Boom cursed his cigar addiction under his wheezing breath as he sprinted towards the giant chicken in the distance. It would only take a few more seconds for him to reach fluffy but he knew that in that time the second Karasu could come diving through the sky at any point, with its speed greatly aided by his control over gravity.

No, he needed to make sure he was there, by Fluffy’s side before Karasu’s clone arrived. If he wasn’t, then…

Boom grit his teeth. No, he wouldn’t be losing anyone else tonight. He pushed his feet into the ground as hard as he could, even setting off explosions behind him to propel himself forward even faster.

Just ten seconds. He needed ten—why did his legs feel so heavy?

He looked down. The ground around him had been covered by a dark swirling pool, with him at its center. Then the ground around him began to cave inwards, lower and lower, until he was at the bottom of a canyon with thick, vertical walls surrounding him.

“No…” he muttered as his feet started to sink into the enigmatic goo.

Boom stomped against the sludge and flew up two dozen feet, then jammed his hands and feet into the cavern walls and clawed his way up.

As he pulled himself over the edge, he looked up to see that Fluffy was still holding on, and was roasting the Karasu clone with his dragonic flames.

A black wing sliced through the flames towards Fluffy’s neck. At the same time, a giant gravity well pulled Fluffy towards the ground, preventing his ability to dodge; the crafty demigod quickly shrank into his diminutive dragon just in time to escape death

“Well done, Fluffy!” Boom tossed a full hand’s worth of his hair at the Karasu clone, then ran to his left, away from Fluffy, so that he could flank their shared foe.

After all, there was no point in letting the crow hit the both of them with the same gravity well.

“Buk buk!” Fluffy shifted back into his giant chicken form and loudly expressed his thanks to Boom as the Karasu clone suffered a flurry of explosions across its body.

“Did that kill it?” Boom wondered aloud.

The sound of wings furiously flapping answered him.

“Yeah, I should have known better to ask,” Boom muttered.

Still, the Karasu clone clearly looked worse for wear. Many parts of its skin were now bare, featherless, and a chunk of its right wing had even been completely blown off.

“Alright. You and me, Fluffy. We can do this!” Boom shouted. “Be careful, he could kill either of us with a single blow!”

“Bawk!” Fluffy heartily agreed.

The two entered a slow, sluggish dance with the Karasu clone. Each time it tried to peck at Fluffy, the latter would transform into its dragon form to escape, and Boom would move in to attack.

If it tried to attack Boom, then Fluffy would peck at its behind from… well, behind.

Still, the two were continuously weighed down by the Karasu clone’s gravity wells, so they could only move and fight as if they were stuck in molasses. Actually, the situation was even worse. Boom couldn’t throw his hair at Karasu, because no matter how hard he tried, they fell harmlessly right to the ground as soon as they left his hand.

Likewise, Fluffy was incapable of shooting his dragonflame, as his flames were instantly swallowed up by the swirling abyss beneath them.

Boom looked up at the giant crow and cursed. With how things were going, he and Fluffy were going to lose this battle, if only because of the incredible strength it was taking them to even put up a fight.

He shook his head as he made up his mind. The next time the Karasu clone turned its head towards Fluffy, Boom ran forward and grabbed its leg.

The crow raised its leg and stomped, trying to throw Boom off, but the latter gripped tightly with his left arm and punched the leg with his right.

“Just break, dammit!”

It took a few more punches than he would’ve liked, but eventually the giant crow’s leg buckled and it topped over onto its side.

“Peck its eyes out, Fluffy!” Boom shouted.

“Damn you, Boom!” the crow screeched.

“Wait, you know my name? Aren’t you just a clone?”

“Of course I know it! If not for you and your wife, Aarde would be ours!”

The crow opened its beak and its eyes glinted as Fluffy flew towards it. “And it still shall!”

“Wait, Fluffy, no!” Boom realized something was wrong the instant his body felt lighter. He jumped forward, towards the crow’s head, but was too late.

An instant was all the crow had needed.

The crow opened its beak and a black hole appeared within; Fluffy, who’d been stomping his way towards the crow’s head, was unable to stop his momentum and was pulled into the black hole. In a last ditch effort, he tried to transform back into his tiny dragon form but it was too late.

The tiny dragon was pulled, screaming, into the crow’s open beak.

“No!” Boom clasped his fists together and brought them crashing down upon the crow’s neck in a desperate attempt to force it to cough Fluffy back up, but to no avail.

The Karasu clone shook its head violently but it quickly paid the price for its desperate last stand.

Boom punched it again and again in the neck, refusing to let go or be thrown off.

Even when it summoned a concentrated gravity well under Boom, it only drove Boom deeper into its body.

A series of explosions later, Boom fell off the crow’s corpse and wept into his hands for a moment before turning back towards the direction of the crazed mage.

“Please don’t be dead, Moon. Please.”

***

Moon’s moon collided with Sun’s sun, and the resulting explosion knocked the two to the ground as bits of lava and ice rained onto the ground.

As he climbed to his feet, Moon drank a mana potion and tossed it to the side, knocking over a puppet in the process.

“How are you so strong, my son?!” Moon screamed. “If this goes any longer, thine father shall not have the strength to save you from the grips of doom!”

“Doom, doom doom! Is that all you have to say?” Six shook his head, then jolted upright.

“Wait, I remember who you are now.”

Moon froze, another mana potion at his lips and he frantically tried to maintain his spells, lest Six’s sun overpower him. “What do you mean?”

“I remember who you are now. You changed your name, but I recognize you.”

Six began to laugh at the top of his lungs, even doubling over in an attempt to catch his breath. “You’re the one we put the paranoia curse on! You’re the mage who got assassinated by his King!”

After a few ghastly wheezes, Six suddenly stood up straight with a furrowed brow. “But any ailments should have been cured when Tori revived you. Unless…”

He eyed Moon. “You choose to act like this? But why?”

For once, Moon was quiet.

“Ah, I’ve hit the nail on the head, haven’t I? Tori could only cure you of your physical defects, but the curse we placed on you has become something more, hasn’t it.”

“Careful what you say, boy.” Any merriment, false or not, that had been in Moon’s voice prior had completely disappeared.

“Or what? You’ll go crazy and kill me like you did your—” Six gleefully continued his taunting, eyeing a dark pool that was slowly approaching Moon from behind as he did so.

“Silence!”

Moon threw his staff into the air, grabbed the end of it like a baseball bat, and just before a pool of darkness could sneak up behind him, smashed it into the ground.

A chilling wave spread out from where the crystal made contact with the ground, instantly freezing himself, Six, and the pool of darkness, as well as countless Null Empire puppets.

In the distance, just beyond the edge of the ice, Boom wordlessly changed trajectory. If he couldn’t save his friends, then he sure as hell would avenge them.