Ted, Shawn, and Erika appear one morning in a town on a bay. They hear regular seagulls and turn around to see two human women jog by.
"Can it be?" said Ted, "Are we on Earth?"
"So what city are we in, oh observant one?" said Erika.
"I don't know," answered Ted, "I don't see any flags… or barbecue trucks."
"Where ever we are, I'll take it!" said Shawn.
They sat on a park bench for a while, taking in the familiar sights and smells and sounds of the area. If the nip in the air and the red and orange leaves were any indication, it was autumn. Shawn finally asked, "So what does the wheel say?"
"Universe 09Q," Ted read aloud, "Custodian Owen Olson discovered the Omnitrix while on the job at a dock. After a brief stint as a hero, Olson used the powers of his Galvan and Cerebrocrustacean transformations to reverse engineer the Omnitrix, and then go on to mass produce Omnitrixes for sale."
"Mass produce?" said Shawn.
"I guess that could explain that," Erika said pointing at the two women who came jogging another lap. Both were wearing blue Omnitrixes! They looked around and noticed a traffic guard wearing a green one, and then a man getting out of a taxi with a red one, and then a man on a billboard with orange. They all had an extra triangular piece that pointed up their forearm.
"As you can imagine," Ted concluded reading, "the results of handing an Omnitrix to anyone willing to pay for it were disastrous."
"That's weird," said Erika, "Because apparently, he's already doing that, and the only disaster I've seen is that guy's haircut."
"Well we still need to talk to him," said Ted, "so how do we do that?"
Then, a bus stopped near them with a banner advertisement on the side. In bold letters, it said, "OMNITECH Transformational Technology." Below a picture of a smiling woman with a pink Omnitrix, it said, "Visit one of our kiosks today."
"Okay," said Ted, "Now how do we find a…" The bus pulled away and behind it was a metal pole about waist high. On top was a touchpad shaped like a shallow dome and the words Omnitech Kiosk. "How convenient.
They ran over to it, and Erika pressed a button, which activated a big round holographic screen in front of them. "Thank you for visiting an Omnitech Kiosk, to continue, please select an option." A list of available functions appeared, including "Order an Omnitech Watch" and "Switch Transformations".
"Pick 'Help'," said Ted.
"We don't need help," Shawn disagreed, "That's probably for help using the kiosk. Is there a 'Learn More'?"
"No," answered Erika scrolling through the options, "But there is a 'About Omnitech'. I'm pickin' that!" The kiosk started playing a video promoting Omnitech as a company, naming several charitable deeds it had funded and claiming it was a socially and environmentally conscious enterprise. "I don't think this is what we want either," said Erika.
That is, until it started talking about their flagship product, the Omnitech Watch, supposedly an invention of the company's founder and CEO, Owen Olson. "Of the Omnitech Watch's many amazing features," the video said, "The most amazing and explanation-defying has to be the ability to transform the user into his or her choice of one these fantastic, otherworldly species." It showed several aliens, but also displayed a message in red that was gone to quick to read.
"Wait," said Ted, "Go back to that!"
Erika paused the video and inched it back to the message, and read "Available species are limited to one per customer. Attempts to remove or an any other way alter the inhibitor chip will result in the permanent deactivation of the product. Possession of an Omnitech Watch without the inhibitor chip is an offense punishable by law." "We own contraband!" she chuckled.
The video concluded, "To schedule an Omnitech Watch fitting, or browse our other products, please select 'Order an Omnitech Watch', and we will be there, momentarily." It showed an office building with the giant letters, "OMNITECH" on the side, hovering in the sky with giant rockets on the base.
"No way!" the three said in unison, and then looked up. The building hovering over the bay!
"How on Earth did we miss that!?!" Shawn said.
-- -- --
The three each turned into Big Chill, and entered the floating building by phasing through the wall. Before long, they found a tractor beam room, where people would normally enter, and turned back into humans. From their they found a reception room with a secretary at a fancy desk. "We need to see Owen Olson," Ted explained.
"Oh you don't actually see Mr. Olson," she replied, "If you want to be fitted for Omnitech Watches, you go to the selection department. Or," she said after noticing their Omnitrixes, "If you have problems with your Watches, you go to the troubleshooting department."
"We're here to, uh, pitch a business idea to Mr. Olson," said Shawn.
"In that case," she replied, "you'll want the investments department, I'll get that office manager on the line so you can…"
Ted interrupted her saying, "I don't think you understand, we need a… ah… AAHHH!" He sneezed right on Shawn.
"Eww dude!" he replied angry, "Cover your mouth!" He shoved him into a potted plant, which shattered, sending dirt everywhere.
The secretary groaned, "I'll have to sweep up the pottery shards, watch your step so you don't cut your feet or anything." In the meantime, Erika discreetly transformed into Upgrade and partially took over the secretary's computer. She quickly accessed Olson's schedule and wrote them in immediately. She gave Ted and Shawn a thumbs up and detransformed.
"Sorry about that," said Ted brushing dirt off himself, "I'll have one of my guys replace the plant. What I meant to say is that we have an appointment to meet with Mr. Olson."
"Like right now actually," Erika added, tapping her watch.
The secretary gave them a suspicious look and then checked his schedule to see that sure enough, "Meeting with three associates" was at the very beginning. "Okay," she admitted, tapping a code to unlock an exclusive elevator to her right, "He'll be in his office."
In the elevator, Shawn said, "Could you think of a less gross distraction method next time?"
"Sorry."
The doors slid open to reveal Owen Olson's office. They were so high up that the floor to ceiling windows only showed clouds. Behind his semicircular desk, the wall was entirely taken up by a big Omnitrix-shaped tank, inside which was bubbling green energy, giving everything in the room an interesting glow.
Next to the desk stood a Protost, a pink gelatinous alien contained only by a robotic exoskeleton. This one, apparently a business partner, had a display of Omnitrix dials in it's robotic midsection, which it slid closed. Owen had been facing away from them but did a 180 in his swiveling chair. He wore a sharp gray suit, fedora, sunglasses, and a gray Omnitrix. On his temples were gray streaks in his otherwise dark hair, and he held a cane with a large diamond for a handle. "Cigar?" he offered.
"No thanks," Ted answered.
"In all my years as a company big dog, I've had many people try to secure a meeting with me," Owen said, "But I've never seen anybody hack the network via my secretary's computer and write themselves into my schedule. Oh, but I'm not angry, I've got to say I'm impressed. But more than that, I'm busy, so make with the pitching."
Seeing no point in beating around the bush, Ted explained, "I'm Ted Colton. This is Shawn Mitchell and Erika Chae. We're from an alternate universe."
"Uh-huh…" Owen replied sarcastically, turning to his alien friend and rolling his eyes.
"It's true," said Shawn, "We were sent here to warn you about a future you can avoid!"
"Right."
"We also know you were a janitor when you found the Omnitrix!" said Erika, just as the alien was about to press a button to call security. Owen paused and raised one eyebrow.
"The Omnitrix was created by the Galvan First Thinker Azmuth," added Ted, "You found it, just like we did, and used the Galvan and the Cerebrocrustacean to reverse engineer it and create the Omnitech Watches."
"That's rich," Owen chuckled, "You think spouting off some bizarre conspiracy theory will convince me to stop selling the Watches?" They were puzzled, because they hadn't yet told him what he had to do to avoid the negative future. Two big burly guards stepped into the room and cuffed them with big cylindrical braces that blocked their Omnitrixes. "After you're escorted off of the premises," Owen said as the guards loaded them into the elevator, "Do me a favor and stay off the extranet."
After only going down a few floors flanked by the two guards, Shawn said, "You should have handcuffed us behind our backs!" Then he stomped on one's foot, causing him to groan and lean forward, he then bashed the guards head with the back of his own. He then smashed the elevator controls with his cuffs and immediately swung his arms with full force at the second guard. Ted and Erika ducked and Shawn hit the second guard right in the face. Ted hit the first in the stomach with his cuffs, and then Erika came down hard on his head. They were both out cold.
"Sorry, gentlemen," said Erika, "You'll wanna try some ibuprofen."
"Now what?" said Ted, holding up his cuffs.
"Hold still," said Shawn. He tapped the bottom left corner of his right cuff against Ted's twice. This caused a panel to open on top, where a key would slide into. He then swung the cuffs upward and hit Ted's from the bottom, causing his own to fall off.
"These are Plumber grade handcuffs!" Ted said as Shawn worked on freeing him and Erika, "How did you…"
"I may or may not have some experience in Plumber cuffs," Shawn answered, prying open the elevator doors, "Come on!"
They ran to a window, and Shawn turned into Ghost Freak, but trying to phase through shot him backwards with a jolt of electricity. "Intangibility shields!" said Ted.
"Well, there's bound to be another way back into his office besides that one elevator," said Erika, "That's a fire hazard!" They heard more guards approaching, so they took off down a random hallway. Quickly glancing through narrow windows in each door, they passed offices and boardrooms with people in them, and stopped at the first one that was empty.
"In here!" said Shawn. He phased through the door, unlocked it for Ted and Erika, locked it back, and then turned back into a human. This room was some kind of laboratory. In the middle were lab tables littered with tools and odd equipment, and on one wall was an enormous, circular stone structure, which looked vaguely familiar to Ted.
On the opposite wall was a giant screen with a map of known habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy. They were color-coded, according to the key, to indicate the amount of damage sustained. "What is this?" Ted said in horror. Along with most planets, Earth was red, which meant "heavily damaged". Many planets, including the home planets of many of their transformations, were black, meaning "wiped out".
"I don't get it," said Erika, "Pr. Paradox has never sent us to a timeline too late to save the future. But this time, he sent us straight to the bad future!"
"It could get much worse than this," Shawn agreed.
Then, Owen's alien partner, unlocked the door to the lab and a few guards busted in. Before the three could react, the guards shot them with a strange pulse of energy, and immediately they were back at the park bench below.
"Uh, what just happened?" said Erika.
"Some kind of teleportation ray?" suggested Ted.
"Well, how do we get back then," said Shawn, "If we can't phase through the walls?"
They thought for a second, and Ted said, "Let's order a Watch! That would put us in the selection department."
The rushed over to the same kiosk, but pressing the button just yielded a big red X. All three tried to no avail. "Do they have our finger prints or something?" said a frustrated Shawn.
"We're back to square one!" said Ted, "How do we talk to Owen if we can't teleport OR phase in?"
"Alright," replied Shawn, "We tried the right way…"
"Lying to his secretary and hacking his computers?" replied Erika.
"We tried the semi-right way," he corrected, "now we should try my way."
"Wouldn't that make it the entirely wrong way," asked Ted.
"I guess so, yeah," said Shawn, "They said the inhibitor chip limits you to just one transformation, and removing it from the Watch shuts it down, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well our Omnitrixes never had inhibitor chips, and we can turn into whatever we want. So, I say, we prove ourselves right and get his attention."
"You mean, like, go wild in the city?" Erika asked excitedly, "I like that plan!" She immediately turned into Swampfire and jumped out in front of a bus, flailing her arms. The bus swerved, smashed through a fence and drove out onto the dock.
Ted caught it as a Cannonbolt before it went into the water and said, "A little less wild, please?" Shawn transformed into Spitter and went around destroying things. As expected, it didn't take long to get the attention of the police.
"Surrender and put your hands up!" one officer ordered, pointing a remote at Erika, and pressing a button that did nothing. "Why isn't this working?" he said, smacking it with the other hand.
"Did somebody call for tech support?" Erika laughed. She changed directly from Swampfire to Upgrade.
"What the!?!" the officer said, and then he announced into his radio, "We have a Code Red, Model 1 watch, repeat Code Red." He himself them transformed into Lodestar and said, "Stand down!"
Shawn turned into Heatblast and said, "We demand to speak with Owen Olson!"
Another officer came up, turned into Water Hazard and said, "Two Model 1s?"
Then Shawn turned into Brainstorm and said, "I'm sorry about this, but he's right. It is imperative that we speak with Mr. Olson at once."
The trio and the police stood frozen in place for several seconds. "Every been in a Mexican standoff, Ted?" Shawn asked.
"Never as the bad guy," he answered.
"Well," Erika scoffed playfully, "you need to get out more." After several more stressful seconds, Omnitech guards were beamed down from the building above them. Without hesitation, they shot the trio with teleportation beams again.
-- -- --
The three open their eyes in the Omnitech lab surrounded by guards with teleportation beam guns aimed at them. Their hands are tied to a table behind them. Owen stands with his back turned, staring at the map of the galaxy with all it's destruction. "My first question," he began, "was going to be, 'How did you remove the inhibitor chips without destroying your Watches?' However, upon inspection, I learned that you never had inhibitor chips to begin with. So, instead, my first question is…" He turned around angrily, without the shades or hat. "How did three Model 1s end up on my planet!?!"
"Your planet?" said Shawn.
"Yeah," he replied, "My planet. You spend a quintillion dollars to terraform a dead rock to be like Earth, and then we'll call it your planet."
"This isn't Earth?" said Ted.
"Oh, right," he replied, "how silly of me to forget, you're from another universe."
"It's true!" Ted insisted, "We were sent here by a time-traveler named Pr. Paradox."
"Did you say time-traveler?" Owen said, turning to look at the screen again.
"Yes," Ted answered, "he warned that all this death and destruction could have been prevented if you hadn't turn the Omnitrix into a business venture." Ted then thought for a second, and turned around to catch a glimpse of the circular stone structure. "…and you know it, don't you!" He then turned to Shawn and Erika and said, "I thought that thing looked familiar! It's a time-machine!"
The guards looked at each other with concern, as if to say, "Either these people are crazy, or our boss is."
Owen sighed and tried to change the subject, "I simply used my property to produce a good that people want. You got a problem with capitalism?"
"Our problem is with you," Erika answered bluntly, "but it doesn't have to be! Use the time machine and undo the damage!"
Owen thought for a while and said, "If what you claim is true, and you did get here by time-travel, then it is possible. I can go back in time…" Just when they thought he was convinced to stop his younger self from creating knockoff Omnitrixes, he said, "And share trade secrets!"
"No!!!"
"Kuvel," Owen said. His alien partner came over and handed him the wheel.
"Give that back, now!" Shawn demanded, jerking at the ropes.
"Ah," he replied, "My suspicions are confirmed. This device is how you did it. And it's how I'll do it! But now that you've brought me what my machine was missing, I have no need of you."
"Wait!" they shouted, but then the guards shot them with yet another teleporter beam.
-- -- --
"I'm getting really tired of that!" Erika shouted. She, Ted, and Shawn now found themselves at the top of a mountain in the jungle. Hovering around them closely were three little round camera drones, branded with the word OMNITECH.
"Oh no," Shawn groaned, holding up his Omnitrix, "inhibitor chips!" Apparently, their one transformation had been set to the alien they used most often. Ted got Armodrillo, Shawn got Feedback, and Erika got Stinkfly.
"So, can we just take it off, or will that mess something up?" Erika asked.
"I don't know," said Ted, "I think we may be stuck with what we got."
They found a map on the ground in front of them.
"The ancient Temple of Time… the Idol of Chronos," Shawn read aloud, "What is this, Indiana Jones?"
"It's a challenge," said Ted, "Owen wants us to find the idol to waste our time, while he does no telling what to the wheel. Also, if I had to guess, I'd say those cameras are live streaming our little adventure to a subscribing audience. He would never just get rid of us when there's money to be made."
"Ooh! We're on TV?" said Erika, "That makes me the comic relief character!"
"I'm the anti-hero type who kills his enemies!" Shawn said, staring directly into the camera.
"We better get moving if we don't want to be trapped here," said Ted.
They climbed down some rocks until they came to a small clearing near a waterfall. "Behind it," Erika said confidently. Sure enough, hidden behind the waterfall was a secret tunnel. "Too easy," she continued, "There's something behind the waterfall in every video game ever."
At the end of the tunnel was a large chamber with two branching hallways. In the center of the chamber was a big stone statue of a boulder being lifted by two Fourarms. Attached to the boulder was a chain that went into the ceiling. Ted went down one hallway as Armodrillo. The walls fired darts at him triggered by hidden pressure plates in the floor, but the darts just bounced right off of his tough armor. Erika as Stinkfly went down the other hallway. The crumbly, delicate floor gave way to a pit of spite below it, but she just flew over it.
At the end of each hallway was a lever held by statue of a Wildmutt. They pushed each lever simultaneously, causing the statues in the center to move their arms outward, dropping the boulder, pulling the chain, and opening a stone door in front of Shawn. Beyond the door was just a huge round pool of water. "This is supposed to be the temple!" Shawn said, examining the map. "But why is it upside down?"
Around the edges of the pool were three small rooms, each with a statue of a Cannonbolt. They split up and each went in one room. The statue came to life and attacked them, but they were fairly easy to defeat. Ted, pounded the ground, knocking his statue enemy into the air. He caught it by the foot and slammed it into the ground. Shawn as Feedback jammed his plug-like fingers into the statue, shocked it and then whipped his long stretchy arms to slingshot it into the ceiling. Erika shot a sticky slime slime onto the statue's face and then flew backwards for a running start. Just when it managed to pull off the goo, she uppercut it with her sharp tail.
As soon as all three statues were defeated, indentations appeared in the floor in the center of each room. They pushed the statue remains into the holes and heard a low rumbling. After a few seconds, water started draining out of the pool, revealing deeper and deeper layers of walkways and stone walls covered in hieroglyphic symbols, like a reverse pyramid. "Oh, I see," said Shawn, "The temple looked upside down on the map, because it is."
"Neat," replied Erika. Wasting no time, she flew into the deepest layer and found a big gold key shaped like Clockwork's. They could tell the intention was for you to remove the statues from the holes in the floor at wait for the temple to refill, but they didn't count on flight. Erika placed the key into a slot in the ceiling above the center of the pool. A platform then lowered down from the ceiling near the entrance, and on it sat the Idol of Chronos.
"Finally!" said Shawn, but as soon as he touched it, their surroundings began to fade and pixelate. The whole thing had been a simulation, just like in Azmuth's lab. However, instead of ending, the simulation sent them to a high tech arena. "Oh come on!" he shouted.
The arena was shaped like a dome, and the sky was covered with generic silhouettes representing the anonymous watchers. An announcer's booming voice was heard over the cheers, "By locating the lost Idol of Chronos, the three contenders have proven themselves worthy to participate in the Tournament of Heroes!"
"We don't have time for this!" said Erika.
As the announcer introduced their first challenger, an Eye Guy, Ted noticed a spot in the sky that didn't show somebody's subscriber icon. "That must be a projector or something," he concluded, "Aim at the blank spot!" He launched a hunk of the floor, Shawn shot lightening, and Erika sprayed acidic sludge. Fortunately, they hit some kind of essential equipment, and the environment started glitching and malfunctioning. The cheers turned to boos and then fell silent. Their enemy was fading in and out of existence.
The arena walls faded out just long enough for Shawn to notice a large window in the real world. "There!" he yelled and pointed. The three sprinted toward and crashed through the window into a control room where they found Kuvel, Olson's business partner. Before he could escape, Shawn grabbed him by the metal arms and said, "Take us to Owen Olson, or we'll find out how conductive you are!"
-- -- --
Back in the lab, Owen has rigged up a way to attach Pr. Paradox's device to his time-machine and is about to power it up. As he makes the final adjustments, Kuvel and the trio are at the lab door. Kuvel was initially reluctant to unlock the door, crossing his tentacles and making several frustrated cooing sounds, but Shawn snapped his fingers twice, sending sparks flying in all directions, so he changed his mind.
"Kuvel?" said Owen, "I thought you were on the simulator distracting those three…"
They rushed in behind Kuvel. "Call us undistractable!" Erika announced, "although that sounded cooler in my head."
"No!" Owen replied, running over to a giant switch on the wall, "You will not disrupt my plans again!" He flipped the switch and all the lights dimmed, except for a new light coming from the center of the stone portal. It grew bigger and began sucking things in like a black hole, stretching and distorting anything attached to the floor. Owen practically leapt into the portal, but Kuvel, Ted, Shawn, and Erika held onto tables as long as they could until they too were sucked through.
Inside the portal was practically indescribable. For what seemed a lot longer than it actually was, they saw entire galaxies as well as subatomic particles. They heard everything all at once and nothing at all. It looked like they were flying through space, but it felt like they were moving backwards. When it finally ended, the five were sitting in an empty construction site, in a city very similar to the one they came from.
After they got their bearings, Owen grabbed Kuvel and said, "I did it, Kuvel! It worked! I can't believe it, but it worked!" He laugh ecstatically and danced in a circle like a giddy child. He was an entirely different person than the busy, aloof business man.
Erika glanced over the orange mesh fence surrounding the unfinished building. "Uh, I see colorful shoulder pads," she said, "and big hair and short shorts and Magnum mustaches." She turned around and said, "Either he sent us to the hipster capital of the world, or we're in the 1980s." Owen laughed and spun Kuvel around.
"The 1980s," said Ted, "Do you know what that means?"
"Less internet and more… Ronald Reagan?" said Erika.
"No, it means the Omnitrix hasn't landed on Earth yet. People who believe in aliens are still considered crazy!" The three transformed back into humans.
"Wait!" Shawn said, frantically looking around, "Where's the wheel? How are we gonna get back!?!" He grabbed Owen by the jacket and shouted, "You've trapped us here!"
"Hey," Owen replied calmly, "I'm an innovator. I solve problems when they come up. Right now, though, I need to find a certain young man and share some business advice."
"Don't you understand," replied Ted, "If you can't go back to your future, then you won't benefit from any of the decisions that young you makes. You would be destroying two galaxies for nothing."
"I did not destroy the galaxy!" Owen replied angrily, "I sold watches. What the people did with the watches is on them."
"That may be true," replied Ted, "But look at this." They looked at the city and the people going about their days. They saw trees and squirrels and birds and in the distance, the bay and docks. "This is Earth; the original Earth. If you don't mass produce the Omnitrix, none of this gets destroyed. You can use the Omnitrix to save the Earth."
"Kuvel," Owen instructed suddenly, "I think it's best you stay here for a while; don't want you freaking out the locals." Owen started walking toward the docks, followed by Ted, Shawn, and Erika.
"Think about it!" Erika said as they walked, "Say you do give young Owen business advice, and say he starts Omnitech and becomes richer than you ever were? Well, what happens to old Owen? You gonna live in a station wagon and sell pirated VHS tapes?" Owen ignored them.
As they approached the docks, a security guard stopped them from entering a private section owned by a marine research company. "Dig that groovy watch, man," the guard said.
"You have no idea," said Shawn.
Owen showed the guard a yellowed and worn clearance badge, which he had apparently kept in his pocket for 50 years. After Owen got through, Ted said, "Uh, we're with him," which surprisingly worked.
They sat at some picnic tables. "I used to eat lunch here every day," Owen remembered fondly, "A burger was 65 cents." They saw a young man in glasses busy taking notes from a stack of textbooks, and listening to the Bee Gees on a comically large radio. "Ugh," mumbled Owen, "There's Jimmy Hawkins. He acted like my friend until he became an oceanographer. Then he looked down on me with all the other rich yacht owners."
"Is this about you being a custodian?" said Ted, "There's nothing wrong with that. As a CEO, you know a company only functions when everybody does their job. And you don't…"
"There he is," interrupted Owen. A young version of Owen passed them to eat at a nearby table. He was skinny and pimple-faced, he had braces and a perm, and he pushed a trash cart full of brooms, shovels, and other custodian tools. He ate a burger and drank a Coke, and another man walked by and threw a wrapper in his trash can without even acknowledging him.
After several minutes, young Owen got up to leave, but came over to old Owen and the trio. "Uh…" he said, "I'm sorry to bother you, but you look familiar. Who are you?"
"I used to be the custodian at this dock," old Owen answered.
"Oh, really?" young Owen replied, sitting down across from him, "I'm still pretty new here. What was it like?"
As the trio held their breath in anticipation, Owen picked his words very slowly and intentionally. "Look,kid, being a custodian is… honorable work." The three silently breathed a sigh of relief, not knowing if he had been convinced or not. "They may not appreciate it, but it shows that you think about other people. That's a quality not found everywhere."
"What do you do now?" the younger version of him asked.
"Oh, I'm a business owner," he answered, "I sell… watches."
"Well, that's good."
"You may be a business owner too, some day,"
"You think so?"
"It's very possible. And if you are, my advice would be… just… make sure you're always thinking about other people."
Young Owen stood up to leave and said, "Thanks, Mr?"
"Olson."
"Ha," he replied, "We must be related!"
After he left, Owen said, "You know, that felt good." They just sat there for several minutes, feeling good about the brighter future young Owen was set on, but also wondering what to do next. "Oh yeah," said Owen, "You can take those inhibitor chips off. I totally lied about it shutting down the Omnitech Watches. I just didn't want people removing them."
"Good!" said Shawn, snapping off the chip, "because there's something I want to do." He transformed into Toepick and walked up behind Jimmy Hawkins. "Hey you!" he bellowed, "I'm a big scary alien monster! I'm gonna abduct you and probe your mind and stuff!" Jimmy let out a blood-curdling scream and took a flying leap off the end of the dock, swimming toward an adjacent shore.
"Just trying to save the universe," Shawn explained, turning human again.
"By ruining that guy's career?" Ted replied.
"Whatever it takes!" Shawn answered.
After an awkward silence, Owen said, "I guess we better go find Kuvel."
"And then what?" said Erika.
"Then I suggest you get a couple of these burgers," said Pr. Paradox. They all jumped out of their skins and turned around to see him eating at a table directly behind them, with Kuvel sitting next to him, "They're only 65 cents," he added, "And they used good old-fashioned lard."
"Pr. Paradox!" the three exclaimed.
"Yes, yes," he replied, "When you finally created a good future for this timeline, but failed to show up in the next, I got suspicious. And for good reason too, because it seems you misplaced this." He held up the wheel.
"Yeah," they admitted, embarrassed.
"I found it 50 years from now, about to be sucked into some slipshod half-baked time portal… along with the shredded, crumpled remains of the rest of that universe."
Their mouths fell open. "You mean…" Ted said.
"That's right," Paradox replied, "Mr. Olson and Kuvel can never return to their version of events. They're stuck here."
Owen ran one hand through his hair in shock and muttered, "My company!"
"And your planet… and your galaxy… and all galaxies," Erika added.
"On the bright side," said Paradox, "If young Owen does indeed start a business, maybe he will hire you, although I would leave 'destroyed the universe' off of my resume."
"He doesn't even find the Omnitrix for years!" Owen complained, "I'm too old for the whole hero business! What are we supposed to do until then!?!"
"Well," said Shawn, "You could always be a custodian again."
Owen fainted and fell backwards out of his seat.
After a pause, Ted said, "Is he gonna be okay?"
"I think it's best you get a move on," Pr. Paradox said handing over the wheel, "This last universe is a doozy."
-- -- --