Chapter 35: An Old Friend Once Said: Make a Heroic Entrance
"It's you!" Ben Tennyson was the first to react, his eyes wide with shock.
Gwen Tennyson, however, simply stared blankly at the dark-haired boy standing beside the man in the white suit. "Who… who are you?"
Vilgax spun around, his crimson eyes narrowing at the two figures who had appeared on the stadium roof as if from nowhere. He hadn't sensed their approach, hadn't detected any trace of a hidden presence. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, the sight of the boy sent a cold spike of danger through his battle-hardened instincts.
With practiced ease, Klein and Paradox leaped down from the roof, landing on the fractured turf in a picture-perfect heroic pose.
"Who are we?" Klein echoed Gwen's question, a lazy, mocking smirk playing on his lips as he faced the hulking alien warlord. "That's a good question. A bit too long to explain right now, though." He gestured dismissively towards Vilgax. "Besides, an old friend of mine had a saying for moments like this. I think it fits perfectly: it's time to make a heroic entrance!"
Paradox simply smiled, a timeless, confident expression that seemed to hold the secrets of a thousand years. He took a deliberate step back, ceding the stage.
Klein stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. "Alright, Vilgax. Get ready to meet… Diamondhead."
He walked slowly, almost casually, toward the galactic conqueror. He slapped the faceplate of the Another Omnitrix on his wrist. A flash of quiet, ethereal blue light erupted, and in an instant, Klein's human form was gone, replaced by the towering, crystalline figure of a Petrosapien.
"That's… the Omnitrix?" Ben sputtered, his jaw hanging open in disbelief. "Impossible! The Omnitrix is right here, on Gwen's wrist!" His head whipped back and forth, from the familiar device on his cousin's arm to the massive, diamond-skinned alien standing before him.
Gwen was equally stunned, her mind reeling. For a dizzying moment, she wondered if the watch she wore was just a cheap imitation.
"Two Omnitrixes?" Vilgax's surprise was evident, his voice a low growl. He had experienced more shocks today than in the entire past year. But his surprise quickly morphed into greed. "No matter. If there are two, then I shall simply take them both!"
"I feel like I've heard that line before," Diamondhead's voice rumbled, a resonant sound like shifting crystals. He regarded Vilgax with genuine curiosity. "Oh, that's right. The Vilgax from my side said the exact same thing. How interesting to hear it again in a different place."
"'My side'?" Gwen seized on the key phrase, her sharp mind already piecing it together.
"It means," Paradox explained with a pleasant smile, "that we are not from this parallel universe. We are visitors from another."
"I don't care what universe you crawled out of!" Vilgax roared, his patience finally snapping. "Hand over the Omnitrixes!"
He charged, a living mountain of muscle and rage, throwing a punch that could shatter concrete. Diamondhead met the attack with a casual, almost insulting tilt of his crystalline head, the blow whistling past him. In the same fluid motion, he flicked his wrist, sending a volley of razor-sharp diamond shards peppering Vilgax's face.
A guttural roar of pain ripped from Vilgax's throat as he instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. That momentary pause was all the opening Diamondhead needed. He drove his right hand, hard as stone, directly into Vilgax's abdomen.
The impact sounded like a boulder striking solid rock. Vilgax let out a choked gasp and immediately doubled over, his body curling up like a cooked lobster.
He forced his eyes open, burning with murderous rage, and prepared to retaliate. But he was too slow. Before he could even tense his muscles, Diamondhead delivered a powerful spinning back kick that sent the warlord flying.
BOOM!
Vilgax crashed through what remained of the stadium wall, disappearing in a cloud of dust and debris.
Gwen threw her hands in the air, cheering. "We won!"
Ben, however, was dumbfounded. He knew firsthand how terrifyingly powerful Vilgax was. "How… how did he do that?!"
Paradox chuckled softly. "You can't learn this, Ben. The aliens Klein transforms into possess the highest possible baseline power for their species. This 'species' includes any and all other Omnitrix users. Besides," he added, his smile never wavering, "Vilgax isn't quite that easy to defeat."
As if on cue, the mountain of rubble exploded outward. The smoke cleared to reveal Vilgax, looking disheveled but very much alive, his eyes glowing with fury.
"Brat!" he bellowed. "You have truly angered me!"
He charged again. This time, Diamondhead plunged both hands into the ground. A massive, translucent wall of diamond erupted from the earth, blocking Vilgax's path.
BANG!
Vilgax shattered the wall with a single, contemptuous punch. But it was a feint. Using the wall as a distraction, Diamondhead had closed the distance. His right arm morphed into a long, wickedly sharp blade, which he swung in a glittering arc directly at Vilgax's writhing facial tentacles.
Vilgax reacted a split-second too late. He jerked his head back, saving his life, but the blade still sliced cleanly through several of the appendages. Bluish-purple blood gushed from the wounds. The searing pain only fueled Vilgax's rage. He roared, channeling all his strength into his right arm, and brought it crashing down on Diamondhead.
Diamondhead crossed his arms to block. The immense force of the blow shattered his crystalline forearms, the sound echoing like fracturing glass, and sent him skidding back dozens of meters, his feet carving deep trenches in the ground.
Vilgax bent his knees and launched himself forward, closing the distance in an instant.
But Diamondhead was already regenerating. The shattered fragments of his arms swirled and knitted back together as if time were reversing. He stopped his slide, plunged his hands into the earth once more, and this time, several colossal diamond pillars shot up from the ground. Two rose to intercept Vilgax's charge, while the other two slammed into him from the sides the moment he was blocked.
BOOM!
Vilgax was crushed between the two crystalline monoliths, trapped like meat in a sandwich. For a moment, there was silence. Then, the massive diamonds began to vibrate violently.
BANG!
They exploded into a shower of glittering dust. Vilgax was just pushing himself up, one foot planted to support his body, when he realized Diamondhead was no longer in front of him. He was above.
Diamondhead, having leaped high into the air, clasped his hands together and brought them down in a devastating double-axe handle smash right on top of Vilgax's head.
BOOM!
The warlord was slammed face-first into the ground again. Wasting no time, Diamondhead landed on his back, pinning him, and began raining down a relentless torrent of punches on Vilgax's head, each blow landing with the force of a jackhammer.
But Vilgax was still Vilgax. Just as his counterpart in Klein's universe had done, he made a desperate choice. Abandoning all defense, he unleashed a sudden, explosive burst of strength, throwing Diamondhead off him. Realizing he couldn't win a direct fight, he scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash—not for the exit, but for Gwen.
His mistake.
Before Vilgax could even take a third step, a huge diamond wall shot up in front of him. Without thinking, he tensed his muscles and shattered it, only to find another, identical wall standing right behind it.
"More?!" he snarled, his momentum broken.
That brief moment of hesitation was his last. Diamondhead didn't care about the trap; he was already moving. He vaulted over the second wall, his left hand grabbing Vilgax's head while the dazed warlord was still processing the trick. His right hand morphed back into a sharp blade.
There was a single, clean swing.
Vilgax's head and its remaining tentacles fell to the ground with a wet thud. His massive body stood motionless for a second before collapsing. The warlord was dead.
Klein knew he could have killed him earlier, simply by switching from fists to blades during the beatdown. He could have dragged the fight out longer. But the instant Vilgax turned to attack Gwen, the game was over. He went for the kill.
Diamondhead looked down at his crystalline hands. 'Have I gotten stronger?' he thought. 'Or was this Vilgax just weaker than the one from my universe?'
A quiet blue light flashed, and the towering alien form dissolved, leaving Klein standing in its place.
Paradox, Ben, and Gwen walked over, their expressions a mixture of awe and disbelief.
"Vilgax… he's really dead? Just like that?" Ben still couldn't wrap his head around it. He'd been beaten half to death by the same villain.
Klein ignored him and looked at the time traveler. "Alright, Paradox. Are we going to deal with that guy you mentioned next?"
"Of course," Paradox replied with his ever-present smile. "Unless you'd like to spend a bit more time with your cousin and Gwen."
"Cousin and Gwen?!" Ben and Gwen exclaimed in unison, their heads snapping toward Klein.
"I don't remember us having any other cousin," Ben said, his brow furrowed in confusion. Gwen nodded emphatically beside him.
"I was adopted by Grandpa," Klein explained simply.
For some reason, upon hearing the word "adopted," Gwen let out a small, almost inaudible sigh of relief.
"It's because he has no parallel world counterpart," Paradox elaborated, turning to open a shimmering, swirling portal in mid-air. "He exists only in his own timeline." He gestured toward the vortex. "Alright, time for us to go."
"Bye, Ben. Bye, Gwen."
Paradox stepped into the portal and vanished. Klein gave the two Tennysons a final, indifferent nod before following him through.
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