This Does Not Expand Horizons

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Episode 8

Air date	8/1/19 (Wiki Time)
Written by	CaT
Episode Guide
Previous PD 7.5: Horizons (Part 1)	Next PD 8.5: Horizons (Part 2)

This Does Not Expand Horizons is the eighth episode of Project Deca. It serves as part two of the tribute to Horizons, the Featured Series for 2015.

Episode[]

Terox and Attai stared each other down from opposite ends of the meeting room. Terox's shark-like grin held sharp while Attai kept a stoic face, giving no indication of what he was thinking.

"You just gonna get lost in my eyes for a while, or are you actually gonna try something?" Terox taunted.

"Stupid question." Attai scoffed. "I'd like to see you counter this."

Attai bolted towards Terox, who confidently assumed an offensive position. Once Attai was within a few meters of Terox, he suddenly disappeared in a green flash, leaving Terox staring at nothing.

"What the-" Terox started before realizing what had just happened. "...Goddammit."

Ryan hadn't slept particularly well, tossing and turning during the night as nightmares played over and over in his head. Not at all unexpected, considering the events of the past two days, but still rather inconvenient. The bed in his temporary quarters at KafKo HQ wasn't of much help in this regard, being a bit stiffer than it really needed to be. As morning came, Ryan rolled over and tried to ignore the sunlight peeking through his window, doing his best to get some more sleep in before-

"Ryan, wake up!" Shane slammed open the door to Ryan's room. "There's an emergency!"

"Wha..." Ryan groaned sleepily. "What's going on?"

"Clock mutant on 5th and Main, we need to deploy now!"

"Now?" Ryan said, climbing out of bed to reveal he hadn't changed his clothes from yesterday. "I thought we were touring the facility this morning."

"We can do that later!" Shane tsked. "Come on!"

"I don't even know what the protocol for this is!" Ryan protested, throwing on his leather jacket.

"Just follow me and you should be fine!"

Shane took off down the hallway, with Ryan taking a moment to grab his Hybrider belt before running after him. The two raced through several halls and offices before getting to a service elevator that opened as soon as Shane pressed the button.

"This is a different elevator than the one we came in on last night." Ryan noted as they stepped onto the lift.

"This elevator goes somewhere different." Shane explained as the doors closed behind them. "We need to get our bikes, obviously."

"Our bikes?" Ryan questioned. "You mean like that motorcycle you drove yesterday? I don't even have a motorcycle license!"

"Really?" Shane looked Ryan up and down. "You dress like you do."

"The hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"Never mind, we'll deal with the licensing and whatnot later." Shane waved him off. "Right now we have bigger priorities than a potential police ticket."

"Sure, but-"

Ryan was cut off as the elevator came to a sudden stop, with the doors opening to reveal a small underground mechanics lab with three identical motorcycles mounted on individual tracks leading towards a closed hatch.

"Why are there three bikes here?" Ryan asked.

"I said we needed more Hybriders, right?" Shane replied. "This is just thinking ahead."

Shane hopped on the bike furthest to the left while Ryan mounted the one in the center, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the controls.

"You ready to launch?" Shane asked.

"Would it change anything if I said 'no'?" Ryan grunted.

"Probably not."

The hatch door at the end of the lab began to open, revealing a ramp that led onto a side road next to the KafKo building. A signal light hanging above each of their lanes changed from red to yellow before finally turning green, upon which a conveyer system built into the track launched bikes forward, shooting them out of the complex at lightning speed.

"What the hell?!" Ryan yelled, startled by the sudden acceleration.

"That's the Quick-Launch System!" Shane shouted to him over the wind. "Makes it so we don't have to waste time accelerating manually!"

The two rode through the streets of the city at top speed, not having to stop at any traffic lights or even encountering a single car.

"Where is everyone?!" Ryan yelled. "Did something happen?!"

"When KafKo sends out an emergency alert, the city clears a path for us to reach the scene of the incident!" Shane yelled back. "Traffic's being rerouted away from it!"

Within a few minutes, the cycles pulled up in front of an intersection full of crashed cars and screaming people trying to escape the scene. A mutant with chunks of warped golden metal and green gears jutting out of its body was rampaging, hitting random objects with beam of green energy that aged them into dust. Blood was smeared across its body, with chunks of meat hanging from its mouth as it approached a screaming civilian clutching at a stump where their arm used to be.

Shane acted quickly, throwing several shards of diamond from his arm as bloody chunks of crystal emerged, ripping through his skin. The shards hit their target dead-on, lodging in the mutant's back and causing it to screech in pain. It turned its attention away from the civilian, giving them a chance to escape as Shane and Ryan transformed, rushing the clockwork creature.

The mutant roared and shot a beam of energy towards the two as they approached. Ryan jumped out of the way but Shane took the hit head-on, with stray waves of the beam moving past his body and striking the ground behind him, making it crumble with age.

"Shane!" Ryan yelled.

"I'm good!" Shane assured him, taking the opportunity to punch the mutant back a few feet. "I've fought one of these before. They're a real pain because of their time powers, but being a Diamond mutant makes me immune to the aging rays. You hang back and hit it with some heat while I manage the time crap up-close!"

"Got it!"

Shane slammed his fists into the mutant repeatedly, not giving it a chance to recover as his diamond-tipped knuckles tore through its metal armor. Every time he knocked it out of his immediate punching range, Ryan hit it with several fireballs, scorching its body and keeping it off-balance. After a few rounds of this, the mutant stopped fighting back, stumbling around in a daze.

"Alright, let's go for the finisher!" Shane yelled, revving up his belt.

Ryan nodded and reached for his belt's handle, only for the mutant to suddenly perk up and unleash a wave of energy that slowed down time to a near-halt, trapping the two in slow motion.

'Dammit, it faked being down!' Shane thought, almost entirely unable to move. 'I'll be fine, but the kid-'

The mutant lurched towards Ryan, preparing a beam of time energy in its hands. Shane stared on, unable to do anything as it approached its target. It raised its hands to fire the energy, but was unexpectedly knocked aside as Attai appeared in a green flash, stumbling to a halt as he ran into the timeline. He tried to take a moment to orient himself but was hit from behind by the mutant's time rays, sending him stumbling forward some more.

"Gott verdammt!" Attai cursed, turning around to face the mutant. "I can't catch a break today, can I?"

The mutant growled and lunged at Attai, who quickly summoned the CataloGun and shot it in the chest at close range, knocking it back a ways.

"Can't get any cards from the Archives without wrecking my body, so I'll have to make do with this." Attai grumbled to himself.

He ran at the mutant, kicking its knees out from under it and sending it toppling to the ground. He took the opportunity to place the "barrel" of the CataloGun directly on the mutant's head and begin firing, pulling the trigger as rapidly as he could until the mutant was thoroughly knocked out. Time resumed flowing normally, allowing Shane to spin his belt's dial and jump over to the mutant with a flying kick, slamming into its chest with a glowing boot and destabilizing its alien DNA. The mutant's distorted alien features melted away, turning it back into a normal, unconscious human.

"Wait, that thing's a person?" Attai grimaced. "Nasty."

"Who the hell are you?!" Ryan demanded, storming over to Attai and poking him aggressively. "What was all that?!"

"Ryan, calm down." Shane reprimanded him. "Whoever he is, he just saved you from a whole world of trouble."

"Yeah, but-"

"The name's Attai Zehn." Attai interrupted snappily. "I'm here to...actually, I'm not sure where 'here' is, I just jumped to the nearest universe I could find."

"The nearest universe?" Shane asked. "What do you mean?"

"There's a lot to unpack about that."

"Oh, I know just the place to give long-winded explanations." Shane snapped his fingers.

"Hang on a second," Ryan interjected. "You aren't thinking about going to that fruit bar agai-"

At the fruit bar, Attai finished explaining everything to Shane and Ryan. Shane nodded along with the story here and there, while Ryan had spent the entire time glaring at Attai intently.

"You really expect us to believe all this 'Timewalker' bullshit?" Ryan snapped. "How dumb do you think we are?!"

"I literally teleported in front of you and completely bypassed that Clockwork thing's time abilities, what the hell do you want from me?" Attai growled.

"Don't let him get to you, the kid's just been having a pretty bad couple of days." Shane told Attai. "Anyway, the thing we fought is actually a Clock mutant. You got close, though."

"Clock mutant?" Attai raised an eyebrow. "Looked like someone slammed Clockwork's DNA into a human body without knowing what they were doing."

"That's more or less what a mutant is, but what's this 'Clockwork' you keep talking about?" Shane asked.

"An alien." Attai stated impatiently. "The DNA sample of a Chronosapien, to be specific."

"...You know where the alien DNA in the mutants is sourced from?" Shane furrowed his brow.

"Mutants?" Attai replied. "As in plural?"

"There are different kinds of mutants." Ryan rolled his eyes as if it were obvious. "Like, I'm a Heat mutant, Shane's a Diamond mutant, yesterday we fought a Vine and an Ice mutant-"

"Heat, Diamond, Vine..." Attai mumbled. "These all just sound like shorthand for Omnitrix aliens."

Shane stiffened in his seat all of a sudden, taking a moment to make sure there was nobody else around them (which there wasn't because seriously who the hell goes to a fruit bar) before turning back to look at Attai.

"How do you know about the Omnitrix?" Shane asked quietly.

"How would I not?" Attai snorted. "It's in pretty much every universe I go to."

"The hell is an Omnitrix?" Ryan demanded.

Shane tapped his fingers on the table for a few moments, silently deciding what he should say.

"...Alright, I guess you should know." Shane sighed. "Technically you aren't supposed to be hearing about this for a while, so don't tell anyone about it, okay?"

"About what?"

"The meteorite that crashed into the New Horizons facility ten years ago wasn't any normal space rock." Shane explained solemnly. "It was a pod carrying a piece of alien technology; a watch-like device called the Omnitrix."

"Is there any universe where the Omnitrix doesn't make a goddamn crash landing?" Attai muttered to himself.

"The Omnitrix was a device that stored alien DNA." Shane continued. "From what we could tell, it had two primary functions: scanning new DNA and transforming the user using that DNA."

"Scanning and transforming..." Ryan trailed off. "Those are-"

"The mutant types." Shane nodded. "Turns out the crash damaged the Omnitrix's onboard computer. It glitched out and created the energy wave that infused people with alien DNA. Its main precepts being hardcoded into that DNA was a side effect."

"Well that's a bit different from the usual story, I guess." Attai grunted. "Did anything come for it in this universe?"

"An alien warlord named Vilgax appeared a few months after the initial crash." Shane confirmed. "He's how we found out what it was called."

"And you somehow managed to fight him using those armor-making belt things?" Attai asked skeptically.

"Seriously?" Shane chuckled wryly. "I was eleven when all this happened. KafKo hadn't even been formed yet, let alone the belts being made."

"Well, Earth is still intact, so I assume something drove him off." Attai snapped.

"A Heat Mutant named Ben Tennyson managed to kill him, but died in the process." Shane said. "Since then, it's been quiet from space."

"So what happened to the Omnitrix?" Ryan asked.

"Well, it was with Professor Marcus, who grabbed it when he escaped the New Horizons facility." Shane sighed. "But it disappeared along with him last month."

"Then what happened to this 'Marcus' guy?" Attai tsked.

"Officially speaking, nobody knows." Shane replied.

"What do you mean 'officially speaking'?" Ryan glared.

"Well, I have an idea, but I can't prove it." Shane tapped his fingers on the table again. "Can't disprove it either, so we're stuck at square one."

"Hm." Attai grunted. "Backing up a bit, what exactly are those belts you're wearing, anyway? Do they just make flashy battle armor, or...?"

"They're not just for show, although they do look pretty nice." Shane laughed. "Like Ryan said earlier, we're mutants too. The belts merge our two conflicting DNA strings and stabilize them into a hybrid form using the armor. Lets us use our mutant powers without going berserk and lets us destabilize other mutants' alien DNA as a bonus."

"Interesting..." Attai mumbled. "What would happen if a human with two conflicting DNA threads used it?"

"What, you mean a full human?" Shane asked. "Like if someone got a bad transplant, or...?"

"Something like that."

"Couldn't tell you anything for sure, but the lab guys have been looking into using the technology for treating transplant patients like that." Shane shrugged. "My best guess is that the belt would still merge the DNA, but it wouldn't take as much armor to keep the fusion stable."

Attai pulled out the CataloGun and looked it over intently.

"Interesting."

"Oh hey, that's the gun you used to shoot the mutant, right?" Shane said. "Where did you pull it out from? I didn't see any holster for it."

"It gets stored in a pocket dimension until I summon it, as far as I know." Attai explained.

"Why does it look like a scan gun?" Ryan grunted.

"Because it scans things to store copies of them in the Cosmic Archives." Attai replied. "Problem is that connecting to the Archives requires a different type of wormhole system that-"

"This thing can copy things?" Shane interrupted, grabbing the CataloGun and looking it over. "That sounds pretty useful."

"Yes, but-"

"You mind if I scan this?" Shane unbuckled his Hybrider Belt and laid it out on the table, pointing the CataloGun at it.

"WAIT-"

Shane pulled the trigger, creating a yellow wave of light that scanned the Hybrider Belt without incident. A card appeared in the air next to the CataloGun, which Shane took hold of and started examining.

"Oh, it makes cards?" Shane looked puzzled. "Do these go back into the gun or something?"

"Are you crazy?!" Attai snatched the CataloGun and card away from Shane, dispelling them as soon as he had a grip. "That could've killed you!"

"What do you mean?" Shane asked.

"This thing creates temporal blowback every time you summon a card!" Attai hissed. "The only reason I've survived this long using it is because of my suit!"

"Oh, is that it?" Shane waved him off. "Don't worry about it. I'm a Diamond mutant, remember? Time stuff doesn't hurt me."

"I- You-" Attai stumbled over his words. "Don't just grab shit you don't know how to use, okay?!"

"Alright, alright, sorry."

"Gut Gott." Attai grumbled, punching in some numbers on the CataloGun. "Well, it doesn't look like your universe has been scanned yet, so I might as well stick around for the next Key Event."

"And what would that be?" Ryan raised an eyebrow.

"You two need to defeat something called the 'Lens Hybrider', according to this." Attai explained. "Huh. Didn't know there were more of you."

"Neither did I." Ryan glared over at Shane.

"The Lens Hybrider?" Shane muttered. "Guess that confirms it."

"Confirms what?" Attai asked.

"We're the only two official Hybriders, but there have been reports floating around about something resembling a Hybrider attacking mutants and removing their alien DNA." Shane elaborated.

"Removing it?" Ryan looked confused. "I thought the Hybrider belts destabilized alien DNA."

"The modern belts do, but the prototype models weren't able to do that without damaging the host's human DNA, so they were only made to isolate the foreign DNA threads and remove them." Shane clarified. "Thing is, the only remaining prototype belt disappeared alongside Professor Marcus. If the Lens Hybrider really is using the prototype belt, it probably has something to do with that."

"Well then, we gotta find this guy, don't we?!" Ryan stood up from the table. "We can't just let him get away with this!"

"Woah, what's with you?" Shane asked. "You don't even know the Prof."

"My dad was a researcher at the New Horizons facility." Ryan explained. "If this 'Professor Marcus' guy really worked there, he might have known him."

"Fair enough." Shane nodded. "I'm gonna ask headquarters to keep an eye out for it, then."

Attai paused and looked around for a moment, but nothing happened.

"Uh...what are you doing?" Ryan asked.

"You didn't do it right." Attai shook his head, looking back at Shane. "Ask 'but how on Earth are we supposed to find it?' or something."

"I don't get it."

"It's a principle I learned on a previous Earth." Attai said. "Say something that will provoke a universal irony response."

"Oh, like that'll work." Ryan rolled his eyes.

"Okay, I guess." Shane shrugged. "How are we gonna find this guy?"

Silence.

"You see?" Ryan huffed. "This was stupid. Nothing happe-"

Ryan was cut off by a large explosion coming from outside the fruit bar. The three of them looked out the window to find the Lens Hybrider in the street fighting a massive dinosaur-like mutant.

"And there it is." Attai tsked.

"Are you shitting me?!"

The Saur mutant roared furiously as it grew in size, with spikes ripping through its skin and back plates bursting from its spinal column. The Lens Hybrider was forced to jump back, growing large, reptilian eyes on his shoulder armor and firing them at the beast. The beams made contact with the mutant's head, encasing it in ice.

As the mutant stumbled around, shocked by the sudden cold, Ryan and Shane ran out of the fruit bar, throwing on their Hybrider belts and transforming as they did so. Attai leaned on the doorframe of the shop's entrance, analyzing the spectacle in front of him.

The mutant finally managed to grab its head and crush the ice surrounding it, freeing its mouth and nose and allowing it to catch its breath. It swung its spiked tail at the Lens Hybrider, who attempted to dodge, but was caught by on of the spikes and sent flying backwards until he hit a brick wall. The mutant reared back its fist for a follow-up attack but was distracted by a burst of flames from behind it. As it turned to find Ryan cracking his neck, Shane ran over to the Lens Hybrider and helped him up, escorting him to the side.

"Looks like the card guy was right, then." Shane tsked. "I have a lot of questions about you."

"I'd imagine so." The Lens Hybrider grunted. "But now is not the time."

The mutant moved to crush Ryan, but was further distracted by a few shots from Attai using the CataloGun, who had taken a moment to plug the OS module into his suit.

"The big lug's going to try hitting you with its tail!" Attai yelled at Ryan. "Move a couple meters to the right!"

Ryan jumped to the right just in time to avoid being impaled by one of the mutant's tail spikes, which grazed his armor and left a long scratch along his breastplate.

"How does something that big move that fast?!" Ryan snapped. "The Square-Cube law is bullshit!"

"It doesn't actually gain much mass when it grows." The Lens Hybrider stated. "Its muscle cells are designed to swell up to twice their original size, but they're mostly empty space."

"How the hell do you know that?!"

Shane shot the Lens Hybrider a side glance underneath his helmet before stepping forward and planting his fists in the ground.

"That being the case, this thing's not gonna be easy to dodge on the ground." Shane said. "As such..."

A massive pillar of crystal suddenly exploded out of the road beneath the mutant, catapulting it into the air.

"Let's not let it use the ground!"

Ryan reached for the handlebar on his belt, but the Lens Hybrider acted first, pressing two green buttons on the sides of his belt's center symbol, causing a lime-colored glow to spread through circuity on his armor before pooling in his right boot. He jumped into the air, creating a massive eye on his back that shot a stream of green flames to propel him upwards, his cape flowing behind him in the wind.

Another eye formed on the sole of his boot, charging up an energy blast. As his momentum propelled his foot into the mutant's chest, the eye fired, creating a massive explosion. Attai ran out into the road and grabbed the man that fell from the cloud of smoke, breaking his fall as the last of his mutant features melted away. The Lens Hybrider landed a few meters away, taking a moment to dust off his cape before standing up.

"My thanks for breaking the man's fall." The Lens Hybrider turned towards Attai. "You appear to have some sort of predictive ability."

"Not always." Attai grunted, setting the man down on the road. "That was pretty damn reckless of you people."

"Perhaps."

"Well, it all worked out, at least." Shane said, walking up to the Lens Hybrider. "Wouldn't you agree, Prof?"

"What?" Ryan raised an eyebrow.

"What." Attai repeated flatly.

"Excuse me?" The Lens Hybrider responded.

"Cut the act, I know it's you under there." Shane snapped. "There may be a few different Lens mutants out there, but you're the only one who would know how a Saur mutant's growth factor works."

"...I see." The Lens Hybrider stated. "I suppose that was reckless of me."

The Lens Hybrider pressed the button on the left side of his belt, causing it to break away from his body and dissipate. The man underneath the armor had disheveled black hair and pale skin, with grayish eyes looking out from behind a pair of bent glasses. He wore a casual suit with a labcoat over the top of it, making him look at least slightly professional in spite of everything else.

"I'd like you two to meet Professor Marcus." Shane said. "KafKo's supposedly missing scientist."

"I'm guessing you had your suspicions for a while." Marcus sniffed.

"I know you too well." Shane tsked. "This is about the Matrix Project, isn't it?"

"The what now?" Attai asked.

"Well, more or less." Marcus adjusted his glasses. "Actually, with that Saur mutant sample out of the way, I've collected all the genetic threads I need. Getting the Vine and Ice mutant samples was a bit of a rush job since you got to the ones running amok last night before I did, but I managed."

"Does one of you want to explain what's going on here or am I going to have to keep cutting in like this?" Attai interjected.

"It's a bit of a long story." Shane said, looking at the professor. "And one I don't have all the details to."

"Ach, Gut Gott." Attai grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"By the way, I noticed you recruited a new Hybrider here." Marcus said, gesturing to Ryan, who had yet to detransform. "A Heat mutant, by the looks of it. Seems quiet."

"Nah, he's usually complaining about something or other." Shane chuckled. "Ryan, you should introduce yourself."

"Ryan?" Marcus paused before waving off whatever he had been thinking. "Ah, probably not."

Ryan slowly reached for the Hybrider belt's handlebar and detransformed, dispelling his armor. He held an unreadable expression while making eye contact with Marcus, who froze up upon seeing him. Without a word, Ryan turned and began marching away, leaving Attai and Shane thoroughly confused.

"Uh..." Shane started. "Have you two met before?"

"Well, yes, but it's a bit more...complicated." Marcus awkwardly tugged at his collar. "You see, Ryan is...Ryan is my son."

"Ryan is what?!" Shane yelled.

"The plot thickens and my patience thins." Attai grumbled.

"Well, I believe I mentioned that 'Marcus' is an alias to you at some point." Marcus scratched the back of his head while staring off into the distance. "It was the name of my lab assistant at the New Horizons facility. No family, so it was easier for KafKo to fake the documents for me. Good man, but not too much of a work ethic. He always put ketchup in his salad, which I thought was strange-"

"Professor, you're rambling again." Shane interjected. "I knew your name was fake, but I assumed you weren't leaving anyone behind when you changed it. Ryan thought you were dead for the past ten years."

"The point of changing my identity was to protect the two of them from all this." Marcus said gravely. "If I had told them what I was doing, it would have put them in danger."

"From who?" Attai rolled his eyes. "The mutants don't exactly seem like an organized force."

"It's not the mutants I was worried about." Marcus began chewing on one of his fingernails worriedly. "A government-funded organization like KafKo didn't just spring up overnight after the New Horizons incident, you know."

"What are you implying here?" Attai raised an eyebrow.

"The less you know, the better off you'll be." Marcus said. "That goes for both of you, and it goes for Ryan especially."

"Speaking of your kid, shouldn't you go talk to him or whatever?" Attai tsked. "I'm no relationship expert, but I get the feeling you should be doing something to sort this out."

"You're not wrong; in fact, I'd go so far as to say you're right." Marcus coughed. "Alright then, I'll just be-"

"Hold it." Shane interrupted. "Do you really think I'm going to let you leave that easily?"

"I was hoping so, yes."

"You said you got the last DNA sample you needed for the Matrix Project." Shane said. "Hand over the emblem."

"Is that really necessary?" Marcus replied. "My prototype belt isn't even able to use it."

"You're too smart to not have a solution for that." Shane persisted. "It's been nine years, Prof. You know you can't play dumb with me."

Marcus went silent for a moment. After running through the situation in his head for a bit, he sighed and went through the pockets of his labcoat, eventually producing a small, six-sided silver and gold device with a light-gold cross engraved on the front.

"Keep it safe." Marcus handed the object over to Shane. "Even if you don't agree with my plans for it, you know as well as I do that this is our best weapon."

"Yeah." Shane pocketed the device. "That's kind of the issue."

Marcus gave Shane one last serious look before turning and running off in the direction Ryan had gone. Attai stared after the professor's gradually more distant figure until he turned a corner at a streetlight, disappearing from view, then turned to look at Shane.

"Alright, I'm lost." Attai tsked. "The hell was all that?"

"The professor and I go way back." Shane replied. "Thing is, I don't agree with what he's been trying to do lately. Neither did KafKo's board, which I assume was the catalyst for him 'disappearing' so he could work on it on his own."

"Which would be...?" Attai grumbled, feeling impatient.

"The Matrix Project I mentioned." Shane held up the device Marcus had given him. "He wanted to turn the core of the Omnitrix into this thing and re-sample the DNA threads that were damaged in the crash."

"That doesn't sound too bad." Attai sniffed.

"The problem is how he wants to use it." Shane elaborated. "He figures he can use the tech to wipe out everyone with mutant DNA. Whether they've emerged or not."

"Cure wipe out or kill wipe out?"

"Kill."

"Yeah, that's a problem." Attai spun the CataloGun around in his hand. "Guess that explains why you two need to beat him."

"Guess so."

Shane fell silent. Attai tapped his foot awkwardly for a couple of moments before he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head to get a better look, he spotted Millennia waving him down from a nearby alleyway.

"Hey belt boy, give me a second." Attai narrowed his eyes. "I've got something I need to take care of real quick."

Attai walked into the alleyway with a somber look on his face, although his grim demeanor didn't seem to bother Millennia, who was perky as usual.

"Hey, Attai!" Millennia greeted him. "Your time signature kinda disappeared for a while, so I wanted to see what was going on. If you got stuck in a pocket dimension or something, I've got a neat little module you may be interested in purchasing that-"

"You know..." Attai muttered, interrupting her. "Beforehand, I just didn't like you because your attitude was annoying. Now, though? I really hate your guts."

"Uh...sorry?" Millennia replied, puzzled. "Did something happen?"

"I got my memories back." Attai stated flatly.

"Oh, good for you!" Millennia said. "Let me guess, Terox? He was acting like he had something up his sleeve, but-"

"Yeah, Terox." Attai interrupted. "Not important right now."

"So, what-"

"I know you're the one who sold Archives tech to the Nazis." Attai hissed.

The area went silent as Millennia's face fell into a nervous stare.

"You-you're not serious, right?" Millennia chuckled hoarsely. "I mean, how would I even get my hands on-"

"Cut the shit." Attai snapped. "You remember that soldier Mengele was wheeling around during your last meeting with him? That was one of the people that became me."

Millennia's stare went blank as she leaned her arm up against the wall of the alleyway for support.

"Really..." Millennia mumbled. "Of all the shitty coincidences..."

"I wouldn't call it a 'coincidence' as much as a 'consequence'." Attai huffed. "How did you get your hands on Archives tech in the first place?"

"It was my tech to begin with." Millennia muttered. "Paradox hired me to help build the Archives and make the tech necessary for it, you know."

"He what?" Attai froze up.

"He's also the one who revoked my access to it after I sold off the tech to the Reich." Millennia grinned wryly. "Funny how things work out, huh?"

"He knew?!" Attai snapped.

"You really shouldn't be surprised." Millennia said wearily. "The man's too vague for his own good."

"Son of a-" Attai cut himself off and tried to calm down, focusing on the problem at hand. "I'll deal with that later. Right now, I want to know something."

"And what would that be?"

"Why did you do it?" Attai narrowed his eyes. "Normally I'd just accuse you of being a sellout, but Mengele mentioned that you didn't take money for the tech. What the hell did they have that was so valuable to you that you decided to sell out the whole multiverse in one go?"

Millennia didn't respond for a while but eventually looked up at Attai with an uncharacteristically world-weary expression.

"You ever wonder why I'm the only Chronian left?" Millennia said. "Why it is that only one of them ever managed to get back after their planet was lost?"

"What are you trying to get at?" Attai demanded.

"I'm not proud of what I did." Millennia continued, sounding thoroughly defeated. "But if I hadn't done it...I wouldn't be alive here regretting it."

Before Attai could say anything else, Millennia disappeared in a flash of pink light, leaving him alone in the alleyway.

Ryan stood atop the roof of a tall office building overlooking the heart of the city. He knew the tops of buildings were supposedly a good place to brood from all the anime he'd watched over the years, but actually being there, he wasn't quite sure he understood the appeal. Maybe anime protagonists were a bit like cats and liked high places? Yet another question on top of everything else plaguing his mind at the moment.

After a while, he heard the door to the rooftop open and turned to find Marcus emerging from the stairway.

"How on Earth did you get up here so quickly?" Marcus panted. "Those stairs are very long."

"I'm really not in the mood to talk to you right now." Ryan snapped. "Just leave."

"It's been a decade, Ryan." Marcus said. "I think we need to talk."

"Apparently we didn't 'need' to talk for ten years before now, so what makes this any different?" Ryan growled.

"Well, the fact that you found out I'm not dead is a fairly big point." Marcus coughed. "I imagine you have some questions."

"Just one." Ryan glowered. "Why?"

"Uh...why what, specifically?" Marcus asked.

"Why did you leave?!" Ryan yelled. "Why did you abandon us like that?! Did we really mean that little to you?!"

"You and your mother mean more to me than you could ever know." Marcus replied solemnly. "That's why I had to leave. To make sure you two weren't in danger because of what I was doing."

"Bullshit." Ryan retorted. "How was letting us think you were dead going to do that?"

"There are some questions you're better off not getting a good answer to, unfortunately." Marcus adjusted his glasses. "But I assure you, protecting my family was my highest priority."

Ryan glared at Marcus for a few moments before turning away to try and collect himself.

"I get it." Ryan took a sharp breath. "I don't agree with it, but I get it. Doesn't make me any less pissed off about it."

"I understand that." Marcus walked up next to Ryan and put his arm around his shoulders. "I heard about what happened to your mother. Becoming a mutant on top of that...I'd imagine you're not having an easy go of things right now."

"No." Ryan shoved off Marcus's arm. "Not really."

The conversation hung in silence for a few moments.

"What about Shane?" Ryan finally spoke up. "What's the deal with you two?"

"Ah, Shane." Marcus replied. "I met him on the streets about nine years ago, actually. I was investigating a report of a mutant that retained self-control, and sure enough, there he was. Twelve years old, homeless, and thin as a stick. Using him as a research subject for my developing Hybrider project was a good enough reason for KafKo to take him in."

"He was homeless?" Ryan asked. "Why?"

"His parents were killed in a mutant attack." Marcus sniffed. "Same incident is what made him a mutant, actually. Decided to run off on his own instead of going into the foster care system. Not the decision I would have made, but I suppose it worked out eventually."

"Him too, huh?..." Ryan mumbled.

"Well, that sort of scenario isn't particularly uncommon in our world as it is." Marcus stated. "There are probably thousands of people who went through the same thing you two did. That's why developing the Hybrider system was so important to me. If I could just end-"

Marcus was cut off by the sound of footsteps making their way onto the rooftop. He and Ryan turned around to find Shane stumbling out of the entrance to the stairwell, with Attai appearing in a green flash shortly after.

"Wait, could you have just teleported me up here?" Shane asked, out of breath.

"I..." Attai paused. "I actually don't know."

"Ryan, I got a call from HQ." Shane shifted his attention to him. "They want us to report back ASAP."

"I suppose we'll continue this conversation later, then." Marcus patted Ryan on the back. "But before you go..."

Marcus extended his arm towards Shane.

"I'm going to need the emblem back."

"I made you hand it over for a reason." Shane's expression soured. "That's not happening."

"I want to settle this peacefully, if possible." Marcus tsked, fishing the prototype Hybrider belt out of his lab coat and throwing it around his waist. "That's why I let you hold onto it while I talked with my son. However, if you want to force my hand..."

Marcus pressed the right-hand button on the front of the belt, transforming into the Lens Hybrider.

"I'm willing to play along."

"Right back at you." Shane flipped the dial on his belt, assuming his own Hybrider form. "I don't want to fight you, but I can't let you do as you please."

"I feel like I'm missing some serious context here." Ryan grumbled.

"You don't need to get involved." Shane said. "I'm not going to ask you to fight your own dad."

"Then we'll do this one-on-one." Marcus stated.

"Actually, he does need to get involved." Attai interjected, tapping the CataloGun. "Key Event, remember?"

"That's not what's important right now." Shane replied.

"It kind of is, though."

Without warning, Marcus ran at Shane, hitting him with a punch to the side of his head that sent him stumbling out of the stairway's entrance. The large eye in the center of his breastplate fired a beam of light that Shane wasn't able to dodge, forcing him on the defensive.

"It wasn't a wise idea challenging me up here." Marcus said, gradually approaching Shane. "You can't pull any crystals out of the ground from this height."

Before Marcus could get any closer, he was sent stumbling forward by the force of a fireball hitting his back, disrupting his concentration. Shane took the opportunity to fire several large shards of diamond at him, knocking him to the ground.

"What the-" Marcus started, looking behind him to find Ryan standing there with flames drifting out of a cracked-open arm. "Ryan?!"

"I don't know what's going on, but..." Ryan cracked his neck. "I trust Shane a hell of a lot more than I trust you."

"...I see." Marcus sniffed. "I suppose that's my fault, at the end of the day. Regardless..."

A blast of energy from an eye on Marcus's back flipped him into the air, where he landed nimbly on his feet.

"If you aren't sure what I'm doing, then don't try to stop me."

"That's a dumbass statement if I've ever heard one." Attai grunted.

"Alright, who are you?!" Marcus demanded. "You have some sort of abilities, but you're certainly not a mutant or a Hybrider, and all you've done is make criticisms and snide remarks!"

Attai began to respond but was cut off as a new voice spoke from above them.

"His name is Attai Zehn." Terox smirked, looking down at the group. "And he's here to die."

"Beat him now." Attai hissed at Shane and Ryan, pointing over to Marcus while keeping his eyes on Terox. "Beat him or this whole universe is gone."

"In a rush, are we?" Terox touched down a few meters away from Attai. "I bet you thought your little stunt earlier was pretty clever."

"Yeah, actually." Attai retorted. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Technically." Terox nodded. "Technically. Problem is, running isn't going to save you from someone like me."

Marcus, distracted by this odd exchange, didn't notice as Shane ran up to him and grabbed at his belt, pressing the button that canceled his transformation. He flailed away from Shane's grip, only for Ryan to rush over and grab a hold of the prototype belt, ripping it off his waist. Thinking quickly as Attai scanned the event, Marcus grabbed onto Ryan's belt, tearing it off him in a similar manner before throwing it around his own waist.

Shane's eyes widened as he realized what Marcus was trying to do, but before he could react, Marcus grew an eye on the palm of his hand and used it to create a blinding flash of light, stunning Shane long enough for Marcus to grab his belt and detransform him. He grabbed the emblem he had handed Shane earlier from his pocket and shoved him to the ground, hastily retreating to a safe distance.

"Really? This is what you're trying to save?" Terox snorted. "A bunch of idiots doing a Three Stooges routine?"

"This coming from the king of clowns himself." Attai spat, blood running down the side of his mouth thanks to damage from the CataloGun.

"Not a terrible comeback, but I think you could do better." Terox rolled his eyes. "Come on, give me some entertainment here. Why do you think I made you get your memories back in the first place?"

"What's entertaining about screwing around with people you clearly outpower?" Attai snapped.

"It's the element of control." Terox sighed as if this should be obvious. "Of course, being in control starts to feel boring if you don't get a challenge every once in a while."

"Then you're picking on the wrong person." Attai hissed. "I don't plan on challenging you; I want to find a way to kill you."

"Well, good luck with that." Terox laughed. "I'm infamously hard to get rid of for good. Fleshbags like you, on the other hand..."

Terox suddenly lunged forward and kicked Attai in the gut, sending him flying off the rooftop. He smirked and leaped off the roof himself, following Attai's arc of travel. This left Shane, Ryan, and Marcus on the roof alone, staring each other down in a standoff.

"It's over, Shane." Marcus said, pressing a button on the back of the emblem that opened a hole in its front. "You need to accept that this is the only solution."

"What is?!" Ryan snapped. "Seriously, tell me what's going on!"

"Gladly." Marcus tsked. "During my research, I came to the realization that the Hybrider method of purging mutants is ultimately going to result in more deaths at the hands of mutants than if they were all destroyed in one fell swoop."

"You mean 'killed'." Shane growled. "Just say it out loud."

"...Killed, yes." Marcus sighed. "It's an unfortunate situation, but killing off those infected with mutant DNA is ultimately the best option for humanity as a whole."

"Including your own son." Shane glowered.

"I understand perfectly well who this will effect in the short-term." Marcus grit his teeth. "Regardless of my own feelings, I have to do this."

"I won't let you." Shane stated solemnly.

"You aren't going to stop me."

Marcus placed the emblem over the Hybrider belt's dial. He twisted the handlebar and spun the face of the belt, creating an explosive force that blew away everything within a two-meter radius. Golden light poured from the emblem as silver armor formed around Marcus's body. Gold accents blazed themselves onto the knight-like armor as the Len Hybrider's cape billowed out from behind him, completing his transformation.

"What the hell is that?" Ryan's eyes widened.

"This is the form I've created using the core of the Omnitrix." Marcus explained. "The King Hybrider; Hybrider Matrix."

"I don't think I've heard of a King mutant before." Shane glowered.

"There's no such thing." Marcus confirmed. "This form uses genetic material from every mutant I've obtained the DNA of. It's the height of the Hybrider system's potential."

"The height of its potential is just some crappy power fusion?" Ryan muttered. "Seems underwhelming."

"Think of it what you want." Marcus sighed. "The important thing is that it can get the job done."

"What job?" Shane hissed. "Mass murder?"

"The job of finishing this!" Marcus retorted. "Ten years of mutants massacring the populous is going to end! This is all that can be done!"

"You created the Hybrider system to give everyone hope!" Shane snapped. "To save people! And you're just going to abandon all of that in one fell swoop?!"

"Once the mutants are gone, the rest of the world will be saved!" Marcus shouted. "That hope is useless unless someone intends to act upon it!"

"That's what the Hybriders are doing already!" Shane yelled. "This is taking the easy way out!"

"I created the Hybriders, Shane!" Marcus said in exasperation. "I know their limitations better than anyone! The Hybrider system alone isn't going to be capable of curing every single mutant!"

"That doesn't justify killing every mutant!"

"Ryan, please." Marcus turned to his son. "Try to help me talk some sense into him!"

Ryan stared at Marcus flatly for a moment before starting to walk over to him.

"Ryan..." Shane said quietly.

Ryan stopped in front of Marcus and made eye contact with his visor. Out of nowhere, he reared back and punched Marcus in the face, sending him stumbling back a few feet in shock.

"You-" Marcus started.

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!" Ryan yelled, his fist bleeding from where it had made impact with the sharp metal. "YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

"What-"

"SHUT UP!" Ryan snapped. "You abandon us for a fucking decade to work on this shitty Hybrider system, and now instead of using it to save people, you just decide to give up and start genociding everyone?!"

"That's not-"

"Mom is dead!" Ryan continued, clenching his fists tightly. "I'm a mutant! 'Protect us', my ass! You didn't protect shit!"

Ryan held up the prototype belt and placed it around his waist.

"I can forgive leaving us behind." Ryan hissed. "I can even forgive faking your own death. But the end result of all this just being you giving up and deciding to kill millions of innocent people?"

Ryan pressed the right-hand button on the front of the prototype belt, transforming into his Hybrider form.

"Don't you dare ask me to forgive that." Ryan growled. "I never will."

Attai barely had enough time to swap out modules before he hit the ground, placing the UAF module into his suit so it could absorb most of the impact. The crash-landing in the middle of an empty construction site still wasn't pleasant by any means, but at least it didn't kill him. He groaned and dragged himself to his feet as Terox landed nearby with a shit-eating grin.

"Oh yeah, you can't use cards anymore, can you?" Terox laughed. "Looks like you're stuck with whatever you've got on hand."

"I can use them, I just shouldn't Attai hissed, swapping out the UAF module with the OS module.

"Either or." Terox shrugged, firing an energy beam at him.

The OS module allowed Attai to predict this movement, giving him time to jump out of the way. Terox continued casually throwing energy bolts at him, while he used the OS module to dodge each one.

"You know, as enthralling as this is, you can't get out of this situation just by dodging forever." Terox yawned. "Come on, try and hit me or something."

"I'd rather not." Attai pulled out the CataloGun, dodging another energy blast. "I've got my own idea."

Attai punched a series of numbers into the gun's number pad. As a card appeared next to the CataloGun, he doubled over, coughing up blood as his eyes turned red from ruptured blood vessels leaking into them.

"Your body's still falling apart, moron." Terox laughed. "What are you gonna do with that card, bleed on me?"

"Maybe." Attai winced, sliding the card through the side of the CataloGun. "But maybe I'm gonna kick your ass."

Attai pulled the trigger on the CataloGun, materializing a Hybrider belt. He quickly grabbed the belt and threw it around his abdomen, twisting the lever to unlock the dial.

"What is that, a new-age fashion accessory?" Terox snorted. "Who puts handlebars on a belt?"

"Some guy that's smarter than you."

Attai threw the handle downwards, rotating the dial a full 360 degrees. A burst of energy exploded out from his body as black armor began forming around him, covering his chest, forearms, and lower legs. A black cape billowed out from the back of the belt as various cards were summoned around Attai and suddenly absorbed by the armor's chest plate, lighting it up in a rainbow pattern that was mimicked by fins that sprang out of his elbow and knee armor.

Attai lifted his head up, revealing that his glasses had disappeared and armor had formed on his cheekbones, with the blue and yellow colors of his eyes merging to create a solid green.

"The hell is that supposed to be?" Terox raised an eyebrow.

"My completed body, I think." Attai quickly identified his new form, then shook his head. "No, more than that...it's been influenced by the Archives. This is a merging of everything I've scanned...everyone I've met."

Attai raised the CataloGun and pointed it directly at Terox.

"A complete work of art..." Attai mused. "Gesamtkunstwerk."

"Stop speaking German completely randomly, you goddamn twat!" Terox snapped, firing a bolt of energy at Attai.

Almost faster than Terox could see, Attai summoned a card and ran it through the CataloGun without even touching it, pulling the trigger as the energy approached him. Ridejacker suddenly materialized in front of the CataloGun, tanking the energy blast without so much as flinching before disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.

"The hell was that?!" Terox demanded.

"Now that I've got my brain all together, I was thinking..." Attai replied. "I've been summoning inanimate objects with the CataloGun once in a while, but I never bothered seeing what would happen if I tried summoning something else. Turns out the exact same thing happens. Don't know what I was expecting."

Terox growled and ran at Attai, who summoned another card and swiped it through the CataloGun. Rigon suddenly appeared in Terox's path, swinging his sword directly at him.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Terox screeched.

Terox caught the sword mid-swing and tossed it aside, obliterating Rigon with an explosion of energy. The smoke cleared just in time to reveal Attai having grabbed Rigon's sword and lunged at Terox, driving it directly through his torso and leaving it lodged there.

"You scanned that pretty boy demon of all things?!" Terox hissed, generating an energy surge that melted down the sword while filling in the hole it left behind.

"Not specifically, but I did get a scan of his universe before you wrecked it." Attai waved the Earth-50-A card in the air before dispelling it. "All I gotta do is tell the CataloGun what I want from it."

"Since when can you do that?!" Terox growled in annoyance.

"Since just now when this belt stabilized my DNA and allowed my psi glands to develop without being rejected." Attai smirked. "Thanks for giving me the time to put this thing on, by the way."

"Oh, don't act like any of this actually matters, you pissant!" Terox hissed. "I've absorbed countless universes. You think you stand a chance against me with your piddling collection?!"

"Not sure." Attai sniffed, raising the CataloGun. "Let's find out."

Shane and Ryan were knocked back several feet as Marcus released a sonic blast, stunning them momentarily. Marcus divided into four identical clones of himself, each of which darted around the rooftop at lighting speeds while occasionally jumping in to hit one of their opponents.

"Damn, he wasn't kidding when he said he has every mutant's powers!" Shane winced, deflecting another lightning-fast blow. "He's using the Accel and Echo mutant's abilities in sync with each other!"

"Any idea how to counter them?!" Ryan yelled.

"One at a time, sure, but not like this!"'

The clones suddenly stopped running and merged back together, with Marcus putting his arms together in an 'L' pose and firing a beam of focused cosmic energy at his opponents. Shane and Ryan were knocked to the opposite end of the roof, just barely avoiding a fall to the ground below. Shane's belt was cracked in half, falling to the ground as his armor disappeared. Part of Ryan's helmet had been shattered, exposing some of his face, bloodied by shards of broken armor cutting into his skin.

"The Toku mutant's beam ability..." Shane coughed. "Should've guessed he'd use that."

"Are there any weaknesses all mutants have that we could exploit?" Ryan asked as the two slowly got to their feet.

"Not really." Shane replied. "They're all vulnerable to the belts' genetic destabilizer, but with all that DNA in his current form, we'd have to hit him with at least forty finishers. I don't even think the belts have enough power for that."

"So you're saying we're fucked."

"Pretty much."

"Do you see now?" Marcus approached the two. "How pointless it is to be fighting me?"

"Yeah." Ryan cracked his neck. "But I'm going to do it anyway."

Ryan lunged at Marcus with a fireball in his hand, preparing to deal a punishing blow. Marcus intercepted the attack with a punch of his own, effortlessly slamming Ryan into the ground with enough force to crack the concrete beneath him.

"I have the power to stop anyone who tries to get in my way." Marcus stated matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry, but this is how it has to be."

Silence.

"Ryan?" Shane called over to him. "Ryan, are you okay?!"

No response.

"This isn't right." Marcus mumbled. "I didn't use that much force, did I?"

"What the hell did you do?!" Shane snapped. "Which mutant's powers did you use?!"

"I didn't use any powers!" Marcus hissed. "Not that I'm aware of, at any rate..."

Marcus knelt down next to Ryan's unmoving body and flipped him over, checking to see if he was still breathing.

He very much was not.

"That's...that's not right at all." Marcus started muttering to himself. "How could that have killed him? Am I using the Matrix form wrong? Am I using it right? Did I activate some sort of ability without knowing about it? How would that even happen? Was it instinctual on my part. or-"

All of a sudden, Ryan's body jolted up, propelled by a burst of flames from his palms. Caught up in his rambling, Marcus was unable to react in time, allowing Ryan to snatch the emblem off of his belt and flip backward away from him.

"Like I said, I understand how pointless it is to fight you using that form." Ryan said. "So I figured I'd just take a hit and play dead until you left yourself open to me getting that form from you."

"I can't believe it..." Marcus muttered as the King Hybrider armor disappeared, turning him into the Lens Hybrider again. "I didn't raise you to use such underhanded tactics!"

"You didn't raise me at all for the past ten goddamn years!" Ryan retorted. "You've got nobody to blame but yourself!"

Ryan threw the emblem over to Shane, who caught it in mid-air and swiftly pocketed it.

"This guy behind me has supported me more in the last two days than you have in the last decade." Ryan glowered, gesturing over his shoulder at Shane. "I hate to say gushy shit out loud, but he's a really good guy. Maybe if you were fighting him, you wouldn't need to worry about underhanded strategies. Thing is..."

Ryan cracked his knuckles.

"You're fighting me." Ryan said. "And if I'm being honest with myself? I'm probably kind of a dick."

Marcus growled and ran at Ryan, who countered with a flaming kick to the head. Marcus stumbled backward for a moment before recovering and his shoulder eyes to fire an ice beam at his opponent. Ryan covered his entire body in flames and charged right through the ice attack, decking Marcus upside the head.

Before he could even make contact with the ground, Ryan pressed both buttons on the prototype belt, charging up a finisher. Energy from the belt was directed to one of his fists, allowing him to deliver a massive flaming punch directly into his father's chest.

Marcus stumbled backward for a few steps before falling unconscious, limply slumping to the ground. The prototype belt absorbed his mutant DNA in the attack, and without an extra genetic thread to maintain it, Marcus's Hybrider armor disappeared, leaving him on the ground as a regular human once more.

Attai ran a universe card through the CataloGun and fired, summoning a version of Heatblast who propelled himself into the air with a burst of flames and twisted the Omnitrix dial, transforming into Diamondhead. Diamondhead shifted his arms into spikes, using the extra momentum provided by his dense body to fall towards Terox and slice him in half, landing behind his bisected opponent.

Terox hissed in annoyance as he reformed his torso, turning around to find that Diamondhead had already transformed into Big Chill and was hovering ominously above him.

"Chill out." Big Chill wheezed.

Big Chill shot his ice breath at Terox, but was blown away by a blast of energy before it could land. Terox turned to face Attai again, only to find himself facing a team of Chromastone, Gwen, and Kevin sporting a diamond skin.

"Let's finish this up!" Chromastone said. "Gwen, give me some of the 'ol razzle dazzle!"

"You gotta be shitting me." Terox growled.

Gwen nodded and cast a spell that brought a massive beam of sunlight down directly on top of Chromastone. Chromastone took a deep breath and began absorbing the energy, his crystals glowing with power. Terox tried to interrupt the process with his own beam of energy, but this was just absorbed into Chromastone's body as well.

"Kevin, catch and release!"

Kevin smirked and gave Chromastone a thumbs-up. Chromastone shot the stored energy towards Kevin, lighting up his crystalline body with the refracted light. Terox growled and charged at him, but Kevin jumped in his way wearing a smug grin.

Kevin punched Terox square in the chest, his diamond fist breaking through Terox's metal chest plate. The energy being refracted throughout his body was unleashed through his hand, blowing Terox away in a massive explosion of light. By the time the light cleared, Terox had been thrown clear across the square and the team attacking him had disappeared, replaced with MEGA Terraspin flying right at him in his fan form.

Terox blasted away the incoming evolution but was swiftly accosted by Sci being flung at him with a dark energy-boosted punch, blowing a hole through his chest before disappearing as quickly as he had arrived. Negative Goop flashed into existence and shot a blast of acidic slime at Terox, who blasted apart the slime and the alien alike before having another hole blasted through his abdomen by a sudden strike from a summoned Armodrillo.

"ENOUGH!" Terox roared, creating an explosion of energy that destroyed everything near him and knocked Attai off-balance, giving him a chance to regenerate. "This random shit ain't hurting me, it's just pissing me off!"

"Alles klar, dann." Attai dusted his hands off. "Let's go for the finale."

Attai revved up the Hybrider belt three times and spun the dial, creating a burst of energy that he redirected into the CataloGun. He summoned three universe cards and ran them through the side of the CataloGun before pulling the trigger.

"Sehr Gute, Drei!" The CataloGun announced. "Team! MEGA! Multi! Das große Finale!"

A massive beam of light carrying the power of all three universes slammed into Terox, who tried to block it and ended up getting knocked back by the force. By the time the energy cleared, most of the surrounding pavement had been melted down into tar and Terox was missing his left hand. The beam gained an upwards curve, shooting off through the atmosphere and into the deep regions of space.

"All that shit..." Terox chuckled. "And all you did was take off a hand. One that I can grow back very easily, by the way."

Terox sent energy to the stump on the end of his arm, trying to reform his hand, but the energy just ended up flowing out of him and dispersing into thin air.

"Uh..." Terox stared at his static stump. "I said, I can grow this thing back very easily."

Terox pumped more energy towards his former hand, only for it to just keep spilling out of his body.

"Okay, what the hell did you do?!" Terox demanded. "Why isn't my energy condensing?!"

"That would be the effects of the Hybrider belt." Attai explained. "It destabilizes alien DNA."

"But I'm an energy being!" Terox snapped. "I don't have any-"

Terox paused as something in his head suddenly clicked.

"OH SHIT, THE GAMMA ENERGY!" Terox yelled. "You cheating-ass motherfucker!"

With that, Terox disappeared, leaving Attai standing in the middle of a smoldering town square.

"So, you headed out already?" Shane asked.

Attai had rejoined the two of them on the rooftop following Terox's disappearance. Marcus was still unconscious, layed out unceremoniously on the ground.

"Yep." Attai nodded. "I've got something I need to talk to my own Professor about."

"Well, good luck." Shane knocked on Attai's new chest armor. "I guess this confirms the Hybrider system works on standard human genetics."

"Kind of bulky to walk around in, isn't it?" Ryan raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'll probably be leaving this thing off until I need it again." Attai unhooked his Hybrider belt, causing the Gesamtkunstwerk armor to dissipate. "It ain't all that comfortable."

"Oh, speaking of the Hybrider belts, could you give me a copy real quick?" Shane asked. "Mine got wrecked in the fight with the Prof."

"I guess."

Attai moved to summon a card, wincing as he did so. Despite this, the card appeared without incident, allowing him to slide it through the CataloGun harmlessly.

"Okay, good, that's what I thought." Attai breathed a sigh of relief. "Completing my body using the Hybrider belt reset the backlash buildup."

"No idea what that means, but sounds good." Shane gave a thumbs-up.

Attai pulled the trigger on the CataloGun and summoned a new Hybrider belt, handing it over to Shane.

"Hey, come to think of it..." Ryan muttered. "Where did your wrecked belt go?"

"It should be right over-" Shane pointed over towards where he had been knocked back earlier, only to find the remains of his belt completely missing. "...Huh. That's weird."

"You two should probably get looking for that." Attai tsked. "Belts aside, what do you plan on doing with evil dad over there?"

"I'll report the incident to KafKo and the police department." Shane said. "Let the justice system sort this one out."

"Do we even have any legal evidence?" Ryan asked.

"Not any off the top of my head, but KafKo has the leverage to sort this kind of thing out." Shane assured him.

"You realize how that's a bad thing, right?" Attai raised an eyebrow.

"I don't have time to worry about it." Shane shrugged. "For now, I'm just going with it."

"Right." Attai rolled his eyes. "Well, don't come crying to me when this bites you in the ass someday."

Attai left in a green flash, leaving the three of them on the rooftop in silence.

"...I mean seriously, the company is named KafKo." Ryan piped up. "KafKo."

"Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it, okay?!"

Ubermensch power-walked down the hallway leading to his ship's laboratory as panicked scientists ran past him. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he figured it was probably Terox's fault.

His suspicions were confirmed as he entered the lab, which had been completely wrecked to the point where most of the lights weren't even working. Terox, standing at one of the work tables, tossed aside a power welder and held up a modified Hybrider belt with two horn-like prongs sticking out of the top.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Ubermensch demanded.

"Shut up for a second, I need to make sure this works." Terox grunted.

Terox twisted the handlebar on the belt and spun the dial, creating a wave of energy that washed over him. The energy leaking from his stump coalesced back into a hand, which he experimentally clenched together a few times before absorbing the belt into his body.

"Well, as far as a patch job goes, it works well enough." Terox grumbled. "Guess I should've kept the Aqasian Stabilizer around after all."

"What is going on?" Ubermensch repeated impatiently.

"That shitty clone of yours got his hands on some equipment that can destabilize Gamma Energy." Terox huffed. "I ain't entirely made of the stuff anymore, but think of it like getting your skeleton removed in terms of how it affects your movement."

"A very specific analogy." Ubermensch folded his arms. "And you simply allowed him to use this equipment on you?"

"Believe it or not, asshole, I haven't had to deal with Gamma Energy drama ever Gamma himself got wrecked." Terox retorted. "I wasn't expecting this situation today."

"Was wrecking the lab to make a stabilizer for yourself really necessary?" Ubermensch questioned.

"No, but I needed to vent on something." Terox replied. "I can't believe that son of a bitch actually got the upper hand on me."

"As much as I dislike agreeing with you, that is somewhat surprising." Ubermensch noted. "I would have thought you too powerful to be bested in any way by my naive counterpart. That being said, throwing a tantrum about it like a small child is far and away a pathetic overreaction."

"An overreaction?" Terox hissed. "Let me break this down in a way your tiny monkey brain can understand. Power is a means to an end, and for me, that end is control. I have committed genocide on a level the multiverse has never seen to become one of if not the most powerful being in all of reality, all to gain control, and yet in one fell swoop, this half-formed Frankensteined-together Germanic shit somehow managed to wrestle control of my own body away from me. On a technicality."

"You're naive if that's surprising to you." Ubermensch tsked. "Power alone is a fragile thing to build control upon. There will always be technicalities that may bring your downfall, and there's always going to be a bigger fish."

"I AM THE BIGGER FISH!" Terox roared with a crazed look in his eyes.

"Perhaps." Ubermensch said. "But even assuming you are the most powerful thing to have ever existed, that still doesn't guarantee you control."

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Terox seethed.

"Control is about influence, not power." Ubermensch stated. "Power is a useful tool to keep your control afloat when it comes under attack, but if the masses oppose you and tear down your influence, that power will eventually crumble away."

"I don't have something as pretentious as an 'ideology' motivating me." Terox growled. "I'm just controlling things for the sake of it."

"Whenever someone says they do something 'for the sake of it', I often find they really mean 'I'm empty and this temporarily fulfills me'." Ubermensch scoffed. "I don't care enough to question what deficiency you're trying to compensate for, but I do want to know one thing; what do you really control?"

"Excuse me?" Terox's brow furrowed.

"Well, it can't be the Reich, because that's under the control of the Fuhrer." Ubermensch mused. "It can't be the universes you destroy since they become part of your body, and as you just established, you don't have guaranteed control over that anymore. So, I ask you this..."

Ubermensch looked Terox directly in the eyes.

"What, exactly, do you 'control'?"

"I..." Terox trailed off as his thoughts stumbled over each other, trying to find some sort of domineering response that for some reason seemed to elude him at the moment.

"The only thing unique about you, Terox, is your power." Ubermensh continued. "You say you want control, but you fail to do anything but destroy. What are you attempting to control? The uncaring void of non-temporal space?"

Ubermensch turned away and began walking out of the room.

"You control nothing." Ubermensch made his leaving remarks. "Your power means nothing."

Terox, thoroughly infuriated at this point, fired a massive, deadly beam of energy directly at Ubermensch. When the smoke cleared, Ubermensch stood unharmed, protected by an invisible psychic barrier.

"You mean nothing." Ubermensch stated flatly.

Out of witty comebacks at the moment, Terox channeled all of his might into flipping Ubermensch a double bird. Ubermensch paid no mind to this and walked out of the wrecked laboratory, leaving Terox alone in the dark room.

Attai stormed through the Archives looking for Professor Paradox, sorting through a variety of swear words in his head to try and get to the actual points he would be making. All of a sudden, a familiar-looking version of Clockwork appeared in front of him in a blue flash, making him jump backwards in surprise.

"What the hell?!" Attai snapped.

The alien detransformed to reveal the Theo he had met on Earth 512-A, who looked at his surroundings with a confused expression.

"Where is this place?" Theo muttered.

"It's the Cosmic Archives." Attai said impatiently. "More importantly, how the hell did you get here?! Nobody knows where this place is other than Archives agents!"

"I still don't really know where it is." Theo sighed. "I just used Fatemask to divinate where you were and followed that."

"The hell is a 'Fatemask'?" Attai grumbled.

"Look, I came here because I need your help." Theo ignored the question. "I found someone who can get us into Earth-83 through the quantum flux, but I don't think I can fix what's causing the flux on my own."

"Wait, are you serious?" Attai narrowed his eyes skeptically. "Who exactly did you find?"

"That would be me." A voice came from behind Attai.

Attai turned around to find an odd man wearing an orange and red pinstripe suit walking up to him. The man wore a top hat over his brown hair that matched the pattern on his suit, and the fact that he was wearing some sort of opaque visor over his eyes didn't seem to interfere with him effortlessly twirling around a cane that appeared to be a quite bland stick with a crystal ball awkwardly affixed to the top.

"You some sort of clown?" Attai asked flatly.

"A jester, actually." The man planted his cane onto the ground so he could casually lean onto it. "The Jester. Or The Void if you prefer, although that moniker doesn't make quite as much sense if you don't know me."

"...Right." Attai raised an eyebrow. "How are you supposed to get us past the quantum flux?"

"Quite simply; you see, I'm not technically supposed to be alive right now." The Jester explained. "And in my experience, it's surprisingly quite difficult to stop a dead man walking."