Chapter 59: A God's Fury, A Hero's Heart

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I still wasn’t sure which Alien to go when the Ancient One's voice echoed through the temple. "I will engage Selene. Keep the Avatar occupied. Selene's ritual is in progress. It is wounded, but its power is still immense. Max, you know what to do!"

Grandpa nodded, already reaching for something in his belt. "In the meantime, Ben, the Sword is the key to all of this. Secure it!"

The sword sat on a pedestal near a sarcophagus, high above many stairs, maybe fifty feet away. With XLR8's speed, I could grab it before anyone blinked. The choice was simple.

Green light washed over me as my body elongated, muscles restructuring for pure velocity. The world slowed to a crawl as my perception accelerated. Selene and the Ancient One were already moving, their hands weaving patterns that hurt to track even in slow motion. 

Ah Puch’s Avatar remained on its knees like a mountain of decay, those red eyes burning holes in reality. I pushed off and felt the stone floor crack under the force. Fifty feet. At my top speed, that was nothing. I'd be there in—

The Avatar moved.

Not too fast, not by my standards. But it didn't need to be fast. It just needed to be. A wave of pure wrongness erupted from its form, a shockwave of necrotic energy that turned the air itself into poison. The stone floor aged a thousand years in seconds, crumbling to dust.

I tried to dodge, but the wave wasn't just physical. It was conceptual. The idea of decay given form. My armor started smoking, the bio-metal corroding at the edges. “Shit.” A tendril of shadow, thick as a tree trunk and moving like it had a mind of its own, whipped out from the creature's robes.

It caught me across the chest.

Pain exploded through me as I went flying, skidding across the chamber floor. The Omnitrix sparked, fighting off whatever corruption had touched me. I could taste copper and ash and feel my enhanced metabolism working overtime to purge the toxins. Even under a ritual, the Avatar was programmed to follow its task.

It’d do anything to protect the sword.

"Okay," I wheezed, reverting to human form. "Direct approach is a no-go."

The transformation ended in a flash of green, and I was already cycling through options. If speed wouldn't work...

"Let's try strength!"

Four Arms burst into existence in all my muscle and anger. I flexed all four biceps, feeling the raw power coursing through me. This form had gone toe-to-toe with the Hulk. Surely it could handle one decrepit death god's servant.

I charged, the floor shaking under my weight. The Avatar turned those burning eyes on me, and for a second, I swear it looked... bored?

My first punch could've demolished a building. It landed with a wet thud against the creature's midsection, and it felt like punching a mountain made of tar and bone. The force just disappeared. Absorbed into that impossible form like I'd thrown a pebble into the ocean.

The Avatar's arm moved with deceptive slowness. A casual backhand, like swatting a fly.

It hit like a freight train made of nightmares.

I went airborne again, this time backwards into one of those screaming face pillars. Ancient stone cracked under the impact, dust raining down. Every one of my four arms ached, and I could feel something warm trickling down my face. Blood. Great.

"Servant of the Death God!" Charmcaster's voice cut through the chaos. She stood with her hands raised, purple energy crackling between her fingers. "Hear me! I am Hope, daughter of Spellbinder! I do not seek conflict! I seek an audience with your true master! Ah Puch, can you hear me?!"

The Avatar didn't even acknowledge her. It swatted her magical bolts aside like they were soap bubbles, its attention still fixed on me. Or maybe on the sword behind it. Hard to tell with a creature that had no real face.

“Ugh… Tennyson! I’ll help you fight it. It’s using magic to absorb your punches, I’ll help you disrupt the magic, you start beating it down,” Charmcasted laid out the plan.

As I followed suit, the real fight behind us grew more dangerous.

****

The world exploded into impossible geometries as the Ancient One and Selene clashed. It was a sight that hurt to see.

Gwen pressed herself against a pillar, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. This wasn't just a fight, it was two realities trying to occupy the same space. The Ancient One's hands moved in precise patterns, golden mandalas spinning into existence around her. They were a work of art, fractals within fractals, mathematical perfection given form.

Selene responded with raw power. Where the Ancient One was precision and control, she was chaos. Dark energy poured from her like water from a broken dam, eating away at the very fabric of space.

"You think your parlor tricks impress me, child?" Selene's tone was full of arrogance. "I was practicing magic when your ancestors were learning to make fire!"

The Ancient One didn't respond with words and her expression remained somber. She clapped her hands together, and suddenly the world began to fold. The chamber stretched like taffy, walls becoming corridors that led nowhere and everywhere. Selene found herself trapped in an infinite hallway, every door opening to another identical passage.

"The Mirror Dimension," Gwen observed, for she too was pulled into it. She'd read about it in Hex's book, but seeing it in person was something else entirely.

Selene snarled, her beautiful face twisting with annoyance. "Hiding behind borrowed dimensions? How disappointingly predictable."

She pressed her palm against the fractured reality, and Gwen watched in horror as the Mirror Dimension began to rot. The mathematical perfection corrupted, equations breaking down into chaos. With a sound like breaking glass, they snapped back into the real world.

"If you insist on making a mess," Selene said, adjusting her torn dress, "then let's make it properly."

Grandpa Max moved beside Gwen, his hand on her shoulder. "Stay back, pumpkin. This is about to get ugly."

He pulled something from his belt, a grenade that looked like it was made of crystallized light. "Mana Disruption Grenade. Plumber special. Things like this endanger you in particular, Gwen, so watch how it works in case something like this is used against you in the future. This should give the Ancient One an opening."

He threw it with practiced ease. The device detonated in a burst of silver light, and for a moment, all the magical energy in the room went haywire. Selene's next attack fizzled, the Ancient One's shields flickered, and even the Avatar paused in its relentless advance.

"Now!" Gwen didn't need to be told twice. She channeled everything she had through her charms, pink energy flowing out to reinforce one of the Ancient One's wards. It wasn't much, but in a fight between titans, even a feather could tip the scales.

Selene's eyes found her.

"Annoying little gnat," the immortal hissed. Her hand came up, and Gwen saw death approaching. Even with her magic suppressed, her mutant powers were not. And Selene possessed many such powers.

It wasn't a blast of energy or a bolt of lightning. It was worse. A focused lance of black flame that looked like pure entropy, the concept of unmaking given form. It would hit her and she would simply... cease. No explosion, no drama. Just gone.

Time slowed.

The Ancient One was locked in a binding spell, unable to break away. Ben was still struggling with the Avatar. Charmcaster was too far.

But Grandpa Max wasn't.

"NO!" Selene's shout mixed with Gwen's scream as Max threw himself into the path of the attack. The immortal tried to pull back, to weaken the blow, but entropy wasn't something you could take back once released.

The dark energy hit him.

There was no grand explosion. No dramatic death scene. Max Tennyson, the man who'd faced down alien invasions and taught his grandchildren to be heroes, simply crumpled. His Plumber suit flickered once, twice, then dimmed. He hit the floor with a soft thud that somehow echoed louder than all the magical explosions.

"...Grandpa?" Gwen's voice came out small, broken. She dropped to her knees beside him, hands shaking as she reached for his still form. "N-no, Grandpa, please..."

Nothing. No breath, no heartbeat, no warmth.

Something inside her snapped.

The shock and grief hit first, a tidal wave of loss that threatened to drown her. Then came the rage. Pure, incandescent fury at the woman who'd taken one of the most important people in her world. And underneath it all, something else stirred. Something that had always been there, sleeping in her blood, waiting.

Gwen Tennyson screamed.

Pink light erupted from her like a star going nova. Her hair whipped around her face, no longer obeying gravity. Her eyes blazed with the light of distant nebulae. Her skin began to crack, just like the stone floor beneath her that crackled in a spider web pattern around her. Raw, purple-pink mana poured out in waves.

She wasn't thinking anymore. Wasn't planning or calculating or being clever. She was just power, grief, and rage given form. The charms around her neck brightened like never before, unable to contain what she'd become. To be fair, she didn't need them anymore.

She was embracing herself, her skin beginning to shed. She was an Anodite now. Beings of pure energy, pure magic, pure emotion, and pure destruction when angry. Gwen was anger manifest. And… she wanted Selene Gallio dead.

****

"Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit."

Just when I managed to defeat the weakened Avatar with Charmcaster’s help, I saw Grandpa’s sacrifice. Before I could process it, he’d jumped in front of Gwen, but the situation following it made my mind reel further. I watched from the floor as my cousin transformed into something straight out of my nightmares. 

Not because she was scary – though she absolutely was – but because I knew what this meant. I'd seen the show. I knew what happened when Anodites lost control.

They lost their humanity. Permanently. Emotions, love, as well as her body itself. “Gwen” won’t be Gwen anymore if her skin fully sheds. 

The pink energy emanating from her was already starting to have an effect. The stone was crystallizing, matter converting to energy at the molecular level. If she kept this up, she wouldn't just destroy Selene. She'd take out the pyramid, probably half of Mexico, and there wouldn't be a Gwen left afterwards. Just an energy being that remembered being human once.

I had to stop her. Not just to save everyone else, but to save her. There was also the chance that Selene, as an Immortal, would somehow survive this regardless.

My hand found the Omnitrix symbol, returning to human, and my fingers frantically scrolled through options. XLR8. I needed XLR8. Grab her and Max, get them out of here. Let the Ancient One handle Selene while I get my family to safety.

I slammed down on the watch face.

The transformation felt different immediately. Instead of shrinking into XLR8's sleek form, I grew taller. My body became smooth, almost rubbery, with a black-and-white pattern that reminded me of an old TV. A single green eye opened where my face should be, and I could feel antennae sprouting from my head. Long, whip-like, crackling with potential. Conductoid plugs formed on my fingers and tail.

This wasn't XLR8. This was something new. Something that felt like it was made of pure electrical potential.

Knowledge flooded my brain as the Omnitrix's database provided context. Suddenly, looking at the raging storm of mana that was my cousin, I understood why the watch had given me this form. This was a Conductoid, and for some reason, I felt alive in this body. No way… Could it be? Yes! 

“Feedback!” Without hesitation, I lunged toward her.

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