A modified green sports car tore through the barren, dusty outskirts beyond Bellwood, kicking up a high plume of tan dirt.
Kevin Levin kept both hands glued to the steering wheel, his dark eyes locked onto the empty horizon.
In the passenger seat, Gwen Tennyson had her laptop balanced on her knees, her fingers flying across the keyboard at a frantic pace.
“Gwen, come on,” Kevin pressed, casting a quick glance sideways.
“Did you pin down those coordinates yet?”
“I’m working on it!
The signal was heavily scrambled…” Gwen muttered, tapping a final sequence into the terminal.
A location marker flashed bright red on her screen.
“Got it.
It’s the source of Ben’s distress transmission.”
An hour earlier, an emergency file had slammed into Gwen’s inbox.
The video was short, grainy, and terrifying.
Ben had been huddled in what looked like a subterranean concrete vault, his face smeared with soot, his eyes wide with anxiety.
“Gwen, Kevin, I hope you’re getting this,” Ben’s panicked voice had cut through the static in the recording.
“I’ve got a major problem.
The Omnitrix completely locked up on me again—it won’t dial out, it won’t transform, nothing.
And I’m not alone down here—”
A deafening crash had shattered the audio, followed by a cloud of pulverized concrete swallowing the camera feed before the file abruptly cut out, leaving behind only a set of raw GPS coordinates.
Gwen stared at the map data overlaying the satellite image, her brow furrowed tightly.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said, her voice laced with deep suspicion.
“According to the municipal grid, those coordinates point to an industrial processor plant that was condemned and abandoned over a decade ago.
Why would Ben head out to the middle of nowhere by himself without calling us first?”
Kevin didn’t break his stare on the road, though he let out a short, cynical grunt.
“Why does Ben do half the reckless stuff he does?
He probably thought he could handle whatever it was solo, got in over his head, and now he needs us to bail him out.
Relax, Gwen.
You know Ben—the guy practically has a lifetime pass for walking out of disasters in one piece.”
Within twenty minutes, the sports car pulled up near the perimeter of the decaying facility.
The site was a desolate graveyard of rusted iron, collapsed roofs, and shattered concrete.
Heavy chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire encircled the compound, but large sections of the barrier had been violently ripped apart, leaving jagged gaps.
Deep gouges were torn into the earth, suggesting a massive, heavy creature had recently barrelled through the area.
Kevin walked up to the damaged fence and reached up to his face.
With a subtle, practiced motion, he pulled off an ID-mask device.
The moment the holographic camouflage dissolved, his true, current form was laid bare.
His body was a grotesque, asymmetrical patchwork of raw materials—glistening steel, rough granite, and hardened green Taydenite crystal.
It was the horrific aftermath of their failed attempt to force the Omnitrix into Master Control, an explosion that had mutated Kevin into a walking amalgam of alien matter.
With a low metallic scrape, Kevin shifted his right forearm, transforming his hand into a heavy, razor-sharp steel blade.
He sliced through the remaining mesh of the chain-link fence, creating a wide opening.
“We need to cover more ground,” Gwen said, stepping through the gap.
“Let’s split up.
If you find any sign of him, yell.”
Kevin gave a lazy shrug, his metal-and-stone shoulders grinding together.
“Works for me.
Keep your eyes open.”
Gwen navigated deeper into the labyrinth of decaying brick and iron, her sneakers crunching over broken glass and gravel.
Up ahead, through the gaping doorway of a dark warehouse, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a familiar green jacket disappearing into the shadows.
“Ben!” she called out, picking up her pace.
No answer came from inside.
She stepped through the threshold into pitch darkness.
Raising her hand, Gwen summoned her Anodite energy, casting a vibrant, magenta glow that cut through the gloom.
The soft tap-tap of her shoes echoed hollowly off the cavernous walls as she pushed further into the silent building.
“Ben?
Are you in here?
Answer me!”
Silence.
Suddenly, the harsh sound of metal clattering against concrete rang out from a side corridor.
Gwen whipped around, her mana flaring brightly as she rushed toward the noise.
She reached a cleared storage room, but it was empty.
Resting in the center of the dusty floor was a discarded, metallic casing.
Gwen knelt beside it, lowering her hand to hover just inches above the scrap.
She channeled her magic, scanning the residual energy signatures clinging to the metal.
Her eyes widened slightly.
The familiar, distinct energetic thumbprint of Ben’s aura resonated strongly off the object.
He can’t be far.
What Gwen failed to notice, however, was a small silhouette drifting silently out of the rafters above, descending through the dark air like a falling leaf until it hovered directly behind her.
Gwen stood up, ready to call out for Kevin.
But as she turned around, she nearly bumped right into the floating figure.
It was no larger than a soccer ball.
It looked like a tiny, ethereal fairy with translucent, butterfly-like wings fluttering behind its back.
In any other setting, the small creature would have looked utterly harmless, almost cute.
Context, however, made it terrifying.
Before Gwen could raise her hands to cast a protective shield, the tiny creature moved with blinding speed.
It swept its small, gloved hands forward, unleashing a thick, shimmering cloud of glowing purple dust directly into Gwen’s face.
Gwen gasped in surprise—and instantly regretted it.
The moment the luminescent powder hit her respiratory tract, an overwhelming, unnatural wave of exhaustion crashed over her nervous system.
Her knees buckled immediately.
The pink mana surrounding her hands flickered and died.
Her vision blurred, spinning out of focus as her eyelids grew impossibly heavy.
She collapsed onto the cold concrete floor, her body completely paralyzed by the potent sedative.
Through the haze of her failing consciousness, Gwen forced her eyes to focus on the tiny creature hovering over her.
She caught a glimpse of the circular emblem pinned squarely to the center of its red dress.
A red hourglass symbol.
Ben…?
the thought fragmented in her mind just before the darkness claimed her entirely, sending her tumbling into a deep, inescapable sleep.
The tiny winged form circled lazily in the air above Gwen’s limp body before dropping gracefully to the ground.
Albedo looked down at the sleeping Anodite, shaking his small, blue-skinned head as he brushed a stray speck of sleep dust off his dark gloves.
“One down,” Albedo said, his voice carrying the high-pitched, delicate tones of the Nemuina species.
“In order to neutralize both of them without causing permanent physical damage, Pesky Dust really is the most efficient choice.”
He smirked slightly.
His plan had worked flawlessly.
Tricking Gwen’s mana-sensing abilities had been child’s play—because his DNA was a literal structural match to Ben Tennyson’s, his energy signature was indistinguishable from her cousin’s.
The distress call, the decoy jacket, the residual aura on the scrap metal—it had all been a carefully orchestrated illusion.
Albedo turned his gaze toward the far end of the facility, where the heavy, metallic footsteps of Kevin Levin were currently echoing down the main hall.
“Now,” the small alien whispered, fluttering his wings as he lifted off the ground, “time for the muscle.”