Ultimate Fairy: Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Ben 10 was created by Man of Action and is owned by The Cartoon Network, Inc. (Warner Bros. Discovery). Fairy Tail was created by Hiro Mashima and is published by Kodansha. I do not own any characters, settings, or other copyrighted material from either series. This is a nonprofit fan work created for entertainment purposes only.

…

Ultimate Fairy

Chapter 6: Flame of the Giants

…

Sometime before dawn, John, Joe, and Gordon had gathered near the entrance with two of their rough-looking men. The three wizards spoke in low voices for a few minutes, then left the cave together and headed for Sun Village.

That left the children behind under the watch of the remaining guards.

Idiots, Nanomech thought.

There were four of them in total, all grown men with weapons at their hips and the kind of lazy posture that came from guarding prisoners who were too scared, too young, or too trapped to be dangerous. Two stood near the entrance to the chamber. One sat on a crate near the cages, picking his teeth with a knife. The last leaned against the wall beside the lacrima lamps, half-awake and visibly bored.

Nanomech kept track of their positions anyway.

Soon after, the children began to wake up.

At first, it was only a few soft sounds with murmurs and shifts. Then one of the Giant children in the farther cage blinked awake, looked around, and began to cry in confusion and fear.

That shattered the quiet all at once.

More children woke, confused and frightened. The newer ones, the ones who had been marched here only hours earlier, looked around in horror as the reality of the cages set in. Voices rose. Some called for their mothers. Some for their fathers. Some simply cried because they were children and they were trapped and afraid.

Flare woke with a sharp inhale and jerked upright, staring at the granite bars around her. Her red eyes widened in horror. "N-no…"

Beside her, Wendy blinked awake too. For half a second her face was blank with sleep. Her memory then rushed back all at once, and she shot upright, looking around in alarm. "Huh? Carla!"

"I'm here," Carla said, already awake and sitting up stiffly. "Unfortunately."

Flare's breathing turned ragged as she took in the cavern, the cages, and the other crying children around them. "No… no, no…"

Wendy quickly moved closer to her. "Flare, hey, it's okay—"

"It is very much not okay, child." Carla muttered, glancing toward the guards.

"True, but panicking won't help." a squeaky voice said.

The three girls froze.

Flare made a tiny, strangled noise and whipped her head around. "W-who said that?"

Nanomech floated up out of Wendy's hair and hovered in front of them.

For one stunned beat, nobody said a word.

Wendy's eyes widened. "B-Ben?!"

Nanomech gave a tiny wave. "Surprise."

Flare stared at him in complete disbelief. "W-what is that?"

Carla's ears twitched once. "That," she said flatly, "is apparently Ben. Whatever he calls this tiny form, I have no idea."

Wendy blinked twice. "Have you been hiding in my hair this whole time, Ben?"

Nanomech nodded once. "I couldn't snap you out of that trance the horn had you under, so I hid there to stay out of sight." He then blinked. "Also, you should probably wash your hair when this is over Wendy. It's starting to smell."

"Huh?!" Wendy yelped, eyes going wide. "Really?!" She grabbed a handful of her hair, brought it closer and sniffed. A second later, she winced. How did I not smell this sooner?!

Carla narrowed her eyes at her. "I told you that you should have washed your hair before we left Marigold."

Flare hesitated, then quietly added, "It's… not that bad."

Nanomech turned his single eye toward her. "You are being extremely generous."

Wendy's face turned pink with embarrassment. "O-okay! I get it!"

The crying from the other children swelled around them.

Wendy's expression tightened. "Ben, what happened? I remember getting sleepy and then…"

Nanomech's single green eye narrowed. "Okay, quick version. The head honchos of this operation: creepy fedora guy, his annoying little brother, and the big stone guy left not long ago. They went back to the village to bargain with the Giants."

Flare's face drained of color. "Bargain?"

"With all of you," the tiny techno-organic alien said grimly. "They put the adults to sleep, hypnotized the kids with some kind of horn, and now they want to trade everybody for the Eternal Flame."

Carla's eyes sharpened. "So they do intend to use the children as leverage."

Wendy's hands curled against the bars. "Then we have to get out now."

One of the guards near the crate barked, "Quiet down in there!"

Several of the younger Giant children started crying even harder.

Wendy lowered her voice at once. "What do we do, Ben?"

Nanomech pointed one tiny hand toward the guards. "There are only four left watching the cave. I take them down, you break the cages open, and then we get every kid out of here before those creeps come back."

Flare blinked at him, caught somewhere between surprise and disbelief. "You can take down all of them?"

Nanomech smirked. "I'm insulted you even had to ask, Flare."

Carla's tail flicked. "I believe she means she is doubtful you can take them down looking like that."

Nanomech grinned wider. "Well, good thing I have options." With that, he zipped through the bars and out into the open without anyone noticing. He tapped the Omnitrix symbol on his chest, and emerald light suddenly flooded the chamber.

"What the—?" one guard shouted, jerking upright.

When the green flash faded, Nanomech was gone and in his place stood a sleek, feline-like alien with a long, narrow build and digitigrade legs. His body was mostly black and pale blue, with the blue covering his lower legs, feet, hands, chest, neck, and face, while the darker black portions framed his torso and ran down his limbs like a skintight suit. Sharp black markings flared upward from his green eyes like a mask, and two long, horn-like black crests swept high from either side of his head. Pale shoulder plates jutted from the tops of his arms, green bands circled his wrists, and a bold, angular stripe pattern ran down from his chest beneath the Omnitrix dial.

(A/N: Credit to Salva Shark)

"Fasttrack!" he announced.

The nearest guard barely had time to lift his weapon before Fasttrack vanished in a blue blur.

He drove a punch into the man's stomach so quickly it looked as if the guard had folded around empty air before being launched backward into the wall. The second guard turned with a curse, only for Fasttrack to streak past and slam an elbow into his jaw hard enough to spin him off his feet.

The other two reacted at last.

"What is that?!" one of them shouted in alarm.

"Some kind of fast…cat?!"

"I'm not 'some fast cat.'" Fasttrack tore across the chamber and drove a sharp kick into the third man's chest. The impact hurled him backward into the crate he had been sitting on earlier, splintering the wood beneath him.

Fasttrack grinned. "I'm the fast cat."

Off to the side, the last guard fumbled for a lacrima at his belt and raised it to his mouth. "Magtartus, sir! We have an intru—"

He never finished.

Fasttrack slammed into him shoulder-first, driving him flat onto the stone floor. The communication lacrima skidded away across the cavern, its message cut short as the man went limp.

Fasttrack straightened and glanced toward the fallen lacrima. "Well," he muttered, "that's probably not ideal."

Back in the cages, Wendy had already rushed forward, one hand drawing in a tight, spiraling current of wind around her fingers.

"Sky Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

She drove her hand into the granite bars. The compressed whirlwind hit like a piercing drill, a sharp burst of wind and force cracking through the stone bars. Dust burst outward as fractures raced along the bars. They held for half a second, then split apart under the concentrated strike.

The children inside cried out in startled surprise.

Wendy rushed through the opening, only to realize a second later that it still was not wide enough for the Giant children trapped inside.

"Hang on. I'll—"

Before she could finish, Flare's twin red braids suddenly unraveled and shot outward like living cords, coiling around the granite bars still framing the gap. The crimson strands tightened, then gave a sharp pull. Stone cracked, split and then finally broke apart, widening the opening enough for the Giant children to squeeze through.

As her hair settled back into place, Flare turned to the others. "Help free the rest," she said. "Then we leave." The children nodded at once and began filing out of the broken cage. Only then did Flare notice Fasttrack, Carla, and Wendy staring at her. "W-what?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious.

Fasttrack blinked. "You're a wizard?"

Flare looked just as startled by their surprise. "I… I can use Hair Magic, y-yes."

Carla deadpanned, "You might have considered mentioning that."

Flare flushed, suddenly shy. "You never asked…"

Despite everything, Wendy smiled. "That's really cool."

Flare ducked her head a little. "Th-thank you."

Fasttrack tilted his head. "So let me get this straight. You've had useful magic this whole time and just… forgot to mention it?"

Flare's face burned even hotter. "I did not forget."

"You absolutely forgot." Fasttrack deadpanned.

"I did not!" Flare insisted with growing embarrassment.

"Children," Carla said flatly. "Bicker later. Rescue now."

That snapped everyone back into motion.

Wendy hurried to the next set of bars with Flare close behind her. "Right!"

Nearby, some of the freed Giant children were helping the smaller ones to their feet. They were still frightened, but they were beginning to look at Wendy and Flare with shaky hope instead of pure panic.

"Everybody stay together," Wendy told them quickly. "We're getting you out."

The next cage held three more Giant children and one little girl around Wendy and Flare's age. She had a rounder face than Flare, freckles dusted across her nose, and hair the same vivid red, though hers was gathered into a messy side braid that had half-fallen out during the night. Even with tear tracks on her cheeks and fear in her eyes, there was something bright and restless in her expression, as if she were the sort of person who spoke before thinking.

The moment she saw Flare clearly through the bars, her eyes widened. "Flare?!" Flare froze as she recognized the voice and turned to her. The girl pressed herself against the bars so hard Wendy thought she might actually try to squeeze through them. "Flare! Flare, it's really you!"

"Sola." Flare breathed.

The red-haired girl's face crumpled at once with relief. "You idiot!" she burst out, her voice wobbling. "You came after me!"

Flare blinked, then looked offended in a weak, stunned sort of way. "Of course I did!"

"You were supposed to say something cooler than that!"

"This is not the time!"

Sola let out a wet, hiccupping laugh that immediately turned into crying. "I thought…" She sucked in a shaky breath. "I thought maybe I wouldn't see you again."

That shattered what little composure Flare had left.

Wendy stepped in. "Sky Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

The bars cracked again beneath the focused burst of wind, and this time Flare's braids were already moving before the dust had fully cleared. They lashed around the fractured stone, tore it apart, and widened the opening enough for the children inside to escape.

Despite being well over a dozen feet tall, Sola came at Flare with reckless speed, barreling through the gap and dropping to her knees just enough to throw both arms around her without crushing her outright. Even so, the force of the hug nearly knocked Flare off her feet.

Flare made a startled sound, then wrapped both arms around her friend as best she could.

"You're loud," Flare whispered, her voice trembling.

"And you're nosy and bossy and took forever," Sola shot back into her shoulder, crying openly now. "I was scared!"

Flare's grip tightened. "I know."

For a second, neither of them moved.

Then Sola pulled back just enough to look at her, eyes red and watery. "You really came."

Flare tried for dignity and only managed about half of it with her own eyes shining. "Obviously."

Fasttrack and Wendy exchanged a look, both smiling a little at the reunion.

Sola then turned and blinked at Wendy, then at Carla, then at the sleek alien standing there like being a blue-black cat-humanoid in a cave was perfectly normal. Her brows knit. "…Why is there a weird cat-man?"

"I ask myself that every day," Carla said.

Fasttrack pointed at himself. "Okay. First, that was rude. Second, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize." He then pointed at Carla while looking at Sola. "Does this small cat not seem weird to you as well?"

Sola blinked. "Well, kind of."

Carla looked somewhat offended. "I beg your pardon, child, but what is so strange about me?"

"Would you like me to start with your attitude and then continue down the long list from there or would you prefer me to just say there's no time to list it all?" Fasttrack teasingly asked earning a small glare from Carla as a result.

Despite the fear still hanging over the cavern, a few of the children let out shaky little laughs.

Wendy took that as a good sign and clapped her hands once. "Okay. We still have more cages to open."

Sola wiped at her face and nodded. "Right."

Flare steadied herself, then glanced up at her friend. "Can you walk, Sola?"

Sola straightened, trying very hard to look braver than she felt. "I can do more than walk."

"Good. Then we need to move," Fasttrack called, already dragging the unconscious guards into a corner. "Because the three stooges are definitely gonna notice something's wrong any second now."

…

Meanwhile, at Sun Village's front gate, John Magtartus stood at the head of the path with one hand resting loosely in his coat pocket while the other adjusted the brim of his black fedora. His gray suit remained immaculate despite the dust of the road, and the smug curl of his mouth suggested he considered the entire village fortunate simply to be addressed by him.

Across from him, Chief Hrothar stood with the gate and the village at his back. Several Giant warriors flanked him with weapons in hand, their faces hard as stone.

John smiled. "Chief Hrothar," he said smoothly, "let us not make this more unpleasant than it needs to be. My associates and I have already demonstrated that we are quite capable of escalating matters. I would much prefer we settle this with civility."

Hrothar's huge grip tightened around the shaft of his weapon. "You come to my village, steal our children, and speak of civility?" His voice was low, but it carried like thunder. "Your tongue is polished. Your actions are filth, human."

Joe snorted beside John. "Heh. I like this one. Growls nice." He jerked a thumb toward the village. "Still, all you really gotta do is hand over the Flame and stop wasting our time."

Gordon, standing on the other side with his thick arms folded across his chest, muttered, "You're both saying the same thing. He's just dressing it up."

John's eye twitched faintly, though his smile held. "Must you always undercut the tone?"

Joe grinned. "Must you always talk like somebody's carving your speech into a monument?"

Hrothar's stare never left them. "There will be no bargain. No Flame. No surrender." He planted the butt of his weapon against the ground with a heavy thud. "You will answer for what you have done."

For the first time, John's smile sharpened instead of softened. "Bold words from someone in such a delicate position."

One of the Giant warriors beside Hrothar growled, but the chief lifted a hand, silencing him without looking away from John.

The lacrima in John's inner coat pocket suddenly crackled to life.

He frowned. "What now?"

Drawing it out, he was already wearing the first signs of irritation when a panicked voice burst through the crystal.

"Magtartus, sir! We have an intru—" The transmission died in a burst of static.

For the first time that morning, John's smile vanished.

Joe's grin only widened. "Well. That doesn't sound promising."

Gordon's arms dropped at once. "The cave."

John's eyes narrowed, cold and sharp. "Yes. Obviously."

Hrothar caught the change immediately. "Something has gone wrong for you," he said, grim satisfaction edging his voice.

Joe rolled his shoulders, impatience almost steaming off him. "Finally. Thought this morning was getting boring."

John slipped the lacrima back into his coat. "Joe. Gordon. Return to the holding site. Now."

Gordon was already turning away. "Come on, Joe. If somebody got in, we're wasting time."

Joe flashed Hrothar one last crooked, ugly smile. "Try not to miss me, chief."

Hrothar's expression only darkened. "Run back to your kennel, little man. It changes nothing."

Joe's grin twitched at that, the insult clearly landing, but Gordon caught his shoulder and kept him moving. "Later," the earth mage muttered. "You can get mad later."

John stepped forward half a pace, composure settling back over him like a fresh coat of polish. "I will remain here. It would be unfortunate to let our negotiations lose momentum."

Hrothar's stare hardened into iron. Have Ben and Wendy found the children? If so, then I must buy them as much time as possible.

…

The Giant children did not truly begin to relax until they were out of the cavern.

Morning light spilled across the rocky basin in pale gold, replacing the claustrophobic darkness of the caves with open air, drifting dust, and sun-warmed stone. One by one, the Giant kids emerged from the narrow canyon path, blinking against the brightness, some lifting their hands to shield their eyes.

Wendy let out a breath she felt like she had been holding for an hour. "Okay," she said, trying to sound calm and encouraging. "We're out. That's good."

Nearby, Flare was already moving from child to child, checking faces, counting heads, and making sure no one had been left behind. Sola stayed close to her, her face still blotchy from crying, but she remained upright and tried very hard to be brave for the younger ones. Several of the smaller Giant children clustered instinctively around the two girls, frightened enough that even reaching open ground had not fully soothed them.

Carla hovered at Wendy's shoulder, her expression still tense. "We should keep moving," she said. "The village is still a fair distance away, and I would rather not remain out in the open if those dark wizards return."

Then, on cue, the ground ahead of them split open.

Fasttrack groaned. "Too late."

A jagged crack ripped across the stone with a violent hiss. Red-orange light flared up through the fissure, followed by a rush of blistering heat that made the nearest children cry out and stumble back. Wendy instantly threw an arm out in front of Flare while Carla shot higher into the air.

The fissure widened, its edges glowing as molten rock churned below. Lava surged upward in a violent burst, and two figures erupted out of it.

In a blur, Fasttrack appeared between the children and the new threat as the eruption collapsed into a steaming spray of blackened stone and smoking slag.

Joe Magtartus landed first in a crouch, his broad grin already in place, bright red coat snapping behind him in the heat. Gordon Slate came up a heartbeat later out of the settling haze, broad-shouldered and solid as a cliff face, bits of glowing rock sliding from his boots and vest as he straightened.

Joe rose and spread his arms wide, clearly pleased with himself. "See?" he said, throwing Gordon a crooked grin. "Told you Magma Dive was faster. Why waste time hiking back when I can cut through a fissure and come up right where I want?"

Gordon brushed a few hot fragments from one shoulder. "You nearly scorched me on the way up."

Joe scoffed. "Eh, you're a granite wizard. Toughen up."

Both men then looked forward.

Joe's red eyes swept over the children before settling on Fasttrack. His grin widened. "Well now," he drawled. "That's new."

Gordon's brow lowered as he studied the sleek, cat-like figure standing protectively in front of the others. "Don't recall ever seeing a cat-man before," he said flatly. His gaze then shifted to Carla. "…Or a flying one."

Joe tilted his head, openly intrigued. "Say, cat-man, what exactly are you supposed to be?"

"A Citrakayah," Fasttrack answered plainly.

Joe blinked. "What?"

Wendy took a cautious step forward. "W-who are you guys, anyway?"

"Ah, yes," he said, pressing a hand dramatically to his chest. "Where are our manners?" Joe dipped into an exaggerated bow, all mocking flourish and fake charm. "We are the most dangerous dark guild in the south, the Rabid Weasels."

A beat of silence followed.

He straightened and smirked. "Try not to look too surprised."

Fasttrack blinked. "Who?"

"Excuse you, cat-man?" Joe snapped. "The Rabid Weasels. Ringing no bells?"

Fasttrack, Wendy, Flare, Carla, and even several of the Giant children all looked at one another, then exchanged collective shrugs.

Joe frowned in open offense. "Raided dozens of caravans. Cleaned out merchant houses. Completely wiped out the southern Phantom Lord branch. And just recently," he added, his grin widening with pride, "we were accepted into the Balam Alliance under Grimoire Heart's branch. These aren't backwater achievements."

Fasttrack blinked. "Never heard of you. But I do know this."

"And what's that?"

"You guys have got to have the dumbest name I've ever heard."

Wendy and a few of the Giant children let out startled giggles, while Flare blinked in disbelief before a reluctant smile slipped through. Carla's ears twitched as she cast the dark wizard a dry, unimpressed look.

Joe's smile immediately vanished.

Gordon scratched at the side of his jaw. "Yeah," he said. "It is pretty dumb."

Joe's head whipped toward him. "Oh, not you too."

"I told you that the first day."

"You said it lacked menace."

"It does lack menace."

"But it has personality."

"It sounds like a group of diseased house pets."

Wendy stared. "Uh…"

Even Carla looked momentarily thrown by how absurdly sincere the argument had become.

Fasttrack snorted. "You seriously couldn't come up with anything better?"

Joe pointed at him furiously. "You are just a blue cat-man. I do not want to hear it from you. Actually, what even is your name?"

"Fasttrack."

Gordon nodded once. "That is a good name."

Joe yelled. "Stop encouraging the enemy!"

"If you guys were going to give your group a name I would've gone with something like: The Ground Breakers, the Sub Terrors, or something." Fasttrack remarked. His imagination for naming his aliens running through possibilities.

"Huh, that second one sounds pretty cool actually." Gordon admitted while rubbing his chin.

"Stop agreeing with the enemy!" Joe shouted while not mentioning that he secretly thought that name was cooler too, but there was no way he was going to give this stranger the satisfaction.

While Joe fumed and Gordon looked more exhausted by the conversation with every passing second, Fasttrack appeared beside Flare in a blue blur, causing her to yelp.

"Flare," he said, leaning down so only she and the others could hear, his voice low, "take the kids and go. Right now."

Flare turned sharply toward him. "What?"

"We'll hold them here." He pointed toward the west. "The way back to the village is west of here. Get everyone moving."

Wendy met Flare's eyes and firmly nodded. "We'll catch up."

Flare hesitated. "But—"

"Flare." Carla's tone sharpened. "Your fellow villagers come first."

Beside her, Sola reached out and tapped Flare's shoulder, then gave a quick nod of agreement.

Flare swallowed hard. "Okay."

She turned to the others, trying to force strength into her voice despite the fear still clinging to it. "Everybody, stay together! We're going back to the village now!"

The Giant children began to move with Sola immediately helping guide the younger ones, and Flare moved with them, glancing back once before hurrying after the group.

Joe stopped bickering with Gordon just long enough to notice the Giant children trying to escape. His glowing red eyes narrowed, and a nasty grin spread across his face. "Oh, I don't think so, kids."

He moved to cut them off.

Before he could take more than a step, Fasttrack shot into his path in a blur of blue-black between him and the fleeing children. "You're not laying a hand on those kids, hothead."

"Getting in my way, cat?" Joe's grin sharpened. "Fine. I was looking for something to torch anyway."

Gordon stepped forward, his blunt gaze sliding right past Fasttrack to settle on the fleeing children. "Then I guess I'll re-capture the Giants."

Wendy immediately moved to block his path, widening her stance and fixing him with a hardened look. "You'll have to get by me first."

The robust man quirked a brow. "You? I'd rather not fight a little girl."

Carla flew to Wendy's side. "She's a capable wizard," she declared. "More than capable of defeating a ruffian like you."

Gordon looked unconvinced as he cracked his knuckles once. "We'll see about that."

Fasttrack's eyes narrowed, though he still glanced back over his shoulder. "Wendy… you got this?"

Wendy drew in a steadying breath and nodded. "I do."

The Citrakayah studied her expression for a moment, then gave a single nod of his own. "Alright." A confident smile tugged at his mouth. "You got this."

Wendy blinked, then looked at him properly before nodding again, this time with a small, determined smile of her own. "Right!"

Carla grabbed Wendy by the hem of her dress and lifted her several meters into the air. "If he's an earth wizard, then I'm giving you aerial superiority, Wendy."

Wendy nodded, resolve settling across her face. "Thanks, Carla."

Joe wasted no time.

The moment Carla lifted Wendy into the air, he extended his right hand and an orange-red magical circle manifested in front of him.

"Magma Shot!" A glob of blazing lava shot toward Fasttrack.

Fasttrack vanished in a blue-black blur before it hit, and the projectile smashed into the ground behind him, exploding across the stone in splattering heat.

So this guy can control lava, huh? Fasttrack thought, skidding sideways just as Joe hurled another attack.

"Twin Magma Shot!"

Two more globs of super-heated rock came directly at the Citrakayah from the left and right. Fasttrack ducked low, sprang over one shot, then cut between the other one in a blur. Behind him, the lava splashed wide enough to force Gordon to move.

The granite mage clicked his tongue and thrust out one hand. "Granite-Make: Wall!"

A thick slab of stone surged up between the molten spray and Wendy's side of the basin. Lava splattered against it with a furious hiss, the heat biting into the granite face and turning parts of it red.

Gordon shot Joe a flat look. "Take your fight somewhere else."

Joe barked a laugh. "You worried about the girl? How sweet."

"I'm worried about my granite melting, genius."

Fasttrack grinned despite the situation and bolted backward over the uneven rock. "Hey, hothead! Over here!"

Joe's red eyes snapped toward him at once. "You really wanna die first, don't you?"

He slammed a hand toward the ground. "Burning Fault!"

A jagged crack tore across the basin floor straight for Fasttrack, glowing from within before it burst upward in a line of molten eruptions. Fasttrack kicked off a rock and blurred to the side, the heat chasing at his heels.

Good. Keep him moving, he thought. Keep him away from Wendy.

He darted farther east across the basin, fast enough that his outline smeared against the sunlit stone. "Coward!" Joe snarled and stepped into a glowing fissure under his own feet.

"Fissure Leap!"

He vanished below ground and erupted from another crack ahead of Fasttrack in a burst of heat and slag.

Fasttrack's eyes widened. "Okay, didn't expect that."

Joe swung his arm forward. "Scoria Bomb!"

A compressed sphere of molten rock came hurtling toward the Citrakayah. Fasttrack planted one foot, feinted left, then snapped right in a blur. The bomb detonated behind him in a violent shower of lava chunks and burning slag.

Joe grinned wider. "Run faster, cat!"

…

Back near the canyon path, Gordon watched the two of them race away, then lifted his eyes up to Wendy and Carla.

"Listen, I'd rather not fight a child." His expression stayed flat, but his voice carried a blunt kind of honesty. "But I will if I have to. I can't let our guild's leverage in those Giant kids get away."

Wendy's face tightened at that.

Carla's fur puffed. "You call kidnapped children leverage?!"

Gordon's jaw shifted, but he didn't argue the point. Instead, he thrust both hands out and yellow-grayish magical seal appeared. "Granite-Make: Cluster!"

Three thick granite spikes shot skyward.

"Carla!" Wendy cried.

The winged feline banked hard left, wings beating fast enough to make her fur blur. The first spike missed beneath them, the second shaved far too close to Wendy's sandal, and the third splintered harmlessly against open air as Carla climbed.

Gordon nodded, as though confirming something to himself. "Being in the air will offer you some protection, but it won't be enough."

He slapped a palm against the ground.

"Granite-Make: Cannon Shot!"

A granite tube burst from the earth, and a chunk of debris blasted upward from it like a cannonball.

Carla twisted away, but the force of the near miss buffeted both her and Wendy enough to send them wobbling for a moment.

Wendy hands tightened. "His magic… it's almost like Jura's."

For the first time, Gordon's expression shifted. "Jura?" He looked up more sharply. "As in Iron Rock Jura?"

Wendy blinked, caught off guard by the sudden change in his tone. "Y-yes."

His brows drew together. "You say that like you know him."

"Well, we did meet him recently." Wendy admitted.

Gordon let out a quiet breath through his nose, almost thoughtful. "Huh."

Carla narrowed her eyes. "What?"

He rolled one shoulder. "I look up to Jura."

That caught both girls off guard.

With a small gesture of his hand, a stone pillar surged up beneath him, lifting him higher above the basin. "Iron Rock Jura," he said. "Strong, disciplined, respected. He built his name on the earth." His mouth flattened. "Someday, I plan to surpass him."

Carla stared at him as if he had just said something completely absurd. "Then why are you running around as a dark wizard?"

The question hit harder than any spell. Gordon didn't answer right away. His gaze flicked briefly in the direction Joe had gone. "The Magtartus brothers are idiots," he said at last.

At least that sounded sincere.

"But," he continued, "they gave me a place when nobody else did."

Wendy's expression softened. That part, at least, she understood.

Not the dark guild nor hurting people parts. But the part about someone taking you in when you had nowhere else to go.

Gordon noticed the flicker of understanding in her face. His own expression remained blunt, though it eased by the slightest fraction.

Carla, however, was not impressed. "That hardly excuses kidnapping children."

"No. It doesn't."

He then raised a hand again.

"Granite-Make: Fang Line!"

A row of jagged stone spikes tore up from the basin floor below in rapid succession, climbing high enough that Carla had to veer sharply to avoid being boxed in. Wendy nearly lost her balance but caught herself and thrust both hands forward.

"Sky Dragon's Roar!"

A spiraling torrent of wind slammed into Gordon.

He braced himself as two slabs of granite rose in front of him. The wind shattered the first, cracked the second, and still drove him back a full step across the stone pillar beneath his feet.

When the gust finally died, Gordon lowered one arm from his face and looked up at her again. "Not bad," he admitted.

Wendy clenched her fists. "I'm not losing." A faint sound escaped Carla that might have been approval.

Gordon studied Wendy for another moment, then asked, "What's your name, girl?"

Wendy blinked. "What?"

"If we're doing this properly, I'd rather know who I'm fighting."

That was…strangely fair.

Wendy hesitated, then answered, "Wendy Marvell."

Gordon gave a single nod. "Gordon Slate."

He planted his feet more firmly atop the pillar as more granite rose and wrapped around his arms.

"Wendy Marvell," he said, his voice flat and steady, "may the better wizard win."

…

Farther out across the basin, heat shimmered over a stretch of cracked stone and sand.

Joe Magtartus slammed his hand toward the ground, grinning savagely. "Crater Ring!"

A circle of molten earth burst upward around Fasttrack in a wide, fiery ring. Lava fountained high for a second before settling into a churning boundary of orange and red. The ground inside the ring immediately began to bake. Heat rolled inward in harsh waves, distorting the air.

Fasttrack skidded to a stop in the center, one foot scraping against stone as he took in the trap around him.

"Whew," he wiped at his forehead. "Gettin' hot around here."

Joe laughed from the other side of the ring, his coat rippling in the haze. "Nowhere left to run." He spread his arms, smug and theatrical. "And here I was worried this would be boring." His grin sharpened. "Say, cat-man, I've always heard cats have nine lives. Does that apply to you too?"

Fasttrack straightened. "Good question. That'll have to be tested some other day though." He glanced at the molten ring again. "For now, let's cool things down."

Joe's grin faltered. "Huh? What are—"

Fasttrack tapped the Omnitrix dial on his chest, and green light exploded outward.

Joe reflexively threw an arm over his eyes as the flash cut through the red glare of the lava. When the light cleared, Fasttrack was gone.

In his place stood a stout, blue reptilian alien with a broad, lizard-like head and a long, spined tail. Short icy-blue spikes ran from the top of his head down along his back, while pale markings traced lightly across his blue skin. Black-and-white armor-like plating covered his shoulders and upper body, and green lower coverings wrapped his legs, ending above clawed blue feet planted firmly against the heated ground. Sharp white teeth glinted as he lifted his head, and the Omnitrix dial sat in the center of his chest.

(A/N: Credit to Salva Shark)

"Arctiguana!" He announced in a cold, raspy voice.

"W-What the hell?" Joe blinked, his expression twisting from confusion into disbelief. "You transformed." He pointed accusingly, as if Ben had somehow cheated. "You can actually transform? Wait a second." His glowing eyes widened. "Are you some kind of Take-Over wizard?"

Arctiguana snorted, cold vapor curling from his mouth. "Nope. I'm a superhero."

He opened his jaws wide and unleashed a concentrated beam of freezing breath. It struck the lava wall with a violent hiss, and steam erupted instantly, thick white clouds exploding upward as the molten ring hardened at rapid speed. Orange turned to black. Churning liquid became smoking rock.

The freeze ray swept across the circle in a wide arc, passing over the remaining molten patches and sealing them into a jagged wall of stone.

Arctiguana lowered his head, frost curling from his jaws. "There," he said, sounding far too pleased with himself. "That's more like it."

Joe took an involuntary step back.

The confidence didn't leave his face entirely, but it definitely cracked. He had been expecting panic. At worst, he figured that weird speed-cat would try to bulldoze its way through the lava. He had not expected his opponent to suddenly switch into something that hard-countered his magic.

His eyes flicked from the blackened, solidified ring to Arctiguana's mouth.

Joe made a face. "That's… annoying."

Arctiguana's grin stretched wider, exposing even more of those sharp white teeth. "Aw, c'mon. Don't tell me you're already losing your nerve, Tricorne." He leaned forward slightly. "You were real interested a second ago in seeing how many lives I had."

The icy spines along his back gleamed under the desert sun as cold mist coiled from his snout.

Arctiguana's eyes narrowed with icy challenge. "Now I get to see what your lava does when winter hits it."

…

Back at the Sun Village's front gate, Chief Hrothar stood at the head of his warriors, their broad frames rigid with fury barely held in check. And there, standing in the center of it all with infuriating composure, was John Magtartus.

One hand rested lightly against his chest while the other gestured toward the village as though he were some honored envoy instead of a kidnapper.

"Let us not waste one another's time," John said smoothly. "You possess something my associates and I require. We, in turn, possess something you want far more desperately." His smile was polished and measured. "Surrender the Eternal Flame willingly, and this regrettable little affair can end without further suffering."

He spread one hand as if he were offering mercy.

"Refuse," he went on, "and I cannot guarantee the condition in which the children are returned. Assuming, of course, they are returned at all."

A low, furious rumble swept through the gathered Giants.

Several warriors took a step forward at once, but Hrothar lifted one massive arm and halted them before the confrontation could erupt into bloodshed.

That had happened more than once already.

John had spoken. Hrothar had answered. John had smiled, threatened, and pressed. Hrothar had met him with hard questions, grim refusals, and just enough back-and-forth to keep him talking. To anyone watching, it might have looked like a chief trying to bargain with a kidnapper.

It was not.

Hrothar had no intention of yielding the Eternal Flame.

He was stalling.

Every moment John spent preening and posturing here at the gate was another moment Ben, Wendy, and Carla had to find the children and bring them home.

John seemed to take Hrothar's continued replies as a sign that the pressure was working. "Chief," he said, lowering his voice into something almost sympathetic, "surely you are not so stubborn that you would sacrifice innocent children for a relic of fire."

Hrothar's stare did not waver. "You know nothing of sacrifice."

John's smile thinned. "And you know very little about leverage."

"Then enlighten me," Hrothar said, his voice like stone grinding against stone. "If I were to hand over the Flame, what guarantee would I have that the children would be returned unharmed?"

Several Giants glanced toward him at that, startled.

John noticed it too and gave the faintest incline of his head, clearly mistaking the question for hesitation. "Now we are speaking like sensible men."

Hrothar said nothing. Inside, his thoughts remained fixed elsewhere. Have they found them yet?

He kept his face hard and unreadable.

Near the front, one Giant mother covered her mouth, eyes shining with panic. Another clutched at her husband's arm so tightly her hand trembled. The fear moving through the square was exactly what John wanted. He could feel it settling over them, weakening them, pushing them toward the conclusion he had already decided was inevitable.

"The Eternal Flame," he continued, his tone low and persuasive, "is precious, yes. Sacred, even. But sacred things mean very little to grieving parents. Surely even you can see that."

Hrothar let the silence stretch.

Then, deliberately, he asked, "And if I refuse?"

John's eyes sharpened, pleased to still have his attention. "Then your people continue to suffer for your pride."

Another question. Another answer. Another few stolen moments.

Hrothar could feel the strain in the warriors around him, could feel their rage pressing against their skins, waiting for permission to break loose. Still, he held them in place.

Just a little longer.

For one terrible moment, the square held its breath.

Then something snapped through the air.

A thick red braid lashed across John's chest, hooked the horn at his side, and ripped it away with brutal force. Before he could so much as shout, a second length of living hair snapped around the instrument and yanked the opposite way.

CRACK.

The enchanted horn split cleanly in two.

For one stunned heartbeat, John could only stare as the broken halves hit the road.

Flare stepped out from the treeline off to the side, breathing hard, her red hair drawing back over her shoulders after the strike. She was scraped up, dusty, and visibly exhausted, but she was still standing.

And behind her, emerging from the sparse forest beyond the village entrance, came the Giant children.

All of them.

Sola was near the front, blotchy-eyed and bruised, but upright. The younger children huddled close together as they came on, frightened and scraped up, but alive.

"Sola! Flare!" Yrsa cried out, teary-eyed.

Flare swallowed, then looked toward the villagers. "They're okay," she said shakily. "We got them back."

Her eyes found Chief Hrothar. "Chief… I'm sorry we worried you."

The Giant mothers cried out.

Fear shattered into instant chaos as they rushed forward past the warriors, dropping to their knees and sweeping their children into enormous embraces, clutching them as though they might vanish again if they loosened their grip for even a second. Fathers fell beside them too, checking faces, shoulders, hair, and hands, their rough fingers trembling despite their size. Sola barely managed a startled laugh before she was pulled into a crushing embrace of her own.

Flare swayed once where she stood, then straightened when she saw Hrothar's gaze settle on her. Relief crossed the chief's face so briefly it might have been missed if anyone had blinked.

It was done. The children were safe.

John, however, had gone very still.

His expression then twisted. "You," he hissed, every trace of polish stripped away in an instant. "You miserable little wretch!"

Every Giant warrior in the square turned toward him.

Spears lowered, clubs tightened in massive fists, and axes were angled forward. The warriors who had been forced to endure his bargaining began to advance with murder in their eyes.

John took one measured step back.

Even now, he tried to cling to some shred of dignity, but his eyes burned with naked fury as they darted from the freed children to the broken trumpet lying at his feet.

John's lip curled. "Come now, gentlemen. Must everything descend into barbarism the moment a conversation becomes inconvenient?"

Hrothar stepped forward, his enormous shadow swallowing the road between them."Negotiations are over." His glare hardened, promising death. "You will pay for this transgression, human."

Without saying a word, John immediately spun sharply on his heel, coat flaring behind him as he sprinted down the road.

"After him!"

John ran hard for several strides, boots hammering the dirt as the Giants thundered after him. The ground shook beneath their pursuit, each pounding step sending loose stones dancing across the road. He threw one furious glance over his shoulder and saw them closing fast, massive bodies eating up distance with infuriating ease.

"Unbelievable," he hissed under his breath. "Do you brutes ever do anything with subtlety?"

A huge spear slammed into the road ahead of him with a violent crack, forcing him to veer sharply sideways as dust burst around his legs. Another Giant reached down as though he meant to pluck John off the road like an unruly child.

John's expression twisted with disgust. "Absolutely not."

An orange-red magic circle flared in front of him. "Magma Dive!"

The road beneath his feet split open with a molten glow, jagged cracks branching outward in an instant.

John dropped into the fissure just as a Giant hand swept through the space where he had been. Superheated rock swallowed him whole, sealing shut behind him in a rush of molten light and black smoke. The Giants skidded to a halt, staring down at the smoking tear in the road as waves of heat rolled up from below.

"He vanished!" one of them barked.

Hrothar's face darkened. "Human magic..." He strode to the split earth and peered into the glow, jaw set hard. "Spread out! If he surfaces nearby, I want him found!"

But John was already gone, his body racing through an underground magma fissure back toward the place where they had held the Giant children.

Every trace of his theatrical composure had been devoured by seething rage.

Joe. Gordon. You idiots. His thoughts burned as hot as the rock around him. How did you let it get this far? His eyes blazed. Whoever did this... they're going to regret it.

…

Arctiguana did not give Joe a chance to recover his rhythm.

The instant the younger Magtartus brother hurled another burst of molten rock across the basin, the cold-blooded reptilian alien exhaled a cone of freezing vapor that crashed into the lava mid-flight.

Joe's spell hardened almost instantly. The molten spray blackened, cracked, and dropped from the air in brittle chunks that shattered across the rocky ground.

The dark wizard's eyes widened. "Oh, come on!"

"Aw, what happened?" Arctiguana spoke smugly. "Your big scary lava's looking a lot more decorative now."

Joe snarled, slamming a hand toward the earth. "Burning Fault!"

A glowing, jagged crack ripped across the ground toward Arctiguana. The Polar Manzardill was nonchalantly, simply lowering his head and exhaling another freeze ray.

The orange glow beneath the split blackened in rapid pulses as the heat was leeched out. By the time the fault reached Arctiguana's feet, it was no longer a molten rupture at all, just an ugly crack of cooling stone.

Joe stared in disbelief. "To cool lava that fast…"

"You done making hot lines in the dirt, or do you wanna keep embarrassing yourself?"

That did it.

Joe's face twisted. "I'm gonna melt that stupid look right off your face!"

Cold vapor curled out of Arctiguana's open mouth. "Stupid look? How could you ever call this adorable face stupid?"

Snarling, both of Joe's hands ignited with surging heat as he thrust them forward, another orange-red magic circle appearing in front of him. "Furnace Bite!"

A surge of lava roared up from the ground in front of Arctiguana, curling toward him like a snapping maw.

Arctiguana sprang back. He inhaled once more and blasted the wave at its base. The front half of Joe's attack turned black and crusted over so suddenly that the rear flow rammed straight into it.

The result was immediate as Joe's own lava backed up around his arms and waist in a violent, half-finished eruption, then hardened around him as Arctiguana's frost spread through it faster than the dark wizard could react.

Joe's eyes went wide as black volcanic stone locked around his legs, one arm, and half his torso.

"What?!" he barked, wrenching hard. "No, no, no!"

Arctiguana planted all four feet and blasted the rest of the molten mass for good measure. Steam hissed and the last glow vanished.

When the freezing mist cleared, Joe Magtartus was stuck upright in a jagged shell of rapidly cooling black stone and ice, his head remained free while the rest of him was trapped solid.

The Polar Manzardill gave the immobilized wizard a deeply satisfied look, or at least the best he could with his lizard-like face. "Huh. Guess that answers the question."

Joe bared his teeth. "What question?"

Arctiguana's grin sharpened. "How many lives you've got when you can't move."

Joe thrashed, but the rock held.

"You cheap little—!"

The ground behind Arctiguana suddenly split open as a glowing magma fissure ripped across the basin floor before a column of violent, bright-orange lava erupted from it.

Arctiguana twisted away just as something shot up from the center of the blast.

John Magtartus emerged from the fissure in a swirl of superheated steam and molten spray, landing atop a slab of black rock with easy balance. The collar of his grey suit was singed at the edges, but otherwise he looked infuriatingly composed.

His black fedora cast a shadow over cold eyes that swept once over the scene.

His trapped brother, the igneous rock, and the blue reptilian creature.

John's expression darkened.

"Well," he said smoothly, "this is a thoroughly embarrassing state of affairs."

Joe twisted toward him. "A little help would be nice!"

John gave him a cool, unimpressed look. "You were sent to handle a very simple task, dear brother. Eliminate the interference, recover the children, and, if at all possible, avoid disgracing the Rapid Weasel name in the process." His eyes flicked over Joe's situation with cutting precision. "Instead, you appear to have failed on every front with almost theatrical consistency."

Joe's face went red with fury. "Oh, shut up and just get me out!"

John sighed through his nose before stepped to the side of the stone prison and placed one hand against it.

Heat rolled off him in a pulse. "Eruption Burst."

Molten light flashed through the black rock as cracks spidered across its surface. A second later the shell exploded outward in red-hot fragments.

Joe stumbled free, cursing, smoke rising from his coat sleeves. He shook off the last bits of stone and immediately glared at his brother.

"You took your sweet time."

"And yet I still arrived in time to save your dignity," John replied. "A service for which gratitude would be more appropriate than whining."

Joe barked a humorless laugh. "Dignity? We lost the kids!"

"Yes," John said, his voice turning sharper. "I noticed."

Joe jabbed a finger toward Arctiguana. "It's that thing's fault! And the little girl and flying cat with him!"

Arctiguana snorted a little frost through his teeth. "Actually, pretty sure it's yours. I'm just the guy who beat you."

Joe took a furious half-step forward, but John's arm barred his path.

The older brother never took his eyes off Arctiguana.

"Let me summarize, since that task has apparently fallen to me. Our bargaining position is gone. Our hostages are gone. And our entire operation has been reduced to a humiliating spectacle by…" His gaze slid across the battlefield. "…an ice lizard, a girl, and a cat."

Joe's eye twitched. "When you say it like that, it sounds bad."

"It is bad."

Joe rounded on him at once. "Maybe if you hadn't stayed behind preening at the gate—"

"I was negotiating."

"You were monologuing."

"I was establishing tone."

"Yeah? Well, your tone was useless!"

John's smile turned sharp and dangerous. "If you and Gordon had remained at the cave, none of this would have happened."

Joe threw both hands out. "Oh, that is rich coming from you. You're the one who told us to go because, and I quote, 'our presence would improve the menacing atmosphere.'"

John looked offended that his own words had been repeated back to him. "That was before you managed to fumble the one task given to you."

Joe bared his teeth. "Fumble? We got jumped by some freak show!" He gestured to Arctiguana.

"And yet, somehow, the children escaped anyway."

Joe stepped forward, lava-light flickering hotter around his hands. "You wanna keep talking, or do you actually wanna fix this, brother?"

That, more than anything, made John's expression flatten.

Arctiguana watched them for a beat. Is this how Gwen and I used to fight when we were kids? Seriously, how did Grandpa Max remain sane?

"You two kids done fighting, or do I need to wait until the sibling drama's over?"

Both Magtartus brothers snapped their heads toward him.

Arctiguana lowered his body, frost curling from his jaws. "Doesn't matter if there's two of you now," he said. "I froze his lava. I can freeze yours too."

John's eyes narrowed.

Arctiguana went on. "So here's what's gonna happen. You two are gonna throw everything you've got, I'm gonna turn it into a geology lesson, and then I'm gonna take both of you down in embarrassing fashion."

Joe's lip peeled back. "I hate this lizard."

John adjusted the brim of his fedora with one hand. "Regrettably, I agree."

His expression then shifted. "Joe."

Joe glanced at him, immediately recognizing the tone. "No." His face twisted.

"Yes."

Joe's glare sharpened. "You said those were for emergencies only."

John looked at Arctiguana, then at the ruined battlefield around them. "What, precisely, would you call this?"

Joe opened his mouth, then shut it again.

With matching irritation, both brothers reached into their coats and pulled out small crimson lacrima crystals.

Arctiguana tilted his head. "And what are those supposed to be?"

John's mouth curved faintly. "Ah. Now we have his attention."

Joe scowled at the crystal in his hand. "I still say we shouldn't have to waste these on some smart-mouthed lizard."

John never took his eyes off Arctiguana. "And I still say I've had enough humiliation for one day."

Then, in perfect sync, both brothers crushed the lacrimas in their fists.

Crimson light exploded across the basin.

The shattered crystals dissolved into streams of red magical energy that sank into their arms, shoulders, and chests. Instantly, the air changed. Heat surged outward in a vicious wave. The already scorched basin floor lit up with glowing red veins as stone softened, dust blackened, and thin rivulets of molten rock began to ooze through old cracks.

Arctiguana planted his feet as the temperature spiked.

Joe laughed first, steam rolling off him in thick waves. "Ah, I take it back! This is incredible!"

John exhaled slowly, his eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. "Much better."

The magma fissure at their feet widened.

Arctiguana's eyes narrowed. "Great. So this is the part where you two pull out shiny upgrades and start acting like phase-two boss fights."

The Magtartus brothers said nothing at first.

Joe was the one who moved first, reaching into his coat and yanking free the hilt of an axe, compact but heavy-looking. John followed by drawing a sword hilt from inside his suit jacket.

Both raised their weapons.

"Lava Magic…" John said coolly.

"Forge." Joe finished.

Molten light erupted from each handle.

A blade of compressed volcanic heat extended from the hilt in John's hand. It was long and clean-lined, its surface glowing white-orange at the center and red along the edges, heat shimmering around it like a mirage.

Joe's came together more violently, magma pouring outward into the head of a broad axe, its edge spitting sparks while strands of lava dripped from it in ragged streaks.

Arctiguana blinked. "Okay. Even I gotta admit… That's kinda cool."

Joe grinned, all teeth and bad intent. "Scared, little lizard?"

Arctiguana bared his own. "Not even a little."

John stepped forward first, magma rolling around his shoes. "Let us correct the tone of this encounter."

Joe lunged in right beside him, much less composed and far more eager

Arctiguana inhaled sharply and fired a freezing blast straight down the middle.

John, however, cut straight through it.

The ice hissed and shrieked where it met the lava sword, but instead of choking his advance, the empowered weapon carved through the cold and kept coming. Beside him, Joe charged through the steam with his axe raised high.

John moved his blade in one lethal arc. "Burning Fault."

The ground ruptured and the fissure did not dim under the cold this time, splitting wide and bright. Molten light blasted upward in jagged lines that forced Arctiguana to leap back as lava burst beneath his feet.

Joe was already waiting.

"Basalt Breaker!"

His axe blazed with lava as he swung it in a savage arc and buried the strike into Arctiguana's side with brutal force. The impact sent the reptilian alien skidding hard across the blackened stone. Arctiguana dug in with his claws, steam hissing off his flank.

He barely got his head back up before John raised one hand.

"Pyroclast Volley."

superheated volcanic shards screamed toward him in a tight barrage.

Arctiguana blasted them with a freeze ray. Several hardened and burst apart in midair, but more punched through the freezing cone and slammed into the ground around him in explosive sprays of heat and shattered stone.

He sprang clear just before another fissure erupted where he had been.

Joe laughed openly now, wild and mean. "What happened to freezing everything?!"

The Polar Manzardill landed hard, breath misting in short bursts. The ground beneath him was no longer cool enough to hold frost for more than a second. Everywhere he looked, the basin was becoming a furnace.

John's voice carried across the molten field. "You performed admirably for a moment, lizard. But elemental advantage only matters when the difference in power is not absurd."

Joe rolled his shoulders, magma axe humming in his grip. "Translation? We're gonna cook you."

Arctiguana lowered himself, eyes sharp. "Well… That's just cold."

…

Gordon drove both hands toward the earth, a yellow-gray magical circle appearing.

"Granite-Make: Fang Line!"

Jagged stone spikes surged in a vicious path across the basin floor, ripping upward towards Wendy and Carla. Carla immediately hauled Wendy higher, the last spike missing them by inches.

Wendy twisted in Carla's hold and thrust both hands downward. "Sky Dragon's Wave Wind!"

A roaring blast of wind crashed toward Gordon, strong enough to flatten loose debris and kick up a spiraling wall of dust around him. But instead of dodging, he planted his feet and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Granite-Make: Stonehide Armor."

Heavy granite plates formed around him, sealing over his legs, chest, shoulders, and arms in rough, interlocking slabs. The last layer crawled up around his head into a blunt stone helm, leaving only a narrow slit for his eyes.

The wind hit him dead-on and, for a moment, the force shoved him backward through the dust. Yet when Wendy's spell finally thinned, Gordon was still standing in the same place, his armor unaffected.

Carla's eyes narrowed. "That is troublesome."

Below them, Gordon rolled one shoulder, the stone plates grinding against each. "This armor is heavy and burdensome," he muttered. "But manageable."

Wendy stared at him, her stomach tightening. There was something about the sight of the earth wizard that made her uneasy. Not just his size or the way he looked wrapped in stone like a moving fortress. It was the feeling that no matter how hard her wind hit him, he would still be standing there.

Gordon tipped his head back to look at them. "You're smart, girl," he said bluntly. "Staying airborne is the right call."

He raised one hand. "Granite-Make: Boulder Shot!"

A dense granite sphere tore out of the ground and launched upward like a cannonball.

"Carla!" Wendy cried.

"I see it!"

The white feline banked hard to the left. The first boulder missed by meters, but another was already rising beneath them, followed by a third from their right.

Gordon did not stop.

"Granite-Make: Pyrefall Battery!"

A volley of granite boulders and jagged chunks of stone blasted skyward in staggered bursts.

Carla twisted through the barrage with sharp, efficient turns, her white wings snapping and folding to change altitude and angle. Wendy braced herself only a second before forcing herself to steady, gritting her teeth as she searched for openings through the storm of rock.

"Sky Dragon's Roar!"

A spiraling torrent of wind burst from her mouth and smashed one incoming boulder apart, scattering chunks through the air. But a second slab-like mass followed immediately behind it, forcing Carla to drop with almost no room to spare.

A jagged fragment clipped Wendy across the upper arm. "Ah!"

Her body jerked with the sting. Another piece grazed her thigh, then a third bounced painfully off her shoulder hard enough to make her suck in a sharp breath.

"Wendy!" Carla shouted.

"I'm okay!" she fired back, though the words sounded tighter than she wanted.

Despite her insistence, bruises were starting to bloom beneath her skin. Her arm throbbed where the first fragment had struck, and every near miss made her flinch harder than the last.

Wendy forced herself to inhale and snapped both arms forward. "Sky Dragon's Wing Attack!"

A roaring burst of wind slammed down into Gordon. Dust exploded around him, and for a moment Wendy thought she had finally broken through. But when the cloud thinned, he was still there, unmoved inside that thick granite shell.

"Tch," Gordon grunted, rolling one shoulder beneath the armor. "That all?"

Wendy's eyes widened.

"Sky Dragon's Claw!"

She spun with the spell and kicked out, sending a sharpened arc of wind crashing into his armored chest. It struck hard enough to shriek across the stone, but the granite armor only shuddered and held firm. Not even a visible crack spread across it.

No way…

Before she could stop herself, Wendy gathered more magic and thrust both hands down again. "Sky Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

A heavier blast hammered Gordon from above, driving against him with enough force to kick up another spray of dirt and loose rock. Yet once again, the armor endured. The only result was Gordon digging his feet deeper into the ground.

Her breath hitched. None of her offensive spells were working.

Gordon tilted his head up toward her, his eyes visible through the slit of his helmet. "Starting to get it now, Miss Marvell? Wind cannot defeat stone."

Wendy felt her stomach tighten. Her fingers trembled as she tried to gather herself for another spell, but her heartbeat was suddenly too loud in her ears. The image in front of her, that huge, armored figure planted beneath her attacks like an immovable wall, made something cold creep up her spine.

Below, Gordon formed another boulder with no urgency.

"You can't keep this up." His voice remained calm, almost annoyingly so. "Sooner or later, the cat tires out or I land one clean hit." His eyes narrowed behind the slit in his helm. "After that, you drop."

Wendy's breath caught. And all at once, the fear rushed in where she could not hold it back. What if he was right? What if this was all she could do? She was supposed to be helping Ben and Carla, supposed to be saving the Giant children and Flare, and instead she was up here throwing spell after spell at someone she could not even budge. If she could not stop one enemy like this, then all she was doing was proving what she already feared, that when things got truly serious, she was the weak one who would just hold everyone back.

Carla must have seen it in her face. "Child, don't let him get to you!"

"But… none of my spells are working…" Wendy stammered. "He's… he's as tough as Jura. I… I don't know if I can…"

"Wendy." Her voice cut through the noise like a blade. "Look at me."

Wendy turned toward her.

"That man is not Jura Neekis."

Another boulder screamed past them. Carla kicked upward with a sharp beat of her wings, then kept talking without letting the strain in her voice slow her.

"He is strong," Carla said, "but he is not a Wizard Saint. Do not hand him that fear."

Wendy swallowed hard.

"You have your own power," she went on, fiercer now. "Your wind. Your instincts. Your mind. Use them. You have everything you need to beat him."

Below them, Gordon thrust both hands outward again, casting two spells in immediate succession. "Granite-Make: Boulder Shot! Granite-Make: Fang Line!"

Fresh projectiles burst skyward while spear-like rows of stone erupted beneath their last position, forcing Carla into a sharp spiral climb. Wendy's stomach lurched, but this time she forced herself not to squeeze her eyes shut.

She looked down…and the battlefield had changed.

Gordon's attacks had littered the entire area with granite boulders, shattered chunks, snapped spikes, cracked slabs, and loose debris from repeated impacts. The ground was covered in pieces of his own magic.

Another launched boulder slammed into the shattered remains of one Wendy had blasted apart earlier.

CRACK.

The granite fractured on impact.

Wendy's eyes widened.

A second later, two larger stone masses clipped each other as Carla juked between them. One split down the middle before both halves tumbled apart to the ground.

CRACK.

Her fear loosened and an idea took its place.

"Carla!" Wendy said suddenly.

"What?"

"Keep us moving!"

Carla blinked once. "That was already the plan."

"No. Higher," she said urgently. "And circle him!"

Below, Gordon cocked a brow beneath his stone helmet. "Running out of options, little girl?"

"Carla, now!"

Understanding clicked instantly.

Carla surged upward and banked into a hard circle above the basin, carrying Wendy across the broken field in a sweeping arc. Gordon frowned up at them beneath his damaged stone helm.

"What are you—"

Wendy drew in a deep breath. The air rushed into her lungs and could feel her magic reserves replenishing. Her bruises still throbbed and arms still shook, but none of that mattered now.

"Sky Dragon's…ROOOOOOARR!"

A violent tornado spiraled out of her mouth and downward. Wind tore across the basin with enough force to rip dust and shattered granite from the ground all at once, dragging broken spikes, cracked boulders, jagged slabs and loose stone into a screaming column of spinning debris.

Gordon's eyes widened. "Oh…"

The tornado dropped over him.

Granite slammed into granite with explosive force. The first impacts rocked him backward. The next volley cracked the armor across his shoulders and chest. Then the debris came from every direction at once, driven by Wendy's wind and sharpened by the weight of Gordon's own magic.

Crack.

A thick plate on his chest split.

Crack.

The helm shattered down one side.

Crack-crack-crack.

His armor broke apart in chunks as the tornado ground it down harder than Wendy's raw wind could have managed alone. Gordon threw his arms up and tried to brace, but the storm gave him no footing and no rhythm to recover with. It hit him like a landslide, and when the final wave of spinning stone crashed into him, it ripped him clean off his feet.

He was hurled across the basin and smashed through a scatter of broken granite before skidding hard to a stop in a cloud of dust.

The tornado collapsed and silence rushed in after.

Carla descended quickly and landed on a clear stretch of stone. The moment Wendy's feet touched the ground, she dropped to one knee and caught herself with one hand, breathing hard enough that her whole body trembled.

Carla's wings dissolved into sparkles as she looked at her charge for a second. In a quieter voice than usual, she said, "That… was very well done, child."

Wendy looked up at her, still panting.

Carla's tail flicked once. "I'm proud of you."

Wendy blinked, then smiled despite the ache in her arms, shoulder, and chest. "Thanks," she whispered. "Thank you, Carla."

Carla smiled softly and nodded.

A few yards away, Gordon lay half-buried in rubble, his stone armor shattered and scattered around him. He was no longer moving except for the faint rise and fall of his breathing.

Wendy stared at him for a moment, hardly able to believe it. She had won. Not because someone stepped in to save her, not because Ben had ended the fight for her, but because he had trusted her to do it herself. The thought made something warm flutter in her exhausted chest. I did it… she thought, and then, more quietly, Thank you, Ben… for believing I could win this.

…

Meanwhile, the basin in the distance was becoming a kiln.

Heat shimmer rolled across the broken ground in thick, wavering sheets. Cracks glowed red through the blackened stone, and long ribbons of lava still crawled from the fissures. Steam rose wherever Arctiguana's ice had struck, but it never lasted. Every patch of ground he froze turned brittle and dark for a few precious seconds before the sheer heat soaking the battlefield forced it to glow again.

Arctiguana blasted another stream of freezing breath across the nearest molten channel. The lava hardened at once into rough black stone, but before he could even use it as footing, orange-red light pulsed beneath the crust.

The rock split apart, sagging back into molten sludge.

Arctiguana's eyes twitched. "Okay, this is getting annoying."

Joe barked out a laugh and dragged the edge of his magma axe across the ground, leaving a glowing scar in the stone. "What's wrong, frosty? Can't keep up?"

John advanced at a measured pace through the heat, his lava sword held low. His expression remained composed despite the scorched chaos around them. "He is adapting poorly, little brother. That is all."

Arctiguana dropped into a lower stance, claws digging into the unstable stone. He could keep blasting the ground, keep trying to freeze the basin faster than the brothers could heat it, but that was turning into a losing game.

"Alright," he muttered. "Time for a swap."

He tapped the Omnitrix dial on his chest, and emerald light swallowed him whole.

John looked away. "What is he doing?"

Joe squinted through the glow. "I think," he said, "he's changing again."

When the green light faded, Arctiguana was gone.

In his place stood a tall, muscular humanoid seemingly made of living rock and fire. Flames blazed from his head, his over-sized hands crackled with heat, and two small volcano-like vents on his shoulders belched fire. The Omnitrix symbol was placed at the center of his chest.

"Heatblast!" He declared in a rasping, crackling voice.

The older Magtartus brother blinked. "He can switch between Take-Overs?" Even without being any kind of expert in Take-Over magic, John knew that sounded advanced.

Heatblast glanced around the blazing basin and snorted. "Now this is my kind of neighborhood."

Joe blinked, then grinned. "Oh, that is ugly."

Heatblast let out a harsh, crackling scoff. "Ugly?" He pointed at Joe. "Says the guy dressed like a circus ringmaster who lost a fight with a bonfire."

Joe growled, eye twitching.

Meanwhile, the older Magtartus's eyes flicked over the Pyronite with immediate calculation. Unlike Arctiguana, this form did not recoil from the heat at all.

Heatblast spread both arms, and the thermal energy rippling across the area answered him.

Lava along the nearest fissures dimmed. The molten channels slowed as their glow weakened, Heatblast pulling the heat inward and drinking in the ambient energy saturating the battlefield. The bubbling flow thickened, hardened, and began turning back into black volcanic stone.

Joe's grin faltered. "Hey!"

Heatblast rolled one shoulder as the flames around his body surged brighter. "Thanks. I was running a little cool."

John immediately reacted.

"Burning Fault."

He slashed his magma blade downward, causing a glowing fissure to ripple through the ground toward Heatblast. Joe charged at the same instant from the opposite side, using the distraction to close distance with savage intent.

Heatblast stomped once.

A wall of jagged black rock and fire surged up from the ground before him. John's fissure struck the barrier and exploded through it, but the delay gave Heatblast exactly what he wanted. He twisted out of the blast line and spun toward Joe just as the younger Magtartus brought his axe around in a vicious horizontal cut.

Steel met stone.

Or rather, lava met volcanic body.

Joe's axe crashed into Heatblast's side, but instead of driving him back like it had Arctiguana, the Pyronite caught the haft with one hand while the molten edge bit into his stony outer layer. Fire ran across the axe head, and for one weird moment Joe realized his own weapon was being leeched of heat through contact.

Heatblast's grin widened. "Mine now."

He yanked the axe off-line and drove a flaming fist into Joe's gut. The punch detonated in a burst of fire, sending the dark wizard skidding backward through loose volcanic rock. He tore a trench with his boots before catching himself.

John moved in, swinging his sword at Heatblast's blind side.

The Pyronite twisted, but not fast enough to fully avoid it. The magma blade raked across his torso, carving a glowing line through dark stone.

Heatblast hissed, more annoyed than hurt. He answered by sweeping both arms wide and a crescent of fire blasted outward.

John crossed his sword before himself and let molten light surge along the blade, cutting through the wave. He emerged through the flames, suit jacket snapping in the hot wind, and slashed again.

Joe reentered from the left, roaring as he brought his axe down in a two-handed smash.

Heatblast moved fast, ducking beneath John's cut and catching Joe's descending wrist with one hand, slamming his other palm into the ground.

A ring of fire and rock exploded around them.

Joe cursed and jumped back as the blast forced separation, while John pivoted neatly through the edge of the eruption. He looked at it with open irritation and brushed it off.

Heatblast noticed. "Wow. You actually stopped to do that."

John's eye twitched. "Presentation matters."

Joe wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and laughed harshly. "Told you this one was ugly."

"He is manageable," John said, though his gaze had gone colder.

It was a lie, and Joe knew it.

The Pyronite was steadily turning the fight against them. Every exchange at close range favored him more. He could absorb heat and did not fear their lava.

Heatblast raised both hands, and six fireballs formed in rapid succession around his palms.

"Pyro Volley."

The blazing projectiles shot across the basin.

"See? I can shout out spell names too," he mocked.

John sliced through the first with his blade, splitting it apart. Joe smashed another aside with his axe, but the remaining four curved with nasty accuracy, forcing both brothers to break their rhythm and dodge.

One detonated at Joe's feet and blew him off balance. Another burst against John's shoulder, making him skid back a step.

Heatblast did not let up as he closed the gap with explosive bursts from his feet, flying toward them like a rocket.

John barely brought his sword up in time as Heatblast drove a burning elbow into the side of the blade, forcing the fedora man's guard wide. He then followed with a sharp kick to the older brother's ribs that sent him sliding across fractured stone.

Joe lunged to capitalize on the opening, axe head blazing brighter as he poured more magic into it.

"Basalt Breaker!"

He swung in a diagonal arc meant to split Heatblast from shoulder to hip.

The Pyronite, however, caught the haft in both hands. The impact shook the ground as fire and lava erupted around them. Snarling through clenched teeth, Joe tried to force the strike through by sheer aggression.

Heatblast leaned in, the flames around his body flaring higher. "Not bad. But I've fought way stronger guys than you it's not even funny."

He twisted sharply, knocking the axe just far enough off-line, then snapped his head forward and drove his forehead straight into Joe's face.

Joe reeled back with a curse.

Heatblast did not give him time to recover, pivoting and driving a hard kick into Joe's midsection that sent the lava mage careening across the basin.

At that moment, John pushed himself back to his feet. He stood straighter now despite his singed suit and the bruise darkening beneath one eye. Something colder had settled over his expression. He looked past Heatblast for a moment, toward Sun Village.

When he spoke, he did not look at Joe.

"We've lost our leverage. And with it, any chance of forcing the Giants to surrender the Flame."

Joe spat blood off to one side, rolling his shoulder. "Way to state the obvious."

"If we fail here," John continued, his voice stripped of its usual theatrical polish, "we do not return to explain ourselves."

Joe's grin came back, though there was less humor in it now. "No kidding."

Heatblast's eyes narrowed. "Wow. Nothing says 'healthy team environment' like 'win or die.'"

John ignored him.

"The Eternal Flame was the objective," he said. "Not those children. Not the village." His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. "Failure is not an option. You understand that, brother."

Joe looked toward Sun Village too. For the first time since the fight began, the mockery on his face thinned and was replaced by something uglier. "Yes, I know. If we go back empty-handed, they'll kill us for incompetence."

Heatblast stared at him. "…They? Your bosses?"

Joe snorted. "Grimoire Heart. Who else?"

"They'll seriously kill you just for coming back without some fire?" Heatblast said. "Man, that is a terrible benefits package."

Joe gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Yeah? Welcome to dark guild employment."

John lifted his blade and pointed it toward Sun Village. "We finish this here."

Joe's eyes flared…and then laughed. "There he is," he said, baring his teeth. "Thought you were gonna die boring."

Molten light began pouring off both brothers at once.

John's lava sword brightened until its core went nearly white. Joe drove the base of his axe into the ground, and magma immediately spread out from the impact point in branching cracks.

Heatblast's posture shifted. That much power gathering that fast could only mean one thing.

"Powering up a finisher, huh?" he said, the flames on his volcanic shoulder vents flaring brighter. "Hate to break it to you guys, but you're wasting your time. Trying to beat Heatblast with fire is like trying to drown a fish in water."

John's mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. "This attack is not for you."

Heatblast squinted. "Then what's it for?"

Both Magtartus brothers sneered.

…

Back in Sun Village, Chief Hrothar and a band of warriors swept along the village perimeter with weapons in hand, searching every outer approach for some sign of the human intruder. The children had been safely returned, but relief had not erased caution. Not while one of the men who had stolen them away was still missing.

"Check the lower terraces again," Hrothar ordered, his voice hard as stone. "If the human surfaces, I want eyes on him at once."

He had only just turned to give another command when the earth shuddered beneath his boots in a low, ugly tremor.

Every Giant froze.

A thin crack split across the stone road near the outer terrace. More soon followed.

The fractures spread fast, glowing red lines racing along the village's edge. Pebbles skittered and rattled. One warrior stumbled back with a curse as a jagged split opened at his feet.

"There!" someone shouted. "The road!"

More cracks ripped through the perimeter stone, branching across the terrace and snaking toward the basin beyond. Heat began to rise from the fissures in faint, wavering breaths.

"Chief!" one warrior shouted. "Is he planning to surface?"

Hrothar narrowed his eyes, his voice dropping low. "No," he said. "This is different."

…

Heatblast's eyes widened in realization. "The village…"

Joe's grin became ugly. "We torch the place and take the Eternal Flame from the ashes after. Pretty efficient, actually."

The Pyronite's voice dropped. "You're kidding."

Neither brother answered, and that told him enough.

"You'd really go that far?" he asked, disbelief giving way to disgust. "Over some flame?"

John's expression never changed. "Our hands are tied."

Joe gave a careless shrug. "Besides, they're just Giants."

Heatblast frowned, his voice lowering into something more dangerous. "So that's your stance? Because they're Giants, their lives don't matter?"

John let out a short, contemptuous snort. "Naturally. They aren't human. Just monsters who happen to look the part."

Something inside Ben went very still.

For a split second, old memories surged up: Sir Driscoll, the Forever Knights, and that same rotten certainty in their voices. The same belief that if something was not human, then it was automatically lesser. Automatically disposable.

Heatblast's hand rose to the Omnitrix dial. He twisted the rim, and the core lifted from its housing with a sharp mechanical chime.

Joe frowned. "What're you doing?"

Heatblast did not answer right away.

"If you two are getting that serious," he said at last, all humor gone from his voice, "then I will too."

He slammed the core back down.

Four metallic spikes snapped outward from the dial in an X-shaped formation, and a wave of blue energy raced over the Pyronite's body.

In the wake of the blue light, Heatblast’s usual rocky, magma-veined body was gone, replaced by a far more aggressive and heavily evolved form. Dark charcoal-black armor plating encased his compact torso in sharp, angular layers, while glowing orange magma burned through the seams like molten veins barely contained beneath the surface. His face was enclosed in a harsh, mask-like helm marked by a skull-and-crossbones design, giving him a brutal, almost skeletal look. Rising from his back were three enormous molten tendrils, arching high overhead like living whips, their bright yellow-orange interiors bubbling with heat while dark harness-like tubing anchored them into his body. His forearms had swelled into massive magma-filled gauntlets, one even bulkier and more destructive-looking than the other, while his legs remained comparatively narrow and armored, ending in hooked, blade-like feet. The evolved Omnitrix symbol rested at his waist like a belt buckle.

(A/N: Credit to RZGmon200 on DeviantArt)

“Ultimate Heatblast!” He declared, his voice lower now, metallic around the edges.

The Magtartus brothers faltered mid-cast, their final assault on Sun Village interrupted as both of them stared at the new transformation.

Joe blinked, jaw slack. "W-what did he just do?"

John's eyes narrowed. "Some kind of enhancement maybe…"

Ultimate Heatblast said nothing, staring at them with an unblinking gaze.

John's expression hardened. "But it doesn't matter. A new form changes nothing."

Joe rolled his shoulders and lifted his axe. "Right. Let's break it."

The brothers moved together.

John slashed his lava sword through the air. "Severing Arc!" A crescent of concentrated lava tore toward the alien.

At the same instant, Joe brought his axe down with a savage roar. "Hellmouth Eruption!"

The two attacks hit almost at once.

John's molten crescent slammed across Ultimate Heatblast's black-orange body and burst into a wash of blazing light. A heartbeat later, Joe's eruption engulfed him from below, lava surging around him in a towering blast that swallowed him whole.

For a moment, he vanished inside the flare. But as the molten glare began to thin, it revealed Ultimate Heatblast still standing exactly where he had been. Lava rolled off him in heavy sheets, dripping from his frame like water from stone.

Joe's eyes widened. "He didn't even flinch… How are we supposed to beat something that's immune to lava too?"

John didn't look at him. "By overwhelming him, of course. Keep it up!"

"Fine. But not because you told me to!" Joe charged ahead, axe trailing lava in his wake.

John moved at the same time from the flank, sword angling for the kill.

Ultimate Heatblast did not flinch as one liquid-metal tendril lashed out and cracked against Joe's axe haft hard enough to knock the weapon off-line. Another shot toward John's sword, wrapped around the blade, and yanked it just enough to ruin his angle.

Ultimate Heatblast stepped in and drove a silver-armored knee into John's stomach with brutal force. The older Magtartus folded with a strangled gasp and stumbled back, coughing up blood.

Joe roared and swung again.

Ultimate Heatblast didn't bother dodging. Instead, he caught the descending axe with one armored hand. Lava splashed across his fingers and wrist, hissing harmlessly over the superheated metal. A third tendril then whipped across Joe's ribs and flung him sideways. He hit the blackened stone hard, rolled twice, and skidded across cooling slag before stopping in a pained coughing sprawl.

"Cheap shot…" he spat, blood trailing from his mouth.

John forced himself upright and slashed downward, lava pouring from the blade in a controlled stream. "Corner him!"

Joe slammed his free hand into the ground. "Burning Fault!"

A magma fissure raced across the battlefield, timed to meet John's strike and hem the hyper-evolved alien in.

Ultimate Heatblast remained unfazed.

He merely walked straight through the lava, his body glowing brighter as magma broke around his legs and splashed against his torso to no effect.

Before John could fully process that, two tendrils shot forward. One wrapped around his sword arm while the other thickened into a hammer-like mass and smashed into the side of his knee.

John screamed, dropping to one leg. "MY LEG!"

"Bastard!" Joe lunged in, hurling a wave of lava toward Ultimate Heatblast's side.

The attack crashed over him and ran off in rivulets…and he didn't even turn.

Instead, his liquid-metal tendrils exploded outward in a blur. One bladed tip struck Joe's axe and sent it spinning away and the other slammed into his chest, sending him bouncing hard over broken stone.

At the same time, John forced up a defensive wall of lava between them.

Ultimate Heatblast drove straight through it. Two tendrils shot through the molten barrier, seizing John by the wrist and collar and slamming him into the ground hard enough to crack the earth beneath him.

Joe groaned and pushed himself up again, coughing hard as he staggered on unsteady legs. His eyes darted from John to the monster stalking toward them on his three tendrils. Panic flashed across his face.

"Brother!" Joe barked, voice ragged. "One shot! Hit him together!"

John, bloodied and filthy, forced himself onto one knee. His jaw clenched and his eyes sharpened.

"…Fine," he hissed.

Molten magic surged around both brothers at once.

Joe thrust both hands forward, compressing a dense, violent sphere of molten rock between his palms. The spell swelled into a black-red mass shot through with orange cracks, heat rolling off it in waves.

"Scoria Bomb!"

At the same time, John slammed his hand to the ground…and the battlefield groaned.

A massive circular web of glowing fissures burst outward beneath Ultimate Heatblast, spreading fast in a ring around him. The earth sank and split as if the whole clearing were being turned into the mouth of a volcano. Lava burst up in staggered eruptions around the circle, trapping him in the center of a collapsing hellscape.

"Devil's Caldera!"

For one brief second, the combined assault actually looked impressive. Joe hurled the Scoria Bomb straight into the heart of the Caldera as the entire ring of lava erupted inward, trying to bury Ultimate Heatblast under an apocalyptic blast of molten force.

The Scoria Bomb detonated.

KA-BOOM!

A roaring explosion of lava, burning slag, and volcanic pressure swallowed the center of the battlefield. Fire and molten debris surged upward in a brutal pillar. The shockwave blasted broken stone outward and filled the clearing with smoke, ash, and blazing cinders.

Joe actually laughed, breathless and half-mad. "Yeah! Burn, you freak!"

John squinted into the inferno, chest heaving. For one desperate instant, he wanted to believe it had worked.

Then something moved inside the flames.

A tall silhouette stepped forward through the burning storm.

Ultimate Heatblast emerged from the explosion calmly. Lava and burning slag slid off him like water off a duck's back. The volcanic blast that should have annihilated anything in its path had done little more than cloak him in more heat.

Joe's grin died instantly and John's stomach dropped.

"That… did nothing…" John stammered, unable to believe what he was seeing.

Ultimate Heatblast kept coming. He casually advanced through the volcanic field, molten slag dripping from his body in glowing ropes.

Joe was the first to break, stumbling back over cracked rock. "No, no…" His voice pitched higher with panic. "H-He's a monster!"

John gritted his teeth and forced himself to move. "Spread out!" he barked, though the order came far too late.

Ultimate Heatblast's tendrils lashed out.

Despite his likely broken knee, John managed to twist aside from the first strike, but the second streaked across his upper arm and clipped his side. Nearby, Joe tried to hop back, only for one tendril to slash across his ribs, easily cutting through his coat and shirt, and another to crack into his shoulder and leave glowing orange smears behind before peeling away.

Both brothers hissed and recoiled. Not just from the force of the blows, but from the pain that followed.

But that made no sense. As Lava Magic users, they should have been nearly immune to heat.

Joe scrubbed frantically at his sleeve and found a dark residue streaked across the fabric. "Ugh, what is this crap?"

But even as he said it, his breathing had already turned uneven. The usual bite in his voice wavered under something weaker and rougher.

John opened his mouth to snap at him to stay focused, but the command never came. A pulse of dizziness rolled through him instead. The battlefield tilted for a second, and the edges of Ultimate Heatblast's towering form blurred.

Then John noticed something worse.

The places where the tendrils had touched him were burning. Not with heat…but something else.

A sharp, nauseating pain crawled through him as his stomach twisted violently. His head pounded, and the fingers around his sword hilt began to tremble, suddenly weak and unreliable.

Nearby, Joe gave a wet, bloody cough and tried to push himself up, only to gag and clutch at his ribs.

"What…?" Joe rasped, his face going pale. "What's… going on…?"

John's breathing hitched as his eyes snapped up to the monster looming over them. "You…" he shouted, his voice cracking with pain and disbelief. "What did you smear on us?!"

Ultimate Heatblast leaned down, his skull-like face unreadable. "Mercury."

John squinted up at him. "What…?"

"Liquid metal." Ultimate Heatblast leaned closer. "Very toxic."

John's stomach dropped. Joe's eyes widened in horror just before another wave of sickness hit him. He doubled over and vomited, his whole body shaking. John's hand flew to the hilt of his sword, but one molten tendril shot out and coiled around the weapon before he could draw it. Ultimate Heatblast yanked the blade clean from his grasp and flung it far out of reach. Nearby, Joe's breathing had turned ragged as he convulsed where he lay, delirious from pain and nausea. John stared at his brother's sickened form for half a second, then looked back at the hyper-evolved alien.

For the first time, there was no smug smirk. No theatrical composure. No cool superiority.

Only raw disbelief…and fear.

Two of Ultimate Heatblast's tendrils surged forward, coiling around John's body, while the others snared Joe's limp, half-conscious form and pinned him in place. The bindings tightened without mercy.

John's breath hitched. "W-wait," he managed, his voice breaking in a way it never had before. "Hold on. We… we can talk about this!"

Ultimate Heatblast's gaze did not soften. "You were ready to kill innocent people without blinking," he said, voice low.

John swallowed hard. "T-That was business—AGH!"

The tendril around his torso constricted hard enough to force the breath out of him.

"Wrong answer."

The tendril wrapped around John's torso tightened and jerked him forward just as another smashed across the side of his head like a steel whip. John's eyes rolled instantly, and his body went slack before he even hit the ground.

Joe barely had time to react.

Still pinned and half-delirious, he managed one weak, frightened sound before a second tendril lashed across his jaw with brutal precision. His head snapped to the side, and whatever little fight remained in him vanished. His body sagged, fully unconscious.

Silence followed.

Both brothers hung limp for a moment in Ultimate Heatblast's grasp, bloodied, filthy, and broken. Then he let the tendrils lower them to the cracked earth.

John landed first, sprawled on his side with one arm twisted beneath him, his fedora long gone and his face pressed into shattered stone. Joe collapsed a few feet away on his back, his chest rising in shallow, ragged breaths.

Ultimate Heatblast stared down at the brothers with his unblinking gaze. His hyper-evolved mind, engineered for war, threat analysis, and efficient elimination, processed the scene without emotion.

Both targets were incapacitated. Both had demonstrated lethal intent. Both had been willing to slaughter innocents without hesitation.

Probability of future civilian casualties if spared: high.Probability of remorse: negligible.

The next conclusion came easily.

…

Moments earlier…

Carla descended toward the mound of rocks Gordon had been buried beneath. The moment Wendy's feet touched the ground, she landed as well, and her wings disappeared in a soft glow.

"Come," Carla said urgently. "We need to make sure he's still alive."

Wendy nodded, wincing slightly as the full weight returned to her sore legs. Even so, she moved with Carla at once, helping her shift aside smaller slabs and chunks of shattered granite until they uncovered enough to see his head.

Gordon lay half-buried on his back, bruised and bloodied, and caked with dirt. One side of his face was already darkening, and though his breathing was rough, it was steady.

Wendy sighed in relief. "Good, he's alive…"

Carla leaned down to inspect Gordon more closely. "Unconscious, badly bruised, and in no condition to continue fighting. But alive."

The bluenette hesitated. "Do you think I should heal him a little?"

"Not yet." The white feline shook her head. "Not until he is properly restrained. The last thing we need is for him to wake with enough strength to resume fighting."

Wendy paused, then nodded. "Right… okay."

Carla straightened, and as she did, her gaze caught on Wendy's arms and shoulders. Her expression tightened at once. "You are injured too, child."

Wendy blinked and glanced down. Her dress was scuffed and dusty, and fresh bruises had already begun to show along one arm and near her ribs where Gordon's attacks and the rough maneuvering in the air had taken their toll.

"I'm okay," the Dragon Slayer said quickly. "Really. It hurts, but I'll be fine."

Carla did not look convinced.

Before she could argue, however, a distant boom rolled across the basin.

Both girls turned sharply.

Far across the battlefield, the other side of the basin pulsed with violent orange-red light. Another explosion followed, then another, each one sending smoke and sparks into the air. Even from here, they could see the terrain changing. Cracks of molten light spread through the stone, and heat shimmered above the far side of the basin as though part of it was being turned into a volcano.

Carla's ears flattened. "That looks far more dangerous than I would prefer."

Wendy stared across the basin, her heart tightening.

Ben was over there.

She pushed herself upright despite the ache in her body and turned to Carla. "Do you have enough magic left to fly us over there?"

Carla looked at her as though she had lost her mind. "You just finished a fight."

"I know."

"And you are bruised, winded, and low on magic."

"I know."

"Then the answer is absolutely not."

Wendy flinched at the firmness in her voice, but only for a second. She inhaled deeply through her nose, then let it out slowly. She did it again a few more times. Little by little, the trembling in her chest eased as her magical reserves were steadily restored.

"We don't have to land right in the middle of it," she said, lifting her eyes again. "But we should help Ben. At least from the air. Please, Carla."

Carla opened her mouth, then stopped.

Wendy's breathing had evened out. She still looked tired, still bruised, but there was no panic on her face. Only determination.

Carla stared at her for a moment longer, then sighed through her nose. "You are quite stubborn, child."

Wendy offered a tiny, strained smile. "Guess Ben and I are alike in that way."

"That is not a good thing."

Despite herself, Carla's expression softened. White light gathered at her back as her angelic wings manifested once more. "Very well. But if the situation becomes worse than expected, we retreat immediately. Understood?"

"Right."

Carla took hold of the hem of Wendy's dress and lifted her into the air. Wendy steadied herself, then looked ahead as the two of them crossed the basin high above the fractured ground.

The closer they got, the worse the heat became.

It rose in suffocating waves from below, carrying the stink of sulfur, scorched stone, and molten earth. The once-rocky field had become a hellish nightmare of glowing fissures, black slag, and half-cooled rivers of lava.

Wendy's eyes widened. "Ben and that lava wizard did all this…?"

Carla's own eyes narrowed as she scanned below. "That is no ordinary exchange of magic."

She then saw him.

Towering over the ruined field stood an unfamiliar black-and-orange figure wreathed in heat. Tendrils of molten metal extended from him like living weapons. And on his torso sat the Omnitrix symbol, altered by four sharp spikes extending from the rim.

Wendy's breath caught. "Ben?"

"That is the Omnitrix," Carla noted. Her eyes narrowed further. "But what are those extensions coming out of it? Those have never been present before."

Wendy was simply relieved that Ben was still standing and appeared to have won his fight since John and Joe were below him on the ground unconscious.

"Ben!" she called down.

Below, Ultimate Heatblast paused. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked up at her. "Wendy…?"

Wendy raised her voice. "I beat the earth wizard, Gordon! And it looks like you won too! Good job!"

The sound of Wendy's voice stirred the human part of Ultimate Heatblast's mind. A moment passed before he shook his head and looked down, only to see the superheated, sharpened tips of two tendrils hovering over John and Joe's chests.

He immediately recoiled.

The tendrils snapped back, and he moved away from the brothers as though trying to put distance between himself and what he had almost done. He lowered one hand to the Omnitrix dial on his torso and tapped it.

Blue light flashed across his body as the four spikes receded into the rim of the dial. When the glow faded, Ultimate Heatblast had reverted to Heatblast. He tapped the dial again and this time emerald light swallowed him whole, and when it cleared, Ben stood there in human form once more.

He let out a long, shaky breath and dragged a hand over his head. "That was… heavy."

Still airborne, Wendy called down worriedly, "Ben, what just happened? Are you okay?"

Ben looked up at her and forced his expression into something steadier. "I'm okay," he said, though the words came out tight. His eyes flicked to the unconscious brothers sprawled nearby. "Wendy, get down here and use your healing magic on them. Fast."

Hearing the urgency in his voice, Wendy nodded at once. "O-Okay!"

Carla lowered her at once onto a broad stretch of cooled black stone. The moment Wendy's sandals touched down, she hurried to the brothers' side and dropped to her knees.

Up close, they looked even worse.

"Oh…" she whispered. "They're in really bad shape…"

She held both hands over John first, hovering them just above his chest and abdomen as soft blue light gathered around her palms.

"Heal."

The magic flowed through him gently, easing bruises, mending strained muscles, and working against the poison still lingering in his body.

Carla flew over to Ben and hovered level with him, her sharp eyes studying him carefully. "What happened just now?" she asked, voice low. "That Take-Over was not like your other ones."

Ben inhaled deeply and let it out slowly through his nose. "That's… something I'll explain later. Promise." He glanced across the battered battlefield. "For now, let's round up all these Rabid Weasel losers and head back to the village."

…

Later that afternoon, the mood in Sun Village had shifted into one of hard-won relief with the children returned and the Rabid Weasels defeated.

Using XLR8, Ben carried John, Joe, Gordon, and their grunts across the rocky basin to the village gate one by one. It was far faster and more practical than trying to haul them in human form, and Carla would only have been able to lift one at a time. The Giant warriors stationed nearby could do little more than blink in confusion as XLR8 dropped off each dark wizard in a blue-and-black blur.

Once he had finished piling the unconscious Rapid Weasels near the gate, XLR8 doubled back for Wendy and Carla and brought them there as well. By the time he set them down, Wendy's hair was windswept and Carla's fur was thoroughly ruffled.

Wendy staggered a little as her sandals touched the ground and pushed a hand to her long hair. "B-Ben! A little warning next time!"

Carla flattened her ears, glaring at him. "I look like I was dragged through a storm."

XLR8 flashed them a grin. "Hey, look on the bright side. Free express delivery."

With the crisis over and the children safely returned, Chief Hrothar wasted no time ordering the prisoners confined. The four grunts were marched away first; wrists bound and faces pale now that there were no hostages left between them and the consequences of what they had done.

John, Joe, and Gordon were another matter.

All three were alive, but only barely alert. Gordon was conscious enough to walk with assistance, though stiffly, with bruised resentment written all across his blunt face. John and Joe were groggy, unsteady, and in no shape to posture much, especially after Wendy had given them just enough healing magic to keep them from dying and nowhere near enough to make them comfortable.

They were taken to the village’s holding chambers, a smaller stone structure built into the lower terraces near the wall. Unlike the giant-sized pens used for beasts and supplies, the prison wing held several old human-scale cells set deeper into the stone, clearly meant for smaller offenders, trespassers, or the rare outsider foolish enough to cause trouble in Sun Village.

Special stone cuffs were locked around John, Joe, and Gordon the moment they were brought inside a cell together.

Joe blinked down at the restraints with sluggish disbelief. "What is… this?"

"Seal Stone."

All three men looked up to find Ben standing outside the bars, leaning against the doorway with unmistakable smugness.

"The chief told me they nullify a wizard's magic," he said. "So, no lava. No granite. Just consequences."

Joe's mouth opened, but whatever smart remark he meant to throw out never came. His eyes flicked to Ben, then quickly away.

John's jaw tightened as his gaze dropped to the stone floor.

Gordon blinked, noticing the brothers' aversion to looking at Ben. How peculiar. Did something happen?

Ben pushed off the doorway. "What's wrong?" he asked flatly. "You two not feeling very talkative now?"

Joe swallowed. His fingers twitched against the Seal Stone cuff around his wrist. "Tch. Don't flatter yourself."

Ben raised a brow. "Really? Because a little while ago you couldn't shut up."

The younger Magtartus brother's face tightened with anger, but there was something frayed underneath it now. His eyes kept dragging back to Ben like he couldn't help it, and every time they did, the horrifying image of the black-and-orange creature flashed behind them.

His voice came out rough. "You…turned into that freakish nightmare thing."

Ben didn't blink. "Ultimate Heatblast."

John lifted his head a little, trying to reclaim some dignity despite the pain written all over him. "I suppose you name every abomination you become?"

"I do. Makes it easier to remember which one crushed you… and had you dead to rights."

That landed. Joe went rigid, and John's expression hardened.

Gordon, his bruised face unreadable, silently looked between the Magtartus brothers and Ben.

Ben spoke again, voice low and stripped of humor. "I'll be frank. You're both lucky to be alive. You kidnapped children, tried to use them as bargaining chips, and when that started falling apart, you were willing to destroy an entire village just to avoid losing. After what you pulled, I had every right to kill you."

Gordon shifted against the wall, listening closely.

John held Ben's stare, but it took visible effort now. "And yet you didn't kill us."

"No. I didn't." The teen hero's gaze sharpened. "And not because I felt bad for you. See, when I go Ultimate, I'm more ruthless than I'd normally be, so hitting harder and going for the kill comes a lot easier."

Joe's face lost a shade of color. He swallowed. "Then… why'd you—"

"I stopped because of Wendy."

Gordon perked up. "Wendy?" He repeated, voice low.

Ben nodded, his gaze dropping to the floor. "…I don't think she would've looked at me the same way if I had gone through with it."

A beat of silence passed.

"So," Ben said, lifting his gaze again, "you should be grateful to her."

Joe looked away first, while John's mouth flattened into a thin line.

Gordon let out a slow breath through his nose. "I am. She's an incredible wizard."

Ben nodded. "Yeah, she is."

Joe twisted toward Gordon in disbelief. "Hey! Whose side are you on?"

"The side where I don't pretend we're innocent."

That shut Joe up for all of three seconds.

Ben looked at the three of them one last time. "What happens to you now isn't up to me. The Giants will decide your punishment." His expression stayed hard. "So sit with that, Rabid Weasels." He turned and headed down the corridor. "Still a dumb name," he murmured.

Once the solid metal door opened and shut behind him, Joe looked between his older brother and Gordon.

"So what's the plan?"

Gordon leaned back against the wall. "We wait for the Giants to punish us. What else?"

"Seriously?" Joe snapped. "I mean what's our escape plan, rock head?"

Gordon lifted his cuffed wrists as far as the Seal Stone restraints allowed. "Don't see how we're supposed to have one with these on."

"You're both forgetting something," John spoke up, his voice low.

Joe and Gordon turned toward him.

"Grimoire Heart."

Both men went still at the name.

"Oh…" Gordon said.

"Yeah…" John muttered, a bead of sweat sliding down his temple. "The Giants might be the least of our problems once Grimoire Heart finds out we failed."

Joe stared at him for half a second. "…Oh, shit."

…

Ben stepped out of the human-sized chamber and pulled the main door shut behind him. Outside, the sun had sunk lower, the golden light deepening toward a warm orange.

Wendy and Carla sat together on the steps outside the holding chambers.

Wendy glanced back toward the locked cells. "What will happen to them now?"

Chief Hrothar stood nearby with his massive arms folded across his chest. "They will be prosecuted for their crimes against Sun Village," he said. "What was done here will be judged here."

Wendy nodded slowly.

Beside her, Carla's tail gave a small, approving flick. "That seems appropriate."

Hrothar's gaze shifted from the holding chambers to the three of them, and some of the severity in his expression eased. "You have done much for our people today. Sun Village does not forget such things."

Ben rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well. Letting those creeps get away with it would've sucked."

It was hardly a grand heroic statement, but Wendy smiled anyway, and Hrothar seemed to understand the meaning beneath the wording.

Later, when they returned to Hrothar's home, the village felt different from how it had the night before. Less like a place bracing for disaster, and more like one beginning to recover from it. Giant voices carried through the broad streets and terraces outside, lower and steadier now. Every so often, the sound of children laughing drifted through the evening air.

Inside the chief's home, Flare had been waiting near the entrance to the human-sized quarters built into one side of the far larger structure. It was not a separate house so much as a smaller living space worked directly into Hrothar's home, fitted neatly into the greater architecture.

When the three of them stepped inside and made it up a staircase, Flare straightened a little and tucked a loose red braid behind one ear.

"You can stay here in my part of the house," she said. "If…if you want. There's enough room for all of us."

Wendy's face lit up. "Really?"

Flare gave a small nod.

"That's very generous," Carla said.

Ben smiled a little. "I was actually wondering where we were supposed to sleep tonight." A thought then occurred to him, and his grin widened. "Wait, does your village even have an inn? Not gonna lie, spending a night in a Giant-sized hotel room sounds pretty funny."

The idea immediately reminded Ben of their stop in that tourist trap of Sparksville, and the memory nearly made him laugh.

Flare blinked. "W-We do not."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. Well, that's one less thing to worry about. Thanks, Flare."

The red-haired girl ducked her head, suddenly shy under the attention. "Y-You're welcome. Also… your clothes are dirty," she muttered, as if that explained everything.

As it turned out, that was reason enough for all of them.

Flare's bathroom, while still built for human use, had clearly been made with her unusual circumstances in mind. It was a little larger than normal, with a broad tiled floor, a deep bath, a proper shower, and shelves set low enough that a human could actually use them without having to climb around like an idiot. After the dust, sweat, smoke, and general insanity of the day, it felt downright luxurious.

By the time everyone had cleaned up, the mood in the house had changed noticeably.

Waiting in the lounging area of Flare's quarters, Ben had changed into some of the spare Cait Shelter clothes from his pack while his usual jeans and T-shirt were being washed: tan knee-length pants, a sleeveless black shirt, and the sash with green-and-white triangles crossing his chest. His green-and-white jacket was draped over the back of a chair after being cleaned of dirt and dust.

Wendy emerged not long after in a fresh set of Flare's clothes, and the difference made Ben blink.

The outfit suited the village perfectly. It was Viking-inspired like Flare's usual clothes, only softer in tone and better fitted for someone Wendy's age and build. The dress layered cream and muted blue beneath a warm red-brown overdress trimmed with pale fur, with patterned stitching at the cuffs and hem.

Ben smiled. "Oh, wow. You look like you belong here now, Wendy."

Wendy smoothed the front of the dress and smiled, a little shy but obviously pleased. "Flare let me borrow it."

"It looks nice on you," Flare said quietly.

Wendy turned to her with a bright smile. "Thank you."

A little later, once everyone had settled into the human-sized common room in Flare's section of the house, the mood softened further. The lounging area was open on one side to the larger main hall of Hrothar's home, separated more by a change in scale and carved support beams, so the light and sounds of the chief's household still carried easily into Flare's space.

Ben looked between Wendy, Carla, and Flare. "You guys okay? After everything, I mean."

Wendy touched the bandaged spot on her arm almost absently. Flare had already treated the bruises and cuts she had taken during the fight, and though she still looked tired, some of her color had returned. "I'm okay," she said. Her expression dimmed a little after that. "Mostly. I just…" She looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry I made things harder. When that horn got me, I couldn't fight it."

Flare's shoulders drew in slightly. "Me too," she admitted. "I should've resisted."

Ben stared at them for a second like they had just said something deeply ridiculous. "That wasn't your fault," he said flatly. "Either of you. The horn was the problem, not you."

Wendy looked up.

Ben leaned back a little in his chair, pointing at Flare. "And for the record, you smashed the thing. That helped a lot."

Flare blinked. "I… did."

"Yeah, you did. And you led the kids back to the village while Wendy and I kept the three stooges busy."

Wendy tilted her head. "Three stooges?"

Flare looked equally lost. Carla only narrowed her eyes.

Ben sighed. "Wow. Okay. Tragic cultural gap. It means they were idiots."

"Oh," Wendy said in understanding.

"That," Carla said dryly, "is certainly accurate."

Flare let out the faintest little laugh.

Ben's grin came back for a moment, then softened when he looked at Wendy. "And you did good too. Seriously." His voice lost its teasing edge. "You kept your nerve when things got bad, and you took down the earth guy. That wasn't easy. I knew you had it in you."

Wendy blinked, caught off guard by how direct the praise was. Color rose into her cheeks. "Thanks, Ben. But I only won because Carla helped keep me in the air."

Carla lifted her chin. "While me keeping you airborne was important, it wasn't the reason you won, child." She smiled a little. "You won because you used your head."

Wendy smiled then, small but real.

Flare watched her for a moment before speaking up. "You were really brave," she said softly. "Even when you were scared, you still kept fighting. I… liked that."

Wendy blinked at her, and her smile gentled. "Thank you, Flare."

Ben smiled at the interaction between the two girls.

Before the moment could fully settle, a boisterous voice called from the main hall beyond the open partition.

"Hey, guys!"

A moment later, Sola leaned around one of the carved support beams at the edge of Flare's quarters, grinning at them from the larger main area of Hrothar's home. From there, she could peer straight into the lounging space.

"The village is throwing a celebration tonight," she announced. "C'mon! If we make the whole village wait, Father'll start the feast without us."

Flare's expression flattened in mild disbelief. "He… he would not."

Sola's grin softened into something more knowing. "No, but Mother might."

That was apparently enough to get everyone moving.

Wendy stood first, smoothing the front of the borrowed dress. "A celebration?" she repeated, her eyes already bright. "Really?"

Sola gave her an incredulous look. "You guys rescued us. Of course really."

Flare rose more slowly. Her hands hovered briefly at her sides before one drifted to the end of a braid. "They do not need to make a fuss," she murmured.

Sola's grin softened. "They kind of do."

Ben pushed himself up from his chair, stretching his arms overhead. "Well, that settles it," he said. "We should probably go before Giant feast food disappears at Giant speed."

Carla, poised as ever, gave him a sidelong look. "Your priorities remain embarrassingly predictable."

Ben smirked at her. "And yet never wrong."

That earned the smallest huff from Carla.

…

Later, the five of them stepped out of Hrothar's home and into the evening air. Golden light from the Eternal Flame in the distance washed over the stone streets and the giant-built houses that rose in tiers.

Down the broad road ahead, villagers were already gathering.

Wendy slowed just a little as they walked, taking it all in. "It's beautiful," she said softly.

"It's loud," Carla corrected, with less bite in her voice.

Sola laughed and moved ahead of them, then turned and walked backward with her hands clasped behind her back. "Just wait until everyone starts talking at once. Then it gets really loud."

Ben glanced sideways at Flare. "You okay?"

Flare hesitated as her gaze moved over the gathering ahead, where children were already darting between the adults. "I'm not used to…" She trailed off, then tried again more quietly. "I'm not used to being part of why everyone celebrates."

Wendy's expression softened. "Then I'll stay with you," she said simply.

Flare blinked and looked at her, then smiled and nodded.

Ben smiled a little and hooked both hands behind his head as they kept walking. "Good. I'll stick with you guys too. Somebody's gotta make sure Sola doesn't eat all the good food first."

"I would never," Sola said with great offense.

Ben shot the Giant girl a look. "You announced the feast like it was under attack."

"That," Carla said dryly, "is because it likely is."

This time, even Flare laughed.

The five of them reached the heart of the square just as the last of the daylight gave way to firelit evening.

Long tables built for Giants had been dragged into place across the broad central space, their surfaces crowded with platters, cups, and carved bowls. Red, cream, and gold cloth swayed overhead from ropes stretched between buildings, while lanterns hung from hooks set into pillars and old beams.

Giant men in leather and fur-lined tunics stood shoulder to shoulder with women in layered dresses and shawls, and children wove between them in bursts of restless excitement. The whole square felt alive in a way it had not the night before, its fear replaced by heat, noise, and relief.

When Hrothar stepped forward to the center of the square, the village quieted. Yrsa came to stand a little behind him.

Ben, Wendy, and Carla exchanged a glance as Sola nudged them farther forward.

"Oh no," Ben murmured. "I know that look. We're getting publicly perceived."

Carla flicked an ear. "Try not to embarrass yourself."

"I make no promises," Ben smirked.

Hrothar's gaze swept across the gathered villagers before settling on the three of them.

"Today," he said, his deep voice carrying across the square, "outsiders stood where some of our own could not."

The square fell silent.

"They faced those who stole our children. They fought. They bled. And they brought our little ones home."

Wendy straightened without meaning to. Carla held her chin high. Ben, meanwhile, looked a little too pleased with the attention.

Hrothar went on. "Sun Village does not forget such deeds."

The reaction came all at once.

Spear butts struck stone in a heavy rolling thunder. Axe hafts followed. Cups lifted high. Some villagers pressed hands over their hearts. A deep communal cheer rose around them, strong enough that the humans felt it in their bones.

Beside her, Sola grinned like this was the most obvious response.

Wendy's eyes widened. "Oh…"

Ben smiled. "Not gonna lie, this is pretty cool."

Yrsa stepped forward then, carrying a tray. She stopped first in front of Wendy.

"For courage."

From the tray, she lifted a narrow-braided cord in warm gold and deep red, with a small sun-carved pendant hanging from it. Wendy stared for half a heartbeat before bowing her head so Yrsa could place it gently around her neck.

"I-I didn't do it alone," Wendy said, cheeks turning pink.

Yrsa's smile was warm and knowing. "You still did it."

She moved next to Carla.

"For vigilance."

What she offered her was a stitched wristband in village colors, red, cream, and ochre woven through dark leather. Carla extended one paw with practiced dignity, and Yrsa fastened it there.

"Naturally," Carla said, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly.

A few villagers chuckled softly.

Yrsa then stood before Ben.

"For strength given without seeking reward."

The gift for him was a white fur-lined green shoulder wrap clasped with a carved white sun-disc on one side, clearly made to sit over one shoulder.

Ben blinked. "Uh… thanks. Really."

Around them, the villagers answered with another wave of cheering and the pounding of cups and hafts against stone.

Ben leaned a fraction toward Wendy. "Okay," he muttered, "this is either really sweet or the beginning of us being adopted by a village of Giants."

Wendy giggled behind one hand. "Maybe both."

With the honoring done, the village shifted immediately into celebration.

The feast began in earnest.

The first platter set before the trio was so enormous Wendy froze.

It held roasted meat sliced thick, browned and glistening beneath herbs and juices, surrounded by roasted roots, onions, and what looked like giant wedges of squash. The thing was easily the size of a wagon lid.

Ben stared at it. "Okay," he said slowly, "I know I'm a growing boy, but that thing could feed my entire high school."

Sola, already halfway to sitting beside them, looked at him curiously. "What's a high school?"

"A place where people go to learn things and suffer."

Flare, sitting a little more carefully at Wendy's other side, blinked. "…That sounds terrible."

Ben snorted. "Yeah, it kind of was."

Before the three of them could even figure out where to start, another Giant woman brought over a loaf of bread the size of a small bench, followed by a steaming bowl of stew and a platter stacked with grilled sausages.

Wendy looked helplessly from one to the next. "There's so much…"

"And they keep bringing more," Carla observed.

As if on cue, a younger Giant boy nearly jogged over with an enormous flat round of honeyed bread in both hands.

Sola shot to her feet first. "Wait, wait, not that one!"

Flare stood up right after her. "You're doing it wrong."

The boy blinked in confusion as the two girls intercepted him.

"Those are full-table portions," Sola told him confidently. "They need the small plates."

Flare gave him a smaller, apologetic look. "Human small plates."

The boy's eyes widened. "Oh."

Several minutes later, after much hurried rearranging, the feast had been redone. The three of them were each given carved wooden plates, cups of warm spiced juice, smaller cuts of roasted meat, stew in manageable bowls, split sausages, softened bread, and a honeyed flatbread portion that Wendy immediately loved.

"This is really good," she said after her first bite, eyes bright.

Sola looked scandalized. "You haven't even tried the honey bread yet!"

"Let her chew first," Flare said, even as she slid the bread closer to Wendy anyway.

Wendy laughed softly and obeyed.

Ben took a bite of the roasted meat and let out an appreciative hum. "Okay. Outside of saving children, this alone would've been worth the trip."

Across from them, Sola leaned forward with an elbow propped on the table. "So what kind of place are you three from, anyway?"

"Cait Shelter," Wendy answered.

"What's that?"

"It's a small guild up north."

Sola perked up. "A guild? Like, an actual wizard's guild?"

"Sort of," Wendy said. "Carla and I are really the only wizards there. Everyone else makes clothing."

Sola blinked. "Huh." Her face brightened again. "Okay, that's still cool. A whole village that makes clothes sounds nice."

She then turned to Ben. "Wait. Aren't you from Cait Shelter too, Ben?"

"No. I'm from Bellwood," Ben replied. "It's, uh, a long way from here."

"Ooh, how far?" Sola leaned forward at once.

He smirked. "Very. Like… so far it's hard to explain without sounding completely insane."

She grinned. "After everything that happened today, I think we're a little past worrying about sounding insane."

"Fair point." Ben's grin crooked a little. "Would it sound crazy if I told you I'm from another planet in another universe?"

Sola blinked and tilted her head. "It would if I knew what any of that meant."

Ben laughed softly. "Yeah. My point stands."

Flare, who had been eating quietly, reached over and nudged a smaller bowl of berry compote toward Wendy. "This one too. It's sweeter."

"Thanks, Flare."

Sola's grin sharpened. "Flare's been acting weird all evening."

Flare nearly choked. "I have not."

"You have. You keep doing that thing with your braids when you're nervous."

Flare's hands instantly dropped away from exactly one of her braids.

Ben pointed at once. "Wow. Sibling energy."

The smaller red-haired girl turned pink. "We technically aren't siblings."

"Could've fooled me."

Sola looked deeply pleased with herself.

Wendy hid a smile in her cup while Carla muttered, "I can already tell this girl is a menace."

"I heard that!" Sola said.

"It was meant to be heard."

That earned a surprised laugh out of Sola and, after a second, another quieter one from Flare.

The noise of the celebration swelled around them after that. Giants called to one another across the square. Children darted between the tables. Somewhere off to the side, deep drums had started up, joined by the call of a horn and the twang of some enormous stringed instrument.

In the middle of it, Wendy and Flare gradually drifted a little away from the noisiest part of the celebration. They stopped near a lower stone wall at the edge of the terrace.

Wendy touched the pendant Yrsa had given her. "This is a really nice gift."

Flare glanced at it. "Yrsa made that," she said quietly. "She makes most of the smaller things by hand. She says gifts should feel like they belong to the person getting them."

The bluenette smiled, turning the pendant lightly between her fingers. "Then she's really good at it."

Flare looked faintly pleased by that. "She'll be happy you like it." She hesitated, then looked back out at the celebration. "Do you think this place is strange?"

Wendy blinked. "Strange?"

The redhead gave a tiny shrug. "Everything is too big. Or too rough. Or… weird."

"It is weird."

Flare's shoulders dipped. "Oh."

"But a nice weird," Wendy finished quickly, smiling at her. "I mean, I've never been anywhere like this before, but that's not bad. It's warm here. And everyone cares about each other."

Flare looked back at her.

Wendy's voice softened. "And I like you too, Flare, not just the village."

That landed harder than the words were spoken.

Flare went still. Everything dimmed behind the simple, open sincerity in Wendy's expression. "You really mean that?" she asked quietly. "Even though I'm…so weird?"

Wendy nodded. "Yeah, I do. There's nothing wrong with being weird."

Flare stared at her for another second, then had to look away because her face had gone warm and her chest felt strangely tight. "Then…" Flare swallowed. "I'm glad you came here."

Wendy's smile turned softer. "I'm glad too."

Not far away, Ben noticed the exchange from the table and deliberately chose not to interrupt it.

Beside him, Carla noticed it too, her paws folded neatly in front of her.

Sola caught them both looking in Wendy and Flare's direction. "That one's good for Flare," she said, nodding toward Wendy.

Ben glanced at her and gave a small nod. "Yeah."

Sola propped her chin on one hand. "Flare's never had any human friends before. So she doesn't really get to have… this."

His expression softened. "Neither does Wendy. There aren't any kids her age at Cait Shelter, so making a friend like that is good for her too."

Carla's tail flicked. "Flare needs it as well," she said, her voice dry but not unkind. "She has spent most of her life caught between worlds. It is difficult to learn where you belong when you have no one your own age to share that with."

Sola looked toward her friend again, then let out a soft huff through her nose. "Yeah. She acts all tough, but I know she gets lonely sometimes."

Ben leaned back a little in his seat. "Then maybe this helps both of them."

Carla gave a small nod. "For once, that seems likely."

Then one of the Giant children from the rescue, shorter than Sola but still a good eight feet tall, came trotting up to Ben with a leather-skinned ball tucked under one arm, clearly something made for Giant children to kick around. With his free hand, he tugged lightly at the fur-lined wrap over Ben's shoulder.

"Hey, Mister Ben, right?" the boy asked. "Can you do more of your body-changing magic?"

That was all it took. Several more children immediately turned toward him.

"Ooh, do you have other forms?"

"Can you turn into something creepy?"

"Something slimy?"

"Something fast?"

"He has a fast one, remember? Fasttrack."

"Oh, right!"

"Ooh, do you have something strong too?"

Ben lifted both hands with a grin. "Whoa, okay. One at a time, kids. And to answer your questions, yes to all of them."

Their eyes widened even more.

"Really?!"

"Can you show us?"

"Please?"

"Pretty please?"

Sola laughed from nearby. "You're doomed."

Ben shot her a look. "Thanks. Super helpful."

Wendy and Flare both looked back toward the center of the square in time to see Ben getting surrounded.

"Ben sure is popular," Flare commented.

Wendy giggled. "Yeah. He kind of does that."

"Does what?"

"Gets people to like him really fast," Wendy said, still smiling. "He acts silly a lot, and sometimes he can be rude, but…" Her expression softened. "He's nice. Really nice."

One of the children, a little bolder than the rest, asked, "Do you have a form that's big, Mister Ben?"

Ben's brows rose. "Big, huh?"

The child nodded emphatically, nearly dropping the leather ball in his excitement. "Big like us."

A few of the adults had started listening now too, Hrothar among them.

Ben glanced around the square, spotted some open space beyond the feast tables, and grinned. "Actually, yeah. Gimme a sec."

Carla narrowed her eyes. "What exactly are you planning?"

"Something cool."

Ben stood and headed toward the open area. Wendy and Flare stepped back toward Sola, while the children retreated just far enough to be safe without losing any of their excitement.

Ben tapped the Omnitrix faceplate, bringing up the green holo-ring. He scrolled through the playlist until he found the newest head icon.

"This seems like the perfect time to show this guy off." He selected it and slammed down the core.

Emerald light burst across the square, bright enough that nearby villagers had to shield their eyes. When the glow finally faded, they looked back and gasped.

In Ben's place stood a Giant roughly seventy-foot-tall, broad and heroic in build, with sun-bronzed skin and long, thick dark brown hair, partially tied back behind his shoulders. A braided beard framed a strong face with a broad jaw, pronounced nose, and intense green eyes. He wore a layered green leather tunic trimmed in white fur, black bracers, a wide black belt, and heavy black boots. The Omnitrix dial sat squarely at the center of his chest.

"So," he said, his voice deeper now, "what do you all think? I think I wear Giant pretty well."

For one long beat, nobody spoke.

The silence was promptly shattered as the children erupted at once, pointing and shouting over each other.

"He's huge!"

"He really did it!"

"He looks like one of the old hero tales!"

"No, bigger!"

"He looks like a sun-warrior!"

"Like a Giant champion!"

Several of the adults stared in open disbelief, while others began murmuring to one another in amazement.

"Oh wow!" Wendy's eyes sparkled. "I didn't know you could change into a Giant too, Ben!"

Sola gasped. "Okay, that is so cool!"

Flare could only stare. "He… he can make himself a Giant? That's… amazing."

Carla blinked twice. So when his watch emits that yellow light, he gains a Take-Over of whatever it scans. Her expression turned thoughtful. Does that mean every intelligent non-human species we encounter becomes another form he can use?

Chief Hrothar, still recovering from the shock of it, finally stepped forward toward Giant Ben, who stood roughly a head taller than he did.

"You are… one of us?"

Ben smiled and jabbed a thumb toward his own chest. "I am one with everybody."

Hrothar blinked twice. "I see… Your magic is truly incredible."

Wendy looked up brightly. "What are you going to name this one, Ben?"

Giant Ben hummed as he looked himself over. "Hmm… You know what? I think I've got a good one."

Carla sighed. "Do I even want to know?"

"Absolutely!" He grinned proudly. "Hence forward, this guy will be named Kolossus!"

A few of the Giant children lit up.

"Kolossus! Kolossus!"

Kolossus sheepishly grinned. "Glad you kids approve."

To his credit, Hrothar recovered quickly. The Giant chief straightened and gave a single nod, the surprise in his face settling into something closer to respect.

Kolossus's gaze then dropped to the children, and he spotted the leather-skinned ball one of the Giant boys had been carrying earlier. An idea struck him at once.

He crouched low. "Say," he said, "you kids want me to teach you a game from where I'm from?"

That got their attention immediately.

…

Roughly half an hour later, the group had relocated to an open field just outside the village, where the ground leveled out between long stone ridges and scattered boulders. The last orange wash of evening stretched across the desert basin, painting the pale dirt and rock in warm bands of gold and copper.

At either end of the field, a pair of tall spear posts had been planted as makeshift goals, while the boundaries were marked with loose rows of stones dragged into place by enthusiastic Giant children. Cloth banners fluttered overhead from lines strung between nearby posts, and beyond the field, the stone walls and tiered buildings of Sun Village rose against the brilliant glow of the Eternal Flame.

Kolossus bounced the leather ball once against the dirt, then trapped it beneath one foot.

"Alright, the game is called soccer. Or football, depending on where you're from."

"Which one is it?" one of the Giant boys asked.

"Yeah," Sola said, folding her arms. "Those are two different names."

"They are," Kolossus said. "And they're also the same game."

The children stared at him.

Flare blinked. "That makes no sense."

Kolossus sighed. "Okay, so. Back where I'm from, some places call it soccer, and a lot of other places call it football. Which makes sense, because you mostly use your feet. Except there's also another game in my country called American football, which barely uses feet at all, so honestly that one should've been called something else a long time ago. But everybody got too committed, and now we're stuck with it. Then soccer stayed soccer in some places because apparently the world enjoys being confusing for no reason."

A long pause followed.

One of the Giant children slowly raised a hand. "What is American?"

Kolossus pointed at him. "Great question. Not important right now."

The child lowered his hand.

Another girl frowned. "So… is it called football or soccer?"

Kolossus let out a breath. "Tell you what, we'll call it football. That'll make this easier."

That was accepted immediately.

"Good," Sola declared. "Football sounds cooler."

Kolossus pointed at her. "See? You get it."

"So what do you do in this game?" one of the children asked.

"You try to get the ball into the other team's goal," Kolossus replied. "But you do it mostly with your feet. You run, pass, block, and work together to move the ball down the field."

"That's it?" Sola asked skeptically.

Kolossus gave her a look. "That is not it. You've gotta control the ball, keep the other team from taking it, and not trip over your own feet while doing it."

One of the boys frowned. "Why no hands?"

"The game's called football, not handball."

Kolossus then pointed toward the spear-post goals. "Only the goalie gets to use their hands, and only when they're guarding the goal. Everybody else uses their feet, legs, chest, or head."

Another child blinked. "What's a goalie?"

"The person who protects the goal. They stop the other team from scoring."

The children seemed to accept that.

Another child, younger than the rest, raised a hand. "What's a rule?"

Kolossus closed his eyes for half a second. "…Man, we are really starting from the beginning."

Wendy giggled behind him.

Kolossus pointed toward the field. "Okay. Simple version. You move the ball without using your hands unless you're the goalie. You work with your team, and you try to get the ball between those two spear posts. That's called scoring. Everyone following?"

He got a few nods, a few blank looks, and one expression from Sola that said she already thought she understood perfectly.

Flare noticed it too. "Sola," she warned.

"What?"

"Don't say it looks easy."

Sola tossed her side braid over her shoulder. "I wasn't going to."

Flare frowned. "That means you absolutely were."

Sola winked and stuck her tongue out.

The first demonstration went badly.

One Giant boy kicked the ball with enough force to send it rocketing over the field and into a low stone wall with a solid crack.

The entire group winced.

Kolossus pointed at the ball where it had lodged in the stone. "Okay. Great power. Terrible control. Less murder."

Wendy laughed so hard she had to grab Flare's arm to steady herself.

Flare was laughing too, quieter than Wendy but enough that Sola turned to stare at her in surprise before breaking into another grin of her own.

Kolossus jogged over, tugged the ball loose, and carried it back under one arm. Up close, the thing was enormous on a human scale, a good foot taller than Wendy and wide enough that she would not have been able to wrap both arms around it.

He set it down again and demonstrated more carefully this time, dribbling it in short, controlled taps across the dirt.

"You keep it close," he explained. "Like this. Then if you need to, you pass." He angled his foot and sent the ball rolling cleanly toward one of the boys. "And then you move."

The boy trapped it awkwardly, nearly tripped over his own feet, then looked delighted just for not launching it into a building.

Kolossus gave him a thumbs-up. "There you go. Progress."

Wendy brightened. "Can I try?"

"C'mon, Wendy. You're on my team."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

He grinned. "Yep. You've got quick feet."

Off to the side, Carla flicked an ear. "Try not to let the children trample you, child."

"I'll be careful!" Wendy promised.

She hurried out onto the makeshift field but slowed when the oversized ball finally rolled her way. Up close, it looked even bigger. For one startled second, she just stared at it, wondering how she was supposed to kick something that came nearly to her waist.

She drew in a deep breath, magic flowing through her body and down into her legs. A pale blue magic circle flickered briefly beneath her feet as wind wrapped lightly around her calves.

"Arms." Wendy whispered.

The pressure in her legs changed at once. Strength gathered there. Wendy planted one foot, stepped in, and swung. Her kick landed with a solid thump, and the ball rolled forward with real momentum.

Wendy's face lit up in delight. "I did it!"

Sola's eyes widened. "Whoa! You can do that to yourself?"

One of the boys pointed at Wendy's legs. "Her feet glowed!"

"That wasn't just a kick," another child said. "She used magic!"

Flare blinked, then looked at Wendy with open surprise. "You can strengthen your body like that?"

Wendy turned, still glowing with excitement. "Just parts of it! With enchantment!"

"That is so unfair," Sola declared at once, though she sounded more impressed than upset. "You're tiny and magical."

A few of the children laughed, while others immediately started talking over one another.

"Can she do it again?"

"Does that mean she gets picked first every time?"

"That's definitely cheating."

Kolossus blinked in surprise, then let out an impressed laugh. "Okay, whatever that was, it was awesome, Wendy."

Wendy looked back at him, a little flushed but smiling. "It's an enchantment spell. I guess I forgot to tell you I can use those too."

Kolossus laughed and gave a shrug. "You know, that's fair. I still haven't shown you all my forms anyway."

From there, the difference in Wendy's style became obvious almost immediately. Even with the ball's ridiculous size, she moved lightly, weaving between feet, legs, and scattered stones with an agility the Giant children simply did not have. The Arms spell gave her enough strength to keep the ball moving, while her natural quickness did the rest. Her control was not perfect, but it was graceful, and when she made her first clean pass back to Kolossus, the children shouted like they had just witnessed something amazing.

Sola's eyes narrowed with competitive fire. "I want to be on the other side."

"Of course you do," Flare muttered.

Kolossus grinned at Sola. "Good. You're on the other team."

Sola pointed dramatically at Wendy. "I'm beating you."

The bluenette smiled. "I can try to stop you."

Flare lingered at the edge of the marked field, hands half-folded in front of herself.

Wendy noticed right away. "Flare, come play with us."

Flare hesitated. "I don't know how."

Kolossus spread his hands. "Perfect. Nobody does yet."

That got a small laugh out of her.

Before she could back out, Sola grabbed her wrist and tugged. "Then you can stand by the goal with me."

Flare stumbled a step. "Sola—"

"You'll be good at it," Wendy said brightly.

Flare looked from Wendy, to Sola, and finally to Ben. She still couldn't get over how he was a Giant now and was acting like it was the most normal thing in the world.

She relented. "…Fine."

The game that followed was messy, loud, and nothing like a proper football game.

The children kicked too hard, ran too close together, and kept forgetting which goal belonged to which team. Kolossus spent as much time laughing, explaining, and redirecting them as he did actually playing. Twice he had to remind them that tackling each other into the dirt was not part of the game. Once he had to explain that climbing onto a teammate's shoulders to headbutt the ball was "creative, but illegal."

Wendy managed a clean pass down the center that led straight to Sola scoring, which made the red-haired girl throw both arms up and scream in triumph.

"I scored! I scored! I'm the best player in the village!"

"You scored once," Flare said.

"That's still the most!"

A little while later, Flare surprised everyone by using her Hair Magic to snag the ball right in front of Sola's feet while guarding the goal.

"Hey!" Sola protested. "That's cheating!"

Flare blinked. "…Is it?"

Kolossus considered it. "For now? No. For now I'm calling it advanced defense."

Sola looked scandalized. Wendy dissolved into helpless laughter.

Meanwhile, at the edge of the field, Hrothar sat beside Yrsa, both watching the game unfold.

"I do not understand this game," Hrothar admitted.

Yrsa smiled into her cup. "No," she said. "But they are happy."

That, more than anything, seemed to satisfy him.

Up on a low stone rise, Carla sat with an expression of someone far too dignified to be openly invested.

Wendy slipped past one of the boys, tapped the ball forward, and sent it neatly between the spear-post goals.

For half a second, she just stared.

Carla then raised her voice, just enough for it to carry. "Good shot, child."

Wendy lit up instantly.

Kolossus caught the look on her face and grinned.

Yrsa watched the children with a warm expression and then turned to her husband. "You said our guests came to see the Flame, yes?"

Hrothar gave a slow nod. "They did."

Yrsa's smile deepened. "I understand it is not our custom to show outsiders the Flame… but after everything they did for us…"

The chief was silent for a moment, his gaze shifting from the laughing children to Kolossus, then to Wendy and Carla.

At last, he nodded. "Perhaps a rare exception can be made, then."

Yrsa looked pleased by that.

A moment later, Hrothar stepped forward and raised his voice just enough to cut through the lingering cheer. "Ben. Wendy. Carla."

The three of them turned toward him.

"Come. There is something I would show you."

…

The sun had fully slipped below the horizon, and stars had begun to dot the sky around a waxing crescent moon. After thanking Ben for teaching them a new game and playing with them, the children drifted back toward their respective homes, including Flare and Sola, who were both visibly worn out after everything the day had put them through mentally and physically.

Chief Hrothar led Ben, Wendy, and Carla away from the field, through the village, and toward the rocky formations on its eastern side, where the Eternal Flame was located.

Hrothar walked ahead in steady silence. Wendy stayed close to Ben's side, while Carla hovered near her shoulder with the guarded expression of someone who refused to stop being cautious just because the village had begun to relax.

They followed a paved stone path, passed a pair of watchful guards, and came at last to a broad, open space.

There it was.

The Eternal Flame rose from a great stone ring built into the earth, its base circled by carved sun motifs worn smooth with age. Even standing several yards away, Ben could feel the heat rolling off it in slow, powerful breaths.

Hrothar looked at the three of them. "This is the Eternal Flame," he said, his deep voice quieter than usual. "Guardian of our village. Protector of our people."

Ben tipped his head back to take in the sheer size of it, heat washing across his face. "Yeah," he murmured. "No offense to normal fire, but that is definitely on a whole different level."

Wendy stared up at it with wide brown eyes. Earlier, from a distance, it had been awe-inspiring. Up close, it felt like something else entirely.

Her expression changed.

Ben noticed. "Wendy?"

She did not answer right away. Her brows drew together as she took a cautious step forward, eyes fixed on the heart of the fire.

Carla's ears twitched. "What is it, child?"

Wendy slowly lifted one hand toward the flames. "There's… something in it."

That made everyone still.

Hrothar's gaze sharpened. "Something?"

Wendy nodded faintly, never taking her eyes off the Flame. "A presence." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "It feels old. Really old." She swallowed. "And strong."

Ben frowned at the Flame, then at her. "You mean magic?"

"No," Wendy said softly. "Not just magic."

Carla narrowed her eyes. "A spirit?"

Hrothar said nothing, but something grave moved through his expression.

Wendy took another step closer, the firelight dancing across her hair. "It's faint," she murmured. "Like it's sleeping. Or… waiting."

Ben looked from her to the flames. "Can you do anything?"

Wendy hesitated briefly before her eyes widened slightly. "Maybe."

Carla blinked. "Maybe?"

Wendy turned toward them, excitement and uncertainty colliding across her face. "There's a spell Grandeeney taught me. It's supposed to call out to a Dragon's soul if one is still nearby." Her gaze flicked back to the Eternal Flame. "If what I'm sensing really is what I think it is…"

Hrothar's stare returned to the fire at once.

"Alright," Ben said. "I'm officially in favor of hearing the rest of that sentence."

Wendy drew a slow breath. "I can try to bring it forth."

Silence settled over the stone.

Carla looked wary. "And what happens if you are wrong?"

Wendy's mouth tightened. "Then… probably nothing."

Ben gave a small shrug. "I'd say it's worth a shot, but we're still guests here." He looked to Hrothar. "It's not our call."

Hrothar looked between the three of them before his gaze settled on Wendy. After a moment, he gave a single, solemn nod. "Proceed."

With that permission given, Wendy moved to the open ground before the Eternal Flame and knelt, while the others stepped back to give her space. Golden firelight washed over her as she settled in the middle of the open stone. For a second, she simply closed her eyes and listened. Suddenly, pale blue magic began to spread beneath her. An intricate magic circle bloomed across the ground, its luminous lines and sigils widening outward beneath Wendy kneeling at its center.

Hrothar's eyes widened as the light traced itself over the stone, while Carla instinctively drifted farther back from the circle's edge.

Wendy drew in a slow breath.

"Milky Way."

Throwing up both arms up toward the sky, a beam of light sprang from the earth and shot upward into the night, bright enough that Ben had to shield his eyes for a moment. Ripples of light burst outward from Wendy in expanding waves, and from them came glittering ribbons that shone like streams of stars. They drifted through the square, brushing over the carved stones, the basin, and finally the Eternal Flame itself.

"Whoa…" Ben breathed in amazement.

The fire then started to change.

The golden-orange blaze darkened at its center, red swallowing gold, then darkening further into a fierce, infernal crimson. The heat spiked so suddenly that Ben took several steps back. Hrothar raised one massive forearm across his face. Carla's fur puffed despite herself.

Wendy's hands came together before her chest as though in prayer, her shoulders trembling with strain. "I found it," she whispered.

The ribbons of light rushed inward at once.

They spiraled around the Eternal Flame in tightening circles, gathering faster and faster until the heart of the fire seemed to split open. The swirling bands of light formed a glowing portal above the basin, and from within it, something immense began to rise.

At first, it was only pressure and outline.

Then it took shape.

An enormous Dragon-like being emerged from the light and flame, with the unmistakable form of wings, claws, a tail, and a vast horned head. Yet unlike an ordinary Dragon, its body was not covered in scales at all. It seemed to be made entirely of fire, its immense form carrying the impression of a burning skeleton suspended within living hellfire.

Even Hrothar looked tiny beneath it.

The air shook with the being's presence.

Carla's eyes widened in shock. "A Dragon…"

Ben stared up at it, the fire reflected in his eyes. "Okay… that is officially one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And I've seen literal gods before," he murmured the last part to himself.

Hrothar dropped to one knee without thinking.

Wendy’s face had gone pale with strain, but she kept the spell intact.

The great burning head turned slowly, looking down at them.

When the Dragon spoke, his voice rolled through the square like a furnace given language. “Who summons Atlas Flame?”

Ben blinked. “Well,” he muttered, “that answers that.”

Wendy swallowed, tilting her head back. “I-I did. My name is Wendy Marvell.”

The Dragon’s blazing eyes lowered to her. His burning gaze held a flicker of curiosity, as though he sensed something familiar in her. “A little Dragon Slayer.” There was no mockery in it. “One who knows the road between life and what lingers after.”

Wendy did not look certain whether to be proud of that or intimidated by it.

Atlas Flame continued to study her. “Tell me, child, what manner of magic do you possess to summon me from my slumber?”

Wendy gulped. “Umm, I used a spell called Milky Way.”

One of Atlas Flame’s brows rose. “I know that spell.” He looked at the child more closely. “So you are Grandeeney’s little apprentice.”

Wendy’s eyes widened at hearing her foster mother’s name. “You know Grandeeney?! Where is she?! Is she okay?! Do you know where she is?! Please tell me!”

Atlas Flame’s expression sharpened slightly. “I could not say. My spirit has remained within this village’s flame for centuries, and here I have stayed. I am not aware of what has transpired beyond it, nor have I remained in contact with the other Dragons.”

Wendy looked down, crestfallen. She had finally found another Dragon, one who had even known Grandeeney, but he had no answers to give her.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder.

She turned to find Ben giving her a quiet, steady look.

“You’ll see her again someday,” he said.

Wendy gave him a small, grateful smile.

Atlas Flame’s gaze shifted next to Hrothar. “Chief of my village.”

Hrothar bowed his head lower. “Guardian.”

Then the Dragon’s eyes moved to Ben and went still.

For one long second, Atlas Flame said nothing at all, and the weight of that stare made the Omnitrix bearer feel as though he were being measured against something far larger than himself.

Then Atlas Flame let out a low, crackling sound that Ben belatedly realized was amusement.

“Well now,” the Dragon rumbled. “There you are.”

Ben blinked twice and gave an awkward little wave. “Uh… hey there?”

Carla turned toward him. “You say that as though this sort of thing happens to you often.”

He kept his eyes on Atlas Flame. “Well, it kind of does, actually.”

Atlas Flame’s flames curled higher around his great jaw. “Show me your fire.”

Ben stared at him, one brow lifting. “My fire?”

“Do not play dull with me,” Atlas Flame said, though there was more humor than menace in it. “One of your Take-Overs. The blazing one.”

Ben was caught off guard. How does he know I can transform?

Wendy looked between them in surprise. “You mean… Heatblast?”

Atlas Flame’s enormous head dipped once. “Yes. That one.”

Ben blinked several times. “Okay, now I definitely have questions.”

“I am sure,” Atlas Flame replied, humor still present in his tone.

Wendy wobbled slightly. “Ben,” she said, her voice strained now, “if he wants to see it… do it. I can’t hold this forever.”

That was enough for him.

With a mental command, Ben activated the Omnitrix. Green light flashed across the area, distinct even against the Dragon’s glow, and a heartbeat later his human form was gone.

“Heatblast!” he declared.

Atlas Flame’s fiery eyes narrowed with clear approval.

“Ah, yes. There it is.”

His great flaming head lowered closer, near enough that the heat pouring from him washed over Heatblast.

Hell flame met alien fire.

“You carry a worthy blaze,” Atlas Flame said. “But not all flame is the same.”

The Dragon opened his burning jaws.

For one brief second, Heatblast thought Atlas Flame was about to unleash a blast straight at him. Instead, a single mass of crimson fire emerged, floating between them, dense and pulsing like a living heart.

Wendy and Carla gasped at once, both feeling the power coiled within the flame.

Atlas Flame spoke, and the air itself seemed to bend around the words. “Take it.”

Heatblast did not have time to question that before the fire lunged forward and struck him square in the torso. He jerked hard and staggered back half a step, and then the crimson flame was inside him.

The Pyronite let out a sharp, startled grunt as every magma line in his body flared brighter. “Okay… that definitely got my attention.”

Heatblast’s fire surged wildly.

His usual orange-yellow blaze flared outward, then deepened into a richer, infernal crimson threaded with molten gold. The heat rolling from him sharpened instantly, fiercer and denser than before. It did not feel like his normal fire at all.

It felt heavier. Hungrier.

The flames racing over his arms, shoulders, and head pulsed once more before settling into him.

Heatblast stared at his own hands in astonishment. “Whoa. That is… new.”

The Omnitrix on his chest suddenly chirped. “ETERNANO-BASED ALTERATION DETECTED,” it announced. “WOULD YOU LIKE THIS ALTERATION INCLUDED ON THE PYRONITE DNA TEMPLATE?”

Heatblast looked back up at Atlas Flame. “What is this? It feels… incredible.”

“Naturally.” Atlas Flame’s voice rumbled with satisfaction. “It is a portion of my Hell Flame.”

Heatblast’s eyes widened. “You’re giving me some of your magic. Why?”

“That answer will become clearer with time. Please, take it.” His voice, for all its immense heat and power, sounded as gentle as a giant flaming Dragon could make it.

Heatblast did not need long to think about it.

He looked down at the dial on his chest. “Omnitrix. Yes, confirm alteration.”

The Omnitrix chirped once. “ACKNOWLEDGED. ETHERNANO ALTERATION NOW SAVED TO PYRONITE DNA.”

Heatblast slowly clenched one hand, feeling the new red flames answer him. They did not resist him. They fused with his own, folding into the living furnace of his body as though they had found a place they were willing to stay.

“Now this is hot,” Heatblast quipped.

Atlas Flame chuckled. “Yes. They are, very. Be careful with them going forward. Train extensively if you wish to master them.”

“Noted.”

Wendy then swayed within the circle.

“Ben,” she said, breathing harder now, “I really can’t keep this up much longer.”

Atlas Flame’s outline flickered at the edges.

The Dragon noticed it too and drew a slow breath that made the Eternal Flame sway.

Heatblast looked up quickly. “So, I’m gonna address the elephant… uh, Dragon in the room.” His voice sharpened. “How do you know who I am?”

Atlas Flame’s blazing mouth curved into something like a grin.

Heatblast narrowed his eyes. “Let me guess. Time travel?”

Atlas Flame chuckled, and the sound was like a bonfire collapsing inward.

“Indeed.”

Heatblast went still. Of all the answers he had expected, that was somehow the one least capable of being dismissed.

Atlas Flame continued, his voice gentler now. “You will understand in time, my fellow fire wielder. The road ahead curls strangely around you.”

Heatblast frowned. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only one you may safely have.”

The Dragon’s outline flickered again, weaker now.

“To speak too soon,” Atlas Flame said, “would invite consequences upon the path. Timelines are delicate things. Even those who walk them often should know that.”

Heatblast let out a slow sigh of reluctant acceptance. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”

After his encounters with Professor Paradox, he understood that time travel was tricky, delicate, and very easy to make worse despite good intentions.

Atlas Flame’s fiery eyes shifted once more to Wendy. “Well done, daughter of Grandeeney.”

Wendy managed a tired smile despite the strain. “Thank you.”

Then the Dragon looked to Heatblast.

“Carry my fire well, Heatblast.”

Heatblast straightened slightly. “I will.”

Atlas Flame’s gaze passed once across Hrothar and Carla, then rose toward the night above the village.

“Farewell, then.”

The great flaming shape began to come apart, not violently, but like embers lifting from a dying pyre. His enormous form unraveled into flowing ribbons of light and fire that spiraled back toward the Eternal Flame.

Wendy’s magic circle dimmed with him.

For one final heartbeat, Atlas Flame’s skull remained visible within the blaze. Then even that faded.

The light beneath Wendy vanished, and she sagged at once. Carla darted forward and caught her before she could pitch sideways.

“Child!” Carla gently lowered her down and saw at once that Wendy was no longer awake. She had completely passed out from magical exhaustion.

Hrothar slowly rose from his kneel, his eyes fixed on the Eternal Flame with something like awe renewed all over again.

Heatblast stood in silence, glancing at Wendy in momentary concern before staring at his own hands as the new crimson edges in his fire flickered softly against the night. It felt different. Not stronger in any simple sense. Deeper. Stranger. As though some trace of the Dragon still lingered in the shape of the flame itself.

I wonder… is this what having magic feels like? he thought.

After a moment, Heatblast tapped the Omnitrix and changed back to human. Ben stood there again, still staring at his hands as though he half expected to see crimson fire crawling across them. He then turned and knelt, gently lifting Wendy into his arms before rising to his feet. He took a brief moment to look down at her sleeping peacefully before turning toward Carla.

“Let’s get her back so she can rest,” Ben said as he started walking.

Carla followed behind him. “Be careful with her.”

Ben glanced back with a deadpan look. “I’m insulted you’d even have to say that.”

…

High above the night-shrouded land, an airship cut through the sky.

Its immense black hull drifted between floating red magical glyphs; the towering vessel crowned with wing-shaped ornaments and high observation decks. Deep within its interior, beneath a glass-domed chamber where bolted beams framed the darkness beyond, sat a tall elderly man with long silvery-white hair slicked back from his face. A mustache framed his mouth, and a long, mildly thin, curling beard fell to his lower chest.

The man sat upon a grotesque throne of bone-like arches, black feathers, and towering horned shapes, one hand resting against the armrest as he listened in silence.

Before him, a lesser subordinate knelt with his head bowed so low it nearly touched the floorboards.

"I regret to report that the operation at Sun Village has failed, Master Hades."

The words settled heavily through the chamber.

Another man clicked his tongue where he sprawled half-sideways against one of the pillars. Long, wild blond hair spilled down his back, and a sharp, unhinged grin tugged at his mouth, all teeth and irritation.

"Pathetic," he sneered. "All that big talk, and those idiots still couldn't bring back one stupid flame."

Nearby, another man folded his arms within the drape of his white-and-purple robes, the scars on his cheeks and the dark rings beneath his eyes making his gaunt face look even harsher in the dim light.

"One flame, Zancrow?" he repeated coolly. "You say that as though I did not waste precious time designing an enchanted trumpet potent enough to enthrall Giant children. Do you have any idea how irritating that was?"

Zancrow barked out a laugh, half-mad and wholly mocking. "Oh, go cry me a river, Zoldeo. I'm the one missing out on a feast here."

Another man lounged nearby with one leg crossed over the other in a manner far too elegant for a war room. He adjusted his silver glasses with gloved fingers, his pompadour catching the low light with a pale sheen and sighed theatrically.

"Honestly," he said smoothly, "must you both make such ugly noises the moment failure enters the room?"

"Huh?" Zancrow glanced over, his grin still edged with mania. "What was that, Rustyrose?"

Rustyrose continued as if he had not been interrupted. "If we are to be disappointed, at least let us be disappointed gracefully. What a dreary little failure."

The blond-haired man's eye twitched. "Tch. Says the peacock in makeup."

The kneeling subordinate swallowed hard. "From what we can gather, the Rabid Weasels attempted to bargain for the Eternal Flame by using the children as leverage, sir, but the village resisted. Several outsiders interfered."

Zancrow's eyes sharpened at once. "Outsiders?"

The subordinate nodded quickly. "A blue-haired girl. A winged cat. And a young man using powerful Take-Over magic."

"Take-Over?" Zoldeo repeated, frowning.

"That's what our camera-lacrimas on scene picked up," the subordinate said.

"Damn bastards!" Zancrow snapped. "If they'd done their job, I'd be chowing down on that Eternal Flame by now."

Rustyrose turned his head toward him with languid amusement. "Then by all means, dear Zancrow, go and do so." He lifted one hand in a delicate flourish. "Gorge yourself on sacred fire, kill a few Giants, and make a whole dramatic affair of it. It sounds very much your style."

Zancrow shot him a vicious glare. "Don't start."

Rustyrose smiled lazily. "I'm only saying, if you want the flame so badly, no one is stopping you."

"Yeah? And while I'm down there wasting time on your little side amusement, who handles the jobs Master Hades actually gave us?" he growled. "We're busy."

"That," Rustyrose said, "sounds suspiciously like an excuse."

"It sounds like I'm not interested in cleaning up after a bunch of third-rate grunts."

Zoldeo's mouth flattened. "On that much, at least, I agree."

The subordinate remained kneeling, very clearly regretting every decision that had led him into this room.

At last, Hades spoke.

"What of the outsiders?"

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The calmness of it made the entire chamber seem to tighten.

The kneeling man lifted his head only enough to answer. "The girl used Sky Dragon Slayer magic, Master Hades."

For the first time, a flicker of interest crossed Hades's face. "A little girl wields Lost Magic?"

A short, harsh laugh broke from Zancrow.

"So what?" he scoffed. "Dragon Slayer magic doesn't mean a damn thing to me. My God Slayer fire would burn right through it."

The subordinate swallowed and continued quickly. "The young man is the stranger one. The lacrimas show that he took several different forms during the rescue of the Giant children and the battle against the Rabid Weasels. None of those forms match any known records of any creatures."

Zoldeo's eyes narrowed in thought. "Unknown transformations."

Rustyrose gave a soft, amused hum. "How intriguing. A shape-changing man appearing out in the desert to ruin an otherwise serviceable kidnapping plot. How very theatrical."

Zancrow scoffed again. "Who cares what he is? He helped ruin the job. That's enough for me to hate his guts."

Hades did not answer immediately. His one visible eye remained fixed on the kneeling messenger while the eyepatch concealed the other.

At length, he rose.

The subordinate immediately bowed lower.

"A failure," Hades said as he stepped down from the throne. "Yes. But not an unexpected one."

Zancrow frowned. "You figured those morons would blow it, master?"

"I judged it possible," Hades replied. "Sun Village was never defenseless. Nor was the Eternal Flame ever likely to come cheaply."

He descended the short steps before his throne with measured calm, his staff tapping once against the floor.

"What disappoints me is not that they failed," he continued. "It is that they failed without leaving us the Flame."

Zancrow gave a low, irritated growl. "Exactly."

Hades's gaze shifted to him. "Do not mistake disappointment for surprise, Zancrow."

That was enough to silence him, if only for the moment.

Rustyrose tilted his head slightly. "And the boy, Master?"

Now that drew Hades's full attention.

"Yes," he said. "The boy."

He stopped near the chamber's great window, where the world below was nothing but darkness and distance.

"A mage with transformations unrecorded. One who appears suddenly in a remote village and turns the flow of events." The corner of his mouth curved by the slightest degree. "That is worth noting."

Zoldeo's eyes sharpened. "You believe he is significant?"

"I believe," Hades said, "that anything unknown deserves interest."

Rustyrose smiled faintly. "How lovely. A new piece on the board."

Zancrow crossed his arms with a scowl. "So what? We track him?"

"Not yet."

The answer came fast and final.

Hades turned back toward them, his visible eye steady and unreadable.

"We have other tasks already in motion. More important ones." His gaze lingered briefly on each of them in turn. "The loss of one expedition changes nothing."

Zancrow clicked his tongue again, though more quietly this time. "Still think it's a waste."

"Of course you do," Rustyrose murmured.

Hades ignored both of them.

"Send me the footage from the lacrima," he told the kneeling subordinate. "I will review all of it at my own discretion."

The subordinate bowed so quickly he nearly struck the floor. "At once, Master Hades."

He scrambled backward and all but fled the chamber.

Zancrow snorted. "Hope for their sake the next report's better."

Rustyrose rose gracefully from his seat, adjusting his fur-trimmed collar. "Or at least more entertaining."

Zoldeo closed his eyes briefly, his expression dark with annoyance. "If I ever hand another enchanted instrument over to hired fools, remind me to destroy them first."

"No need," Zancrow said with a wicked grin. "I'll do it for you." He turned toward Hades. "Speaking of, Master, you want me to organize a force to take out those failures?"

Hades stepped back toward his throne. "The Rabid Weasels have served their purpose," he said. "Forget them."

His thoughts had already moved elsewhere.

A strange young man with unknown transformations. A failed raid turned completely on its head by one unexpected variable.

Hades rested one hand against the side of his throne and let a thin, thoughtful silence stretch through the chamber.

"Yes," he murmured at last, more to himself than to the others. "That is interesting."

…

A/N: Hope all of you enjoyed this conclusion to the Sun Village two-parter. The next chapter will start off a couple days later with Ben, Wendy, and Carla bidding their farewells to Flare and the Giants as they set out on their next adventure.

Shout out to Masamune X23 for his help in editing, beta-reading, and consulting through the writing process.

Major credit to BálintM for his ideas of this chapter's skeleton.

So, we got our first Ultimate Form in either one of the "Ultimate Series". Since Heatblast was the first transformation from Ben 10 Classic, I felt it was only fitting he'd get the first Ultimate Form debut. By the way, the design for Ultimate Heatblast was taken from a piece of DeviantArt by artist, RZGmon200. It was a commission taking the best parts of two Ultimate Heatblast concepts made by The Ink Tank and blending them together into one form.

I will now be switching focus back to Ultimate Pirate for three chapters before returning to this story.

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