Chapter 50: The Temple Collapses, New Toys Arrive
Ah Puch didn't seem to care that he was outnumbered three to one. His singular, mindless obsession was protecting the Sword of Ekchuah.
The stone giant barreled forward. Gwen's hands flared with pink mana, conjuring a glowing tether that whipped around Ah Puch's ankle, jerking him off balance. Klein, currently in his Diamondhead form, leveled his crystalline arms and unleashed a barrage of razor-sharp diamond shards.
Ah Puch threw his massive arms up to shield his face. The moment he lowered them, a massive, four-fingered red fist filled his vision.
Bang!
Four Arms clocked him right in the jaw, sending the stone guardian flying backward.
A sharp cry echoed through the chamber. Grandpa Max tumbled down the stone steps, hitting the ground hard. His brawl with Enoch had reached its bitter end. While Max had brought plenty of Plumber tech, very little of it was suited for a close-quarters fistfight against a heavily armored Forever Knight. Despite his formidable physical strength, age had inevitably dulled his reaction time, giving Enoch the opening he needed to shove the older man off the high platform.
"Grandpa!" Diamondhead and Four Arms yelled.
"I'm fine!" Max grunted, forcing himself back to his feet. "Go get the sword!"
Feeling the collective glare of three superpowered aliens locking onto him, Enoch felt the pressure instantly double. He scrambled toward the pedestal, his armored boots slipping on the ancient stone. It was a futile effort. Gwen flicked her wrist, wrapping another mana construct around Enoch's waist and violently yanking him backward.
Enoch hit the floor, his mind screaming in frustration. 'You call this fair, old man?! I brought a handful of cannon fodder, and you brought three absolute monsters to jump me!'
Four Arms lunged for the Sword of Ekchuah. Before his thick red fingers could graze the hilt, Ah Puch materialized out of nowhere, slamming into the Tetramand and knocking him aside. The stone guardian stood tall on the pedestal, roaring at the intruders.
Klein rolled his eyes beneath his crystalline exterior. 'What are you screaming for?'
Diamondhead slammed both hands into the stone floor. The ground beneath the pedestal violently ruptured. A massive pillar of solid diamond erupted from the earth, launching Ah Puch high into the air.
Gwen didn't miss a beat. She caught the airborne giant in a massive hand of pink mana and slammed him down into the floor with bone-shattering force.
Boom!
A massive crater spider-webbed across the secret chamber.
Diamondhead morphed his hands into twin crystalline broadswords, casually gesturing for his cousin and sister to join in. It was time for a righteous, synchronized beatdown.
Ah Puch didn't last long.
A flash of faint blue light illuminated the dusty air, and Diamondhead melted away, leaving Klein standing in his place.
"Omnitrix, genetic scan," Klein ordered, raising his left arm.
The Another Omnitrix projected a sweeping blue beam over the shattered remains of Ah Puch.
[Gene recorded.]
The cold, female mechanical voice echoed from the watch.
"Hey, cousin, me too!" Four Arms yelled, suddenly remembering he was stuck. He squatted down to Klein's eye level.
Klein reached out and tapped the Omnitrix dial on the Tetramand's massive shoulder. A flash of crimson light washed over the cavern, and Ben reappeared. Without missing a beat, Ben sprinted toward the rubble of Ah Puch, his eyes practically sparkling with greed.
If Ah Puch had a consciousness left in those stones, he would be weeping. 'I'm done for. Even in death, I'm getting harassed by perverts.'
Soon enough, the remnants of Ekchuah received the exact same invasive scanning treatment.
With the guardian dealt with, Grandpa Max immediately turned his attention back to the pedestal. But in the chaos of the DNA scanning, Enoch had slipped away. The Forever Knight leader had crawled his way up the high platform and now gripped the hilt of the Sword of Ekchuah with both gauntleted hands.
"Hahahahaha!" Enoch's triumphant laughter echoed off the temple walls.
Klein stared at the convulsing man with absolute deadpan judgment. "What is wrong with him?"
Enoch choked on his laugh, coughing awkwardly into his fist. He quickly recovered his smug composure. He had only brought a few disposable grunts to this expedition. Walking away with the ultimate prize while the Tennysons were distracted? That was a flawless victory. Sneaking around was a perfectly valid tactic.
With a violent heave, Enoch yanked the Sword of Ekchuah from its stone prison, raising it high above his head. "Finally! The power of Ekchuah is mine!"
"Oh no!" Grandpa Max tensed, his face draining of color. If a weapon capable of leveling entire cities fell into the hands of the Forever Knights, the devastation would be catastrophic.
Ben and Gwen dropped into combat stances, bracing themselves to fight an immensely empowered Enoch.
Klein just stood there, completely unbothered. He was already calculating the fastest way to deal with this. Enoch was clearly using cheat codes. Klein figured he would just dial up Alien X, permanently ban Enoch's account from reality, and enjoy watching the man's impotent rage.
"Hahahahaha... Huh?"
Enoch's maniacal laughter abruptly died in his throat. The legendary Sword of Ekchuah began to crumble. Flakes of ancient metal peeled away, turning into fine gold dust that slipped right through his armored fingers. Within seconds, nothing remained but a glittering pile of sand on the pedestal.
"No!" Enoch dropped to his knees, frantically scooping the gold dust into his hands, his eyes wide behind his visor.
Klein blinked, genuinely surprised. 'Hey, don't look at me. I didn't even do anything yet!'
Fortunately, no one was looking at him.
Grandpa Max let out a massive sigh of relief, a wry smile crossing his face. "Well, Enoch, it looks like an antique from five thousand years ago is a little past its warranty."
Enoch remained frozen on his knees, staring at the dust. If the sword was useless all along... what had he been doing? All the planning, the resources, the men lost... Was he just a clown?
Boom!
The entire Maya Temple gave a violent shudder. Dust rained from the ceiling as massive stone blocks began to shift.
"Was the sword just a decoy trap?" Gwen shouted over the grinding stone.
"Doesn't matter! We need to leave, now! This whole place is coming down!" Grandpa Max yelled. He glanced back at the kneeling knight. "Enoch! Move!"
Enoch didn't twitch. The psychological blow of holding a pile of useless dust seemed to have completely broken his spirit.
With no time to play hero for a villain who wouldn't move, Max grabbed his grandchildren and sprinted for the exit.
...
Boom!
The ancient Maya Temple finally gave way, collapsing into a massive heap of rubble and choking dust under the moonlight.
Ben leaned against a nearby tree, rubbing his stomach dramatically. "Man, I am starving. I'm so hungry I feel like I could eat a giant bowl of dung beetles right now."
Grandpa Max smiled pleasantly. "They actually taste much better if you warm them up first."
Ben gagged slightly before groaning. "Seriously though, why did we do all that running and fighting just for a useless, broken sword?"
Max rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit embarrassed. "Uh, haha... sorry about that, kids. Come on, let's head back to the Rustbucket."
"And exactly how are we getting back?" Gwen crossed her arms. "Walking the same way we came? Look at Dweeb over there. He's going to pass out before he even takes two steps."
Max didn't answer. He just smiled and pointed toward the Forever Knights' sleek, abandoned transport helicopter parked in a nearby clearing.
A few minutes later, as the helicopter lifted into the night sky, Klein leaned against the window, staring down at the disappearing ruins of the temple.
'A useless broken sword, huh?'...'Useless my ass.'
Late into the dead of night, long after the dust had settled, a heavy, metallic figure stood amidst the silent ruins of the Maya Temple. Moonlight reflected off his bulky, copper-toned armor.
Clockwork stared down at the pile of gold dust he had just carefully excavated from the rubble. Enoch was long gone, presumably dragged out by one of his grunts who had been playing dead during the chaos.
The large, golden wind-up key on top of Clockwork's head began to turn with a heavy, mechanical clicking sound. A faint blue light bloomed within the circular glass casing on his chest.
A concentrated beam of chronal energy shot from his chest, bathing the pile of gold dust in a temporal distortion field. Time rapidly reversed within the beam. The scattered flakes of gold flew backward, weaving and fusing together until the blinding golden glow of the fully restored Sword of Ekchuah lay quietly in the dirt.
A flash of blue light washed over the ruins, and Clockwork melted away, leaving Klein standing in the cool night air.
Klein reached down and grasped the hilt with his right hand. The moment his fingers closed around the grip, the ancient weapon erupted with a blinding, divine radiance. When the light finally faded, the physical sword was gone. In its place, a mysterious, complex rune shaped like a serpentine head was burned into the palm of his right hand.
'Because I defeated the guardian, I gained the weapon's recognition? Is that how this works?'
A sudden influx of information flowed directly from the rune into Klein's mind. He gently clenched his right fist. A flash of golden light sparked from his palm, and the heavy, ornate blade materialized instantly in his grasp.
The legends were true. The Sword of Ekchuah absolutely possessed the raw destructive power to obliterate an entire city with a single swing.
There was just one catch. It could only do that when its energy reserves were completely full. Without a full charge, it was basically just a slightly sharper-than-average broadsword. While the weapon could passively absorb ambient energy to recharge itself, the process was agonizingly slow. It would take roughly four to five years to gather enough power for a single city-destroying strike.
It was a bit of a novelty item, too slow to be a reliable trump card, but too powerful to throw away.
Still, a faint, satisfied smirk tugged at the corner of Klein's mouth as he dismissed the blade back into the rune.
New toy acquired.
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