<>

Large green orbs made of a malicious magic rocketed forward with explosive speed, pulling in the everything nearby, from the ground to the very air around it as it closed in on it’s target. The one wielding the dreaded magic watched with a face contorted with the greed, envy and lust that had poisoned both his body and soul, completely consuming his existence.

The target of the abhorred magic watched with a dark expression, a red whip lazily drifting next to him as if floating underwater while the lines of light cutting across his scarlet left arm pulsed in anticipation. The ground around him caught fire from the intense heat radiating off his body, but the clothes covering him remain untouched despite the magic’s power.

Behind the dark-haired boy stood the rising demon king and his sea of powerful monsters that obey his every command out of respect for his strength. Erupting out from this wraith was a thick black cloud of dark magic, it’s movements quick and precise, the owner obviously well-trained and very experienced in combat.

Watching from a distance were two girls, the taller one’s previously dull sapphire eyes reignited upon seeing her closest friend back from the grave, while the shorter one . The situation was still new, and everything was happening too fast for them to completely grasp, but the immense joy and hope both they had in common greatly overwhelmed their confusion.

Above the earth in a small ship with a hole busted through the window sat the feline alien, intently observing the event from a distance via a small holographic screen projected from the little black box in her hand. Her thoughts solely focused on the dark-eyed boy that had taken a dive through the large glass wall mere moments ago, leaving behind what remained of the charred command deck. The emergency systems had kicked in, and a transparent blue wall appeared to shield it’s passenger from the vacuum of space that lay just outside.

Below her, unaware of her presence were the primary inhabitants of this planet, the humans. Billions of these lower existences watched through various screens as reporters relayed what was happening to the masses, trying to understand the terrifying situation. The world was waiting for the next move of the three strongest beings currently on it, fear gripping the hearts of all as devastating chaos began to peek out from around the corner.

<>

Jack swung his right hand around, the red whip made of magic moving horizontally through the air to meet his foe’s head-on attack, while pulling his left shoulder back, and extending the palm of his artificial hand in the direction of the wraith. Magic exploded from both sides as the dark-haired boy’s whip cut the green orbs in half, and his left hand summoned a bright red wall of magic large enough to completely defend himself from the black smoke, emitting a near-deafening clap.

Without waiting for his opponents’ next move, Jack released the energy inside him into the surrounding air, then ejected magic from his left foot, vanishing from the humans’ before reappearing with his left fist buried in the hero’s gut. The earth beneath them blew up and out due to the instantaneous exchanges, turning into a shower of grass, dirt, and rocks that rained down on the girls as well as some of the closer humans.

“Tch.”

Jack remembered there were more people around than just the three of them, but the hero had already been reduced to a streak of green light flying directly at the nearby town. The boy sensed something move behind him, quickly turning his other opponent who had recovered from his failed attack, and was approaching at top speed wielding a smoke-clad black broadsword. Thinking fast, the boy decided to improvise, his right foot kicking off the ground before twisting to reposition his body in mid-air so the soles of each foot faced the wraith.

Magic released from the base of Jack’s foot with a boom, sending the boy and the demon king shooting off in opposite directions. Now flying over the humans, the dark-eyed demigod manipulated the magic around him to reduce the destructive wind his momentum created while bringing his right hand’s weapon to bear once again. His eyes locked on the figure in front of him, watching the green dust fly off while mentally calculating their speeds, and distances from the nearby buildings. He can’t reach the hero with his whip before colliding with a building and causing significant damage to the people hiding in the town.

‘Damn it... I need a longer weapon!’

In response to his thoughts, the whip extended it’s reach by almost two times while the section that was touching his hand began to glow threateningly. Jack was a bit surprised by the development, but had no time to dwell on it at the moment, since the situation had just changed in his favor and he would have to react quickly to keep it that way.

John was injured, but still conscious, and had immediately begun summoning magic in an attempt to gain an advantage in this fight at the cost of the citizens below him. However, Jack was already on him before he could react, the deadly rope of magic flying forward before tightly wrapping itself around his ankle. The dark red whip did not cut into the greedy man’s flesh like it would have in the past, but instead acted as like a normal whip would and simply held on to his ankle.

Now that the boy had the man, he made the magic below him explode upward into his chest, and fling him diagonally up and to the right, away from where the bystanders stood unaware of the lightning-fast exchange. The line between the two now taut, the boy’s arm jerked hard on the rope, stopping the hero’s momentum with a series of loud pops and a blood-curdling shriek of pain before pulling him away from the town.

The dark red crescent gripped in Jack’s hand revolved around the him, vanishing after making only half of a revolution, and sending the man in it’s grip flipping uncontrollably away from all the potential casualties below. Wind rushed through the buildings as the boy pursued the hero yet again, forcing all the people below to brace themselves against various structures in an attempt to stay upright as the pair vanished from sight.

The wraith had recovered quickly after being thrown back into the horde of monsters, catching a glimpse of Jack and the jealous hero streaking across the sky to the right. Mr. White mumbled a few curses under his breath as he wiped a dark black liquid from under his nose before pushing himself out of the crater his body had made, and taking off after them. The magic in his body focused on his right hand, the black smoke churning as it began to materialize into the familiar blade, and his mind grew sharper in preparation of the fight.

All except one lost track of the fighters, unable to keep up with their movements as they left the scene, and only with the assistance of superior technology was Fae able to keep track of them. The tall, dark-haired feline watched intently from the safety of her ship, using her it’s cameras to see, and transport equipment to catch the vibrations, giving her the ability to hear them despite the vacuum around her.

Fae’s tail was still, watching the man she had just spent the past two days trying to save from seemingly mortal wounds move like some sort of demon hunting it’s prey, and found herself gripping the small box anxiously.

Fae had tended to the unconscious boy for only a couple of days, thinking the entire time about Jenny and Val who had been left behind in her dash to save him, and would have been condemned to a fate worse than death if Jack was normal. She thought about how much that boy would hate her for saving him and not his friends, because it’s her job to keep him safe from harm until she could glean information. She didn’t want to leave them, but by the time she caught Jack out of the air, saving him from a painful death, the man with the green magic had already found them, and going back was far too dangerous.

The woman had braced herself for his reaction when she told him, but was still unable to hold back her tears when she saw his face darken and his forehead sweat. She knew he had every right to hate her, and had even prepared restraints to hold him in place she he wouldn’t try to attack her and escape. She knew when he failed to save his friends, she would have to see those dark eyes that were always so filled with light when looking at the people in his life change to a look of anger and pain, the same look he gave the man back on earth. However...

‘You’re a surprisingly good person, you know that?’

Words, the girl thought, that were undeserved, but when she looked into his eyes, she only saw a familiar light, one that had only appeared when looking at Jenny and Val, or when his gaze had trailed off to something unseen by her. The light made the girl feel a warmth she thought had long left her reach, and ignited something that was still burning vigorously inside her chest, almost as if becoming a new source of energy to strengthen her.

Jack, of course, was completely unaware of the impact he had made on her, focusing solely on the man he was going to kill from the moment he had awoken, and was currently in the middle of literally whipping his ass on the little screen she held in the palm of her hand. She watched the lights flash in front of her eyes, her knees pulled up so her soles rested on the large black chair where she sat, slouched over the small black box, a single thought running through her mind.

‘Husband...’

A green orb suddenly warped the air behind the hero, pulling hard to reduce his momentum enough for him to land hard on his good leg, the ground around him rumbling with the heavy impact. The earth beneath his feet had absorbed the momentum, exploding outward, and filling the air around him with a small brown cloud, hiding his surroundings.

The man stood in place for several moments, his wheezing breaths, limp leg, and clicking chest severely hindering his movements, forcing him to bend over in pain. The dirt shroud fell to the ground, revealing to the hero exactly what he was expecting to see; Jack approaching with his dark red arm readily hanging at his left side, and a fist enveloped in red flame to his right. Upon seeing his enemy’s calm face, the man once known as John became deeply enraged, dark green particles flowing from his damaged body as the eerie light completely swallowed his eyes.

“Damn you, cocky bastard! Who do you think you are, god!? You don’t deserve any of this power, so why do you have it!? Those damned girls aren’t yours either, so why are you protecting them!? They’re so weak, and they won’t put out no matter how much you talk to them! So damn useless!”

The hero’s voice was distorted with the mixture of anger, injury, and the magic’s negative effects, no longer sounding human in any way as the venomous words erupted once again. The pieces drifting off him began to create a small cloud that shifted with each of his unsteady movements as he began to shuffle his feet forward.

(Now’s your chance, say something cool!)

Jack stopped walking forward, staring into the sad remains of what should have been a hero, and feeling the newer, more efficient flow of magic coursing through him. Ellis’s voice was stronger now as she insisted on Jack creating a badass moment with some action-movie catchphrase to feed into her childish sense of “cool”.

‘Why?”

(Because he totally set you up for a superhero moment!)

The hero stumbled forward, looking not unlike a zombie with his twisted smile, fixed green eyes, and limp leg dragging behind him with a nauseating clicking and scraping noise. Jack honestly wondered how this man was still alive, but figured it had something to do with the excessive amount of magic that was eating away at his flesh, or he had actually become some sort of magical zombie.

“Why, Jack? With your power...*Wheeze*... you could get any-*cough*-one... you could have anything... you want...”

The hero was beginning to lose his voice, but was still able to convey it’s confusion with Jack’s odd attachment to these seemingly useless girls. Jack did not have to think about his response, since he had already figured out the answer to that question the moment he came down to fight and saw the girls were okay. He was scared and angry when on his way down, but once he saw them alive and visibly unharmed, he knew exactly why he fought for them.

Jack could sense the magic inside the man in front of him being shifted, growing outward as he summoned it to use for the last time against his greatest foe, but did not react.

“I fight for them because I care about them more than anything else in this, or any world. Doing things for them gives me a purpose and a goal, rather than just focusing on myself.”

The dark brown irises of the boy were pierced by several streaks of scarlet light as the magic inside him responded to his summon, rising up and flowing to where he needed it.

‘How was that?’

(Boring... you didn’t say anything new, and you spoke like some kind of lame informant.)

‘Well, I wasn’t planning on just saying it out loud right now...’

An orb about the size of a basketball appeared over the man across from Jack, sucking in all the loose dirt on the ground around them as it slowly began to grow larger.

(Oh? Say what?)

‘You know what.’

The grass peeled up, flying into the now four foot spherical vortex of magic before vanishing into it’s maw, never to be seen again. The being that was once called human had lost it’s jaw to the disintegrative side-effect of it’s immense power, but still stared at Jack with the same burning hatred as before.

(Yeah, but I want you to say it.)

‘Fine, I-‘

(Out loud, moron. So he can hear you clearly.)

The air whipped around them, violently roaring as the world around them disappeared behind a massive wall of earth rotating counter-clockwise, the dark green orb now growing bigger than Jack. The occasional rock struck Jack’s left side, but only shattered or harmlessly bounced off as the boy watched the orb grow, curious about how large it was going to get.

‘I’d rather not.’

(Do it or I’ll sing that song you really hate over and over until I get bored.)

The orb reached it’s peak in size, which was about ten feet in diameter, and the man supplying the power to it had nearly disappeared completely into dust. Jack’s right arm erupted in flame while his left pulsed with veins of magical power as the boy took a step forward, sending some of the magic to his feet.

‘Ah... fine. It’s not like anyone’s going to hear it anyway.’

(Hu hu hu.)

Jack raised both of his hands up, straightening his arms and bracing his body as he concentrated all the magic on the open palms of his hands, watching the fire and magic veins moved down his arm to where he directed it. The air around him instantly became stagnate as he ejected, then manipulated the magic around him to cancel out the violent wind and let him concentrate,and making the wall of earth fall into nothing more than piles of dirt.

“I do it because I love them.”

(Yippie-ki-yay motherfu-)

Pure bright red magic exploded from both of his hands, his feet blowing away the dirt as it ejected the energy to steady him in a terrifying display of power that is unmatched by any other on earth. The red wave of flame and light blew the orb and what remained of it’s owner away in an instant, it’s destructive power continuing on for quite a distance before exploding.

The shock continued out, rattling the ground violently as it flowed through the world below them, the force of it completely blowing away the area around it.

The fight between the hero and the demigod ended with the blow that shook the earth.