đ Chapter 45: The Farewell Call
Crystalline dust filled the horizon.
Inside the core of the mother crystal, the Earth trembled slowlyâas if reality itself was collapsing from within.
Kairos, now in his complete form, stood at the center of the energy storm.
Ben, surrounded by shards of spectral echoes from the past, gasped for breath, fighting the new gravity Kairos had forced upon him.
The Omnitrix flickered irregularly, as if it too was struggling to survive.
**
Outside, the battle was turning into a nightmare.
The multiversal alliance was falling apart.
The future-version of Batman had fallen after his suit was completely destroyed.
An alternate Flash tried to save himâbut got trapped in a temporal vortex.
Gwen, holding a spell to contain the crystal spread, screamed as the enchantment shattered from magical recoil.
Superman, soaring through the sky, was struck directly by one of the energy waves erupting from the mother crystal and crashed like a burning meteor.
Supergirl was still fightingâbut exhaustion was all over her face.
They were losing.
Everyone was losing.
**
Ben, amidst the pain, began to hear a voice within the watchânot Kairos' voice, but his own.
> "I chose to fight⊠but that's not enough."
He saw the echoes of everyone who had fallen: Batman, Gwen, Kevin, even his Grandpa Max screaming in a faded vision:
> "Ben, don't waste what remains!"
Everything around him slowed.
The mother crystal was erupting from withinâyet in a painfully slow motion, as if it were taking its final breath.
Suddenly, a vision opened in Ben's mind, revealing something he had never seen before:
â Azmuth's final contingency plan⊠a hidden function in the watch that could dismantle the crystal from the insideâbut only if the bearer gave up a part of their consciousness.
And the price was brutal:
> "Kairos' core will be erased from you⊠and with it, what's left of you will fade."
**
Ben lowered his head.
Silence filled his heart.
The decision became clear.
Slowly, he stopped fighting and began walking toward the detonation point.
Supergirl saw him from afar and shouted:
> "Ben! No! Don't do this!"
She ran toward him through the floating debris.
She stopped in front of him, eyes glistening with tears.
She said:
> "We still have a chance⊠we can win this together."
He shook his head gently:
> "If we do⊠we win the battle, but lose every universe."
She placed her hand on his chest:
> "I'm not ready to lose you."
He smiled, then whispered softly:
> "If I end here⊠remember me as who I was, not what I was made to be."
She embraced him.
She held him as if time itself had stopped.
Then she kissed himâslowly, honestly, and for the first time.
**
From afar, Kevin, Gwen, Grandpa Max, and the remaining heroes watched.
They all felt itâhope was gone, and the end was near.
Supergirl whispered:
> "I'm proud of you."
He replied as he stepped away:
> "And I'm proud⊠that I chose to be me."
**
He stood before the mother crystal.
The watch began to glow in a new colorâa pale bluish white, like light fractured from within a human soul.
He raised his hand and spoke the final command:
> "Activate: The End⊠by my will."
**
A blast of lightâwithout sound.
Only brilliance, engulfing the universe and shaking the fabric of reality.
Kairos screamed one last time:
> "Ben⊠you are the final risk."
Then he vanished.
And after the lightâŠ
There was only silence.
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