"Are you sure? Vilgax got defeated?"
"Yes, don't doubt my intelligence, Kevin." he leaned back with satisfaction. "Vilgax got destroyed by the Omnitrix wielder. It's famous news across the universe now."
"Ok, got it."
Kevin threw the communication device onto the bed and got up, cracking his knuckles.
It's finally time to get Way Big.
He was genuinely living his dream life right now. His age meant he couldn't enjoy everything to the fullest just yet, but that wasn't far away. And honestly, he had zero desire to get tangled up in the original show's storyline when he could just live his own comfortable existence instead.
But he'd made a promise to the other versions of himself. Way Big, he'd said. He'd get it done.
So he had to trick young Ben one more time. Which really wasn't difficult.
Last time he'd acquired alien DNA through two unique sumo cards. This time he walked to one of his lockers, opened it, and found a single golden card resting inside.
One of only ten golden sumo cards in existence. Getting this had required considerable effort—specifically, buying a 40% stake in the card company and then personally launching the card series himself just to engineer its appearance.
Two hours later, confirming that he could now transform into a hundred meter giant and fire laser beams from his hands—
Yes. Absolutely worth every bit of it. When the others see this, they'll practically worship me.
The White Space..
That's what he'd thought.
But as the new memories from the Marvel universe finished flowing into the shared white space, Kevin went completely speechless.
He stood there, staring at nothing, processing.
What the actual fuck. I didn't even leave the starting town and someone already finished the entire game.
Although they'd all known that Marvel-Elric had been planning to conquer Earth, actually watching how it unfolded—how cleanly, how completely, how casually—was something else entirely. Most of them had probably thought they were dreaming when the memories came through.
There was genuinely nothing to say.
Someone finished the endgame while the rest of us are still doing introductory quests.
Every pair of eyes in the white space turned slowly, with magnificent collective judgment, toward the One Piece version of himself.
He was sitting slightly apart from the group, watching the memory replay of Earth's unification with an expression of very deliberate casualness.
"Don't look at me, it—" he started, reaching for an excuse that was clearly already waiting.
But looking at the collective expressions around him—ranging from flat to deeply unimpressed—he stopped midway through.
A pause that lasted just long enough to be uncomfortable.
"Okay," he said finally. "Okay. Let me tell you the truth."
"If I was weak, I wouldn't mind going out into my world at all," he said, leaning forward. "And what do you guys think—that I don't want to meet the women in the One Piece world? Of course I do. That's not the issue."
"My real reason is fear," he admitted. "I'm afraid that if I get angry one day, I might directly destroy the One Piece world."
Everyone looked at him with genuine surprise.
He continued before anyone could interrupt.
"You all have my memories. You know what that world is—I grew up on an island full of retired pirates. Criminals everywhere, violence as background noise, cheap lives and cheaper mercy. My previous life memories kept me from being shaped too deeply by it, but it still shaped me enough that if I killed an innocent person today, I might not feel a thing."
"I'm afraid," he said quietly, "that if I go out into that world properly, I'll end up worse than those Celestial Dragons. Killing whatever I dislike. Taking whatever I want. Just because I can and nothing can stop me."
Silence settled over the white space.
Then the Marvel version of Elric laughed.
Not mockingly. More like someone recognizing something familiar.
"Really," he said, shaking his head. "You haven't grown at all. You're still the same teenager who loved eating ice cream and couldn't figure out what to do with himself."
Everyone looked at Marvel-Elric with confusion, but nobody questioned the reference. Nobody asked him to explain.
Because this was unambiguously the elder of the group right now.
Not just because he'd provided the Phoenix Force that elevated all of them to a completely different power tier. Not just because he'd taken over Earth without lifting a single weapon.
But because of how he carried himself now—like someone who'd worked something out that the others were still puzzling through.
His words had weight.
"Although you hold immense power now," Marvel-Elric continued, looking at the One Piece version evenly, "you're being controlled by that power. Being afraid to use it and choosing not to use it—those are two completely different things. Don't confuse them."
"Let me tell you something I figured out recently," he said. "For power at our current level, if you can't establish real control over it soon, it will corrupt you. Not maybe. Not eventually. It will. And you'll do something you genuinely never wanted to do, and there won't be any taking it back."
"When I first got all of this power, my very first thought was completely simple," Marvel-Elric said. "Why not just take everything by force? The math works. I have enough strength to eliminate anyone who opposes me. Why bother with complicated plans?"
He paused.
"And do you know why I didn't?"
He let the question sit for a moment.
"Because I liked things there. Food, games, entertainment, the texture of living somewhere that had ten thousand years of human stupidity baked into its culture. I wanted those things to still exist. And that wanting was enough to make me think twice."
"So find something," he said simply. "Find something in that world that you want to protect, or experience, or build. Something that makes you prefer it intact over destroyed. Because without that, power at this level doesn't stay neutral. It tips."
The One Piece version was quiet for a moment.
He thought about how many times he'd looked at that world—at the Marines running slave trades with noble backing, at the Celestial Dragons treating human beings as furniture, at the generations of suffering baked into its political structure—and thought just let it burn.
Every time, he'd forcibly suppressed the thought.
But Marvel-Elric was right. Forced suppression wasn't the same as control. One genuinely bad day, one moment where the suppression slipped, and that thought wouldn't stay a thought anymore.
Yes, he realized. Most of the others are actually living.
Naruto-Elric was actively spreading Earth culture into the ninja world, building something.
Momoga-Elric was surrounded by companions in the Overlord world, running a kingdom, enjoying himself.
Kevin had started enjoying his life before he'd even arrived here today.
There was nothing to say about Marvel-Elric.
But him? He had no goal. He wasn't enjoying anything. He was just sitting still and hoping the worst impulses stayed quiet.
That wasn't sustainable. It was never going to be sustainable.
"You're right," he said. "I really can't keep going like this."
He looked up, and for once the usual deflection wasn't in his eyes.
"I'll actually go out this time. For real."
Everyone looked at him for a moment, reading his expression.
Nobody made a joke. Nobody pushed back.
Because looking at his eyes, they all felt the same thing—he wasn't lying this time. Something had actually shifted.
"Alright then," someone said. "Go."
"Wait."
Kevin's voice cut across the moment.
Everyone turned.
He was grinning—the specific grin of someone who'd been waiting for exactly the right moment to produce something.
"Guys," Kevin said, extending his hand. "Look what I brought."
Everyone extended there hand curiously, reaching toward what he held.
Their eyes went wide simultaneously.
Waybig.