The grand ballroom of the Moka Royal Palace, which once stood as a symbol of aristocratic opulence, was now a hollowed-out ruin of shattered marble and splintered wood. Rain poured through the gaping hole in the roof, mixing with the dust of the collapsed ceiling.
Luke gasped for air, his lungs burning. He struggled to find his footing amidst the debris, his hand trembling as he gripped the hilt of his sword. His High Human transformation was beginning to flicker like a dying candle, but the silver radiance of his hair still held a defiant glow.
"Luke! Don't push yourself too far alone!" I shouted, sprinting to his side. My Steel Gauntlets were humming, the vibration from the previous strikes making my forearms numb. "He's been reading our flow. Every time you strike, he's already calculating the wind's resistance. We need to break his rhythm."
Luke wiped blood from his mouth, a reckless grin forming on his face. "Then let's give him a rhythm he can't dance to."
Mason stepped forward, her armor dented and stained with soot. The cold fury in her eyes was almost physical. She looked at Doka, the man who had orchestrated the murder of her parents and the enslavement of her brother. "Doka! You talk about power as the only truth. But you're wrong. Power without a heart is just a slow suicide. You became the very monster you hated, and today, that cycle ends!"
Doka didn't flinch. Instead, he reached for the collar of his high-ranking BTK officer's coat and tore it away. Beneath the silk and leather, his bare chest was marked with a terrifying tattoo—a snarling black tiger's head, and beneath it, the cold, numerical brand: Code 80.
"Do you see this?" Doka's voice was like grinding stones. "I am an S-Class Bounty—20 million Riya on my head. I have survived the pits of the Black Tiger King where men eat each other for a scrap of bread. You children play at being heroes, but I have lived in the belly of the beast! If you want to take this kingdom from me, you'll have to take my life first!"
He raised his jagged katana toward the stormy sky. Violet lightning began to coil around the blade, the static making our hair stand on end. "Special-Rank Lightning Magic: Heaven's Execution!"
"I don't think so!" I roared. I activated the Spirit-Type Wind Atara within my gauntlets, focusing the pressure into a single point. I launched myself at him, my fist aimed at his solar plexus. Doka parried, the force of the impact vibrating through the entire wing of the palace.
"You're fast, brat," Doka sneered, his eyes glowing with electrical discharge. "But you're just a fly hitting a windshield!"
He sent a burst of lightning through his sword, intended to fry my nervous system, but Rim was already moving. "O, Great God Hariro! Shield the innocent and burn the wicked!" she chanted, her staff glowing with a solar intensity. She launched a Fire Orb that collided with Doka's lightning, creating an explosion of steam and sparks.
Doka stepped back, momentarily blinded by the flash. He went to reposition himself, but his boots wouldn't budge. He looked down to see jagged, crystalline ice climbing up his legs, anchoring him to the shattered floor.
Chanting a mantra"Ice Shackles: Eternal Winter's Grasp!" Mason cried out, her palms pressed firmly against the wet stone. "For every night I spent wondering who I was... for every tear my brother shed in this palace... you will stay right there!"
Mason's grief was pouring into her Atara, making the ice harder than steel. Doka struggled, his muscles bulging as he tried to shatter the frozen restraint. "You think... some ice... can hold a Tiger?"
"It doesn't need to hold you forever," Luke whispered, his voice calm amidst the storm. "It just needs to hold you for three seconds."
Luke pushed his High Human form to its absolute limit. His body began to glow with an intense, white-blue light, his internal Atara channels screaming from the strain. He held his sword vertically, the wind around the blade condensing until it turned into a shimmering, translucent spear of pure pressure.
"This is the last of my strength," Luke said, his eyes turning entirely white. "Air Lance: Divine Piercer!"
He shot forward like a literal bolt of lightning. Doka let out a guttural roar, channeling all his raw electrical power into his legs to shatter Mason's ice. He managed to free one leg and twist his torso just as Luke's blade arrived. The wind-lance missed Doka's heart by an inch, but it tore through his shoulder and side, spraying blood onto the white marble.
We hit him! The thought echoed through all of us. The invincible officer of the BTK was bleeding.
"Not done yet!" I shouted, leaping over the debris. I unleashed a Cyclone Punch, and Rim instantly added her flames to the vortex. The result was a Fire-Wind Tornado that engulfed Doka. The heat was so intense it began to melt the nearby gold decorations.
Doka swung his shattered katana, trying to disperse the fire, but the smoke and heat were overwhelming his heightened senses. "Where... where are you?" he coughed.
Luke didn't give him a chance to recover. "Again! Air Lance!"
"Fool! I told you a trick doesn't work twice!" Doka screamed, swinging his blade toward the sound. He caught Luke's blade in a desperate parry, the two of them locked in a struggle of pure willpower.
The resulting shockwave was the final straw for the palace wing. The floor beneath them gave way, and both Luke and Doka were sent plummeting, crashing through the levels until they landed on the tiled roof of the royal guesthouse below.
We scrambled through the ruins, leaping down to the roof to join them. The rain was coming down in sheets now, cooling the hot tiles. Doka stood up, his uniform in tatters, blood dripping from his shoulder wound.
"I have to admit," Doka wheezed, a bloody smile on his face. "You kids have grit. But grit doesn't win wars. Speed does."
In a blink—so fast that not even my enhanced vision could follow—Doka disappeared. He was a master of Blink-Step. I felt a sudden drop in temperature behind me.
"Kaelo, behind you!" Luke shouted. He used a burst of wind to propel himself forward, knocking me out of the way just as Doka's blade cut through the air.
Mason didn't miss a beat.Chanting a mantra "Hecto-Caster!" she chanted, her voice resonant and commanding. A wave of freezing mist erupted from her hands, slowing Doka's movements just enough.
We were all at our breaking points. My gauntlets were overheating, Rim was swaying on her feet from Atara exhaustion, and Luke was barely holding his sword. Doka saw our weakness.
"That's it," Doka said, raising his hand to call down a final lightning strike. "The show is over. You lose."
"Actually," Rim said, her voice small but steady. "We were just the opening act."
Luke looked at his sword. He didn't use the Air Lance this time. He closed his eyes, remembering the lessons of the wind. He focused on the way the air didn't just push, but could also cut through anything when vibrated at the right frequency.
"High atara: Prism Sky Piercer!"
Luke ascended into the air, the wind around him forming a crystalline, diamond-like edge on his blade. He descended like a falling star. Doka sneered, raising his shattered katana to block, confident that his Hard durability would hold.
SHATTER!
The sound of Doka's sword breaking echoed across the city of Moka. The BTK-grade steel turned into dust under the pressure of Luke's final strike. Doka's eyes widened. For the first time, he saw his own death in the reflection of Luke's blade. He realized too late that he had underestimated the 'trash' of the world.
Luke didn't kill him. At the very last second, he shifted the angle of the blade, striking Doka's chest with the flat, vibrating surface of the wind-pressure.
The impact was thunderous. Doka was launched across the roof, his body skipping over the tiles until he slumped against a stone chimney, unconscious. The purple lightning around him vanished, leaving only the sound of the falling rain.
Luke collapsed to his knees, his hair returning to its natural green. He looked at us and gave a weak thumbs-up before passing out.
The tyrant of Mario had finally been silenced.