Omnitranyl (Ben 10 Alien Force)

Inside the crystal dome, the confrontation between Albedo and Max Tennyson was intensifying. The Magistrate reduced the brightness of his armor and used the darkness to hide his presence. His visor allowed him to see through the darkness as if it were a beautiful green summer's day. Albedo, by contrast, was unable to see anything beyond the beam of light coming from the skylight in the ceiling. His crystal body flickered like a firefly, constantly denouncing his position.

Albedo heard a sizzling sound resounding from his sides, turned his head to either side in search of the source of the sound, when a glow appeared in front of him. A small focus of blue light that grew and it became more obvious that it was a laser cannon shot. He placed his hands crossed in front of his body and let the laser hit him. The energy from the shot was absorbed by his crystal body and turned into a rainbow glow.

"Is that all, old man?" Albedo said "I thought you'd be able to entertain me at least once thi-"

Albedo's sentence was interrupted by the impact of two missiles coming from the sides.

Max gave a slight smile.

The alien staggered for a few seconds but managed to steady himself. He raised his head and showed a glint in his eye that was proportionate to his hatred. He emitted a roar of fury and his body glowed brightly. In response, the walls of the dome began to glow progressively from the ground to the top, momentarily dispelling the darkness there.

Being able to see Max's position for a moment, Albedo raised his hands and crouched down, sinking his arms into the ground.

Max felt the ground tremble beneath him and jumped back a few thousandths before a pillar resembling a Christmas tree rose out of the ground. With the thrusters on his back, he hovered in the air for a few moments, then raised his height to dodge the new pillars that appeared. When he was high enough to avoid being hit by the pilasters on the ground, he positioned himself with his arms in front of his body. The arms of the armor turned into multiple-shot barrels and began firing small missiles.

Projecting from the ceiling, a pointed column struck the Magistrate's back, throwing him violently to the ground. Max saw emergency windows appear on his visor informing him of major damage to the flight thrusters and that the repair process was already underway. He raised his head and saw, in the distance, Albedo preparing to fire an energy beam in his direction. He raised his torso, keeping on his knees, and raised his shields. The beam hit the protection, pushing Max continuously backwards. The rear camera on his visor showed that he was approaching the spikes on one of the pillars.

With difficulty, he planted one foot at a time on the ground, unable to stop the dragging force. On the side of his right arm and leg, small openings appeared, exposing small thrusters on the surface of the armor. He tilted the right side of his body slightly backwards and, using the force of the thrust together with the impulse of the thrusters, turned on his own axis, escaping the firing line.

The thrusters on his right side tilted towards the back of his body, along with the emergence of propulsors on his left side. He launched his body forward, running at high speed towards the alien.

Albedo fired another bolt of energy at Max, who dodged to the right. He attacked again and Max dodged to the left. Annoyed, he began to throw successive short beams from both hands. But to make him even more nervous, the multiple attacks weren't being enough to stop the Magistrate's advance.

In one of the dodges, Max's image split in two, continuing its advance. Another evasion and once again the image split in two. It didn't take Albedo long to understand what was happening: The old man was using holograms! And he was getting closer.

Albedo put up a wall between himself and the Magistrate. As they were holograms, Albedo saw the first image pass through the wall to his right, then the illusion to his left. That means only the middle old man remains!

A mixed sound of metal and glass resounded inside the dome as Max hit Albedo in the jaw from the right with a powerful punch. His hand was transformed into a gauntlet coupled with impact enhancers.

The alien was thrown sideways against the ground, dragging himself for several meters until he crashed into a rock that was already there. He rested one hand on the ground and the other touched the side of his face, where a crack lay in his crystal skin.

"But how did that bastard..." said Albedo, who then understood.

He hid behind the first hologram, so far away that the perspective didn't allow me to see him... ― he thought.

"What are you waiting for?" shouted Max "Come on, get up!"

"Oh, are you that excited to die?" replied Albedo. "What makes you want to be so suicidal?"

"You hurt my grandchildren..."

"Who are they again?"

"I want to see if you're still going to be this funny when I'm done with you."

Albedo stood up and raised his hands at his sides. Two rays of energy emanated from the walls of the dome and hit his hands. The alien brought them closer to his body, joining the beams into a single, long horizontal beam. Finally, he said:

"I'm scared to death."

◇───────◇───────◇

Some distance away, Gwen, Kevin, Eunice and Charmcaster heard muffled sounds of impact and explosion. Each noise was accompanied by a tremor that spread across the forest floor.

"What the hell is that?" asked Kevin, as he helped Gwen up from the ground.

"Magistrate Tennyson is probably confronting Albedo by now," said Eunice.

"What!?" Gwen said. "But how could Grandpa defeat him alone?"

"I didn't agree with that plan either," said Eunice, "but I promised him I'd come and get you and take you to his ship."

"No! We have to help him and-"

Kevin stopped speaking when the sharp pain in his calf hit him. His leg was encased in rock, but it was possible to see two holes in the stone.

"What was that?" Gwen said.

"I think I pushed too hard when I ran to put the jewels in your cocoon."

"Did I do that?"

"No! Relax, Gwen, it wasn't you!  Kevin replied "It was from my battle with the white-haired worm. I covered it in stone to stop it bleeding, but I need to make a decent bandage..."

"Come on" Gwen offered Kevin her shoulder to lean on. "I'll help you until we get to the ship."

"Thanks, Gwen.."

"Is this serious?" Charmcaster asked incredulously.

"What?" Gwen said.

"Why don't you just heal his leg and get it over with?"

"I'm not good at healing spells."

"You're not good at a lot of things, that's obvious, girl."

"Hey, don't talk about her like that!" Kevin pointed his finger in Charmcaster's face.

"You know what? You're right," said Charmcaster." Leave him with that leg, maybe he'll be less annoying without it."

"What?"

"Stop it, Kevin!" Gwen looked at Eunice and asked "Could you hold him for me, please?"

"Of course."

Gwen approached Charmcaster and said:

"Can you heal him?"

"I can, but I won't," Charmcaster replied.

 "You motherf-," said Kevin, who was interrupted by Gwen, who again asked for calm.

"Can you help me?" Gwen said.

"What's in it for me?"

"I'll let you keep the jewel you hid."

Charmcaster rested his hand on the bag and put it behind him. She frowned, annoyed.

"So?" Gwen asked.

Charmcaster raised his head and looked away. He thought for a few seconds, then looked at Gwen out of the corner of his eye. Finally, he said:

"Do you still have the spell book you stole from me?"

"No, but I remember it perfectly."

"Show-off" Charmcaster made his staff disappear and crossed his arms. "What healing magic did you try?

"Cureta Zhart Dae, page 47."

"To begin with, you're pronouncing it wrong. It's Vhart, not Zhart."

"Your handwriting is terrible, you know that, right?"

"Shut up! Secondly, when you focus your mana, which way do you go?"

"Meridian of Chien, I follow the point of Thud and spiral down the third path until I reach the inflow of descending Portalis."

At that moment, Kevin and Eunice looked at each other with the most perfect "what are they talking about?" expression.

"That's your mistake," said Charmcaster, "taking the third path causes you to lose energy near the Whiztark point and unbalances the influx. Try taking the second path, you'll see that it's much more effective."

"That makes sense, I'll try it your way" Gwen turned to Kevin and crouched down next to his injured leg.

"Wait a minute! What are you going to do with my leg?"

"I'm going to try to heal you, now stay still, please!?"

"B-but how do you know she's not trying to trick you into ripping off my leg o-or turning it into, I don't know, a bug o-or maybe a stone?"

"Your leg is stone right now!" Gwen said.

"I know that!" But it's stone now because I want it to be, not because that crazy statue fanatic wants it to be.

"Kevin, just stand still for a moment, please."

"Gwen..." Kevin kept his eyebrows arched and his voice thinner than he would have liked.

"When I say so, remove the stone."

Kevin nodded.

The young anodite closed her eyes for a moment, inhaled deeply and let the air escape calmly. She opened her eyes, placed her hands over the wound and said:

"Now."

Kevin let the stone from his leg slide down and cover the surface of the ground on which he was standing. At the same moment, the wound on his calf began to ooze blood from both openings.

"Cureta Vhart Dae," said Gwen.

A magic circle appeared on either side of Kevin's leg, rotating in opposite directions and illuminating the area between them. Little by little, the wound began to close, replenishing lost muscle, fat and skin.

"I did it!" Gwen stood up, jumping for joy.

"You did it?" Kevin had his eyes closed during the healing process, opened a crack with his right eye to see the result and said "You did it!" And he hugged Gwen along with Eunice.

Gwen celebrated for a few moments and, when she realized that Charmcaster was moving away from the group, she pulled away from the hug and grabbed the sorceress's arm.

"We need your help!" said Gwen.

"What?" said Charmcaster, "Have you gone mad?"

"Albedo is too dangerous and we need all the help we can get!"

"I know he's dangerous, that's why I'm leaving right now."

"I don't know if Grandpa Max managed to destroy his bomb, but even if he did, there's nothing to stop him from trying to blow up the whole city again."

"So what?"

"So your library would be destroyed too, and you know that would be a priceless loss to the world of magic."

Charmcaster remembered the ringing of the bell of the non-existent tower with its promise of imminent doom. A sinister Doom that echoed in his soul.

"I must have lost my mind," said Charmcaster. He looked down and saw that Gwen was still holding his arm "What's this, release me! "She pulled her arm away abruptly."

"Come on, everyone," shouted Eunice, "Mr. Azmuth has been waiting for us for a long time!"

The four teens started running through the forest towards the plumbing spaceship.

◇───────◇───────◇

Max stood ready to react to the slightest movement from Albedo and his long energy stick. On his display, a message said that the flight thrusters were repaired and ready for use.

Albedo rested one hand on the long energy beam and pushed it forward. The beam moved in a straight line like a huge guillotine towards Max.

The Magistrate took off, letting the energy beam pass underneath him. High up, he saw the line of energy approach the dome wall and reduce in size until it almost disappeared, but the line changed its course and started coming straight towards him again.

Max shot into the air with the energy beam in his wake. He looked at Albedo, who on the ground was guiding the movement of the guillotine like an orchestra conductor. He flew between the crystal pillars, which were cut one by one like vegetables as the energy beam passed through. He could feel the heat of the beam approaching the thrusters of his feet.

Max flew over Albedo and dropped spheres from his chest that exploded in a concussive wave when they hit the ground. The impact hit the alien squarely, who, in a show of pain, put his hands to his head, trembling.

The beam of energy slowed down his movement and Max was able to move away from it for a few moments. He turned his hands into concussive cannons and aimed them at his opponent. He fired two spheres that set off towards their target, having traveled a third of the way, when Albedo raised his head and once again launched his guillotine towards Max.

The lightning bolt pierced both spheres in the air and they exploded in a powerful shockwave, throwing Max against the top of the dome with great violence. The sandy floor raised a huge cloud of dust that coated the dome. The Magistrate crashed through the crystal ceiling and fell to the ground, enveloped in a mist of dust.

Albedo kept one hand on his head and the other in front of his face. He stared at the spot where Max had fallen. His vision was shaky and impaired by the dust. Suddenly, he saw the silhouette of the armor moving towards him out of the mist. He moved his raised arm and, pulling it towards him, gave the command for his energy beam to come towards him and cut Max from behind.

The horizontal beam passed through Max, cutting him in two, and continued until it touched Albedo's crystalline skin. The glow of the beam shone through the crystal and expanded, illuminating the alien like a great pylon of light in the midst of darkness. For a few seconds it was possible to see all the way inside the dome, including Max Tennyson, who was crouching behind Albedo with his energy-saturated gauntlet.

"What?" said Albedo.

Max punched him diagonally upwards, right in the middle of the alien's back. With the impact, Albedo was thrown upwards in a parabolic trajectory. His body crashed into the ceiling and went through it, creating a hole in the dome and flying a few meters before falling into the forest.

From the hole created by Albedo's body, the semi-spherical structure began to shatter in a shower of crystals that crumbled before touching the ground.

Max raised his head and stared at the cloudless blue sky that opened up in his field of vision.

◇───────◇───────◇

"Come on, guys, it's this way!" said Eunice, waving to the three young people following her.

"How did you get from here to where we were so fast?" said Kevin, panting.

Suddenly a crash of shattering glass echoed through the sky. The four teenagers looked up through a gap between the trees and saw the image of a crystalsapien thrown in a curved trajectory. A few seconds later and the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.

"I can't believe it, he's done it!" said Gwen.

"That's it, Grandpa Max!" said Kevin!

"We need to warn Mr. Azmuth!" said Eunice, running towards the spaceship, which could already be seen through the trees.

The four of them approached the spacecraft's access ramp and boarded it. Gwen and Kevin led the way down the corridor, followed by Eunice and Charmcaster. As they entered the command bridge, they saw the figure on the back of a well-known young man with brown hair, wearing his typical green jacket. His left wrist, to which a alien device had always been stuck, was now empty.

"Ben?" Gwen said.

The teenager turned his head slightly over his left shoulder and stared at them. Gwen continued:

"W-what did you..."