Author's Note: I own nothing.

51 Queens Gambit

Ordering the Omnitrix to self destruct wasn't difficult, just a simple code. Watching Vilgax's face a split second before it blew was almost satisfying as he realized she wasn't bluffing and the panic crept into the bright red. But god it hurt. She and Vilgax both screamed as the device blew, Vilgax went flying into a wall and didn't get back up. Jen's legs felt like the bones stopped existing, she crumpled and would have fallen if not for Pierce. Her breaths were heaving, and really hard to get in and out as if they were lined with razor blades. Her vision went a little fuzzy at the corners. She guessed that she'd probably cut Azmuth's estimation of a day down to maybe an hour if she was lucky. She felt the blood drip from her nose as Kevin screamed too clutching his head. Green lights buzzed around him for a moment as Gwen panicked torn between the two. Jen waved her off, it was better for her to worry about Kevin right now Jen was already a lost cause. In a moment the green lights faded and the mutation vanished. Everyone blinked at him. Jen smiled bitterly.

"It was the Omnitrix. The energy from the blowback did that to you, the energy from the Watch was keeping you like that." He blinked.

"Did you just now figure that out?" He sounded a little incensed but he winced hard when she coughed, blood splattering onto the deck of the ship.

"Pretty much yeah." She rasped out. Gwen pulled Kevin into an enthusiastic kiss. Then Vilgax stood up tossing the broken Omnitrix at Jen's feet. He looked her over curiously.

"You're dying Tennyson."

"No shit squidface."

"Why?" But no one answered him instead Gwen, Kevin and Grandpa Max attacked. Jen grabbed Pierce before he could join in. She scooped up the Omnitrix and gestured to Albeda.

"Need your help, my legs aren't working all that well right now." Pierce obeyed and dragged her to the chained Albeda. Looking into red eyes where there should be green was unnerving Pierce but Jen didn't seem to care. "I'm going to let you go, and you're going to give me the Ultimatrix." Albeda almost didn't listen, but the Human Galvan was smarter than Vilgax and realized that Jen was not bluffing when she threatened to blow up the device. Pierce noticed a difference the second Jen put the Ultimatrix on her wrist and it closed around her arm. Color rose in her cheeks again and her nosebleed slowed. He could almost forget that she had been dying not five minutes earlier as she battled Vilgax as an evolved form of Swampfire, he didn't even notice her white haired double slip away from him.

But as she landed in the pink bubble Gwen had used to protect everyone else from the explosion of the ship something was off. She staggered and nearly fell. Max caught her as she turned back to herself. What color that had been in her cheeks had fled again. Her nose was bleeding again and there was a small amount of blood trickling from her ears too. Max cried out in fear as she coughed weakly and even more blood blossomed. There was no way they would be able to save her in time. Then suddenly they weren't in the ocean anymore the were on the deck of a mostly green ship. A sharp voice called out to them.

"What are you waiting for, get her in the Cradle!" Max acted first, scooping his granddaughter off her feet, not that she was in any shape to be standing anyway, and placing her in a giant tube. It closed over her and she vanished from view, save for the arm now sporting the Ultimatrix, which was moved by a mechanism inside the cradle so it was sticking out of the device, laying on table on which stood a small froglike creature. Pierce frowned.

"What just happened?" The creature shook his head and spoke.

"Albeda's design has merit but the power source on the Ultimatrix was never finished. And a human mind was never designed to hold the programing of the Omnitrix." Kevin frowned.

"She had the programing in her head." Azmuth nodded speaking as he worked.

"Likely since she took it off yes." Gwen nodded.

"The light that crackled under her skin when she decoupled it."

"Observant girl. Well spotted. Myaxx, the power core." A female of Vilgax's species handed Azmuth a small green ball. It glowed so brightly it was sort of hard to look at. He spun the dial on the Ultimatrix and the hourglass opened. Azmuth carefully positioned the power core inside and reclosed the device. Energy crackled through it and the red device turned bright green coding spreading to the hand and arm it was attached to. The fingers flexed and the skin regained a pinkish hue, instead of the paper white it had been since she took off the Omnitrix.

"She will need time to recover but she'll live." Gwen cheered and tossed herself into Kevin's arms. He grinned and planted a kiss on her lips. It seemed as though they were finally free of Vilgax for good.