As he held up the staff, he glanced at as if he was in love. His pirate ways were still very present but he only robbed banks and people on his "vacations" when Zeliria told him to spend time on Earth for the hell of it because it had no need of him to rescue children at that particular moment. Flicking it to hear the metal ring, he gave a lustful smirk.

"This would go wonderful on the mantle, wouldn't it? Or maybe it would look better being held by the Greek statue of Hades. I don't know, what do you think?"

Kia and the Marionette, his other friend who was bound to protect Freddy and the misfit family of the dead children and bodies of the mechs they used, shook their heads for two separate reasons.

Marionette wore similar pirate garb to him sans her black and white coat that lay instead by her side. She was an occasional partner of Max's and often joined his obsolete fashion sense out of humor though she didn't like the boots too much, preferring to go barefoot.

"Oh, come on," he scowled, "you two wouldn't take this into your house as a trophy? It's beautiful, you dirty liars."

Both girls grew wide eyed despite both not having any and frantically began to point behind him.

Max twirled it in his hand, "You know, it's a pity how hard people try to look for this stuff, but they never seem to be smart enough to realize that-"

The staff was suddenly shot from his hand and flew across the temple room who knows how far. The only movement Max made as a reaction was his eyes grew slightly but the rest of his body was just frozen in the stance it was when he held the staff. A few seconds later, he loosened himself from the pose and glanced rather disheartened at the lack of object in his grasp before a frown took ahold of him. Kind of in a half shrug of "what the hell," he did a two-point turn to view the source of the blast. It was a regrettable decision at best.

A man around thirty-five but with stressed circles under his eyes and a mixture of baggy explorer and Aztec clothing held a gun up at Max maliciously. It was obvious who he was when all three peered at what was strung on his belt that hung so menacingly off his hip. A beige bone mask that had no less than three sets of horns and looked as if it was the skeletal remains of a human-demon hybrid. Its eyeholes were blank thankfully so that meant he wasn't awake yet.

Max raised his hands in smug defeat, "I'm sorry, Houston, I didn't know he made you come back to his home. It was a nice staff, F.Y.I."

Houston growled, "You shouldn't be here. I don't want to hurt you. Do you want to provoke me so you can lock me back up?"

"No, I honestly thought he was going to let you visit your girlfriend first."

The man grinned tiredly and lowered the gun back into its holster. "Gwen broke up with me after the second time you imprisoned me."

"Oh, I'm...sorry," Max sighed.

"Nah, don't be. Part of it was my fault because when you have a demon god stuck with you until you die, things are bound to eat shit eventually," Houston chuckled, pointing somewhat crudely at the mask. "I mean the first time I escaped, she was more than pleased and had sex with me. Unfortunately, the start of the break up happened when the Entitled God here decided to take over midway and boy, did she not appreciate that. She said it was good but next time, there should be a massive amount of warning. That and he scares her in appearance...like in general."

The comment made all four giggle in fits. Just then, the eyeholes of the mask were no longer see through and darkness clouded them. Houston was the first to stop laughing and others followed when they noticed he was staring down at the mask in fear. Houston then whispered, "You're awake?"

The mask's harsh breathing and ghostly voices hissed at him probably complaining why Max was here in the temple. Not that the Guardian blamed the deity, he wouldn't be too pleased with someone in his home uninvited either.

"Yes, I know it's wrong but-I'm not betraying you and you know it! Please, let them go! Punish me but let them go!"

To a normal person who didn't know what the mask actually was, they would think Houston had schizophrenia talking to himself like that. But wouldn't that have been a relief compared to the monster he was paired with upon its choosing.

"Houston," Max called.

He was ignored as the man still tried to converse with the deity angrily. He tried a second time, but he only saw the mask tip slightly towards him. Finally fed up with the arguing, he yelled the one name he immediately regretted.

"Xibalba!"

The chatter, the voices, and the breathing cloud over all of them stopped. Both Houston and his friends stared at him seemingly with the harsh glare he was surely getting from the spirit that resided in the mask.

"You dare speak my name!?" The mask spoke in Max's mind.

"Had to get your attention somehow, right?"

"Know this, I will hunt you down and kill you for imprisoning me! I will finish what I started on this world, beginning with you!"

What possessed Max to speak his next words was beyond him but he smirked with pride, "Took you long enough."

Houston was absolutely flabbergasted at that response and Marionette instantly grabbed Max's arm, dragging him to the nearest exit with Kia pouncing after them on her hands since floating away like other dementors normally did wasn't fast enough in these situations.

Unknowingly to them, the Xibalba's mask fumed. Growling, it began to levitate and broke loose from its chain on Houston's belt. The human backed away with one hand trying to keep it a fair distance away as it turned to him, the internal structure of the mask zooming towards his face. It attached itself to him not to be removed and Houston screamed as the blackness of the eyes absorbed through his own. The pain became unbearable.

The skin visible in the holes and the eyes all were swallowed in a cloudy black substance before large orangish yellow circles engulfed the amber of his irises and pupils, forming a new eye design with black scleras covering the entire space. After the dark matter radiating from the mask started to crack down the remainder of his body and clothes in corrupted lines, it gained full control of its host and the optics narrowed in the direction of Max's departure as the darkness continued to spread.

As Max and the girls ran panicked through the labyrinth of the Aztec temple, Marionette slapped him in the back of the head as they reach what they assumed was the courtyard or a grave site, maybe a religious area of worship.

She snarled, "What were you thinking!? Prompting Xibalba? A god!?"

He stopped running and fast-walked through the open ruins and gave a sheepish smile, "To be honest, that's what happens when you don't think before you speak. Also, he's technically not a god; he's a physical embodiment of the land of the dead with the bad souls combined into one whole being."

"Yeah? Same thing! You might be the physically strongest as well as mentally compared to most humans but damn do you have your stupid moments," she shook her head.

"Hey now, I prefer 'common sense challenged' as I was born in rural 1760's and it doesn't show craftsmanship and stupidity of piracy working together in complete harmony better anywhere else. How else do you think I got my charm and skills of making-everything-up-as-I-go-along?"

"One has to wonder," Marionette coughed.

As Max shot her a dark expression, a roar of who knew how many voices combined rumbled the temple exterior almost just as powerful as the interior. Bits of rock crumbling off as all three peered around, anxious of Xibalba's presence. Suddenly, the wall of rock on the temple side was launched as something large hit it with obscene force. Max stared in utter disbelief.

A servo of beige coloring, claws scraping the stone pillar the wall was once connected to, helped push out an enormous entity. Roughly forty-five feet high with mismatched style armor plating that individually once belonged to different Transformers at one point, Xibalba rose to tower among the ruins with a growl. All of his plating when it was stolen from other Transformers he defeated in time was converted from their own colors to the common organic bone coloring Earth had as his theme of his Aztec guardianship of the supposed ancient underworld reigned supreme. Various real bones were also scattered among his frame, notably his collar which was lined with the remains of human and animal skulls as a necklace.

Whenever he added to his collection of parts, the color of armor would automatically change to his preference while the parts of organisms like humans attached were stripped of their flesh in an instant so he could place them accordingly without having to deal with the rotting materials. Formerly in mask structure, Xibalba only supported the upper jaw but now he had his lower piece which made him appear like a walking skeleton with the swirling gas-like darkness under the armor only adding more emphasis.

Roaring, the plates on his face broke apart and stretched with the black ectoplasm skin. The ever-so-present sharp teeth of Xibalba snapped together while his optics narrowed, the yellow-orange irises floating in the eyeholes brightening almost the entire decreased space. He stomped angrily forward, the rocks beside his taloned pedes jumping incredibly high.

All the while, the three smaller beings that stared up at his approaching form gawked in their separate ways. Max's mouth wobbled, "So I may have made a mistake."

Both the Marionette and Kia turned their heads slowly towards him with passive aggressive looks. No longer paying attention to Xibalba even as the giant gave a noticeable snarl, Kia huffed while Marionette just vindictively sighed, "No...really?"

"Run!"

Xibalba slammed his fist down as the three scattered, raking his claws on the ground but only targeting Max who began to climb the ruins like a monkey. Making an unknown sound of agitation, he whipped his arm around and took out part of the stability of the ruins prompting Max to out maneuver the crumbling portion of the environment. As the tumbling pace of the stones increased, Max barely missed being sunk as he leapt off the edge of the ruins, but suddenly a servo managed to catch him mid leap and he hissed as it squeezed him.

Xibalba began to laugh as the Guardian struggled, "You foolish mortal, you cannot get away from me. Did you learn nothing of our last encounters?"

"No, I did," he then smirked. "I just wondered how long it would take you. You seem a bit sluggish. Did you rely too much on Houston to move your sorry ass around while you slept in the stars?"

The yellow of the irises turned blood red. Max gave a taunting growl before Xibalba could do anything and slipped out one of his arms trapped in the deity's grasp. With one hand free, a small blue light began to spawn on his palm and he immediately propelled it towards the skeletal face.

In shock, Xibalba's eyes dimmed back to his normal gold and dropped the pesky human as a huge dragon of light busted awake directly in front of him. The light spirit shot its wings out in full capacity as it physically bounced off the mech after pushing him back, flapping twice before lowering to the ground at its maximum height with a loud bellow.

The light dragon hissed and swiped, forcing Xibalba to move backwards to dodge it all while Max regained his footing and ran towards the deity under the dragon he had created. Sliding to a stop, he raised his hand, signaling for the Patronus to keep Xibalba from advancing anywhere near his friends hopefully wherever they were hiding currently.

With his eyes glowing completely white, he took control of all the movements of the dragon. Like a boxer in the ring, he struck hard on the bone armor. Max didn't even hesitate to increase the power of his roundhouse kick and the dragon sent Xibalba crashing into the temple where the ceiling began to give out from the force of the intrusion. The deity groaned but looked up in time to see a large boulder of stone come down on him as his expression turned from angry to scared. His upper half seemingly was crushed under the rock as the rest of the section of the temple covered him in a plume of dust.

Max watched it happen as Marionette strode to his side, crossing her arms and shaking her head. Kia hopped onto a broken pillar near the steps entering the courtyard hunched into a sitting position like a cat. When the dust cleared, Xibalba wasn't visible, but they all knew he was still alive and would probably be awake within the next fifteen minutes. Houston was definitely okay though not happy because no harm could come to Xibalba's host as long as he possessed them.

The spiritual dragon gave one last roar on its hind legs before slamming back onto the ground and shifting back into a ball of light, zooming straight into Max's palm before absorbing into his body. He didn't like to use his Patronus often but sometimes, it proved very necessary especially with enemies he couldn't face head on.

Adjusting his tricorn hat, he gave a small smile and clapping his hands down on his hips, "Not bad for less than thirty minutes. Usually, Xibalba's a bit more calculating. I apologize in advance for the transformation, Houston!"

"You did insult him. Anger and brashness tend to make many sloppy like you and they get caught," Marionette scoffed.

Putting his hands up in defeat, he replied, "Fair enough."

The dragon amulet beacon hidden in his coat pocket began to pulse. He quickly took it out and activated it, intently focusing on the screens that flooded upward. A child of Swahili was described on one of them while an observed picture from Zeliria's database of the tribe was projected just below it.

"1503? I don't think I've been in this time era yet. Died by 'false accusations of evil.' Poor kid," Max muttered. "Whelp guess I got to leave. Hopefully, this isn't the tribe I pissed off in 1476 after rescuing the little girl from the murderous crocodile. I...uh...backtalked to the chief after he called me an atoner."

Kia swirled in glee, bouncing around him.

"You want to come with us, Marionette?"

She gave him a death glare and he clicked his tongue, "I'll take that as a no. Come on, Kia!"

Clenching his fist, a blue glow began to emit from it. He suddenly threw it and it burst a few feet away, a portal with the same glimmering image of the Swahili tribe location presented in Max's amulet projection. Giving a salute of goodbye, he darted into it with Kia following, failing to notice Marionette flipping him off.

When the portal disappeared, Marionette shook her head. She heard a rumble and a breath like something was sniffing the air profusely. Her shock turned to the rubble where Xibalba was currently under. She realized quickly she didn't have any way back to the fairgrounds in Missouri as she was in South America...with an angry deity. She twitched her eye and bolted away from the temple as she heard the brief groan of the masked being awakening.

AN: I took some inspiration from Venom for this character but not the 2018 movie. I had a concept for Xibalba in 2016 based on a mixture between the comics Venom and an early movie that I forgot but I remember scenes from, but also The Mask (starring Jim Carrey) and the concept of evil entities throughout history played a role in development. I will give credit where credit is due for the character creation.