Under Kiba’s loving gaze, Hope started blasting streams of lightning into Dracon.
"A little girl couldn’t kill me!"
Dracon grunted under the paralyzing effect of lightning. His cells were brimming with energy, and they started exploding, but he didn’t die. He was an Alpha, and as long as even a droplet of blood remained, he could recover.
Swish!
Hope channeled all her strength into her right hand. With complete concentration, she then released a thick bolt of lightning that hit Dracon on the chest.
She looked at him with anticipation. Surely he would explode now!
Ting!
Just then, the door opened, and the sound of familiar heels stepping on the floor emerged.
"!"
Hope’s expression changed to that of wariness. Like lightning, she disappeared from her position and hid behind Kiba.
Floating behind his back, she sneakily looked over his shoulder and saw the one she both feared and loved.
Agatha.
"Hope!" Agatha obviously noticed her daughter despite the latter’s best attempts. "What were you doing?"
Hope didn’t dare answer. She knew her mother didn’t appreciate the art of exploding.
"Nothing much," Kiba answered on her behalf. "We were bonding."
"Bonding?"
Agatha glanced at the destroyed room and then at Dracon, who was glowing with lightning.
"This is your idea of bonding?" Agatha asked with disbelief.
"Naturally!" Kiba replied as if it was obvious. "Bonding is done on common interests!"
Hope nodded in agreement and eyed her mother.
"................"
Agatha felt her forehead throbbing. She could stand the idea of bonding when it was limited to exploding non-living things.
Now even living beings? That too a human!
"You are spoiling her!"
Agatha brought her gaze back on Kiba and thundered.
"First, it was exploding rooms, then buildings, now a mutant! What would you do when she’s bored of mutants as well?! Start exploding planets?!"
"Planets?" Hope’s eyes sparkled.
Kiba has taken her to outer-space, and she has seen the planets from a distance. They were so large, enchanting, and full of wonder.
How would they look while exploding?
Surely that would be a sight to behold!
Agatha was taken aback by the rising excitement she sensed from her daughter. Surely she couldn’t be looking forward to exploding planets!
Agatha wanted to cry.
Her question was rhetorical! She didn’t mean to give ideas to Hope!
"Well, it seems you have made a decision for our daughter."
Kiba observed with a smile.
"And since Hope believes in filial piety, she would have no choice but to explode planets."
Agatha: "..........."
Meanwhile, Dracon recovered from the bolt of lightning. He heard Agatha’s outbursts and thought he was right.
But now was the time to think about the crazy woman and her equally crazy daughter. The time was to escape!
Till now, whenever he would be hit by lightning, he would transfer a bit of it into the cuffs. It was difficult to achieve, but he succeeded.
The cuffs seemed indestructible at first, but now they were showing signs of internal fissures. That was to be expected given the nature of lightning Hope inherited.
And the last full-power attack almost destroyed the mechanism insides the cuffs that restricted Dracon’s strength.
"Now!"
Dracon lifted his head, and veins popped up on his forehead.
Swoosh~!
Endless winds flew into the room and started spiraling, turning into a storm. Agatha and Hope were sent flying into the different corners of the room.
Agatha’s complexion changed, and her head jerked towards Dracon.
Dracon has broken the cuffs!
Even as she turned towards him, he smiled wickedly and flew back while pointing the finger at Hope.
"Die!"
A wave of baleful wind burst out of the storm and smashed at Hope.
"I promised I would kill you!" Dracon exclaimed as he broke out of the tower. "And I don’t break my promises!"
"Really? We are similar then."
Kiba noted from behind.
"Because I promised to protect my daughter and haven’t failed."
"!!"
Dracon’s blood turned icy cold.
He didn’t think of Hope surviving his attack but thought of how Kiba appeared behind him without making any fluctuation!
The ability he was most confident in was speed! After all, wind was the element of speed! And yet Kiba was faster than him!
"I won’t be able to defeat him!"
Dracon knew his limitations.
Responding at light speed from the moment Kiba appeared behind him, he shot back at the tower while rapidly turning around.
He expected to see Kiba, but all he saw was a bare fist zooming into his face.
BANG!
The fist broke his nose and sent a brute force into his skull.
The pain made his eyes erupt with tears and shut down while he crashed into the room adjacent to the one he has just escaped from.
"Thoo!" Dracon spit blood and teeth as he landed on the floor.
His face has been crushed like a train has run over it. But this was the least of his worries.
The instant he opened his eyes, he saw the underside of a shoe closing into his bloody face.
Dracon didn’t want to be trampled upon by Kiba.
The winds wrapped him and pulled him back. He barely evaded the foot, and it smashed on the floor, blasting it.
"Selfish prick!"
Kiba was offended.
"I was kind enough to trample your face before my daughter exploded you, but instead of being thankful, you are resisting?!"
Dracon has barely got on his feet, and hearing the question, he was dumbstruck. What sort of logic was this guy using?
But he didn’t waste much time trying to find logic. He coiled streams of wind around him and retreated with everything he got.
Sadly, all he managed was ten meters before an attraction force grabbed him.
"Where do you think you are going?"
Kiba asked as he made a pulling motion.
Dracon couldn’t respond. He blurred from extreme speed as his body violently flew in Kiba’s direction.
"AHHHH!"
Just as he expected to crash into Kiba, the atmosphere turned stifling, and an invisible field enveloped the room.
BANG!
The field brutally smashed Dracon on the floor, just a step away from Kiba.
He couldn’t even lift his head as the field released a pressure that seemed far more oppressive than hundreds of mountains combined.
"What sort of field is this?!"
The field squeezed his body into the floor, causing numerous crevices to split out.
Kiba lifted the foot Dracon had evaded. He was feeling magnanimous, so he said, "Do you want to be trampled by my foot or crushed by the gravity field?"
"........."
If Dracon was capable of vomiting blood, he would have.
What sort of choices was he given?
But he has a feeling this was Kiba’s way of holding out an olive branch, and if he didn’t take it, he would regret it.
"Trample..."
He barely managed to say underneath the oppressive gravitational force.
"If that’s what you want, sure," Kiba replied with his unique smile. "Just turn around and bring your face underneath my foot."
"...!!"
Dracon felt humiliated, but he used every ounce of his strength to turn his body under the gravity field. It took him minutes, but he succeeded in bringing his face up.
He saw the familiar underside of the shoe and also noticed the smile on Kiba’s face.
"This smile....it is just like that little girl’s!"
A chill raced into his spine as he realized Kiba was the sadist parent.
Bang!
Just then, the foot stamped into his face, and everything turned dark.
Clap! Clap!
In the distance, Hope excitedly clapped her hands.
She has witnessed everything, including how Dracon volunteered to bring his face to get trampled upon.
"Papa is so cool!"
Hope exclaimed to her mother.
"I want to be like him!"
Agatha almost collapsed.
"You are already like him! Any more and this world would be done for!"
She wanted to tell her daughter.
...
Kiba chained the unconscious Dracon with his powers.
"Madison, you need to bring new cuffs for him."
Kiba said while pinning Dracon to the floor.
When he arrived in the tower, he has sensed the presence of Madison in a nearby room. It was evident that she was ready to help in case Dracon escaped or tried to harm Hope.
Naturally, she didn’t need to intervene after Kiba arrived here.
"I knew daddy would sense his Lil’ girl’s love!"
Space before Kiba erupted with a bloody glow, and Madison appeared from it. She quickly threw herself into his embrace.
Kiba did his best to ignore the effect her b.r.e.a.s.ts were creating as they pressed into his chest.
She went a notch higher and tightly kissed him on the lips.
"Cough! Cough!"
From behind, Agatha made the sound of coughing, reminding them that Hope was here.
Madison broke the kiss and disappeared, only to reappear before Agatha. She took Hope and then disappeared while her powers transferred Dracon to the next room.
"....." Agatha was caught off-guard.
Surely Madison hasn’t taken Hope for another round of exploding Dracon?
She looked at Kiba for an answer, but he seemed lost like he was in some thoughts.
"What are you thinking about?" Agatha asked.
Kiba didn’t reply. He closed his eyes and made a connection with the Legacy Orb integrated into his consciousness.
The orb has memories of his future-self, both real and false, and he could unseal them whenever he wanted.
Kiba unsealed the memories that were related to Agatha.
When they thought they had lost Hope, he had seen the soul-crushing effect on Agatha. Of course, the effect was short-lived as Hope emerged unscathed.
But this was in his timeline.
What about the timeline of his future-self?
The orb released the memories of that timeline.
❆❆❆❆
After killing Hyperion, Kiba has returned to Agatha. Alas, she has turned into a living corpse without any will to live.
She wouldn’t eat in the starting few weeks, and if not for the energy he regularly infused into her, she would have starved to death. That was the easy part he could manage.
What he couldn’t stand was the fear that she might do something lethal to herself.
So he did what he could: try to be with her, say words that could put a bandage on her wounds, and provide her therapy.
But she showed no signs of recovery.
A year passed, and by then, his regret for her loss was turning into resentment. He was annoyed by her refusal to move on.
She wasn’t the first mother to lose a child.
And wasn’t he also equally hurt by the loss of Hope?
But he didn’t sink in despair! He had moved on and tried his best to live the life!
So why couldn’t she do the same?
A part of him knew he was unfair. Not everyone could be like him and move on.
So he did his best to hide his annoyance and gave her the space she needed.
Maybe she noticed this and the effect her presence was doing on him.
So one day, long after they have left Delta City, she requested him to put her in suspended animation.
Her request shattered him, but he accepted it as he knew why she was doing it.
For him... it was always for him.
He finally realized after the death of Hope, she was doing everything she could for his sake.
First, she has refused to die, even though death was all she wanted to escape from the boundless grief.
And now she was giving him a way to evade the pain and guilt her death would cause.
It was always her who was sacrificing for him. And not the other way as he has selfishly believed.
❆❆❆❆
In the present, Kiba broke his connection with the Legacy Orb and opened his eyes.
"What’s wrong?"
Agatha was surprised. She noticed endless sadness in his eyes.
"Nothing."
Kiba tightly hugged her.
"Except for the fact that only now I realized how much you mean to me."
"I thought you realized that long ago!"
Agatha smiled and wrapped her arms around him.