eyes. He ignored the wind, the magic, the screaming. He listened to the void. He listened for the tiny, microscopic hitch in Mortis's magical flow as he switched from defense to offense.
There.
"NOW!" Cobra screamed. "Poison Dragon's... TWIN FANG!"
He unleashed two massive serpents of poison, not at Mortis, but at the ground beneath him, melting the rock and forcing Mortis to look down.
"RACER! TAXI!" Ichiya yelled.
Racer grabbed Ichiya by the back of his suit. "Dead Throttle: Max Output!"
They vanished.
They were moving so fast that the time-decay magic literally couldn't catch them. They were a blur of motion that existed in the future before Mortis could rot the past.
They appeared directly above Mortis.
Mortis looked up, his hollow eyes widening. "You..."
He tried to raise a shield of rot.
"Too slow!" Racer shouted. He threw Ichiya downward like a missile.
Ichiya inhaled deeply. His muscles expanded, ripping his suit. His face contorted into a mask of pure, concentrated, manly force.
"Secret Art: SMILING SMASH!"
At the same time, Cobra, from the ground, unleashed his breath. "Poison Dragon's... ROAR!"
It was a pincer attack. Ichiya's fist, coated in "Power Parfum" energy that shone like a sun, slammed into Mortis from above. Cobra's poison, boosted by the vitality buff, slammed into him from below.
The conflicting energies—Life and Poison—met in the center, with the Nihilist in between.
"IMPOSSIBLE! I AM ETERN—"
Mortis's voice cut off.
Ichiya's punch connected with his face. The "Power Parfum" flooded Mortis's body with life. For a being of pure decay, life was poison. It was acidic.
Mortis screamed as his gray skin turned pink, then red, then began to blister and crack, unable to contain the sudden influx of vitality.
BOOOOOM!
The explosion of energy leveled the canyon section.
Mortis was blasted into the earth, creating a massive crater. The black mist evaporated, burned away by the "Parfum of Justice."
They finally took him down.
When the dust settled, Mortis lay at the bottom of the crater, unconscious, his form shrinking back into a normal, defeated human.
Racer skidded to a halt, dropping to his knees, panting. "We... we did it."
Cobra walked over, kicking a pebble at the fallen enemy. "Heh. Not so tough when you can't rot us."
Ichiya stood up, dusting off his now-shredded suit. He struck a pose, sparkling despite the grime.
"An excellent performance! The power of beauty and friendship... and a little bit of poison... always triumphs!"
"You're weird, old man," Cobra grunted, but there was a grudging respect in his voice. "But... thanks."
"Men!" Ichiya gave a thumbs up.
The Trimens ran over, cheering.
"Ichiya-sama! You were magnificent!"
"Such poise!"
"Such power!"
Racer looked at Cobra. "Are we sure we're on the same side as these guys?"
"For now," Cobra said, looking at the defeated Nihilist.