Author's Note: I own nothing. It's time!

38 Malfunction

Ethan was excited. He'd been off Earth only once in his life. He'd gone with Jen to take her friend Reiny, who turned out the be the leader of his entire planet and Highbreed Supreme, back to his world. That had been in a different ship though and it was sort of comforting to him to know that the ship Kevin was flying wasn't alive with a will of its own. The interior was also much more comfortable than the outside looked. In fact it was quite plush. Kevin grinned around.

"This is direct off the factory floor with some custom mods to the interior! Oh I love being your friend Jen!" Jen rolled her eyes at Kevin before looking back down at the Omnitrix.

"Good to know that it has it's perks." She grumbled.

"Everything ok with the Watch?" Gwen asked as the Tiffin circled Ethan's head again as he watched stars rush by outside the window. Jen shrugged.

"Nothing's different. I don't have any idea what happened." The Tiffin seemed to give up on distracting Ethan who was mesmerized by the view and flew over to Jen who smiled at him.

"Hey little guy. You doing ok?" The dollop burbled at her and whistled, a high pitched tone that had Gwen rubbing her ears. Jen laughed. "You're sweet huh?" He whistled again and the Omnitrix sparked to life but this time when the sparking stopped the dial popped up and spun on its own glowing bright green before dropping on its own as Jen cried out in surprise. Green light filled the cockpit and Gwen leapt to her feet. She wasn't sure what she expected, possibly her cousin in the form of a Lewodan, maybe the Omnitrix had taken a sample from the Tiffin. What she, Kevin and Ethan found though was a six foot tall humanoid tiger. She was dressed in what looked like the same kind of outfit worn by female wrestlers on Earth, a pair of tight green shorts and what appeared to be a sports bra in the same color, sporting the Omnitrix symbol. Her eyes, bright green as was usual for Jen's aliens, snapped open and she roared. The Tiffin squeaked in fear and hid behind Ethan as Jen ripped her seat out of its place and threw it. Kevin slapped on the auto pilot as Jen roared again. He lunged at her catching her around the neck from behind.

"You're wrecking the interior!" She grabbed him and threw him hard. He slammed into the wall and nearly blacked out. Jen roared again, Gwen's hands lit up and Ethan grabbed the Tiffin and stepped behind the redhead.

"You need to calm down!" The bipedal tiger turned on Gwen. She was sort of expecting another growl. She was not really expecting this transformation to be able to talk, just from what she'd seen so far about its animalistic behavior.

"LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING GWEN TENNYSON!" She was yelling quite loudly and the Tiffin whimpered and hid his face in Ethan's shirt. "RATH IS PERFECCTLY CALM!" Gwen shook her head and flicked her hand at Rath, as this transformation was apparently called. A bright pink bubble appeared around her head.

"You need a time out!" Gwen quipped and Rath growled.

"RATH DOES NOT NEED A TIME OUT GWEN TENNYSON! RATH IS GONNA…Did I just use up all my air?" And with that much more reasonably volumed question Rath's knees buckled and her eyes slipped closed as she slumped to the floor. Kevin pulled himself to his feet and rubbed the back of his head as Gwen let the bubble dissolve so her cousin could breathe again, though she remained unconscious. Gwen frowned.

"That should have turned her back to normal." Gwen sounded very concerned. Ethan patted the Tiffin on his head and set him in one of the still standing chairs.

"Wait here buddy." Ethan stepped over to the large cat and began to attempt to heave her into a chair. She was a good foot taller than him though and could charitably be described as built like a brick wall. Kevin let him struggle still nursing a headache from being thrown. Gwen ended up taking pity on him and lifted the large tiger into a seat with her powers. She kept the mana encircling the tiger though, effectively tying her cousin down. Ethan frowned.

"Are you sure that's necessary?" Gwen raised an eyebrow at him.

"She just attacked the ship, then Kevin!" Ethan frowned.

"A good point but why though?" Kevin had stepped over to the computer console. He was pulling something up on the Xternet.

"She's an Appoplexian. According to the A.L.D.B. they're a pretty savage race. They're very open with their emotions though most of the time that emotion is blinding rage." Kevin snorted. "May have figured out why she attacked the first thing she saw. 'When Appoplexians meet they wrestle until one wins, establishing dominance. This is considered a friendly greeting on their world.'" Gwen nodded slightly.

"That does explain her going ballistic moment one when she transformed but I've never seen this one before. She called herself Rath… Why would the Omnitrix turn her into a new alien now?" Kevin shrugged but eyed the Tiffin who had decided that Rath was much more interesting than following orders. He was currently circling her head trilling.

"Noisy!" Rath grumbled as she woke up. She blinked and struggled against the mana holding her. The Tiffin screeched and hid behind Ethan.

"Jen can you understand me?" Rath glared at the redhead.

"OF COURSE I UNDERSTAND YOU GWEN TENNYSON! DO YOU THINK I'M STUPID!" Kevin chuckled.

"Yep, thick as a brick." Jen growled. Kevin blinked. "Did you just growl at me?"

"YOU WANNA FIGHT KEVIN E. LEVIN!" She snarled at him struggling with the bonds. Ethan stepped in front of Rath who glared.

"Nobody wants to fight you Jen." On instinct he reached out and gently scratched her under her chin. Her eyes flickered closed, her nose twitched and a rumbling purr echoed through the ship. Gwen bit back her laughter. Kevin slapped a metal hand to his mouth to stop his own giggles.

"Oh that's just precious." Gwen elbowed him.

"Not helping Kevin. Jen I need you to listen. You've become something called an Appoplexian. Kevin looked it up in the A.L.D.B." Ethan stopped scratching under Rath's chin and Rath frowned.

"THE WHAT?"

"The Alien Life-form Database." Gwen supplied patiently.

"This species is powerful, argumentative and extremely aggressive. And apparently like getting scratched under their chins." Kevin chuckled as Ethan blushed realizing how it must have looked.

"I used to have a cat." Gwen nodded managing her own laughter much better than Kevin.

"Ok I'm going to let you go now, but you have to keep calm. Control your anger." Rath growled but nodded and Gwen released her restraints. Rath cracked her neck now that she was free and flexed her fingers looking at the blade like protrusion on the back of her hand with interest. Gwen frowned at her cousin. "Maybe you should reboot the Omnitrix, you know get back to normal." Jen seemed to roll the idea around her brain for a moment.

"OK, BUT NOT BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME TOO!" Gwen was having flashbacks to Jen at ten years old, she'd never wanted to do anything Gwen wanted at that age, simply because Gwen wanted it. She rubbed the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache coming on. Rath slapped the Omnitrix, it beeped plaintively but nothing else happened. Rath frowned then growled. "GET OFF OF ME!" She roared in frustration as she tugged on the Omnitrix symbol.

"Did I mention they aren't the brightest stars in the universe?" Kevin asked sarcastically as Jen managed to knock herself over in her attempt to remove the Omnitrix. Rath hopped back to her feet.

"IT'S BUSTED! WHO ELSE IS HUNGRY?" Gwen stared as her cousin wandered away, apparently Appoplexians were easy to distract too. Ethan glanced at the others as the Tiffin chirped at Rath. "OF COURSE RATH LIKES MEAT! RATH LIKES ALL KINDS OF FOOD! EXCEPT VEGITABLES!" The Tiffin burbled something that sounded like a laugh. Ethan tilted his head at them.

"Are they talking?" Gwen shook her head at Ethan.

"Honestly best not to question it." Gwen was more concerned that Jen hadn't turned back into herself when she'd lost consciousness like she usually did. Kevin sat back in the driver seat. He seemed to realize this wasn't business as usual.

"What do you think's keeping her as Rath?" He asked as he switched off the autopilot and took control again. Gwen frowned.

"No idea. She once got stuck as Grey Matter, but she eventually turned back on her own. But once she messed with the Omnitrix until it got her stuck as a different alien every week. We didn't see her for nearly a solid month and Azmuth had to do a solid reset on the Omnitrix in person." Kevin nodded.

"Well since this is a time sensitive mission if things don't work themselves out by the time we finish we'll head to Galvan Prime and see if the First Thinker will help." Gwen squeezed his hand.

"Thanks Kevin." He grinned but they were interrupted by Rath growling and sticking her head between them.

"ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RATH!" Gwen chuckled.

"Just worried about you, fuzzball." Rath seemed to decide that she was alright with the nickname and nodded slightly.

"WELL RATH AND THE TIFFIN ARE HUNGRY!" Kevin glanced up at the Tiffin floating next to Rath's shoulder.

"I know a station that's on the way, pretty good grub. We'll stop there."

"SOUNDS GOOD KEVIN E. LEVIN!" Rath grinned, a sharp toothed slightly unnerving smile as Ethan sat back down in one of the chairs and looked out at the stars. Rath stalked over to him and sat down in front of him leaning on his legs. He could tell they would soon go numb but he didn't really care too much. "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT ETHAN VALADIS! YOU LOOK SAD, RATH DOESN'T LIKE IT WHEN YOU'RE SAD!" Ethan chuckled.

"Not sad, sort of amazed. I've never been this far into space before." Pantophage was farther away from Earth than the Highbreed homeworld, and in the opposite direction.

"DO YOU LIKE SPACE? RATH SOMETIMES GETS WORRIED THAT YOU DON'T LIKE BEING AROUND BECAUSE OF ALL THE CRAZY THINGS THAT HAPPEN." Ethan looked down at the giant space tiger currently looking up at him with her large head tilted back into his lap.

"Wow, Kev wasn't kidding you have no emotional filter right now." He breathed it and reached out to scratch her under the chin again, eliciting the same contented purring. "No, I love being around you. Things can get a little crazy but I'll get used to it. It's usually pretty fun honestly." Rath nodded, plucked Ethan from the chair and set him in her lap. He was still facing the window but she wrapped her arms around him.

"RATH LIKES THAT ANSWER! YOU CAN KEEP SCRATCHING RATH." Ethan held his giggles in and went back to his appointed task.