Fade in…
The atmospheric seal of Milner High School's sports field fractures under the weight of an absolute kinetic shift. Hakuna, balancing the desperate, volatile frequencies of Celestihimurra within the core of his spirit, focuses his gaze on the multiversal anomaly standing before him. The six members of the BBC surrounding him burn with the unchained, pale blue fires of their unlocked future states, their individual Talents screaming for release.
Hakuna points his finger straight toward the target and shouts with a voice that shatters the local sound barrier, "GO!"
They vanish. They move with so much sheer, unadulterated velocity that a violent, highly destructive gust of wind rushes out from the empty space where they stood moments after they have already left the area, tearing the turf from its roots and throwing up a wall of soil.
Leragga's tracking signatures vanish from his radar as the sheer physical displacement rewrites the laws of movement. He frantically thinks to himself, his pupils dilating in sudden, instinctual panic, "Where are they?! I can't track their—oof!"
I'm getting some serious deja vu here... Didn't we just watch this guy get blitzed two minutes ago?
Super materializes directly inside Leragga's blind spot. Capitalizing on his Talent, Ego, which grants him absolute dominion over all known forces, he channels the concentrated kinetic energy of a falling meteor and lands a devastating, bone-shattering blow straight to the left side of Leragga's face.
The force rattles the assassin's skull, sending teeth flying as his momentum is violently derailed. And before he could even begin to regain his physical composure, Enzo appears seamlessly on his opposite side. Utilizing Therma, Enzo manipulates the thermal pressure around his foot, kicking Leragga hard in the ribs, sending him hurtling backward like a pinball straight toward Super's incoming trajectory.
But the sequence is already three steps ahead. Bodega appears directly in front of the tumbling multiversal hitman. Activating Atlas, he manifests an unyielding physical authority; he extends his massive hand, grabs Leragga squarely by his face, fingers digging into the flesh, and slams him vertically down into the ground with enough raw, concentrated force to make his entire body bounce violently off the bedrock.
Immediately, using the elastic energy of the bounce, Leragga backflips away from Bodega, desperate to clear the immediate kill zone and reset his balance. But as he flips upright into a defensive stance, the sky above him has already been claimed. Super is already hovering directly above him, his face masked by pale blue flames, pointing his open palm straight down into Leragga's face as he says, his voice cold and devoid of mercy, "Forced Palm Technique: Gamma Ray Burst."
A small, intensely compressed ball of pale blue energy appears dead-center on his palm. Suddenly, a massive, world-ending beam of high-density cosmic energy is blasted from that little ball, tearing through the atmosphere as it descends.
Leragga violates physics to slide his torso sideways, dodging the core diameter of the beam by a fraction of an inch, the heat singeing his uniform. But before he could do anything to counter-attack...
Enzo appears right within his guard, placing his open palm flat against Leragga's chest. The air grows hot enough to melt stone as Enzo says, "Therma: Super Nova."
Leragga's eyes widen as he is instantly surrounded and consumed by a swirling, towering vortex of high-intensity, superheated flames that eat away at his oxygen and skin. Simultaneously, Bodega is seen facing the inferno from the outside. He begins to rotate his massive arms towards the center of his chest, moving them clockwise with rhythmic, heavy precision, drawing the spatial parameters together.
And as his palms are about to meet in the center and Bodega cups them tightly, he declares the restriction sequence, "Prism."
The space around Leragga instantly crystallizes into an invisible, conceptual box. The Prism immediately locks Leragga in a state of absolute stagnation—a specific sensory paradox where he is stuck perpetually between the micro-seconds of sensing an attack and reacting to it, rendered completely unable to move a single muscle or activate his Volant's acceleration.
But the apex predator's parameters are deeply broken. Suddenly, a violent surge of dark energy cracks the invisible boundary, and a solid, blood-soaked arm pokes straight out of the unyielding walls of the Prism.
Leragga breaks the conceptual lock, his face twisted into a demonic snarl as he looks at the boys. He then says, spitting blood onto the grass, "You absolute, insignificant fools. You think a few unlocked parameters are enough to contain a hunter of the Umbra?!"
Rems charges forward to reinforce the perimeter, his glasses flashing with aesthetic pale blue energy as his Talent, Adapt, pushes his biological capabilities to the absolute extreme of human self-dominion. But Leragga is faster. He drives a brutal, straight punch deep into Rems' stomach. The sheer kinetic shockwave is immense, nearly knocking Rems completely out on his feet and threatening to switch his awakened power off entirely.
But Rems' soul refuses to yield. Through pure, unadulterated willpower and the adaptive nature of his Talent, he flashes back to full consciousness an instant later with even more overwhelming physical power thanks to the underlying ability of his Talent that grants him the accelerated benefits of Adrenaline. Before Leragga can pull his hand back, Rems traps the wrist and violently twists Leragga's arm until the bone snaps.
The multiversal assassin cries out in sharp, genuine pain, "Aaarrghhh!"
Immediately, capitalizing on the fracture, Freddie appears directly in front of his compromised variant. Running on the absolute maximum velocity of his Speed talent, his arms blur out of existence as he begins punching Leragga in the face with what seems like an inconceivable, infinite amount of overlapping punches delivered in one single instance. The continuous, machine-gun impact sends Leragga flying backward across the field like a ragdoll.
Leragga flips through the air, forcing his broken arm to snap back into alignment, and lands hard on his feet. An expression of pure, unbridled rage distorts his features as he attempts to walk aggressively back toward his teenage aggressors—but his legs refuse to move. He fails to take a single step.
Looking down, he realizes the earth itself has risen up. MXO, utilizing Geo to exert absolute dominion over the landscape, has completely trapped his lower limbs inside an ultra-dense, solidified matrix of soil and stone, anchoring him to the spot.
Leragga snarls, his veins bulging against his forehead, "Why you miserable little insects!"
Before he could finish saying anything else, the purple steam parts. Hakuna appears instantly in front of his trapped form, crouching down low to the earth with his right fist firmly planted into his left palm as the entire universe seems to fall into an absolute, terrifying silence. The ambient noise of the wind, the crackle of electricity, and the shouting of the students vanish into a vacuum.
Hakuna says, his silver eyes burning through the haze, "Fist of Inferno: Celesti."
Separate, intensely concentrated strands of pure white divine fire begin to contort and wrap themselves around his knuckles. As they combine and compress under the weight of his focus...
The flames transform, hardening into a roaring, high-pressure kinetic stream akin to a jet's afterburners. This is the absolute strongest variant of the Fist of Inferno he can physically generate at his current, severe state of internal exhaustion, second only to the cataclysmic output of THOR'S HAMMER.
Hakuna's face darkens as he looks at the man who threatened his school, his friends, and his sanity. He then snarls a single word: "Die."
He drives the flaming fist forward, launching it directly towards Leragga's chest as the perception of time slows down to a frame-by-frame crawl. The white-hot jet of fire inches closer and closer to the assassin's face.
But just as the fist is only a foot away from making definitive contact, the air in front of Leragga warps. A strange hand appears out of nowhere, inserting itself directly into the path of Hakuna's oncoming strike.
As Hakuna's fist lands squarely on the open palm of this intruder, the divine energy detonates, exploding outward with an immense, destructive power that kicks up a blinding cloud of white ash and gravel.
Hakuna's mind reels as the recoil pushes him back. He thinks to himself frantically, his internal balance fracturing, "What was that?! Who could possibly block that strike barehanded?!"
The severe strain breaks his concentration. The hybrid state collapses, the purple steam vanishes, and his eyes return to their normal color as he falls back, now fully and completely exhausted, his spiritual reservoir bone-dry.
As the dense dust cloud slowly clears, revealing the silhouette of the entity that stopped Hakuna's ultimate attack... the figure is revealed to be... Hakuna?!
Leragga's eyes widen in absolute horror as he looks at the newcomer's face. He thinks to himself, his knowledge causing him to shake, "No... no, it can't be. Why is HE here in this timeline?!"
Hakuna, lying in the dirt, mutters in sheer, paralyzed confusion, "You… look just like me. How? Who are you?"
The Hakuna who isn't Hakuna, but looks like Hakuna, casually pushes Hakuna out of balance with a flick of his wrist as the Prince then falls helplessly to the ground...
Damn, that is a serious tongue twister. Try saying that five times fast.
The other Hakuna then lowers his posture, crouching down to where our Hakuna is trembling in the dirt. He looks down at him with an inscrutable expression, his eyes flashing as he then says, "You really have gotten stronger, haven't you?"
Oh, right... his name... I completely forgot. This is Flamboyage. Originally, he exists as Hakuna's psychological alter ego—the darker, unyielding side of his subconscious. The figure possessing this name standing in front of Hakuna right now is exactly how the Prince had always envisioned how this alter ego would look if materialized: stronger, far more confident, more assertively dominant. He is the perfect image of the ruthless tyrant that his brother, the current Letebele Clan leader, always wanted Hakuna to become—only now, he should just be a thought, He exists, through some multiversal anomaly as a living, breathing physical entity.
Flamboyage then stands up straight, dismissing Hakuna entirely. Without looking down at him, he turns his gaze toward the wounded hitman. He says, his voice sounding identical to Hakuna's but layered with a far more terrifying, colder, and sharper resonance, "Leragga. Time to go."
Leragga argues, pushing himself out of MXO's broken stone trap, his pride wounded. "Ah—but sir! I was just about to completely defeat them! A little more pressure and they would've been dead by my hand! Trust me, I can wipe them out right now, I—"
Flamboyage interjects, his voice dropping to a frequency that vibrates the tectonic plates beneath the school: "I said, TIME TO GO."
The moment the words leave his lips, an instantaneous, crushing weight of sudden pressure is felt throughout the entire physical world. Birds drop from the sky across the province, the air turns to lead, and the atmosphere becomes suffocating.
Hakuna thinks to himself frantically, clutching his chest as he feels the absolute brunt of the gravity, given how dangerously close he is to Flamboyage's feet, "I… can't… breathe!"
Leragga's remaining arrogance evaporates. He falls straight to his knees in the dirt in total, absolute defeat, completely unable to contest or question his leader's authority.
Flamboyage, still not sparing a single look toward the boys or the ruined school, turns his body around. He reaches down, grabs the 'elite' multiversal assassin carelessly by his collar like a sack of garbage, and drags him along the dirt behind himself.
He raises his left hand and snaps his fingers. Instantly, a jagged, pitch-black portal to Void tears open in the middle of the school field, hummed with anti-matter.
As he is dragged toward the event horizon, Leragga looks back at the boys one last time and shouts, his voice filled with venom, "This isn't the last you see of me, you little pests! There are 5 more of us apart from us two! Be prepared, The Umbra are coming!"
Right as they both step over the threshold into the dark portal...
Something snaps inside the Prince. Watching his alter ego walk away with his enemy, the sheer confusion, terror, and raw violation of his identity boils over. Hakuna roars, his voice filled with a horrific amalgamation of pure rage, primordial fear, and total confusion: "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
He powers up more than he's ever done in his entire life, forcing his broken spiritual gates to open. Mustering up every single drop of the last of his remaining strength, he aims both of his trembling hands directly at the closing forms of Flamboyage and Leragga.
Flamboyage turns his head slightly, looking back over his shoulder to face Hakuna one last time as he grimaces at the boy's desperate struggle, a look of profound, condescending pity on his face.
Hakuna then yells from the absolute depths of his tortured soul, "KIHIMURRA!"
He unleashes his most powerful, unrestricted demonic blast—a massive beam of pure, destructive purple Daemonium energy that tears across the sports field. But the calculations are off. The portal snaps completely shut a micro-second before the energy can reach them, leaving the blast to rocket forward across the campus. Hakuna, blinded by pure emotion, however, did not account for what lay directly in that specific trajectory...
The main line of the campus. Multiple historic school buildings and the Grand Examination Hall.
The beam makes impact. Without a sound, the raw demonic energy completely evaporates all of it, turning millions of rands of infrastructure into a smoking, empty wasteland of fine gray dust within a fraction of a second.
As the residual energy slowly dissipates into the sky...
The reality of the situation hits the Prince. The smoke clears to show the massive, empty gap where the heart of Milner High used to stand. Hakuna realizes exactly what his rage has done. "No…"
He takes a shaky step back into the grass, his hands trembling as he repeats, his voice cracking, "No… what have I done?"
The surrounding members of the BBC and the Royal Squadron rush forward, their lips moving as they attempt to calm him down, to tell him it was an accident—but their voices are completely muffled to his ears, sounding like they are underwater.
Hakuna mutters to himself, his eyes wide with a manic horror, staring at the ruins. "No… How could I do this? I'm supposed to protect them... I'm no better than the monsters."
Still completely oblivious to Super, Rems, and Enzo calling out to him, he reaches down with numb fingers. Hakuna then takes off his official Milner matric jacket, the symbol of his final year and his status at the school. He says, his voice dead and empty, "I don't deserve this. I don't deserve any of it."
He places the jacket gently on the grass, and on top of it, he slips off his silver BBC ring, leaving his brotherhood behind.
Without another word, he takes to the sky, launching himself into the upper atmosphere, flying away from Klerksdorp at terrifying speeds.
Joy yells out, her voice finally breaking through the static of the narrative and returning to full legibility, "Hakuna! Wait! Come back!"
Super steps in front of her, extending his hand to stop the chase. He interjects, his face heavy with sadness but filled with tactical understanding, "No… leave him. Don't follow. He needs to be completely alone for now."
By the time the final cataclysmic battle at the sports field took place, the school's elite defense force had successfully evacuated every single student and staff member from all school buildings in immediate danger. And with incredible luck, despite the total destruction of the infrastructure, there were absolutely no casualties.
However, the political fallout was instantaneous. Due to the catastrophic severity of the situation and the behind-the-scenes political manipulation of the problem child, Musa, the governing bodies laid the blame squarely on the administration. Principal Lupuwana was officially suspended from his duties until further notice.
The newly appointed acting principal, Mrs. van Der Merwe, after witnessing firsthand how dangerous and unstable things could get when teenagers wielded cosmic powers, made a definitive administrative decree. She disbanded the DDF (Daemonic Defense Force) from Milner High, effective immediately, banning their operations within school grounds.
Seizing the sudden vacuum of authority and refusing to let the world defenseless, Enzo and the remaining members of the shattered BBC took action. They went underground and started a brand new DDF—a regional faction that would not just protect Milner, but would actively monitor and protect all schools and everyone across the country from the rising demonic incursions.
They salvaged Hakuna's matric jacket and his silver ring from the field, placing them safely inside a secured display glass at their new headquarters, holding onto the silent, desperate hope for his eventual return.
Hakuna himself had long since left the borders of the country, vanishing into the global ether. He was never found since that fateful afternoon.
To this day, intense speculation about The Umbra—where they come from, what dimension they reside in, and exactly why they targeted the boys of the BBC—is still actively taking place among secret organizations of the world. No one truly knows who or what they are.
However...
Deep within their hidden training grounds, the brotherhood does not rest. The remaining members of the BBC still train, pushing their Talents harder than they ever have in human history. They are preparing. They know they must be ready, not only for their inevitable rematch with The Umbra... but for the fast-approaching, ultimate War Against Arkhagos.
Fade out…
End of Episode 74.