"Animo..." Max took a sharp, steadying breath, his hands tightening on his sidearm as he fought back the wave of shock. "Think about your legacy. You wanted the Truth Award, didn't you? If you walk into that gala looking like a nightmare, no amount of brilliance will save you from a cage."
"An award? Recognition from the small-minded?" Animo's voice was a discordant harmony of a dozen throats, his head snapping toward Tyler with a feral intensity. "The moment I lost to this brat, I realized the truth! Earth's biology is a stagnant pond. Only the stars hold the key to evolution!"
He gestured wildly at the purple-stained horizon. "I analyzed your patterns, Tyler! I harvested the DNA your watch left behind in its wake! With my bio-release array, I didn't just transform the marsh—I transformed myself into the apex of existence!"
He was a mad scientist unburdened by morality, impatient to share his horrific masterpiece with the only ones who could truly appreciate the scale of his atrocity.
Tyler's fingers hovered over the Carnitrix.
"Tyler, it's still on cooldown, isn't it?" Ben asked, his voice trembling as he moved Gwen and Max toward the tree line. "Can you even shift?"
"The Error Table doesn't believe in cooling down," Tyler said, his voice dropping into a code only the two of them shared. "In this mode, the only limit is my will."
Ben understood instantly. He grabbed Gwen and Max, dragging them back as Tyler slammed his hand onto the jagged red dial. The screen didn't display an icon; it bulged with a raw, pulsing energy.
[ERROR: SYSTEM OVERRIDE. DEPLOYING: THE WORLD-BREAKER!]
"What can you possibly do?!" Animo roared, his muscles rippling with a dozen stolen traits. "I am ten times your superior! I am the sum of your own power!"
Tyler didn't answer. He pressed the dial.
A pillar of crimson light erupted, dwarfing the beam from the observatory. It pierced the storm clouds, illuminating the bayou in a haunting, bloody glow.
"What in the hell..." Animo looked up, his jaw hanging slack.
Tyler's body swelled, his height skyrocketing past the trees, past the observatory, until he loomed over the marsh like a mountain of red and silver armor. A manic, predator's smile split the massive face of The World-Breaker.
He reached down, his palm descending like a falling moon.
Animo tried to resist. He launched pillars of flame from one fist and swung a massive crystal hammer with another, his four arms a blur of elemental fury. But against the sheer scale of the World-Breaker, his power was a spark against an ocean.
BOOM!
The World-Breaker's palm slammed into Animo, driving him through the structure of the Astronomical Observatory. The building disintegrated instantly, the metal equipment crushed into unrecognizable scrap.
"Cough... gah..."
Animo lay amidst the flattened ruins, his twisted body leaking ichor. Every bone hummed with a white-hot agony, but his heart burned with a more jagged pain. He had achieved his ultimate form, yet Tyler had simply cheated his way into godhood.
"Where is the justice?!" Animo shrieked.
Tyler raised his hand again, intent on crushing the iron remains of the observatory into a pancake. But as his hand struck, there was no sound of breaking bone. No spray of blood.
Tyler pulled back his hand. It was clean. "He phased out? He's... immaterial?"
"Hehe..."
Animo's head materialized in the air ten feet away, a spectral projection. "Do you take me for a fool? I knew I couldn't trade blows with a giant. I simply adjusted my state."
Tyler roared in frustration, swinging a fist that passed through thin air. Animo vanished and reappeared further away, his voice dripping with mockery. "If you're going to play dirty, I'm done with this theater. We'll meet again, Tyler Levison!"
"I'm not letting you walk away!" Tyler's fury peaked. He forced the watch to shift states without a second's delay.
Red light flickered, and the hulking giant shrank down, replaced by a being of pure, violet heat. The Hell-Fire King stood on the ruins, his face a mask of rage. "You think you can hide from the fire, Doctor?"
"This is exactly what I wanted!" Animo's physical form reappeared instantly, lunging from the shadows with all four limbs extended in a lethal pounce.
"Burn!" Tyler unleashed a torrent of pale purple flames, incinerating everything in a thirty-foot arc.
"Fire is the easiest element to calculate!" Animo's crystalline arms blossomed, forming a heat-resistant shield that pushed through the inferno. He closed the gap, his face inches from Tyler's. "You're finished!"
"Explode!" Tyler snapped his fingers.
BOOM!
The purple flames detonated in a violent concussive blast. But a blur of motion escaped the radius—Animo had sensed the thermal spike and moved before the spark could catch.
"I have thermal sensors, boy! I have the wisdom of the Galvanic Mechamorphs!" Animo laughed, his eyes glowing with a sinister gold light. "I have no weaknesses. You cannot comprehend the data I hold!"
Tyler shifted again. Red light. The Four-Armed Brute lunged, grabbing Animo and slamming him into the mud. But Animo's reaction was terrifying. He delivered a shadowless kick that sent Tyler staggering back, then began to circle him at high speed, spitting a thick, neon-green fluid.
The fluid covered Tyler's fur, hardening instantly. The Tetramand's strength was predicated on its range of motion; with its fur matted and limbs stuck, its combat power plummeted.
"How does he know my biology so well?" Tyler's heart hammered with a new kind of dread.
He realized the truth: Animo wasn't just smart; he was a bio-genius with the mental processing power of a Galvan. He was calculating Tyler's every weakness in real-time.
"The old patterns won't work," Tyler realized, shifting into The Void-Wraith. He lunged through the marsh, but Animo ignited the sticky fluid on the ground, creating a chain reaction of explosions that trapped Tyler in a corner.
"It's over, brat!" Animo roared, unleashing a wave of fire.
The flames washed over Tyler, but they failed to singe a single hair. The Crystal-Executioner (Diamondhead) walked out of the inferno, his body reflecting the orange glow. "You can't burn what was forged in the core of a planet, Animo. I won't lose."
Animo's face distorted with rage. Even with the sum of the galaxy's DNA, he couldn't put the boy down.
"He's countering the standard roster," Tyler's brain worked at terminal velocity. "If I fight like Ben, I lose. I have to fight like an error. I have to be the thing he can't calculate."
The Carnitrix began to pulse, a red light flickering as it sought the optimal predator.
"If you switch to another stat monster," Animo hissed, narrowing his gold-striped eyes, "I'll just phase back into the void and wait for you to tire. You can't catch a ghost, Tyler!"
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