Dark clouds loomed and purple lightning struck over the small town of Dairyville, South Carolina. And despite common sense saying otherwise, three young country boys were roaming the fields in the midst of this enigmatic storm. Two of them used a stick to move the barbed wire fencing clearing a path for them to crawl under into the pasture where cows were spending their night mindlessly grazing. One boy, the smallest and most mud-covered, however, seemed hesitant, holding his tiny pet pig close to his chest for comfort, and vocalized as such.
"M-maybe we shouldn't be here," he stuttered.
"I knew we shouldn't have brought him," one of the older boys mocked him. "He's nothing but a big baby."
"C'mon, Todd, don't wimp out now," said the other boy. "It's just a little fun. Push over the cow and it can't get back up."
"We'll even let you tip the first one," said the first boy with a mischievous grin. "Unless the baby wants to go home so mommy can change his diaper."
He added to the insult by sucking his own thumb…which only made him look dumb in Todd's opinion. Unfortunately, Todd was still a kid, and children were easily influenced by insults and peer pressure. Glowering at the older kids, Todd deposited his pet on the ground and crawled under the barbed wire. He marched past the older boys – the first one snickering behind his back – and marched up to the first cow he saw: a big black bovine easily a couple feet taller than him with four times the mass.
Todd pressed his hands against the cow and pushed with all the strength he could muster. It should come as no surprise that the cow did not budge, let alone acknowledged Todd's wimpy efforts. The farm boy put his shoulder into it and even his pet pig tried to push with him. But Todd's feet ended up slipping in a mud puddle, accidentally kicking his pet and face planting into the muck. Needless to say, the older boys found the whole thing hilarious and openly laughed at Todd….
That was until they realized that the "cow" was actually a bull, who glared at the laughing boys and made an angry snort. As to be expected, the boys ran away screaming like the cowards they were; even the pig squeal and abandoned his owner. The only one who didn't notice anything amiss was Todd himself.
"Hey, where's everybody going?" he said, until he felt the bull's hot breath against the back of his head.
Todd turned around and slowly rose to his feet as the bull pawed the ground, lowering its sharp horns towards the boy. Rather than running, Todd chose a poor time to be brave –
"Back off, cowchip!" he shouted.
If the bull was capable, it would be raising its brow at the not-too-bright boy.
But…something did indeed frighten the bull away, as it looked over Todd and immediately galloped to the opposite side of the pasture. Now Todd would like to think it was his bravery that drove off the bovine, but he knew better than that. Something else had spooked him. Something that, based on the rustling grass noise reaching his ear, was coming up behind him.
Todd turned around slowly. He couldn't see what the creature was because the clouds were covering any moonlight, but it was three times his size and definitely not human. Especially with this weird glowing purple lines marking its astonishingly thin limbs.
The monster made a strange noise that sounded like a combination of a growl and a gurgle. Whatever it was, it made the hair on the back of Todd's neck stand on end. The young farmer boy decided it was time to leave and ran away from the shadowy monster, nearly tripping himself on the mud puddle again. As he made a beeline for the opening in the barbed fence, Todd looked back over his shoulder just as the strange purple lightning struck, creating a momentary flash that illuminated the creature.
Nobody would believe him – Todd wasn't even sure he believed it. After all, why would there be a giant mummy in the middle of South Carolina?
The next day, several dozen miles south of Dairyville, the Rust Bucket was parked near a crystal clear lake on a perfectly sunny morning. But instead of playing outside, Gwen was completely immersed in her little spell book, Ben formed a party with Johnny Test on Sumo Slammers Smackdown (neither boy have learned anything from their video game adventure yesterday) while listening to the radio, and Trixie was jotting down new ideas in her notebook.
"Gotta love summer vacation," said Ben. "Nothing to do all day long but sit around and – BWAH!"
The Wielder of the Omnitrix jumped in his seat as a large (and strangely soaked) hand touched his shoulder. The Tennyson kids looked up in curiosity, staring up at Ma's perturbed face, dressed in his bathrobe and his head completely lathered in shampoo.
"Grandpa, what gives?" asked Ben.
"What gives is that I ran out of water in the shower. Again," said Max in annoyance, grabbing a cloth off the counter to wipe the shampoo off. "It's your job to keep the tank full, Ben."
"I will…," said Ben, reclining back into his game. "Just…later."
"Sure, the same way you're going to make your bed or take out the trash?" said Gwen sarcastically.
"Is that what that smell is?" asked Trixie. "I just thought we ran over another raccoon."
"You're not one to talk, young lady," said Max heatedly, catching Gwen by surprise, before pointing out the pile of unwashed table wear in the sink. "You think those dirty dishes are just gonna clean themselves?"
"Well…what about Trixie?" said Gwen, trying to divert attention away from her. "What has she done lately?"
"Hey, I'm busy changing the world over here," said Trixie defensively. "I'm on the very of developing a synthetic alloy that's one hundred times strong than steel at a third of the cost. It'll revolutionize modern construction. So forgive me if I don't have time to replace the oil or maintain the engine every week."
"You didn't fix the engine?" asked Max alarmingly.
"Uh…," Trixie mumbled. At that exact moment, the RV's hood popped open and a cloud of black smoke poured out. "I'll get to that later."
"Lay off, grandpa," said Ben. "If we wanted to do chores, we could've just stayed at home."
As if fate had conspired against them, the radio crackled and a dreadful advertisement started to play.
"Y'all ready for a little fresh air? Want a chance to commune with the animals? You know someone who needs to know the value of some good ol' fashion hard work? Then sign your whole clan up for a week at Dairyville's family fun farm camp! And experience life on a real working farm!"
An evil sort of grin crossed Max's face that would make even Vilgax run for the hills. But of course, the only thing on Trixie's mind at that moment was -
"…How did we get a local advertisement on a satellite radio?"
"Trust me, you're gonna love it!" said Max as they drove through the fields of field headed towards a solitary farm in the middle of smackdab nowhere (but not Nowhere, Kansas.) "When I was a kid, I spent every summer on my uncle Jedidiah's farm."
"Was this Jedidiah Amish?" asked Gwen.
"No, but everyone thought he was," said Max. "Wonder why that was…. Anyway, learning the value of a little hard work is just what you kids need."
"I am collaborating with Dexter and the Test Twins in the creation of free energy," said Trixie, "which is considered impossible, by the way. How is that not hard work?"
"Forget it, Trixie," said Ben in a defeated tone. "We're already here anyway…."
Max pulled into the muddy driveway and ushered the kids outside. The first thing they saw was a strong and rugged woman in overalls tossing corn on the ground, attracting the chickens to feed while her son, Todd, stood nearby holding her pet pig like a security blanket.
"Welcome," she greeted the Tennysons. "I'm Joan Maplewood, this is my son, Todd." She gestured to the farm boy beside her. "You must be the Tennysons."
"Yes, we're the Tennysons," Max introduced himself, shaking Joan's hand. "Call me Max. And these tenderfoots are my grandkids. Ben, Gwen, and Trixie."
"Technically, I'm not – " Trixie immediately tried to back out, only to be silenced by Gwen's hand.
"If we have to suffer, so do you," said Gwen venomously.
"Well, enough chitchat," said Joan assertively. "You're here to work. You can start by unloading that truck full of feed over there." She gestured to a pickup truck, which was packed with nearby a hundred bags in the back.
"Hey, did you just make up this farm camp thing to get people to pay you for free labor?" Ben asked suspiciously.
"No…but the checks already in the bank anyway, so no point complaining about it now," said Joan.
"C'mon, kids, I'll be good exercise," said Max enthusiastically.
With visible displeasure, the Tennyson kids dragged their feet over to the truck as Max unloaded the first bag of feed. He handed it off to Ben, who nearly fell flat on his face when he realized how heavy a bag of feed actually was. He couldn't even lift it to his chest and had to carry it at an awkward angle. Gwen was in a similar situation where she tried to carry the bag on her shoulder, which put a painful strain on her back. Trixie couldn't even lift hers off the ground and had to drag the bag through the dirt.
"Oh man, there's gotta be like a thousand of these things," Ben complained. With a cunning smirk, he reached for the Omnitrix. "Looks like a job for – "
"Ben 'I'm-too-lazy-to-fill-a-water-tank' Tennyson!" said Max sternly, blocking off the Omnitrix with his larger hand. "And only him, if you know what I mean."
Ben felt a little fear creep up his spine and nodded quickly. He let out a relieved sigh when Max went back to collect more feed from the truck.
"Why do I get the feeling the fun part of our summer vacation is suddenly over?" Gwen groaned.
Two hours and hundreds of feed bags later, the Tennysons finally managed to empty the truck and created a disorganized mound of bags in the barn.
"Well, that's the last of it," said Max, not even the least bit winded. "Nothing like working up a good sweat, right kids?"
When he got no immediate response, Max turned back to his grandkids. Ben and Gwen groaned as their arms dangled at their sides, throbbing painfully. Trixie was face down on the floor and didn't look like she was getting up anytime soon. Some life returned to them when they heard a ringing noise coming from the house followed by the yells of Joan "Come and get it! Supper time!"
Having a good meal in their bellies revitalized Ben and Gwen's strength from the torturous manual labor. Trixie, on the other hand, was laying her face flat against the table, seemingly dead to the world, leaving her food free for Todd's pig to jump up and snatch up.
"Mmm, good grub, Joan," Max complimented.
"Yeah, with no actual grubs in it for a change," said Gwen with overwhelming relief.
"So no TV, no computers, no malls," Ben complained, turning his head to Todd and Joan. "What do you guys do for excitement around her."
"Well, you won't believe what I last night – " Todd started with enthusiasm, but he was cut off by his mother.
"Now, none of that," Joan warned him. "No one's interested in your tall tales. Let's get these dishes washed and hit the hay."
"What?!" cried Ben as he and Gwen turned to look outside. The sun was barely starting to set over the horizon. "But it's still light out!"
"Trust me, you'll be glad you got the sleep come morning," said Max with a knowing smirk.
Once the meal was finished the dishes were washed, Todd guided the Tennysons through the field to the place where they would be sleeping for the night. Trixie moaned pathetically as she dragged her feet, repeatedly commenting how she was going to die, while leaning on Gwen's shoulder. Ben, however, moved quickly to walk beside Todd, looking around conspiratorially.
"Okay, so spill it," Ben urged Todd. "What did you see last night?"
"Aw nothing," said Todd, looking downcast. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."
"Try us," Gwen encouraged him. "We're seen a lot of pretty bizarre stuff over the summer."
"Like evil clones for example," Trixie added tiredly.
"Well, I don't know if it's as exciting as evil clones," said Todd, who just seemed to automatically accept they were truthful. "But last night, I was down at old man Johnson's pasture when, right in front of me, bigger than life was…" He left the Tennysons hanging in suspense. "A mummy! A genuine Egyptian walking dead mummy!"
"Really?" Ben, Gwen, and Trixie asked together in interest.
"Yeah, it showed up after that weird purple lightning storm," Todd added just as they arrived at the guest house.
"Purple lightning?!" shouted Trixie, her exhaustion now gone and replaced with adrenaline. She glanced sideways at Ben and Gwen. "You don't think…?"
"It has something to do with that werewolf in Arizona?" Ben added seriously.
"Something tells me this boring trip isn't going to be so boring," said Gwen, frowning.
Todd escorted the Tennysons to the top floor of the guest house were a half dozen bunkbeds were lined in the otherwise minimal space.
"Here it is – home sweet home for the next week," he said.
"Ew, what's that smell," Gwen groaned, pinching her nose while Ben covered his mouth. Trixie didn't seem to notice the nauseating scent.
"Oh…this is the chicken coop, too," said Todd before making a hasty exit. "See ya in the morning."
Opposite of his grandkids, Max took a deep breath of what was most likely chicken waste in the air like he was smell lilacs and lavender.
"Ah, isn't that great?" said Max. "Nothing like the smell of country air."
"Ugh, could this get any worse?" Ben moaned as he reclined in the nearest bed. The moment he rested his head on the pillow, the Omnitrix wielder was started by a loud screeching noise. He moved the pillow to discover that a live chicken had taken up residence in his bed.
"Guess we won't have to worry about fresh eggs in the morning," said Max jokingly, which earned him a disappointed grimace from his grandson.
Although Max had gone to bed early like Joan had instructed, the children could not find it in them to sleep. After hearing what Todd had said about the mummy and the purple lightning, curiosity ate away at them until they came to a silent agreement: sneak out and hunt down the mummy.
They waited until they heard the loud rumbling of Max's snores before climbing out of their beds, slinking downstairs, and exited through the back door.
"You ready for this?" Gwen asked in a quiet voice as she closed the door behind them.
"Aw yeah, time for a mummy hunt," Ben cheered as the trio ran through the fields.
"I really hope Joan is right about Todd's tall tale only being that," said Trixie, frowning.
"So what's the deal with the purple lightning?" asked Gwen curiously.
"Based on the shared theory I have with the Test Twins," Trixie explained, "it's some kind of faster-than-light teleportation system that originates beyond our solar system – maybe even beyond our galaxy. That werewolf we fought in Arizona – "
"The Yenaldooshi," Ben contributed.
"Yes, that," said Trixie. "It arrived at the same time as when the purple lightning struck."
"And don't forget how it zapped me and Johnny into Sumo Slammers Smackdown," said Ben.
"I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that you were trapped in a video game," said Gwen.
"If a purple lightning storm was around when Todd saw that mummy," Trixie continued, "it could me that whatever that…creature is could come from the same place as the Yenaldooshi."
"Which means a new alien for the Omnitrix," said Ben excitedly. "This is gonna be awesome!"
"Now the word I'd use," said Gwen, frowning.
They ran all the way to Old Man Johnson's pasture (which was odd considering they never asked where it was) and army crawled underneath the barbed wire fence. They barely walked ten feet before they discovered a large hole in the ground that looked like it had been recently excavated, along with a set of glowing purple foot prints heading away from the crater. Besides the fact that they were glowing, the footprints were twice the size of an average adult and ended in two points.
"You think that's where he landed?" asked Ben.
"No, look at the ground," said Trixie. "Whoever – or whatever – it is was digging for something. And the dirt looked to have been disturbed very recently. Maybe an hour ago or less."
"An alien werewolf steals satellite equipment," said Gwen, "and now an alien mummy is digging holes in the ground. What do you think they're after?"
But they had little time to contemplate why space invaders would be acting oddly when they heard a pair of angry snorts coming from the hill behind them. At the crest of the hill were a pair of cows – or at least Ben thought they were cows. Except they were heavily mutated; glowing purple skin with twisted horns and a mouthful of crooked pointed teeth.
"I know I'm a city kid, but…," said Ben, eyes wide in astonishment, "but cows aren't supposed to look like…that, right?"
The mutated cows lower their horns and charge at the children. While Ben and Gwen run in opposite directions, Trixie yelled "Accessing Petrosapian squeance!", transforming into her half-Diamondhead form. Trixie slams her fists to the ground and create a triangular wall of crystal, forcing the charging cows to split in opposite directions – one toward Ben and the other toward Gwen.
As she was running away – the mutated beast steadily catching up to her – Gwen's thought quickly and jumped for an overhead tree branch. Gwen flew with the momentum and flipped over the glowing purple creature, landing in a crouch behind it. The mutated cow stopped in its tracks, turning around to face her, and prepared to charge again. Gwen quickly whipped out her spell book, flipping through the pages, then raised her hand to the beast and shouted:
"Appendaga Regoria!"
The mutated cow made a concerned noise as it suddenly lost its footing, hovering several feet off the ground. The monster twisted and flailed, but it did nothing to return it to Earth.
"Why don't you hang around for a while?" Gwen taunted the creature.
At the same time, Ben was trying to outrun the angry mutate steer close on his behind while twisting through the Omnitrix's selection.
"Come on, come on, where is it?" Ben whined desperately. When he finally found the icon he was searching for, he shouted, "Finally!"
Ben slammed down the faceplate, exploding in a burst of green light, and was instantly replaced by Fasttrack. The speedy hero flashed a smug grin back at the mutated bovine and zipped ahead at lightning speed. In the blink of an eye, he snagged the barbed wires from the fences and ran back to the purple cow, binding the wires around its legs. The mutated cow howled as it tipped forward, rustling helplessly on the ground. With his cow taken care off, Fasttrack doubled back.
He and Gwen reunited where they started the chase by Trixie's crystal barrier.
"You okay?" Fasttrack asked Gwen.
"I'm fine," said Gwen. "First a mummy, now mutant cows. What's happening on this freaky farm?"
"Hey, Trixie, you know what – " Fasttrack started when he realized something missing. "Hey, where's Trixie?"
While Ben and Gwen were dealing with cow troubles, Trixie had gone ahead and followed the glowing footprints through the wheat fields, eventually coming out into a small clearing. In between a grain silo and a tool shed was radiating purple glow coming from a recently dug up hole in the ground. The one responsible for the digging bared a surprising resemblance to the stereotypical mummies in Earthen horror movies with the exception of its glowing purple eyes peering through the darkness of its headdress.
"It looks like Todd was correct," Trixie said to herself. "I've never seen a species of alien like that before? Why is it trying to dig through the dirt…?"
Trixie stepped lightly closer to the alien mummy when she noticed an ominous purple glow emerging from the hole. The glow appeared to be coming from an unusually purple crystal…. And the closer Trixie got to it, the more she realized that her vision was becoming blurred and her body started to feel sluggish. Trixie collapsed to her knees, holding her head with an unintentionally loud groan.
The mummy heard and turned on her with a strange chittering noise.
It leapt from the hole and pounced on Trixie. While she was barely able to hold on to her senses, Trixie raised her hand and fabricated a wall of crystal between them, causing the alien mummy to smack into the silicon. The creature narrowed its gaze and swung its arm like a whip, shattering the crystal and sending Trixie flying into the toolshed. Trixie slumped on the ground, shaking her head and trying to fight off the dizziness. She held out her hand and summoned a shower of crystal shards, but the mummy unraveled itself and let the shards slip harmlessly through its torso.
The mummy stretched its limb and extended its bandage-like fingers, which constricted around Trixie's body like a cocoon, leaving only her head and right arm free. The alien mummy dragged the human Omnitrix across the ground, bringing her closer to the alien and the glowing rock that was causing her illness.
"No…let go…," Trixie moaned, fruitlessly clawing at the bandages with her free ahand. "Let go…let go…I said…LET GO!"
She didn't know how it happened – she didn't know it could happen – but somehow, Trixie's right arm morph from a Petrosapien…to a Pyronite. She wrapped her molten fingers around the bandages and burned them away, causing the mummy to fall back with a high-pitched wail. Trixie shook her head to reorient herself and looked at her newly transformed limb in awe.
"How did I…?" Trixie asked herself, feeling clueless for the first time.
But her discovery would have to wait. The mummy growled at shot its bandages towards the water tower, breaking the support beams so that it fell in Trixie's direction. Trixie raised her arms over her head with a terrified shout, waiting for the water tower to come crashing down on her head…. But at the last second, she found herself being picked up off the ground and carried to safety before the tower collapsed. Trixie blinked and looked up at Fasttrack's concerned face.
"Benjamin!" Trixie cried in relief as the Citrakayah set her down, just as Gwen arrived through the wheat field. "And Gwendolyn! You're both okay!"
"We've been better," said Gwen.
"Where's the alien?" asked Trixie. The three of them looked around, but the monster movie villain was nowhere to be seen. Trixie cautiously walked over to the hole, and when she didn't feel the strange effects of the glowing rock, she knew it was empty. "It was digging for something in the ground, but I don't know what."
"Trixie…your arm," Gwen gasped, pointing to her friend's flaming hand.
"Yeah, I don't know how that happened," said Trixie, looking at her arm one last time before she reverted back to her human form. "But this would indicate that I am capable of using more than one strain of DNA."
"So you finally unlocked your multi-alien powers, huh?" said Ben excitedly.
"What do you mean 'finally?'" Trixie asked suspiciously.
"Uh, nothing!" said Fasttrack quickly.
"We should get back to bed," said Gwen, skillfully changing the subject. "It's been a long night and I could really use some shuteye."
Thankfully, they were able to sneak back into the guest house without raising any alarm. Max was still dead asleep in his bunk, giving the Tennyson kids a chance to slip back undetected.
"Man, I am beat," said Ben, throwing himself into bed with a tired groan. "I could sleep for a week – "
"Rise and shine, sleepyheads!" Joan shouted as she suddenly clicked on the lights, causing the Tennyson kids to moan and covered their eyes with their arms and pillows. "Time to start the day!"
"You've got to be kidding me?" Gwen whined. "It's five in the morning."
"And those cows aren't going to milk themselves," said Joan with a disgustingly upbeat attitude that made Trixie was to give her the Kai-TreatmentTM.
Max roused from his bed a moment later, stretching out and looking proud.
"Now aren't you glad you went to bed early?" he said.
The dark circles under their eyes said otherwise….
After a small and quick breakfast that hardly filled their appetites, the Tennysons followed Todd to the barn, where the young farm boy showed them the delicate process of milking cows. (Tgough after last night, neither Ben nor Gwen had any desire to see them again.)
"…just squeeze and pull," said Todd. "Squeeze and pull…easy, right?"
"Ugh, don't they have machines for this?" Ben complained.
"Ma doesn't believe in them," said Todd. "Says they spook the cows."
"Isn't there something else we can do?" Gwen pleaded.
"Well, the manure needs to be shoveled," said Todd, gesturing to the massive pile of cow…fertilizer outside.
"…I think I speak for everyone when I say we're fine with milking," said Trixie; Ben and Gwen quickly nodded in agreement.
And just like that, Max left the barn with Todd, leaving the kids along with half a dozen cows.
"Ugh, this is gonna take forever," Ben groaned. "…Unless we get a little special help."
"Benjamin, Maxwell told you specifically not to use the Omnitrix for this stuff," said Trixie pointedly.
"Who said anything about me going alien?" said Ben cunningly.
"What, you want me to do it?" asked Trixie, surprised.
"Well, yeah, grandpa never said you couldn't go alien," Ben pointed out. "Besides, this could be a good chance for you to try out that new power of yours. Maybe you can combine Rath and Fasttrack to get the job done in half the time."
"You just want Trixie to do all your chores for you," said Gwen disapprovingly.
"Unless you want to milk all these cows yourself," said Ben, gesturing to the long row of bovine.
"…"You should do it, Trixie," Gwen quickly changed her mind. "It'll good practice."
"You're as transparent as glass, Gwendolyn," said Trixie with a blank stare. "All thought…I won't deny I've been wanting to try this new…Dual-Form – "
"Nice name," Ben complimented.
"Okay, let me focus for a moment…," said Trixie.
She took a few steps away from the Tennyson cousins. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating on the two samples she wanted to call. After a moment of silence, Trixie transformed without her usual voice command. It looked mostly similar to her Citrakayah form, but now had the addition of buffer arms with black tiger stripes and sharp canines.
"It worked!" Ben cheered.
"Way to go, Trixie!" Gwen praised.
Eager to test out her abilities, Trixie zipped over to the nearest cow and lifted it above her head with one hand. She carried the cow to the milking station and proceeded to fill the bucket at rapid speed (though the cow seemed very perturbed.) She lifted the cow back to its pen and moved on to the next one. Then the next one. And then next one. In a matter of minute, the Tennysons have more than a dozen buckets of fresh milk ready.
"I can't believe I'm going to say this," Gwen told her cousin, "but this is your most brilliant plan yet."
"It's nothing," said Ben cockily. "With Trixie's double powers, we'll finish all these lame chores in a snap."
"How's it going in there?" Joan's voice called from the other side of the barn door.
"It's Joan! Hide!" Trixie hissed.
Trixie grabbed the cow she had been milking and zipped back to the pens and made herself scares. Ben and Gwen rushed over with stools and started pretending that they were milking their own cows. So when Joan walked in, nothing looked out of the ordinary.
"How're you kids doing?" asked Joan.
"Oh just milking away," said Gwen with a nervous laugh.
"Good work, kids," Joan praised. "Say, where's that little friend of yours? The one with the green hair?"
"She uh…," Ben stammered.
"Went to get more buckets!" Trixie shouted as she appeared at the door, in human form, carrying said buckets in her hands.
"Well, all right," said Joan, not sensing anything amiss. "When you three are done here, find Todd and he'll show you your other chores for the day."
The moment Joan left the barn, the kids sighed in relief. Then they shared conniving smirks.
Throughout the day, Ben and Gwen encouraged Trixie to use her newly acquired powers to do their chores (while they relaxed without a care in the world.) While the powers were similar to the incident when the Ben lost the Omnitrix's faceplate, Trixie was able to use her combinations in a much more effective manner.
She combined the powers of Rifter and Gutrot to feed the pig pens, Pesky Dust and Gray Matter to retrieve eggs from the chicken coop, Subwolfer and Jetray to plow the fields, and Diamondhead and Buzzshock to plant a fence. By the time they were done, Todd was visibly shocked by how quickly they had gone through the chores. He came close to suspecting Trixie's power's no thanks to Gwen's terrible acting, but Ben managed to lie his way through andmake Todd believe it was genuine hard work.
When they were released from their duties for the day, the first thing they did was locate Max, who was shoveling…cow waste into the trailer.
"You three got through your chores awfully fast," said Max suspiciously when the three arrived before sunset. "A little too fast in my opinion. Ben, you didn't use the Omnitrix when I explicit told you not to, did you?"
"No, of course not, grandpa," said Ben, shaking his head. "Trixie did it with her new powers."
"What new powers?" Max questioned with a raised brow.
"Apparently, I can now use multiple strains of DNA at once," said Trixie, raising her hands. She morphed the left one into a Pyronite and the right one into an Appoplexian to demonstrate. "I can only use two, but I suspect I can acquire more with practice."
"How did you learn to do that?" asked Max.
"When I was fighting that alien mummy last night," Trixie admitted.
"You three went out last night?!" Max scolded them. "Of all the – "
"Grandpa – big picture here," Gwen cut him off. "We saw an alien mummy last night. Todd said it came during a storm of purple lightning."
"Just like when we crossed paths with that alien werewolf," said Ben. "There's no way that's a coincidence."
"Hmm…," Max hummed thoughtfully for a moment. "I'm not happy you three snuck out, but if there is a connection, we can't afford to take any chances. Come on, you can fill me in while I grab some gear."
After the sun had set and the Maplewoods were assumed to be sleeping, the Tennysons snuck back out to Old Man Johnson's pasture. They returned to the scene where Ben and Gwen had left the mutated cows – one still hovering and the other bound by wire. Max kneeled and examined them with an alien handheld device.
"Well, this would explain your mutant cows," said Max. "But we've got an even bigger problem."
"Bigger than a rampaging mummy and monster cows?" asked Gwen.
"I'm picking up trace readings of Corrodium," said Max, examining his device again. "It's a high-energy mineral not naturally found on Earth. My guess is a meteor must have crashed here a few thousand years ago, scattering debris all over the area.
"The mummy's a rock collector?" said Ben.
"I'm afraid not, Ben," said Max worriedly. "It's a powerful energy source with radioactive properties. That's what mutated those cattle."
"And possibly explains my powers," said Trixie. "I was exposed to the Corrodium, so the radiation must have caused my abilities to evolve."
"You got lucky," said Max. "If normal humans were exposed, they would be mutated beyond the point of saving."
"So if that mummy gets his hands on more of this stuff…," said Ben slowly.
"He could turn every living thing on the eastern seaboard into the same kind of monsters," Max concluded.
Little over half an hour later, the Rust Bucket pulls up to a factory called the Digby Dairy.
"Scanner indicates that the Corrodium readings are highest right over there," said Max, referring to his device and turning his attention to the factory.
"Digby Dairy?" said Ben. "They make my favorite ice cream!"
"There will be time for unhealthy snack later," said Trixie seriously. "Right now, we need to think of a way to sneak past security and locate that mummy."
"You mean the security that asleep at his station?" said Gwen, pointing to the booth in the parking lot. As she said, the fizzy-haired security guard was fast asleep in his chair, his head hanging and snoring loud enough to wake the dead while his personal television played static.
"Is it just me," said Trixie, "or does every place we visit always have the worst security?"
"Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Trixie," said Max as he exited the RV. "C'mon, let's get inside."
After effortlessly walking behind the snoring security guard, the Tennysons wandered through the factory, following Max's scanner for guidance. The device led them halfway through the building before Max took a sharp left and took the stairs down to the basement. As they went deeper underground, Max's device started sparking dangerously until it fizzled out. Before the scanner died, Max noticed that it had pointed to a patch of concrete below.
"I'd say there's a big chunk of Corrodium buried right here," said Max, highlighting the area with his flashlight. "Beneath the concrete."
"I'm on it!" said Ben, already activating his Omnitrix and slapping down the faceplate.
Diamondhead emerged from the burst of green light and jumped over the railing to the ground floor, once again not listening to Max when he told the alien hero to wait. Diamondhead morphed his hands into blades, using them as pickaxes to dig up the concrete and dirt underneath. Despite potentially being buried over thousands of years, the Corrodium was buried in a surprisingly shallow place. Ben was able to unearth the glowing purple stone in under ten seconds.
"Found it," Daimondhead told his family as they came down the stairs.
"Nice work, genius," said Gwen in annoyance. "You just did the mummy's work for him."
"Oh…yeah…," Diamondhead said lamely.
And as luck would have it, that was the exact moment when the mummy suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the room, appearing and disappearing as the overhead lights flickered for one apparent reason other than dramatic effect. The mummy's glowing purple eyes narrowed on the Tennysons, then traced down to the chuck of exposed Corridum in the ground.
"We've got company," said Max.
"And I don't think he's here for the chocolate zoomies," said Gwen worriedly.
Diamondhead and the mummy lunged at each other. The Petrosapien struck first and stabbed his silicon blade through the creature's chest…which amounted to nothing because the mummy was just pure bandages with no internal organs. The mummy wrapped said bandages around Diamondhead's extended arm, lifted him into the air, and threw him into the wall. With that little annoyance out of the way, the mummy unraveled its hallow chest, revealing two more pieces of Corrodium, and reached out to collect the third before the Tennysons could stop it.
"It's got the Corrodium!" said Max.
The alien mummy joined the third piece of Corrodium with the others and sealed them inside its chest. With its mission complete, it turned to leave…but not before Diamondhead created a wave of crystals rising from the ground moving towards the monster. The mummy leapt over the crystal and climbed over Diamondhead's…well, head using the pipes like monkey bars. It dropped down on top of the Petrosapien, who rolled out of the way at the last second, and slammed its fists into the ground, creating a surprising amount of force that cracked the pavement.
The mummy hissed and started snapping its arms like whips. Diamondhead dodged and weaved around the bandages as he tried to move in closer, until he finally lost his patience and grabbed one of the mummy's thin arms in the air. He pulled the monster movie villain toward him and slammed its face with an uppercut, throwing the alien against the wall. The mummy had no time to collect itself before Diamondhead tackled it through the wall, ending up in another section of the factory filled with metal instruments. The Petrosapien hero threw the mummy into a machine, which triggered an explosion and created a cloud of smoke to obscure his vision.
Max, Trixie, and Gwen entered the room several moments later when they didn't hear ay punches being thrown.
"Did you get him?" asked Gwen hopefully.
"Oh, I got him," said Ben seriously. "But whether it took is a different question."
Unfortunately, it didn't.
The mummy appeared through the haze, lurching towards the Tennysons. As it approached them, the creature opened its hollow chest and uncovered the three pieces of collected Corrodium.
"It's trying to expose us to the Corrodium!" shouted Max.
And wouldn't you know it, the security guard finally woke up to do his job when he heard noises coming from the factory. He appeared through a door on the upper level, getting a bird's-eye view of an old man, two preteen girls, a walking chandelier, and a horror movie monster with glowing rocks.
"What in blazes is going on here?" he said, scratching his head.
"No, get back!" Max warned.
But the mummy wasn't letting him go anywhere. The creature snatched the security guard from the upper floor and lifted him closer to experience the full exposure of the Corrodium. Gwen looked away in horror as the security guard screamed in pain, his body twisting with bone-snapping noises, his cries transforming into beastly snarled. When the transformation was complete, he didn't look anything remotely human – just a twisted, purple-skinned monster.
Trixie could only stare in a mixture of astonishment and terror, barely noticing that Max was placing a circular device on her chest. The device secreted a strange flexible material stretched to cover her whole body, transforming into a yellow-and-black suit with a protective helmet. Max used similar devices on himself and Gwen.
"Level-10 hazmat suits," Max explained. "Rather not have you all mutated for the rest of the summer."
"Hey, what about me?" Diamondhead complained.
"Petrosapiens are naturally immune to radiation," said Trixie. "As long as you remain in alien form, you should be safe."
"Should be?" Diamondhead repeated, looking back worriedly.
While Diamondhead's attention was diverted, the mummy wrapped one of its bandages around his throat and pulled him back, tossing him into a nearby machine.
And while those two were busy fighting, the mutated security guard bounced around on its four pointed limbs, hissing and spitting mindlessly toward Trixie and the Tennysons.
"Move!" Max warning, running out of the way of the guard's arm blade, which cut deep into the concrete wall.
"I've got this!" said Gwen, holding her hand toward the guard. "Mulcha Objectia!"
Trixie didn't know if she meant to do it or if it was a misfire, but Gwen's suit inflated into a big round ball like that blue kid from the old Willy Wonka video Max once showed her. She and Max watched open-mouthed as the redheaded sorceress(-in-training) flew up and bounced around the ceiling and walls like a beach ball. They were blissfully unaware of the mutated guard attacking them from the side. But whether by coincidence or divine intervention, Gwen unintentionally bounced into the guard, flinging him across the room. And whatever effect Gwen's spell had finally wore off and the redhead flopped face down on the ground with a grimace.
"Okay, mental note," Gwen said to herself, "never try to perform a spell from inside a hazmat suit."
The mutated guard spat as it flailed back to its pointed feet. It lunged forward and stabbed at the ground, forcing the Tennysons to scatter. Max pried a lead pipe from the wall (hopefully that didn't go to anything important) and wielded it like a baseball bat.
"Stay back," Max warned the mutant. "I don't want to hurt you." The mutated guard gave little consideration to his threat and swiped one of its sharp arms, slicing the pipe in half like it was made of paper. "Well, so much for that idea."
The guard took around swing and Max barely had time to duck out of the way. The retired plumbed steadily walked backwards away from the guard, ducking some swings and deflecting others with the broken pieces of pipe. Max tried throwing the pipes at the monster's face, but not only did the guard cut them into quarters, he struck Max across the face and threw him down on the floor. The mutated guard stood over Max and raised its bladed arm for the killing blow…when a blue flame suddenly appeared out of nowhere and engulfed the creature. But when the flames dissipated, the mutated guard was not aflame, but frozen solid in a block of ice.
Max blinked, dumbfounded, until he turned to his right. Trixie was standing a few feet away with the right arm of her hazmat suit torn off by her Pyronite limb. But rather than the typical molten-orange color, Trixie the magma arm was icy-blue and gave off a a slight chill.
Gwen walked up beside her and asked, "How did you do that?"
"Pyronite combined with Polar Manzardill," Trixie explained proudly. "I got the idea from Benjamin's cold."
"Speaking of which," said Max, gently rising to his feet, cracking his sore back, "where is Ben."
His question was immediately answered as a loud, fiery explosion went off in the background. Max and the girls turned around as Diamondhead ducked underneath the mummy's outstretched arm, which punctured one of the machines, and threw it away with an uppercut. He tried counteracting with a shower of silicon shards, but as Trixie had learned, the mummy simply unraveled its body to avoid the crystals. Diamondhead raised both his hands in the air for his next move when something caused him to tense up in fear.
The Omnitrix was beeping.
"Uh-oh," Diamondhead mumbled.
One explosion of red light and Ben Tennyson stood helplessly under the surprised gaze of the alien mummy.
"…Sometime, I really hate this watch," Ben groaned.
Ben turned on his heel and ran, slipping through the machinery into the dark crevices. The mummy ran past his hiding place, giving him a moment to breathe…or so he thought. Bandages wrapped around the machinery behind Ben, ripping them out of the floor, and the mummy appeared with a chittering snarl. Ben ducked underneath the mummy's arms and kept running between the machines, and the horror movie reject tearing apart everything in its path to get to him.
He ran past Gwen, who had separated from Max and Trixie to look for Ben. She grounded her heels to stop herself from being trampled by the mummy. Gwen looked around for something that could help, her brain running a hundred miles a minute, when she noticed a container just ahead in Ben's path.
"Ben, slop the hogs!" she shouted.
At first, Ben was clueless as to what she meant. But as he came up to a container of melted strawberry ice cream ("why would they even have that just lying around?" Ben would ask later), he picked it up and slopped it all over the ground. In true cartoon fashion, the mummy slipped and fell flat on its front, sliding across the factory until it smacked face first into one of the machines.
"Hey, grandpa was right," said Ben. "This farm work stuff really does pay off."
Ben dumped the container as Gwen ran past to a nearby console, pressing buttons and pulling levers without any idea as to what she was doing.
"This has got to do something…," she groaned. Then the machine hummed to life. "There!"
Just then, the mummy picked itself up, shaking its head, and lunged at the children again. But the horror creature immediately stopped with wide eyes as Ben pointed a giant hose at it.
"Eat marshmallow, mummy!" said Ben.
Ben blasted the alien movie monster with a powerful geyser of pressurize marshmallow goo, lifting it off the ground and dunking it into an industrial chopping machine. The mummy managed to hold onto the edge before it fell into the spinning blades until Gwen ran to a nearby lever.
"Don't forget the peanuts!" she shouted as she pulled the lever.
A vat of peanuts was dropped on the mummy's head, forcing it to let go. Ben and Gwen moved closer to the chopper just in time to see the mummy be ripped to shreds by the spinning blades and pumped their fists with cheer.
"Okay, that was awesome," said Ben as he and Gwen walked away.
"We were awesome," said Gwen, holding her fists for Ben to bump.
"You think bits of him will end up in the ice cream?" asked Ben.
"God, if that happens, I swearing off ice cream forever," Gwen groaned in disgust.
Max and Trixie appeared around the corner, relieved to see that Ben and Gwen were all right. Ben started going into detail over their victory against the mummy, but their celebration proved to be premature.
The mummy emerged from the chopper – tattered, but alive. The horror movie alien snarled and stretched its bandages to bind Ben into a cocoon of its wrappings. It rose to its full imposing height and unraveled its chest cavity, baring the Corrodium pieces.
"Ben doesn't have a suit!" cried Gwen. "He'll be exposed to the Corrodium!"
"Not if I can – OOF!" Max let out a harsh yelp as the mummy casually whipped him away, launching him into one of the machines. Trixie raised her frozen Pyronite arm, but the mummy wrapped it bindings around her throat and lifted her into the air, slowly choking her. That left Gwen alone to save her cousin. But with the hazmat suit preventing her from using magic, what could she do?
But fortune favored the Tennysons as the mummy wrapped its bandages around the Omnitrix, triggering it from Cool Down Mode to Capture Mode.
"The Omnitrix!" Gwen shouted. "It's sampling the mummy's DNA! Ben, go alien before to start to mutate! It's your only hope!"
With a little effort, Ben was able to free his other arm and said, "Time to fight mummy with mummy!"
He slammed down the faceplate and exploded in a burst of green light. But instead of a second mummy, Ben realized that he had transformed into –
"Arctiguana?" he said, blinking in surprise. "…You know what, I can work with this."
Arctiguana breathed a puff of cool mist on the mummy's arms, making the bandages brittle and covered in frost. He shattered the frozen wrappings with a quick flex. The mummy backed away, seemingly frightened, but glared at the Polar Manzardill in determination and threw out one of its arms. It made no difference as Arctiguana heaved a huge breath of cold air, flash freezing the mummy in mid-action.
"Anybody for an extra-large order of mummy ripple?" said Arctiguana jokingly.
Sometime later, Arctiguana and the Tennysons buried the mummy in the hole where they had found the Corrodium. The Polar Manzardill added an extra layer of permafrost to the mummy's new tomb while Trixie managed to locate a cement mixing machines ("Okay, why is there a mixing machine in an ice cream factory?" Ben would also ask later.) They poured several layers of concreate over the mummy to make sure that it couldn't break out if the ice ever broke free.
"Good job, kids," Max complimented them. "By the time the day shift begins, the concrete will be hard and nobody will ever know a mummy-sicle is buried here."
"What about the cows and the security guard?" asked Ben.
"I sent an anonymous tip to Lt. Steel," said Trixie. "They'll be buy to collect the guard after they make a quick stop by Old Man Johnson's farm."
"Is there anything we can do to help them?" asked Gwen worriedly.
"Unfortunately, they were exposed to too much radiation," said Max solemnly, shaking his head. "The mutation is permanent at this point, I'm afraid."
"Wonder what an alien mummy wanted the Corrodium for," said Ben.
"I guess we'll never know now…," said Trixie.
"Whelp, now that everything is settled, we should head back to the farm," said Max. "I'm sure Joan has more chores for us to do."
Ben, Gwen, and Trixie exchanged looks of horror. The possibility of going back to the farm terrified them even more than the mummy did. The kids threw all shame to the wind and literally threw themselves at Max's feet, holding on to his legs for dear life.
"DON'T MAKE US GO BACK THERE!" they cried in unison. "WE LEARNED OUR LESSON, GRANDPA/MAXWELL! WE'LL DO ALL OUR CHORES FROM NOW ON! WE PROMISE!"
"…Oh, thank goodness," Max said in relief. "I'd forgotten how much I hated working on Uncle Jedidiah's farm when I was a kid." He helped the children to their feet and guided them out of the factory. "Now let's get out of here before I get stuck on manure duty again."
Next chapter: Wild Imagination
