Slowly, the sky regained its blue color and the seas grew calm. The energy faded little by little, and Sone's silhouette became clearer and clearer.
A yellow aura wrapped around his body. His eyes were gold with normal pupils, and his yellowish hair stood straight up. The golden energy protected him from within.
Sone raised his eyes and met the gaze of Boss 23, who was still firing without pause. Slowly he extended a hand and pointed it forward. The projectiles froze in midair, floating motionless. He had stopped the shots as if they were nothing but scraps of paper drifting in the wind.
The projectiles began to take on a yellow glow, slowly compressing along their own axes and vanishing after a few seconds. Boss 23 watched him gravely, his weapon falling silent.
"It seems that hedgehog's power gave you your new form, didn't it?" the Boss said, his voice calm and analytical.
A flashback flickered through Sone's mind.
Sone had been walking near the city that Sebastián's tsunami had destroyed when he came across a motionless yellow hedgehog. The moment he touched it, the animal vanished, and a powerful surge ran through his whole body. He felt strange, but he also felt a new strength, and a yellow glow radiated from him.
"Could it be...? No. If this is a new power, then I'm going to face Sebastián," Sone said with determination.
Without wasting a second, he took off running, faster than his body had ever managed before. And that was how, when he reached Sebastián, he had appeared in ball form with a yellow aura gathering around his body. The attack had been powerful enough to make Sebastián's Level 5 Fury lose half its hold on his body, and Sebastián had struck himself. He had vanished in a flash, hurting the protagonists and killing the Boss along with him. That was how Sone had managed to hurt Sebastián and gain the power.
His yellow aura had only been an incomplete form...
Sone snapped back to reality.
In the blink of an eye, he surpassed three times the speed of light and appeared in front of the Boss, who simply eyed him coldly. The Boss leapt aside, dodging Sone's punch, and fired without delay, but the projectile ricocheted and shot off into the sky. Sone, in ball form, had deflected the attack. Now he sprang up with inhuman agility and landed a ninja kick.
Boss 23 crashed into the crater his earlier attack had carved, his bones creaking a little. He rose quickly and reprogrammed his weapons.
"Code 05 update. Destructive power increased," the system announced.
The Boss recharged his weapon and sprang sideways, dodging a ball attack from Sone that would have caught him off guard. He fired back at once.
Sone's eyes flicked toward the shot, shifting barely a centimeter. His ball form snapped back instantly and launched straight into the attack, spines flying out as he went. They slammed into the projectile and set it off.
The explosion, together with the power of his super form, created a new dimension, and the two of them were teleported into it. Sone landed with style: one hand on the ground, his feet set in a sprinter's stance, his other arm stretched out to the side. He looked up and saw the Boss arrive in a white flash. At a blistering pace, he lunged.
He struck the Boss on the jaw before he could react, but the man fired at once, throwing up a curtain of smoke that Sone's aura lit up instantly.
The Boss was launched skyward, his arms raised in front of him to guard. He looked down and saw a streak of light racing toward him. It was an attack of golden energy, cylinder-shaped, heading straight for him.
Without wasting a moment, he overloaded his weapons and fired, and the two energies collided.
A great current of air swept through the place, forming a ring that spun endlessly on its axis and hung suspended in midair.
Inside it, Sone and Boss 23 traded blows. The Boss fired constantly to keep him at bay, but Sone's spines kept crashing into his shots and countering them.
Sone paused for a moment, thinking of Worh, Kiro, Eduin, the hybrid, and Leslie.
Worh was the one who took the most damage and always ended up the most hurt. Kiro fought constantly as the leader and took damage too, though nothing like Worh's. Eduin was a tactician, yes, but he let his confidence and his need to prove something carry him away. The hybrid had been their enemy but was now their friend. Leslie had left him badly hurt and nearly deaf in their fight, yet she had become someone different after he gave her the flowers.
His thoughts raced a thousand miles an hour while his body absorbed the Boss's attacks, which barely hurt him.
He turned his eyes on the enemy, remembering Worh's pale face and Kiro's disappearance. All his energy blazed brighter than usual. He quickly picked up speed and met every one of Boss 23's shots head-on.
When Sone got close, the Boss backed away, but Sone caught him by the throat. With his other hand, he pressed his fingers tightly together.
Without a second thought, he drove his hand into the Boss's chest and straight through. The Boss let out a ragged breath, his eyes turning gray. Blood dripped from his skin as he looked straight at Sone.
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. The man aimed his weapon at Sone's head and fired Code 06 without waiting for the system to announce it.
Sone was thrown back violently, but he quickly dug his feet into the ground and stopped dead.
"Lululu, hahaha. Nice hit... Super Sone," Boss 23 said, his voice calm, acknowledging the opponent before him.
With startling speed, he moved up beside Sone and slammed a punch into him full force, sending him flying.
*I think I can fly. I won't let you pull off any new technique,* Sone thought.
He spun on his axis and began to levitate, and their eyes locked at once. Without wasting a moment, he hurled himself at the Boss and slammed into him in ball form.
Boss 23 held firm, his weapon colliding with Sone as his legs trembled and sank into the ground.
The Boss fired at once, driving Sone back, then kicked him with 100% of his power.
Sone was sent flying, stunned by the speed and force of the blow. While he was still reeling, the Boss appeared behind him and blasted him with both weapons at once.
Everything began to warp. Sone burst out of the smoke, clutching his arm. He scanned the scene, then gathered all his energy into a single point and let it explode.
The Boss, who had been ready to press the attack, stopped dead, his eyes only millimeters from the released energy.
The space filled with yellowish light. The man's body was pierced by the energy, motionless, though his arms kept recharging automatically.
"I'll leave you a little gift," Boss 23 said.
Seconds later, he gave way, and his body was reduced to ashes that vanished from existence.
Sone dropped to the ground, a sharp pain in his back and his legs exhausted. But when he looked up, the man's weapons, still alive, fired at him.
His arms, legs, and torso were gravely wounded.
"AAAAH!" Sone screamed, his voice shrill with pain.
He could feel his blood spilling onto the ground, and then his super form suddenly flared back to life. He remembered something Kiro had once told him: the words Sebastián had spoken to the dead Boss 14.
*I won't let anything unexpected bring you back again.* In Level 5 Fury mode, Sebastián had said it and then vaporized the ashes to erase him for good.
With that in mind, Sone took the same stance. He pressed his hands together the way Sebastián would have and vaporized the weapons. A huge surge of energy burst from his hands in a flash of light, and the weapons were destroyed for good. Slowly the energy faded. Sone collapsed, drained, and the space dissolved around him.
When he woke, he found himself on a gurney in a laboratory. Looking around, he noticed Worh and Kiro. Worh lay to his left, healed and sleeping deeply. To his right was Kiro, inside a recovery capsule filled with green liquid. Sone raised his eyes a little and froze at the sight: it was Kiro, but with his ribs showing and only faint signs of life.
But looking closer, he saw a note that read: "Recovery successful. Subject Kiro rescued minutes before death."
He relaxed a little, closing his eyes and letting sleep claim him.
The scientist Max came in, walked over to Sone, and injected him with a regeneration potion. His heartbeat steadied.
He heard the door open. Eduin walked in, already recovered thanks to the potion.
"They'll be fine tomorrow, right?" Eduin asked curiously.
"Exactly. Tomorrow they'll be at 100%. And my name is Max, in case you don't trust me," the scientist replied.
Eduin nodded and walked off down the hallway. The hybrid slipped in quietly, approached Worh's gurney, and touched his cheek.
"Your sweetheart will wake up tomorrow," the scientist said teasingly.
The hybrid's tail whipped hard, and her ears flattened.
"He's not my sweetheart, and I don't have those feelings," she shot back.
*Uh-huh, and I'm Superman,* Max thought as he walked away and left the hybrid alone.
The girl touched Worh's cheek, turning the scientist's words over in her mind without quite understanding them.
Night claimed the place, and a sense of calm settled in.