Far beyond the neon-lit sprawl of Bellwood, deep within a dense and forgotten expanse of wilderness, a high-tech Galvan vessel lay shrouded in shadow.
To an outside observer, it looked like a monolithic metal fortress, standing silent and invisible beneath the canopy of trees.
Inside the central laboratory, however, the air hummed with the electric tension of high-level genius at work.
Albedo leaned over the metallic workbench, his red eyes luminous in the dim ambient light of the control consoles.
In his hand lay a freshly assembled unit.
It was shaped like the slick, gauntlet-style Omnitrix Ben Tennyson wore during the Highbreed crisis, but with a striking difference.
Every trim line, interface module, and core dial—originally styled in standard green—shone with a deep, uncompromising crimson.
A slow, satisfaction-filled smile spread across his pale face.
“Finally,” he breathed, his voice echoing off the curved alloy walls.
“Complete.”
It had taken him nearly a full month of painstaking labor.
A lesser mind might wonder why it took so long when he had already stolen the original Ultimatrix core from Azmuth’s laboratory.
Had he simply slapped that stolen core into a makeshift housing, he could have been done in a matter of days.
But that would have been a amateur’s mistake.
Albedo knew the structural flaw of that shortcut.
In the original design, using Azmuth’s core meant tethering the device directly to the Primus database—and more dangerously, linking its administrative protocols to Ben’s device.
If he shared a primary system network with Tennyson, the human could use master-override codes or wireless feedback to jam, hijack, or flat-out take control of his unit.
He wasn’t going to build a secondary device.
He was building a superior one.
Starting entirely from scratch, he had fabricated a brand-new, isolated core.
He purged the notorious random-transformation bug that constantly plague-ridden Ben’s battle efficiency, ensuring that whatever alien form he selected would be the exact form he received.
Next came the evolutionary function—the signature feature of the Ultimatrix.
In the original design, forcing a DNA sample through a simulated million-year worst-case scenario created sentient, rebellious sub-profiles over time.
Albedo wrote a clean, automated purge code into the core logic: the moment an Ultimate form was dismissed, its hyper-evolved genetic state would be safely reset, completely preventing any unpredictable self-awareness from taking root.
Finally, he solved the Primus dependency.
He modified his device to act as an independent, localized hard drive.
While his miniaturized memory array couldn’t hold the staggering 1,000,903 DNA samples stored on Primus, his local storage could comfortably hold around ten thousand.
For one man, ten thousand alien transformations was more than enough.
“Now for the final step,” he muttered, picking up the stolen Galvan core from a padded container.
The original core was useless as an engine, but as a key, it was priceless.
It contained the direct back-door network protocols required to query the Primus database.
He crossed the room to the central supercomputer, taking a deep breath to steady his fingers.
He slotted the stolen core directly into the primary data manifold, then ran a heavy interface cable from the terminal directly into his new red Ultimatrix.
Holographic screens instantly bloomed around him, painting the room in harsh orange light as layers of security firewalls locked down the terminal.
Alien script flashed across the monitors at blinding speeds.
Any ordinary hacker in the galaxy would have given up instantly—Azmuth’s security measures were legendary.
But to Albedo, these firewalls were practically familiar territory.
He had designed the original Omnitrix’s software architecture and expansion modules himself.
The underlying logic was essentially his own handwriting, just with a few new passwords slapped on top.
His fingers flew across the holographic keypads.
Lines of defensive encryption crumbled away within minutes, bypassed by clever logic exploits and back-door bypasses he had memorized years ago.
Access Granted.
A quiet chime echoed through the lab.
“Simple enough,” he murmured, a cold smirk touching his lips.
He immediately initiated the transfer protocol.
He manually prioritized every alien playlist used by Ben Tennyson first, locking down those crucial combat options into his local storage array.
Once the primary battle set was secured, he initiated an automated filtering algorithm, instructing the system to scrub through Primus and download the most versatile, high-tier DNA profiles to fill the remaining capacity of his ten-thousand-sample hard drive.
The progress bar began to tick steadily upward.
Albedo stepped back from the console, crossing his arms as he watched the crimson glow of his device pulse in rhythm with the data feed.
He didn’t need to do anything else for now.
The download would take time, but when it finished, he would no longer be a prisoner, a duplicate, or a disgraced assistant.
He would be ready.