Chapter 2: Power Beyond Measure
The moment Ben launched himself from the ship, he knew something was different. This wasn't like any transformation he'd experienced before. His crystalline body moved through space like he'd been born for it, energy crackling between his fingers in patterns that seemed almost... familiar.
"What the hell—" The Green Lantern's voice cut through his comm as Ben streaked toward the battle. "Kid, get back! These things will suck you dry!"
One of the teardrop ships immediately swiveled its attention to him. A beam of that nasty yellow energy lanced out, the same stuff that had been making the Lantern's constructs flicker like dying candles.
Ben didn't think. He just reacted, throwing his hands up.
The beam hit his palms and died. Just stopped cold, like it had run into a brick wall made of pure stubbornness.
"Okay," Ben said, staring at his hands. "That's definitely not normal."
Even for him, that was saying something.
"Impossible," the Green Lantern breathed. "Nothing just blocks null-energy drain. Nothing."
Ben flexed his fingers, feeling power build in ways that made his usual alien forms seem like toys. "Yeah, well, impossible and I go way back."
He fired back at the ship without really thinking about it. Twin streams of what looked like liquid starlight erupted from his hands, and when they hit the vessel's hull, something incredible happened. The metal didn't explode or melt—it transformed. Turned crystalline and beautiful before crumbling away like sand.
"Whoa." Ben blinked. "I was not expecting that."
More ships converged on him, all firing those hungry yellow beams. Ben found himself in the middle of what should have been certain death. Instead, he felt amazing—like every beam that hit him was feeding him power instead of draining it.
Back on the ship, Gwen was going crazy over her readings. "Kevin, are you seeing this? Ben's not just blocking their attacks—he's reversing them somehow!"
Kevin's metal-enhanced fingers danced over the controls. "Look at the planet, Gwen."
She turned to the viewport and gasped. Xerion Prime's dying surface was coming back to life. The grey patches were turning green again, aurora displays flickering back into existence like someone had just flipped a cosmic light switch.
"He's healing it," she whispered. "Just by being there."
Ben was too busy playing cosmic pinball to notice. Three more ships had joined the attack, and he was having the time of his life batting their energy beams back at them like some kind of space-age tennis match.
"I'm Hal Jordan," the Green Lantern called out, his ring finally stabilizing as the drain effect around Ben weakened. "Green Lantern of Sector 2814. What exactly are you, kid?"
"Ben Tennyson," he replied cheerfully, casually dismantling another attack ship. "And right now, I'm your backup."
"Backup?" Hal stared as Ben literally caught an energy beam in his bare hands and crushed it like crumpled paper. "Kid, I think you've got that backwards."
That's when the big ship decided to join the party.
The thing was enormous—less like a spacecraft and more like someone had hollowed out a small moon and filled it with the galaxy's worst nightmare. Its surface pulsed with organic-looking circuits, all feeding power into something that made space itself seem to bend around it.
Ben's good mood evaporated. "Aw, come on. Why is there always a giant death machine?"
Hal's ring started screaming warnings. "Ben, we need to leave. Now. That's a stellar-drain array—it can suck the life out of an entire sun."
Ben looked down at his hands, where power continued to flow like he'd tapped directly into creation itself. The Omnitrix symbol on his chest was pulsing steadily, and he could swear he heard something in the back of his mind—like voices singing in harmony across impossible distances.
"Sorry, Hal," he said, surprising himself with how steady his voice sounded. "But I don't think running's an option."
The stellar-drain array fired.
What erupted from the Void Shepherd's flagship wasn't just an energy weapon—it was wrongness made manifest. A wave of absolute nothingness that devoured everything it touched: light, heat, matter, space itself. Ben had faced some seriously scary stuff in his career, but this was the first time he'd encountered something that made reality flinch.
Hal threw everything into his constructs, his will blazing like a green star. Ben could tell just by looking that it wouldn't be enough. This was what had been systematically murdering entire worlds.
The null-wave hit him square in the chest.
For a heartbeat, everything went dark.
Then Ben started to laugh.
Not his usual cocky teenager laugh—this was different. Like he'd just realized the universe's biggest inside joke. The null-wave wasn't destroying him. It was making him stronger. Every bit of nothingness it poured into him just made his crystalline form shine brighter.
"Are you kidding me?" he shouted at the massive ship. "That's your ultimate weapon? Dude, where I come from, we call that a light snack!"
Hal Jordan had seen a lot in his time as a Green Lantern. He'd fought cosmic entities, witnessed the birth of stars, and faced down threats that defied comprehension. But watching a sixteen-year-old from Earth treat a stellar-class weapon like an annoying mosquito? That was new.
Ben raised both hands above his head, and something impossible began forming between his palms. Not just energy—something more fundamental. Like watching the first moment when the universe decided that nothing was boring and maybe something would be more interesting.
"The Guardians," Hal muttered, his voice barely a whisper, "are never going to believe this."
Ben's grin could have lit up a solar system. "Better start believing, Green Lantern. Because I'm just getting warmed up."