Chapter 35: An Old Friend Once Said: Heroic Entrance!
"It's you!" Ben Tennyson blurted out, the first to break the stunned silence.
Beside him, Gwen stared blankly at the newcomer. "Who are you?!"
Vilgax narrowed his crimson eyes, his massive frame shifting as he regarded the two figures who had seemingly materialized out of thin air. His alien senses hadn't picked up anyone hiding in the shadows of the ruined stadium. Yet, as his gaze locked onto the teenage boy standing beside the man in the lab coat, an instinctual alarm blared in the warlord's mind. The kid felt dangerous.
Klein and Paradox dropped down from the stadium roof, landing on the cracked concrete with a practiced, dramatic flair.
"Who are we? That's a fantastic question," Klein drawled, a lazy, mocking smirk playing on his lips as he looked up at the towering alien conqueror. "But it's not really something we can explain in a few seconds."
"And here, a saying from an old friend fits the occasion perfectly," Paradox added, his hands resting casually in his coat pockets as he offered Vilgax a polite, infuriatingly confident smile. "Just as he always said—'Heroic Entrance!'"
Paradox took a leisurely step back, yielding the floor.
Klein rolled his shoulders and stepped forward. "Alright, Vilgax. Get ready to meet... Diamondhead."
He raised his left arm, casually slapping the faceplate of the Another Omnitrix. A blinding, quiet blue light erupted, washing over the stadium debris. In a heartbeat, flesh gave way to nearly indestructible pale-green crystal, sharp spikes erupting from his back and shoulders.
"What?!" Ben's jaw practically unhinged. "An Omnitrix? Impossible! The Omnitrix is right there with Gwen!" He whipped his head back and forth between the towering Petrosapien and the bulky device secured to his cousin's wrist.
Gwen looked just as dumbfounded, staring down at her own wrist as if suddenly suspecting she was wearing a cheap plastic knockoff.
"An Omnitrix?" Vilgax rumbled, his surprise momentarily overriding his rage. This was more shocking than anything he had encountered in his entire galactic conquest. "There are two! No matter. Since there are two, I will simply pry both from your lifeless corpses!"
Diamondhead tilted his crystalline head, a deep, resonant chuckle vibrating from his chest. "You know, I think I've heard that exact line before. Oh, right. The Vilgax from my neighborhood said the exact same thing."
"'My neighborhood'?" Gwen echoed, her sharp mind instantly catching the implication.
"He means that we are not from this particular parallel universe," Paradox explained with a cheerful, professorial smile. "We hail from another."
"I do not care what universe you crawled out of!" Vilgax roared. "Hand over the Omnitrix!"
The warlord lunged, the ground cratering beneath his boots as he threw a massive, piston-like punch aimed straight at Diamondhead's chest.
Diamondhead simply tilted his head. The massive fist whistled past his ear, displacing the air with a sharp crack. Without missing a beat, Diamondhead flicked his wrist, firing a rapid volley of razor-sharp diamond shards at point-blank range directly into Vilgax's face.
"Grah!" Vilgax roared in pain, his eyes squeezing shut as the jagged crystals bit into his tough flesh.
His momentum faltered for a fraction of a second. It was all Diamondhead needed. He drove a brutal, crystal-hardened right hook deep into Vilgax's exposed abdomen.
The sheer kinetic force of the blow forced the air from Vilgax's lungs. The warlord instinctively doubled over, curling up like a cooked lobster.
Gasping, Vilgax forced his eyes open, glaring up with pure, unadulterated ferocity. He readied his massive arms to retaliate, but Diamondhead was already pivoting. A flawless spinning back kick connected squarely with Vilgax's jaw.
Boom!
The impact launched the multi-ton warlord through the air like a discarded ragdoll. He smashed violently into the far side of the stadium, bringing a cascade of concrete and twisted rebar down upon himself.
Gwen threw her hands up, her face lighting up. "We won!"
Ben, however, remained frozen. He knew exactly how terrifyingly durable Vilgax was. "How did he just do that?!"
Paradox chuckled softly. "I'm afraid you can't quite replicate that, Ben. The alien heroes he transforms into possess the absolute peak panel attributes of their respective species. And that includes comparing him to other Omnitrix wielders. Besides..." Paradox's smile thinned slightly. "Vilgax is never quite that easy to defeat."
Boom!
The pile of rubble exploded outward. The dust cleared to reveal Vilgax stomping out of the crater, covered in gray soot but burning with murderous rage.
"Brat! You have truly angered me!"
Vilgax charged like a runaway freight train. Diamondhead didn't flinch. He slammed both hands into the cracked earth. A massive, thick wall of solid diamond erupted from the ground, directly in Vilgax's path.
Bang!
Vilgax didn't even slow down, shattering the crystalline barrier with a single, devastating shoulder tackle.
But the wall was merely a distraction.
As the diamond shards rained down, Diamondhead vaulted through the glittering debris. His right arm shifted, morphing smoothly into a massive, razor-sharp blade. He slashed downward in a vicious arc, aiming straight for Vilgax's head.
Vilgax jerked his head back at the very last microsecond. The blade missed his skull but cleanly sheared through several of the thick tentacles hanging from his face. Bluish-purple blood sprayed through the air, hissing as it hit the pavement.
The agonizing pain only fueled Vilgax's frenzy. Muscles bulging to grotesque proportions, he swung a massive backhand toward Diamondhead.
Diamondhead crossed his arms to block, but the sheer, overwhelming physical force of the blow shattered his crystalline forearms into dust. The impact sent him skidding backward for dozens of meters, his boots carving two deep, jagged trenches into the stadium floor before he finally ground to a halt.
Vilgax bent his knees and launched himself into the air, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
Diamondhead merely shook his wrists. Fresh, pristine diamond instantly regenerated, forming new hands. He plunged them back into the earth.
The ground rumbled violently. Four colossal pillars of diamond shot up from the subterranean depths. Two angled inward, creating an impenetrable barricade that caught Vilgax mid-flight, halting his momentum. The other two slammed shut from the sides the exact moment he was trapped.
Boom!
Vilgax was crushed between the massive crystalline structures like meat in a sandwich.
Silence hung over the stadium for a brief moment. Then, the massive diamond pillars began to vibrate.
Bang!
The pillars exploded into a million glittering fragments. Vilgax forced his way out, planting his right foot firmly to stabilize his battered body.
He never got the chance to stand upright.
Diamondhead had already leaped high into the air above him. Clasping his hands together into a massive, solid hammer, he brought them crashing down onto the crown of Vilgax's head with the force of a meteor.
Boom!
Vilgax slammed face-first into the concrete, cratering the floor. Diamondhead dropped down, straddling the warlord's broad back, and began mercilessly raining heavy, crystalline punches onto the back of his skull.
But Vilgax was still Vilgax. Realizing he was outmatched in a straight brawl, he resorted to the exact same desperate, injury-for-life tactic the Vilgax from Klein's universe had used. Abandoning all defense, he violently surged upward, taking a brutal blow to the shoulder just to buck Diamondhead off his back.
Scrambling to his feet, Vilgax realized this blue-glowing Petrosapien was too dangerous to fight directly. His crimson eyes darted across the battlefield and locked onto a softer target.
Gwen.
He lunged toward the girl, his massive legs eating up the distance.
Before he could take three steps, a towering wall of diamond erupted from the ground, blocking his path.
Without a second thought, Vilgax tensed his corded muscles and smashed through the barrier, only to find another identical wall waiting immediately behind it. "There's more?!"
He hesitated for a fraction of a second.
It was a fatal mistake.
Diamondhead hadn't bothered building more walls. He had used the brief delay to close the gap. Launching himself off the rubble, Diamondhead grabbed the disoriented Vilgax's head with his left hand, locking him in place. His right arm instantly morphed into a gleaming, razor-sharp broadsword.
With a single, brutal swing, he cleaved through the air.
The severed head-tentacles and the warlord's head hit the ground with a heavy, wet thud. Vilgax's massive, headless body swayed for a moment before collapsing into the dust.
Dead.
Diamondhead stood over the corpse, the glowing blue Omnitrix symbol on his chest humming softly. He could have ended it earlier, he realized. If he had swapped from blunt-force punches to a blade right from the start, it would have been over in seconds. He had wanted to test the waters, drag the fight out a little to gauge this universe's conqueror. But the moment Vilgax had turned his murderous intent toward Gwen—even a parallel version of his Dork cousin—Diamondhead had instantly abandoned the game and gone for the kill.
He looked down at his crystalline hands, flexing his fingers. 'Did I get stronger? Or does this Vilgax just feel significantly weaker than the one back home?'
A quiet blue flash illuminated the ruins, and the towering alien vanished, leaving Klein standing casually in his place.
Paradox, Ben, and Gwen slowly approached the scene.
"Vilgax... is he really dead? Just like that?" Ben stared at the decapitated warlord, his voice barely a whisper. He had been beaten half to death by this monster, and this newcomer had just dismantled him like it was nothing.
Klein ignored the corpse, turning his attention to the time-walker. "Alright, Paradox. Next up, we're going to deal with that guy you mentioned, right?"
"Of course," Paradox replied, his eyes crinkling with amusement. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to spend a little more time catching up with your cousin and Gwen."
"Cousin and Gwen?!" Ben and Gwen blurted out in unison, their eyes widening in shock.
"I don't remember us having any other cousin," Ben said, scratching his head in utter bewilderment. Gwen nodded vigorously in agreement, eyeing Klein with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.
Klein shoved his hands into his pockets, his expression perfectly deadpan. "I was adopted by Grandpa Max."
For some inexplicable reason, a visible wave of relief washed over Gwen's face. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"Because he has no parallel world counterpart, he is entirely unique," Paradox elaborated, stepping away to gesture at the empty air. "He only exists within his own specific timeline."
With a wave of his hand, a swirling, luminescent portal tore open the fabric of reality. "Alright, let us be off."
"Bye, Ben. Bye, Gwen," Klein said casually, offering a lazy two-finger salute.
Paradox stepped into the swirling vortex, and Klein followed close behind, leaving the two stunned cousins alone in the ruins of the stadium.
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