The small ship dodged and ran circles around the much larger ship following it, in the hopes to overwhelm it with speed. There was too much at risk, and while the larger ship had heavy artillery and an alien hell bent on owning the universe at his leisure.
If only the cloaking function would work, though there was no indication to the pilot that there had even been one successfully implemented given the time restraints. A swear echoed through the cockpit.
The much larger spacecraft unfortunately grew tired of the chase and gained the upperhand long enough to plow its enemy straight through a particularly gap free range of asteroid belt.
They managed to forcefully jerk away to the side, the entire ship rattling as it did so. Red overhead lights flashed in contrast to the green glow of the controls.
They probably wouldn't have enough energy to get to their exact planned route but they had to get the tyrant and his crew off their trail long enough to at least make a pit stop.
They however did have enough remaining power to incapacitate their assailant, enough to be a nasty thorn in his side.
"Haul damage 20%." a dark figure supplied, observing a glowing circular monitor. "Systems still operational." he turned to face his leader.
The small ship veered further away from the astral belt, in open space.
Pupiless red eyes narrowed at the sight before him. "I have come too far to be denied. The Omnitrix shall be mine!" Long fingers shook, palm turned upwards almost as if in supplication. "My conquest will continue and there has not and never will be a being that can foolishly dare to stop me!"
Gwen sat in the booth seat of her Grandfather's RV, head propped up with a palm under her chin. She didn't understand why she had to go on a road trip with her doofus cousin and well-meaning but eccentric Grandpa Max.
Ben hung from a tree outside the school with a dejected countenance alongside someone Gwen didn't know and hopefully wouldn't ever have to know. Regardless of how Ben may or may not have deserved it, Gwen felt a twinge of sympathy. It wasn't right for the bullies to have done that to him (her cousin may be the biggest doofus of the century but he knew for a fact nothing could possess him to want to hang himself up by his own underwear in a tree).
That twinge of sympathy was cached away to allow her to properly brood. There were school programs and summer programs she wanted to keep up with. Martial arts for one thing couldn't be neglected, especially with how much she wanted to do it.
"Come on, Ben! You're burning daylight and I want to make it to the campsite by nightfall!" Grandpa Max was as gungho as usual about everything he did.
"Uhh...Grandpa? A little help here?"
After a brief and embarrassing struggle Ben boarded the RV, hand reaching back to linger near his tailbone with a wince. He straightened up, a bright grin on his still round, big headed face.
"Ohhh, you have no idea how long much I've been looking forward to this!" His shoulders tensed after a moment, it unnerved her the way he stood stock still as if sensing something. He swiveled over to her.
"Okay, what are you doing here?" he turned his head to look at their grandfather in horror "What is she doing here!?" Ben accentuated his frustration with an accusatory finger.
Gwen shook off the feeling of unease to address her cousin.
"Take it easy, dweeb. This wasn't my idea."
"Then whose was it?"
"Well, someone had the bright idea to convince my Mom that going on a summer trip would be 'good for me and be a valuable life experience!'" Gwen's arms crossed across her chest, once more outwardly petulant.
"Grandpa please tell me you didn't-" Ben pleaded, as if spending the summer with his grandfather and cousin was too much of a miserable idea to bear.
"I thought it would be a fun idea; your cousin tagging along this year." His eyes narrowed at the pair. "Is that a problem?"
The two cousins exchanged a pained glance.
"Of course not!" Gwen said, forcing a smile.
"Problems? No problems here!" Ben added.
Half way through the trip from where Ben laid on his side of the booth a loud sigh sounded. Gwen felt a headache building, when Ben sighed like that nothing good came of it.
"I waited all year for this trip," Ben began, glaring at her out of the corner of his eye "and now the queen of cooties is along for the ride. This summer's gonna take forever."
"Hey!" Gwen felt her blood boil "You're not the only one who had their own summer plans all set up too, you know?" she pulled out a carefully folded color coded chart. "I color coded it so I would never do the same thing twice." Ben made a face "and seeing your dweeb face isn't in it at all!"
"Hey!" Ben objected just as she had before. "Grandpa and I do this every summer, you could have refused." she couldn't tell if that were an exaggeration or not.
"Once my Mom has something in her head it's hard to stop her. Now I'm stuck with my geekizoid cousin in an unairconditioned RV, camping for three months."
Ben glared at her and she stubbornly returned it with her own.
"Geek."
"Jerk."
Grandpa max looked behind him at the pair, eyebrows bunched together. "Something tells me this is going to be a long, long summer." He let out a yawn and focused his full attention back to the road.
Once they had set up for the night at the campsite, there was plenty of sun left. Just enough for it to not be overwhelming but not enough to rouse fireflies. Grandpa Max emerged from the RV with a bowl full of still wriggling worms. Ben and her both made a face at the sight, Ben's in disgust and her own in disbelief.
"Chow time~"
"...Okay, I give up. What are those?" Ben asked before Gwen had the chance to.
"Marinated Meal Worms," he sounded all too excited than he had any right to be at the prospect of eating worms for Gwen's comfort. "hard to find them fresh in this state. You know, they're considered a delicacy in some countries." Grandpa Max smiled. Who would even have a demand for these unless they were fishing?
"...and totally gross in others." Gwen said, nose wrinkling as one of the worms squirmed out of the bowl and onto the splintering wooden table.
"If these don't sound good, I've got some smoked sheep's tongue in the fridge."
"Couldn't we just have a burger or something?" Gwen nodded her head, a slight tilt, in agreement.
"Nonsense! This summer's gonna be an adventure for your tastebuds; I'll grab the sheep's tongue."
Grandpa Max nearly skipped back into the RV. Ben took a chance with the opening created. "I have a half eaten bag of corn chips and a candy bar in my bag, you?"
"Some rice cakes and hard candy."
"Think we can make them last the whole summer?" they looked down at the table, observing the rusty nails. Twin groans. Gwen hoped Ben at least had his Tetanus shot.
The larger ship was hot on the unfortunate pilot's tail. It easily took out a good chunk of the ships behind.
"Their propulsion systems have been destroyed."
"Prepare to board! I want the Omnitrix now." he leaned forward like he could physically will the ship to his own.
It prepared to charge with an orange light, giving the ship ahead of him time to fire at his center of control, causing his ship to lose control of it's power source and fire at the spaceship in front of it. Out of the remaining 80% of the ship only 10% remained. The nose of the ship sped up, breaking apart and propelling a small pod through space. It crashed towards earth and caught fire right above Earth's orbit.
Grandpa Max stood between the two cousins and looked back and forth between them. "Who wants to roast marshmallows?" unfortunately his grandchildren appeared to be too preoccupied with their respective pieces of tech. "Okaaay then. Um, how about we tell scary stories?"
"Scarier than having to spend a summer with a freak of a cousin?" Ben chimed in with a laugh.
Gwen looked over her shoulder at Grandpa Max, ignoring her computer screen for a second. "I'd love to, Grandpa, but I'm doing a web search on cures for extreme doofusness. Nothing yet, Ben, but let's not give up hope!"
"I-" Grandpa Max's yawn stopped Ben in his tracks.
"Grandpa?" Ben and Gwen questioned together.
"If neither of you are in the mood for doing anything together then we ought to sleep, don't you think?"
"But Grandpa it's not even fully dark out and I wanted to take a walk!""
"Why don't we do that first thing in the morning. You can check around for a small souvenir tomorrow even."
"I think I'm old enough to walk around at night by myself." a nearby owl hooted loudly, causing Ben to jump.
"Fine. Fine, but do I have to go to sleep right away?"
"You just have to be in your bed." Gwen sighed in relief, at least then she could finish her search.
"Grandpa," Ben's voice suddenly close to her ear startled her "Gwen's looking at reports on Roswell! She'll be relieved we didn't tell scary stories tonight." she reached back with out looking to swat at him and closed her laptop with her free hand.
"It's interesting though. Do you think the government really covers up stuff like that?"
"Gwen, it was obviously weather balloons and flight tests. I know it sounds strange to hear, but, there have been mannequins and test dummies for years and years." Gwen tried to not pay too much mind to the way Ben's eyes slid up to the sky.
Gwen tread through the woods, twigs snapping underfoot. Where had Ben gone? He'd been acting strange all night, stranger than usual and after waking up from her half dozed off state for a glass of water she'd seen that he was nowhere to be found.
So there she was, wandering around the woods in nearly pitch blackness. She'd been too rushed to grab a flashlight and her bed clothes weren't suited for wandering around at night outside.
She shivered a little and hugged herself. It was colder than it had any right to be this early at night.
She looked up at the sky trying to gauge where she was exactly. For all she knew Ben had backtracked to the RV and she was on a wild goose chase. But Grandpa Max had a right to have her look after Ben if he was asleep. She was much, much more mature than that doofus.
A streak of fire lit up a good portion of the the sky as it descended. Most objects from space burned up in the atmosphere, so to see a fairly large chunk of something was terrifying. She was half spun around to run in the opposite direction before she realized that when weird things happened Ben was always nearby. "...Ben!"
So like a doofus of Ben's level she ran straight towards where the object landed, the tightness in her chest restricting proper breathing. She had to see, had to make sure that Ben wasn't flattened and burnt to a crisp.
She skidded to a stop at the rim of the moderate sized crater, debris underfoot sliding over the edge.
Ben stood a foot away staring at the silver container below.
"Ben?" Gwen called out to her cousin, taking a handful of steps to her cousin and setting a hesitant palm on his shoulder.
Her stomach felt like she'd swallowed battery acid as she stared at the object in apprehension. Ben seemed to snap out of whatever daze he'd been in.
"I felt like something was coming so I came out to the woods."
"Felt like something was coming? What are you magic? Let's just get out of here it's probably something from NASA." not that she didn't want to know what it was, just that she had the feeling that it would only lead to something terrible happening.
"It doesn't feel like something from NASA. It almost hit me..." Ben shuffled his feet, a nervous energy about him. "Don't you feel it too? Something's gonna happen and it'll be because of that thing."
"You're starting to freak me out." Gwen said instead of agreeing with him. "Let's just go, Grandpa will get mad at us if we're both out here." Ben hesitated for a moment before agreeing.
He took a step away from the rim of the crater, foot catching on a root. His arms pinwheeled to keep him upright, but he began to tumble backwards still. Without thinking Gwen grabbed his arm.
They both rolled down into the crater, a tangle of limbs. Gwen dislodged her hand from its position under Ben's lower back to check and see if she'd bitten her tongue or broken anything. She seemed in good shape, in the middle of a crater created by an alien object with her cousin, in good shape regardless of the circumstances.
Gravity 1 - Gwendolyn 0.
"You give out lucky numbers too?" Gwen asked, scowling at her cousin. The amount of heat the pod gave off was unreal. Where she'd been cold only moments prior, she felt like she was in a sauna. Sweat beaded along her brow.
"What is this thing?" it cracked open, the tab of a soda can being pulled back times ten filled her ears.
An object that looked uncannily like a Watch glowed blue at the pair. It glowed brightly enough with a light not of this world that Gwen had to squint her eyes to look at it without hurting herself. The smart thing to do. Ben looked at it with wide eyes and let out a reverent exhale.
"What's a Watch doing in outer space and why is it beating?" Ben wondered aloud.
"Don't ask me," Gwen scrubbed a hand over her face to relieve the tension, freezing mid motion. "Wait. Wait, what do you mean beating?"
Ben looked at her as if she had lost all sense.
"It's like a heartbeat." Ben made a gesture to shush, quieting Gwen's retort, a look of concentration on his face.
Ben listened carefully to something Gwen couldn't hear, forming a fist. He flexed his hand to accompany the rhythm of his words. "Buh- buh...buh, buh buh buh… buh-...buh, buh buh buh."
"Ben are you saying that thing's...alive?" as hard as she listened, as long as she stared she couldn't understand a word Ben spoke.
"I never said that, I just said it was like a heartbeat." Ben objected, lower lip worried between his teeth.
He motioned to the object "It's right there so I don't get what's so hard to underst-" the Watch propelled through the air towards the pair, seemingly of its own want. Ben choked an involuntary sound, lodged somewhere in the back of his throat.
Gwen roughly shoved him to lay flat on the ground and blocked him with her own body. She'd only been with Grandpa Max and Ben for a few hours and Ben's act first personality was rubbing off on her. Great.
The Watch latched onto her wrist like a vice. She waved her arm away from her with a shriek.
"Gwen!"
"It's not coming off. Mr. Know-It-All-About-Out-Of-This-World-Junk don't say another word about it and help me get it off!" her words sped up, voice level rising quickly.
"I? I don't know if it'll even come off!" Ben protested, it's like it's melded to you?"
"We need Grandpa, maybe he'll know what this is?"
They climbed out of the crater with only minor difficulty and began the trek back to the RV. The chill meeting her feverish skin made her shiver uncomfortably. Ben's eyes hadn't left her arm once.
"What?" her irritability was justified in this moment, for once Ben gave her a break.
"Have you even looked at that thing since it latched on?"
"I've been trying to ignore it."
She glanced down at the blue and white Watch, sweat rapidly cooling on the back of her neck.
The band was a pristine white, a silver x crossing over the surface, the four ends stopping just an inch from a raised dial. The dial had four small, blue nubs in a cross formation, and a much larger nub to the left of the Watch's "face" from the position she looked at it. The inside of the dial glowed a faint blue.
"This is unreal." Gwen said in awe, foot steps faltering. Ben stood behind her, leaning forward to see what she was seeing. "What do you think it is?"
"A monster? Maybe an alien? I thought aliens were supposed to be short big headed gray things with black eyes saying "take me to your leader" and all that."
"We haven't even found out if there's water on other planets, I wonder what kind of life could survive without water?" she asked herself more so than Ben.
"Well, look at it. It kind of looks like it has flames for hair at the top, yeah?" Gwen could see what he meant, she felt an overwhelming curiosity fill her.
"Yeah, you're right. Maybe finding an alien Watch is the long sought after cure for severe doofusness?" she gently thumbed the figure. Her pinky brushed against something and the dial popped out a little.
Now inside the dial there was a bright blue glow glaring up into her face like the numbers of a digital clock first thing in the morning. A black diamond sat smack in the middle with a dark blue silhouette of an unknown figure. Gwen gently poked it, feeling a slight give as if it could be pressed down.
"Hey!" Ben protested "At least I'm not a dweeb! 'I wonder what kind of life could survive without water'? Do you even hear yourself?!" Gwen ignored him in favor of pressing down on the dial. A click rang out in the otherwise silent air. For a split second Gwen was both relieved and disappointed before she felt her arms begin to feel weighed down like lava temperature lead. Red coal like flesh sprang from her arm, rapidly covering the Watch and her body. She didn't have time to scream at the flash of searing pain. Her eyes in the traditional sense were no more and the excess deep red "scales" were incinerated by heat just below the surface, exposing a sentient flame.
Gwen stared at her hands nearly incapable of comprehending what had just transpired. The searing pain was nothing more than a lingering ache, easy enough to ignore. Instead of feeling like she was being burned alive it only felt like she'd wrapped herself up in a blanket on a much appreciated snow day.
"No way, you're on fire!" Ben exclaimed, hands reaching up to grip his own hair.
"Really, now what makes you think that?" she said dryly, hands on her hips. Her voice sounded strange, the crackling of embers.
"There's something on your chest." Gwen peeked down at herself. A raised black circle was located in the dead center of her chest, a glowing blue hourglass within it.
"I think it's more like in my chest? I wonder if there's anything I can do like this?" Gwen carefully treaded back to the crater, focusing on not burning anything and accidentally causing a forest fire.
"How should I test this out, Ben?" Gwen called over her shoulder. Ben stood a safe distance away at Gwen's insistence.
"Try writing your name? Maybe focus on how it feels?"
Gwen scoffed a little but listened for the most part, regardless. Feeling wasn't really a science. She applied what she knew about fire and used her hand like a large living flame pencil. Fire shot from her open palm, opposite hand palm down. She wrote her name if somewhat sloppily. With practice she could-
What was she thinking? She wanted to get the Watch off and figure out just what it was; not be stuck in a body that wasn't her own.
"Grandpa! No!" Ben shouted and Gwen swiveled around in time to see her grandfather with a fire extinguisher in hand.
"G-Grandpa?" she questioned. Grandpa Max's face was hard, the smile lines on his face seemed to have more weight, his eyes weren't the kind eyes that had always adored her.
"Grandpa that's Gwen!"
Grandpa Max's eyes bugged out of his head and he dropped the fire extinguisher with a clatter. It rolled to land at Ben's feet a few steps away.
"Grandpa, I found a Watch while looking for Ben. It wouldn't come off and then I turned into this," she gestured down to herself "monster thing!"
"Ben what were you doing out here?! I told you to stay inside the Rust Bucket."
"It's not his fault, Grandpa. He fell into the crater after I was about to take him back to the Rust Bucket. We both fell in, but he really was going to go back!" Grandpa's shoulders slumped.
"Will I be stuck as a monster forever, Grandpa?" Grandpa's tone went sharp.
"You're not a monster. You're an alien." he nearly covered his mouth after his slip up. The pair of cousins leveled him looks of disbelief. "I mean, you said it came from space right? It's obvious then."
"What do you mean it's not there?! This battle nearly cost me my life! And you say the Omnitrix is no longer on the transport?!" The alien, little more than a carved up chest cavity, leg hanging by a thread, face tentacles torn and shredded into ribbons. His breath came out in ragged pants. "Don't rest until you find it, I will have my power…"
"Sensors indicate that a probe was jettisoned from the ship just before boarding. It landed on the planet
Gwen's transformation ended with a glaring red flash, Grandpa Max had to turn his head and shield his eyes from the force of it.
Gwen stood, a normal, semi-normal (?) human girl. She looked down at her hands, startled by the sudden change. That had hurt as well, but more like a pin prick than the pain from before.
Grandpa Max gently curled a large palm around her forcep and lifted her arm to see what the Watch looked like himself. He looked back at Ben, an unreadable expression on his face. Ben nodded his head, the shrug of his shoulders confirming what Gwen had suspected from the beginning: No one had any idea of what was going on and she'd be stuck like this for awhile.
"You two head back to the Rust Bucket, I'd like to take a look at the crater that Watch created."
A park ranger stood at the edge of the tree lines. There had been reports of a large pillar of smoke above the forest, but as far as he could see there was nothing. Only the lingering smell of burnt soil. He stared up at the stars as if they could explain something to him. The park ranger sent one final look over his shoulder before getting back into his car and driving off. Perhaps it had been a prank and he was simply too gungho?
They set off back to the RV in the darkness, the faint clicking of something metallic in Ben's pocket hitting off of a large object. Ben only stumbled once, weighed down by an unknown heavy object.
"It's pretty funny you were making fun of me earlier for reading on up on Roswell, but you were the freak that had to head out into the woods standing and waiting for a burning space object to flatten you! You were all like, "take me with you and the floating cows"!" Gwen laughed, tears forming in the corners of each eye.
A pod of their own fell from the larger space ship, locked onto the same coordinates as where the first pod was suspected to have landed. It created a similar crater before it broke apart to expose a large robotic being. It stood easily over nine feet, resembling a cross between a centaur and a crab.
It's red eyes locked onto the crater the Watch had created and blew up the remaining shell; leaving nothing more than a few shards of extraterrestrial metal and chunks of Earth upheaved. Two smaller disc shaped pieces disengaged from its shoulders to float off freely. Searching, searching.
Grandpa Max crouched behind a tree nearby, sweat forming along his brow. He emerged from his hiding spot once he deemed the coast clear and slid down into the crater. He picked up one of the remaining shards and frowned down at it.
"I don't like this one little bit."
"You're a dweeb for following after me!" Ben insisted. She didn't have to see his face to know it was flushed a dusky red in frustration.
She was about to open her mouth when Ben spun around, raising his object above his head to swat at something just to the left and above her head. Gwen ducked away, narrowly avoiding a disc shaped robot and the fire extinguisher in Ben's hands.
"Looks like insisting our relative was a bigfoot and the paranoia it'd take to make that assumption came in handy for once." Gwen rested a hand over her heart to feel her racing pulse.
The piece of machinery short circuited and caught on fire. Ben fumbled with the fire hydrant for a moment before putting it out.
"I could hear it moving through the air, it sounded really freaky. And also he was way too hairy, his back was a like a carpet!"
Gwen listened carefully, focusing over the rush of blood in her ears left over from her first transformation.
A faint humming could be heard, Gwen's blood ran cold at the sound.
"We need to get out of here, now. But- but Grandpa Max."
Gwen hesitated at the idea of leaving their Grandfather alone in the woods with those things and who knows what else, but Ben had no such qualms.
"Grandpa Max can handle it, he eats all kinds of weird stuff, so whatever's out there is bound to be more afraid of him than he is of it!"
The Watch on Gwen's wrist finally glowed blue again causing her to nearly sob out of relief. Maybe she could figure out what else this Watch could do and find a way to get them out of this situation, all three of them.
She placed her hand around where she had accidentally the first time. After pressing one of the two knobs she was able to get the dial to raise up once more. "Fire guys better than no guy?" Her sweaty fingers slipped against the dial and the silhouette changed before her eyes. She carefully spun the dial once more and it happened again. Nine more times in rapid succession she saw nine other notably different forms. She smirked.
"Let's see what this thing can do!" She settled over a quadruped option and pressed the dial down.
Gwen felt her veins and muscles bulge, orange hair rapidly growing along her body. She felt her back hunch over and her eyes change form. She stood next to Ben on all fours as she sensed the world around her.
"You don't have any eyes? I wonder if that means you see like a bat or something? Don't scream though we don't want them finding us." Gwen wished she could verbally tell him to stop babbling. Drool dribbled from the sides of her mouth.
'Ew…'
"Mind if I get on?" Gwen didn't really want him riding her like an oversized Alien Great Dane but she didn't really have any choice. Who knew what else was out there in these woods? She was the older of the two (seven seconds was still seven seconds) and Grandpa Max was counting on her to watch after Ben.
She lowered herself a little for Ben to climb on. He scrambled up her arm and did his best to wrap his legs around her chest, hands gripping the fur above her shoulders. It felt weird to have someone on her back like this but not uncomfortable. At least he wasn't pulling her fur out. She took off, bounding back to the campfire.
Based on the last transformation they had a limited amount of time left and she needed to grab weapons to arm themselves with if they wanted to be able to help Grandpa Max.
She came to a grinding halt next to the old picnic bench and Ben took a hint.
He climbed off of her to scour for any usable weapons. A minute later he returned with a steel baseball bat, a kitchen knife, and a plastic trash can lid.
She couldn't really complain with his lack of proper gear. It wasn't as if Grandpa Max had an arsenal in the Rust Bucket.
Ben climbed up once more and they set off, swinging through the trees and making large leaps across the ground long enough to smell for their Grandfather. Gwen paused on top of particularly sturdy tree branch. The slits on her neck flexing. Everything had a static fan in the middle of summer feel to it. Even Ben's stuttered breaths behind her sounded strange.
She saw things thermally, sensed things really. She felt something coming just as Ben's mouth opened to warn her.
She could sense things better than she could before. Gwen jumped from the tree, narrowly avoiding the both of them getting blown up with a laser sent from one of those robots.
She weaved her way through the forest to avoid either of them getting killed. Ben helplessly hung on for dear life, grunting as he was bounced against and off of his cousin's back.
They hid from the robot behind a tree, the soft beep of what Gwen assumed were it's sensors made her heart race. Once it was close enough she leapt onto its back, Ben letting out a shriek of surprise at his sudden position.
"As much as I like leap frog don't you think we're a little too old for this?!" Gwen did her best to ignore him.
The robot sent them backwards, Gwen's back crashing against a tree. Gwen could hear the tree splinter and Ben's wheezy exhale from his position around her neck. She growled at him and he slid back down to her back.
Gwen used her sharp teeth to tear into the inner workings of the robot. Chunks of metal and tubes fell to the forest floor as they zoomed closer and closer to a rock face.
The Watch gave a warning beep and she held on for a moment longer to make sure the robot would run into the rock face before she jumped off. Her Watch let out another beep and in a flash of red they landed in a tangle of limbs in a bush.
They rose with matching groans.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. That was awesome!" Ben replied with a shaky grin. Gwen took a step forward, ready to go looking for Grandpa Max again before she hear a familiar whirring.
'Not now…' Gwen looked at the robot above them in horror. It floated down enough, and she just knew it was scanning her before it attacked.
If she died she was going to be in so much trouble. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, heart racing wildly.
She heard the telltale crunch of metal on metal greet her ears, green eyes blinking open. Ben stood in front of her and over the extraterrestrial robot. He brought the bat down again and again, four times until it seemed to finally be taken out.
His knees knocked together but he laughed, looking at Gwen over his shoulder.
"Way to go dweeb, you're the hero here and I had to take it out."
"Only because I was blinking."
"You normally almost pee yourself when you're blinking?" Gwen decided to say nothing.
The robot caught fire and they both knew that couldn't mean anything good.
Ben and Gwen fled from the machines carcass in time to avoid the blast it created.
They let out sighs of relief before feeling a large hand grip each of their shoulders. Gwen screamed before realizing it was just her Grandfather.
"G-Grandpa…"
"What were you two doing?"
"We were trying to get back to the Rust Bucket when these robot things attacked us!"
"We got worried and were going to go after you. We didn't know what would happen to you alone in the woods." Gwen hung her head, feeling an intense scolding coming her way, but instead Grandpa Max knelt to embrace both of them tightly.
"Don't be so reckless from now on, you two have each other, but you need to be careful."
They walked back to the rust bucket to further explain the strange circumstances.
"I figured out how to work it at least. It has a time limit and I have 10 different alien forms to choose from. I don't know what the other eight are yet but… I'm still learning." Grandpa Max smirked at her.
"With a device as powerful as that..Well, I guess that just means we'll have to help you figure it out and fast."
"Really Grandpa?" Ben sounded more excited than Gwen did and she had the Watch attached to her.
Mayday! Mayday! Somebody help us, we're under attack from some sorta...I know you're not gonna believe me but- uh robot!
The trio looked at each other as the radio feed cut out.
"You don't think…?" Gwen began.
"Sounds just like those things that attacked us earlier." his eyes flickered over to the Watch on Gwen's arm. "They must be looking for the Watch!"
"Where'd the signal come from, Grandpa?" Then that meant it was indirectly her fault. She had to take responsibility somehow.
"We need to help those people!"
They quickly made it to where the emergency broadcast had come from, flashlights and the baseball bat Ben had dented up in hand. Gwen took a deep breath and selected an alien.
Grandpa Max nodded and Ben squeezed the bat eagerly. She slammed her palm down on the Watch's dial and felt her body become crystalline.
"Cool! What can this guy do?" Ben asked. Gwen formed a fist, the accompanying sound of shattering glass nearly alarmed her. But… it felt natural.
"Something useful." she had a half formed plan in her mind and a time limit.
The large robot to have crashed down blew up a few campers and RVs, sending people into a frenzy like ants who had their hill kicked down by a spiteful child. It scanned through the area and observed the crowd. There was no omnitrix in sight.
"I'll take it, you guys get the campers to safety." Grandpa Max and Ben nodded, taking off to do what they could as Gwen rolled her shoulders in preparation.
She ran after the large robot. It seemed to attack primarily with lasers. It fired off at a few retreating people and picked up an older park ranger as he tried to help a women get to safety.
Gwen felt her blood...whatever was inside her at the moment actually - crystals didn't have blood- boil.
"Leave him alone!" Gwen shouted over the pandemonium around them.
The robot carelessly dropped the ranger and instinctively Gwen formed a slide of sorts with crystal to help break his fall.
"Pick on someone your own size!" The robot sent her flying backwards through the air to hit a parked RV. A red flash quickly followed her causing the RV to blow up and the fire to climb higher and higher in the sky. It must've been nearly a full tank.
Gwen sliced through the metal with her arm like a can opener.
"So I can change the form of crystals on my body and I can propel them at will?"
The robot towered over her. "Uh oh…"
She nearly avoided being flattened by it. 'I just have to keep it distracted until it fires a laser again..'
She leapt forward to slice at a leg. The robot easily avoided her and launched itself into the air, body twisting like a top spinner.
"This isn't gonna feel good…" Gwen quickly moved out of the way, only her legs trapped under the force of its landing.
Ben and Grandpa Max helped the ranger get down from the car he'd landed on. People screamed and cried around them, too afraid to logically move around.
"What is going on here?" the Ranger choked.
"No time to explain. Diamondhead's on our side! We need to get everyone a safe distance away." Grandpa Max and Ben ran, motioning the older Ranger to follow them. He hesitated, frozen stock still as he watched the much shorter creature (?) face off against the giant robot.
He very narrowly avoided being barreled into by the being referred to as Diamondhead was sent flying. The jeep crumpled with the force of the hit and that finally set him into motion.
Gwen shook off the feeling and quickly got up to face the robot again.
Ben stopped in the middle of the large parking lot, mouth opened in awe as his cousin dodged the blasts from the robot. She really looked like a hero
The robot blasted a tree and before Ben could move it was falling down to land on top of him. Gwen rushed to his side to split the tree perfectly in half. Crystals protruded from her shoulders and back.
"Even?"
"T-totally." Gwen nodded and focused her attention back on the enemy.
It lifted her up, three finger like appendages securing her in its grip. She squirmed in its hold and if she had to breath like she used to, she'd have fainted from loss of oxygen. The robot tugged at her arm and all she could do was grunt and focus on being like an alien can opener. Large shards of crystal broke through the robot's grip, a small fire starting in it's hand.
It flung her a short distance away into a brick building. Probably a help desk or a bathroom...gross.
Grandpa Max hoisted Ben up and behind a fallen tree to his side.
"Gwen!" Grandpa shouted as the robot advanced towards her. Gwen pulled herself from the rubble once more, tired of the repeated occurrence.
"Hit me with your best shot!" she motioned to her chest with a hand. It fired a laser at her for the umpteenth time that evening but this time Gwen was ready. There weren't any civilians nearby and she'd given herself ample time to direct them to just the right spot.
She forced her palms together, side by side as the laser approached closer and closer. The crystals from her hands formed to make a crude mirror, halting the flow of it. She slid against the ground, heels digging in. Just a little more. The edges of her makeshift mirror rose to concentrate the laser's beam in one area.
"What goes around comes around!" unknowingly the two cousins declared together, Ben's words punctuated with a short whoop.
Gwen directed the laser back to the robot and it blew up in a spectacular show.
People watched on in awe and horror as the crystalline humanoid turned around to face them.
"Alright way to go that's my g-" the nearby people looked sharply over at Max.
"Hero! Way to go Diamondhead!" Ben shouted, catching the attention of everyone, Gwen included. She nearly face palmed.
"My work here is done." Gwen said, striking a heroic pose that hopefully looked more natural than it felt.
She ran off just in time to be out of sight by the time the Watch gave its first warning beep.
"Who was that?" Ben heard one of the civilians speak up.
The large space ship had tank shaped bots roaming the outside to repair the major damage done.
The tentacled alien glared out of his healing containment pod.
"Failure?! Unbelievable." he croaked in gasping breaths. "The puny Terra being that is keeping the Omnitrix from me will soon hang on my trophy wall." small bots crawled around the the pod with him, moving through the sickly green liquid with ease.
"Gwen, how did it feel?" Ben asked suddenly from his side of the table. He stared out the window, eyes absent.
"Huh?" Gwen said looking up from her computer.
"How did it feel? To go hero?"
"It felt like I was me, but also not me." She huffed at the hopeful look on his face. "Jeesh, that sounds like something you'd say. Who knew doofusness was contagious?"
Grandpa Max laughed from the steering wheel.
"What's it even matter to you?" Gwen asked, genuine curiosity seeping into her words. Ben's shoulders bunched up to his ears.
"It doesn't matter." he shifted in his seat. "So who do you think would win in a fight between Heatblast and Diamondhead?"
"Who and who?"
"You know your aliens!" As if that were the most obvious conclusion in the world to come to.
"First off, I'd be fighting myself and I wouldn't win or lose. Second off, I'm not naming them, that's so uncool."
"Is too cool! Grandpa what do you think?"
"Ben, your cousin's the one with the Watch. I think she gets the final say in the matter."
"How will we know which alien we're talking about if we don't name them? 'Oh, alien that's crystal is totally the alien we need to save the day'!" Gwen had to admit that'd be troublesome.
"It's not like I'll have it forever, we're going to try and get it off, Ben."
"If I had it, I would never get rid of it." Ben insisted, drawing in on himself once more. The RV was silent for a number of miles. Grandpa Max pulled into the parking lot of McDonalds and removed the keys from the ignition.
"Now, you two have had a long night… You didn't really seem to like the sautéd mealworms, at least not yet. We can have something not proper summer road trip food for once."
The two cousins looked at eachother, joy lighting up their faces.
"I want a Big Mac!"
"I want a Bigger Big Mac!"
The RV was filled with the sounds of joyous laughter.
The Park Ranger returned to the woods the next morning after a new mode of transportation had been made available.
He had to check again. He parked the same place he had the night prior, recognizing his own tire tracks. With a slam of his door he was out and in the woods.
Less than two miles in he found what he was looking for. Twin craters and scraps of metal around. He shone his flashlight in to observe the furthest crater. Inside he could make out what looked like the letter G burnt into the soil.
"What on Earth?"
It appeared he wasn't the only person to find what they were looking for. He reached for the portable radio on his hip.
"Attention, we need someone on the scene of where reports came in on a potential forest fire last night. We can't let this get out to the public."
Birds chirped around the campsite they'd returned to long enough to properly pack up.
Ben and Grandpa Max were loading up the Rust Bucket, Grandpa Max handing the bundles of their stuff up for Ben to place in the Rust Bucket.
"Where's your cousin?" He asked suddenly, letting Ben pause long enough to wipe the sweat from his brow.
"Haven't seen her since breakfast."
They heard a whoosh of movement a short distance away as a bipedal blue skinned alien came to a halt before them. It ran on balls attached to its feet and in Ben's scientific opinion, looked like a dinosaur and a kangaroo had a freaky baby together.
"Gwen?" Grandpa asked as the dust cleared.
The black face shield moved to reveal a reptilian face.
"Yes. Sorry I'm late, let me finish this up." she offered, packing the remaining supplies into the Rust Bucket within seconds. The Watch gave two warning beeps in quick succession before she was back in her own skin.
"Where were you?"
"I had to pick some stuff up, Grandpa." Gwen motioned to the backpack she had on.
"I grabbed you something too, Ben." She opened her backpack to show him a six pack of Coke cans.
"You got even more alien books?" Ben said in disbelief as he looked down at the books just under the soda she'd procured.
"The Watch timed out just in time for me to go to the library without getting strange looks. I don't think anybody saw me."
Grandpa nodded thoughtfully. "Make sure to not misuse your powers, Gwen."
"I think this is going to be the best summer ever." Ben said, nodding to himself. He accepted a can of soda from Gwen and passed one to his Grandfather. The three of them each popped the tabs of their soda, holding the cans away from them as they fizzled and some spilled to the ground.
After letting them settle down the Tennyson trio bumped their cans together in an impromptu toast.
"Absolutely." Grandpa Max said taking a swig of his drink.
"Well, it's definitely going to be interesting." Gwen said though deep down she couldn't help but agree with Ben.