“Two Albedos?!” Ben, Gwen, and Kevin yelled at the exact same time, their voices echoing loudly off the damaged bulkheads of the command bridge.
Right in front of them stood a second white-haired clone, though this one had transformed into a towering, plant-like alien made of dark mud and vines, crowned with an orange-and-red flame crest atop its head.
Swampfire had just unleashed a searing wall of fire to cut off Vilgax’s murderous charge.
Without giving the stunned group a second glance, Swampfire turned his yellow eyes directly onto the battered, bloody warlord.
“Your fight is with me now, Vilgax!” Swampfire bellowed, his voice thick and resonant with the heavy scent of methane gas.
Before the echo of his challenge could fade, Swampfire lunged forward like an arrow released from a drawn bow.
He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, engaging Vilgax in a fierce, aggressive melee.
Under normal circumstances, a single Methanosian would struggle immensely against a galactic tyrant of Vilgax’s caliber.
But right now, the warlord was severely crippled.
His right arm was a mangled, bleeding ruin from the Omnitrix explosion, his dark armor hung in shreds, and his heavy breath came in ragged, painful gasps.
His reaction times were slow, his balance unsteady.
Swampfire capitalized on every weakness, effortlessly sidestepping Vilgax’s heavy, desperate broadsword swings and landing a series of heavy, flaming strikes straight to the warlord’s midsection.
Vilgax stumbled back, roaring in helpless fury as the flames singed his skin.
Deciding to wrap up the physical engagement quickly, Swampfire raised his left hand, reaching into the red bud-like structures resting on his shoulders.
He plucked a handful of glowing organic seeds and hurled them directly at Vilgax’s feet.
The moment the seeds touched the cold, metallic floorboards of the bridge—defying all biological logic regarding soil and sunlight—they rooted instantly into the deck plates.
Thick, thorny green vines erupted from the metal floor like writhing serpents, wrapping tightly around Vilgax’s legs, torso, and remaining good arm, pinning the giant completely in place.
“Target successfully contained,” Swampfire stated calmly.
He turned around and casually strolled back toward the group.
As he reached them, he raised a hand to slap the Ultimatrix crest on his chest.
A flash of brilliant red light swept over his body, reverting him back to his white-haired, human appearance.
Before Ben, Gwen, or Kevin could process seeing two identical human Albedos standing side-by-side, a quiet, amused chuckle sounded from the dark corridor right behind them.
“Not just two, you know,” a calm voice noted smoothly.
“Four, actually.”
The group whipped around to see two more Albedos stepping out of the shadows, looking completely relaxed with their hands casually tucked into their red jackets.
At the same time, the Albedo who had saved Ben as XLR8 tapped his chest emblem, shifting back into human form in a flash of red light.
Suddenly, five identical, pale, white-haired teenagers with blood-red eyes were standing in a loose circle around Ben, Gwen, and Kevin.
Ben stared, his jaw practically hitting the floor.
“What…
how are there so many of you?!”
Seeing the sheer, absolute confusion plastered across the faces of the trio, three of the Albedos spoke up in rapid, casual succession, effortlessly finishing each other’s sentences.
“You all look absurdly baffled, so allow us to enlighten you,” the first Albedo said, flicking a strand of white hair from his eyes.
“It’s a elementary application of biological duplication,” the second clone added, stepping forward.
“Specifically, the natural cellular fission capability of a Sonorosian—Echo Echo.”
“Multiply the physical frame while transformed, isolate the individual signal paths, and then revert each unit back to its human baseline,” the third clone concluded with a cold smirk.
“Simple, efficient, and exceptionally useful.”
Kevin rubbed his forehead, looking between the five identical faces with a look of pure distress.
“Man…
seeing five of Ben’s stupid face all in one room at the same time?
I am definitely having nightmares for the next month.”
“Relax, Levin,” the original Albedo remarked dryly.
“The visual redundancy is only temporary.
Now that our immediate tactical objectives have been met, it is time to consolidate.”
The four duplicate Albedos stepped close together, raising their left forearms simultaneously.
They slammed their palms down onto their Ultimatrix dials.
Four flashes of crimson light illuminated the dark room.
“Echo Echo!”
Four identical, small, white silicon-clad aliens appeared. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
They walked toward each other, their bodies merging seamlessly into a single entity as their acoustic energy signatures realigned.
The remaining Echo Echo tapped its chest emblem, reverting back to the original, singular Albedo in a final flash of red.
He brushed off his red jacket, looking completely unimpressed.
“There.
Order restored.”
“Heh…
‘order restored’?
How utterly absurd!”
A dark, rasping laugh cut through the quiet room.
Trapped tightly inside the thick, thorny vines, Vilgax glared at them with his single remaining optic, a cruel, spiteful grin spreading across his squid-like face.
“Have you forgotten where you are, you foolish children?” Vilgax sneered, coughing up a small trace of purple blood.
“This flagship is currently locked in a maximum-burn descent directly toward the center of Bellwood!
In less than three minutes, this warship will impact the city like a meteor.
You haven’t won anything—you’re all going to burn alongside me!”
The realization hit Ben, Gwen, and Kevin like a bucket of ice water.
The joy of freeing Kevin and breaking Vilgax’s hold vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, sudden dread.
The floor beneath their feet was already vibrating violently as the ship entered the upper atmosphere, the heat outside rising rapidly.
“He’s right!” Gwen gasped, looking at the smashed control panels.
“The steering controls are completely destroyed!
We can’t pull the ship out of the dive!”
Kevin gritted his teeth, looking around frantically.
“Is there an escape pod block nearby?!”
While the three panicked, Albedo stood perfectly still, looking at the bound warlord with an expression of pure, patronizing pity.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Albedo scoffed, shaking his head slowly.
“Lord Vilgax…
the grand Conqueror of Ten Worlds.
How painfully uninspired your strategic thinking truly is.
Who said anything about dying here?”
Vilgax’s sneer faltered slightly.
“What?”
“I haven’t forgotten the ship’s trajectory for a single second,” Albedo continued, his tone dripping with absolute sarcasm.
“You seem to operate under the bizarre delusion that you possess the capability to force a mutual destruction scenario.
You don’t.”
Ignoring Vilgax’s furious glare, Albedo brought up his Ultimatrix dial, selected a rare, highly specialized profile, and slammed his palm down.
A blinding surge of deep red, energy-laced light engulfed his body.
When the light faded, a slender, bizarre alien over ten feet tall stood in Albedo’s place.
Its body vibrated with a continuous aura of red, flame-like dimensional energy, its elongated head and geometric features shifting slightly as if floating between reality planes.
Punctuation—a 26-Dimensional Being.
(The species possessed the unique, almost god-like capability to reach across multi-dimensional space-time layers and instantly manipulate physical coordinates across massive distances.)
Ben, Gwen, and Kevin immediately recognized the form, remembering their past encounters with higher-dimensional entities, though seeing Albedo casually command such a higher-dimensional DNA profile was still staggering.
Vilgax, on the other hand, stared at the vibrating, flaming entity in absolute, uncomprehending shock.
Punctuation didn’t waste a second on explanations.
He raised a slender, glowing arm, snapping his fingers in a sharp, multi-dimensional resonance.
FLASH!
Outside the falling ship, the night sky above Bellwood remained completely clear and silent.
The impending meteor-like catastrophe vanished into thin air without a single sound, leaving the city’s inhabitants blissfully unaware that they had just dodged total annihilation.
Simultaneously, hundreds of miles away in the middle of the open, deserted Pacific Ocean, a massive spatial distortion flared red over the water.
SPLASH!
Vilgax’s massive warship materialised out of thin air forty feet above the ocean surface, crashing heavily into the dark water and throwing up a monumental wave of white foam.
Inside the command bridge, water immediately began pouring in through the breached hull and broken access hatches, rising rapidly around Vilgax’s vines.
He raised his glowing hand a second time, wrapping all four of them in a bright red dimensional field.
FLASH!
In a fraction of a second, the dark, drowning bridge vanished.
When the red light cleared, the four of them were standing on solid ground in the quiet, cool night air outside Albedo’s hidden spaceship in the forest beyond Bellwood.
Ben blinked, wiping a drop of ocean spray off his cheek as he looked around at the trees.
“Uh…
are we really just leaving Vilgax on a sinking warship in the middle of the ocean?
Should we…
go back for him or something?”
Punctuation’s deep, multi-dimensional voice vibrated softly through the air.
“Relax, Tennyson.
A giant, amphibious, octopus-headed alien is hardly going to drown in seawater.
He will survive.”
Albedo’s stance on Vilgax was simple and practical: as long as the warlord wasn’t actively destroying his plans, his ongoing survival provided a mild source of tactical entertainment.
Suddenly, Punctuation raised a slender hand to his head, his dimensional aura flickering.
“Ah.
I omitted a vital asset.”
Before anyone could ask what he meant, Punctuation vanished in a flash of red light.
A second later, he materialized back on the sinking bridge of Vilgax’s flagship, right in front of the trapped warlord, who was currently struggling against the vines as seawater reached his chest.
Punctuation reached out a glowing hand.
With a quick spatial twitch, the heavy, pristine golden gauntlet on Vilgax’s left arm vanished, reappearing instantly in Punctuation’s grip.
“Farewell, Lord Vilgax,” Punctuation said smoothly.
“Do try not to catch a cold.”
FLASH!
He vanished once more, leaving Vilgax to roar in powerless, echoing rage at the rising ocean waters.
“BEN TENNYSON!
ALBEDO!
I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!”
Back in the forest, Punctuation reappeared beside the group, casually inspecting the golden gauntlet in his hand before tapping his chest crest to revert to his human form.
Albedo looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
“A most productive evening.”
Alien Data Files
Swampfire
Origin: Taken from the DNA sample of a Methanosian from the planet Methanos.
Anatomy: A plant-based, humanoid alien whose body is composed of dense, dark-green organic mud and root structures.
Its head features an orange-and-red flame-like crest, its feet are black, and its shoulders carry bright red, seed-producing pod structures.
It emits a pungent, overpowering odor of methane and flammable organic gases.
Abilities: Can ignite methane gas from its palms to project powerful streams of fire.
Possesses near-instantaneous cellular regeneration, allowing it to reattach or regrow severed limbs effortlessly.
The pod seeds on its shoulders can be thrown to rapidly grow thick, controllable vines to bind opponents or manipulate existing plant life.
Punctuation (26-Dimensional Being)
Origin: A higher-dimensional entity hailing from beyond standard three-dimensional physical space.
Anatomy: A tall, slender, semi-abstract humanoid figure standing over ten feet tall.
Its body constantly vibrates with a shimmering, red flame-like dimensional aura, and its features subtly shift across geometric dimensions.
The Ultimatrix symbol is located on its chest.
Abilities: Possesses spatial and temporal manipulation across 26 dimensions.
It can freely grab, displace, and teleport objects or entire massive structures (such as starships) across light-years and space-time coordinates instantaneously, bypassing physical barriers and conventional physics entirely.