Chapter 65: Vilgax, the Messenger of Justice
"Alright, everyone. It is time for us to depart," Paradox announced, his voice echoing slightly in the hollow, abandoned building. He swept his calm gaze over the assembled group of alternate universe heroes. "We need to save Ben, the one who is destined to save this universe. Remember our primary directive: we cannot kill him. We must simply relieve him of his watch."
Paradox paused, his usual unflappable demeanor slipping just a fraction. "There is one more thing. There is a very troublesome individual residing inside this Ben's watch..."
...
"Ben? Are you out here?"
Gwen of Dimension 54 pushed her way through the dense, thorny underbrush of the forest. The canopy above blocked out most of the moonlight, casting long, twisted shadows across the dirt.
A sudden flicker of orange light caught her attention through the trees.
"Ben? Is that you?" she called out, her voice laced with a mixture of hope and trepidation. She quickened her pace, jogging toward the glow.
As she broke through the treeline, the heat hit her first, a blistering wave of dry air. Standing in the clearing was not her cousin, but a towering, nightmarish monstrosity. Its body was composed of cracked, molten rock, and its face was twisted into a fiery, corrupted snarl.
Gwen stumbled backward, her breath catching in her throat.
The corrupted Heatblast slowly turned its head. Empty, blazing eyes locked onto her. It raised a molten hand, the air shimmering around its glowing palm.
"Ah!"
Gwen spun on her heel and sprinted back into the woods. But the roaring flames surged forward, devouring the dry brush and spreading far faster than her legs could carry her. The heat licked at her heels. She squeezed her eyes shut, throwing her arms up as the inferno closed in, bracing for the inevitable end.
A sudden rush of wind whipped her hair, and the blistering heat vanished.
"Hey. You alright?"
Hearing the casual voice, Gwen peeled her eyes open. She wasn't ash. Instead, she was being carried by a sleek, feline alien in a blue and black suit. He didn't look anything like the fiery monster.
A few yards away, a portal snapped open. The main timeline Gwen and her alternate counterpart stepped through. Both of them immediately zeroed in on Fasttrack, who was currently Klein in disguise, holding Dimension 54 Gwen in his arms.
Both Gwens crossed their arms, their eyes narrowing into identical, displeased glares.
Klein caught the look. 'What is this even called?'he thought, thoroughly amused.'Being jealous of yourself?'
With a dry sigh, Fasttrack set Dimension 54 Gwen down on her feet. He turned his attention back to the roaring inferno and the corrupted Heatblast emerging from the flames.
"Take him down!" Klein ordered.
"Four Arms!"
"Humungousaur!"
Two massive figures erupted from the shadows of the treeline. Four Arms hit the dirt first, his four heavily muscled arms pulling back before slamming into the ground with devastating force. A localized earthquake ripped through the clearing, sending a shockwave of jagged rock straight into the corrupted Heatblast, launching the fiery monster into the air.
From above, AmpFibian drifted down from the clouds, his tentacles crackling with raw, blue electricity. He unleashed a blinding torrent of lightning straight at the airborne target.
Mid-flight, the corrupted Heatblast's fiery exterior crystallized, shifting rapidly into a corrupted Diamondhead. A thick, jagged wall of purple-tinged taydenite erupted around him, absorbing the lightning strike with a harsh hiss of ozone.
Four Arms and Humungousaur did not miss a beat. They charged shoulder-to-shoulder like a pair of runaway freight trains, smashing through the diamond barricade in an explosion of crystalline shrapnel. They reached out to grab the corrupted alien.
But the corrupted Diamondhead's form blurred, morphing instantly into a corrupted Fasttrack. He zipped out of their grasp, leaving the two heavy hitters to crash into empty dirt.
Humungousaur slammed a massive hand against the Ultimatrix dial on his chest. Four glowing spikes erupted from his back as his skin hardened into green, armored plating. "Ultimate Humungousaur!"
He raised both arms, his hands transforming into organic missile launchers. A barrage of kinetic bone-missiles tore through the air, homing in on the corrupted Fasttrack. Yet, the corrupted speedster moved like a phantom, zig-zagging through the explosions and dodging every single projectile.
Main timeline Gwen's eyes glowed a vibrant magenta as she shed her human disguise, shifting into her pure energy Anodite form. Beside her, the alternate Gwen slammed her own watch, transforming into Diamondhead.
Anodite Gwen unleashed a relentless volley of mana blasts, tracking the speedster's path, while Diamondhead Gwen slammed her hands into the earth, erecting towering walls of crystal to box him in. Despite the coordinated trap, the corrupted Fasttrack ricocheted off the crystal surfaces, slipping through the smallest gaps in the mana barrage.
Suddenly, XLR8 dashed into the fray. Moving so fast his arms blurred into enormous, localized cyclones of kinetic force, he threw a devastating flurry of high-speed punches at the corrupted speedster. But the enemy matched his pace, slipping under the strikes by a hair's breadth.
Finding an opening, the corrupted Fasttrack shifted back into Heatblast, unleashing a thick, roaring pillar of fire that forced XLR8 to skid backward. Surrounded by a circle of hostile alien heroes, the corrupted entity realized it was outmatched in close quarters.
Its form expanded, stretching upward as it transformed into a corrupted Way Big. The colossal giant towered over the forest, casting a massive shadow over the battlefield.
Down below, Klein, still in his Fasttrack form, casually tapped the Another Omnitrix dial on his chest. A blinding flash of ghostly blue light illuminated the forest.
"Way Big!"
The ground quaked as Klein's colossal form materialized, matching the corrupted giant in scale. The two titans collided, the sheer force of their impact flattening the surrounding trees into splinters.
Klein, noticeably taller and broader than his corrupted counterpart, easily caught the enemy's incoming punch with his left hand. His grip was like a vice. Without missing a beat, he pulled his right arm back and delivered a devastating uppercut straight to the corrupted Way Big's chin.
The kinetic shockwave parted the clouds above. The corrupted giant was lifted entirely off its feet, suspended in the air for a brief, agonizing second.
BOOM!
The corrupted Way Big crashed back to earth, rolling violently and crushing acres of ancient forest into sawdust.
Struggling, the corrupted giant propped itself up on one knee. It suddenly snapped its head up, crossing its arms and firing a massive, searing red cosmic ray straight at Klein.
Facing the sneak attack, Klein did not even flinch. He calmly crossed his own arms into an X formation, unleashing a blinding blue cosmic ray of his own.
The two beams collided in mid-air. The resulting clash created a localized hurricane, the shockwave sweeping through a kilometer-wide radius, snapping massive tree trunks like twigs and blowing away the topsoil.
It was not even a contest. Klein's blue cosmic ray surged forward with overwhelming, terrifying force, completely swallowing the red beam and slamming directly into the corrupted Way Big.
BOOM!
A towering mushroom cloud of dust and energy erupted into the night sky.
Once the smoke finally cleared and the dust settled, the group cautiously approached the epicenter. Where the corrupted Way Big had been kneeling, there was absolutely nothing left. Only a massive, glassed-over crater remained.
Ben's right eye twitched violently as he stared into the smoking abyss. "Cousin... you didn't just blast him into dust, did you?"
Klein reverted to his human form, dusting off his hands. "Impossible. I held back my power." He offered a lazy shrug.
"In that case, the only logical conclusion is that he fled," Paradox stated, stepping up to the edge of the crater, completely unbothered by the residual heat.
"If he escaped on his own, there is no way we wouldn't have noticed," Ben argued, crossing his arms. "Someone else had to have pulled him out. He had help."
"But who could pull that off?" the Recalibrated Omnitrix Ben asked, looking at his older counterpart in confusion.
Ben shook his head, turning to the time-walker. "Professor, do you know anything?"
Paradox stroked his chin, his eyes distant. "I have a few theories, yes. But tracking him down will be difficult. Before we do anything else, we need to find Grandpa Max."
...
"So... let me get this straight. You are all my grandchildren?"
Grandpa Max sat in the Rustbucket, rubbing his temples. He felt like the entire universe had lost its mind. He had woken up to find his own grandson missing, only to have a small army of alternate-dimension grandchildren suddenly pop up in his living room. They were multiplying faster than rabbits.
"Grandpa, let's put the family tree aside for a second," Recalibrated Omnitrix Ben said, leaning against the counter. "Is there any way you can help us secure a spaceship?"
Ultimate Ben nodded in agreement. "We still need to go save, uh... Ben." He grimaced. "Referring to myself in the third person is getting really weird."
Paradox stepped forward. "Additionally, Plumber Max Tennyson, you should be quite familiar with Vilgax, correct? Can you point us to his current location?"
Max blinked, a proud smile suddenly breaking across his face. "Vilgax? Oh, absolutely! He is an absolute legend among us Plumbers!"
...
On a distant, rocky planet, a sleek cruiser bearing the official Plumber insignia touched down on the landing pad.
Vilgax, currently in the middle of a routine patrol mission, spotted the arriving ship. He immediately straightened his posture and marched over, a welcoming smile on his tentacled face, ready to greet his fellow officers.
The ship's ramp lowered with a hydraulic hiss. Klein, Paradox, and the army of Bens walked out.
Vilgax blinked his red eyes in mild confusion. Were these new Plumber recruits?
Paradox walked straight up to the towering alien. "Vilgax. Something terrible has occurred. The entire Milky Way Galaxy is facing an unmatched crisis. A highly dangerous individual is actively plotting to eliminate every single race in the universe, save for their own."
Vilgax gasped, his hands flying to his face in sheer horror. "What?! Where is this fiend?! Point me in his direction, I must stop him at once!"
He looked so genuinely distressed, so utterly appalled by the concept of evil, that every single person present, except for Paradox, twitched.
The Bens exchanged bewildered looks. What the hell was wrong with this universe? An evil, genocidal Azmuth? A legendary, justice-loving Plumber Vilgax? Could this reality get any more absurd?
(Somewhere out in the multiverse, Azmuth had once arrogantly claimed that his intellect would prevent him from ever turning evil in any reality. Clearly, the Azmuth of this universe was just a Galvan who happened to share the name.)
Paradox ignored the group's collective existential crisis and looked Vilgax dead in the eye. "Vilgax, do you happen to know the current whereabouts of Azmuth?"
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