Recap: Kid Muscle and Roxanne got their happy ending, Terry and Trixie got theirs, and Dik Dik got his, but Kiki was left miserable when Mars ran away, and the McMadds were angered when their press conference was ruined by the absence of both Mars and Kevin Mask.

Chapter 35 – Nice Guys Finish Last

Kevin Mask raised his chin, smiling to himself as the wind caught his hair, whipping it back off his face. After wearing an iron mask for most of his waking hours every day of his life, it was quite liberating to feel the wind on his face, and against his scalp as it billowed through his hair. A part of him was vaguely aware of the fact that he really should not be riding his bike without a helmet; he had never needed one before, thanks to his iron mask. But Kevin was feeling quite reckless, and the thought of doing something bad and potentially life-threatening rather pleased his mood at that precise moment in time.

And so Kevin continued to wear a smile as he cruised along the highway, heading towards the setting sun, feeling almost like a movie star. Alone at last, away from his family, away from the DMP, away from the Muscle League, away from the IWF and even away from Lord Flash, Kevin finally had what he had always wanted.

Kevin's smile began to fade.

He had what he had always wanted. He had proved himself to be the best of the new generation of Chojin wrestlers, he had perfected the one move his father never could, he had proved that he was better than Mars, he had rid himself of anyone even remotely resembling a friend, including the lying Warsman in his guise of Lord Flash, and, to top it all off, Kevin had been awarded sole possession of the Mask Family Estate. Kevin could now live content in the knowledge that everyone knew that he was the best Chojin Warrior ever to live, the undisputed champion of champions. Kevin could now live in the enormous, sprawling estate that had been gifted to him entirely alone, with nobody else around to pester him. Kevin finally had a level of solitude that he could only ever dream about before winning the Chojin Crown.

Kevin had everything he had ever wanted out of life; and yet he felt more miserable than he ever had.

Kevin rounded a corner in the road, groaning as the change in direction meant that the wind blew his hair over one side of his face. As he lifted one hand from the handlebars of his bike to claw back his hair, Kevin became suddenly aware of just how long his hair had become. The more thought Kevin gave to the matter, the more it angered him. As hard as he tried, Kevin could not remember the last time he had had his hair cut.

Kevin smacked his hand back down onto the handlebar, growling to himself as he forced his bike on faster. What did it matter about the length of his hair? He was a Chojin warrior, a Chojin Crown Champion, the reigning Chojin Crown Champion, what did a few split ends matter to him? He was a free man at last. Finally he had overcome the tyranny of his father, and finally he was totally and utterly alone.

Kevin's face dropped as a sudden, clear and unmistakeable image appeared in his mind's eye. Although he was entirely unable to wipe the image from his mind, Kevin failed to see the relevance it bore to how he felt right then. But, as hard as he tried not to think about her, and as hard as he tried to escape the connection, Kevin could not shake the image of Amy MacLeod from his mind, as she leapt into the air, cheering his victory over Mars. After spending the entire match insulting him and distracting him, she had actually looked pleased that he was the victor.

Had she deliberately shouted at him like that because she knew that it would motivate him to win? Or had she just done it because she still hated him, and she merely cheered his victory because she hated Mars even more?

Kevin sighed, finally managing to wipe any thoughts of Amy from his mind. Unfortunately, in doing so, Kevin found himself presented with an image of Lord Flash. And, Kevin thought to himself, what a complete joke that had turned out to be. Lord Flash, the one friend Kevin had ever truly managed to trust in, turned out to be the robot his father had programmed to train him, using the same ridiculously torturous methods Robin Mask himself had used on Kevin as a boy.

Not that Kevin cared so much about losing a friend. That was no big deal at all. Friends came and went, they all meant nothing to Kevin anyway. All that nonsense the Muscle Leaguers were always spouting about the "power of friendship" was nothing, in Kevin's mind at least, more than simply that: nonsense. Kevin had never needed friends before, and he certainly did not need any now.

With that thought in mind, Kevin's nonchalant smirk reappeared, and he turned another corner, once more riding into the wind, raising his chin again to allow the wind to blast all traces of his overly long hair from his face. Kevin began to relax again as all negative thoughts slowly drained from his mind; but again, his joy was short-lived.

Kevin grabbed onto the brakes, his head jerking forwards as his bike began screaming to a halt, leaving a black skid mark on the road behind him as a layer of rubber tore from the tyres and attached itself to the surface of the road.

"What the devil…?" he muttered, looking up with a frown.

Kevin had not been anywhere near the DMP headquarters since the day he had left them with Amy in tow. After leaving her at the nearest hospital, Kevin had caught up with Pumpinator and Dial Bolic, and the rest was history. Although Kevin had heard that Sunshine had blown up the old Devil Chojin hideout, Kevin had never expected the mess it had left to look anything like it did.

Kevin slowly pushed his heel down, lowering the kickstand of his bike as he turned the ignition off. As the purr of the engine faded away beneath him, Kevin slowly stepped off of his bike, his eyes still fixed on the hill stretching up into the sky above him.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" he muttered to himself.

As Kevin began to walk away from his bike, a particularly strong gust of wind whipped at him, pulling his long coat wide open and out from his back. Clenching his fists defiantly, Kevin marched onwards into the wind. Within himself, Kevin was no longer entirely sure of just what he was doing. After seeing Amy's face on the television that morning in his hotel room, an idea had occurred to him, one that had seemed flawless at the time; but the long journey from his hotel to the old DMP hideout had given Kevin enough time to fully contemplate the repercussions of his intended actions, and he was beginning to have second thoughts on the matter.

Kevin thumped one foot down onto the base of the hill, stopping short. He slowly lifted his foot back up, frowning down at it as he turned it over to inspect the sole of his boot. Kevin swiped one finger alone the metal trim of the sole, lifting his finger up to his face. Rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, Kevin began to frown as his suspicions were confirmed; the hill was coated with a thick layer of black ash.

Kevin slowly lowered his foot back into the imprint it had left in the soft carpet of ash, squinting up at the summit. The sun was quite low in the sky, and the darkness of nightfall was making visibility poorer; but the darkness of nightfall also revealed a faint orange glow near a familiar location by the top part of the incline.

"Found you, you little bastard…" Kevin muttered.

Kevin boldly began to climb up the side of the hill, his thoughts mainly concerned with the amount of ash he was encountering as he ascended the slope. Although the volcano had always lain dormant, presumably the explosion Sunshine had caused had been enough to aggravate the delicate balance that had prevented the volcano from erupting before. Whether or not that meant that the volcano had been made active once more and was unstable was undecided, but clearly there had been an eruption in recent times.

As Kevin walked higher and higher, the ground beneath his feet began to feel less and less stable. The ash seemed to be getting softer and was almost slippery. There were far more cracks and crevices and lumps and bumps on the face of the mountain than there had been during Kevin's time as a Devil Chojin for the DMP. He very quickly went from occasionally tripping over a lump beneath the surface or falling into a small hole concealed beneath the ash to stumbling with every step he took. About halfway up the hillside, Kevin began to realise that the path he was taking was no longer safe; but as it was the most direct route to the orange glow above him, be stubbornly continued along it.

Once again, Kevin's mind was suddenly consumed with a face he would rather have forgotten about. It was a face that had caused him many sleepless nights, but it was a face he could never truly banish from his mind. It was a face he had rarely seen in his lifetime; the last time being when the boy had removed his mask to kiss Mars inside the DMP headquarters on the day of Kevin's graduation from The Academy. But that had been over four years ago, and Kevin's younger brother Edward had been but fifteen years old then. At the age of nearly twenty years old, Edward would be a grown man by now, Kevin thought to himself.

But imagining Edward as a grown man was quite a hard thing for Kevin to do. Eight years was quite a large age gap between brothers, and it had been enough of a shock for Kevin when he had first been reunited with Edward in the DMP so see him as a teenager after last seeing him as a child of just eight years old. Edward had always been shorter in height than Kevin, and slighter in build; the fifteen year old Edward was shorter and skinnier than Kevin had been himself at that age. But that was not to say that Edward may have taken a growth spurt, or begun to apply himself to his training more rigorously, building himself up to be comparable in size to his older brother.

Kevin briefly wondered just what had become of Edward since he had left him behind at the DMP hideout. Kevin had spent many years believing his baby brother to be dead, following Mars's story of the demise of the old Devil Chojin headquarters. Mars had, during the Generation Ex Tournament, referred to himself as the sole survivor of the blast, and so Kevin had no cause to believe Edward to be anything other than gone from his life forever more.

It was only when Mars had returned for the Chojin Crown Tournament and told the story of how he had confronted the remaining members of the DMP to denounce his membership that Kevin discovered that Edward Mask was in fact still alive and well; only Edward would have done something as bitchy as cutting off Mars's precious hair as punishment for his decision to leave the DMP, and only Edward, with his strong affections for Mars, would have allowed him to live for what was otherwise a crime normally carrying a death sentence. And worryingly, according to Mars, Edward had recruited a few more radicals to join his little band of friends known as "The Anarchists".

Kevin still resented and detested his brother in many ways and for many reasons, but the memory of his mother, in her dying moments, as she begged him to take good care of Edward, left Kevin feeling duty-bound to retain at least some degree of concern for his brother's well-being at all times.

Nonetheless, Kevin was still concerned by the fact that Edward had been so quiet. Other than his vicious and co-ordinated attack on Mars three years ago when Mars had returned to confront The Anarchists, Edward had done nothing controversial. Edward had never been an honourable, dignified or strong person, but he had always been a bitter and vengeful man, in search of power at all costs. It still amazed Kevin that the remaining six Devil Chojins had never tried an attack on the Muscle League. Surely the Chojin Crown Tournament had been an ideal opportunity to make their presence felt?

But, Kevin reminded himself, the inner workings of Edward Mask's mind had always been a mystery to him, and no doubt would always remain so. Smiling to himself at his brother's own stupidity, Kevin began to walk faster, only slowing again when he began to feel suddenly very hot. Kevin slowed down until he had stopped completely, standing back to study the source of the orange glow he had just followed up the hill.

Kevin had been correct to assume that the glow was coming from the vicinity of the old cave Mars had once used as his home within the DMP headquarters, but the glow was not a man-made fire as Kevin had thought it to be. It was instead a gaping crack in the hillside, leading down to a steaming, glowing pit of lava. Kevin edged curiously closer to the opening, an odd sensation washing over him as he spotted a thick log that spanned the gap, acting as a bridge of sorts.

Kevin glanced from side to side suspiciously, his senses warning him that he may not be alone on the hillside. When Kevin failed to see any other signs of life, he approached the end of the log, frowning down at it. It was the same size and thickness as the spiked log the DMP had used to bridge the lava pit in The Academy training room, only it lacked the vicious spikes. The log looked as though it had been used as a bridge before, as either end of it had sunk into the banks of the ravine, suggesting the log had lain there for quite some time.

Kevin gulped, resisting the urge to tremble. Despite having fought off so many of his other demons, Kevin could never shake his fear of fire and heights, least of all when they were combined in such a manner. Ignoring the thoughts of his mother's untimely death and the sickening predicament he had once found himself in with Mars during his training at the DMP Academy, Kevin took a step onto the log, testing it first with one foot before stepping fully onto it with both feet.

When the log failed to so much as creak or groan, Kevin regained some of his confidence, and began to slowly walk along its length, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. The heat rising from the depths of the crevice was blistering to say the least, but Kevin was determined to continue onwards, and this bridge was the only foreseeable way to cross the gap.

As he reached the middle, Kevin paused to drag the sleeve of one arm across his forehead, wiping away the sweat that was running down the sides of his face and making his hair stick to his skin. As Kevin started to walk again, the log began to groan softly beneath his feet. Kevin lost a little of his confidence, slowing his pace somewhat. The log had not made any noise before, why should it be groaning in complaint now?

A sickening thought slowly spread through Kevin's mind, making the heat below him suddenly feel cold. He tried to hurry, tried to run across the log, taking longer, quicker steps; but he was too late. The log let out a series of almighty snapping sounds and broke in the middle, falling away beneath Kevin's feet. In a desperate attempt to make it across, Kevin threw himself towards the other side of the ravine, swiping at thin air with both hands. The two halves of the log fell down to the lava below, but Kevin managed to grab onto the ledge at the other side with both hands, his body hanging against the hot rocky interior of the mountain.

Kevin sighed in relief, letting out a short, nervous laugh as he acknowledged his thumping heart, which felt as though it had taken up residence in his throat. Kevin gripped into the soft, ash ledge and began to pull himself upwards. He was less than reassured by just how soft the ledge was, but Kevin continued to pull on the ground, stepping one foot up next to his hands.

"No–!" he yelped, as the soft ground suddenly crumbled in his hands and beneath his foot.

Kevin tried to grab at the ledge again as he fell, but failed to grab onto anything solid. Kevin began to cry out in despair, but something caught one of his wrists firmly, halting his fall. Kevin instinctively grabbed onto it, gripping tightly into it. Kevin looked up to see just what it was that had stopped his fatal plummet, freezing in fear as he saw a hand gripped around his wrist. Kevin saw that he had, in turn, gripped his own hand around the wrist above the hand that held him in place.

Kevin gulped as a red point slowly appeared over the top of the ledge, followed by a glimmering golden visor, then a pair of golden eyes, narrowed and crazy-looking, followed by a pair of scars, and finally a set of teeth formed into a maniacal grin, edged by a set of fangs a vampire would be proud of.

"Mars?" Kevin said weakly.

"Well, well, if it ain't Kevin Mask!" Mars sneered.

"Mars, what are you doing here?" Kevin asked.

"I could ask da same question of you, Mask," Mars calmly replied. "And ain't dis an amusin' circumstance we find ourselves in right here?"

"Amusing?" Kevin asked warily.

"Well, I dunno about you, Mask, but up here, I'm gettin' dis strange sensation, kinda like de ja vu, y'know?"

"Yes, well, I do see your point there. Now do you think you could see fit to helping me up please?"

"Y'know Mask, I dunno if dat's really what I wanna do."

Kevin gulped again, looking down at the bubbling, boiling pool of lava far below him, before looking back up at Mars's face. The orange glow of the lava was reflecting off of Mars's already crazed expression, making him seem all the more insane and fearsome.

"Y'know Mask, I took a big gamble helpin' you out on dat spiked log when we was in Da Academy together," Mars continued. "Anyone else wouldn't have taken a chance like dat. I put myself at risk by lettin' go wid one hand to catch you in da first place. I was sweatin' my hands was slippin', and your weight coulda just dragged me down into da lava wid your useless corpse."

"But that's not what happened, Mars," Kevin nervously replied.

"No, but dat's what coulda happened," Mars reminded him. "And den, y'know, I could have made you tell me your secret before I pulled you back up. I could have made you talk, and den let you fall. Cause y'know dat's what any other Devil Chojin woulda done to you."

"You made me suffer by letting me live, Mars, and you knew it!" Kevin argued back. "You knew I tortured myself day and night for revealing the one secret my father entrusted me with!"

"And in savin' your sorry ass, I got nothin' but another scar dat I have to live wid forever more."

"That's not true! You learned the secret of the Number Cruncher, and you used it to advance through the Generation Ex Tournament, which you would have won, had it not been for that girl!"

"Kiki?"

"Yes, Kiki! And I don't think she would be very happy if she knew that you were threatening the life of a fellow Justice Chojin!"

"Au contraire, Mask."

"What do you mean? What are you talking about now?"

"Well Ikeman McMadd said dat dere was only one place left on da IWF roster. You got dat place when you beat me in da final match, but I guess if somethin' happened to you – something real bad – dat place would be available again, and I could just go back an' take it for myself."

Kevin's jaw slowly dropped open, and Mars's vicious grin widened.

"What's da matter, Mask?" Mars hissed. "You don't look too happy wid my plan."

"Mars, you can't kill me!" Kevin insisted. "That's not the sort of behaviour befitting of a Justice Chojin! And besides, could you really, honestly live with your conscience if you let me die?"

"Well, I've sure had a hard job livin' wid my conscience after I let you live..." Mars slowly replied.

"But if you had let me fall that day in The Academy, just think of what would have happened!" Kevin argued.

"Oh, I've been thinkin' about dat a lot!" Mars growled. "First of all, I woulda won da Generation Ex Tournament, and I woulda never had to get my ass handed to me by your dumbass brother and his little friends! I woulda never had to go back to da Hercules Factory! I coulda just won da tournament, got da girl and had myself a happy ending! You ruined my happy ending da last time Mask, I ain't gonna let you do it again!"

"But Mars, consider!" Kevin cried desperately. "Could you really have lived with your conscience had you done just that? Where would be the honour in any of that? Thanks to me, you were able to confront your past, to cleanse your demons, to truly fight for honour and justice!"

"I ain't fallin' for any of your crap, Kevin. I already made up my mind about what I was gonna do before I even caught you. Dere ain't nothin' you can say or do now dat's gonna make me change my mind."

"Mars–"

"Da fact of matter is, when I saved your life da last time around, I was bein' nice. I didn't have to do it, I just did it to be nice, cause we had been friends, and I felt I owed you somethin'. But I don't owe you nothin' no more. I was too nice den, and I've learned now dat what dey say is true: nice guys finish last. I got five finger holdin' your life in place here."

Mars gripped the tips of his fingers into Kevin's wrist to emphasise his point, drawing a gasp of alarm from Kevin, who sensed he knew exactly what Mars was about to say next.

"Which is kinda ironic really, because five seconds is exactly how long you've got left, Kevin Mask," Mars said gruffly. "Five…"

Kevin gulped again, this time unable to stop himself from trembling in fear of the inevitable.

"Four…" Mars said, lifting his thumb from Kevin's wrist to leave just his four fingers holding Kevin up.

The heat of the lava was making Kevin sweat profusely, and his own grip on Mars's wrist was beginning to fail him, his hand slowly sliding down over Mars's hand.

"Three…" Mars said, lifting his little finger.

Kevin's hand, without the support of Mars's hand holding it in place, slid down into Mars's remaining three fingers, where he tried his best to hold on.

"Two…" Mars said, lifting another finger.

Kevin locked eyes with Mars, hoping to appeal to him somehow; but the cold, hardened look in Mars's hawklike golden eyes told Kevin that his plight was hopeless.

"One…" Mars growled, lifting another finger so that Kevin was left dangling from Mars's index finger.

Mars's eyes narrowed to thin slits, his fangs glinting in the flickering light of the lava pool as he said his final word to Kevin.

"Zero."

Mars pulled his finger sharply from Kevin's grasp, and Kevin began to fall to his doom.

Next Chapter: Is this the end for Kevin Mask? And just what is Mars planning to do next? Chapter 36 – Whatever Happened to a Handshake?