Omnitranyl (Ben 10 Alien Force)

Max Tennyson opened his eyes. He stared at the irritatingly bright ceiling above him. He was breathing fast as if he had woken up from a nightmare. A terrible nightmare in which a bloodthirsty monster had blown off his right arm.

"Mr. Azmuth, he's awake!"

The excessive brightness in his field of vision was suddenly invaded by the face of a young girl with blonde hair. Her expression was one of concern but at the same time relief.

"Where am I?" asked Grandpa Max.

"On your ship, Magistrate," replied Eunice, "we brought you here so that we could tend to your wounds."

Wounds, thought Max. The image of the creature came back to his mind. The explosion, the pain, the blood... He raised his right arm in front of his face. He expected to find the arm of an old man, with the marks of age and scars from past missions. Whitened hair and wrinkles accumulating on the joints.

That's not what he found.

His arm was dark as tar, but with a sheen reminiscent of liquid crystal. Luminous green circuits walked across the surface as if endowed with a life of their own. He wiggled his fingers and rotated his fist, looking at both sides of his hand.

It wasn't a nightmare...

"Max..." said Azmuth, making Grandpa Max look away from his hand to the galvanian on his assistant's left palm.

The Magistrate stared at the alien for a few moments, neither of them saying a word. The relationship between these two had always been complicated to define. They never called each other friends, but there was a mutual respect. They both knew what they were capable of. Max had a militaristic past with missions he wished he never had to remember. Azmuth, as we well know, was the creator of revolutionary technologies for the universe; both for good and for evil. However, regardless of what their experienced lives had already brought them, they both tried their best to fight for what was right.

Max lowered his mechanical arm and stared at the ceiling again.

"Thank you," thanked Grandpa Max, implying several points of understanding about Azmuth's decision.

The scientist rested his hands behind his back, closed his eyes and gave a discreet smile.

"So..." said Max "Can I get up now?"

"Oh, of course, of course!" Eunice moved her left hand closer to the table so that Azmuth could get down and then turned to the stretcher, pressing buttons and raising the top of the bed.

"Thank you, Eunice. Well, as you may have noticed," Max raised his mechanical arm slightly, "I failed in my mission. I was unable to remove the ultimatrix from Albedo."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Magistrate, you destroyed the machine and interrupted one of the most crucial stages of his plan."

"Exactly, Max, as much as he managed to recharge the ultimatrix, the feedback core was not effective. It's only a matter of time before the device discharges again."

"A matter of time ?" Max was outraged by what he heard "It took weeks for the clock to even come close to discharging the first time, and that's because we don't even know how much charge was in it! How much longer can we go on with this?"

"I understand your concern, Max, but Albedo has blocked my access to the voice shutdown command. At the moment we only have two options: to be able to defeat him in a confrontation or to make him use the superomnitrix until the charge runs out."

Charmcaster entered the conversation so suddenly that Max had a slight jolt when he realized the sorceress was there:

"It's not the best of plans, but it's the only one we have and luckily it's already started."

"What is she talking about, Azmuth?" Max turned suspiciously.

Azmuth took a deep breath and said:

"Computer, display external images."

"Yes, Thinker Azmuth."

On two of the screens in the room, which had previously displayed real-time analysis of Max's vital signs, aerial images of the forest confrontation appeared. Albedo in his ultimate Vaxasaurian form was fighting several opponents at once. One of the screens kept the image centered on the fight as a whole, while the second tried to show approximate images of each of the members of the confrontation.

Max saw opponents as different from each other as the Forever Knights and Vreddles fighting the Vaxasaurian.

"How did you manage to get them to work together?"

"We don't know," said Eunice.

"But if I were to bet," Charmcaster opened her hand and her cell phone appeared in a flash, accompanied by a faint puff of pink smoke, "I'd say the hot goth brat is to blame. You have to be careful with this boy's company."

"Kevin?" As soon as Max understood the sorceress's hint, he turned back to the screens in search not only of Kevin, but also of Gwen. "Where are they? Gwen and Kevin?"

"They're fighting too, Magistrate..." Eunice pronounced each word carefully, as if trying to break the bad news little by little. "Computer, can you focus on them?"

"Yes, Miss Eunice," said the computer, directing the image towards Kevin, clad in orange sandy ore, who was running towards Albedo; then it switched its focus to Gwen, with a body full of violet macules, firing energy spheres.

"What happened to Gwen?" Max asked, getting up from the bed, and then he saw him.

The camera focused on the brown-haired boy in the green jacket. He jumped to the side to escape an explosion, shielding his face with his arms.

"Ben..."

 As soon as the smoke from the explosion cleared, Max could see that Ben's arms had been transformed into the Diamondhead.

"No..." Max turned to Azmuth in disbelief. "What am I looking at?"

"Magistrate, please calm down..." Eunice stood between the two of them with a calming expression on her face. Charmcaster, meanwhile, leaned her back against a wall and crossed her arms.

"You promised me, Azmuth! You said you'd take the Omnitrix off Ben's arm as soon as we got to Earth!"

"I promised I'd keep the Omnitrix safe and that's what I did..." Azmuth kept his gaze down and his arms resting on his back.

"What? In order to protect your damn device, you decided to keep putting my grandson's life at risk?"

Max's words made Azmuth react in a way he had never done before:

"I put him at risk!?" Azmuth raised his head, his eyes blazing with ferocity: "There are many things in this universe that can point a finger in my face and say that their lives have been affected because of my actions, but these young people!?" Azmuth pointed at the screen. "No, my dear Max, you know very well who is to blame for them putting their lives at risk at this very moment!"

Max was silent. Azmuth didn't.

"From the first day that the Omnitrix landed on Earth and attached itself to Ben Tennyson's arm by mistake, you could have made the right decision and removed the device from him. All it took was a few calls and you'd know to meet me in Xenon and everything would be solved!"

Max turned his face away from Azmuth's gaze. At various times in his life, especially at night before going to sleep, he found himself thinking about what the scientist was saying but, unable to face the guilt, he always tried to escape such thoughts.

"You trained him! First the boy, but as soon as you saw the potential in the anodite girl, you started training her too! Even the young Osmosian! You trained them to face danger, to not refuse a call for help, to be the ones people can count on in a dangerous situation, regardless of whether they are recognized for their actions."

Max turned his body and stared at the screens behind him. He saw his pupils launching lasers from their eyes, floating through the air, deforming their arms into metal blades, shooting fireballs from their alien hands, summoning giant magic hands and throwing huge rocks with them.

"They're not ordinary teenagers and you know it..." Azmuth softened his tone. "Maybe you never noticed, or actually you did and that's why you decided to instruct them as you did, but when we saw Albedo holding his dismembered body in the middle of that forest, I could finally understand what drives these kids."

Max took his eyes off the screens and stared at Azmuth.

"You," said Azmuth.

Grandpa Max felt a strange sensation compress his stomach and rise in his throat.

"These teenagers could have refused his training and his teachings. They could have used their powers to conquer the planet if they had wanted to, but no. They didn't do it. And they didn't do it because they admire you and look up to you. What you represent."

"But I…" Max tried to say something, but Azmuth continued.

"I saw in the eyes of those three youths something I've already had the pleasure of seeing in your eyes on the occasions we've met: All three of them have the same fury in their eyes to do what needs to be done to protect the people and those they love."

A tear ran down the right side of Max's face and stopped at the base of his chin.

"They're not just young anymore, Max, and you know it. Their actions teach us that they are capable of much greater things than we imagine and I learned that today too," Azmuth looked at Eunice with an expression of gratitude.

The young girl's eyes began to water and, trying to disguise it, she began to dry them with the base of her thumb. She felt genuine happiness inside.

"Whether intentionally or not, even with our faults, we were somehow able to pass on at least what life had taught us was good. We don't always succeed, but knowing that we're fighting to stay on this path, and now they are too, brings me a little peace about the future that awaits us..."

Max stared at the screens again. He felt his heart tighten at the images of Gwen, Kevin and Ben facing the creature. When had they grown up so much?

"But what about the Omnitrix?" Max turned to the scientist.

"As I told you, his problem consisted of a lack of anesthetic and I was able to provide that temporarily."

"Temporarily? But for how long? Ben sai-"

"Calm down, Max, it was the boy's decision to stay with the Omnitrix and he's aware of everything. He'll let us know of any problems."

The Magistrate took a deep breath and finally said:

"So, what do we do now?"

"Well, part of the plan is already underway," said Azmuth, "now, the next step..."