Professor Paradox paused for a quiet interval, his gaze assessing the stillness of the small Galvan before he spoke. "Do you find the terms of the engagement unbalanced? Confronting a variant whose baseline scales significantly past your standard forms?"
"The metric isn't the issue," Tyler Levison replied, his voice flattening into a cool, level register. "I'm merely concerned about his capability to absorb the impact."
He adjusted the high-tech utility suit around his narrow shoulders. "Let's initiate the transit. If this exercise serves your overarching strategy, I'll provide the diagnostic."
Paradox's expression softened into a faint, reassured smile. He tapped Tyler's small shoulder with a brief gesture of gratitude. "Your cooperation is invaluable, Tyler. Step closer."
He extended his right hand, a sudden cascade of brilliant golden light fracturing the air before them. With a fluid, synchronized movement of both palms, he stabilized the throughput, broadening the dimensional rift until a massive, humming gateway dominated the center of the path.
The two travelers stepped through the violet event horizon in a single sequence.
The gateway dissolved behind them. Tyler found himself looking out over a vertical horizon of interlocking skyscrapers, their clean, metallic surfaces reflecting a sky dominated by lines of automated transport vessels. The vessels drifted along pre-set gravity tracks, their movements governed by rigid municipal grid protocols. Below the skyways, automated commuter platforms navigated the streets without manual intervention.
The landscape was the physical manifestation of the exact future human engineers had conceptualized at the turn of the century—boundless, structured, and entirely automated.
"Professor."
The voice was cold, measured, and carried the weight of someone accustomed to command.
A young man emerged from the shadow of an observation deck, his build exceptionally dense and rugged. He kept his dark hair short, his features set in an unyielding, serious expression that matched his military posture. He wore a baseline white shirt and dark trousers, but his wrists carried the true weight—a pair of synchronized technological matrices glinting under the artificial sun.
He approached with a quick, efficient stride. "Is the roster for the vanguard verified? Is this the only asset you managed to pull from the outer rim?"
"This is Tyler Levison," Paradox said, extending his hand to bridge the gap. "He commands an active Carnitrix core, but his internal logic maintains absolute sovereignty over the parameters."
He turned back to the commander. "You will engage him in a simulated combat cycle to map the specific behavioral tells of an error state. While the data compiles, I will secure the remaining components of the unit so you can launch the interception against the primary anomaly."
The alternate Ben paused, his brow furrowing slightly as he assessed Tyler's human baseline. He looked small, ordinary, and entirely distinct from a seasoned soldier. Finally, his gaze dropped to the jagged, pulsing red casing on Tyler's left wrist.
He stepped into Tyler's space, his fingers brushing against the external organic filaments of the watch. The micro-tentacles coiled tightly around the metal, responding to Tyler's internal signals with the quiet obedience of a trained hound.
"How do you enforce that level of compliance, Tyler?" the alternate Ben asked, his eyes widening with a genuine, sharp curiosity. "Does your core allow you to bypass the cognitive dual-key system of the Celestialsapien framework?"
"The cosmic tier is locked behind a critical progress wall," Tyler replied, a faint, dry smile touching his lips. "If I held that parameter, we wouldn't need a strategy meeting."
He shifted his stance, his joints clicking as his focus sharpened. "But as the Professor noted, I'm here to run the diagnostic."
If he could dismantle the absolute apex of the multiversal vanguard, the combat data would undoubtedly push his synchronization closer to the missing tier-zero configurations.
"Maintain the loop until the telemetry is secured," Paradox said, stepping back into the golden light of a fresh temporal rift. "I will return once the auxiliary units are locked into the sequence."
He disappeared into the fabric of the air, leaving the two combatants alone on the elevated platform.
"Alright," the alternate Ben said, his thumbs scrolling through his own interface. "Since you don't house the heavy artillery like Atomix or Clockwork in your active playlist, we'll keep the parameters restricted to the baseline configurations. Fair?"
Tyler's face went cold. "I have more than enough volume to fill the ledger."
"Your choice," the commander replied easily, his posture relaxed. "Select the form you've optimized. I can adapt to any vector."
His confidence was absolute, rooted in a lifetime of unbroken military successes. To him, an unaligned watch was merely a broken tool with a high output; it lacked the precision of a trained warrior.
"You shouldn't have given me the choice," Tyler muttered, his thumb driving the Carnitrix casing around until the dial locked onto the silhouette of the skinless phantom.
WHOOSH.
A column of thick, bloody light erupted from his wrist, and the towering form of The Void-Wraith (Ghostfreak) tore through the glare. The creature stood over two meters tall, its massive shoulders supported by elongated claws that scraped against the platform. A cluster of thick, gore-slicked tentacles coiled around its torso like long spears, one appendage staying tucked beneath its armored ribcage, concealing its trajectory. Its skeletal visage housed a pair of burning, violet slits that locked onto the target.
The manifestation was massive, dense, and radiated a pure, predatory weight.
"That structure..." the alternate Ben murmured, his serious expression hardening as he took in the sheer scale of the error form. "The density is entirely non-standard. It doesn't match the baseline sequence."
He could feel the raw kinetic output vibrating through the platform.
"You still have a window to shift parameters," Tyler's voice emerged, a distorted, hollow harmony that echoed from the creature's chest.
WHAM.
The alternate Ben didn't waste time with a response. He slammed his hand onto his dial, matching the selection exactly.
A second phantom emerged from the green light, though its dimensions were noticeably slighter, its posture standard. The commander looked up, assessing Tyler's massive frame with a dark, calculated interest. "Are we certain about the age difference here? The volume on your specimen is absurd."
"The impact will be even more absurd," Tyler hissed.
A single red tentacle lashed out like a whip, cutting through the air with a heavy, whistling sound. The alternate Ben countered instantly, throwing his own tentacle forward to intercept the strike mid-line.
PFFT.
The moment the appendages collided, the commander's frame was deflected by the sheer kinetic weight of the blow, his body sliding back across the polished metal of the deck. In terms of pure muscle mass, the Carnitrix baseline completely dominated the field.
Tyler didn't give him room to reset. He took to the air, his transparent form trailing a wake of cold fog as his claws reached for the alternate Ben's throat.
WHOOSH.
The commander's eyes flared with a deep, iridescent purple hue. A wave of localized illusionary energy rippled outward, catching Tyler's senses before his claws could connect.
The platform vanished. The city disappeared. Tyler found himself suspended within a shifting, multi-layered maze of geometric shadows—a high-tier mental containment field.
"The old tricks don't work on this watch," Tyler growled. He drove his obsidian claws into the fabric of the illusion, tearing through the mental barrier with the raw force of his enhanced willpower.
The moment his vision cleared and he broke through the veil, a massive fist was already inches from his face.
BANG.
Tyler's reaction time was instantaneous. He raised his lower left claw, catching the commander's punch in a tight, bone-crushing grip. "I've already broken this technique once. You won't catch me with it a second time."
BOOM!!
The alternate Ben didn't try to pull his fist back. Instead, his maw split wide, unleashing a wide-beam purple laser that engulfed Tyler's upper torso at point-blank range. The energy burned with a searing, radioactive heat, scorching the outer plates of the Void-Wraith.
The commander drifted back through the smoke, his movements smooth and undisturbed. "The diagnostic requires more than raw strength, Levison."
Tyler shook off the residual plasma, his tentacles whipping away the embers as he locked his gaze onto his opponent. The alternate Ben wasn't just using the alien's biology; he was manipulating its tactical application with a precision that surpassed the original template's internal coding.
The environment shifted again without warning. The metal city dissolved, replaced by the bruised, purple soil of the ruined wetlands.
Another layer?
His output is doubling the compression rate of a standard mental strike!
Tyler snarled, his claws working in a frantic pattern to slice through the secondary containment field. He broke the horizon, only to find himself suspended in the black vacuum of deep space.
Layer after layer of psychological displacement kept him trapped within a shifting cycle of false realities. While his mind fought to tear through the illusions, the alternate Ben was already anchoring his full mass in the physical world.
RUMBLE!
A massive, concentrated sphere of purple energy gathered within the commander's tentacles, launching forward like a falling star. The kinetic wave threatened to incinerate everything in its path.
"GRAWR!"
Tyler's instincts overrode the illusions. He opened his chest plates, unleashing a matching crimson energy wave that met the purple torrent mid-line. The concussive blast boiled the air between them, the two forces grinding against each other in a blinding display of elemental power.
He focused his tentacles, intending to disperse the residual heat and drive through the center.
But the commander was already gone from the high ground. He materialized directly above Tyler, his fist dropping like an anvil. "Let's see how your hardware handles a direct compression!"
"Get back!"
Tyler twisted his neck with a desperate, sharp jerk, the blow grazing his armored shoulder with a shower of violet sparks.
A cold bead of sweat formed on his neck as he reset his stance. His eyes were wide with a new, sharp respect. The alternate Ben wasn't just a match for his raw output; he was running circles around the watch's automated combat parameters. His technique was flawless, his execution completely unhindered by hesitation.
"The match is concluding," the commander noted cleanly, his secondary fist driving forward in a straight line toward Tyler's skull.
WHOOSH.
A sudden, freezing wave of sword qi cut through the center of the platform, slicing the energy wave in half and forcing the alternate Ben to abort his strike, his body lifting into a sharp retreat.
A silver arc of light cleaved the sky, parting the clouds above the skyscrapers with a clean, surgical line.
"I really wanted to avoid drawing this card so early," Tyler's hollow voice echoed through the clearing.
Clutched firmly within his hidden, third tentacle was a chilling, ancient precious blade that vibrated with a lethal, mystical resonance. The God Sword of Ek Chuah had been unsheathed, its edges glowing with a cold light that redefined the parameters of the arena.