Chapter 67: Dot VS Carnitrix Alien X
"Eat my sword!" Humungousaur roared, his massive muscles bulging as he hauled back his makeshift weapon—the frozen, indestructible body of Prime Ben trapped in his Alien X form.
With a mighty heave, the giant dinosaur thrust the cosmic entity forward like a battering ram. A deafening thud echoed across the ruined landscape as Alien X's starry head slammed dead-center into Carnitrix Alien X's chest.
Unfortunately, the impact did not even leave a dent. The monstrous, corrupted Celestialsapien barely flinched.
But Humungousaur, finally feeling like he had the firepower to go toe-to-toe with the glitching nightmare, puffed out his chest. "Come fence with me!" he bellowed.
"I chop!" Shifting his grip, Humungousaur wrapped both massive hands around Alien X's ankles. He spun on his heel, swinging the cosmic being in a brutal horizontal arc. Alien X's shoulder crashed into Carnitrix Alien X's torso. Another heavy thud rang out, vibrating through the air, yet the corrupted entity remained standing like a brick wall.
"I chop again!" Humungousaur hoisted Alien X high above his head and brought him crashing down like a cosmic hammer.
Thud!
Alien X's chin collided directly with Carnitrix Alien X's skull. The hollow, ringing sound that followed proved it was a remarkably sturdy head—though likely completely empty of any rational thought on the inside.
A furious, distorted roar ripped from Carnitrix Alien X's throat. The glitching monster's right hand contorted into a jagged claw, crackling with volatile, blood-red energy. He lunged, swiping at Humungousaur with lethal intent.
"I block!" Humungousaur panicked, instantly yanking Alien X back into a defensive stance. He hoisted the motionless celestial being like a shield, letting Alien X's starry face absorb the full brunt of the devastating claw strike.
Sparks flew as the claw struck, but Carnitrix Alien X did not pull back. Instead, his grotesque fingers clamped down hard on Alien X's head. Humungousaur planted his feet and yanked with all his dinosaur strength, engaging in a bizarre cosmic tug-of-war. He strained, groaning with effort, but the corrupted entity's grip was absolute iron.
With a vicious jerk, Carnitrix Alien X ripped the frozen celestial out of Humungousaur's grasp and casually hurled him away. Alien X spun through the air like a discarded bowling pin before plunging headfirst into the dirt, his legs sticking straight up toward the sky.
Carnitrix Alien X turned his glowing, glitching eyes back to Humungousaur and unleashed another bloodcurdling shriek.
"Oh no." Humungousaur stared at his empty, scaly hands, then slowly looked up at the towering, enraged monster preparing to slaughter him. A cold sweat broke out across his thick hide. It was time to deploy the ultimate, secret technique his cousin Klein had imparted to him.
The tactical retreat.
Heavily influenced by Klein's pragmatic philosophy, Humungousaur did not hesitate for a single fraction of a second. He spun on his heel and sprinted in the opposite direction, his massive feet shaking the earth with every cowardly step. Fighting against the odds was one thing, but throwing his life away in a guaranteed death match? Absolutely not.
"Uh, are all their cousins... this special?" Ultimate Swampfire muttered, watching the giant dinosaur flee with surprising agility. Seeing this alternate Ben pull a move straight out of Klein's playbook made him seriously question if he had ever been that shameless in his youth.
"I don't know him!" Gwen immediately threw her hands up, taking several large steps away to distance herself from her cousin's humiliating display.
"Focus on saving him first!" Atomic-X, maintaining his composure, charged back into the fray. He threw a massive, energy-laced punch that sent Carnitrix Alien X skidding backward.
"Just wait for me to get my sword back!" Humungousaur hollered over his shoulder as he kept running. He scrambled over to where Alien X was planted like a lawn dart. Grabbing the celestial being by the ankles, Humungousaur yanked him out of the crater with a loud pop. Hoisting his cosmic bludgeon high, the dinosaur let out a battle cry, suddenly ready to fight to the death again.
Thud!
Humungousaur's makeshift sword was instantly swatted out of his hands again. Atomic-X fared no better, getting completely overwhelmed and sent flying through the air before Alien X even hit the ground.
Humungousaur watched Carnitrix Alien X's fist rapidly expanding in his vision. He quickly began drafting his final words in his head, though he realized with grim certainty that he wouldn't have the time to actually say them.
Just as the lethal blow was about to land, a small hand composed entirely of shifting blue and white flames materialized out of thin air. It casually caught Carnitrix Alien X's monstrous fist, stopping the kinetic force dead in its tracks.
"Man, after wandering through so many random universes, I am finally back." A tiny, floating entity named Dot hovered there, casually sipping a brightly colored, exotic beverage through a straw.
"Klein!" Humungousaur gasped in relief. The familiar Omnitrix symbol glowing on Dot's fiery chest radiated a calming energy, instantly washing away the dinosaur's dread. However, the tropical drink in the alien's hand completely ruined the dramatic tension of the moment. "We are literally fighting for our lives here, and you went off on a vacation?! I was half a second away from becoming dinosaur paste!" Humungousaur stared at his cousin in utter disbelief.
"Relax, you are still breathing, aren't you?" Dot replied, taking another loud slurp from his cup. "And even if you did get splattered, I could just revive you. So what is the big deal? Anyway, let us handle this noisy guy first."
The blue and white flames swirling around Dot's tiny palm suddenly flared with blinding intensity. The ethereal fire began to spread outward, rippling through the fabric of reality itself, expanding into a massive, higher-dimensional scale.
Just as quickly as they expanded, the flames violently contracted. They dragged the very concept of the surrounding space with them, folding reality inward. The massive, terrifying form of Carnitrix Alien X shrank down rapidly, pulled into the collapsing singularity until he was entirely contained within the palm of Dot's hand.
Klein had literally grasped the spatial dimension itself. He isolated the pocket of reality containing the corrupted Celestialsapien, cleanly severing it from the universe the others occupied. The outside world and the space inside his palm were now two completely separate, distinct dimensions.
"Now we just wait for his watch to run out of juice. Want a sip?" Dot offered, holding his brightly colored drink out toward Humungousaur. His other hand remained loosely cupped, appearing empty to the naked eye, yet it currently held an entire isolated universe.
Humungousaur just stood there, his jaw hanging open. He had not even begun to process the shock of Klein casually one-shotting the nightmare that had just spent the last ten minutes wiping the floor with all of them.
"Klein, where... where did he go?" Humungousaur stammered, completely ignoring the offered beverage.
Dot took another leisurely sip, the ice clinking in his cup, and casually pointed to his cupped palm. "Right in there. Are you worried he might break out? Relax. That thing only understands blunt-force destruction. He is not escaping a higher-dimensional lock that easily."
A horrific, ear-piercing screech suddenly shattered the calm. The invisible, illusory sphere resting in Dot's palm began to bulge and distort wildly. With a sound like breaking glass, the pocket dimension shattered. Jagged, glowing cracks fractured the very air, visible to the naked eye as reality splintered apart.
"...Okay, I take that back." Dot gave a tiny, helpless shrug.
Through sheer, suicidal brute force, Carnitrix Alien X had literally punched his way out of the isolated dimension, tearing his way back into their reality.
"Roar! Urgh..." Carnitrix Alien X stumbled out of the spatial rift, his body smoking and glitching violently as he locked his furious gaze onto Dot. He unhinged his jaw to unleash another deafening roar.
Annoyed, Dot casually tossed his half-finished tropical drink right into the monster's gaping maw. "Do you ever stop screaming?"
The corrupted entity instinctively bit down. The plastic cup exploded, splashing sticky, neon-pink juice all over his jagged teeth. Enraged by the sheer disrespect, Carnitrix Alien X lunged at the tiny alien.
But before the lethal claws could connect, Dot simply vanished, slipping effortlessly into a higher dimensional plane.
Carnitrix Alien X was still a Celestialsapien, after all. He could perceive Dot's presence across the dimensional boundaries. However, lacking any finesse or reality-warping control, the monster could only rely on pure destruction. He began violently tearing through the fabric of space, forcibly smashing his way into the higher dimension just to give chase.
The moment the glitching beast arrived, Dot casually stepped into yet another layer of reality. There was no grand tactical reason for this. Klein was just trolling him.
Back in the physical world, Humungousaur, Gwen, and the rest of the alternate Bens stared at empty air. Existing in a lower, three-dimensional plane, they were completely blind to the cosmic game of tag happening above them. Only Atomic-X could faintly sense the ripples of their movements.
Meanwhile, Carnitrix Alien X smashed his way into another unknown pocket of reality, fully expecting to rip the tiny alien apart. Instead of finding Dot, he found himself entirely surrounded by an endless ocean of shifting blue and white flames.
He had walked right back into the palm of Dot's hand. Because Klein had taken a few extra seconds to prepare this trap, he had not just isolated a single pocket of space. He had woven a multi-layered, infinite loop of dimensions, stacking them inside one another like a cosmic Russian nesting doll.
Being the kind-hearted cousin that he was, Klein even overlapped several geometric planes to create an inescapable, maddening maze.
Run all you want, little glitch. You are never escaping this palm.
His arrogant assumption proved entirely correct. Carnitrix Alien X thrashed, smashed, and roared through the endless maze, completely trapped until the corrupted Carnitrix finally drained its power reserves and timed out.
The air shimmered with static, and Dot materialized back in the physical world, casually carrying the unconscious, battered body of the Ben from Dimension 54. A quiet blue light pulsed outward, and the tiny, fiery alien shifted back into Klein's human form.
Klein was now holding a brand-new, freshly iced beverage—which he had conveniently swiped from a completely different universe right before dropping out of the higher dimension. He nudged the unconscious boy with his foot and called out to the empty air. "Paradox? You around?"
"It appears you have handled the situation quite thoroughly." A swirling blue portal snapped open next to Klein, and Professor Paradox stepped out, adjusting his coat with a polite smile.
The other Bens, exhausted from the ordeal, slapped their Omnitrix dials and transformed back into their human forms, gathering around the crater. It should be mentioned that the 2D Anime Ben had to be physically extracted from Alien X's internal mindscape by Paradox himself—a rescue mission that resulted in the time-traveler receiving a very stern, synchronized scolding from Bellicus and Serena.
"So, how exactly do we get this nightmare watch off him?" Prime Ben asked, crouching down to inspect the jagged, blood-red Carnitrix clamped onto Dimension 54 Ben's wrist.
"Where is Azmuth?" Klein asked, scanning the ruined landscape with a confused frown. "Shouldn't the grumpy frog be fixing this?"
"Uh, he got crushed by some falling debris a few minutes ago," Prime Ben explained awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. The First Thinker had been caught in the chaotic crossfire of the battle and was currently a permanent stain under a boulder.
"...Alright, fine. I will do it myself." Klein sighed, slapping the faceplate of his Another Omnitrix.
The quiet blue light washed over the clearing, and the towering, starry silhouette of Alien X materialized once more. The surrounding alternate Bens stared up at the cosmic entity with solemn, complicated expressions. The sheer, enviable cheat code of being able to casually control Alien X without arguing for eternity was staggering. If they had not witnessed Klein do it with their own two eyes, they would have convinced themselves it was a myth.
Alien X stood perfectly motionless for three seconds. Completely ignoring the intense glares of envy, jealousy, and pure disbelief burning into his back from the other Bens, he simply raised a single, starry finger toward the unconscious boy.
With a mere thought, he altered the fabric of reality. The corrupted Carnitrix, along with the very concept of this universe's Azmuth, was flawlessly erased from existence, wiped clean from the entire timeline.
The surrounding space-time immediately began to blur and shift like a watercolor painting left in the rain. Recognizing that the universe's timeline was aggressively repairing its own history, Professor Paradox quickly opened a massive portal, ushering Klein and the remaining alternate Bens through before the temporal wave could hit them.
Back in Dimension 54, a young boy's life quietly returned to normal. During the summer road trip of his tenth year, he walked through a dark forest, looked up at the sky, and found absolutely nothing.
Inside the quiet interior of the Rustbucket, Grandpa Max sat patiently on the worn sofa. A spread of food sat completely untouched on the table in front of him. He was stubbornly waiting for his grandchildren to return so they could all enjoy lunch together.
At that exact moment, the heavy metal door of the RV creaked open.
"Grandpa, we're back," Klein's voice called out, carrying a hint of genuine warmth.
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