Chapter Text
We open in outer space. A massive gunmetal grey ship is attacking a much smaller cyan ship, somewhere out near Jupiter. Now we go inside the larger ship:
"Hull damage: 25 percent. Weapons system's still 90 percent operational." The Bioid Lieutenant crackled with static as another blast rocked Vilgax's command deck. Behind the stasis tank's viscous green fluid, Vilgax's remaining eye twitched. Tendrils of regenerating flesh snaked across his half-melted face like living sutures.
"You said that before the *last* plasma surge," Vilgax growled. His voice bubbled unnaturally through the tank's speakers. On the viewscreen, the wreckage of the Galatrix transport spun lazily past Jupiter's storm belts. A single scorched escape pod blinked ominously on tactical displays—right above some backwater planet's atmosphere.
The Bioid hesitated. "Apologies, Warlord Vilgax Oraqar. But tactical suggests—"
"Suggests *what*?" Vilgax's fist slammed against the tank's interior, sending ripples through the fluid. "That we let some *primate* stumble upon the most powerful weapon in the galaxy? I have come too far to be denied. That half rate butcherer wasted his genius on a miniature freak show. But I will realize the Galatrix’s true potential, and it will be MY weapon, and there is not a being in the galaxy that DARES stand in my way!"
Meanwhile, on Earth, Benjamin A. Tennyson is seen sitting in school, crafting an origami kraken with fangs. He proceeds to gently place it inside of his book bag. The teacher turns around to write on the board to write about something everyone in here would forget by the time the bell rung for summer vacation.
The clock ticks in Benjamin's classroom; he looks at it uncaringly.
Origami kraken in his bag, folded neatly—its paper fangs sharper than his attention span. The teacher's back is turned, writing equations no one will remember by summer's end. Ben's foot taps a restless rhythm under the desk.
**Tick.**
**Tick.**
**Tick.**
"And I just want to remind you all that I will in fact be teaching summer school this year, and it's not too late to sign up."
Yeah, right, Benjamin was already top of the class, he didn't need it. He had photographic memory, perfect recall—could recite entire chapters from textbooks backwards if he wanted to. But grades weren't the problem. The problem was the way Ms. Peterson made all the lessons as dull as possible.
Benjamin sighed, tapping his fingers against the desk. The clock above the whiteboard might as well have been frozen in time. He glanced at his bag, where the origami kraken lay nestled between crumpled homework, assignments, tests, all with red A's written on them and a half-eaten granola bar.
The bell finally rung—a harsh electronic screech that made half the class wince. Benjamin didn't flinch. He was already halfway out of his seat when Ms. Peterson turned around, "Everyone, have a good vacation, and I hope to see you all again in the fall."
Benjamin follows behind everyone to the door, outside, the pair of kids Cash and JT back up another kid, James, into a tree.
"Normally, we'd take your money *and* your dignity," Cash sneered, cracking his knuckles with a sound like popcorn in a microwave. JT loomed behind him, twirling a stick he'd picked up—probably to poke things that didn't need poking. James pressed against the oak bark, backpack straps digging into his shoulders like overeager seatbelts.
Benjamin looked, and simply walked by, it wasn't his problem, he had better things to do, like get home and get ready for the road trip. But then, James looked at him for a brief moment—pleading, not with words, but with the kind of desperate silence you only get from someone who knows help isn't coming. Benjamin hesitated. His sneakers scuffed against the pavement.
"Leave him alone," Benjamin said, louder than he meant to. The words tasted weird in his mouth—like he'd bitten into something sour and was surprised it didn't taste like metal.
Cash snorted. "Get lost, lanky." The stick in his hands twirled faster, carving lazy circles in the air like a propeller about to take off. "Seriously. Walk away before we rearrange your face into something even your mom wouldn’t recognize."
Ben’s fingers curled into fists—not the tight, dramatic kind from action movies, but the loose, twitchy kind of someone who’d never actually thrown a punch outside of maybe VR. His throat clicked when he swallowed. "Like you're one to talk about being lanky," he shot back, stepping forward. "Your spine’s got more curves than a rollercoaster."
Cash blinked. JT burst out laughing—a sharp, honking sound—before elbowing Cash hard enough to make him wheeze. "He’s got you there, dude. You *do* look like a bendy straw somebody left in the sun too long."
Benjamin took another step forward, pulse hammering in his wrists. This was stupid. This was *so* stupid. He hadn’t even wanted to get involved—summer started in approximately six minutes, and he had zero interest in kicking it off with a black eye. But James was still pressed against the tree, eyes darting between them like he was calculating the exact velocity needed to bolt.
Then Cash lunged.
Benjamin flinched—*ducked*—and the world tilted sideways as JT’s stick whistled past his ear, smacking Cash square in the collarbone instead. Cash yowled. James took off running. JT stared at the stick in his hand like it had personally betrayed him.
And Benjamin? He was already halfway down the block, sneakers slapping pavement, laughter bubbling up raw in his chest.
Suddenly a rusty looking motor home (named the Rustbucket) pulled up in front of him. Max Tennyson leaned out the window, his bushy eyebrows raised high enough to disappear under his fishing hat. "You planning to run all the way to the lake, sport? Or you wanna save some energy for actually camping on this road trip?"
"Oh, I have so been looking forward to this Grandpa!" He exclaimed cheerfully, already forgetting he was out of breath and ran to jump into the motor home. He quickly noticed Gwen Tennyson sitting down at the table.
"Oh... hey Gwendolyn, so um... how have you been?"
Gwen rolled her eyes hard enough to strain an ocular muscle. "Don't 'Gwendolyn' me, Ben. This wasn't my idea." She snapped her gum like punctuation. "Somebody convinced my mom that 'fresh air builds character' or whatever and that as cousins who live in the same town we need to 'be closer' and Sunnie's at summer school."
"Well then don't 'Ben' me either, Gwendolyn, and I don't know how you two are twins" Benjamin shot back, flopping onto the bench seat hard enough to make the loose springs squeak. His fingers drummed the peeling laminate table as his eyes flicked between Gwen's meticulously organized pencil case and the smear of grape jelly on his own sleeve. "Neither do I to be honest."
"Also, last I checked, you were supposed to be at science camp dissecting alien frog-squid hybrids or whatever people who want to be geniuses do."
The Rustbucket lurched forward with a cloud of blue exhaust, Max humming off-key to some old country tune crackling through the radio speakers. Gwen scrunched her nose at the scent of burnt motor oil and Grandpa’s beef jerky stash fermenting under the driver’s seat. Benjamin, meanwhile, was already elbow-deep in the cooler, rooting for the last grape soda—his fingers closed around something cold and slimy.
"Ew! Grandpa, why is there a pickled egg in here?!" Ben yanked his hand back like he’d touched live wiring.
Max chuckled, adjusting the rearview mirror just enough to catch Gwen mouthing *told you so* at Ben’s disgusted face. "Emergency rations, kiddo. You never know when you might need it."
"Hopefully never," Ben muttered, wiping his hand on his grey-green cargo pants—the ones with the suspicious stain Gwen refused to let him explain.
"I can't believe it. I wait all school year to go on this trip, and now we're going to starve because Grandpa packs snacks that look like they were dug out of a dinosaur's stomach," Ben groaned, shaking the slime off his fingers and accidentally onto Gwen's meticulously organized backpack.
Gwen recoiled like he'd tossed a live grenade. "Ugh! You're *disgusting* sometimes, Ben!"
"Something tells me it's gonna be a long summer..." Max muttered quietly to himself as Gwen and Benjamin's argument escalated into a full-blown backpack war—Gwen's biology textbook smacking Ben square in the forehead while he retaliated by flicking one of his origami at her.
The Rustbucket quickly drove out of Bellwood, onto Route 66, Gwen and Benjamin still bickering in the backseat—until Gwen suddenly smacked her forehead. "Ugh, I just remembered! I left my experiment journal in my locker!"
Ben smirked, tossing another folded paper airplane—this one shaped like a seagull—at her. "Should've double-checked, Brainstorm. Guess you're not *perfect* after all."
Gwen grabbed the paper mid-air—only for it to burst into confetti. Ben had *definitely* been practicing.
Meanwhile, Vilgax's ship orbited Earth like a vulture, scanning for the Omnitrix's signal. His robotic lieutenant clanked forward, voice crackling through static. "Sensors detect intermittent energy spikes—consistent with Omnitrix activation. Location: terrestrial. Coordinates shifting."
Vilgax's tentacles coiled in fury inside his healing pod. "Track it. And *annihilate* anything—or anyone—standing between me and that device."
Much later in the day, the trio of Tennysons gathered in the woods around a table-bench. Max brought to the table a bucket full of pale, still-wriggling grub.
"It's chow time!"
Benjamin simply stared at it plainly, "...Okay, I give up Grandpa. What, is that supposed to be?
"They're marinated mealworms. Hard to find them fresh in the States. You know, they're considered a delicacy in some countries."
"And a crime against humanity in others?" Gwen retorted disgusted at the sight.
One of the worms fell out of the bucket and crawled onto the table, leaving behind a faint trail.
"If these don't sound good, I've got some baked cow's tongue in the fridge?"
"Grandpa, couldn't we just have some pizza or pancakes or something?"
Benjamin and Gwen smiled at Max pleadingly.
"Nope, this summer's gonna be an adventure for your taste buds! I'll grab the tongue.
"Okay, I think I remember something from those survival documentaries Grandpa made us watch," Benjamin muttered, nudging Gwen with his elbow. "Didn't they say you can eat, like, tree bark or something?"
Gwen blinked at him slowly. "*Pine* bark. And only in emergencies. Also, *you* were asleep drooling on my shoulder during that part."
"Still, think we can get away with doing that the whole summer?"
Benjamin whispered conspiratorially to Gwen, eyeing Max rummaging through the Rustbucket’s fridge. Gwen adjusted her ponytail, and sighed. "Doubt it. Grandpa’s got, like, a sixth sense for when we’re up to something."
Benjamin smirked. "Bet I can bypass it." He tossed a pebble toward Max's back—just as Grandpa turned, catching it mid-air without looking. Gwen snorted. "Sixth. Sense."
The two just began to sulk together.
Meanwhile, Vilgax's ship continued attacking the other, blasting lasers into the hull of it.
"Their propulsion systems have now been destroyed my lord."
"Prepare to begin boarding! I want the Galatrix, now."
The smaller ship primed its last-ditch laser, sputtering energy like a dying heartbeat. A single blast tore through Vilgax’s control room—fire engulfed the viewport, melted consoles, and sent robotic crew flying like shrapnel. Vilgax himself, half his face scorched to exposed circuitry, snarled as his ship retaliated with a world-ending payload. The cyan vessel nearly shattered.
But from the wreckage, a single escape pod blasted free—flaming, spinning, punching through Earth's atmosphere like a bullet through wet paper. It streaked over Vermont's forest, where Ben Tennyson was currently failing to roast a marshmallow without setting his entire stick on fire.
"Gimme that," Gwen snapped, yanking the flaming mess from his hands. She blew it out with one sharp exhale. "How are you this bad at *fire*?"
The marshmallow was now charcoal.
Ben shrugged. "Maybe I'm secretly a pyro-*can't*-ic."
Crickets chirped in response to that joke.
"Uh, I'm just gonna take a walk, Gwendolyn, tell Grandpa I'll be back in... well, probably never, if I'm lucky," Benjamin muttered, kicking at a pinecone as he stomped off into the woods. Gwen flipped a page of her book with surgical precision. "If you get eaten by a bear, I'm keeping your Game Boy Ben."
"Fair enough," Benjamin muttered, flicking the charred marshmallow into the bushes. His sneakers kicked up dust as he wandered deeper into the pines, the fading sunlight dappling through the branches like a bad Instagram filter.
As he walked he decided to let his probably way too long hair loose, he had been growing it out for about 2 years now and while Gwendolyn said he looked like a bum or a hippie but he rather liked it, it complemented his lucky shirt and cargo pants look nicely, well that's what he thought at least.
He wandered aimlessly, kicking a small rock ahead of him and watching the way it bounced off the dirt, when suddenly the forest ahead of him lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Whoa!" He jumped back, instinctively raising his arms in front of his face as a burning streak shot across the sky—not a shooting star, not a plane, but something with purpose. It banked hard, kicking up a sonic boom that sent pinecones raining down around him.
The meteor—correction: definitely NOT a meteor—slammed into the earth fifty yards ahead with a ground-shaking WHUMP. Dirt geysered into the air. Trees snapped like toothpicks.
Ben stood frozen, one sneaker half-raised mid-step. His brain short-circuited between "run" and "holy shit that was awesome." The choice got made for him when a shockwave of heat rolled through the woods, flinging him backward into a thorny bush.
"Ow! What the—" He clawed his way free just in time to see smoke curling from a fresh crater. Something inside pulsed neon green, casting eerie shadows up the dirt walls. His dumb curiosity won out. "Okay, Benjamin. Either this is NASA's lost space junk or you're about to get probed."
The pod hissed like a pissed-off rattlesnake, its seams glowing a dark radioactive green as Ben crept forward, knees wobbling like jelly in an earthquake. "Okay, Tennyson," he whispered to himself, fingers twitching near a snapped-off tree branch. "Either this thing's full of space candy—" The pod split open with a sound like a soda can getting stomped. "—or I'm gonna die so hard they'll find my bones in next year's geology field trip."
The Galatrix gleamed like toxic waste under moonlight, its surface shifting between liquid and solid like it couldn't decide which laws of physics to violate first. Ben's fingers hovered—close enough to smell the ozone, far enough to regret every life choice since breakfast.
"Okay," he whispered to the writhing green light. "You're either the coolest thing that ever fell outta space..." The device lunged. "...Or I just got adopted by Satan's smartwatch."
Metal met flesh with a sound like a soda can getting crushed in a fist. Tendrils shot out, wrapping around his wrist tighter than Gwen's death grip on her last brain cell. Ben's scream hit frequencies that'd make dogs pledge allegiance to squirrels.
"Get off me! Get off, get off! YOU GLOWING SPACE PARASITE—" Ben's scream hit decibels that'd make opera singers clutch their pearls as the Galatrix's tendrils burrowed under his skin with the enthusiasm of a starving tapeworm. The device beeped—an innocent sound, like a microwave finishing its cycle—right before his bones started rearranging themselves with the grace of a drunk accordion player.
Somewhere between "ow" and "OH GOD MY RIBS ARE ON FIRE," Benjamin's vision swam with neon-green afterimages. His lucky shirt fused to his chest as obsidian plates erupted across his torso like some demented puberty growth spurt. "Okay, okay, okay—" he wheezed, watching his hands swell into clawed mitts wreathed in cobalt flames "—this is fine, this is totally—WAH!"
His spine cracked like a glowstick, shooting him upright into a hulking eight-foot frame. Molten lava pulsed under jagged black rock armor as a five-spiked mohawk of pure blue fire erupted from his scalp. The watch's symbol—now a dark acidic green twin-diamond sigil—rested on his chest like a radioactive brooch.
"Aaah! I'm on fire! I'm on FIRE! Auuugh!" Benjamin's panic sent him tripping over a figure very similar to him seemed to have suddenly materialize seemingly out of thin air, assembling into a humanoid shape. Around the chest merged-diamond symbol from the watch. Benjamin realizes, from the chest and the hips, and the tiny singular eyelashes, that it looks… obviously female, if really scary looking. A fire lights up from within the construction.
"Forest fire! Forest freakin' fire!" Benjamin screamed, scrambling backward as the flaming doppelganger cocked her head—her entire magma-glowing as panic filled her eyes.
"Wait, I’m not a forest fire I think, promise!"
"Stop, drop, and roll!"
"Do you think I'm gonna hurt you?!"
Benjamin stumbled backward, his new feet kicking up and burning dirt, Yeah… and still do, kinda… if I'm being perfectly honest."
"What reason do I even have to hurt you, Hot Shot?"
Benjamin, now dubbed Hotshot began to calm down, "Hey... I'm on fire and,... I'm okay, and so are you!"
"Just okay? Check it out... I'm like totally hot! Like, literally!" She flexed her rocky arms, sending embers cascading into the night air. The blue crust along her knuckles cracked as she punched her palm, producing a shower of sparks.
Benjamin—no, Hot Shot now thought he was doing the closest thing he could to blushing, despite the fact that she looked terrifying—and kinda hot. Literally. Her rocky exterior pulsed with internal fire, cracks revealing molten veins beneath. She stretched, popping a shoulder with a sound like splitting granite, then smirked at him.
She soon spotted a tree behind him, "Oh yeah, uh-huh! Here goes nothing!"
Hot Shot barely had time to process before she slung her wrist forward, shooting out a fireball out of her finger, blowing a branch off the tree entirely. She grinned—or what counted as grinning when your face was made of shifting volcanic rock—and cracked her knuckles with a sound like splitting granite. "Not bad for my first shot, huh?"
Benjamin—still stuck in his own flaming form—stared. "Dude. Did you just—"
"—turn a oak tree into kindling?" She flicked her wrist, igniting her fingertips like a lighter. "Yep. And the word's 'dudette,' Hot Shot."
Benjamin blinked. Or tried to. His new eyelids felt weird, sliding over his molten core like tectonic plates. "Wait, you *named* me?"
She shrugged, sending embers cascading off her shoulders. "Seemed fitting. You scream like a tea kettle."
"Well, what's your name then, Lava Lips?" Hot Shot shot back, flexing his own flaming fingers—only to yelp when a stray spark singed his improvised Mohawk. The female pyro alien snorted, rolling her molten eyes.
"I don't know, how about you give me one Hot Shot?" she taunted, spinning her hands clockwise until twin fire-whips coiled around her forearms like punk bondage gear. The tree branch she'd vaporized earlier smoldered between them, filling the clearing with the scent of charred pine sap. Her posture was pure swagger—hips cocked, molten shoulders rolling with the confidence of someone who'd definitely been in bar fights.
"How about... Heatblast?" Benjamin ventured, rubbing his still-smoldering wrist where the watch had fused to his skin.
The female pyro alien paused mid-fire-twirl, her molten eyebrows—if you could call the ridges above her lidless eyes *eyebrows*—lifting in consideration. The flames composing her body crackled louder for a second before she smirked. "Eh. Good enough."
She then created a larger fireball between her hands, smiling, "I'm lovin' it!"
She shot it through five trees instead of one. Her smile quickly dropped though as he sees the fire spreading to other trees.
"Wait! Stop Heatblast-ing—oh man, I just did it too!" Hot Shot scrambled after Heatblast as she sprinted through the burning underbrush, her flaming footsteps igniting dry leaves in her wake. His own emerald-green crusted knees clicked like tectonic plates with every stride, the blue magma veins pulsing under his rocky skin. "We gotta—*ack!*—put that out before Grandpa finds out we set the state park on fire!"
Heatblast skidded to a stop, kicking up a spray of molten embers that lit another patch of dry grass. "Whoopsie-daisies," she muttered, watching the flames spread with the detached curiosity of someone who'd never seen a forest fire up close. Her flames danced higher, casting long shadows across the clearing—shadows that contorted unnaturally as Hot Shot barreled into her from behind, his jagged emerald plating clinking against her superheated form.
"Watch the merchandise!" Heatblast yelped, spinning with flames, "We got a do a backfire Heatblast!" He grabbed Heatblast's wrists, their flames merging into a swirling column of blue and purple. The forest around them crackled—branches snapping underfoot as Benjamin stumbled back, eyes wide at the unnatural heat coiling between them. "Dude—DUDE! Are we fusion-dancing or—?"
The fire pulsed. Then split.
Meanwhile Max sat by the campfire outside the Rustbucket, "Hmm. Benjamin's been gone a while. Well, I guess he can't get into too much trouble out here, not that he ever does anymore."
"Come on Grandpa, Ben's a lot of things, but he hasn't been a doofus for 2 years. Not since—"as Gwen walked out, both seeing smoke in the distance.
"What's that Grandpa?"
"Looks like the start of a forest fire. We better let the Rangers' Station know. Probably some damn fool camper out there, messing around with something they shouldn't be."
Max then paused, before he and Gwen came to the exact same realization.
"Benjamin!"
"Ben!"
Max quickly opened a camping kit and grabs two fire extinguishers and passed one to Gwen. "Alright Gwen, you take the left flank and I'll take the right-" but Gwen was already sprinting towards the smoke, fire extinguisher in hand. Max was still in disbelief at his granddaughter's initiative but quickly followed after.
Meanwhile, Hot Shot was making backfires around the forest floor as Heatblast was attempting and failing to do the same.
"See? You gotta—wait, no, don't swing your arms like that—urgh!" Hot Shot grabbed Heatblast's wrists mid-flail, redirecting his wild arcs of flame into a controlled spiral. Their combined firelight cast flickering shadows across the clearing, illuminating the panic in Hot Shot's widened eyes. "Focus, dingus! We gotta burn counterclockwise or we torch the whole state!"
"This would be so cool, if it weren't so uncool Hot Shot! You're cooking us alive!" Heatblast hissed as their shared flames spiraled outward in erratic coronas, scorching bark down to blackened skeletal remains of trees. The alien firestorm smelled suspiciously like burnt cafeteria pizza—probably Benjamin's last meal haunting them. Somewhere beneath their mingling panic, the Galatrix pulsed against Benjamin's wrist with each synchronized heartbeat, feeding the wildfire like gasoline on sibling rivalry.
Across the clearing, Gwen's sneakers kicked up dry earth as she skidded to a halt, fire extinguisher now spraying at Heatblast's back, causing her to turn around to look at her, Gwen's eyes wide.
"Look Gwendolyn, I know I look weird, and she looks weird, but there's no reason to be scared—"
The extinguisher foam hit Hot Shot square in the face.
"—OF THIS!" Gwen shrieked, swinging the canister like a battering ram into Heatblast's ribcage. The impact sent embers scattering—which, naturally, ignited three new patches of underbrush.
"I don't know what you two are, but you'll stay down there if you know what's good for you!" Gwen yelled, brandishing the dented fire extinguisher like a medieval mace. Her ponytail swung wildly as she pivoted between the flaming twins—Hot Shot crouched in a defensive stance while Heatblast rubbed her crystallized ribs with ember-coated fingers. The Galatrix's interface pulsed sickly green between them, synced waveforms distorting more and more.
"Ow!" Gwen hopped on one foot, scowling at her smoldering sneaker. "I warned you!" She raised the dented extinguisher like a club—only for the weapon to freeze mid-swing as recognition flashed across her face when she realized her name had been said. "... Ben? Is that you? And who the fuck is she?"
"Well, when I was walking, this meteor fell from the sky and almost smudged me, except that it wasn't a meteor or a satellite, but this cool watch thing that jumped up onto my wrist, and when I tried to get it off, I suddenly was on fire and she just appeared out of nowhere only it didn't hurt when she was accidentally starting this mega forest fire!"
Gwen's extinguisher nozzle twitched between the two flaming figures—one crouched like a caged wildfire, the other flickering with nervous energy that made the surrounding trees sweat sap. "Let me get this straight," Gwen said, kicking dirt onto her still-smoking shoelaces. "You found a magical space watch that turned you into that terrifying thing—"
She gestured towards him.
"—and summoned her out of nowhere like some twisted jack-in-the-box?" Gwen finished, frost creeping into her voice as she jabbed the extinguisher at Heatblast. The alien girl blew a raspberry, sending a spiral of embers curling toward Gwen’s knees.
"Yeah pretty much!" Heatblast blurted out, throwing her arms wide—which Gwen immediately regretted as twin jets of flame scorched the bark off nearby pines.
Suddenly Grandpa Max came running in, just as Heatblast was mid-explanation. He skidded to a halt, eyes wide behind his sunglasses as he took in the scene: Gwen holding a half-melted extinguisher, Ben—still fully transformed into Hot Shot—crouched defensively, and the new, fiery girl-alien blowing smoke rings with bored disinterest.
"Okay, kids," Max said slowly, adjusting his hat. "Either I forgot to take my vitamins this morning, or-"
"Hey, sorry Grandpa, but uh, major forest fire burning out of control, remember?!" Hot Shot barked, sparks popping from his shoulder vents as he gestured wildly at the inferno.
"Oh right."
The four quickly ran out. Heatblast and Hot Shot found some trees a distance away, then shot them with a beam of fire, causing a new blaze.
A ranger quickly came across the burnt-out forest.
Up above the Earth, Vilgax's ship had a damaged bridge, and an incredibly mutilated Vilgax floated in a stasis tank.
Vilgax boomed to the Bioid Lieutenant, even with labored breathing, "What do you mean it's not there? This battle nearly costs me my life and my mind! And you say the Galatrix is no longer on board the transport?!"
The Bioid Lieutenant's metallic voice buzzed, "Sensors indicate a probe was jettisoned from the ship just before boarding. It landed on the planet below." Vilgax's tentacles twitched inside the stasis tank, his one remaining eye dilating with fury. "Then send the Vrexian Hunter Drones," he hissed, organic fluids leaking from his cracked exoskeleton. "Scour that mudball until—" A sudden convulsion wracked his body. The tank's nutrient fluid darkened with ichor.
Meanwhile, the quartet ate marshmallows by the fire, Heatblast bad just explained to Max everything she knew, which wasn't much.
"And you don't remember anything before appearing next to my grandson?" Max asked, eyeing Heatblast—or rather, the scorched, confused woman who'd somehow split from Ben's transformation like a misfired clone. Her flames flickered uncertainly.
Heatblast rubbed her temple, molten hair hissing against her fingers. "Just... fire. And screaming. Mostly yours." She nodded at Gwen, who flinched.
Across the clearing, Hot Shot started to mope, "I'm gonna stay a monster forever..." The alien form's voice crackled like burning timber—too deep, too rough, completely unlike Benjamin's usual tone.
"Hey!" Heatblast scoffed, clearly offended, crossing her arms—which sent embers cascading onto Gwen's sneakers again. "Who's calling who creepy? Were the hottest people around." She gestured at herself and then back at Hot Shot.
"I'm sorry, but I don't wanna be 'fire guy' forever. How am I supposed to make my special origami this fall if I charcoal the paper every time I fold a crane?" Benjamin pouted, staring at his flaming fingers. Heatblast rolled her glowing eyes—literally rolled, the irises spinning like molten marbles before settling back into place.
"Don't worry, Benjamin. We'll figure this thing out together, as a family."
The Galatrix symbol on Heatblast and Hot Shot's chest suddenly started to beep and flashed red five times, then let out a blinding light towards Max and Gwen. When they opened their eyes, Benjamin was standing in front of them, human and all again, and Heatblast was now gone.
"Hah! I'm me aga—wait, what happened to Heatblast?! Did I just... kill her?" Benjamin stared at his hands, flexing his fingers like they might spontaneously combust again. Gwen backed away slowly, pressing her extinguisher nozzle tighter. The forest air smelled like burnt marshmallows and existential panic.
The Galatrix flickered a toxic dark green against Benjamin's wrist—a silent taunt. He barely noticed.
A pod shot from Vilgax's ship above orbit, landing deep in the woods, next to the Galatrix's pod. Revealing itself as a gigantic Mechadroid (the shadowed one from before), it scanned and promptly disintegrated the pod in the crash site, and ejected smaller flying Mechadroids from its shoulders to go find the watch.
Benjamin fiddled with the Galatrix, "S-she can't be dead right?"
Max rubbed his chin, "I don't think so, there's still a fire siloute on your watch right?"
Benjamin looked at the Galatrix, "Y-yeah... but still... Look Grandpa. If I can figure this thing out, maybe I can help people. I mean, really help them! Not just, you know, make things worse... but what if..."
Gwen started to walk over, "So, what did it feel like going all a scary alien monster like that?"
Benjamin clutched his wrist, the Galatrix pulsing faintly green. "It freaked me out at first," he muttered, staring at the flickering silhouette of Heatblast trapped within the interface. "But it's like... I wasn't just me anymore. Like I wasn't scared. Like she—like it didn't even think about consequences."
Max frowned. "Synaptic override. The form influences the host."
Benjamin jerked his head up. "What?"
Max rubbed his chin. "I read about it in a—never mind. Point is, those forms ain't just costumes, Benjamin. They can influence you since your body is altered so much."
Benjamin shuddered, staring at the Galatrix. "So Heatblast wasn't just girl me also with fire powers? She was... her own thing?" His voice cracked.
Gwen wrinkled her nose. "Duh. You turned into a literal walking bonfire, Ben. Of course it wasn't just you with a tan." She jabbed a finger at the Galatrix's pulsing interface. "That thing rewired your brainmeats. You screamed like a toddler when I sprayed you with the extinguisher—total personality override."
Benjamin flinched as the watch emitted a low, warning hum. The Heatblast silhouette flickered—not gone, but trapped behind glassy green pixels. His fingers trembled near the activation dial. "What if... what if I press it again and she's just... deleted?" The words tasted like battery acid.
Max's boot scuffed dirt. "Only one way to find out, kiddo." His voice held the grim patience of a man who'd seen UFOs crash in the Nevada desert. "But maybe aim for something less... combustible this time."
A twig snapped thirty yards east. Too heavy for wildlife.
Gwen spun, shovel raised—just as a flying Mechadroid burst through the pines, its laser sights painting a red dot between Benjamin's eyes.
"DOWN!" Max tackled them both as the beam vaporized a spruce tree behind them. The Galatrix's hum spiked into a shriek.
Benjamin's thumb slipped.
The dial spun wildly—landing on a silhouette Gwen didn't recognize: something with too many spines and a hunched posture. Benjamin barely had time to gulp before emerald light swallowed him whole. Bones cracked. Skin split.
Where Benjamin had crouched now loomed Brutebeast—a hulking, purple eyeless nightmare of corded muscle and jagged keratin spikes. Saliva dripped from an underbite studded with yellowed fangs as five gill-slits on its neck flared, sniffing the air. Gwen's stomach lurched.
And next to him was Wildmutt—because what else would you name her?
"Ew! This thing's even uglier than the last one! Hah, wow, put a flea collar on these things! And no eyes? What good is this one? It can't see!"
The air gulped audibly—Brutebeast’s neck gills flaring, nostrils snapping open like fleshy trapdoors as Gwen’s voice ricocheted through the clearing. Musk glands under his forearms pulsed thick sap-smelling pheromones. Wildmutt’s claws dug into the dirt—her own gill-slits vibrating in syncopated distress.
Brutebeast swung his spinal crest sideways—spines catching vibrations—just as Wildmutt lunged. Their bodies collided midair, tumbling through saplings in a snarling knot of keratin spikes and matte-black claws. Gwen scrambled backward, extinguisher spraying wildly.
They soon both went running back to the forest, Brutebeast's gill-slits flared wide, drinking in the scent trails like a bloodhound catching the wind. Wildmutt bounded ahead, her own sensory quills twitching—their shared blindness irrelevant when the world vibrated with heat signatures and pheromones.
"Ben—Ben, stop!" Gwen's voice cracked as Brutebeast's spinal crest twitched mid-pounce. The alien's underbite dripped saliva onto her sneaker. "You're freaking me out!"
Brutebeast's gill-slits pulsed. Something in Gwen's scent—sharp, acrid, human—made his haunches lower. Wildmutt circled them both, her own quills bristling in warning. Then the ground trembled.
A Mechadroid's metallic foot crushed a pine trunk twenty yards away. Its shoulder cannons whirred, scanning the thermal chaos of three heat signatures where there should've been two. Brutebeast's nostrils flared at the stench of ionized plasma.
Gwen grabbed a rock. "Okay, new plan—you two sniff out its weak spot, I'll—"
Wildmutt pounced first. Her claws screeched against the droid's chassis as Brutebeast barreled into its knee joint. The impact sent cracks spiderwebbing through the armor. Gwen's rock bounced harmlessly off its optic sensor.
"Really? That's your weak spot?" She ducked as a laser seared the air above her head. "Ben, if you're in there—DO SOMETHING COOL!"
Brutebeast roared. His jaws clamped onto the droid's arm cannon and twisted—metal groaned, circuits sparked—until the entire limb tore free in a shower of hydraulic fluid. Wildmutt seized the moment, vaulting onto its back and driving her claws deep into the neural housing.
The Mechadroid exploded.
Gwen coughed through the smoke. "Okay. That was... actually kind of—"
Brutebeast's head snapped sideways. His gills flared at a new scent: ozone and rust. Five more heat signatures pulsed in the treeline.
"—a problem," Gwen finished weakly.
Wildmutt yowled—half challenge, half panic—as the squad of drones leveled their weapons. Brutebeast shoved Gwen behind a boulder with his flank just as the world dissolved into laserfire.
The Mechadroid started to spark. They all ran away before it exploded.
Brutebeast's spinal crest twitched—each keratin spike vibrating like a tuning fork as the shockwave rolled over him. The explosion's scent bloomed in his gill-slits: burnt metal, ionized air, and beneath it all—Gwen's sweat, sour with fear. Wildmutt circled him, her own quills bristling at the residual heat. Their alien instincts screamed *danger* even as their shared human core recognized something worse: five more Mechadroid signatures clicking online in the smoke.
They made their way back towards the RV, Gwen’s sneakers kicking up loose gravel while Brutebeast padded beside her, his gill-slits flaring at every shift in the wind. Wildmutt—Brutebeast's counterpart—lingered at the treeline, her own heat-sensitive quills twitching towards the wreckage. The air smelled like burning insulation and something Gwen couldn’t place—ozone, maybe, or whatever alien fuel powered that tin-can army.
"Alright, listen up, furball," Gwen said, snapping her fingers near Brutebeast’s face. His jaws parted—not to bite, but in confusion. "We need a *plan*. Those things *know* we’re here, and unless you’ve got a secret ‘turn-into-a-tank’ mode hidden in that watch, we are *screwed*."
Brutebeast growled low in his throat—not angry, but *thinking* then the Galatrix beeped again—when suddenly, he was human again for the second time that evening.
Benjamin collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, gasping. "Uh… did I just *eat* part of that robot?" His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. Gwen stared at him, then at the scorch marks where Wildmutt had vanished mid-leap.
"Gross," Gwen said. Then she smacked him upside the head.
Just then the radio in the Rustbucket went off, "Mayday! Mayday! Somebody help us! We're under attack by some sort of, andI know you're not going to believe me, but… robots!"
Benjamin looked at the Galatrix, its dark acidic green glow pulsing like a heartbeat. He hesitated—these weren't just transformations anymore. Every alien form rewired his brain, pressing foreign instincts into his skull like hot brands. He shuddered, remembering the metallic aftertaste of shredded droid plating clinging to his human tongue.
Gwen yanked him up by the collar. "Hey, Droolmaster 3000! Focus!" Benjamin blinked at her, then at the Galatrix, and then at Max who was coming out of the Rustbucket holding a shotgun. Like, an actual shotgun.
Benjamin, Gwen, and Max all went into the woods for Benjamin to transform in secret. The Omnitrix beeped and lit up ominously in standby. Benjamin looks at Max, who nods in approval.
"Eenie, meenie, miney… you."
Benjamin's finger hovered over the Galatrix's dial, its acidic green light casting jagged shadows across his face. The silhouette he landed on was angular—brutal. Something about the way its spine arched in the hologram made his human skin prickle. He exhaled through his teeth and slammed the dial down.
Crystalfist emerged in a burst of dark pink refraction. Gwen stumbled back as his four back-shards scraped against a tree trunk with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. He flexed his clawed hands—black as oil spills—and rolled his neck with a series of audible *clicks*.
"Whoa," Benjamin's voice echoed inside the helmet-like skull, but it wasn't *his* voice. It was deeper. Hungrier. "This one's *pissed*."
Gwen swallowed hard. "Uh. Cool spikes?"
Crystalfist's lavender eyes locked onto her. A low, grinding chuckle vibrated from his chest, next to him was another female counterpart of him, only having two back-spikes and being curvier. Gwen took another step back as his claws twitched—not like Benjamin's nervous fidgeting, but like a predator counting seconds until pounce.
"So what can this guy and her do?"
Crystalfist tilted his helmeted head toward Gwen—too slow, too deliberate. The female counterpart beside him flexed her claws with a sound like glass shattering under pressure. "Hunt," she rasped, her voice dripping with something that wasn't quite Benjamin's sarcasm. It was colder. Sharper.
"I'm calling you Diamondhead," Gwen blurted, staring at Crystalfist's female counterpart's jagged silhouette against the sunset. The name slipped out before she could stop it—something about the way her shards caught the light made her think of fractured mirrors and bad luck.
The newly minted Diamondhead stared at Gwen and Crystalfist with gemstone eyes that didn't blink. "You're both creeping me out," Gwen admitted, stepping back as the female counterpart's claws *tinked* against each other like wind chimes made of knives.
Crystalfist crouched low, his dark pink plating shifting with unnatural smoothness—like liquid stone. "Prey moves," he muttered, his voice gravelly but weirdly melodic, like someone had tuned a cello wrong. Behind him, Diamondhead's posture mirrored his, spines flaring in unison. Gwen's stomach lurched. *They're syncing*.
The quartet soon arrived to see Vilgax's gigantic Mechadroid attacking a campsite full of RVs and people were screaming.
Diamondhead's gemstone eyes narrowed. "Looks like the main robot," she muttered, het voice eerily harmonic—like wind whistling through canyon cracks. Beside her, Crystalfist's clawed fingers flexed with a sound like grinding tectonic plates. His dark pink plating rippled under the firelight, the four dorsal shards on his back vibrating at frequencies that made Gwen's molars ache.
The Mechadroid's central eye pulsed crimson, scanning. Targeting. With a hydraulic hiss, its shoulder panels slid open, revealing rows of serrated rotary blades.
Gwen swallowed hard. "Uh. Ben? Those look like they *chew through mountains*."
Crystalfist didn't blink. "Good."
Then he *moved*.
One moment he was coiled like a spring; the next, he was airborne—a dark blur shearing through the Mechadroid's leg joint in a shower of sparks. Diamondhead followed mid-leap, her crystalline fists morphing into jagged spears mid-swing. They struck in perfect tandem: Crystalfist's claws wedged deep into the droid's chest plating while Diamondhead's spear-hand punched clean through its optic sensor.
The Mechadroid staggered.
Gwen didn't have time to cheer—because the severed rotary blades were still spinning. Right toward Max.
"GRANDPA—!"
Diamondhead twisted midair, her body elongating into a living shield. The blades screeched against her gemstone skin, fracturing her left arm into a thousand glittering shards.
Crystalfist roared—not in pain, but in *recognition*. His lavender eyes locked onto Diamondhead's shattered limb, pupils contracting to slits. Something primal passed between them. A silent pact.
"You..." Crystalfist started, "Leave him alone. Or do you want somebody to fully annihilate you?" His voice crackled like tectonic plates shifting, each syllable grinding out with lethal precision. The Mechadroid's remaining optic flickered toward him—just in time to catch the dark orange blur of Crystalfist's fist plowing through its chest cavity. Circuits ruptured. Hydraulic fluid geysered. Diamondhead lunged from the wreckage, her shattered arm reforming mid-swing into a serrated glaive that sheared the droid's head clean off.
Gwen didn’t have time to process the synchronized brutality—because the forest erupted with the screech of five more Mechadroids descending through the canopy. Max yanked her behind a smoldering RV, his grip tight enough to bruise. "Stay down!" he barked, but Gwen was already squirming free, eyes locked on Benjamin’s.
Crystalfist didn’t turn. Didn’t blink. His lavender eyes burned brighter as the new droids fanned out. "Let the hunt begin," he rasped, voice like gravel dragged over steel. Diamondhead mirrored his stance—her joints locked, gemstone skin refracting the firelight into jagged neon splinters.
Gwen gulped. *Not fully Ben. Not anymore.* The way they moved—too fluid, too *together*—like they'd fought side-by-side for decades. Crystalfist's jagged silhouette shifted under the firelight, his plating clicking as he rolled his shoulders. Those clawed black hands flexed, and the spikes along his arms gleamed wet with hydraulic fluid.
"Grandpa," Gwen whispered, fingers digging into Max's sleeve. "His eyes—"
Lavender. Not much human left in them.
The nearest Mechadroid lunged, rotary blades screeching. Crystalfist didn't dodge—he *leaned* into the slash, letting serrated steel skitter off his collarbone spikes in a shower of violet sparks. "That tickles," he growled, then uppercut the droid so hard its torso spun like a top before detonating against a pine tree. Diamondhead was already moving, her glaive-arm splitting the second droid vertically. The bisected halves hit the dirt with synchronized thuds.
Gwen's breath hitched. They weren't fighting. They were *performing*. Every dodge, every counterstrike—mirror images. When Crystalfist pivoted on his heel to backhand a third droid's optic cluster, Diamondhead was already there, driving her crystalline knee into its spine. The impact sent shockwaves through the forest floor.
Max's walkie crackled. "—repeat, evac helicopters inbound—"
The transmission dissolved into static as Crystalfist's jagged elbow vaporized a droid's thorax plate. Gwen watched, transfixed, as indigo shards rained down—each fragment refracting the battlefield into kaleidoscopic carnage. His movements weren't just aggressive; they were *theatrical*. Shoulder spikes glistening with machine oil, he spun into a roundhouse kick that sent a droid caroming into Diamondhead's waiting fist. The impact sounded like a chandelier shattering inside a cathedral.
Max and Gwen had saved the ranger in the meantime. As the action unfolded, Diamondhead and Crystalfist synchronized their attacks on the remaining Mechadroids with terrifying efficiency. The battlefield was a blur of crystalline shards, hydraulic fluid, and the eerie now dark purple glow of Crystalfist's slitted eyes.
Diamondhead’s glaive-arm carved through another droid’s torso with surgical precision, while Crystalfist crushed a second’s core with a single punch.
"What the fuck is going on here?!"
"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you sir," Gwen muttered under her breath, watching Crystalfist's fingers—*too long, too sharp*—twitch toward another droid's sparking remains. The lavender glow in his eyes pulsed with each hydraulic hiss from the wreckage.
Max's flashlight beam cut through the smoke, illuminating Diamondhead crouched over a disembodied droid limb, her gemstone pupils dilating as she rotated the metal joint with *too much* fascination. "They're studying them," Max whispered, grip tightening on Gwen's shoulder. "Like predators cataloging prey."
A twig snapped. Both aliens snapped their heads toward the sound, movements eerily synchronized. Crystalfist's throat emitted a low, rattling purr that didn't belong to any Earthly animal. Gwen's stomach lurched when she realized—*Benjamin hadn't made that sound. Whatever was wearing his face did.*
The last droid's core detonated fifty yards away, painting the trees in brief violet light. In that frozen second, Gwen saw it—Diamondhead's fingers twitching toward the sparking wreckage, her pupils contracting to predatory slits. Not scavenging. *Salivating.*
Crystalfist crouched beside her, his breathing oddly rhythmic—inhaling through flared unseen nostrils, exhaling in short, clicking rasps. Studying. Learning. Gwen's skin prickled. Those weren't Benjamin's mannerisms. Those weren't even *human* tics.
"Uh, guys?" Max's boot crunched on shattered plating. Both aliens whipped toward him with unsettling synchronicity, light and dark purple eyes flaring. The old man froze mid-step. "Bad time?"
Diamondhead's arm-glaive retracted with a crystalline *shink*. "Negative," she chirped—too high, too bright, like someone had overlaid Benjamin's voice with digital static.
Crystalfist tilted his head. His neck joints popped again. "What comes around, goes around you technical abomination." He spat at the wreckage, saliva sizzling where it hit exposed wiring. Gwen had never seen Ben's spit *do that* before. His pupils—slitted like a lizard's—dilated as he inhaled through flared unseen nostrils. The scent of burning metal made his lips peel back in something that wasn't quite a smile. Too many teeth. All pointed.
Then suddenly they both left, running as fast as they could.
"Who the hell were those creeps?"
Gwen and Max quietly tiptoed away, leaving the other campers and the ranger shrugging to one another.
Meanwhile, Vilgax's ship was being repaired by drones. The alien warlord floating in the healing tank on the bridge, his tentacles twitching in irritation. His single eye fixed on the holographic footage of Diamondhead and Crystalfist tearing through his Mechadroids like they were made of wet paper.
**"Failure?"** His voice bubbled through the nutrient fluid, warping into something unrecognizable. **"Unbelievable. The Galatrix is bonding with that puny Earth being that is keeping the Galatrix from me. They will soon hang on my trophy wall. And I will peel the dermis from their bones while they watch."** The drones welding his ship's hull paused—just for a microsecond—before resuming their repairs. Even machines knew terror when they heard it.
Across the forest, Benjamin Tennyson didn't feel like a trophy. He felt *wrong*. His skin prickled where Diamondhead's crystalline shards had retracted minutes earlier, leaving ghostly itches beneath the surface. The Omnitrix pulsed green on his wrist like a second heartbeat—too fast, too hungry. Gwen was staring at him. Again.
"Dude. You *growled* at that coolant leak." Max tossed a granola bar at Ben's chest. It bounced off untouched. "Like, actual predatory growling. With teeth."
Benjamin blinked down at his hands—pale, human, *wrongly* smooth where Diamondhead's crystalline edges had been moments ago. The Galatrix's dial glowed faintly under his sleeve. He flexed his fingers. No spikes. No claws. Just nails and his deep tan from the odd jobs he did around Bellwood.
And yet—
His pulse thrummed in his throat like it was trying to *escape*.
Because he *remembered*.
After that they all went to sleep after possibly the weirdest day in their lives.
Ben awoke to the sensation of his skin *crawling*. Not metaphorically—actual ridges and cracks of that now all too familiar alien glow were pushing through his pores as the Galatrix's green glow pulsed in the dark tent. He clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the scream, wanting to use it again, afraid he'd scream with the wrong voice—again.
He dialed through the watch again—and it landed on a glyph he'd never seen before. The pulse of green light engulfed him, and then Benjamin Tennyson wasn't Benjamin Tennyson anymore.
**"Rush."**
The word slithered out of his mouth—his *new* mouth—in a voice that wasn't his. It was sharper. Hungrier. His limbs thrummed with kinetic potential, like coiled springs ready to snap. Light grey skin stretched over wiry muscle, gunmetal armor chitin clicking into place along his forearms, shoulders, and the jagged dorsal fins sprouting from his spine. His helmet—conoid, seamless—hissed as it sealed around his skull, leaving only his orange eyes and a thin, emotionless slit where his mouth should be.
Next to him was yet another female counterpart to Ruah. She was fast—her skin was a glossy, reflective silver, her limbs elongated and streamlined for speed.
Rush hissed—literally *hissed*—through the slit in his helmet as the Galatrix's green glow pulsed against the tent fabric. His dorsal fins vibrated with barely contained energy, gunmetal armor clicking like impatient teeth.
"Hello there... XLR8!" He said quickly, bouncing from foot to foot, his dorsal fins humming with restrained energy. His voice was deeper and more metallic than Ben's, and it echoed slightly inside his helmet. "So... we going to race or what? Or are you just gonna stand there looking all... shiny?"
XLR8 blinked—if she even had eyelids under that glossy silver faceplate—and tilted her head as quickly as Rush did. "You mean me?"
"Yep! Your name's XLR8 now!" Rush blurted out, already bouncing on the balls of his feet—except "bouncing" didn't quite cover it. His entire body *vibrated* at the edges, gunmetal armor blurring like a hummingbird's wings. The tent fabric fluttered from the displaced air. "And I'm Rush! Which is—y'know—*way* cooler." He jabbed a four-clawed thumb at his own chestplate. "Speedster to speedster. Meep meep, bitch."
XLR8's silver faceplate rippled—some alien equivalent of a raised eyebrow. "Did you just *meep* at me? And what does *mmep* mean"
Before Rush could retort, he ran, it was a race now—whether XLR8 wanted it or not. Trees blurred into streaks of color as his clawed feet dug into the dirt, propelling him forward with a sonic *crack*. His dorsal fins shuddered, redirecting air currents like spoilers on a race car. He wasn’t just fast. He was *engineered*.
XLR8 flickered into existence beside him—no, *ahead* of him—her silver form a liquid smear against the predawn gloom. “Cute fins,” she taunted, voice digitized and sleek. “Do they come with training wheels?”
Rush’s helmet slit hissed static. *Training wheels?* His claws flexed. The Galatrix pulsed against his wrist, feeding him data—terrain, wind resistance, *her* heartbeat. He could *taste* her speed like copper on his tongue. “Nah,” he growled. “But I *do* come with *this*—”
He *twisted*.
The world inverted.
One second, he was behind her. The next, his spiked elbow grazed her shoulder as he *ricocheted* off a boulder, using the impact to slingshot ahead. XLR8’s optics flared—surprise? Annoyance?—before she *blurred* past him again.
Rush’s laugh rattled inside his helmet. This wasn’t racing. This of course, meant *war*.