"Heads up!" Kevin yelled as he transformed into Smashing Pumpkins. He quickly wrapped some vines around his target (some alien lackey he didn't care to get the name of) and gripped them firmly, pulling them rapidly to him. Once the bastard was close enough, Kevin used his momentum to knee the target in the gut. The target stumbled back with pained wheezes, and Ceres struck him in the back of the head, sending them crumpling to the ground.

"Jeez, these guys are getting too easy," Ceres scoffed as she kicked aside some unconscious bodies.

"Yeah, kinda disappointing," Kevin noted as he threw down some seeds. They grew at an alarming rate, and the vines grabbed some of the men, trapping them in the steel grip of the tendrils. "So where's Trumbipulor's palace?"

"Down the hall," Ceres said, motioning with her hand. "Come on, let's see this bastard's home."

Neither knew what to expect in Trumbipulor's grand palace. Let's focus on those words, grand palace. That implies the boss's room would be something ripped from the pages of a fairy tale, a grandiose kind of sight, one that would make other kingdoms gasp in awe.

Instead, they were met with literal mountains of peanuts. Just... littering the damn place. It looked like a hoarder had collected every peanut off the floor of every baseball stadium and shoved it inside this one room. They could hear the faint sounds of someone munching on the snack food in the far back.

"I was right! This is heaven!" the bastard yelled.

"I...have no words," Ceres deadpanned.

Kevin grimaced. "Remind me again why Ben and the others are taking care of the robots?"

Because I'm allergic to peanuts! Ben yelled in Kevin's head. Elsewhere, Ben (as Brainstorm) and the others were fighting off hordes and hordes of the most 'frightening' robots alive. Believe me, I rather be in that hideous room than here right now.

"If you went Atomix or Shock Rock, you could've annihilated those bastards in a second," Kevin argued.

But that's boring! I don't want to one-shot everything! Ben whined.

"Still, those robots are pretty annoying..."

"So, what?" Yang's voice chimed in through the comms. "They're just a bunch of rats. Not that hard to beat." She was right; Trumbipulor's robot rats were pathetic in durability, but made up for it in numbers.

"Is it weird that I think they're kind of cute?" Ruby added.

Ben sent her a tired expression as he produced more lightning from his brain, striking the middle of the battlefield and knocking out most of the rats. YES!

"OH GOD, THE RATS ARE MULTIPLYING!" Blake wailed in to their ears.

"Well, you guys have fun with that," Ceres said dryly. "Kevin and I are gonna take care of the big guy."

"Good luck. Remember, those grey bastards never forget anything!" Kylie cautioned as she quickly reloaded her revolver.

"I think that's a myth," Weiss countered, jamming her blade in the ground and causing ice crystals to burst out from underneath the floor.

"Still, they're sentient, and that's HORRIFYING."

Kevin rolled his eyes as he started to change form; his skin began to bubble and turn into horribly blobby flesh, his maw growing wide and perfect for devouring things in one bite. Kevin groaned as he completed his transformation.

"You know what to do," Kevin mumbled before slithering away. He oozed on top of some of the peanuts and started to feast.

"Right," Ceres confirmed, attaching her gauntlets to her wrists. She walked towards Trumbipulor, who was still devouring his piles of peanuts, preparing for a good fight...and then he stopped eating.

"So, you've finally come around." Trumbipulor turned his head around slightly. "Well, I'm ready to go, Tennys-" He paused as he saw Ceres standing there. "Oh," he said dully. "It's you."

"So?" Ceres asked, raising an eyebrow. "You're gonna go easy on me, then?"

"Yes."

"You're no fun."Beautiful blue flames erupted from her mouth, which Trumbipulor narrowly avoided. The flames scorched his peanuts into ashes instead.

"MY WEALTH!" he screamed before he charged at Ceres.

"Whoops." She jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding the stampede. She jumped into the air and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to the titan's head, knocking the breath (and brain cells) out of him. She landed on the ground gracefully, a haughty smirk on her face.

Trumbipulor stumbled back, taken by surprise that such a small person managed to do some serious harm to him.

"So, that's how you wanna play, huh?" He snatched a handful of nuts and shoved them up his snout. He let loose a powerful blast of peanut bullets, and Ceres narrowly avoided the salvo, ducking behind a large pile of the stuff.

"Hahaha! Not so tough now, are we?" Trumbipulor taunted.

"Tell me when you start trying, big guy." Ceres grinned as she jumped high into the air. She avoided the incoming bullet fire. Her gauntlets lit up and she unleashed a quick flurry of punches on Trumbipulor's ugly mug: a left jab, followed by a right hook, followed a whole lot of extremely fast alternating punches...and then a burning uppercut that knocked the giant back into his peanut pile.

"You done?"

"NOT QUITE!" The elephant began gorging himself on peanuts, as he grew larger in stature and stronger in strength. "AHAHAHA!"

Ceres rolled her eyes.

"No one can stop me at my strongest! Not even someone like you!" Trumbipulor laughed.

"Oh, I'm fully aware of that," Ceres said calmly. "I can't beat you when you're like this. But he can." Suddenly, a tendril made out of bubbling flesh wrapped itself around Trumbipulor and threw him across the room with ease, sending him crashing through a wall. Trumbipulor rubbed his head as he looked to see-

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT, AND WHY IS IT EATING ALL MY SUPPLY?!" he shrieked in fear. That small blob Kevin had transformed into was now the size of half the room and it had put a notable dent in Trombipulor's supply, halving it in mere minutes. It didn't even bother shoving it all into its mouth at this point, the monster was just absorbing it into its body.

"This is a mutated sample of a Gourmand," Ceres explained casually, examining her nails while ignoring Trumbipulor's growing fear. "I'm sure you're familiar with their signature never ending hunger, right? Well, this is that concept taken to the highest degree."

"URAYYYAHHH!" More tendrils shot out of Eat the Rich's flesh and wrapped around Trumbipulor's body, pulling him in closely.

"You have two options," Ceres said, staring right into Trumbipulor's eyes. "One: give us what we want."

"And what if I don't?"

"Well, option two involves you becoming some extra pounds on his body. Sounds pretty painful to me." Ceres flashed a fanged grin, and Eat the Rich's maw moved closer to where the elephant was. Trumbipulor went sheet white.

"O-okay! I'll give you the drugs!" he squealed, and Eat the Rich dropped him on the ground.

"Good boy," Ceres sneered, placing some energy cuffs on his wrists. "Now, where is it?" Trumbipulor's trunk pointed over to a pile of nuts. She rolled her eyes and dug through it, before finding a metal box labeled with hazardous warnings all around.

Ceres placed a finger to her ear comm, smiling contently. "Package secure."


Ben didn't know how dangerous Ceres's job could be- he heard the explosions from R&D often enough, so he figured he had an inkling, but only today did he see how dangerous it was. It wasn't a good sign when your leader was wearing a hazmat suit when you walked into the dining area to grab your post-workout smoothie.

"Okay, what the fuck," Ruby deadpanned.

"Don't mind me," Ceres said blithely, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge. "Hydration is important." She gave Ben a smile and a wave before walking out the door.

Ben stood there, processing.

"...can you move? I'd like to grab a CapriSun," Ruby said, annoyed.

Ceres's lab was under deep quarantine, considering the materials she was working with. It was one thing to disassemble a live weapon, but something else to take apart a box filled with dangerous chemicals that mutated people with a single prick.

"It's disturbing that something like this even exists," Ari huffed, wearing a similar hazmat suit. "What do you think is inside this thing?"

"Probably some bastardized parts of the Omnitrix," Lev suggested, prepping Ceres's tools. "If you know where to look, you can buy some materials similar to those found in the mechanical structure of the Omnitrix on the black market."

"Are people really so stupid that they'd try and make their own Omnitrix?" Ari pondered.

"Believe me, there's some stories of people attempting that." Lev shivered violently. "Results were reportedly horrifying."

Ceres walked over to the box and started to slowly pry it open. At first, she expected some wires and all sorts of level 10 tech haphazardly holding the thing together.

Instead, she uncovered something much worse.

It was an entire tub of formalin, with something carefully floating in the middle. It looked like someone had torn out someone else's peripheral nervous system, an entire chunk of it from their arm...and it was still intact. There were pieces of flesh still attached to parts of the nervous system, but what was weird was the tumorous lump that sat in the center of where the needle was propped.

"Dear Fajra," Ari whispered, looking inside the box.

"Something tells me our war and fire goddess had nothing to do with this," Ceres rebuked. "Get me the other boxes. I have a feeling the same stuff is in there as well."


Hot Shot's blood red fires burned angrily as he watched Weiss dash across the training field. She was nimble, true, but durability and stamina was one of her weak points. He flung a few fireballs behind her so she would speed up a bit.

Weiss stopped dead in her tracks and pointed her sword at Kevin; a wide glyph appeared underneath her, and she quickly flung herself towards the alien. She performed a precise descending crescent slash in front of her, slashing Kevin's chest as he fell back.

Kevin growled as he prepared to strike back with a powerful right hook, but something hard struck his back. He turned to see Kylie holding a smoking revolver, a big grin on her face.

"You traitor!" Kevin yelled.

"Hey, I'd sell you to Satan for one cornchip," Kylie said, sticking out her tongue. "And I don't even like cornchips."

"Oh, you're so dead!" Kevin growled, his hands sparking wildly... before his fire sputtered and eventually died out.

Kylie lowered her weapon. "Whoa, everything ok?" she asked, concerned.

"Uh, yeah," Kevin lied. He played it off quickly; his hands were quickly coated in cold, orange metal, his eyes going black and his body becoming lankier. "Just switching it up a bit!" Radiohead stuck out his hand and released a powerful blast of low soundwaves that caused the room to shake.

Weiss ran up behind Kevin, trying to get a good sneak attack in...but another clone started to walk out of his back, causing Weiss to stop in her tracks. The clone attempted a swipe at her, but it was quickly pulled back into Kevin's main body. Kevin's head shook in pain as he tried to split again.

"...um, ok?" Weiss shrugged and she activated the revolver on her rapier, switching it to a purple chamber. A glyph appeared underneath Kevin's feet, and he began to levitate into the air.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Kylie unloaded a few shots of electric bullets into Kevin's nervous system, electrocuting him and forcing him to revert back to human form. The glyph underneath him disappeared, and he fell face first onto the ground.

"I have no idea how, but we won that!" Kylie cheered.

"Lucky you," Kevin groaned.

"I'm rather surprised myself," Weiss admitted. "What happened?"

"I, uh, got distracted or something," Kevin lied. "I'm still kinda digesting those peanuts from yesterday. They didn't really agree with me."

"Gross," Weiss huffed.

Kylie shook her head. "Yeah, too much info." Her phone buzzed just then. Kylie whipped her phone out of her pocket and read a quick message. "Oops! Emergency meeting time. Ceres found out some info about that Crystal Dolphin drug."

"Already?" Weiss said, taken aback. "How fast does she work?"

"They say she doesn't sleep," Kevin joked. "She sustains herself with coffee and stress."

"It's funny because it's true!" Kylie chimed in.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "You two are weird."


Kevin really didn't like the glances Ceres was giving him. Whenever she looked at someone that way, there was bad news at hand. Actually, the whole room seemed tense at the moment. The others were all whispering and wondering why Ceres had called them in, and why she hadn't said a word yet.

Ceres eventually cleared her throat. "Earlier today, Ari and I analyzed the 'Crystal Dolphin' drug. And what we found..." she shuddered, "was pretty revolting."

Ari tapped the table a few times, and a hologram of the box appeared in the center. The box started to deconstruct itself, revealing the tub of formalin with the organ inside of it.

"What...is that?" Weiss gagged, appropriately disgusted.

"That's what produces Crystal Dolphin," Ceres told her.

"Wait, really? I expected technology and other fancy stuff," Kylie said, frowning. "What the hell is that?"

"That," Ceres sighed tiredly, "is one hundred percent real human tissue."

"Wait, so, are they actually harvesting people for this stuff?" Ben asked, utterly appalled.

"Well, yes. But change 'people' to 'person'," Ari said, her eyes drifting over to Kevin. He got a bad feeling about this. Everyone did, actually.

"I don't get it," Yang added, her voice shaking slightly. "How can one person produce that kind of drug?"

"Well," Ceres swallowed dryly. "Ari and I wondered that ourselves. We found...a match. In all the other cases we obtained."

"I took some tissue off of each organ, and...the results all narrowed down to one person." Ari shuddered. "There's only one person that could actively mutate themselves, and hypothetically others if said system was introduced to others."

"And who would that be?" Ben asked, a lump in his throat.

"...It's Kevin." Ceres said it quietly, but it felt like a bomb had gone off in the room. She flipped the hologram so that it revealed what was on the other side of the organ: a symbol similar to the one found on Kevin's watch. All eyes suddenly turned to Kevin, who was clutching his wrist in pain. His wrist felt like it was burning, burning like before when he was 11 years old...

The AntiTrix didn't seem to like the news either, and it started to beep loudly, causing everyone to flinch. He stood up and started to hyperventilate. His head scanned the room rapidly, looking for an exit, an escape route, anything. The world started to really close in on him and-

Kevin collapsed on the floor.


Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Kevin always knew that if he woke up hearing a heart monitor, it signaled something was seriously wrong. And he was absolutely right. There was an oxygen mask wrapped around his mouth, Ari was explaining something to Anna near the front of the room, and...something was MOVING on the AntiTrix.

It could still be a hallucination, Kevin thought to himself, rubbing his aching head.

"...as it turns out, Kevin's body is slowly rejecting the watch, like how old people can become allergic to pollen as their immune system starts failing them. Kevin's allergies have also single handedly wiped out most of the data stored in the watch. Yesterday, there were around 33 samples. Now, he has 11 left," Ari said. "Removing the watch also proves dangerous."

Anna raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

Ari pulled up the display of an entire nervous system on her tablet, and drew a circle around Kevin's digital nerves. There was a clump of tissue wrapped around area. "What you're seeing right now is the Anti-Omnitrix."

"AntiTrix," Anna corrected her.

"I know," Ari sighed. "It's just a dumb name. Anyways, that clump is like a tumor to the nervous system, and it's taken deep root over the years as Kevin's adjusted to it. And when I say 'deep root'..." Ari isolated the tumor from the rest of the group. While it looked small, it had shot out smaller roots that had dug into Kevin's main nervous system. "I really mean that."

"Dear Lord."

"Removing the AntiTrix could invoke something serious, like spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury..." Ari listed. "But we did find a substitute for a cure."

"And what would that be, exactly?"

"Lev, Ceres, and I created something to stop Kevin's body from killing the Anti-Omnitrix and to stop the Anti-Omnitrix from killing Kevin." Ari smiled. "We call it Doppler."

"And I resent the name entirely!" A small, British-sounding voice huffed. Kevin's eyes shot open as he looked down at his wrist. There was a small, metallic little slimeball attached to his watch. It had slitted eyes and small tendrils, with the AntiTrix symbol on his head.

"What the fuck?" Kevin gasped, ripping off his oxygen mask.

"What the fuck?" Anna yelled, pieces of paper flying out of the book tucked under her arm.

Ari sighed heavily. "Yeah, we expected that reaction. Doppler here is basically an active vaccine experiment. It's currently working out millions and millions of calculations to find a way to prevent the AntiTrix from killing Kevin entirely, and restore the aliens he lost."

"I have an important job to do," Doppler boasted, posing rather dramatically.

"Doesn't explain why this glob can talk." Kevin frowned, eyeing it carefully.

"I don't need one. I'm saving your life."

"How can something so annoying save my life?" Kevin argued.

"Ask Ben!" Ari chirped.

"...Damn, that's a severe burn."

"Well, it's a true one. Rest easy, now, Kevin." Ari smiled as she walked out of the room.


Ben poked his head in through the door. "Hey, you busy?"

Kevin looked up from his phone. "Yes. I'm very busy, actually."

"Ok, cool," Ben said, opening the door. He, Ruby and Kylie walked into the room, a bag from Burger Shack in Kylie's hands. Kevin grinned and sat up in bed.

Kylie began rummaging through the bag. "Dunno if this will help with your recovery, but it's better thaaaaa- WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Kylie pointed at Doppler.

"AH!" Ben and Ruby jumped back, equally shocked. Kevin sighed as he grabbed the bag from his sister's hands.

"This is Doppler." He pouted, looking through the bag for his burger. "Doppler, these are my friends and my sister. Be nice."

"Salutations!" the thing greeted the group. They couldn't take their eyes off the small thing, intrigued and disturbed.

"This must be that cure that Ceres was talking about," Ben said. "I thought it'd be some restraint around the watch, not some weird, blorpy thing."

"I am not a 'blorpy thing'," Doppler huffed, insulted.

"Dunno, you look like one," Ruby teased.

"Basically, Doppler here is trying to make a medical breakthrough and is working towards making sure the AntiTrix doesn't kill me. So, that means, until progress is made, I have to limit my transformations." Kevin explained as he unfolded the wrapper on his food.

"Oof," Kylie winced, not knowing what else to say.

"'Oof' is right," Kevin said, before he noticed a bite taken out of his burger. He glared at Ben, who shrugged.

"Processing meal," Doppler suddenly spoke. Kevin looked over to see some ketchup stains around Doppler's 'mouth'. "Beef patty, sesame seed bun, mayonnaise, ketchup and sliced onion."

"And how is THAT info detrimental to my condition?" Kevin complained.

"It wasn't," Doppler stated. "I was just hungry."

"Annnyways," Ben said, sitting down on Kevin's bed. "Sorry we haven't been by recently. We've been investigating Psyphon."

"And? What'd he say?" Kevin raised an eyebrow.

"Well, he didn't exactly say it," Ruby said sheepishly. "But he thought it."

Kevin gave her a blank stare.

"Ben used a weird fairy alien to invade Psyphon's mind," she explained.

"What do you call that one?" Kylie asked. "Angel Dust?"

"Kylie, that's terminology for cocaine," Kevin reminded her.

"Or that one henchwoman from the Deadpool movie!" Ben interjected. "Anyway, turns out Psyphon wasn't alone on the creation of the drug. He had help from an outside source."

"And who was it?"

"Animo," Ben said matter of factly. "I mean, he's the only real mad scientist we know. Shouldn't be that shocking."

Kevin shrugged. "You know what? Fair. He did kind of suck King Crimson right out of me. Maybe he took some more stuff."

"It's looking to be true," Ruby pointed out. "We do know where Animo is right now, so we're probably gonna head out in the next few hours to kick his ass."

"I'll make sure to fill his lungs with helium so it'll be funny when he curses Tennyson!" Kylie chirped.

"Get me a video of that if you can," Kevin told her, finishing his food. "Anyways, I appreciate the visit. Now scram."

"Lemme guess; you gotta attend to your 'business'?" Ben joked.

"Yep. Got a nap scheduled around this time," Kevin bragged. "Right after I read one of the forty or so books mom left me." He gestured to the boxes stacked on the nearby chair, the weight of them making the metal and plastic sag dangerously.

"Does… does Anna expect you to read all of those before her next visit?" Ben asked, his voice filled with terror.

"No, she just gave me some variety," Kevin said.

Kylie eyed the boxes. "Granted, she can easily read about four books a week with her current schedule, so if she were hospitalized…"

"Your mom is an absolute beast," Ruby whispered in awe.


Ceres peeked her head in. Kevin's eyes were focused on some alien soap opera, so she thought it would be the best time to interrupt.

"Yo," Ceres said, walking into the room.

"Sup," Kevin answered, shutting off the TV. (Now that Ceres was in the room, he had to act like he wasn't emotionally invested in the plotline of Don Quatro, the hunk of a Tetramand and his seven wives.)

"How are you holding up?" Ceres asked.

"Eh, I'm fine. Ben, Ruby, and Kylie dropped by earlier," Kevin told her. "So, I've just been digesting the food they snuck in and bonding with this guy." Kevin motioned down to the bastard on his watch.

"Ah, yes." Ceres's eyes narrowed. "You."

The little bastard somehow managed to look haughty. "You created me, bitch."

"I will literally tear you off his arm, there are better alternatives to you," she hissed.

"Annnyways..." Kevin drawled, quickly changing topics. "How long did you spend creating him?"

"Oh, Lev and I spent a full day creating him, and then another day programming him," Ceres explained.

"When's the last time you slept?"

"Two days ago. I've had back to back 24 hour shifts." She yawned loudly, trying and failing to cover her open mouth.

"...how are you still alive?"

Ceres shrugged. "I'm not even sure I have a heartbeat."

"But in all honesty," Kevin went on, "you really didn't have to do this, Cer. Like, the Galvans would have done this in a more healthy way, one that wouldn't kill you..."

"Listen," Ceres said, softly but firmly. "When the Earth physician Galen came up with the Four Humours and introduced the idea of using opposites to treat illnesses, he couldn't treat all of them. The generations after him had to work night after night to revise his work because he used primates for human anatomy since he couldn't be bothered to work on actual humans. Also, they didn't have anything to reference any new diseases at the time. If there's a chance one of my friends and teammates is dying from some rare affliction, I will not rest until I find something that could potentially slow down the progress or even cure the disease outright. I'm willing to sacrifice my sanity to make sure you're still alive and kicking by the end of the day."

Kevin sighed heavily."...You shouldn't have to sacrifice your health for mine."

"Well, I am anyway," Ceres said, taking a deep breath. "Get some rest, Kevin. You need it more than me."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine."


CRASH. Kevin sat straight up, panicked and disoriented. He rubbed his forehead and scanned the room. Nothing was out of place at first glance. "Ok, weird," he said to himself. He got out of bed to do a better search of the room, and still found nothing.

He shrugged, ready to play it off as his mind playing tricks on him, before his eyes diverted to the window peering into the corridor outside. In the halls, there were some black stains on the walls and floor. Despite every horror movie warning him against it, Kevin decided to take a look.

"You should be in bed, you know," Doppler quipped from his wrist.

"Hush," Kevin whispered. "This could be serious."

"Very well," Doppler sighed. "Just remember you can't transform too often. Take breaks. Exercise a bit. Drink water."

"Yeah, yeah," Kevin said as he opened the door. There was the scent of tar in the air, and the hallway was quiet. Kevin looked around to make sure no one saw him sneaking out of the room, and walked over to a stain on the wall.

"What is this?" he asked out loud, not daring to touch it.

"Perhaps I may be of assistance here," Doppler declared. "Allow me to scan the sample."

"Alrighty." Kevin held Doppler up to the stain. He took a quick sample of the substance and 'digested' it, analyzing the makeup of the stain.

"Strange," Doppler commented. "I detect some Polymorph DNA, as well as...a hint of human DNA."

"Polymorph? You mean those weird blob things held up by a tiny saucer?" Kevin asked.

"A very bastardized way of describing the species, but yes," Doppler answered. "This 'Animo' fellow... would one predict he's behind all this?"

"Looks to be," Kevin said, grimacing. "And if the others aren't here..."

"Then we have to defend our ground," Doppler told him seriously.

"Right. Let's just follow these tracks and see what the situation is." Kevin quietly walked through the corridors, peeking around corners to see where the black trail of slime would lead him. He followed it for a few minutes, each moment getting tenser and tenser. It was something out of a horror movie.

And just like all horror movies, the trail stopped halfway through.

"Well that's fucking ominous," Kevin deadpanned as he forced his body to walk forward. He absolutely knew where this monster was hiding, and he knew the second he looked up, the monster was gonna get the jump on him. Why?

There was black liquid dripping from the ceiling.

"Hey," Kevin said, forcing his tone to be casual. "How many transformations can I do per day, in my current state?"

"Approximately three," Doppler replied. "With a time limit of four minutes."

"That's good enough for me," Kevin declared as he activated the watch and slapped down the icon for Black Parade. Tentacles shot out of his stomach, as spider like legs pierced its way through his skin. Kevin quickly regretted transforming into a horrible monstrosity, as his skull started to shift to better suit his corrupted Ectonurite DNA. Kevin wheezed and gasped as he finished up his transformation.

"Wow," Doppler said sarcastically. "That looked like it hurt."

"Shut up," Kevin rasped as he turned his claws pitch black. He scraped at the ceiling, claw marks erasing the tile above him, and a horrific black ooze spilled out onto the ground. Kevin gagged as he stepped back.

The blob formed into a hand and frantically whipped itself around the area. Kevin ducked beneath the blind attack, and he got another quick look at the thing; there was something inside of the black blob, something that looked especially horrifying, all things considered.

"Is that someone's muscular system?!" Kevin gasped, and sure enough, he was right. From inside the blob was a fully intact human muscular system, compacted inside the alien-like a pile of ooze.

"It appears so," Doppler said, analyzing the creature with his own eyes. "What on Earth could have caused this?" Kevin's eyes narrowed and he jumped up. His spider legs latched onto the ceiling, and he contorted his body to get a better look at the sludge. The sludge screeched as it started to attack the ceiling above itself. Kevin just phased through the hands, before jumping down onto the ground.

"What are you planning?" Doppler asked him.

"I'm putting this thing out of its misery." Kevin jumped up from underneath the thing and erased the body floating inside of it. The blob suddenly fell apart and spilled all over the floor. "Figured the body was like the UFO."

"Ergh," Doppler said disgustedly, as he looked at the ground. "What a mess."

"If I'm right, Animo had something to do with this thing," Kevin said as he stared at the black ooze. "Which means..." He gasped as more liquid started to drip from the ceiling. "There's more of them."

The blobs all spilled out from the ceiling, before reforming into more humanoid looking shapes. Their insides looked strange; malformed skeletons, nervous systems and deformed muscular systems floated inside them. Kevin didn't know whether to recoil in disgust or pity them.

"How much longer do I have in this form?" Kevin asked as he looked around him.

Doppler paused. "A minute."

"That's enough for me, then." Kevin took off running, phasing through blob after blob, destroying their 'cores' and barely giving them a second to react. Doppler, meanwhile, was shocked by Kevin's agility and the oddity of the form; spatial erasure was not a normal power of any Ectonurite DNA in his coding.

How utterly fascinating, he thought as Kevin finished up his massacre. He reverted back to human and took a deep breath, quickly scanning the area for stragglers.

"I think...that's all of them," he panted, as something crept up behind him.

"You certainly did a number on them," a voice joked, and Kevin spun around. Ben stood behind him, looking exhausted.

"What happened with you?" Kevin asked worriedly.

"I could say the same," Ben yawned. "Just glad to see you're ok."

"Seriously though, what happened?"

"Let's just say the Animo mission...was a bit of a flop."

Kevin followed Ben towards their usual hideout. "We didn't even get out of the base before Animo attacked. It was so fast, we didn't even process what happened to Rook or Grandpa Max until we got here."

"What happened?" Kevin asked, looking around frantically. "Where's Rook?"

"Down here," Rook's voice called out. Kevin looked down to see what could only be Rook spliced with Gourmand DNA. He looked just like a Gourmand even with his usual markings and armor. Kevin had to stifle a laugh.

"Glad to see you're alright, son," Max said cheerfully, walking up to them. Kevin's eyes drifted to the magister's left arm; it looked like it had been hit by whatever mutated Rook, because it was basically just a weird green stump.

"Uhhh..."

"Oh, this?" Max said, holding up his arm. "That's nothing. I've had worse."

"That is… genuinely alarming."

"So, yeah," Ben huffed. "Rook and Max got hit with the Animo's mutant ray. So did Ruby, Weiss, and Ari."

Ruby held up her ruby-colored Petrosapien arm. "I honestly have no issue with this. Check it out!" She suddenly shifted her arm into a menacing scythe. "SCYTHE ARM!"

"Alright, Soul Eater Evans," Ari sighed. She looked very metallic, had a robotic backing to her voice, a strange green aura surrounding her, and a few magnetic things stuck onto her body. "We get it. You got the cool end of the stick."

"Well, we both did," the autotuned voice of Weiss commented. Kevin looked over to see a rather elegant looking Sonosorian, wearing Weiss' clothes...and also swaddled in Kylie's arms. "She hasn't let go of me since we got attacked."

"Cuz you're sooooo cute!" Kylie gushed.

"Where's Ceres, then?" Kevin asked.

"In her lab. She's 'sciencing it up'." Yang shrugged. "Poor girl's probably gonna work herself to death trying to find a cure."

"Nah, give it two hours. There's a reason why other Plumber bases keep trying to poach her from us." Ari shrugged. "We just have to defend our base a bit."

"You might want to say 'hi' to Ceres," Rook suggested. "Let her know you are ok and all that."

"Right, right." Kevin walked over to the lab and peered through the window; Ceres looked like she was running on fumes. She must've been working for hours, from the looks of it.

"Uh, hey," Kevin said nervously. "Is it still Tuesday?"

"Nope."

"So, it's Wed-"

"It's like Thursday or something, I don't know." Weiss said, annoyed.

"Jesus Christ," Kevin muttered as he walked into the lab. Ceres was practically sleepwalking now, stumbling around to work. "Cer. You need to rest."

"Get out of here!" Ceres yelled, obviously sleep deprived. Kevin didn't even flinch. "You need to let me work, I...I can handle this..."

"No, you can't."

"I can. Now go...wait in the thingy with the others."

Kevin frowned before he grabbed a pencil off the table. "Hey, Ceres. Catch." He tossed the pencil at her, and she barely even registered the pencil hitting the back of her messy hair.

"...I got it."

Kevin sighed. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because," Ceres huffed. "I need to make sure everything goes as planned, alright? I didn't plan for you to nearly get killed by your own weapon. Or how Animo randomly attacked. I...just need to tell myself I can handle this shit."

"Ceres, seriously. You don't have to prove anything to us. You shouldn't be working like this at all. Your depth perception is off, you're on the verge of hallucinating and honest to God, you are torturing yourself working on this. Let me handle it."

Ceres turned around. She held up a finger, took a deep breath, and...fell to the floor, already asleep.

"...I'll take that as a yes." Kevin picked her up and carried her out into the hideout. "Make sure she gets the recommended amount of sleep. Seriously, turn off all her alarms and quadruple lock the doors."

"Got it," Ari sighed, already used to Ceres's bullshit. "What are you gonna do?"

"Eh, I'll figure something out with these cryptic notes she left behind." Kevin waved some sheets of paper around. "I'll be done faster cause...I'm actually awake. But just to be safe, do you think you can help me when you get back?"

Ari shook her head. "I keep attracting bits of metal to me. I'll be a detrimit in the lab, and it's not like I can work remotely."

Kevin took a shaky breath. "Alright, well, I'll figure something out."

"I know you will," Ari said sincerely. With that, she carried Ceres away. Kevin closed the door and turned to the lab. He took a deep breath before turning to the AntiTrix.

"What intelligent alien forms do I have left?"

Doppler paused to scan the watch. "Your Cerebrocrustacean was one of the few remaining forms. Shall we use that?"

"Yes, please."

Doppler scrolled to Brainsick's icon, and Kevin slapped down the dial. His arms first transformed into claws, as his legs forced themselves out of his body. A shell formed from his head, as it worked its way down the rest of his body.

Kevin groaned as he shook off in pain. "I need to stop turning into aliens with painful transformation sequences..."

"That's on you, buckaroo," Doppler sassed.

"Fuck off. If you existed in a world of my own design, you would be compost."

Brainsick skittered over to the table where Ceres had done most of her research. His eyes focused on the sheets of papers and quickly deciphered the gibberish she had written in her half awake state.

"Got it," Kevin said as he scampered over to another table. He closed his eyes and opened his shell to unveil his brain. The brain started glowing red, and an equally red aura surrounded some beakers full of chemicals.

Ceres was 60% done with the cure, from the looks of it. Kevin just had to complete it. Easy enough, especially as one of the smartest aliens in the universe. He started mixing more chemicals together with the base beakers, the concoction cycling through a few colors. Kevin set down the beaker and levitated a syringe over. He took out a sample and scampered towards the door.

"Wow, you work fast," Blake said, shocked.

"Nah, he cheated," Ari pouted cutely. "No fair using aliens with a range of undecillion IQ."

"Well, you try deciphering Ceres's gibberish on a time limit," Kevin shot back, skittering over to Weiss.

"...good point."

"Now, you might feel a pinch," Kevin cautioned as he wiped her arm with some rubbing alcohol. He stuck the needle in her arm, and she winced from the pain. Kevin pulled out the needle and stuck a band-aid on the wound.

"So, now what?" Weiss asked.

"Uh, should be taking effect...now."

Weiss's body suddenly turned green as she regained her normal human sized proportions. The sequence reminded Ben and Kevin of the Omnitrix reverting them back to human form. A now human Weiss sat in Kylie's lap. The heiress felt up her body to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and sighed happily. "Glad that's over with."

Kylie pouted. "Awwww. You were kinda cuter like that."

Weiss crossed her arms. "It was because you were taller than me, wasn't it?"

"...yeah."

"So, does that mean we're all getting cured?" Ari asked hopefully.

"Later," Kevin told her. "Weiss was just a guinea pig to see if the cure actually worked."

"...there better not be adverse side effects," Weiss said ominously.

"For now, you guys hold the base and handle Animo while I produce some more of this stuff," Kevin explained. "It shouldn't take me too long, so, go on! Get to it!"

The others nodded and rushed into action. Kevin scampered back into the lab and began slaving away at multiplying the cure before time ran out for his transformation. The remaining seconds felt like minutes passing; was time moving slowly for Kevin, or was the world just granting him some luck after his recent streak of bad luck?

Neither, actually. A Cerebrocrustacean's thought process is so fast that time seems to slow to a near halt. Kevin was viewing life in slow motion, and his mind was honed to make as many samples as possible...

...dear god, was this how Ceres felt earlier?! Kevin already felt stressed being this smart.

He sighed as he set down the last few syringes, and reverted back to human. He slumped against the wall and wiped his brow. "That was intense," Kevin sighed.

"You did good, kid," Doppler complimented him.

"I don't need your approval."

"I know, just felt it needed to be said."

"Whatever." Kevin he closed his eyes...

And forced them back open when he heard something growling in the vents. He shot back as a hand punched itself through the wall. Kevin could see an eye peeking through the hole, scanning the room.

"...well, now I really do know how Ceres feels," Kevin sighed as he reached for the AntiTrix.

"Wait, hold on," Doppler said. "I...may have something that may help you conserve that 3rd transformation for later."

Kevin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what's that, exactly?" To Kevin's surprise, Doppler ran up his forearm and started to form something. His arm caught fire, before rocks surrounded the flames. Kevin gasped as the rocks formed into a small arm cannon.

"What did you-"

"Ceres took the liberty of experimenting with the complete gaps of DNA," Doppler explained. "It was to ensure you were not a sitting duck on the battlefield."

"Please tell me she did this two days ago."

"I believe she did."

Kevin gave a sigh of relief. "I'll thank her later. But, for now..." He grinned as he unleashed flames from his cannon hand. "I'm gonna enjoy this!"

The beast bashed through the wall, as Kevin got a good look at it...and nearly burst out laughing. It was a strange mix between a frog and a Tetramand, and, no matter which way he looked at it, it was still ridiculous.

"I got your rainbow connection right here, Kermit!" Kevin quipped as he unleashed a blast of fire strong enough to blow him back. The mutant tanked the hit and hopped at Kevin. He rolled under the massive croaker.

"Alright, that didn't work. What else you got?" Kevin asked.

"Of course," Doppler said smarmily, changing Kevin's weapon. A bundle of wires manifested in his hand. The frog pounced at Kevin, before he shot his wires up at the ceiling and pulled himself up, narrowly avoiding the mutant's attack.

Kevin's eyes drifted over to the secured syringes and gave a sigh of relief. The frog hadn't touched the table at all, and was easily distracted by something else Ceres had built (which honestly looked impressive). Kevin took this opportunity to strike; he jumped down and extended the wires into the frog's flesh.

"Uhh...something something something...galvanoscope?" Kevin shrugged, as he unleashed an indiscriminate shock through the frog's body. While the frog reacted to that nasty blow with an extended, pained croak, it didn't go down. Instead, it stood up and started swinging its gross little frog fists at Kevin. Kevin's arm became coated in crystals as he grew a shield to defend himself.

Kevin stepped back as he planned his next attack carefully. The frog stood up to deliver a strong hammer attack with its slimy fist...and Kevin grinned as he shifted his diamond shield to a quick blade and slashed its unarmored stomach, cutting it open. The frog fell on its back, while its breathing slowed a bit, before ceasing altogether. Kevin sighed as he slumped against the wall again.

"If another monster fucking attacks me, detatch from my watch and let my condition kill me."

Doppler chuckled. "Ceres mentioned you were sarcastic."

"That isn't sarcasm."

"...now I'm just concerned."


Ceres's eyes fluttered open. She groaned as she sat up in her bed, rubbing at her eyes. She took a look at the room she was in; the patient's ward, no doubt. The last thing Ceres remembered was Kevin scolding her for staying up so long, and then just being so comfortable.

That was probably when she regained her sense of touch.

"How are you feeling?" Ceres looked over to see Kevin, holding a bag of food in his hand.

"How long have I been out?" she asked, stretching a bit.

"About two days now," Kevin surmised. "You haven't missed much. I took your notes, had Brainsick interpret them, and then made the cure. We distributed it around the base, located Animo, and locked that fucker away."

"What did he even want to do here?"

"I dunno. Something about hacking into our satellites and mutating the west coast?" Kevin shrugged and he handed Ceres the bag. She sifted through the bag to find some good Chinese food waiting for her. "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Well rested. I can no longer smell colors, so that's pretty good."

"You scare me sometimes."

"Of course she does," Doppler sighed. "What can one expect of a barbaric bastard child..."

Ceres looked up from her fried rice and glared daggers at Doppler. "I know how to kill you in many painful ways. By the way, glad to see you up and about, Kev."

"Thanks. I'm gonna train a bit with that weapon thing you installed in this gooey bastard." Kevin grinned. "I feel I'm gonna have fun with that."

"Knew you'd like it," Ceres chuckled.

"...hey," Kevin said softly. "I just wanted to thank you for working to make this annoying, life saving bastard. You didn't have to do it, but...you did it anyway. You're a stubborn one, you know that?"

"That just means I'm a good leader," Ceres said, smirking. "Now shoo. I'm gonna eat more of this, go back to sleep, and then work."

"Hopefully with some planned breaks in between."

"I'll try, at least."

Kevin shook his head as he walked to the door. "Never change, Cer."


A/N: The role of Doppler today was played by Arin Hanson. Have fun with that idea.

Sorry again for such a late release, I was swamped with finals. There are two more chapters that are coming out this year (I'm trying to parallel V3's release schedule, just cause) and then I'll be back to posting on the 10th of January. Have a good day!