Between realms Wulkranoth's voice echoed in his head, a chill whisper about loss and a child never born. The words looped until a part of Ron, much to his own unease, found them sensible. How do you even touch Mr. Gonzalez? The question burned under his skin.
He arrived an hour after Carter and Thomas's clash. Stretchers and the taste of antiseptic filled the hospital; the wounded were already triaged. Ron found Carter among them and asked what had gone wrong. Carter told him they'd gone to confront the cults — and things had spiraled.
In a shadowed chamber far away, Wulkranoth stepped through a veil and found a man, blood-streaked and trembling.
"Did you bring it?" Wulkranoth asked, voice flat as stone.
"Yes, your majesty." The man pressed a small box into his hands. Wulkranoth thought, First target is Mr. Gonzalez. and you will help me. You have no choice, Ron. I don't need you, you need me.
Wulkranoth returned to his realm and, with a slow smile, handed the box to Thomas. "Pull the strings," he murmured. "Let the performance begin."
Hero Town — late night.
In sleep,
Ron walked Wulkranoth's dream: a world remade. Beyonders strolled down market streets; ancient beings sipped tea with humans. Hatred had been scrubbed away. Everywhere was laughter, light, and the soft certainty of belonging. Ron saw his daughters grown, Dream at his side, Carter laughing with a child on his knee. For an instant he tasted forever. Thomas, Wulkranoth and Gonzalez sitting in a restaurant, Ron looking at them through window. This life was the life without fear, death, lairs, evil doers and all the negativity erased only happiness and love everywhere. People looking care of each other everything was perfect.
Wulkranoth's words of a perfect world were talking in his mind. Suddenly, A hand — warm, insistent — pressed to his shoulder. "Why not make it real?" the voice asked.
Ron turned. Faces from his waking life (Real Hero Town) watched him; the hand belonged to Carter. "Only you can make it happen," Carter said, eyes bright as prophecy.
"Only you." Behind Carter, people nodded. An old woman stepped forward, voice thin with pleading: "Please, child — it'll save us."
Ron woke, the dream clinging like mist. He reached for the magnifying glass in his drawer, studied its rim as if it might explain the impossible, then stepped through.
Yardy and Thomas's top creations bowed and glanced as he passed. He moved without hesitation toward Wulkranoth's throne room, each step a measured countdown.
Wulkranoth's joy when he saw Ron was almost feral; his eyes shone like a long-dormant fire. For a heartbeat, Ron saw himself reflected back — a younger Wulkranoth, hungry and sure.
"Welcome," Wulkranoth said, rising. "I knew you'd come. Are you ready? Our first target: Mr. Gonzalez."
Ron's gut went cold. He's insane. "How are you going to enter the bottom layer, let alone face Mr. Gonzalez?" he spat.
"You will," Wulkranoth replied, as if it were the simplest fact.
"How? How can I fight him?" Ron demanded, voice cracking.
Wulkranoth's smile didn't waver. "We do not defeat him. We strip him of his powers." He leaned closer. "We will turn him into a mortal and seal his powers inside the Crack of Scenarios. The space of one scenario —holds more than all reality combined. There is nowhere else."
He nodded to Thomas. The wounded sorcerer handed Ron a small box. Cold metal reflected his face.
"Take this," Wulkranoth said softly. "Make him touch it."
Ron clutched the box Wulkranoth had entrusted to him and stepped back onto Earth.
The world that greeted him was nothing like the one he had left behind. Bruce's city was in flames, scarred by war. Towers lay in heaps of steel and glass, and the streets—once alive with bustling crowds—were littered with rubble and blood. The place where Ron stood was barely recognizable, a ruin consumed by smoke and silence. In the distance, explosions still thundered, their shockwaves rattling what little remained of the city's bones.
He walked slowly, his boots crunching over shattered stone and broken glass, past the fallen bodies that painted the ground in stillness. Death was everywhere—silent, accusing, unblinking.
And then, amid the carnage, something caught his eye.
A small sphere lay in the dust. Transparent, fragile-looking, yet glowing faintly with a dim, pulsing light, as though it carried a heartbeat of its own.
Ron knelt, hand reaching out. But just as his fingers brushed the air above it, a voice stopped him.
A voice he knew.
Ron's breath caught. He turned, and his eyes widened.
Akira…?
His friend stood—or rather, staggered—not far from him. Akira's body was broken, drenched in blood. He lifted a trembling hand toward Ron, a silent plea for help, before collapsing to the ground.
Ron's chest tightened. He ran, gathering Akira into his arms. His friend's skin was cold, his pulse faint, his breaths shallow. He's dying.
No hesitation. No second thought. Ron lifted him and soared into the sky, cutting through the smoke-filled horizon toward Hero Town. The sphere slipped into his pocket, unnoticed, carried along like a forgotten passenger.
At the hospital, the doctors rushed to meet him. They worked furiously, their faces grim. When at last the chief physician stepped out, he met Ron's gaze with a weary sigh.
"If you had been even a minute later," he said, "your friend would not have survived."
Ron exhaled, relief softening his shoulders. Akira would live. For now.
That night, Ron returned home. Exhaustion weighed heavily on him. He placed Wulkranoth's box in a drawer, then set the strange glowing sphere on the coffee table. For a moment, he studied it—its light flickering softly in the darkened room. But fatigue dulled his curiosity. He turned away, leaving it unattended, and retreated into restless sleep.
At the hospital. Midnight.
Akira's eyes snapped open. His chest heaved, breath ragged. His right leg and one arm convulsed, twisting unnaturally, skin splitting into green-veined flesh that looked more like creeping vines than human tissue. He swung his feet to the ground and staggered into the hallway, his footsteps uneven but deliberate.
A nurse spotted him and hurried over. "Sir, please, you need to go back to your room. You're not well enou—"
Her words froze as Akira's head turned. Slowly. Too slowly. His gaze locked on hers—empty, alien.
The nurse's voice broke into a scream. She fled down the corridor, her shoes slapping against the sterile floor. Heart hammering, she dashed into the elevator, frantically pressing the button as the doors slid closed.
For a moment, she sagged against the wall, trembling, relief flooding her veins.
Then she felt it. A presence at her back.
Cold, human, and wrong.
Her breath hitched as she turned.
Akira was standing inside the elevator with her.
The scream that followed tore through the hospital like a knife.
The next morning.
Ron awoke uneasy. His dreams had been restless, haunted by shadows he could not name. The feeling clung to him, a quiet warning he couldn't shake.
He poured a glass of water and switched on the news. The headline struck him like a blow.
A young nurse missing. Last seen at Hero Town Hospital.
Ron's stomach dropped. He knew her. She was one of the nurses who had been there the night he brought Akira in. The strange feeling in his chest deepened into dread.
And then—his vision shifted.
The world around him melted away. He was no longer in his home but inside someone else's eyes.
He saw the nurse, pale and trembling, trapped inside an elevator. Her hands clawed desperately at the doors, but they wouldn't open. Then, from the corner of vision, a hand reached out—Akira's hand—and closed around her throat.
The vision shattered.
Ron staggered back, gasping for air. His heart thundered. What did I just see?
That night, under a pale moon, DA sat atop the roof of a two-story house. His gaze swept across the quiet street, sharp as a blade.
In the shadows below, something moved.
A lone man walked carelessly toward the darkened alley, unaware of the figure lurking within.
DA's eyes narrowed. He had seen enough monsters to know when one was waiting.