# The Corrupted Core
# Episode 7: The Corrupted Core
The journey back to Earth was swift.
The silence was not.
Ben stood at the edge of Diagon's portal as Bellwood emerged on the other side, familiar streets gathered beneath a night sky that looked too still. The city lights were burning, but their glow seemed weak, as if something had placed a hand over the entire skyline.
Then every light went out.
Ben's hand moved to the Ultimatrix.
A faint pulse answered from beneath the cracked casing.
"Something's wrong," he said.
Diagon stared through the portal. His expression had changed since the battle in the Null Void. He no longer looked like an ancient force preparing to consume a universe. He looked like someone who had recognized a voice in a crowded room—and wished he had not.
"The energy is concentrated in the city center," he said. "No. Not the city center."
He lifted one hand.
"Here."
A horned symbol appeared above Bellwood.
The mark hung over the skyline like a second moon. It was the same symbol that had appeared within the Null Void, the same shape that had burned across the Ultimatrix.
Ben felt the device grow warm.
"Plumber headquarters," he said.
Diagon nodded once.
"Something is using your world as a receiver."
Ben opened the portal wider.
"Then we shut it down."
They stepped through.
Bellwood met them with silence, broken glass, and the acrid smell of burned metal.
Buildings had collapsed into the streets. Cars lay overturned beneath traffic lights that no longer worked. Storefronts stood open and empty, their alarms dead. There were no sirens. No voices. No footsteps except their own.
That was what frightened Ben most.
Bellwood was never quiet.
A shape moved at the end of the street.
Then another.
Then dozens.
People emerged from alleys and ruined buildings, their bodies bent at unnatural angles. Black energy crawled beneath their skin. Their eyes glowed with the same dying-star light Ben had seen in Diagon's prison.
One of them wore a Bellwood High jacket.
Another carried a grocery bag.
A third was still holding a child's bicycle helmet.
They were not monsters from another dimension.
They were Bellwood.
"Don't hurt them," Ben said.
Diagon's gaze remained fixed on the approaching crowd. "They are already being hurt."
The first corrupted citizen lunged.
Ben transformed into Four Arms and caught the attacker before he could strike. The man's strength drove Ben backward through a storefront, but Ben twisted at the last moment and lowered him gently onto a pile of cushions.
Diagon swept his hand across the street. A ring of force lifted six attackers into the air and set them down beyond the intersection.
More came.
They fought through the streets without killing anyone. That made the battle harder. Every punch had to be measured. Every blast had to bend away from flesh. The citizens did not fight like themselves. They attacked until their bodies failed, then rose again.
Ben changed forms twice more—fast enough to cross the rooftops, heavy enough to stop a collapsing building—but the city kept sending people at them.
"We're treating the symptom," Diagon said.
"I noticed."
"The signal is beneath the Plumber headquarters."
Ben looked toward the ruined building where his heroic life had truly begun.
The roof had caved in. Dark energy streamed from the broken windows.
"Then that's where we're going."
They pushed forward.
Near the headquarters, the corruption intensified. The citizens became faster. Stronger. Less human in the way they moved. One leaped from a wall and nearly tore through Diagon's chest before Ben intercepted him as Humungousaur.
Ben slammed the attacker into the pavement, holding him down with one massive hand.
The man's glowing eyes fixed on him.
For half a second, Ben saw a terrified face beneath the corruption.
"Help," the man whispered.
Then the black energy swallowed his voice.
Ben released him only after Diagon tore the corruption away in a controlled burst of white light.
The man collapsed, breathing but unconscious.
Ben stared at him.
"Malakor is still here," he said.
"No," Diagon replied. "Malakor is everywhere he has left his fear."
They entered the Plumber headquarters.
The building groaned around them. Old insignias hung crookedly from the walls. Training rooms had been split open. The command center was buried beneath fallen concrete.
At the center of the main chamber, something pulsed.
A sphere of black energy hovered above the floor, surrounded by layers of rotating shields. Each pulse traveled through the building and out into Bellwood.
With every pulse, another citizen screamed.
Ben's stomach tightened.
"That's the core."
Diagon studied it. "A fragment of Malakor's influence. Amplified through the dimensional scar."
"Can we destroy it?"
"We can try."
A voice came from the darkness behind them.
"You always did prefer the simple solution, Tennyson."
Albedo stepped into the chamber.
Black energy covered his armor and crawled across his face. His eyes glowed with the same sick light as the corrupted citizens.
Ben's jaw tightened.
"Albedo."
"I have been waiting for you."
Albedo raised his hand.
A blast tore across the room. Ben dodged, and the attack carved a smoking trench through the wall behind him.
Diagon moved toward the core.
Albedo fired again.
Ben became XLR8, snatched Diagon out of the blast's path, and skidded across the floor in a shower of sparks.
"Go," Ben said. "I'll keep him busy."
Albedo smiled.
"You believe you can divide your attention?"
"No," Ben said, switching forms. "I believe I can divide yours."
He became Ultimate Humungousaur.
The chamber shook when he charged.
Albedo met him head-on.
Their collision shattered the remains of the command center. Metal beams fell from the ceiling. Ben drove Albedo through one wall, but Albedo twisted free and released a storm of energy from both hands.
Ben raised his arms. The blasts struck like artillery.
Across the chamber, Diagon reached the core.
He placed both hands against the first shield.
The shield rejected him.
The second shield struck him backward.
The third produced a scream—not from Diagon, but from somewhere inside the core.
A face formed in the darkness.
Malakor.
Not the whole of him. Not even a body. Only a phantom made from memory, hatred, and the energy he had left behind.
"You cannot destroy me," the phantom said. "I am eternal."
Diagon's expression hardened.
"You said that before."
Malakor lunged.
Gwen burst into the chamber, mana blazing around her hands.
"Get away from him!"
Her spell struck Malakor's phantom and tore through its outline. The image flickered, but the core absorbed the loose energy and grew brighter.
Malakor answered with a blast of darkness.
Diagon pushed Gwen aside and took the attack across his chest.
He hit the ground hard.
Gwen dropped beside him.
"Diagon!"
He tried to rise. His body shook with white fractures of energy.
"I am fine."
"That is a terrible lie."
Malakor lifted his hand for another strike.
A green blur crashed into him.
Kevin, transformed into living metal, drove the phantom through a support pillar. The pillar broke. Kevin rolled across the floor and rose with a roar.
"Nobody gets to kill my friends while I'm standing here!"
Ben heard him through the battle.
He turned for one second.
Albedo's fist struck his face.
Ben flew across the room and hit the wall hard enough to crack it.
"Focus!" Albedo shouted. "You cannot save them all!"
Ben pushed himself upright.
That sentence had followed him for years.
You cannot save them all.
Sometimes it was true.
That did not make it a command.
The Ultimatrix began to glow.
Ben looked down.
The cracks in its casing had filled with black light. The device was reacting to the core, drawing in its signal and translating it into a new transformation.
The symbol on the screen shifted.
Ben felt the offer before he understood it.
Power.
Enough to overpower Albedo.
Enough to shield Gwen and Kevin.
Enough to destroy the core.
It felt like an answer.
That was why he should have been afraid.
"Ben!" Gwen shouted. "Don't use it!"
He glanced toward her.
She was kneeling beside Diagon, one hand pressed against his fractured chest. Kevin stood between them and Malakor's phantom, metal body smoking.
Albedo advanced through the dust.
"Your friends are waiting," he said. "Choose, Tennyson."
Ben closed his fist.
He had spent his life choosing people over power.
This time, the power was asking him to choose people.
He slammed his hand onto the Ultimatrix.
Green light swallowed the chamber.
The transformation began.
It was wrong immediately.
The energy did not flow through him. It pulled at him. His bones stretched, his muscles twisted, and black veins of light spread from the Ultimatrix up his arm.
Ben screamed.
Inside his mind, Serena and Bellicus shouted over each other.
The transformation was not stabilizing. It was being rewritten.
Images tore through Ben's thoughts: Diagon's prison, Malakor's rage, Bellwood burning, Gwen's face, Kevin's voice, and a hundred possible futures in which he arrived too late.
The power found the fear beneath them all.
Then it made the fear stronger.
Ben tried to pull away.
The Ultimatrix locked onto his wrist.
"Let me go!"
The black light reached his chest.
He saw himself reflected in the broken windows: taller, armored in jagged green and black energy, with a silhouette that seemed to change whenever he moved. His eyes burned with a cold green glow.
He was still Ben.
That was the worst part.
He could feel every thought. Every memory. Every person he loved.
He could also feel the new voice moving beneath them.
Not Malakor's voice.
Something older.
Something that had learned Malakor's methods and improved them.
The transformation completed.
The light vanished.
Ben stood in the center of the chamber.
Albedo took one step backward.
Gwen rose slowly.
"Ben?"
The new form turned toward her.
For a moment, his expression almost softened.
Then the black light moved across his face, and the softness disappeared.
"Hello, friends," he said.
His voice carried Ben's rhythm beneath a second, distorted voice.
"Let's have some fun."
The corrupted citizens outside stopped moving.
Every one of them turned toward the headquarters.
The core pulsed once.
The Ultimatrix answered.
And beneath Bellwood, something ancient opened its eyes.