Zuno had always been a smaller world than Rathe, one billion lives compared to Rathe's five. Yet size never defined its significance. Once a technological marvel of the Petan Galaxy, a metropolis of brilliance and innovation, Zuno now stood silent. A dead world. A post-apocalyptic husk.And across Rathe, a single question lingered in every mind:
Would Rathe share the same fate?
The moment came without warning.A streak of burning light tore across the sky as the Evil Sorcerer plunged his indestructible ship directly into Rathe's surface. The impact was catastrophic, buildings shattered, the ground tore open, and hundreds died instantly.
Floating above the smouldering crater, surrounded by five thousand of his twisted creatures, the Sorcerer surveyed Rathe with cold indifference.
Jecht, Nect, and the military teleport to the crash site the moment Jecht finished tracing the coordinates. They materialised amid chaos, Cancer's ship buried deep into the earth, flames rising, smoke twisting, the city devastated for miles.
Nect, shaking with fury, stepped forward.
"YOU BASTARD! YOU KILLED MY FATHER! WHO ARE YOU?!"
The Sorcerer's eyes narrowed. His gaze drifted over their white hair identical to Flex Hookalot's. A slow smirk curved across his lips.
"I am Cancer. Judge of the Petan Galaxy. Sealed away for two thousand years…and now I have returned."
His voice grew darker.
"This galaxy will never know peace while I exist.You will all suffer for your crimes."
The soldiers froze. Even the air felt heavier.
Jecht answered quietly.
"I don't know what happened two thousand years ago…or who wronged you.But the people here are innocent."
Cancer's eyes flared with rage.
"KHRATHA ZU'MOR!"
At his command, five thousand Mystics descended upon Rathe.
The clash was brutal. The Mystics unleashed an overwhelming storm of magic while the Rathian military answered with everything they had.
But Jecht and Nect…They cut through the enemy like a storm. Together, they defeated thousands with ease.
Cancer grew impatient.
He raised his hand.
A sinister fog began to pour across the land spreading fast, dissolving life in seconds. Everything it touched withered.
Jecht reacted instantly.
"AIR PRISON DEPLOY!"
A massive transparent sphere erupted outward, containing the gas. Within moments, the Air Prison neutralised the deadly fog entirely, leaving only silence.
The military erupted into cheers.Nect shouted:
"Nice one, bro!"
Cancer, however, stared in disbelief.That attack could only be used once per planet.
And Jecht had just erased it.
Cancer unleashed a barrage of devastating spells. Elemental blasts tore apart streets and buildings. Jecht's Sci-Fi Suit absorbed tremendous damage, but even its advanced resistance began to crack.
Still Jecht fought on. He defeated one thousand Mystics before Cancer finally broke through.
"THUNDARI!"
Lightning ripped open the sky and slammed Jecht to the ground.
He screamed in agony.
Nect tried to reach him, but the Mystics held him back.
Cancer lifted Jecht telekinetically and slammed him repeatedly into the ground, until the helmet shattered and Jecht's body barely moved.
Jecht whispered weakly:
"You will never win… Cancer…"
Nect tore through the Mystics desperately trying to reach his brother.Cancer whirled around, backhanding Nect with telekinetic force so violently that he skipped across the ground and crashed into a building, bones crunching on impact.
Cancer laughed.
"I killed your father at his pathetic celebration.I killed your brother.And now I will kill you, and every living thing on this wicked planet."
A blinding flash erupted. The air shook. A crushing pressure filled the sky.
Something red hot, bright, alive, rushed forward.
The Mystics swarmed to intercept.
Cancer shouted:
"PROTECTO!"
It didn't matter.
A streak of red lightning tore through the army, obliterating them instantly. Bodies fell from the sky like rain.
Cancer barely had time to react before another flash struck him, sending him crashing through multiple buildings.
Nect had awakened.
His true Hookalot inner power.
Jecht, barely conscious, whispered:
"Bro…?"
What he felt wasn't pain.It was awe.
Nect moved like lightning incarnate.Cancer tried to stand but each time he did, Nect hit him again and again and again. Each blow sent Cancer tearing through the landscape.
Soldiers watched in disbelief.
"Incredible…""He's even faster than his father…"
Jecht smiled faintly.
"Right now… he might be stronger than Father ever was…"
High above the battlefield, Nect delivered a flurry of twenty blows at supersonic speed, like a one-sided tennis rally against the air itself. He finished with a massive hook that sent Cancer spiralling into the ground, carving a crater into the city.
Jecht whispered:
"It's over…"
But it wasn't.
As Nect charged the final blow…His power vanished.
He fell, crashing into the ground.
Cancer, barely able to stand, laughed hysterically.
"Luck abandons you at the moment you needed it most…"
Blood dripping from his mouth, he summoned his staff.
"Know this before I end your life…No one, NO ONE has ever done to me what you just did."
Cancer planted his staff into the ground.
"NATURILIA BIND!"
Roots erupted from the earth, binding Nect and dragging him downward.
Then Cancer raised his hands.
"GRAND KHRATHA ZU'MOR!"
The sky darkened.
One million Mystics appeared, they polluted the sky, blocking out the sun.
Terror spread through the ranks of the Rathian soldiers.People watching from the city felt despair rise in their throats.
"It's over…" they whispered.
Cancer smiled.
Before he could strike the killing blow
He froze.
His eyes widened.
He clutched his chest in panic.
He collapsed to his knees.
"WHAT,....WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!"
The impossible had just begun.
Cancer stumbled to his knees, his breaths ragged and uneven. Confusion spread across his face, followed quickly by fear. The one million Mystics he had summoned only seconds earlier dissolved into thin air as if they had never existed.
His strength was vanishing.
His heart hammered painfully.
His legs trembled beneath him.
For the first time in thousands of years…
Cancer was feeling his real age.
The tree-roots binding Nect shriveled away. Yet even freed, Nect lay unconscious on the ground, his body limp and unmoving.
Cancer tried to speak, but the deep, sinister timbre of his voice was gone replaced by frail, broken whimpers.
"Whaaaat… whaaat is this?
Whaaaat have you… DONE?!"
He clutched his chest. His breaths came sharp and desperate. He attempted to summon a Mystic nothing. He waved his hand to bind Nect again nothing. His magic had abandoned him entirely.
While he struggled in panic, Jecht arrived, limping toward him in what remained of his shattered Sci-Fi Suit.
Jecht's voice was calm almost pitying.
"Looks like you're struggling to use any magic, Cancer."
Cancer's head jerked upward.
Jecht pointed.
"Look above you."
Cancer raised his eyes.
Thirty meters in the air hovered a small drone, glowing faintly.
He whimpered weakly:
"Whaaaat… whaaat is that?"
Jecht replied:
"A drone generating an absolute magical barrier with a five-hundred-meter radius."
He stepped closer.
"From the moment you arrived, that drone has been watching you—analyzing you—studying everything you do. It engineered the perfect countermeasure in real time."
Jecht's tone sharpened.
"After all… the best way to defeat any opponent is to study them."
Cancer's eyes widened.
Shock.
Confusion.
And for the first time in centuries… a glimmer of respect.
He had lived thousands of years. Only twice had he ever been defeated.
But that respect quickly turned to horror as the sky filled with descending ships.
The Galaxy Police had arrived—hundreds of enforcers landing to arrest him.
Jecht exhaled.
"It's over, Cancer. I'll leave the rest to them."
He turned away.
"I need to check on my brother."
Jecht reached Nect, who was slowly beginning to regain consciousness. His eyes fluttered open.
"Jecht…?" he murmured in a daze.
"Did… did we do it?"
Jecht smiled gently.
"Yes, Nect. We did."
Nect tried to sit up—and cried out.
"Ahhhh… my whole body… every muscle hurts…"
Jecht placed a hand over him, scanning his condition. Information rushed into his mind instantly.
His face turned white.
"What…?! Nect—your muscles are torn apart. Your spine is broken in four places. Six ribs cracked. Your kneecaps are shattered."
He paused.
"BUT "
Before he could finish, Nect lowered his gaze.
"So… I'm dying? Or should be dead?
How am I even moving?"
Jecht stared at him in disbelief.
"Your body is healing itself. Rapidly.
Nect… you might have been dead.
I've never seen regenerative ability this strong in any living creature."
As if to prove his words, Nect's ribs healed completely within seconds. His breathing steadied.
The cause was clear.
The Suka.
The hidden Hookalot power.
Upon first awakening, the form was supposed to last one minute, after which the user would collapse into unconsciousness. But Nect had remained in Suka form for twenty minutes. His body paid the price but his regeneration saved him.
The Fate of Cancer
While Jecht tended to Nect, the Galaxy Police restrained Cancer. Their duty, carried out for thousands of years, was to extract the universe's most dangerous beings and imprison them on Planet X-482B—a planet-wide fortress holding the worst criminals in the Baltic and Petan Galaxies.
Cancer knew his fate the moment he saw the enforcers.
As they dragged him away, he spat venom through cracked lips.
"You… animals…"
His voice shook with hatred.
"You killed my people.
You slaughtered them like beasts.
A whole planet of peaceful inhabitants!"
Cancer's face twisted with grief and rage.
"I returned home just as you left.
I saw the ship YOUR ship with the Rathe logo!"
Jecht looked stunned.
"No. You're wrong," he said firmly.
"Rathe has never invaded another planet in our entire history."
Cancer screamed hysterically:
"LIAR!
MURDERERS!
You killed every woman every child every soul!
I SAW the logo on the ship!"
Jecht's expression hardened.
"And through all of this, Cancer…
you've become exactly what you claim to despise."
He stepped closer.
"You murdered our father in cold blood.
You exterminated a whole planet one billion innocent lives.
Women. Children. Families.
Even if Rathe WERE responsible which we are NOT you slaughtered innocents in the name of 'justice.'
How could that ever be right?"
Cancer glared, trembling with fury as the police secured him in chains of antimagic.
As they carried him toward the transport shuttle, he hissed one final warning:
"This isn't over…
and THEY will find you…"