Chapter 17: Hectically Ecstatic
July 1st, 2026
Mutafakir moves his foot forward, a deliberate scrape of rubber against shattered concrete.
Harith follows closely behind, keeping pace through the gloom.
The fog remains suffocatingly dense, reducing the world to a heavy, gray soup. They are fighting an almost invisible opponent.
Without warning, Mutafakir and Harith charge forward blindly into the mist, their boots pounding against the cracked asphalt.
"How do we know where he is?!" Harith shouts over his shoulder.
"Just watch what'll happen," Mutafakir replies, his voice cutting through the mist.
A violent crash tears through the air, echoing sharply from their left side.
Mutafakir instantly pivots, switching his route as he sprints straight toward the sound of the impact.
"What makes you so sure that it isn't a building that just fell down?!" Harith yells, his voice tense.
Mutafakir offers no reply, completely ignoring him as he focuses entirely on the path ahead.
(Ignoring me now… huh?) Harith grinds his teeth, his eyes narrowing in the fog.
(That's just the reason I hate people who act like they're the main character.)
Mutafakir's fist suddenly glows with a faint, transparent red color, humming with a soft, ethereal resonance.
The smoke clears in a sudden wave.
Mutafakir strikes.
His shining, crimson fist drives straight into Shagahf's chest.
The impact lands with a heavy, meat-and-bone thud, catching the giant completely off guard.
Shagahf stumbles backward from the blow, his massive frame tilting as his balance shatters completely.
"Show him what you're capable of, Harith!" Mutafakir roars.
Harith slides forward, his boots sending a spray of loose gravel scattering across the pavement toward the stunned giant.
Closing the distance, Harith raises a fist sputtering with blinding, erratic blue sparks.
Targeting the exact spot Mutafakir just struck, Harith drives his sparking fist down into Shagahf's chest.
An intense, high-voltage roar rips through the air—a fierce, crackling ZAAAAZT that illuminates the fog in brilliant neon blue.
Harith wastes no time.
He rains down a flurry of lightning-quick punches, each hit landing in a rapid, machine-gun succession of heavy impacts.
Mutafakir joins the assault, his fists blurring into a seamless rhythm as they deliver a relentless combination.
(My body's not working in my favor…?) Shagahf thinks, his vision jarring with every strike.
The realization sparks a growing irritation within him.
Shagahf's fiery aura wavers, the bright orange light sputtering and blinking as anger takes hold.
(Shit… not good, that trick pissed me off.)
Caught in the crossfire of Harith and Mutafakir, Shagahf takes heavy, concentrated damage.
His energy drains rapidly, his massive frame shuddering violently under the relentless assault.
Fueled by his remaining excitement, Shagahf lunges forward.
His massive palms claw through the smoke, reaching for their heads.
His thick fingers lock successfully into Harith's hair.
Meanwhile…
From Mutafakir's perspective, the large, gray hand looks slow, dragging through the air and leaving a trail of distinct afterimages.
Mutafakir simply ducks, his upper body dropping smoothly beneath the trajectory to evade the grasp entirely.
Believing he has captured both targets, Shagahf slams his hands together.
Instead of crushing two skulls, he violently drives Harith's head straight into his own empty, weakened palm.
A dull, fleshy smack echoes through the clearing.
"What?!" Shagahf gasps.
His fingers subconsciously loosen, releasing Harith almost immediately as he turns his gaze down toward Mutafakir.
"I can dodge some attacks, you know," Mutafakir said.
He crosses his arms calmly, balancing on a single leg with his other leg wrapped smoothly around it in a steady, casual pose.
"When you charged up your Disposition and punched me, I did manage to dodge the punch, but the force of it left some damage."
Mutafakir gestures to his back, where a clean tear in the fabric reveals a dark, blooming stain of crimson.
Shagahf opens his mouth to speak, but Mutafakir raises a hand to cut him off.
"The transparent copy you were fighting earlier? Yeah, that was a bait where me and Harith could locate you through this dense fog."
Harith's lips form a small, silent "o" as the realization hits him.
Shagahf's thick legs wobble violently.
They give out entirely, sending his massive frame collapsing heavily to the ground.
His head hangs low, facing the dirt.
Harith smirks down at him, wiping a streak of blood from his mouth despite his own injuries.
"Now where's all that talk about beating the both of us, huh? Seems like you're the one who can't back up your own words!"
A long, tense silence stretches across the clearing.
Shagahf lets out a bloody laugh.
It is a deeply ecstatic, joyous sound, each chuckle muffled and wet as he spits bright red blood onto the ground.
"You know… the both of you actually taught me something important."
"When I told Harith earlier I wasn't holding back… That was a lie. I just wanted to see how strong he can get if I motivated him…"
"And I am not scared to reveal this, but me getting mad or upset simply drains up all of my excitement."
"But what the both of you taught me was…"
Shagahf stares at his distorted reflection in the dark puddle of blood accumulating on the floor.
His aura flickers erratically.
A distinct, metallic snick-click echoes through the quiet—the sound of a lighter sparking on and off.
"Is that breaking your own limits isn't a myth or an exaggeration."
Mutafakir and Harith glance at each other, their eyebrows furrowing at the sudden shift in tone.
A deafening, groaning screech of structural steel tears through the air.
Nearby, a final building collapses, unleashing a massive, earth-shattering crash that sends a violent shockwave through their boots.
The ground trembles heavily beneath them.
Harith and Mutafakir scan their shifting surroundings.
"And one more fact," Shagahf murmurs, his voice shifting.
"I didn't lose. Not yet."
Suddenly, a terrifying, absolute silence swallows the area.
The ambient roar of the collapsing city vanishes into a complete vacuum.
The only sound left in existence is Shagahf's steady voice.
His aura continues to blink rapidly, perfectly synchronized with a rapid, erratic click-click-click sound—an unstable lighter gathering explosive momentum.
"Hey, Harith. Ask me why I am ambitious."
Harith freezes.
His breath hitches, the tremors of the city completely forgotten as he stares through the dense haze.
"Why are you ambitious?"
"I am ambitious… I am ambitious…" Shagahf whispers, his voice dropping into complete stillness.
Then—
A catastrophic explosion of blinding orange-red light erupts from Shagahf's body.
The sheer volume of the aura detonates outward, instantly doubling his original form.
The stupid blue French maid dress he was wearing is violently shredded and instantly vaporized, reduced to drifting ash by the sheer, overwhelming heat of his raw energy.
The pressure wave clears the fog entirely, revealing honed, titanic muscles that shine with the crystalline texture of solid, unbreakable diamonds—forged from years of relentless combat.
Beneath his diamond skin, his veins glow with the blinding, pulsing texture of flowing orange magma.
His entire frame has expanded, towering at twice his original size.
"I AM AMBITIOUS, BURNINGLY AMBITIOUS THAT THE BOTH OF YOU WILL BEAT ME AND END MY LEGACY."
The aura doesn't roar—it vibrates at a sub-audible frequency that physically rattles bones and warps the surrounding space.
The thermal output is instantaneous and immense.
The ambient temperature spikes by a blistering 20 degrees, transforming the dense gray fog into a suffocating, white-hot furnace.
To be continued…