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(EDIT: You know what, I really should have expected it to go java script. But I didn't. That one's on me guys, sorry.)
"Gotta find Grandpa, gotta find Grandpa..." Maxine chanted to herself as she ran through the forest, the girl that she had found being carried under her right arm. "Oooooh, I'm going to give it to Ben for making me come after him."
But something made Maxine pause and look around her. And then take a sniff of the air.
"Smoke..." She gasped. And just over the trees, she could see a plume of smoke wafting from out of the forest. "What kind of irresponsible camper would be so careless as to start a forest fire in summer?" Maxine thought aloud. Then realization struck her. "BEN!"
Maxine quickly turned on her heel and began running towards where the smoke was coming from. The air around her began to become both hotter and hotter, as well as polluted by the ash that now floated around. The glowing of fire began to show itself as Maxine continued to move further in.
"Ben!" she called, "Ben! Where are you?!" looking frantically around for her brother, she used a free hand to cover her mouth, so she didn't inhale too much ash. A scream not too far away echoed over the fire. "Gwen?!" Maxine exclaimed when she recognised the voice. She then altered her course to go towards her little cousin's screams.
THEM ►◄ TEN
"…Ben? Is that you?" Gwen asked the creature-person that seemed to be made of molten rock, and ahead of the fire. "What happened?"
"Well, when I was walking, this meteor fell from the sky and almost smudged me, except that 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, only it didn't hurt when I was accidentally starting this mega forest fire." Ben rapidly explained, the words spewing out of him.
"O-kay then… I think we need Grandpa on this one." Gwen decided, only understanding every other word Ben spoke.
Just then, Grandpa Max came jogging up to them. "Gwen, are you alri…" He skidded to a halt when he saw Ben, "What in blazes? Is that a pyronite?"
"Guess who Grandpa," Gwen said, gesturing up to the now taller Ben.
"Hi, grandpa!" Ben waved.
"Ben? What happened to you? Where's Maxine?" Grandpa Max asked.
"Well, I…" Ben began, before being swiftly cut off by a new voice.
"Ben?! Gwen?! Is that you guys?!" the voice shouted.
"It's Maxine!" Gwen exclaimed before glancing at Ben. "She came looking for you earlier!"
"Oh! It is you guys…" Maxine's voice, distorted by the roaring fire, said as she grew closer. At least, they thought it was distorted by the fire. Instead, it wasn't her normal voice.
Standing where Maxine should have, was a large, muscular, four-armed creature carrying a girl with yellow-green and black hair under one of their top arms. The red creature had black hair in a ponytail, a grey bodysuit, and a yellow sleeveless jacket, armholes only there for the top set of arms.
"So, I know I look weird," the four-armed Maxine said in a marginally deeper voice, "But it all started with…"
"A meteor that fell from the sky?" Gwen cut off. "Old news, happed to Ben."
"Hi, Xine!" Ben once again waved, calling his sister by a nickname.
Maxine blinked with all four of her eyes before shrugging. "You know what. Not even going to question it. The real question is this; how do we stop this fire?!"
"He needs to draw it back into himself." The girl Maxine was carrying answered, now awake and pointing at Ben.
"Bah!" Maxine exclaimed, jolting at the unexpectedness of her just being… awake. "How long were you conscious?!"
"No more questions! Fire, remember?!" Gwen reminded. "Ben! Get on it!"
"Okay!" ben nodded, turning to face the fire. He then looked back at the others over his shoulder. "Uh… how do I do that?"
"To draw fire into themselves, pyronites traditionally visualize draw a breath but with all of their body. Your form's instincts should be able to assist you, simply perform what feels natural to you." The mysterious girl explained.
"Okay! Got it!" Ben nodded, turning his flaming head back to the raging fire. Ben did as instructed, and focused on drawing the fire into himself, which miraculously, worked. All the trees, grass and bushes that were burning, had the fire on them taken away and consumed by the flaming humanoid magma.
"Way to go Ben!" Maxine cheered, having set down the new girl.
"Okay, with all that crazy out the way, can we please go back to the Rustbucket and figure out what the heck is going on?" Gwen asked everyone. When none of them disagreed, they all set out to return to their campsite, leaving the smouldering vegetation to be found by a very confused ranger.
THEM ►◄ TEN
Now back at the campsite and sitting around the fire whilst Gwen flicked marshmallows to the flaming Ben, the five of them began to talk.
"I believe introductions are in order." The mysterious girl declared, feeling everyone's eyes on her. "I am much less of a who, than a what. I am a one-of-a-kind piece of technology known as an Omnitrix. I posses the ability to store countless amounts of DNA from creatures across the universe, and access them at will." The girl, Omnitrix, explained.
"…Okay, but if that's true, how do explain my cousins becoming briquette four-arms over there?" Gwen asked.
"Hah! Four Arms!" Ben laughed. "That's a great name!"
Unfazed, the Omnitrix continued. "Your cousins are wearing two of my interfaces, both of which may also be referred to as Omnitrixes. They bestow the wearer with my capability of using stored DNA to alter their body to that on another creature's. whilst both devices function completely on their own, they are still connected to me as a secondary admin. Your female cousin wears a completed version, whilst your male one wears an incomplete prototype."
"Prototype?! Aw man…"
"Hah! Short straw Benny boy!"
"Well, are they going to stay that way forever miss… uh, sorry, what should I call you?" Gwen asked the Omnitrix.
"Hmmm…" the Omnitrix thought, "You may refer to me as… Trixie! Yes, that is the name my mother liked to call me. As for your first question, no. I have a timeout function as to avoid overriding the base DNA with the borrowed one. It should be activating about now, actually."
True enough, the watch face on Ben's chest gave off a beeping alongside a red flashing. A moment and blinding flash later, and Ben was back to his regular self, the only fire being that of the campfire. Shortly after, Maxine's did similarly, and returned her to herself as well, meaning she could now sit on a bench without breaking it.
"I'm me again!" Ben cheered. He then began to tug the Omnitrix off, or at least, tried to. "Ngh!" Ben grunted, "Why won't this thing come off now?"
"Because to properly be used, an Omnitrix must be connected to the user's DNA," Trixie explained. "To rip it off so haphazardly would be very dangerous and potentially cause DNA decay. There is a removal code, but that seems to be in my damaged memory banks. Even if I get such a code back, by the time I would the interfaces would have merged too far with your DNA, becoming a part of you."
"So what you're saying is, we're pretty much stuck with these things," Maxine asked, gesturing to her occupied wrist.
"For the foreseeable future, yes." Trixie nodded.
Maxine and Ben looked at one another and shrugged.
"Eh, I'm cool with that." "Whatever." They both said at the same time.
"Well," Grandpa Max spoke up, drawing everyone's attention, "If we really are stuck with those things, I think I should come clean with you kids. Back in the day, I was no ordinary plumber." He admitted.
"Well, what kind of plumber were you?" Gwen asked.
"I was part of an inter-galaxy spanning police force. I worked with other plumbers on earth to monitor and regulate extra-terrestrial life on the planet." Grandpa Max elaborated. His three grandchildren stared in disbelief.
"It's quite true," Trixie stated, snapping the kids out of their trance.
"Whilst I've been retired for almost thirteen years now, the contacts I kept have been hearing rumours and scuttlebutt about some kind of device like an Omnitrix being built. But I never believed that there'd be two of them, with a living mainframe. And least not on your wrists." Grandpa Max finished.
"Well, I can actually clarify that last part." Trixie offered. "You see, as information of our existence began to spread, many individuals began to covert the power the interface Omnitrixes could grant. I had not been discovered yet, so it was decided to transport myself and the only two interfaces to one of the most decorated Plumbers on record." She glanced to Grandpa Max.
"However, as we entered the solar system, we came under fire and resorted to jettisoning us with a genetic lock-on to Maxwell. But you two, being his direct descendants, confused the lock-on to track you instead."
All of the Tennysons slowly blinked.
"...Well I guess that answers that?" Maxine shrugged. "So, what are we doing now?"
"I'm going to go check the crash sights to see if we can learn anything more. You four stay here and out of trouble." Grandpa Max said, picking up a flashlight and heading off.
THEM ►◄ TEN
Maxine sat with Trixie, a silence hovering between them. Ben had proceeded to fiddle with his Omnitrix, trying to figure it out and neglecting to ask the Omnitrix that could answer him. Gwen kept trying to get him to stop, reminding him what Grandpa Max had told them. Meanwhile, Maxine thought she should probably break the ice with their new companion.
"So…" Maxine began awkwardly, "If you're from another planet, why do you look human?"
"When you approached by pod, your DNA was scanned before being replicated with its genomes randomized to create a body for myself," Trixie answered. "For all intents and purposes, I am a human almost down to a cellular level."
"Huh. Cool, cool." Maxine nodded. She then looked at her little brother who had not made any progress with the 'watch', as the kids had nicknamed them to the dismay of Trixie. "So how do you use it anyway?"
"It is quite simple," Trixie moved Maxine's arm up so she could operate the device. "Firstly, you must activate the selection menu, like so;" Trixie pushed a button on the Omnitrix to bring up a holographic display of three different creatures, the central one being larger (which Maxine assumed was the selected one). "Next, you select which lifeform you would like to become," Trixie said, moving her hands away. "Twist the faceplate."
Maxine looked at her, and then back down to the watch. She did as Trixie had instructed and began twisting the faceplate to cycle through the creatures. A cloaked figure, smaller one with headphones, the four-armed person from earlier, sleek one with a tail...
Maxine cycled through ten of them before coming back to the first she had seen, the cloaked figure.
"Okay, what now?" She asked Trixie.
"Next, press this button," Trixie once again leaned over to press a button on the Omnitrix, "to bring up the core for activation. Finally, press it down to initiate the transformation. Also, please be gentle, heavy impacts may cause randomizations in the transformation time and selection."
"G-got it..." Maxine gulped at the stern look Trixie had fixed her with. Making sure to gently push the core back down into the Omnitrix, Maxine felt her body shift and change, so fast that it was barely an instant before she suddenly felt a little colder.
Looking herself over, Maxine was now the cloaked figure she had seen. She was now blue, and, as she quickly discovered, the cloak wasn't a cloak at all, but a pair of wings. Ben and Gwen stopped squabbling over whether or not his Omnitrix to stare at the older Tennyson.
"So who's this?" Maxine asked, in a raspy voice.
"This is a necrofriggian," Trixie explained. "They can fly, turn intangible and invisible, as well as breath chilling gas that can create ice."
"COOOL!" Ben exclaimed, having listened in. "Now I gotta figure out how this works!"
"Why do I even bother?" Gwen facepalmed, shaking her face slightly.
Ben quickly went back to his fiddling, his watch's face popping up almost immediately. "Aw yeah!" Ben cheered, raising his arm up to slam the core back down to transform, not even checking what DNA he had selected.
Maxine's eyes widened. "Ben, wait! Don't..." she was cut off by a flash of green light. "...slam the Omnitrix. Dammit Ben."
When the light died down, instead of 10-year-old Ben Tennyson standing there, there was a small, pixie-like creature floating in the air. A silence fell over the campsite as everyone stared at him.
"Oh good, you discovered the nemuina transformation. It is one of my favourites." Trixie stated, breaking the silence. This just caused both the female Tennysons to fall over laughing at Ben.
"Hey!" Ben thrilled, "It's not funny!"
"Ohohohoh, but it is! It really is!" Maxine laughed, still in her taller necrofriggian form.
"YOU TURNED YOURSELF INTO A FAIRY!" Gwen roared with laughter, tears streaming from her eyes as she pointed at Ben. "THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"
Ben growled and crossed his arms. "Why did I have to get the lame alien?" he asked rhetorically.
"I sense that everyone here is underestimating the nemuina," Trixie stated in a monotone voice. "They are an agile and resourceful species that can emit sleep-inducing tranquilization dust and even control and enter dreams. They are quite feared as bounty hunters and interrogators."
"How could something like this be anything feared?!" Ben asked, gesturing down to the dress his transformation wore. Before anyone could answer, a red laser tore through the campsite and caused the fire to explode into embers. Everyone dodged out of the way except for Maxine, who quickly became intangible.
"Hey, that was… cool." Maxine joked. Everybody stared at her. "Cool? You know, as in ice- oh forget it you people have no sense of humour."
"What was that?" Gwen asked, getting up and looking around carefully.
"Probably that thing." Ben pointed at a now visible flying drone. The drone in question looked like a disk that had cylinders coming out of the top and bottom, as well as mechanical legs out of the bottom as well.
"I believe that is from the attackers that destroyed the transport ship I was on," Trixie said, narrowing her eyes.
"Don't worry, I got this." Maxine declared, her wings folding out and her body floating into the air. Arching her body back, she then shifted into leaning forwards, letting out a freezing gust of air. When it connected to the drone, it froze instantly, disabling it and causing it to crash into the ground. To finish the job, Maxine stopped floating, crushing it under her heel.
Behind her, a flash of green light appeared, indicating Ben's randomized transformation time had hit its limit.
"Phew," Ben said in relief, "don't have to be Pesky Dust ever again now."
"Pesky Dust?" Gwen asked, confused as to what Ben meant.
"Yeah, that's what I'm naming him. The fire guy's name is going to be Heatblast." Ben explained. Everyone then gasped at him. "What? What did I do?" Ben asked.
But they were not gasping at ben, but instead the second drone that had appeared behind him, ready to vaporize the boy instantly.
"Ben! Duck!" Maxine yelled, readying another breath attack. But before she could, a bolt of electricity struck the drone, making it spin out of control and crash into a tree.
All three Tennysons watched the drone crash, before turning to where the electricity had come from. Standing there was a yellowish crab-like creature that was the size of Gwen with its head open to reveal its brain. Quickly, the creature closed the headcase as its body shifted so that it was back to the appearance of Trixie.
"Trix?" Maxine asked.
"Yes." Trixie nodded. "I felt it would be unwise to allow Benjamin to be vaporized, so I used my own ability to transform and accessed his unlocked cerebrocrustacean DNA to disable the drone through its brain-generated electricity."
Ben groaned. "I could have turned into an electrical brain crab, but instead I still got the fairy?!"
Everybody laughed a bit again