"He is the Son of Sakaar!"
The thought blazed through every mind across the planet like wildfire. Here was the prophesied savior—the emerald warrior who had conquered unconquerable nature, who had turned back the flames of destruction itself with walls of living crystal. The indigenous Sakaarians who had clung to the ancient prophecy for generations felt their hearts soar as they reached toward the miraculous vision in the sky.
Standing among the ruins of the Great Maw, Caiera struggled to process what she was witnessing. The crystalline warrior bore the same symbol on his chest as the four-armed fighter from the arena, and their clothing shared unmistakable similarities.
Is this the same person? she wondered, though the transformation seemed impossible even by Sakaar's twisted standards.
In his palace, the Red King watched the same scene with apoplectic rage.
"Kill him!" he roared, his voice cracking with fury. "I don't care what he is or where he came from—destroy that thing immediately!"
Like every megalomaniac who had ever lived, the Red King believed himself to be destiny's chosen one. In his mind, he was the true Son of Sakaar—after all, wasn't he the emperor who ruled the planet and had brought it prosperity? The very existence of another claimant to that title was intolerable blasphemy.
"I am the Son of Sakaar!" he snarled through clenched teeth, his knuckles white with rage.
Caiera and the Death's Head Warguards had no choice but to obey, but before they could organize their attack, Ben noticed their position from his crystal spire. The situation was exactly as Looma had predicted—the Red King was deploying his elite forces to eliminate the perceived threat.
Time to take the initiative, Ben thought.
He leaped from his crystalline perch, creating a glittering slide of diamond beneath his feet that carried him toward Caiera's location at tremendous speed.
"I really need to design a proper hoverboard," he muttered as he descended. "Standard equipment for any self-respecting crystal warrior."
He'd seen Norman Osborn's glider technology, but it relied on crude thrust rather than true anti-gravity systems. Surely the Omnitrix's database contained something more elegant.
Seeing the diamond warrior approaching, Caiera knew that battle was inevitable. She straightened to her full height and called out in a voice that carried across the entire village: "Civilians take cover! Death's Head Warguards, prepare for combat!"
The elderly and children had already fled to underground shelters, but the elite soldiers needed no additional motivation. Even while Ben was still airborne, hundreds of energy weapons opened fire, filling the sky with a deadly light show.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The energy bolts struck Ben's crystalline form and simply bounced off, leaving no mark on his diamond-hard skin.
"Are those weapons from the clearance rack?" Ben asked with amusement as he ignored the spectacular but ineffective barrage.
Then he struck the ground like a meteorite.
BOOM!
The impact created a crater twenty feet across, but Ben was already moving. He swept his arm through the air, and a massive crystalline appendage erupted from the earth, sweeping toward the Death's Head soldiers like a bulldozer made of emerald.
More than a dozen warriors were sent flying, though their advanced armor prevented serious injury. The crystal growths Ben could create at range were nowhere near as durable as his own body—within moments, the soldiers had shattered his constructs with concentrated weapons fire and melee attacks.
But that brief distraction was all Ben needed. Hundreds of elite soldiers surrounded him, moving with the coordinated precision of a military unit that had trained together for years. They served the Red King absolutely, with no goal beyond Ben's destruction.
The mass assault began immediately.
Ben's arm morphed into a gleaming blade as he charged into their midst. Combat became a whirlwind of violence—he carved through one warrior's armor while another drove a spear into his back. Fortunately, his crystalline physiology meant he felt no pain from wounds, and damage to his structure didn't impair his power.
The Death's Head soldiers, by contrast, discovered that their exoskeleton armor had gaps in coverage. Once Ben's crystal blades found those weak points, they quickly lost combat capability.
Clang!
Another strike sent sparks flying as Ben deflected a power sword with his left arm, which had transformed into a shield. His right arm shifted from blade to palm to multi-barreled cannon, launching a barrage of crystal shards in all directions.
He was a one-man army, seamlessly shifting between offense and defense as the tactical situation demanded.
In the gladiator cells beneath the arena, the imprisoned fighters watched Ben's display with awe and growing excitement.
"You and Druuk are both silicon-based life forms," one of them said to Korg, "but you're nowhere near that powerful!"
"He's like a god of war made manifest!"
"Hey, we're completely different species!" Korg protested. "He's green, I'm more of a charcoal color. Totally different mineral composition."
"Can you create additional limbs like he does?" another fighter asked.
Beta Ray Bill pushed through the crowd that had gathered around the viewing screens, his features set with grim determination. Despite his generally gentle nature, his current expression was intimidating enough to silence the chatter.
"Friends," he announced, his voice carrying absolute conviction, "the time has come to change our destiny."
"What are you planning?" someone asked nervously.
"To eliminate our new friend, the Red King has deployed most of his forces away from the capital. The Totem Tower has never been more vulnerable. If we don't seize this opportunity, we may never get another."
"But what about the Red Wind Queen?" another prisoner asked. "She'll try to stop us."
"The Red Wind Queen is on our side!" Bill interrupted. "Or more precisely, she's on the our new friend side!"
"Ooh," Korg made an inappropriately suggestive sound, earning disapproving glares from everyone present.
"I mean, revolution! Yes, revolution!" he corrected hastily, waving his rocky fist in the air.
"What about the control implant?" came the inevitable question that everyone had been dreading.
The implants were the ultimate deterrent—as long as they remained active, the Red King could kill any of them with the touch of a button, regardless of how many prisoners participated in the uprising.
Bill opened his palm to reveal a small device no larger than a communicator.
"Our new friend gave me this. If I can place it at the highest point of the Totem Tower, it will jam the control implant signals throughout the capital."
The dungeon fell silent as everyone processed the implications.
"If you're too scared, I'll go alone," Bill continued. "I don't expect everyone to contribute, but at least watch for traitors."
"Who says we won't help?" Hiroim immediately jumped to his feet, clenching his fist with revolutionary fervor. "For the Son of Sakaar! Freedom is within our grasp!"
"I love a good revolution!" Miek added enthusiastically.
BOOM!
Korg and Druuk punched through the cell door simultaneously, their massive fists connecting with the guards' skulls before they could raise an alarm.
"Grab weapons and charge!" Bill roared, hefting his massive war hammer.
The gladiator uprising began with volcanic force, and similar scenes played out across Sakaar. Resistance fighters and scavenger tribes who had witnessed their prophesied savior began mobilizing their forces for a march on the imperial capital.
Meanwhile, near the Great Maw, Ben's battle with the Death's Head Warguards continued to rage.
Hundreds of elite soldiers had fallen before his relentless assault. For a warrior who never tired and felt no pain, numerical superiority meant very little. Only overwhelming force could hope to defeat Diamondhead—and that force was approaching now.
Caiera stepped through the battlefield carnage, her movements fluid and predatory despite her imposing stature. She wore what appeared to be a modified cheongsam in gray-blue, with high slits extending to her waist and black undergarments visible beneath. Silver armor protected her powerful legs, and at nearly two meters tall, she stood eye-to-eye with Ben's crystalline form.
She didn't attack immediately. Instead, she asked, "Are you the challanger, or the Son of Sakaar?"
"I'm him. You can also call me Diamondhead," Ben replied. "As for the Son of Sakaar, I've never heard of him. But Caiera, you're Shadow People, aren't you? Why serve the Red King?"
He'd heard both Looma and Brunhilde speak of Caiera with surprising respect, which made her loyalty to their oppressor puzzling.
"I began serving the Red King when I was thirteen," she said, taking a step forward. Blue energy began crackling around her body like contained lightning. "He was recruiting the strongest and most talented Shadow People warriors at the time. Unfortunately, that was when the parasitic creature called Spike attacked our village. Everyone else was transformed into monsters. I was the only survivor. The Red King saved me."
Perhaps because she sensed that Ben might truly be the prophesied savior, Caiera found herself compelled to explain her past—something she rarely discussed with anyone.
"Since then, I've had a control disc implanted in my body. I have no choice but to obey his orders."
As she spoke, she stomped her right foot against the ground. The solid rock beneath her shattered instantly, spider-web cracks spreading for dozens of feet in all directions.
Then she clenched her hand into a fist and drove it toward Ben's chest with devastating force.
CRACK! Lightning-bright energy erupted from the impact point!
Ben's arms, which he'd crossed defensively, were blown apart by the sheer power of Caiera's strike. He flew backward through the air and crashed into a rocky outcropping with enough force to create a small avalanche.
"Are all Shadow People members this strong?" one of the surviving Death's Head soldiers gasped in disbelief.
The power behind that punch rivaled what they'd seen from the Red Wind Queen herself. Even the Hulk would have been staggered by such an attack.
But according to Caiera's own words, she wasn't enhanced or mutated—just the most naturally gifted member of her species.
Ben pulled himself from the rubble with an acrobatic flip, then did something that made Caiera's eyes widen in shock. He slapped his hand against the Omnitrix symbol on his chest.
"Duskwraith!" he announced.
Brilliant green light erupted around him, and when it faded, the crystalline warrior had vanished. In his place stood a silver-skinned humanoid wearing form-fitting black and white clothing—unmistakably a member of the Shadow People.
"Shadow People?" Caiera whispered, her voice filled with wonder and growing realization.
If she'd harbored any doubts about Ben being the Son of Sakaar, they were rapidly crumbling. The prophecies spoke of a savior who would embody all the peoples of Sakaar, who would unite the planet's scattered tribes under a single banner.
"Fight fire with fire," Ben said with a grin.
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