"Hey, cutie!" Dedchu called out to Frankenstein, who was busy shooting lightning bolts at the steam tin dolls. Under mind control (though she wasn't exactly friendly even in her normal state), the girl froze in a very hostile and wary pose.
"U-u-u-u..."
"Calm down. Calm down! You weren't born for this. Honestly... I don't even know why you were created, but it doesn't matter now! Just. Put. Down. Your. Weapon. And slowly. Come. To me."
Dedchu tried to speak gently, fearing he might get hit by lightning, but Frankenstein clearly wasn't going to listen.
"U-a-a-a!"
With a wild cry, she swung the iron ball filled with electricity. Thunder roared, and branching discharges shot towards Dedchu.
"Where are you aiming? This is just my afterimage!"
Frankenstein unleashed three or four more discharges, but Dedchu dodged each one playfully. When the energy in the ball was depleted, she switched to close combat. However, her weapon was too cumbersome, and her movements were clumsy for a fight with a tiny rodent. After several futile swings, the frustrated Frankenstein, gritting her teeth, raised her mace high above her head.
"Oh, you're going to hit me with something heavy? Well, then...!"
Dedchu jumped directly from the aerial stairs and mounted one of the tin dolls flying by. He hoped that if he could disorient her in the air or buy time, he could remove the mental control – or at least hinder the plans.
"U-u-u-u..."
At that moment, cumulonimbus clouds roared and unleashed a colossal lightning bolt. The discharge struck Frankenstein's "lightning rod" raised to the sky, and the colossal power of natural electricity, through "Galvanism," replenished her depleted strength.
"Aha, so it's all about this club!" Dedchu realized:
"Knock it out of her hands – and she'll be helpless with her lightning."
He tilted, forcing the tin doll to make a sharp turn. The plan was simple: get close and snatch the weapon.
"U-u-a-a-a!"
But her mace was already vibrating with accumulated energy. Going head-on meant exposing himself to a blow of monstrous power.
"Guys, actually... well, let's be honest. My current body... even though I'm called a rodent, I'm Pikachu. And a Pikachu who can't shock. Although... maybe I don't 'can't', but just 'don't want to'? Or maybe I just lacked energy? You... understand what I'm getting at?" He winked at the void.
Muttering this nonsense into space, Dedchu, with a determined look, directed his doll straight at Frankenstein.
"U-a-a-a!"
This time, the lightning that broke free from the girl's weapon had a completely different power. It furiously shot towards Dedchu.
"I'm evolving! And not into Raichu! Raichu is kinda brown, it probably stinks!"
The tin doll shattered into pieces, and Frankenstein's electrical storm completely engulfed Dedchu.
"O-o-o-o! I feel the power! Is this... the power of Rome? No! Something else entirely! Much cooler! O-o-o, it's boiling! This is true PO-O-O-O-O-WER! I! Am Super Deadpool! This is over nine thousand!!"
Taking the blow, Dedchu felt a invigorating tremor spread through his body. The energy didn't kill him; it filled him with life force. Absorbing the entire discharge, he hovered in the air without any support, sparks emanating from every pore.
"U-u-u?!" Frankenstein was taken aback.
Dedchu grinned triumphantly and, wagging his tail, gathered all the sparks into one bundle.
"Sorry to have to stop you like this. But what can you do? Such is my whim!"
A huge sphere of pure electricity swelled at the tip of his tail.
"I'm not Deadpool, not even Super Deadpool. And definitely not Dedchu!"
He rushed upwards and, doing a somersault, shouted:
"I am PIKAPOOL!!"
The giant electric sphere broke free from Pika-pool's tail and slammed into Frankenstein. The blow hit its mark, but "Galvanism" began to convert part of the damage into energy again. Something more powerful was needed to overload this skill.
"U-u-u-u-u!"
Frankenstein raised her mace again, gathering celestial discharges. Pika-pool, in response, tensed his stomach, feeling a strange tickle there, and squeezed out all the accumulated electricity.
"A-a-a-a!"
"Lightning Strike – One Hundred Thousand Volts!"
Two colossal discharges collided, painting the London night sky a blinding white. The collision repeated five, six times. Pika-pool, quite exhausted, raised his head to the clouds.
"Perhaps it's better to recharge directly..."
Dodging Frankenstein's attacks, he soared upwards. Bursting into the thick of the storm clouds, Pika-pool felt the steam particles rubbing against each other, and the roar of thunder almost burst his eardrums.
"Phew. Phew. Calm down. Now I'm Pika-pool, who has surpassed Super Deadpool. I am electricity itself. I won't turn into fried peas from a single lightning strike, will I?"
Casting aside unnecessary fears, Pika-pool released the remaining charge, acting as a lure for the heavenly wrath.
"Oh, yes! Kids, if you want to see lightning, never climb onto roofs during a thunderstorm and don't go near where lightning strikes. Don't even hope that a lightning strike will rejuvenate your cells or make you geniuses by stimulating your brain. In ten out of ten cases, you'll just become a well-done piece of meat."
As if in response to his words, the lightning, tamed by his current, struck him fiercely. "Come on, hit accurately!" he thought, secretly shuddering at the thought that the discharge would pierce him all the way to his prostate.
CRACK! The cumulus cloud exploded with blinding light.
"O-o-o-a-a! What is this?! What bliss! U-wa-a-a! I feel like I'm high!"
Overwhelmed by the colossal energy of nature, Pika-pool, scattering sparks in all directions, plummeted down like a stone towards Frankenstein.
"Ash's Pikachu can't do this! Take th-is!"
He flew like a comet, intending to knock out the weapon and simultaneously cause an energy surge that would burn out the mental suggestion.
"U-u-u-uh!!"
Noticing the glowing rodent, Frankenstein poured all her remaining strength into her mace. The last blow. Everything would be decided now.
"Quick Attack!"
She unleashed her final discharge towards Pika-pool, but he, propelled by gravity, was unstoppable. The distance closed in an instant. Getting up close, Pika-pool, with a sharp movement, threw away her mace, crouched, and squeezing out every last volt, enveloped Frankenstein and unleashed a monstrous discharge.
"Ten Million Volts!"
An explosion of such force occurred as if a nuclear charge had detonated in the sky. The shockwave was so powerful that it seemed it would engulf not only Big Ben but also a good part of London. The slightest mistake – and contact with the demonic fog could cause a chain reaction.
"Energy surge detected... Operation 'Babylon'... Wrath of Heaven... contain... Deploy sealing circle..."
The tin dolls, hovering in the air, having barely survived Frankenstein's attack, immediately surrounded the explosion site in a dense ring and extended their arms forward. With a dull hiss of steam, their limbs parted, releasing a sealing barrier like a net to contain the consequences of the detonation. This was a system developed by Babbage for the worst-case scenario: "Cyber-Explosion Containment Protocol: Babel – Wrath of Heaven."
Pika-pool's destructive power filled the contour created by the dolls to the brim. The strongest electric discharges began to disable the mechanisms, but they did not retreat, steadfastly holding their formation.
"Babbage foresaw that if this child fell into Makiri's hands and unleashed all his energy, containment measures would be needed," Holmes, who was fighting Makiri on equal footing, swung his flaming blade, cutting off the swarm of insects. He glanced at the glowing sphere of cyber-explosion in the sky, resembling a small, furious sun. "And in the end, his plan worked."
"No! This can't be...!" Makiri, watching the events unfold, widened his eyes. The realization of the failure of all his plans made him shudder with furious denial.
"It's over," Holmes stated, approaching him. The enemy's fighting spirit had died down, and the detective, extinguishing the flame of his sword, put the blade back into his cane. "Return Mamu to its previous state and surrender to Scotland Yard. A sincere confession is your only way out."
However, Makiri, devastated by defeat, merely let out a lifeless chuckle. In his eyes, clouded by fear and disbelief in the reality of what was happening, nothing human remained.
"Over? Yes, it's over. But what I couldn't finish... he will finish. The future is immutable. Humanity will burn. For sure!"
Makiri backed away, shuddering with instinctive terror at the very "him" whose arrival he had prophesied. Holmes, though feeling a pang of doubt, slowly moved forward, hoping to stop the madman before he caused more trouble.
"I told you... no matter how you fight, the future cannot be changed. I only wanted to destroy this world mercifully. But now it will burn in torment and despair. Well, excellent work, Sherlock Holmes."
Makiri found himself at the very edge of the Big Ben roof. One more step back – and he would fall onto the stone pavements of London.
"Who is he?!" Holmes shouted. "The one who inspires such fear in you? Your puppeteer?!"
In response, Makiri merely laughed bitterly and hollowly.
"Farewell, world. A fool who vainly dreamed of justice departs, shuddering before the face of a desperate future."
Makiri stepped powerlessly into the void. Holmes rushed to the edge, trying to intercept him, but the mage's body had already disintegrated into a swarm of insects. Only empty clothes fluttered forlornly in the air, and in the detective's hand, the Holy Grail, belonging to Makiri, suddenly appeared.
"So this is the Grail," Holmes watched the tattered clothes carried away by the wind and looked with bitterness at the fading glow of the explosion in the sky. An unpleasant premonition, like someone's icy breath, touched the back of his neck.
"Holmes!"
"Mr. Holmes!"
Ritsuka and Mash reached the top of Big Ben only when everything had quieted down – just as Pika-pool had feared. Seeing the detective with the Grail in his hands, they hurried towards him.
"Look at them!" Pika-pool grumbled, meeting them as he descended from the heavens with an unconscious Frankenstein. "What did I tell you? As soon as we gave it our all, you showed up. Aren't you following the genre conventions a bit too literally?"
"Well... you see... the dolls resisted so fiercely..." Mash began to make excuses, but Pika-pool merely waved her off.
"I don't want to hear excuses!"
"It seems the situation below has also ended," Ritsuka observed.
With Makiri's disappearance, his contracts were annulled, and the mana supply ceased, which instantly affected the remaining servants.
Jack the Ripper, who was fighting Mordred, felt that "mother" was gone. Abandoning her attack, she sat directly on the ground and, weeping, melted into the air. Hyde, who was confronting Hassan of the Cursed Arm, merely gave a bitter smile at his fate and also turned into light.
"Yes, I felt it too," Holmes nodded. "Mordred, though ill-tempered, knows her business."
"I can hear everything!" an indignant voice called from below.
With the help of Mordred and Hassan, the group quickly descended. Looking at the London fog slowly dissipating, they felt with their skin: the order of humanity in this singularity had been restored.
"Is it really over now?" Mash asked.
"Apparently, yes. As soon as Makiri vanished, Mamu disappeared as if she had never existed. It even feels a bit empty," Ritsuka replied.
During the long search, investigations, and battles, Holmes had grown attached to his companions. Realizing that they would soon have to leave this world, he became somber.
"Hey, great detective, why the long face?" Ritsuka winked. "Don't you really want to part with us?"
"No. No, no. Not at all. Absolutely not!" Holmes hastily put on an indifferent expression and sniffled embarrassedly.
They all laughed heartily, but suddenly Pika-pool froze, rubbing his stomach.
"Oh, this tickling feeling again... It's over, so why? It's different this time. As if something much more massive is coming..."
The atmosphere instantly turned cold. It wasn't just a draft – the very space filled with something primordial and crushing. The air became viscous, heavy. An ancient, instinctual terror of something beyond comprehension awoke in people.
"Everyone run...!" Holmes tried to shout, but his voice broke. His body went numb, refusing to obey, although his consciousness remained crystal clear. The same fate befell Mordred, Frankenstein, and Ritsuka's group.
"Just like then, with Makiri...!" flashed through the detective's mind.
Glancing to the side, he felt someone with a colossal, overwhelming aura pass by. A man with skin the color of burnt earth, in a white robe with blood-red patterns and a mane of wild, carelessly sticking-out hair that reached almost to the ground.
"..."
The stranger silently swept his icy gaze over the frozen heroes. Holmes, even in such a state, instantly built a logical chain, realizing who was before him. Makiri's words turned out to be a frightening truth.
"To lose to such insignificant beings... I had hopes for the offspring of such a renowned lineage, but man remains only man," the man finally spoke.
A mad smile spread across his face, and in his golden eyes, like a bottomless abyss, burned an undisguised desire to grind this world to dust.