HeroVerse
Chapter 6
"The Battle of Ledgerdomain"
"Eon!" Cannonbolt roared. He rolled into a ball and barreled towards the Chronian at high speeds.
Eon held out a hand to the oncoming Cannonbolt. He charged his hand with time energy and thrust his will forward. Cannonbolt collided with the time energy and was sent flying back wildly, spinning out of control. As he flew threw the air, his body faded from yellow to grey as it turned to ash. Cannonbolt's ashen body blew away as he hit the ground hard, revealing Ben underneath.
"He just erased Cannonbolt!" Kevin yelled.
"It's just like last time we fought," Ben said, as he stood with Kim's help. "If he hits my transformations with his time energy, they age to dust."
"Ben, you should know better." Lucky Girl said. "You can't just run in guns blazing when it comes to Eon."
"So how do we fight him?" Jake asked.
"You guys stay out of his way." Ben said. "Gwendolyn, you're with me. Danny take Dark. Rex, Alpha's your's. Kevin, Jake, Kim take care of the Huntsman and his goons."
"Thank you Tennyson, for reminding me." Eon said. He turned to the Huntsman. "Animo requires your help with hunting down the prey." He waved a hand in front of the Huntsman, and he disappeared in a purple haze.
"Well, that's one less bad guy to worry about." Kim said, as her suit glowed with renewed energy.
"Alright team, move out!" Ben called out.
The team rushed their enemy in full force. Kim sent a lightning bolt through a ninja, and the energy arced from one ninja to another, taking out several of them. Jake let out a roar as he charged into the crowd. He fired a wave of flames from his mouth, lighting a mob of the ninjas on fire.
Kevin shed his stone armor, and pulled out a chunk of Pyronite rock and a tuft of Arachnichimp fur from a pouch on his belt. He grasped the DNA samples tightly in his hands, causing his body to shift. A second set of eyes opened up on his forehead as his body was covered in molten rock. His hair burst into flames as an extra set of arms emerged from and a prehensile tail emerged from his lower back. He fired a web line from his tail and lasso'd it around a group of ninjas. He then ignited the webbing. The flame quickly travelled down the line and then engulfed the ninjas. Kevin charged into the Huntsclan mob, running on all six limbs. Right as he would have run into one of the ninjas, he flipped into the air, spinning with his arms extended, and punched several of the ninjas straight in the face.
Kim's suit formed around her arms until they formed into twin electric blades. She parried several blows from the Huntsclan, and countered with several fatal slash attacks, taking her enemies down without remorse.
Danny and Dark collided in midair, the flash sending out a ripple of Ecto energy. Danny electrically charged his fists, sending bolts of electricity coursing through Dark's body. Dark let out an agonized screamed that turned into a Ghostly Wail that sent Danny hurtling through the air. Danny redirected himself, flying back at Dark. He charged Ecto energy in his hands and threw it like a baseball. Dark's chest opened up in the center, letting the Ecto ball sail through harmlessly. His chest closed up and he conjured up a sword made of red Ecto energy. He slashed at the oncoming Danny, who managed to deflect the sword with an Ecto shield, but just barely. The shield nearly caved in from the strike. Danny fired a blast from his free hand, forcing Dark to retreat out of the way.
"I must admit, Daniel." Dark said. "Your powers have advanced nicely. When I restore myself to the timeline, I might even be stronger than before thanks to your diligence."
"In your dreams, match head!" Danny duplicated himself into three copies. One Danny launched flames at Dark. The second fired an electric blast at him. The third expelled an ice beam. The elements clashes against Dark. Dark let out an agonized, angry scream. Dark managed to call up a shield to give him cover from the blasts. Even still, his shield seemed to be about to buckle under the pressure. Dark dropped the shield and then transformed his body into a cloud of green smoke. He dispersed into several streams of smoke, surrounding the original Danny. Dark reformed into four clones of himself and unleashed an incredible blast of electricity. Danny cried out in pain, the electric blast breaking his focus, and his own clones dispersed. Danny lost consciousness, falling towards the stone paths of Ledgerdomain.
Danny hit the ground hard, his body still smoking from Dark's attack. He struggled to pick himself up as Dark approached. "Your time is over, Daniel." Dark's hands seemed to glow with purple energy. "With my powers as they are now, I don't even need the Ghost Gauntlets to separate your Ghost and Human forms. I can do it myself."
"So…not going to happen…" Danny said. "I'll be damned before I let myself live in a future with stupid hair like that."
Dark growled and rushed Danny. Danny charged his fist with Ecto energy and struck the ground hard. A fissure opened up as massive amounts of Ecto energy erupted and consumed Dark. Dark roared in agony as the Ecto energy burned him. Dark flung himself away, his body charred and smoking. His black flaming hair had become patchy as he was weakened. Danny held his hands out, glowing with Ecto energy. An orb of Ecto energy seemed to form around Dark, trapping him completely.
"And for my next trick," Danny hit a button on his gauntlet, activating his Fenton Thermos attachment. He pointed it at the imprisoned Dark, and fired a blue tractor beam from his wrist. The beam hit home, wrapping Dark in an inescapable vacuum. Dark roared in pure anger and hatred.
"This is not how it was supposed to happen!" Dark wailed from within the vacuum. "I swear to you Daniel, this is NOT over!" Dark's voice became warped and harder to understand as he was sucked into Danny's Fenton Thermos Gauntlet. It shut off with a click, trapping Dark in an infinite prison.
Danny bent over at the waist, hands on his knees. "That guy…" He panted. "Something doesn't feel right about this…"
Rex grabbed Alpha with the Smack Hands, holding it tight in place. Tendrils seemed to grow from Alpha's shoulders. They squirmed around, seemingly getting acquainted with their surroundings. Then, without warning, they rushed Rex, becoming sharp points headed straight for his face.
"Woah!" Rex cried in alarm. He quickly collapsed the Smack Hands and formed Block Party with both hands to intercept the tentacles. The tentacles hit Rex's twin shields hard, visible cracks forming in the light constructs. Rex switched the shields out for the B.F.S., running past the outstretched tendrils and prepared an upward swing to slice Alpha straight in half. To Rex's surprise, his sword was met with Alpha's own, being formed from condensed Nanites. Alpha's sword was a solidified portion of his arm that almost looked like molten rock. The two swords sparked against each other as they fought for dominance. Alpha and Omega struggled against each other. Visible strain showed on Rex's face. How was Alpha so strong? Didn't he need to continuously feed on Nanites to maintain his strength and form? Something wasn't right about this. Alpha and Rex clashed their swords several more times, emitting loud clanging noises that echoed across Ledgerdomain. Rex went in for one last swing, but at the last second, collapsed the machine and used the forward momentum to drift right past Alpha's guard. Rex formed the Smack Hands and let a massive punch loose right into Alpha's back. The Alpha Nanite let out a grunt of surprise as it was flung across the stone ground. Alpha skidded to a stop, then formed large claws akin to the Smack Hands, and rushed back at Rex. The two clashed, gripping each other's giant fists as they struggled through pure physical strength.
"You cannot defeat me as I am, brother." Alpha said in a completely calm and monotone voice.
"How are you so strong?" Rex said through gritted teeth. "You shouldn't have any Nanites to absorb."
"Do not worry, brother. In due time, you will learn all of our secrets." Alpha said. "But for now…" Alpha grew a third giant clawed fist from his left arm. It reached around and punched Rex in the side, causing his smack hands to collapse and Rex to tumble across the ground. "You will be coming with us." Alpha's arms returned to their normal state as the nanite ominously floated towards a downed Rex.
"Gwendolyn, hit me!" Chromastone called to his cousin.
Lucky Girl charged up a mana blast and fired it into Chromastone's back. Chromastone became supercharged as he absorbed the incredibly powerful energy. He pointed his fists at Eon and fired a massive, bright prismatic beam. Eon held up his hand, a shield of purple time energy completely nullified the blast. Eon returned the favor, firing a time beam at Chromastone. Lucky Girl called up a mana shield to defend Chromastone. The time beam hit the shield, turning the vibrant pink energy into crumbling black dust. Chromastone flew at Eon, grabbing him and slamming him into the ground. Then Chromastone unleashed a prism blast at point blank range, burying Eon in the rock.
"Good hit, Ben." Lucky Girl said.
"Thanks, but that won't keep him down." Chromastone replied.
"We need to grab the Alpha Rune from Eon and split." Lucky Girl told Chromastone. "We aren't gonna win this fight."
"No, Eon's going down. And so are his pals." Chromastone said.
Purple light flashed from Chromastone's back, and his body suddenly changed to a dead gray color as his body seemed to crumble away. Ben emerged from the dust, falling to a knee as he was momentarily weakened from the attack.
"Oh come on, man." Ben groaned. "If you're gonna dust my aliens, can't it at least be the lame ones?"
"Joke while you still can, Benjamin." Eon said. "Soon, you won't have any time to joke at all." Eon fired another time ray at Ben. Lucky Girl was quick though, she called up a shield to deflect the blast as a mana tendril grabbed Ben and threw him out of Eon's range.
"Hands off, Father Time." Lucky Girl said. "Adfishio Potentia!" Lucky Girl's voice echoed. Several blasts of mana roared from her hands and towards Eon.
Eon fired a time ray to counter, and the energies clashed in a brilliant rush of light and sound. Lucky Girl gritted her teeth as she struggled to keep up her attack. Eon seemed to be barely trying, then he leaned into his blast, and it suddenly overtook Lucky Girl's attack. Right before the time ray would've hit, she rolled out of the way, coming back up to a knee.
"Galeas Disruptus!" Winds rushed forth as Lucky Girl's voice echoed.
Eon braced himself against the winds, holding his arms up in a defensive position in front of his body. Eon took one step forward, then another, getting closer and closer to Lucky Girl.
"Ben!" Lucky Girl said, strain in her voice. "Anytime now!"
"Ugh…" Ben rubbed his head, recovering from being thrown. "I'm on it!" He slapped down the Omnitrix, being absorbed in a flash of green light.
Ben's body grew large and round, as his mouth took up most of his face. His arms and legs grew stubby as his skin turned a sickly green color. As the green light faded, Ben appeared as a pufferfish-like creature.
"Spitter!" He growled in a low, gravelly voice. Spitter's body inflated as he filled with slime. He aimed at Eon as he closed in on Lucky Girl, and then expelled a high pressure blast of slime right at Eon. Eon was hit by the blast and sent rolling across the ground, covering the stone in Spitter's slime. Spitter pressed the Omnitrix on his chest, cloaked in another green flash.
"NRG!" The furnace-clad alien said with a thick Russian accent. He fired a radioactive blast from his faceplate right at Eon. Eon deflected the blast, but only barely. His glove was singed and smoking.
"The Omnitrix cannot save you, Benjamin." Don growled.
"Bet." NRG said, unimpressed. The lid on his suit became unsealed and flipped back, allowing a radioactive, skeletal being to float freely. NRG's true form. "I'm going to fry you until you're cooked medium well." NRG, now free from his restraints, fired a much more powerful blast at Eon.
Eon had only a split second to time shift himself out of the way. The stone where Eon had once stood was left as nothing but molten rock. Eon fires a time ray at NRG, who countered with a blast of radioactive energy. The two blasts clashed in a brilliant display of purple and orange light. Both NRG and Eon strained to keep up their ends of the collision.
Lucky Girl stood near NRG, holding her arms out as she prepared her own blast to add to the fray. "Eradiko!" Several blasts of mana erupted from her hands. As they collided against Eon's beam, they formed into one large blast. Eon groaned as his blast began to retreat under the pressure of their combined might. Eon then spun his beam around in the collision, causing all three blasts to become unstable and lose their leverage. All three blasts dispersed, their users skidding back on the ground from the sheer force.
Eon then held up the Alpha Rune, which had been floating harmlessly away from the battle only a few moments ago. "That's enough, Tennyson." Eon formed a time blade in his free hand, holding it up to the Alpha Rune. "Any movement from you whatsoever, and I destroy the Alpha Rune right here and now."
"You're bluffing, Eon." NRG said. "You wouldn't have gone to all that trouble only to destroy it now."
"You forget that I'm a time traveler, child." Eon said. "This Alpha Rune is the easiest for me to obtain, but if I have to, I can always go to another time or dimension to retrieve an alternate version."
Lucky Girl looked at NRG. "You're right Ben, we can't let Eon win or get away. It's worth the risk. Take him!"
NRG raised an eyebrow at his cousin. "But you said we need to get it back! What will happen to Ledgerdomain or all of magic if we force him to destroy it?!"
"It will be okay!" Lucky Girl told him. "Just do what we need to do to take him down!"
NRG looked from Lucky Girl, to Eon, and back to his cousin. He sighed, lowering his hands from an offensive stance, to a neutral one.
Eon smiled under his helmet. "Predictable. When you have a level head, you're very easy to predict and manipulate, Benjamin." Eon gestured towards his comrades. The Huntsclan fell in ordered rows behind the Chronian, at the ready to obey his next order.
Alpha approached, but with a hostage in tow. Rex had been battered and rendered unconscious, trapped in a molten nanite construct.
"Rex!" NRG charged at Alpha, ready to throw down.
"Another time, Benjamin." Eon snapped his fingers, and in a blur of purple light, the entirety of his forces were gone.
Silence fell, and Ledgerdomain seemed to get a little darker and colder with the absence of the Alpha Rune.
"Ben…" Lucky Girl approached her cousin, transforming back to her normal appearance.
"That….those….BASTARDS!" NRG roared, unleashing an explosion of radioactive energy around him, completely destroying the platform he stood on.
Gwendolyn used her magic to retreat herself and the others a safe distance away. "Ben! Cool it!"
"You don't get it Gwendolyn!" NRG growled. "Eon played me! He used my morals against me! And he was able to take Rex!" NRG unleashes a nuclear blast at a stone pillar, completely vaporizing it. "When it came down to it, I failed in every way! He has Rex! He has the Alpha Rune!"
Danny got in NRG's face. "Cool it!" Danny growled, his eyes glowing bright green. "This is a team! We all took the loss on this one!"
"Out of my face, ghost boy." NRG hissed.
"Or what? You're gonna try to fry me just because you're a little sore from the loss?" Danny said with a cold look on his face.
"Keep it up and I'll do a little more than try!" NRG began glowing as his anger rose.
Two mana walls separated and pushed the two away from each other. "That's enough boys!" Gwendolyn said with her best mom voice. "Nothing is going to get solved just by fighting amongst ourselves."
"We need to focus on how we're going to get Rex back." Kim said.
"The Alpha Rune, too." Jake said. "No doubt the Huntsman and Eon have some crazy plans for something that powerful."
"I was just about to get to that before the Night Light over here was getting all pissy." Danny said, a little more lightheartedly. "Check this out."
Danny pressed a few buttons on his gauntlet, and a hologram flickered to life. It was a live feed of the containment field inside his gauntlet. Dark Phantom roared in anger as he fought against the confines of the Fenton Thermos.
"I managed to stun him long enough to trap him." Danny explained. "Considering he's probably Eon's most powerful ally right now, he's the perfect bargaining chip to get Rex and the Alpha Rune back safely."
"Good work, ghost boy." Kevin crossed his arms with a smile.
NRG sighed. "Danny, I'm sorry." He slouched his shoulders.
Danny cut the holographic feed, putting a hand on NRG's shoulder. "Hey, I get it. Losing stinks. But we only lost the battle. The war goes on."
NRG forced a weak smile, and nodded.
Gwendolyn let out an exasperated sigh. "Alright, everyone gather around, let's get back to the Plumber Base and see what we can learn from our guest."
Everyone returned to their base forms and gathered close to Gwendolyn as she chanted the teleportation spell. A rush of wind and light, and they were gone.
Eon stumbled through a time portal, appearing back in the pocket dimension. It had been outfitted with various equipment that Dr. Animo needed. Eon's breathing was shallow and rough. He ripped off his helmet, revealing a scarred and withered face with patchy hair. His skin was pulled taught against his skull. He looked like death.
Alpha looked the Chronian up and down. "You've expended yourself, time walker."
Eon groaned. "My people fell, because we could not contain the power we thought we'd mastered. It withers us away to dust." He let out a dry but brutal cough. "I was not expecting to use so much of my power so quickly."
"Well then, it seems that you've sabotaged yourself." Alpha continued. "What becomes of our plans with you about to expire?"
"Simple, we turn the clock back." Eon said. His voice was hollow and wispy. Each word sounded as though he was desperately trying to take a deeper breath. "Come. I'll show you."
Eon opened another time portal. The toll it took on his body was very visible with his helmet removed. As the portal opened, flakes of skin seemed to float off his face. Eon and Alpha walked through the portal. They arrived in a ruined lab, with hundreds of stasis tubes lining the walls. Nature had long since reclaimed the lab. Grass and roots erupted from the steel floors. Several animals not of Earth seemed to have taken up residence, but they fled at the sight of Eon and Alpha.
"This lab. We are on your homeworld." Alpha said, looking around.
"What's left of it." Eon stumbled, but kept himself up right. "My lab is the last operational facility on the planet in the present." Eon managed to shuffle to the nearest stasis tube. He began pressing several buttons on the keypad. The stasis tube seemed to beep in the affirmative.
"ID confirmed." A robotic voice said through an intercom. "Beginning transfer."
"I'll be right back." Eon said. Then, the light died from his eyes, and he collapsed, dust flying off his body in clouds.
If Alpha had been human, it may have shown some sign of concern or shock. But it watched the Chronian die with only scientific intrigue.
The stasis tube let out a burst of smoke from its seems as it opened. As the glass cleared, Alpha could see a familiar face sleeping within. It was Ben Tennyson. Or rather, it was A Ben Tennyson. This one was not exactly the same as the one Alpha knew. It had long brown hair that was drawn back in a ponytail and reading glasses. His Omnitrix was attached to a robotic left arm, and he wore a green dress shirt and slacks. As the stasis tube opened, he seemed to stir and awaken.
His eyes went wide behind his glasses. "I'm free? I'm free!" Ben Tennyson pushed his way out of the stasis tube and moved to make a run for it.
Before he could even take two steps, his Omnitrix seemed to activate on its own. The glow went from green to purple as it triggered a transformation. "What?! No! No! Please help me!" Ben Tennyson cried, holding out a desperate hand to Alpha.
Alpha simply watched as purple light consumed the boy. The boy let out a scream of agony and pure horror and sorrow. In only a moment, Ben Tennyson was dead.
Eon was born, once more.