To confirm his suspicions, Asher turned to Max. "Grandpa, do you know anything about this guy? What he does?"
"This?" Max shook his head slowly, spreading his hands apologetically. "I don't have that kind of detailed intel. I only researched the local area enough to plan our travel route and find good spots to visit."
"This is truly a dream come true!"
The middle-aged woman on stage beamed at the crowd, her voice warm with pride as she continued her speech about the urban renewal project. She raised her hand to gesture at the revitalized street behind her when something buzzed past her face.
A wasp.
Her smile faltered as the insect hovered directly in front of her nose. She waved it away nervously, but the wasp didn't budge. It circled her head twice, completely fearless.
"Well, someone's about to have a really bad day," Asher muttered, watching with growing unease.
And just as he predicted,
Bzzzzzzzz!
The sound started soft but grew louder with each passing second. More wasps appeared from seemingly nowhere, streaming through the air like bullets. They passed over the heads of the startled crowd and converged on the stage, surrounding the woman in a living cloud of black-and-yellow bodies!
"Ah! Wasps!"
"Get away from me!"
Screams erupted from the crowd. People scrambled backward, shoving each other in their panic. Parents grabbed their children. The elderly stumbled as younger folks pushed past them to escape. The middle-aged woman stood frozen on stage, her arms raised uselessly as hundreds of wasps circled her like a tornado.
"Those wasps must be controlled by someone," Gwen said immediately, her analytical mind already working through the problem. "They wouldn't attack humans like this naturally. Especially not in such an organized pattern."
"No need to speculate, Gwen." Asher raised one hand and pointed toward the stage. "The culprit's right there."
A figure descended from above.
He wore a tattered brown coat with a hood pulled low over his face. His skin had an unhealthy greenish-blue tint, and his beard grew wild and unkempt, so long it could rival a wizard from a fantasy novel. His clothes were torn in multiple places, revealing more of that strange discolored skin underneath. He looked like he'd been living rough for months.
But the most disturbing detail? He was floating.
His feet rested on what appeared to be a churning mass of wasps, thousands of them clustered together into a makeshift platform that held him aloft. As he moved through the air, the insects constantly shifted and rearranged themselves beneath him, their wings creating that omnipresent buzzing sound.
"Ugh, I hate this guy already," Gwen said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"I'm getting serious Dr. Animo vibes from him," Asher said with a sigh. "Wonder if they're long-lost brothers or something? If those two ever met, they'd probably become best friends immediately."
The insect controller, Asher mentally dubbed him "bug man", turned his head sharply. His eyes locked onto Asher, then swept over to Max, Ben, and Gwen. For a moment, confusion flickered across his grimy face.
What the hell?
Why weren't these people running? Why was that old man just standing there calmly? Why were those three kids looking at him like he was some kind of... joke?
"I'll deal with you later," the bug man snarled, forcing his attention back to the middle-aged woman. His voice carried a manic edge as he spread his arms wide. "I'll make your dream come true, and turn it into a nightmare!"
"Wait, please!" The woman backed up until she hit the podium. Wasps crawled across the stage around her feet. "I-I don't understand!"
"You don't need to understand!" The bug man's eyes gleamed with madness. "You want to know what I did before coming here? I killed the construction workers who tried to demolish my home! Every single one of them! And you're going to die just like they did!"
He thrust both hands forward.
The wasps surged toward the woman like a living wave!
"Ugh, hero time." Ben started forward, but immediately sneezed hard enough to bend double. "Achoo!"
"Xiaoban, you need to rest!" Max grabbed his grandson's shoulder firmly, pressing a bag of traditional medicine into his hands. "Your cold hasn't cleared up yet. Asher, Gwen, this one's yours."
"Don't worry, Ben." Asher was already moving, his hand reaching for the Omnitrix. "Gwen and I have this handled. You just focus on getting better."
His fingers found the Omnitrix's faceplate and pressed down hard!
Green light erupted from the device, swirling around Asher's body in familiar patterns. The transformation sequence completed in seconds, but when the glow faded, the figure that stood in Asher's place sparked with purple electricity.
Buzzshock!
The small battery-like alien raised both hands toward the descending swarm. Purple lightning crackled between his fingers for just a moment before exploding outward in a massive electrical discharge!
BOOM!
The current slammed into the wasp cloud like a thunderclap made solid. The bolt twisted and branched as it spread, consuming everything in its path. Wasps by the hundreds dropped from the air, their bodies smoking and lifeless. Within three seconds, the ground was covered in blackened insect corpses.
"What kind of creature is that?!" the bug man shrieked, staring at Buzzshock in shock and confusion. "What species?!"
He'd studied entomology and biology for years, but he'd never seen anything like this purple electrical being in any textbook!
"Listen up, bug freak!" Buzzshock's voice crackled with static. "I don't care what your story is. With me here, you won't hurt anyone!"
"Block him!" the bug man screamed at his remaining insects. "Shield me from that electricity!"
Shhhhhhhhhhh!
Every wasp near the stage immediately changed direction. They abandoned the middle-aged woman and converged in front of their master, forming a dense living barrier several feet thick. The wall of insects pulsed and shifted as thousands of bodies packed together.
BOOM!
Buzzshock's second electrical blast hit the makeshift shield head-on. Purple lightning tore through the wasp barrier like paper. More insects rained down, charred and dead, but the bug man remained untouched behind his regenerating shield.
"Electricity really is the perfect counter for insects," Buzzshock said, examining his crackling fingers with satisfaction. "This is almost too easy."
While he'd been creating the distraction, Gwen had slipped around behind the podium. She activated her lucky girl charm, now functioning as a proper magic artifact thanks to Charmcaster's modifications, and levitated the middle-aged woman off the stage. Within seconds, the official was safely deposited far from the battle zone.
"Damn you!" The bug man's face contorted with rage as he watched his hostage float away. "You interfering brats! You destroyed my home! You killed my friends!"
"We didn't do anything to you!" Gwen shouted back.
But the bug man wasn't listening anymore. His mind had snapped fully into madness.
He dropped from the air, his wasp platform lowering him to street level. The moment his feet touched pavement, wasps began swarming his arms. They clustered together in massive concentrations, forming what looked like enormous gauntlets made entirely of living insects. Each "fist" bristled with countless stingers.
"You want to fight?" the bug man roared. "Then fight THIS!"
He charged forward, his insect-enhanced arms raised to strike.
"Oh, so you want to do tricks now?" Buzzshock floated upward, his small form rising into the air. "Then let me show you a real trick!"
Purple electricity began crackling across his body again, but this time, it didn't stop. The energy built and built, growing more intense with each passing second. Buzzshock spread his arms wide and reached out with his power.
Throughout the city, every electrical cable trembled.
Every power line sparked.
Every transformer hummed.
"Electricity of this city," Buzzshock called out, his voice resonating with supernatural command, "lend me your power!"
Massive bolts of lightning erupted from cables across three city blocks. They tore free from their housings and streaked through the air, all converging on one tiny figure floating above First Street. The energy poured into Buzzshock's body in rivers of crackling purple-white light.
To avoid harming anyone on the ground, Buzzshock had deliberately risen high into the sky. Now he hung suspended there like a miniature star, absorbing the full electrical output of dozens of city blocks.
CRACKLE! BOOM!
The air itself seemed to scream as more and more electricity flooded into the small alien's body. His purple glow became blinding, drowning out even the moonlight. Purple lightning danced across the clouds overhead, splitting them apart with raw power.
At that moment, Buzzshock looked like a god.
A deity of thunder and lightning descended to pass judgment on the mortals below!
The bug man stood frozen on the street, his insect gauntlets forgotten. He stared up at the blazing figure in the sky, and for the first time since gaining his powers, he felt something he'd almost forgotten.
Fear.
Pure, primal fear.
His wasps felt it too. He could sense their terror through their telepathic link. They wanted to flee. They wanted to abandon him and escape this overwhelming presence.
The swarm began to scatter.
"No! No, don't leave me!" the bug man screamed, but it was too late. His connection to the insects was breaking down in the face of such absolute power. "Come back! I command you!"
But wasps that had evolved to fear electrical discharge couldn't overcome their most basic survival instinct.
They fled.
And the bug man was left standing alone in the street, staring up at the electric god that had come to stop him.
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