Todd Harrison was probably about as far from 'excited' as possible. He was lying upside down on his medium-sized black sofa, staring at his phone, which had lost power a while ago, with a phone case that was a mix of dark blue, and baby blue. The living room that was all but full of life. His twin sister, Kate, was out on the town with her friends, and his
OTHER twin brother, Matheo, was in his room, doing who-knows-what... See, that's the thing, Todd's Twin brother was actually... A mad SCIENTIST... or an Inventor... It kind of changes, depending on the situation, though that didn't really seem like it left a ton of time for Matheo's social life to develop. Todd, on the other hand, used to have friends, Casey, and Brandon, that was, until about a week ago, when they decided they "didn't have time for him anymore." So yeah, now Todd had 0 friends.
The whole house felt empty, now. Despite being 13, he was feeling like his whole life had hit a dead end, and that's not mentioning his parents, who seemed to show up around once a year. The only thing that seemed to generally like him was HIS dog (Yes, HIS, not Kate's, despite what she says.), Fluffy, who was laying curled up against his side. Todd dragged himself off the couch, and upstairs. School WAS starting in only an hour, after all, and he couldn't go in his pajamas.
()
Todd took out a medium blue sweatshirt from his closet, and threw it on, along with some blue jeans, and finally, a red shirt, over the blue hoodie, with two black, vertical lines running over it, and a horizontal blue lightning bolt running through THOSE lines, with black bars outlining the sleeves of his T-shirt. Todd himself had ruffled hair, brown eyes, and a few freckles on both of his cheeks. Fluffy followed him into his room and looked at him, Fluffy himself was a Terrier Breed, with white-yellow fur, and a purple collar. As Todd exited the room, he saw Matheo walking out of the room opposite of him.
Matheo Scowled at Todd, "Well, well, look who finally fell out of bed. Ready to fail again?"
Todd rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Matheo, I've been up this whole time, you know."
Matheo had the same face as time, except with a slightly more sinister-looking twist. He wore a black T-shirt, with a yellow 'A', which stretched down, and wrapped around his waist, with grey shorts, and black sweatpants under those shorts, and his hair was less aimless, and was swished to the side. Matheo tried to shove Todd, but Todd moved, causing Matheo to barrel into the banister that ended the staircase.
"OW!" Matheo yelled.
Todd smirked. "Anyway, the field trip's today, y'know. Apparently, they're takin' us to a government base, that doubles as a museum, and maybe even a gift sh-!"
"Todd." Matheo cut him off. "Nobody gives a crap."
"Uh... Okay. Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed," Todd said, confused, both him and Fluffy following Matheo down the stairs. "I just thought since it's a government
base, you'd get a kick out of it, y'know, considering your... enthusiasm."
Matheo grumbled something under his breath, but conceded. "Hopefully we'll see Kate there. She's not in our class, but I always have smart conversations with HER."
Todd grinned. He was finally making some progress with his brother!
"So... Trip partners?" Todd asked.
"... Fine." Matheo sighed.
()
The two of them went off to school, which looked about how most schools do, with the exception of the science department, which shot up out of the side of the school, looking like something straight out of the future. It was always Matheo's favorite place, thanks to it's practically infinite budget, and how many other geeky kids were teeming there.
"Those nerds paid for your precious field trip, Todd." Matheo smirked.
Todd nodded, but his head was somewhere else. He was looking over at the bus stop, and saw Kate, His Twin Sister. She wore a grey T-shirt, with two white triangles at the top and bottom, forming an almost hourglass symbol. She wore white highwater pants, and her hair was curled around her face, which bore a resemblance to Todd and Matheo's faces, but
more feminine, and she was also wearing elbow covers. Kate was standing at the bus stop, talking to her best friend, Amy Lockehart, whom Todd had always had a slight crush on... Okay, MAJOR crush, but Kate made it pretty clear the Amy already had a boyfriend, and that she would kill Todd if he dared ask such a question around Amy.
"He-e-ello...?" Matheo said, waving his hand in Todd's face. "The buses are leaving, NOW. It might not be formal to get into the buses straight away, but I'm not about to ditch a field trip, and RUIN my perfect record, you know!"
"Right, right." Todd agreed. "Let's go."
The two brothers sat next to each other, and Todd looked back at Amy and Kate, who were sitting a few rows behind them.
"What's your deal?" Matheo asked.
"Uh, nothing." Todd said. "I was just wondering... Why does Kate never, like, hang out with us anymore?"
"Uh, she grew up... And in fairness, I wouldn't want to hang out with us if I was her. We're kind of dorks. I mean, I'm 'booksmart,' you know, and you... have no friends."
Todd's head swiveled towards Matheo, panicked. "How'd you-?! ... Actually, you know what? I don't wanna know."
"Good choice." Matheo smirked.
The bus began moving, and the twins waited in silence. They'd been all over the city at this point, so there wasn't too much new to see. Todd stared out the window, anyway, while Matheo fiddled with another one of his inventions, something that looked like a slice of cake, with a clock inside, or something like that. Todd never paid too much attention to Matheo during the boring parts of his inventing. Eventually, the bus stopped at a large, grey, rectangular building, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, in the middle of the desert on the outskirts of the city.
"This is it?!" A girl yelled from the row next to Todd. "We're going to a BRICK?!"
Matheo chuckled to himself. "Insolent fool. The inside is always the interesting part..." He looked at Todd, who was staring at him. "... What?"
The bus opened it's doors, and the kids poured out, Todd walked over to where the teachers were, before he ducked behind a small wall, seeing Matheo next to him. "Great minds must think alike, huh?" Todd grinned.
Matheo sighed. "I guess you're in the mood to try and get a free souvenir too, huh, Todd?"
"I just wanna see the government part of this place... You've got the gadgets?"
"... It's not ideal. I couldn't fit too much in my backpack. Only two hologram disks, and a goo shooter."
"WHAT?!" Todd practically shouted. "No invisibility cloak, no memory eraser?! What if we're SEEN?!"
"Then don't get seen, doofus. You can still back out if you want."
"Oh, I'm not backing out, I just would appreciate a backup plan."
()
The twins snuck around the building, carefully avoiding the class, and snaking their way around the complex, trying to find an alternate entrance, but the only door they found was locked tight. Todd and Matheo both tried to lift it, but there was no luck. Matheo then took out his goo shooter, and set the chemical mixture to 'acidic,' and blasted it at the door, melting a giant hole in it.
"Don't touch the edges." Matheo warned, as he carefully wormed his way through, before Todd dived through, and rolled on the ground, with hardly a scuff. "Or, you can be extra. That works, I guess."
The twins looked around the room, there were cardboard boxes, stacked up to the ceiling, and they were arranged in a labyrinth pattern, almost. Todd and Matheo both slid through the maze, without making a sound, and eventually came to a door, which was locked. Todd snatched Matheo's goo shooter, aimed it at the door, and pulled the trigger, before Matheo's eyes widened. He grabbed the gun, and slid it at the base of the door, as it was now making a beeping sound. He and Todd both jumped back, as the shooter exploded, blowing a hole in the door, and setting off at least 3 different alarms.
"What was that?!" Todd yelled, confused, and running through the hole.
"The shooter was out of ammo, so when you pulled the trigger again, you activated the self-destruct!" Matheo shouted back.
"Why the heck would you program THAT in?!" Todd cried, ducking behind more boxes, as footsteps intensified.
"So, it wouldn't be useless when I ran outta ammo, DUH."
"Shh, shh, guards!"
As Todd warned, two men in black suits came sprinting around the corner, holding pistols, and pointing them in the dimly-lit room. "Any sign of the culprit?" One of them asked.
"Nope. Look around. They can't have gone too far."
Matheo and Todd crawled into the boxes that were making up their hiding place, and closed the lid, just as one of the agents looked over the wall, and surveyed the space behind it. His face contorted with suspicion, and he began to open the boxes the twins were hiding in, when suddenly...
"James, get over here, there's an acidic hole on the storage door!"
James let go of the box cover, and ran over to his partner, and, while they were distracted, Todd and Matheo crawled out of the boxes, and snuck out of the room, while hearing the guards theorizing about the possibility that one of the test subjects may have escaped. Todd and Matheo both sprinted down the hallway, before they saw shadows of the guards drawing near to them.
Matheo noticed a door that was labeled "Danger," And figured nobody would be stupid enough to go in there, so nobody would look there. The door was locked behind a retina scan, so he took out a holographic disk, set it to look like a guard, and made the hologram to activate the door.
Todd was oblivious to all of this, and snatched a small pipe that had fallen from the roof, and held it in front of him, and backed towards Matheo, before Matheo grabbed him by the collar, and yanked into the room. As the guards walked by, Todd and Matheo were now in the danger room, which was completely dark. Matheo used his other hologram disk as a light source, and let out an audible gasp. Todd turned around, and saw a glass case, with two devices in it, one resembling a square watch, with a black screen in the middle, and two blue lines that moved towards each other, and back again, and the other far thicker, with four white and red tubes that wrapped around it, and a red and black hourglass symbol in the middle, with a button beneath it.
"What... is this place? ... and are those, like, high-tech watches?" Todd asked, dumbfounded. "Why would anybody dedicate an entire room to watches? ... And only 2 of them, for that matter?"
"Maybe this has something to do with it?" Matheo asked, pointing the disk at a sign that read 'THIS ROOM CONTAINS OBJECTS THAT ORIGINATED FROM A VORTEX IN THIS EXACT LOCATION. ALL STAFF MUST REFRAIN FROM PHYSICAL CONTACT'
Todd looked at the watches, and noticed two labels, the blue watch was labeled 'Splici', and the red watch was labeled 'Opti.'
Todd shook his head. "I know I'm gonna regret this, but if we're gonna get out of here, we should probably try these. I mean, what else are we gonna do?"
Matheo nodded. "Let's just... There!" He put the pointed side of the holo-disk into the bottom of the glass, and managed to remove the case noiselessly, at the cost of the disk.
Todd reached for the blue watch, while Matheo reached for the other one, and to their surprise, the watches suddenly jumped onto their arms, causing them to yelp in surprise.
"What the?!" Todd cried, as he began trying to use the railing to pry off the watch, but he had no luck, it even kind of hurt him to try and remove it, while Matheo simply stared at his, entranced. "Fascinating." He said, "A watch that is capable of malforming, and attracting itself to it's user... and all in such a compact form..."
Todd suddenly looked back at his watch, and wondered if this watch would be such a problem. He began poking at it, trying to find some way to 'activate' it... Whatever that would mean. Todd eventually realized that the black and blue part of his watch was glossy, like the screen on a phone. He tried swiping at it, and a holographic blue ring popped up, with several faces on it, faces that definitely didn't look human. After about 2 seconds, the face became a hologram, revealing a monkey-like creature, with four extra arms, and 2 more seconds after that, the black part of the watch slid back, revealing a circular symbol, that resembled the one on Matheo's watch, with a silver rim around it.
The symbol rose up, attached to a core-like object, which began beeping. Todd stared at the symbol, confused. Matheo looked at Todd, and pressed the button on his watch, causing his core to pop up as well, revealing a hologram of a hulking humanoid beast, with 4 arms, and his core began beeping as well. The twins looked at each other, before Todd broke the silence.
"Well, I don't really like the beeping, so I guess I'll just press this thing back down-!?"
()
As soon as Todd pressed the core down, there was a flash of blue light, and in an instant, blue fur covered veins spring up from his watch, as they raced up his body, and reached his eyes, which both split into two. A black and blue tail sprung out of his lower body, while his legs shot up into his abdomen, and his arms split into 8 different arms, and the hourglass symbol appeared on his left arm. The light faded. It felt like only a second, but after that light faded, he was completely different. He started yelling in a higher pitched voice, and quite literally ran up the wall, ceiling, down the other wall, and raced laps vertically like this for a bit.
()
Matheo saw this, and grinned from ear-to-ear. "Oh, My turn." He raised his right hand in the air, and slammed it down on the core, as red light shot out from the watch.
()
Crimson-tinted veins shot up from Matheo's watch, racing up to his eye, turning it bright yellow, and pupil-less. Two extra arms shot out from Matheo's shirt, as the 'A' on it became a yellow line that ran up his shirt. Matheo's skin was now deep red, and the line from his shirt became black, and ran vertically along his head. Matheo's arms were now extremely muscular, and he began flexing.
()
"Hey..." Todd suddenly said. "Wait a sec... I actually feel... fine, okay, great, LIKE A MILLION BUCKS!" Todd yelled, suddenly ecstatic. "I mean look at me, I'm Spider-man, and I can even see in the dark!"
Todd put two paws out, and stuck out a few fingers, but now webs appeared, and he fell flat on his face.
Matheo picked Todd up with only his pinky finger, and his thumb. "This is beyond cool. I mean, I was expecting maybe a badge, or something, but shapeshifting watches, I mean, come on!"
Todd's four eyes suddenly widened. "Uh... Yeah, How, exactly do we turn back into humans?"
Matheo stuttered. "Uh, still working on that. In the meantime, I know how we're getting out of here."
The door was suddenly punched open, and several agents began clearing into the room, and Todd grabbed Matheo, and scurried onto the roof, desperately trying to avoid them.
"Sir!" One of the agents shouted. "The Splicatrix and Optitrix have been taken!"
"Optritrix? Splicatrix?" Matheo asked. "Is that what these watches are called?"
The guards looked up, and began shooting at the ceiling, causing Todd to drop Matheo, and scurry away from the rain of bullets. Matheo used the gravity to his advantage, and delivered a devastating ground pound, knocking away almost all of the guards, while Todd ran down, and accidentally shot one of the guards with his tail. The guard was suddenly caught in a rather large spider-web. Todd grinned, and quickly tied several guards together with his webbing, and threw the combo into the other guards, clearing them out just long enough for Todd to escape, while Matheo tore the door off of it's hinges, and used that to smack most of the guards out of the way, and began clearing after Todd, before they were stopped by one last guard, with what appeared to be a flashlight.
"So, you took our property, huh guys?" He smirked. "Well, they haven't exactly bonded to your DNA, yet, so they can be removed rather easily, you know."
Todd curled his tail upwards, and shot several webs the guard, before he used his flashlight to bring forth a plasma beam, incinerating the webbing, and blasting Matheo back a few feet, before he came barreling back through the smoke, and backhanded-slapped the guard into the wall, before the guard angled himself at just the right trajectory that he jumped off the wall, and onto the ceiling, and punched Matheo in the face, only for the punch to do nothing, and Matheo grabbed the guard, threw him to the side, and was webbed up by Todd, and the two continued their escape.
"Something tells me they don't know how to work these things." Todd joked.
They were stopped by the full squadron of agents, who were blocking the door, and began opening fire on the twins, but Todd grabbed Matheo, and flung him towards the massive overhead window.
Todd jumped after him, and covered his face. Matheo wound up a punch, and shattered the window, and the twins landed outside, and hid behind the bus.
"That oughta keep them off our backs, for now." Todd sighed.
"Yeah, but how long until they come out and see 2 aliens hiding behind the bus?! We're not exactly discreet."
Suddenly, they both heard a beeping sound, and a flash of yellow light shown from both of their watches, and they were finally back to normal. They climbed back into the bus through the window and tried to pretend that there weren't a bunch of guards looking for them.
()
"I can't believe that just happened." Todd said, as the last kids got back into the bus, and it began to return home.
"These... uh, let's see... Since yours splices, and mine optimizes, the plural should be... 'Omni,' cuz they can do both."
"Then..." Todd replied. "These Omnitrix's are AWESOME."
"Let's just be glad they actually bought the whole 'we got them at the gift store' story."
"Yeah. So, 'Splicatrix' huh? I wonder what the 'splice' part means..."
"Let's not find out on the bus, please…"