THUMP.
Albedo tumbled out of a matching blue spatial tear, landing unceremoniously sideways across a hard wooden park bench.
The sharp wood dug into his ribs, eliciting a sharp gasp of pain.
“Ugh…” He grunted, shaking his head to clear the sudden spatial disorientation and the nausea that accompanied unannounced chronal travel.
He pushed himself up onto one elbow, his red eyes darting around wildly, ready to analyze his attacker, when the air above him crackled with static energy once more.
“Whoa—aahhh!”
COLLIDE!
A second figure dropped straight out of the sky, landing heavily on top of Albedo and knocking the absolute breath right out of his lungs.
“Get off me, you clumsy fool!” Albedo snarled, his voice laced with venom as he shoved the teenager off his chest with a sharp, forceful kick to the ribs.
Ben Tennyson tumbled off the bench and onto the grass, groaning as he rubbed his side.
He sat up, blinking stupidly at the sky as if trying to figure out which way was up, his iconic green jacket stained with grass marks.
“Uh…
what just happened?” Ben stammered, shaking his head as he looked around in utter confusion.
“Why am I in a park?
Albedo?!
What are you doing here?
I was literally in the middle of a nap in my own bedroom!”
Albedo stood up, brushing dirt and wood splinters off his red jacket, his red eyes narrowing in deep, furious irritation.
“Do I look like an inter-dimensional ferryman to you, Tennyson?
I was minding my own business when a spatial tear opened beneath my feet.
If I had known I would end up as your landing pad, I would have vaporized the portal on sight!”
Albedo paused, stepping away from Ben to look around.
They were standing in a serene, immaculate public park with manicured lawns, paved walkways, and serene duck ponds.
But there was a striking, unnatural anomaly: despite the high sun indicating it was the middle of the day, there were zero civilians present.
No cars humming on the distant streets, no children playing on the playground, no birds singing in the trees.
Complete, suffocating stillness blanketed the area.
“Hi there!
Hello, gentlemen!” a warm, cheerful voice echoed from the paved walkway behind them.
“I do hope I haven’t interrupted an important bonding exercise!”
Both Ben and Albedo snapped their heads toward the sound, their hands instantly hovering near their respective wrist devices.
Walking down the path was a middle-aged man wearing a classic white laboratory coat, tailored trousers, and carrying a steaming leather-bound thermos.
He walked with a light, easy stride, a gentle, almost grandfatherly smile resting on his face.
Ben’s jaw dropped in immediate recognition.
“Professor Paradox?!”
“Ah, hello, Ben!” Paradox greeted warmly, tipping an invisible hat toward the boy.
“Splendid to see you again!
Though, from my personal temporal perspective, I saw you just a few seconds ago—albeit a version of you that hasn’t experienced this afternoon yet.
Or perhaps it was next Tuesday?
Time can be so terribly slippery when one forgets to keep a pocket watch.” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Ben scratched his head, his face twisting into a knot of utter confusion.
“Wait…
what?
Next Tuesday?”
Paradox chuckled softly, waving his hand dismissively as if brushing away a stray fly.
“Never mind the temporal mechanics, my boy.
Before we dive into the details, I believe introductions are in order for our mutual friend.”
The time traveler stepped over to Albedo, offering a polite nod.
“Greetings, Albedo.
Though we have not formally conversed in your immediate linear timeline, I am intimately familiar with your work.
I am Professor Paradox—an investigator of time, space, and the occasionally absurd layout of the continuum.”
Albedo crossed his arms, evaluating the man with a sharp, calculating glare.
He didn’t care for the man’s jovial demeanor, but he couldn’t ignore the severe physical evidence before him.
He recognized the temporal signature radiating off the man’s coat—a classic chronal displacement field, perfectly tuned to prevent local timeline decay.
“Save the theatrical introductions,” Albedo said coldly, raising an eyebrow.
“You didn’t tear us across spatial coordinates just to exchange pleasantries or confuse Tennyson with elementary time paradoxes.
What do you want?”
Paradox’s casual smile faded.
In an instant, the lighthearted old man vanished, replaced by an expression of grave, uncharacteristic seriousness.
The warmth in his eyes vanished, leaving behind a cold, ancient intensity that made even Albedo take an involuntary half-step back.
“You are correct, Albedo,” Paradox said, his voice dropping into a somber, echoes-of-the-void register.
“I have summoned you both because we are facing an anomaly of catastrophic proportions.
A localized tear has opened in the fabric of Quadrant 54, threatening to collapse the structural stability of the wider multiverse.”
Ben’s posture straightened instantly, his playful mood completely evaporating.
He stepped up beside Albedo, his face hardening.
“A multiverse threat?
What kind of threat?”
“In Quadrant 54, the historical timeline branched off down a dark, horrific vector,” Paradox explained, his eyes turning distant as if recalling a nightmare he had witnessed firsthand.
“In that reality, the Galvan scientist Azmuth was not a champion of peace.
He was a radical xenophobe, consumed by absolute interspecies hatred.
He believed the Galvan race was superior to all other lifeforms in creation, viewing other species as mere blights upon the cosmos.”
Albedo’s eyes widened slightly.
“What…?
Azmuth?
A xenophobe?” The concept was almost incomprehensible.
Azmuth’s entire philosophy was rooted in preserving life, almost to a fault.
“Instead of constructing the Omnitrix as an ark to preserve life,” Paradox continued quietly, “he engineered a terrifying bio-weapon known as the Carnitrix—a device built for total, indiscriminate slaughter.
Once attached to a host, it does not politely request permission.
It forcibly overrides their neural pathways, mutating them into distorted, pain-crazed alien abominations designed solely to tear apart every living creature in their vicinity.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Paradox turned his gaze directly onto Ben.
“And tragically, the Ben Tennyson of Quadrant 54 found that watch.”
Ben felt a cold shudder run down his spine, imagining a reality where the watch on his wrist wasn’t a hero’s tool, but a curse of pure horror.
“That’s…
that’s horrible.
He’s trapped inside it?”
“It grows worse,” Paradox warned, his voice grim.
“Deep within the corrupted code of the Carnitrix sits a mutated, unhinged profile of a Celestialsapien—an Alien X driven by pure, violent malice.
If that entity breaches its containment and manifests, it will not merely destroy its own reality.
It will erase entire timelines.”
Paradox looked between Ben and Albedo, the weight of infinity resting on his shoulders.
“I am gathering an assembly of Ben Tennysons across parallel dimensions to launch a coordinated strike.
We must neutralize the Carnitrix, seal the Celestialsapien signal, and save the Ben of Quadrant 54 before his reality is consumed entirely.”
Ben didn’t hesitate for a single second.
He raised his left arm, tapping the interface of his Omnitrix as green energy flickered across its face.
“Say no more, Professor.
Tell us where to jump.
We’re in.”
Ben turned to Albedo, his expression urgent and surprisingly trusting.
“Albedo, we need your Ultimatrix!
You’ve gotta come with us!”
Albedo stood frozen for a beat, his mind processing the sheer, absurd scale of what he had just heard.
A xenophobic Azmuth?
A blood-soaked murder watch?
A corrupted Celestialsapien running amok in the multiverse?
He let out a long, weary groan, pinching the bridge of his nose as his blood-red eyes narrowed in deep, profound frustration.
A corrupted Alien X?
Albedo thought bitterly, staring up at the empty blue sky of this artificial pocket dimension.
I was planning on enjoying a quiet afternoon…
This isn’t fun at all.
Alien Data Files
Alien X (Celestialsapien)
Origin: Taken from the DNA sample of a Celestialsapien from the Forge of Creation, located beyond the known boundaries of the multiverse.
Anatomy: A humanoid entity composed of deep space and shimmering stars, featuring three sharp horn-like crests on its head and glowing white eyes.
The device symbol is located squarely on its chest.
Abilities: Possesses omnipotent, reality-warping capabilities.
It can manipulate time, space, matter, and gravity at a cosmic scale, capable of recreating entire destroyed universes.
However, all actions require a unanimous consensus between its internal dual personalities, Bellicus (rage) and Serena (compassion).