Black Shock

"Ralphie! Leave Kou to me. I'll go find Natan and Karisa and tell them about the events going on inside the castle. You hurry up to the eastern side of the corridor and catch up to Tem. Somebody needs to see what's happening up there. Don't worry about the food, I'll take care of it.

"Right now the most important thing is for Tem and Yumiko to return to us safely. We can't let anything happen to them, even if Tem's there with her. But we can never be sure about what will happen when it comes to Tem."

He was a little taken aback by her statements as he was racing alongside Ayuka. To convey Kou's unconscious body to Ayuka, they came to a stop in the hallway as Ralphie brushed the dust from his clothes.

"I thought you said you wouldn't cook anymore, but I recognize the value. Right, I'll move quickly to the castle's other side and search for Tem. Keep in mind that Natan should be on the lowest level of the castle in the dressing room, while Karisa should be stationed outside the gate to serve as guard in case anyone tries to force their way in."

She grinned and nodded, confident that Ralphie could be trusted with this responsibility. Ralphie ran to the eastern side of the castle in the hopes of finding Tem before things took a bad turn. She thanked him for his patience and for listening to her, then hastened on to the lowest level of the castle.

Yumiko, was dangling from the hook, observed as her close friend put her own life in danger to protect her.

It was unlike anything she had ever experienced to see Tem trying so hard to salvage. Normally, she would be the one to act as the rescuer, but this was a different situation.

She could tell that Muro had not been particularly pleased when Tem had thwarted his plans, but he was still quite confident and careful to consider the best way to capture her.

"I've decided what I'll do. I understand how your blood benefits me. I can see why it would function as I had intended." Explained Muro and laughed. "I will finally demonstrate to this world that my research is the real savior of this earth once I have you in my possession!"

Tem had been enraged ever since Yumiko had almost fallen apart. She wasn't really bothered by her own issue with the other gender, but she was bothered by all the terrible things Yumiko and the homeless had told her.

"No... Your science makes life miserable for people. You keep claiming that you are only doing this for your own studies, but in reality, you only want to put people through pain. Everything Yumiko told me, as well as what the children and the homeless people told me. It was all your fault. You're telling me that your research involves enjoying someone else's body?

"If that is the case, it would be a disgrace for me to believe it. You are already a mess if you steal other people's blood samples for this kind of cause. To commit all of those other abhorrent acts is going too far and will only land you in hell, which is not a place you want to be. I've been there, therefore believe me; but, not for the reasons you may think."

"Since I'm trapped in a female body, you probably assume I'm some kind of person who'd let you use my body as you'd commanded me to do. Sorry, but nothing like this will ever happen again in this town. Yumiko, other individuals, and kids won't ever have to endure something so horrendous again.

"I will make sure that you never see the light of day again, and so will everyone else who came to this island."

Muro opened up his arms, lighting up a dark energy all around them. "You expect that will happen. But you will become my doll for as long as I am still here and breathing. You will serve as my primary blood collection tool."

Tem stopped trying to talk to him. She already knew she wasn't going to change her mind. Aggressive blue flames erupted from her right arm and reached her shoulder as she became infuriated.

Muro opened his face widely to express the actual crazy he possessed when it came to experiencing personal emotion. His garments rippled from the bolts he had created.

He palmed forward with his right arm as he dashed across the floor through the room.

Tem knelt down beneath his arm and then pushed herself forward. She pushed her arm from behind her back and thrust it forward before slamming it into Muro's stomach, causing him to fall stunned.

Punch's force was sufficient to cause him to take a few steps back. She took a step forward with her right leg, got to her feet, turned around, and pulled her leg into the air.

Muro was forced to turn around by the force of the heel she threw in his direction. She set her own body ablaze before darting across the floor, turning around Muro to catch him off guard.

He gasped for air as a result of her elbow being slammed into his gut. He took a few steps back and almost fell over while maintaining his footing.

Tem's initial impression of him was that he didn't appear to be very skilled.

"It hurts!" He whimpered, "Wait... no it doesn't."

Tem glanced at him in shock and recognized right away that he had been deceiving her by thinking she had an advantage, but his skills had suddenly risen exponentially.

He vanished from view in a second, then emerged suddenly behind Tem in midair. She turned around and caught a sight of him getting ready to kick her.

Tem turned quickly and swept her left arm, which was now ablaze with blue flames. Muro vanished from the scene, and Tem instead let forth a fireball that tore through the space and swept up to the walls.

Once more emerging from behind her, he touched her left shoulder. She experienced a terrifying shock that sped through her body in an instant, along with severe pressure that instantly electrified her body.

Unlike earlier electrocutions she had seen, which caused her to undoubtedly scream in pain and fall to her chest, this one did not feel feather-like. "Tem!" Tem's body felt as though it had gone numb, but she quickly recovered when she heard Yumiko's words and pressed her soles into the ground.

After turning around, she swung her foot across the ground to unleash pillars of blue flames that grew in size as they spread out. Muro chuckled as he brought both of his hands forward. He made a black electricity vortices that looked like broken glass to the eye by pointing his palms at the blazing flames.

The flames were rendered entirely immobile before being disseminated over the entire room by a pulse that was then detonated. Even further back, some flames even touched Tem and swallowed her whole.

She stood motionless, her arms folded, absorbing the flames into her body. Suddenly, she became aware that Muro was squatting in front of her stomach.

"Have you ever experienced what it would be like to have a thick spike eat insides of your body? You didn't did you? I then have the perfect present to give you."

Tem's eyes widened in surprise as she saw Muro press his palm over her skin, exposing her midriff. A black spike in the shape of a thunder bolt blitzed out from behind her back and into the ceiling in an instant, piercing her abdomen.

It sliced through her body, forcing a spherical hole through her stomach as a consequence. It appeared as though they were all under a cave that was crumbling as the bolt exploded the ceiling and caused it to fall into the chamber, revealing the sunlight.

Yumiko's eyes widened when she noticed Tem's stomach had been hollowed out, as though her body had dropped onto a sharp rock and become perched there.

Tem suddenly reappeared behind him and kicked her heel from above her head as Muro's eyes instantly comprehended that Tem's body had spun into a cyclone of fire. He was splintered into the ground as she rammed it into the top of his skull.

Her kick was so strong that it caused the floor below to collapse and tumble into a corridor. Ralphie conveniently noticed Muro's body on the debris as he halted in the hallway.

He saw Tem fall through the ceiling hole and land in the same corridor. Yumiko, who was watching from a room above, was surprised to see no injuries to Tem's stomach.

"Tim!" Tem quickly turned around when she heard her true name called out. Ralphie, who had stopped behind her, was left speechless.

She kept silent until she spotted Muro getting back to his feet and grumbling loudly while pretending amusement to appear casual. He appeared to be frustrated as he grabbed his own body, still bruised from the accident.

"Do you find this amusing, by any chance? Ruining my scientific equipment and now destroying my castle. Missy, you're really tinkering with your life here. Nobody ever—and I mean NEVER—destroys my possessions!"

Tem immediately felt a tremendous amount of pressure coming from Muro as the black and green energy had totally swallowed Muro's body.

"I will break you!!!"

As soon as Muro moved closer, he quickly retracted his arm behind his back. The environs of the castle began to feel something enormous and insane.

"I'll demonstrate exactly what "Black Shock" is all about. I will destroy each and every one of you!"

Muro lost all composure at that point, and the floor of the corridor began to vibrate strongly and continuously. Yumiko was still trapped on the floor above as the area's surrounding walls continued to fall under the enormous strain.

Garuda was unable to release the pressure it needed to, but Muro could, the black electricity merely kept intensifying. The result was a tornado that started tossing the bolts all over the place and even started blasting them like they were coming from an assault rifle.

They were cutting, and some of them even began to pierce Ralphie and Tem's bodies, inflicting wounds that they couldn't stop.

They tried to cover their faces with their arms while trying to see what was going on until they soon saw Muro's eyes were glowing green.

Muro let out a loud laugh and started to immediately form a black and green ball in front of his palm that kept expanding behind him. His jaw virtually bulged out with his sharp teeth.

The sphere in his hand suddenly began to swallow up a huge heap of rocks and dismantled bits of walls like a gigantic black hole.

It was so powerful that neither Tem nor Ralphie could stand up to it. They were being drawn toward Muro. They struggled against it, but it was ineffective, and the strands of their clothing began to slowly rip away.

"What the hell is happening? I can't hold on!"

Ralphie yelled till he realized the sphere had gotten bigger than it had been. In an instant, Muro moved forward and peeled open his eyes. His loud laugh echoed around the room like an endless repetition, and his veins were virtually bursting from his face.

Finally, his left arm, which had been extended far behind him, began to bend, and he cried loudly.

"Nobody ruins my property, not even test subjects! Only I am capable of doing it, and I will relish every moment of seeing you die one by one, domino-style!"

He yelled loudly into the hallway and then stretched his left arm forward, releasing a huge cylinder of dark energy that only grew bigger and bigger. It started to engulf the castle's interior materials and outside walls.

Everyone in the castle felt the pressure as the ground began to crumble from every conceivable angle. Tem and Ralphie's eyes shook as they witnessed the enormous cylinder continue to slam into the castle and eventually begin to devour everyone inside of it, including Yumiko who was still imprisoned on the hook.

The cylinder began to grow larger than the entire interior and even began to pierce areas that could not ordinarily be reached from the eastern side.

Even Codey and Bow, who had been engaged in a severe battle, spotted it. They could see how it was catching up to them and getting ready to swallow them, but they were powerless to stop it. They were both startled and worried. They perspired without realizing what was going on.

In the castle and even outside the town, where many people began to cry and flee for their lives, that solitary expansion of energy continued to pulse forth a flurry of vibrations.

Nobody wanted to remain in the path of the powerful force, and all they could see was the entire castle, which had spanned the majority of the island's surface, beginning to collapse piece by piece.

It wasn't simply an energy; it was a massive black hole the size of the castle that began to protrude over the top and grew until it contained enough stuff.

It appeared as though the largest star in the universe was encroaching on the island and would eventually destroy everything and everyone there. The enormous ball fully destroyed the castle before exploding in a spectacular explosion of enormous electrical currents that began to flash erratically like lightning during a storm.

Everyone within the castle was trapped in the explosion, which sent them flying through the air towards the town as shards of the castle walls began to fall on the people.

Many of them were trampled under their feet, and others were powerless to intervene. Even children with a possible future were slaughtered.

Muro was the only person left in the castle in the end, and all he could do was laugh aloud as he observed the hundreds of dead, some of whom had been murdered while utterly defenseless.

There was not a single room of the castle left. It was all in ruins, which was unfathomable for a colossal structure like the castle of Castlemania.

A never-ending cycle of destruction.

To be continued...