Evenly Matched

Ben 10K sprawled in the desert sand, still in Jump-Star form, ribs rattling from the impact. He let out a guttural grunt as gritty red dunes sifted around him. Standing over him, an alternate evil version of Max Tennyson who has an Omnitrix—smirked transformed as a Hybreed. "You really haven't learned much since last time, have you? I'm not the loving Max you know. I won't hold back. And I'll run this planet to the ground, and you'll be the first to fall." His voice curled with cruel satisfaction.

Ben staggered upright, chest heaving. "I…know," he stammered, eyes blazing. "This time, I won't make the same mistakes." He slammed a crystalline fist into the sand, and in a flash of kinetic energy, a hexagonal mirror sprang up behind Max—and another behind Ben—gleaming like a portal. Max's smirk faltered. With a wisp of golden light, he vanished and reappeared before the mirror in front of Ben 10K. No hesitation—Ben 10K's body hulled into Cannonbolt, curling into an armored ball and hurtling at max speed.

Max caught Cannonbolt's momentum with his left hand, then he shifted forms turning into Diamondhead—faceted limbs glowing emerald. He raised his right hand into a fist, and with a snap, punched Cannonbolt across the sand like a meteor strike. The force drove the boulder-like form deep into the dune, spraying craters of orange sand.

Ben 10k shifted to Ghostfreak, slipping into the sand as he became intangible. That let him sink beneath the desert floor. Max's surprised gasp echoed in the rippling tunnel, and with a silent command, Ghostfreak's held Diamondhead Max with telekenisis and wrenched Max upward into the sky. Above, Max blasted down a salvo of diamond shards, each crystalline dagger plummeting toward the earth—but Ghostfreak simply turned intangible, letting the shards pass harmlessly through.

Max roared in fury as Ghostfreak yanked him earthward, gravity intensifying the fall. At the last moment, Ghostfreak morphed into Humungosaur, muscles bulging and skin rippling with green scales. He punched Max so hard the ground buckled into a crater, sending Max crashing out of sight. Sand roiled like ink as Humungosaur towered victorious—only for the battle to snap back into three separate fronts.

Across Mars's scarlet wasteland, Gwendolyn and Charmcaster soared above rusty dunes. Their cloaks snapped in the wind as they traded furious volleys of magic with Venus and Michael Morningstar. Gwendolyn's voice rang with authority: "Aeris Tempestas!" A cyclone of feather-light lightning spiked skyward, cracking virgin sands. Michael snarled and planted a talisman into the Martian clay—roots of shadow snaked outward, siphoning the storm. Charmcaster replied with "Oblivion's Grasp!" binding spells looped through the air, luminous chains latching onto Michael's ankles and yanking him off balance.

Venus, her eyes gleaming crimson, somersaulted through the air, petals of dark mana swirling in her wake. She struck Charmcaster with a volley of rune-etched lacquered tubes—mind-darts that fizzed on contact, forcing Charmcaster to parry in mid-flip, her boots kicking rock fragments into the sky. Gwen wheeled over, fists blazing azure. "Join me, Hope!" She loosed a volley of mana lances as Charmcaster brandished her scepters in perfect tandem. But Michael's shadow roots tangled their legs, dragging them to the ground like puppet strings.

Cornered, Venus grinned and pulled a silken mesh bag from her belt. She muttered hissing to herself. "Playtime's over." From the bag tumbled dozens of metallic figurines—miniature warriors that cracked open, sprouting spectral doubles of Venus and Michael. Their laughter rippled through Mars's thin air. Dark red energy—dark mana—flooded the four clones' bodies, fusing their forms into a crescendo of corrupt power. The Martian sky roared as the clones prostrated their power, magnetizing the atmosphere into swirling vortexes.

The tide turned. Gwendolyn shouted, "Evertera!" uprooting a shard of obsidian from the blasted ground and hurling it at Michael, who sidestepped with a parry of spectral claws. Charmcaster's Charm of Boundless faltered as the sphere of dark energy enveloped her, the nets evaporating but the clones' might driving them back into stances of desperate retreat.

Michael's hand ignited, pulling Gwendolyn's mana into his palm like liquid night. Gwen screamed, dropping to her knees as her armor shattered into motes of pink stardust. Venus pressed forward, forming a heavy dodecahedron of obsidian-red light around Charmcaster, rotating the brutal prison's facets inward.

Charmcaster gritted her teeth. "No more games!" She seized her bezel charms, chanting a broken litany that shattered the dodecahedron like glass. Shards sizzled to dust as she charged through Venus's shockwave, twin scepters aflame. Gwen, every nerve burning after being drained, whispered a teleport spell—"Transitus Liber"—and vanished meters ahead to safety. She rose into the Martian sky, transformation surging as pure Anodite light fueled her body.

Now at full power, Gwen careened back into the fray, a torrent of starflame hammering Michael's chest. The impact shook nearby mountains until battered peaks crumbled, sending dust plumes like exploding fireworks. Venus roared in agony as Charmcaster landed a spinning counter-spell—"Aetheric Vortex"—that disintegrated the nether clones and rippled Venus unconscious. Michael, helpless under Gwen's relentless bombardment, finally collapsed, mana blackening around him.

Mars's blood-red dawn broke over the shifting sand as the two heroines—exhausted, battered, triumphant—gazed at their vanquished foes. But before celebration could bloom, a frantic cry tore through the wind: "Watch out!" Gwen vaulted aside as two crackling entities crashed through the cratered planet—impact exploding like a supernova. Mountains shattered, Martian dust devoured the sky, and an unthinkable new front opened…

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In the void of space, Frederick soared through a debris field of shattered satellites, his fused Celestialsapien Anodite form humming with starlight. Opposite him lunged the Corrupted Anodite-Celestialsapien Hybrid Gwen, a bestial roar erupting as her yellow mana claws gouged at the metal hull of an abandoned freighter. Frederick's voice was steel and concern: "Gwen—stop this! You're being consumed by the Omnitrix's glitch!"

Hybrid Gwen snarled, her eyes glowing feral. She swung a fist that cleaved a corridor bulkhead in half, thrusters igniting to propel her forward like a comet. Frederick twisted in zero-G, limbs flowing as he phased through the wreckage, fists arcing with gravitational pulses that sent scrap metal swirling.

She spat a volley of charged yellow shards, each a diamond of lethal potential. Frederick countered with a Stellar Vortex—a swirling cone of raw cosmic wind that blasted her backward into a field of floating containers. The impact cracked the containers like brittle eggs, sending containers tumbling in a ballroom of steel.

But Hybrid Gwen shrieked pure rage and unleashed a Sunder Wave—a radial shock that fractured Frederick's boots, sending him tumbling. She dived atop him, claws arcing with bared teeth and unleashed a fusion strike of Anodite flame and Celestialsapien shock. Frederick, frozen in her embrace, forced out a desperate pulse of Celestial Shield that enveloped them both in golden light.

Their collision spawned a nova of debris that rippled through the vacuum—hull plates, satellite shards, and glowing wires spiraled outward like meteors. Frederick rolled free, using a spent thruster vent to vault upward, fist glowing with Gravity Crush. He came down on her with a pummeling strike that decelerated her momentum, but Hybrid Gwen flexed, mana gouting from every pore, and lashed at him with psychic tendrils that astounded him with raw brutality.

Frederick pivoted, evoking a Temporal Lock—a fragment of Chronosapien inspired move that snared Gwen's nearest hand in shimmering chains of slowed time. The grip cost him: his form flickered in and out of phase, slowed by the heavy weight of cosmic fatigue. Gwen roared, swinging her unbound limb in a savage overhead blow that cracked his temporal chains and drove him against a derelict solar array. The structure buckled, sending an electric arc of solar energy crackling across Frederick's armor, searing his plating with brilliant white scars.

Above, the stars spun in silent witness as both combatants circled for the next blow. Frederick's gaze was fierce but haunted; he hesitated, weighing the cost to bystanders—shipwrecked refugees trailing the debris. Hybrid Gwen's eyes were unhinged with destruction, each breath a storm of kinetic rage untempered by mercy. The vacuum reverberated with tension. Neither had the stamina to sustain another all-out assault—but neither would yield.

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