# Episode 4: The Gauntlet of Villains
Ultimate Alien New
The transformation felt wrong.
Not painful. Not exactly.
Ben felt power surging through him—raw, untamed, and far too vast to belong inside a human body. He looked down at his hands. Metallic claws extended from his fingers, each one shimmering with green energy. Segmented armor covered his arms, chest, and legs, locking into place like living machinery. A helmet enclosed his head, its narrow visor burning with luminous green eyes.
He was something new.
Something powerful.
And, somehow, something familiar.
The Ultimatrix pulsed against his wrist. Ben could feel it—not merely as a device, but as an extension of himself. Its energy moved through his body, answering thoughts he had not spoken and instincts he did not understand.
Across the battlefield, Gwen and Kevin stared at him.
Even Vilgax had paused.
Malakor alone showed no surprise.
"What…what is that?" Vilgax growled. His sword tightened in his grip, though the warlord's voice betrayed something beneath his anger.
Fear.
Ben tilted his helmeted head.
"I don't know," he said. His voice emerged distorted, deeper than usual. "But you're about to find out."
He lunged.
The distance between them vanished. Ben moved with a speed he had never possessed, his claws cutting through the air and leaving bright trails of energy behind them. Vilgax swung his sword in a brutal arc.
Ben caught the blade between two claws.
The metal shattered.
Vilgax barely had time to react before Ben drove into him. The impact sent the warlord flying across the Null Void and into a jagged rock formation. Stone exploded around him.
Ben landed in a crouch.
He barely had time to raise his head before the ground beneath him collapsed.
A vortex opened below his feet, its spiraling energy dragging him toward an abyss that seemed to have no bottom. The Null Void groaned around him as if the dimension itself had become Malakor's weapon.
Malakor raised one hand.
"Nice try," he said. "But you cannot stop me. I am beyond your comprehension."
Ben dug his claws into the fractured stone. The vortex pulled harder. His armor groaned. Green energy flared across his body, but the force continued to drag him downward.
For the first time since the transformation, uncertainty cut through his confidence.
He did not know what this form could do.
He did not even know what it was.
Then he felt something beneath the vortex.
A rhythm.
The Null Void was not resisting him. It was answering him.
The realization struck with startling clarity. This form was attuned to the dimension, woven into its unstable energies. The vortex was not an outside force. It was part of the Null Void—and the Null Void was speaking through it.
Ben reached out with his mind.
The vortex shuddered.
Malakor's expression changed.
"What are you doing?"
Ben pulled.
The energy around him twisted. The vortex weakened, its spiraling descent slowing as Ben forced its currents apart. He drove his claws deeper into the rock and anchored himself to the dimension itself.
The pull became a contest.
For several seconds, neither side yielded.
Then Ben roared and tore himself free.
He launched from the collapsing ground, crossing the battlefield in a streak of green light. Malakor fired a blast of energy. Ben twisted aside, the attack passing close enough to scorch his armor.
He was moving faster now.
Thinking faster.
Reacting before the danger fully formed.
Ben struck Malakor in the chest.
The force hurled him through the fortress wall. The entire structure buckled, then collapsed in a thunderous avalanche of stone and metal.
For one breath, there was silence.
Ben stood over the wreckage, his armor steaming. His body ached beneath it. Every movement felt heavier than the last.
He had defeated Malakor.
Hadn't he?
The rubble began to move.
A pale light seeped through the cracks. Stones lifted into the air, trembling as an immense pressure pushed them aside. Malakor rose from the ruins, untouched. Strange energy crawled across his body like veins of burning glass.
"Impressive," he said, brushing dust from his shoulder. "You have survived."
Ben's claws tightened.
"But you cannot defeat me. I am beyond your power."
Malakor lifted his hand.
Portals opened around the battlefield.
The first released a wave of black mist. Zs'Skayr emerged from it, his eyes burning with unnatural light.
The next disgorged Dr. Animo, surrounded by snarling mutant creatures.
Malware stepped from a red fracture in space, his massive frame radiating corrupted energy. Khyber followed, weapon in hand, with his hunting dog crouched at his side.
Then the final portal opened.
Eon emerged from the darkness.
Each villain's eyes glowed with the same eerie light.
Malakor smiled.
"I have gathered your greatest enemies, Tennyson. They will be your undoing."
Ben stared at them.
His heart sank.
He was exhausted. His armor was damaged. Gwen and Kevin were already struggling to remain standing, and now they faced enemies who had once pushed them to the edge of defeat individually.
Together, they were impossible.
Ben turned toward his friends.
"Get out of here."
Gwen's hands ignited with mana. "Absolutely not."
"This is too dangerous."
"We're in this together," Kevin said. His body hardened into steel, plates forming over his arms and shoulders. "You don't get to make that decision for us."
Despite everything, Ben smiled.
That was Kevin. That was Gwen.
They would stand beside him even when the smart choice was to run.
But loyalty would not be enough. Not against this.
Ben looked back at the villains. Malakor's influence clung to them like smoke. Their hatred had been sharpened into weapons, their pain twisted into obedience.
He could feel it now.
Malakor was not simply controlling them. He was amplifying everything poisonous inside them—their rage, their fear, their humiliation, their need for revenge.
He had turned them into distorted versions of themselves.
Ben stepped forward.
"I know what you're doing," he called to Malakor.
Malakor's smile widened. "Do you?"
"You're hiding behind them."
The villains charged.
Zs'Skayr dissolved into shadow. Malware fired a blast of corrupted energy. Khyber's dog sprang forward, jaws opening wide enough to tear through armor. Eon blurred through time, appearing at Ben's flank.
Ben moved on instinct.
He blocked the dog's bite with both arms, slid beneath Malware's blast, and spun as Zs'Skayr emerged behind him. His claws struck the ghostly alien across the chest, scattering black energy—but the blow did not stop him.
Eon appeared in front of Ben and drove a fist into his helmet.
Ben staggered.
The villains attacked as one.
He barely defended himself. Every blow sent tremors through his armor. Every second drained more of his strength.
Then Khyber's dog lunged again.
Ben caught its jaws inches from his face.
Behind the glowing eyes, he sensed something buried beneath the fury.
Not obedience.
Pain.
A memory.
A self.
Ben shoved the creature away and looked at the horde surrounding him.
He was not fighting only to survive.
He was fighting for the people Malakor had corrupted.
He had to reach them.
Somehow, he had to remind them who they had been before Malakor turned their worst emotions against them.
But the green light in their eyes intensified.
Malakor's grip tightened.
Ben's knees buckled beneath the assault. The new form was powerful, but it was not limitless. Soon, the darkness would drown out whatever remained of the villains' true selves.
And then it would come for him.
Ben raised his claws again.
"Come on," he growled.
The villains surrounded him.
"Let's see what you've got."
They charged.
As the gauntlet closed in, Ben reached through the chaos—not for their bodies, but for the fragments of themselves still trapped inside.
He found Zs'Skayr's hunger.
Malware's hatred.
Khyber's pride.
Eon's loneliness.
One by one, Malakor had turned their deepest wounds into chains.
Ben clenched his fists.
He would break those chains.
Even if he had to tear the entire Null Void apart to do it.