"What is happening out there?" Rook wondered as he watches the explosion in the ship from afar. The adventurers walk to the front of the ship to witness the attack. "I think they need some help." Finn said before running off. "Where are you going? You are supposed to stay in the ship with me!" Rook told Finn. "He can't help it when people are in danger." Jake told Rook before following Finn.
"I think I'm comfortable in here." Simon said before being grabbed by the collar by Jerry. "Don't be such a square, Huey Lewis. Let's help out Finn and Jake!" Jerry insisted. "Jerry, I may be a Californian, but don't drag me out there, please!" Simon pleaded as Jerry walks down the cargo ramp. "I wonder if I should go after them, or if I should continue to watch the Rust Bucket." Rook contemplated before turning back to face the city. He witnesses Finn and Jake, followed by Jerry carrying Simon like luggage, running across the sands.
At the city, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin help to get the people to safety as walls crumble and fire breaks out around them. "Everyone, get to safety!" Ben yelled. Debris chunks are about to fall on a couple of Tetramand citizens, a man and a woman, when it is grabbed in a sphere of pink energy. They look to see Gwen casting the spell from her hands before flinging it away from them. "Get your wife to safety. We can take it from here." Ben told the Tetramand man.
"That's my mother!" the man responded before running off with his mother. Kevin touches a wall, and his entire body transforms into sandstone before smashing an incoming chunk of wall. "Everyone's away from the gate. Now, who's doing this?" Ben wondered when a fireball is lobbed at him. The adventurers arrive just in time to see the fireball landing atop Ben. "Ben!" Finn screamed.
"He'll be fine." Simon said nonchalantly as he is carried underarm by Jerry. The fire subsides, revealing a rocky being engulfed in lava and flame in his place. "Who's that?" Jake wondered. "Heatblast: one of Ben's transformations, his very first one." Simon explained. Heatblast spews fire from his hands and feet, propelling himself into the air to get a better vantage point.
"Who's the sucker throwing fireballs at me?!" Heatblast said in a gravelly voice. He sees a fireball coming at him, and he catches it to throw it right back at the source; a massive dragon with stone skin and lava veins similar to Heatblast. "No way… Alpha?" Heatblast muttered when he locks eyes with the monster. "We meet again, Ben Tennyson." the monster spoke in a calm, yet intimidating voice before leaping at Heatblast. He dodges Alpha, causing it to crash through the wall.
Heatblast touches down before the adventurers and looks behind to see them, surprised. "Wait, what- I thought you guys were in the Rust Bucket?" Heatblast asked them. "We saw what's happening, and we came to help." Finn explained. "If this were any other threat, I'd welcome any help, but this one's bad news!" Heatblast said before Alpha stands before him. It spews fire from its mouth, which Heatblast blocks by firing a plume of fire to push it away.
While Heatblast is blinded by the wall of fire, he is grabbed by a giant black and red claw, unlike that of Alpha's. The fire dissipates, revealing a black, saurian creature with red swirls all over its body, a spiked hunchback, and a face bearing an ever-open yellow maw and a single eye represented by a red ring. "M-Malware?!" Heatblast exclaimed. "In the flesh." the creature spoke with a different voice than Alpha's, now more threatening and angrier. "We gotta save him!" Finn exclaimed before he and Jake rush into battle.
"Finn, no! He's too dangerous, even for you!" Simon yelled before he turns to Jerry. "Jerry, run as far away from that thing as you can! Don't let him touch you!" Simon advised. "Alright." Jerry said before running away with Simon. Finn rides Jake into battle, stretching his body upwards. Malware squeezes Heatwave until he times out, reverting back into Ben.
"I'm going to enjoy this…" Malware spoke. "No, we must continue our mission." Alpha's voice spoke. "Curses… we will catch up later." Malware spoke before throwing Ben down to the ground. As he looks up to the sky, he sees Jake wrapping around Malware with Finn standing atop his head. "Finn, what are you doing?!" Ben screamed.
"Baddie secured!" Jake said as he tightens himself around Malware. "What a curious creature." Alpha said before electrifying Malware's body, shocking Jake off. Finn jumps onto Malware's head just in time as Jake collapses around Ben, confusing the boy. Finn climbs and stand atop Malware's head. "I don't know what you are, but you're going down!" Finn said as he transforms his robot arm.
Before he could deploy his weapon, a tiny Malware head pops up and bites onto his arm. Finn tries to get loose, but his arm is pulled off and absorbed into Malware. "My arm!" Finn screams before Malware shakes him off. "It's no Tachyon Cannon, but it'll do." Malware spoke before walking into the city. Ben catches Finn and puts him on the ground.
"Dude, I have so many questions, but the one I wanna know is if you're okay." Ben asked Finn. "He took my arm!" Finn said as he shows his stub. "You have a prosthetic? Was it anything special?" Ben asked. "It could turn into all sorts of weapons. Is that bad?" Finn asked. "Mucho." Ben said in despair.
Flying out of the smoke plumes are Gwen and Kevin. Just when Jake awakens, he sees Gwen and Kevin falling, and stretches his hands into nets to catch them. "What am I sitting in?" Kevin wondered before looking at Jake. "Ew, gross! I'm in a dog!" Kevin said as he scrambles out of Jake's nets. "You're not a normal dog, are you?" Gwen asked Jake.
"Ben, what was that thing?" Finn asked Ben worriedly when a woman screams. The team runs into the city and finds guards circling around a single point, and Malware gone. They push through and find lying on the ground a Tetramand woman with unusual grey skin wearing black-and-gold armour with fur shoulders and a horned helmet. "Looma!" Ben exclaimed as he came to the woman's side.
"Ben…?" Looma muttered weakly. "What did he do to you?" Ben asked. "It… grabbed me and I felt… weak…" Looma said before falling unconscious. "Looma? Looma!" Ben exclaimed as two guards came to her aid and carries her away. "You called the thing Alpha and Malware. You know 'em?" Jake asked Ben as he stretches his head over, to Ben's surprise.
"Woah, don't do that! But yeah, I know him… them…" Ben said. "We know who Malware is, but not Alpha." Gwen commented. "I'll explain later in the Rust Bucket." Ben said. "I think our hitchhikers have explaining to do too." Kevin said. Meanwhile in the middle of the desert, Lockdown sits atop a cliff watching Jerry and Simon lost in the desert as a fiery shape fly into the atmosphere. "Let's pack up and follow him. We've gathered good resources here." Lockdown spoke to two drones attending a Scranton device.
In the Rust Bucket III in transit, Ben explains to everyone how he knows Alpha. "I transformed into Upchuck and swallowed it, dropping it off in the Null Void before coming back to this universe." Ben concluded. "You never told us about this?" Kevin asked. "I did! You guys didn't believe me!" Ben rebutted. "How would he even escape the Null Void? How did Malware come back after Vilgax used him as a suit?" Gwen wondered.
"It's possible Caesar's technology is less advanced to properly densify Alpha's form, leading to him breaking out. As for Malware, well Mechamorphs are already very resilient. It's not the first time he came back either." Simon suggested. "You know an awful lot about our adventures. You're not an undercover Plumber, are you?" Kevin asked. "I wish." Simon answered. "So the assailant was Alpha's Heatblast form, was it not? And it did something to Looma, perhaps absorb her D.N.A.?" Rook suggested. "But why? Rex took the Ultimatrix Nanites, so he couldn't transform into aliens." Ben said.
"You keepin' up, Finn?" Jake asked as they listened to the discussion. "I think so." Finn said. "Would be nice to have intel on these old shows. I only found so much in the archives, like music, television shows, and these funny things called memes, but inconveniently not old cartoons." Jerry commented. "As the humans say, bingo!" Rook said. "What did you find?" Ben asked Rook.
"I found a Plumber report from Pyros about an unknown monster attacking a Pyronite man, who was affected the same way Looma Red Wind was." Rook said as he shows the team the report on a screen. "That's how he could transform into Heatblast! They're using Alpha to absorb alien D.N.A. to rebuild an Omnitrix with data store in Malware." Ben said. "His next target could be anywhere, since your Omnitrix has every alien species in the known galaxy and a bit of Andromeda." Simon said. "Alright, professor, fess up! How do you know so much about us? Ben's thing with Rex, alien stuff, and you're not even a Plumber!" Kevin demanded to Simon. "I'll explain from here." Finn said as he steps in.
He explains how they really got here, who they really are, but not yet explaining Ben's universe is from a cartoon. "That's pretty much it." Finn said. Everyone but Ben is shocked. "I've seen weirder." Ben commented. "That… was a lot to take in." Kevin said a she leans against a table.
"That doesn't explain how you know so much about us." Ben said. "We just know. I'll fill you in later." Simon said. "So you came by the same time this… Alpha-Malware thing showed up. Sounds too coincidental." Kevin said. "Lockdown probably came by to do evil stuff here too. In many of the universes we landed on, his cronies are always there." Jake said. "And you think they gave a hand in this?" Rook asked.
Before anyone can answer, something shoots past the ship, rattling everyone inside. "What was that? Was it Malware, or Alpha, I mean-" Ben wondered as he gets up. "We need a name for this thing." Gwen suggested. "I call Malpha!" Jerry suggested. Rook gets up and examines the monitors.
"It is! Malw- Malpha accelerated past us!" Rook said. "Where did he come from?" Ben asked. Rook types on the navigation system to extrapolate Malpha's trajectory. "It seems they came from Lepidopterra." Rook answered. "We're too late. He's likely already absorbed the D.N.A. of a Lepidopterran for Stinkfly." Simon said. "Heatblast, Four Arms, Stinkfly, Malware's basically Upgrade… I think I know his pattern." Ben said.
"Rook, pull up the star map and pin home worlds for Wildmutt, Diamondhead, XLR8, Ripjaws, Ghostfreak, and Grey Matter. I think he's after my first line-up." Ben suggested. "Setting course for Kinet." Rook said. "Let's hope we get there before anyone else gets hurt." Finn said. The Rust Bucket III turns around and enters hyperspace. Nearby, Lockdown's new ship floats camouflaged.
"They're so close, it's almost tempting to fire our cannons on them." Doctor Gross said. "As sweet it would be, our mission is to shadow the fusion with our Reality Anchors. With Rob's universe under surveillance, we must find other sources of this fundamental force." Lockdown told Doctor Gross. "You're gonna use it for that hand-thing, right?" Martin asked Lockdown as he gestured to a Lich Hand kept in a glass containment chamber. "Why did we agree to this? It's taking too long, and we're getting nothing outta it!" C.Y.L.A.S. spoke in frustration. "We must be patient. Our client will pay us handsomely for this." Lockdown said before setting his ship to hyperspace.
To be continued…