On his way back to the meteor crater, Grandpa Max found himself thinking about Blake’s parents.
He remembered how they used to endlessly praise and brag about their son whenever they spoke to him.
To be honest, when Grandpa Max had first run into Blake earlier, the boy had looked incredibly familiar.
Blake’s deep brown eyes were vastly different from those of the people around him and Max had crossed paths with his fair share of Asians over the years.
Once the boy had introduced himself, the pieces finally clicked.
Max remembered his old Plumber colleagues constantly talking about their son.
Meanwhile, high above the Earth, a massive spaceship deployed a drone.
The alien robot plummeted from the sky, landing with a heavy thud inside the very forest where Ben was wandering, on a strict directive to retrieve the Omnitrix.
Upon landing, the robot scanned the wreckage inside the crater.
Finding nothing, it released several small, airborne scout drones to track down the energy signature of the watch.
Back at the campsite, Ben was still aggressively fidgeting with the faceplate of the Omnitrix.
Gwen stepped closer, her brow furrowing with worry.
“Didn’t Grandpa explicitly tell you not to mess with that thing?”
Ben didn’t even look up, keeping her focus entirely on her wrist.
“Did he?
And since when do you care what anyone says?”
Gwen rolled her eyes, delivering a harsh retort.
“Did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby, or were you just born this dumb?”
Ben threw her hands up in exasperation.
“Oh, come on!
Are you seriously telling me you aren’t even a little bit curious about what else this thing can do?”
“Not even a little.”
“Are you absolutely sure we’re actually related?”
Seeing the two cousins starting to snap at each other again, Blake, who had been quietly taking in the scenery, stepped in to break it up.
“Alright, alright, knock it off.
I think your grandpa is right.
Until we figure out exactly what this device is, it’s probably best to leave it alone.”
Blake remembered the original show’s plot vividly.
In the canon timeline, Vilgax managed to pinpoint Ben’s location multiple times simply by tracking the energy spikes from the Omnitrix.
As long as Ben refrained from transforming haphazardly, it would save them from a mountain of unnecessary trouble.
But Ben wasn’t about to listen.
In her mind, this watch was her ticket to becoming a real hero, a way to actually help people.
Gwen shifted her weight, a hint of genuine curiosity breaking through her annoyed facade.
“By the way…
what did it actually feel like?
You know, turning into an alien?”
Ben finally paused her poking, looking up at Gwen.
“It freaked me out at first.
It felt like…
like it was completely me, but at the exact same time, it felt like I was someone else entirely.”
Blake listened intently, feeling a spark of curiosity of his own.
Since he hadn’t activated his own watch yet, he had no idea what the transformation process felt like.
He didn’t dare test his red-and-white Omnitrix carelessly either.
If an actual emergency struck, he would need it ready.
Plus, he wasn’t entirely sure if his version possessed the same automatic life-form protection feature as the original.
While Blake was lost in thought, a sharp click echoed through the air.
The faceplate of Ben’s Omnitrix suddenly popped upward.
Ben’s eyes lit up.
She quickly began rotating the dial.
“Hey!
I think I figured out how to cycle through them!
Want to see me try it again?
Just once.
Just one more time.”
“No, I don’t,” Gwen said flatly.
Ben completely ignored her, offering a smug grin as her hand came down hard on the dial.
“Heh, of course you don’t.”
A flash of light consumed her, and when it faded, Ben had transformed into a quadrapedal, orange, canine-like alien—Wildmutt.
Fortunately, this version of Wildmutt looked practically identical to the original design from the show.
Gwen walked a slow circle around the beast, her face contorting into an expression of pure disgust.
“Ugh, gross.
This one is even uglier than your normal face.” She chuckled, leaning in closer.
“Haha, wow.
Someone get this mutt a flea collar.”
Wildmutt let out a low, warning growl.
She clearly understood the insult and given her heightened senses, every syllable hit with crystal clarity.
“Wait, it doesn’t even have eyes??” Gwen squinted, realization dawning on her.
“What good is a monster that can’t even see where it’s going?”
Gwen waved a hand directly in front of Wildmutt’s face.
Confirming the lack of eyes, a mischievous, daring idea popped into her head.
Creeping up behind Wildmutt with a thick wooden branch, Gwen raised it high, preparing to give the beast a solid whack.
But before the stick could even descend, Wildmutt caught the vibration in the air and cleanly leaped onto the roof of the Rust Bucket, easily evading the strike.
Even without eyes, Wildmutt possessed an extraordinary sense of hearing and thermographic smell.
She didn’t need eyesight; her remaining senses mapped out a perfect, flawless picture of her surroundings.
“Okay…
maybe it’s not totally useless,” Gwen admitted reluctantly.
The moment the words left her mouth, Wildmutt dropped from the roof, landing right in front of Gwen.
With a swift kick of her hind legs, she sprayed a shower of dirt all over Gwen’s clothes before taking off toward the tree line, ready to go for a wild joyride through the deep forest.
Wiping the dirt off her face, Gwen yelled at the retreating alien, “Ben!
Get back here right now, Ben!”
“I mean it!
I’m telling Grandpa!
I’m gonna tell him he told you not to mess around, and you went and turned into a giant monster anyway just to swing through the trees!” She huffed, crossing her arms.
“Today is officially turning into the weirdest day ever.”
Blake watched the direction the alien had gone.
Recalling how this sequence played out in the original story, he stepped forward and called out, “Ben.”
Hearing Blake’s voice, Wildmutt instinctively skidded to a halt.
She turned her head back toward him with a look of confusion.
She fully expected him to side with Gwen and try to ruin her fun.
“Be careful out there,” Blake said softly.
Ben froze.
She had fully prepared herself to ignore whatever buzzkill comment came her way, but Blake was genuinely just looking out for her.
Not quite knowing how to process the sudden warmth, the massive alien stood frozen for a second, gave a clumsy nod, and then bounded off into the dense foliage.
Gwen turned to Blake, throwing her hands up in disbelief.
“Why did you let her go like that?
What if she runs into a hiker and scares some poor innocent citizen half to death?”
Blake didn’t offer a complicated explanation.
He just watched the trees sway where Ben had vanished and said quietly, “I trust her.”
Deep in the forest, Ben was having the time of her life leaping between branches.
Suddenly, a jarring sense of danger spiked through her heightened instincts, forcing her to freeze.
Wildmutt’s razor-sharp reflexes saved her life.
With a powerful lateral spring, she threw herself off the branch just as a brilliant crimson laser cannon tore through the air, completely obliterating the tree she had been standing on.
The drone had found her.
Wildmutt began weaving erratically through the canopy, using her immense agility to swing from branch to branch.
Her high-speed, unpredictable movements made it impossible for the scout drone to lock its targeting sensors on her, and within moments, it completely lost its visual target.
Realizing the machine had lost track of her, Wildmutt dropped silently from a high branch, landing squarely on top of the drone.
She opened her massive jaws, tearing into the metallic head of the machine with savage force.
But just as she successfully ripped the drone’s sensory head clean off, a distinct, ominous mechanical beeping echoed in her ears.
The Omnitrix was running out of power.
(Uh-oh.)
Recognizing the warning sign, Wildmutt immediately leaped off the falling chassis, aiming for a safe clearing to avoid being caught in an explosion or tumbling down a steep ridge mid-transformation.
A flash of red light later, Ben was human again.
She shook her head to clear the dizziness, looking back at the smoking wreck of the drone she had just dismantled.
A massive grin broke across her face.
“Awesome!”
The victory was short-lived.
*Whirring* sounds echoed from above as an identical scout drone descended from the canopy, its laser cannon charging and aiming directly at her chest.
“Oh…
crap…”
Just as the laser was about to fire, Gwen materialized from the brush behind the drone, swinging a heavy iron shovel with all her might.
*CRACK!* The shovel smashed into the chassis, throwing the machine off balance.
Gwen didn’t hesitate, coming down with another heavy strike to finish it off.
“Die, you stupid piece of junk!
No flying metal blender gets to mess with my cousin!”
Ben stared at the smashed machinery, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“I never thought I’d actually say this…
but I am so incredibly glad to see you.”
Gwen rested the shovel against her shoulder, tilting her head toward Blake, who was coming up right behind her.
“Don’t thank me.
You should thank your friend.
He’s the one who realized you were in danger and made us come looking for you.”
Ben turned to Blake, her emerald eyes wide, wanting to say something.
But Blake was already looking past her at the drone, which was starting to hiss and crackle with dangerous electricity.
He cut her off quickly:
“Uh, we can skip the thank-yous for now.
I highly suggest we run!”
He pointed at the sparking, overheating machine.
Realizing what was about to happen, the trio spun on their heels and sprinted at full speed back toward the safety of the Rust Bucket.