He charged as much black lightning into his fist as possible, then activated his mutoxin tubes.
He charged even more lightning and activated the tubes again.
And again.
And again.
He repeated the process so many times that his arm was larger than his entire body. Jake just stood there, still vibrating.
His jaw then dropped, blue steam flying out. He crouched and pulled his fist as far back as he could. Broker's smile returned once again.
"That's it! Give me your all! Let me show that red bastard that I'm beyond you! And him!"
Jake growled.
The blue pillar shrunk and soon seeped into his body. The energy then left his horns, eyes, and markings and concentrated into his charging fist.
Broker kept on pumping mutoxin into his arm, even after his arm ruptured and the fluid began leaking out.
He didn't care.
All that mattered to him was taking this guy down.
The same thought ran through Jake's head as he prepared his strategy to do it.
Max watched in immense curiosity. Jake had grown as strong as he was when he fought Baron. If he beat the Broker now, he was another step closer to being ready. If he grew to the level of his darker form while being in his base form, then Max's plan could finally commence.
And if Broker won, well, he'd just kill him and absorb his power. However, he preferred the other option.
It all depended on who won this clash.
"Do it, Jake!" Max shouted, surprising himself and ignoring Jake's codename.
As soon as he did, their fists collided.
A massive explosion followed, destroying multiple nearby warehouses and sending Ivy flying. It even disturbed the nearby helicopter, causing it to nearly crash.
"This is Amy Armstrong at... ugh... Empire News! It seems the Blue Shadow has just clashed with the Broker, creating a massive explosion! I'm hearing we might need to leave the area due to the shockwaves, but we will be back shortly!" the news reporter said as the news chopper sped away.
As they escaped the shockwave, it kept traveling, eventually reaching Zack and Co.
"What the hell?" Zack said, holding Brute down as he heard the mighty sound of Jake's fist colliding with the Broker.
"Focus. You still got me to take care of," Brute said, overpowering Zack's grip and pinning him to the ground.
Stacya helped Paulina up not far from Zack. She managed to reattach her legs. She took a step forward to help him, but Stacya held her back.
"Remember what I said." Paulina nodded and called back her orbs. Suddenly, they felt the shockwave.
It nearly knocked them both off their feet. Paulina used special hooks on her feet to keep herself in place, while Stacya stayed still through sheer force of will. The shockwave was strong, but not strong enough to affect Zack and Brute, who were still grappling with each other.
"What was that?" Stacya asked.
"I don't know, but it's coming from Jake's location," Paulina said, pointing there.
"Then we gotta help him out," Stacya said.
"What about Zack?"
Stacya laughed.
"You're really protective, aren't you? He can handle himself. Jake is facing the Broker here."
"He's got Max and Ivy to help."
"Ivy isn't strong enough to do much. Her main strengths are from the Baron's hammer and her stone beams. She's the purest definition of a glass cannon. And I have a sneaking suspicion Max isn't there to help him."
Paulina couldn't argue with that. When it came to battle, Stacya was a genius, even exceeding her cybernetic capabilities. For now, she'd have to agree.
"Fine. Let's go," Paulina said reluctantly, still staring at Zack.
Meanwhile, the two juggernauts still clashed.
And they were evenly matched.
Broker was furious.
He thought he had adapted to that blue energy by now.
Was he that powerful?
Broker stopped pumping mutoxin into his arm because he knew at this rate it would explode, and he focused on another strategy. He charged another batch of mutoxin into his free arm and prepared to catch Jake off guard.
Suddenly, he noticed something was wrong.
He felt a sudden and sharp pain in the arm he used to clash with Jake. When he looked, he was horrified at the sight.
The blue energy was creeping into his arm.
He pulled away in shock and jumped out of Jake's reach.
Jake watched him and smiled as the energy drained out of his body. He fell to his knees soon after.
Broker backed away in fear. His arm radiated a bright blue with Jake's energy. He tried to pump more mutoxin into it to negate the effects and allow his body to adapt.
No use.
It was spreading.
Broker chopped off his arm and threw it aside, but it was too late. The energy spread into his system and was rapidly consuming him.
"What did you do?"
Jake laughed weakly.
"What the fuck did you do?!"
"I knew I couldn't beat you in a full-power clash. The best I could do was go even until I got overpowered. Then I got an idea. If my blue energy made me stronger, what would happen if I pumped it into someone else?"
Broker collapsed to the ground and started spasming. His arms and legs began to inflate as the blue energy leaked out, along with an alarming amount of mutoxin.
"When I tried it on Max, he was a giant monster. His body blew to bits, but he turned back to normal and got new powers. Then again, he also had shadow energy inside him, just like me."
Broker's remaining arm exploded.
"You don't."
His legs followed.
"So what happens then, eh?"
Then his torso.
"Yo... you bastard..."
Jake merely smirked at him once the rest of his body exploded, leaving him a bloody mess of bones and gore, radiating blue energy.
Max descended next to Jake and helped him to his feet. His body wasn't glowing with blue energy at all. The parts that usually did weren't even blue, just a dull gray.
"Yeah. It was one hell of a gamble, but it paid off. I might start fighting like that now."
"Good to hear. Hell, I might start implementing that into my fighting style too. And here I thought you had a lot to learn from me. Seems it was the other way around."
Jake chuckled, prompting Max to do the same. It had been so long since they had talked. Like actually talked, as comrades.
Maybe even as friends.
Ivy swung her hammer at Max with her remaining hand, sending him flying into a pile of rubble.
"Ivy?!"
She quickly dropped the hammer and ran over to Jake, hugging him as tightly as she could.
"Ivy? What was that for? Max..."
"Didn't help me!"
"What?!"
"The Broker... he was about to kill me. C... crush my neck. This monster... he saw. He smiled. He saw me dying and didn't care! I was blind. My eyes red with my own blood. I couldn't do shit and he... his teammate... Oh God... That's not all. He stood there! Watched as Broker obliterated Luthor, and he just stood there and smiled. He didn't care. He never cared! About you, about any of us! We're nothing to him!"
Jake turned towards Max as he got up from Ivy's attack, rubbing his jaw. He didn't expect her to hit him so hard.
"Is this true?" Jake said, approaching Max, with Ivy not far behind.
"Well... I..."
"Answer me!"
"Yeah. It's true. Does it even matter? We're done here. The Broker's beaten, his legions are beaten. Luthor was avenged. Let's get the others and head out before..."
Jake punched Max square on the jaw, causing him to stumble and fall. Despite not having access to his blue energy, Jake was still a powerhouse.
He pounced on him and sat on his chest. Max watched him coldly as he punched him again.
And again...
And again...
And again...
Jake kept on punching and punching, his fists barely damaging Max at all. Max just looked into his eyes, nothing written in his expression. Jake was even more furious at that.
"So what are you trying to accomplish with this?" Max said with a hint of amusement.
"I... I don't know! Shut up and let me hit you! You wanted Ivy to die! My Ivy! You sick fuck! You could've saved her! You could've taken the Broker down! Why didn't you..."
"If I did, how would you learn? How would you grow?"
"Shut up!"
Jake raised his fist for another punch but was held back by a gray hand.
Stacya's hand.
Jake turned to see Stacya standing behind him, with Paulina helping to keep Ivy from falling, much to her annoyance.
"You guys are done?" Jake asked, turning back to Max.
"This isn't you, Jake!" Stacya shouted, keeping Jake's hand away from Max.
"Shut it. You don't know me!" Jake said, raising his free hand to strike Max again.
"So persistent," Max mused.
Jake prepared to bring it down on him but was stopped by Stacya again.
"Maybe I don't, but the Jake I know wouldn't attack an ally."
"He was going to let Ivy die. For what? Just to see me get stronger? He wanted to use my trauma for an advantage. He wanted to use Ivy for an advantage for God's sake! He's no ally," Jake retorted. Stacya still held his hand.
"He still is, Jake. Milton sold Ivy out to the Lost Light. That doesn't mean he isn't our ally, as fucked up as it sounds."
Jake's fist stayed in the air.
"Where's Zack?" Jake muttered.
"Still taking care of Brute. He's one tough cookie. I offered to help but he said..."
"Classic Zack. I know he can do it. Kill the guy. Jump into his mouth and grow within. He's too soft. Too inefficient."
"Don't say that. It doesn't sound like you," Paulina chimed in, stepping forward.
"Don't talk to him like that," Ivy retorted and pushed Paulina away.
"Watch it, Ivy. Let's not make this worse."
"Make me."
Paulina stepped back and prepared to morph her arm into a gun for self-defense. Jake picked up on it soon after.
"I see what you're doing, Paulina. You better pull that arm back."
"Let me take a page from your girl's book, Jake. Make me."
Everyone watched in silence.
The faint sounds of Zack's battle with Brute were at the back of their minds.
That was until...
It happened.
The ground beneath their feet suddenly shook with intense ferocity.
"Earthquake? Now? Here?" Paulina shouted and got into her battle formation.
"That doesn't add up. There haven't been earthquakes in Empire City for years."
"Trust me, it's way more than an earthquake," a deep voice said to them.
It was the Broker.
From his remains, they saw a small radio beeping certain commands to a certain individual.
"What are you doing, you..." Jake said as the man behind the radio snickered.
"Remember when I said I'd burn the city down if you didn't show? Well, here's the kicker. I was gonna do it anyway after I killed you all. Make another Zee City to rule."
"Zee City? Wait... that incident that destroyed the place, that was him?" Jake asked Paulina and Max, but to no avail.
The radio went silent for a moment, followed by copious amounts of static. The group watched on in silent horror at the implications of his statement.
"Remember the wasteland? What you formerly called Zee City. It's a safe haven now. A paradise. Ripe for my taking. Luckily, if I do want to take it, I need to clear house. Thanks to years of painstaking research and searching, I managed to track who did it and made a deal with him to help me."
"You may be wondering who this guy is?"
The tremors appeared again, even more blatantly apparent than the first.
"What the hell is doing that?" Ivy shouted as she was holding her own against the quakes.
Then it appeared.
"Behold! The destroyer of cities, Canman's greatest foe, ruler of dimensions. The ultimate Atlantean, Lord Galan!" the Broker screamed just before it went dead.
The five users looked at each other with cold faces. The ginormous shadow of Galan loomed over them as it tried to make its way for the mainland.
"Battle stances, people! We can't let that thing cross the border," Paulina said, getting everyone into an attack formation she improvised.
The creature began its march into the city, only one thing in its savage mind...
Destroy the ants...
Destroy them all...
To be continued...