Back inside the Rust Bucket, Grandpa Max was in the middle of giving Ben a stern lecture.
“I was deeply concerned out there that the device on your wrist was going to turn you into a walking target!” Max scolded.
“That is precisely why I told you not to mess around with it until we figured out exactly what it is.”
Ben sat there looking completely deflated, mumbling her apologies while still trying to salvage a bit of excitement.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa…
But at least I figured out how the transformations work!
All you have to do is press this button.”
To demonstrate, Ben raised her wrist and pressed the button.
“The dial pops up, and then you just turn it to choose the alien you want to be.
You press it back down, transform, and boom ,you can turn into one of ten totally awesome aliens!”
Gwen couldn’t resist dropping her usual sarcastic commentary.
“Is there any chance you could just stay a totally awesome alien forever, so we never have to deal with this massive dweeb again?”
Ben shot her a deadpan look, turning her head away.
“Don’t know.
Haven’t figured out that feature yet.”
Grandpa Max, however, was looking at it from a different perspective.
If handled correctly, this could actually turn out to be a good thing.
“This bizarre device appears to be incredibly powerful.
We had better help you learn how to control it as quickly as possible.”
Hearing her grandpa support her using the Omnitrix, Ben pumped her fists into the air.
“Awesome!”
Just as Blake was about to say something, the RV’s radio crackled to life.
A frantic distress call swept through the static, reporting an ongoing attack by giant robots.
The distress signal made everything click for Ben.
She realized the drones from earlier were hunting for her watch.
“They’re coming for this thing.
Those people are under attack because of me!
I can go save them.”
She stood up resolutely.
Gwen immediately jumped up to challenge her.
“Oh, please.
You?
And how exactly are you going to save them, Ben?”
Ben looked down at the watch, flashing a confident grin without offering a verbal retort.
The trio instantly mobilized to head toward the source of the call.
Blake moved to step off the RV and follow them, but Grandpa Max stopped him with a firm hand.
“Blake, I know you want to help, but this is going to be incredibly dangerous.
I need you to stay in the vehicle.”
Ben quickly chimed in, backing up her grandfather.
“Yeah, I think so too.
Just in case things get ugly.”
Being shut out by both of them put Blake in a tight spot.
He was worried that any changes to the canon timeline might put them in mortal danger, but he had no logical excuse to argue his way into coming along.
Unless…
Blake stole a quick glance at the Omnitrix strapped to his own wrist.
After a moment of deliberation, he decided against following them openly.
He wasn’t ready to expose the existence of a second Omnitrix just yet; keeping it a secret would give him a massive information advantage.
However, Blake wasn’t about to sit idly in the RV either.
He waited a beat, then stealthily slipped out to tail them from a distance.
Once he caught up, Blake watched the group from the cover of the tree line.
Ben raised her wrist and looked at Grandpa Max.
Receiving a reassuring nod of approval, she slammed her hand down onto the dial to trigger the transformation.
A brilliant flash of green light erupted, and within seconds, Ben transformed into Diamondhead even if her crystalline armor wasn’t technically made of actual diamonds.
With her sharp yellow eyes, a towering body composed of dense crystal, and the ability to morph her hands into weapons at will, she was a formidable sight.
Arriving at the scene, the group found a colossal giant robot tearing the campsite apart.
“The big boss robot has shown up,” Diamondhead stated, her voice deep and resonant.
“I’ll draw its fire and distract it.
You guys focus on getting everyone evacuated!”
With the plan set, the team split up.
Diamondhead marched right up to the massive machine.
“Looking for a fight?
Then come and get it!”
Spotting the Omnitrix symbol on her chest, the robot immediately charged its laser cannon and fired a devastating energy blast, sending Diamondhead flying several meters through the air.
(Damn!)
Watching from afar, Blake’s chest tightened with anxiety.
Fortunately, Diamondhead’s crystalline hide was incredibly durable, allowing her to shake off the impact without sustaining any real damage.
However, the tide quickly turned.
The giant robot closed the distance rapidly, pinning Diamondhead beneath its massive metallic foot.
“Oh, great.
I am dead meat.”
Diamondhead managed to scramble out from under the heavy tread, only to be seized and hurled violently across the clearing, smashing hard into an empty car.
As she scrambled to evade a barrage of laser fire, an errant energy blast struck a massive pine tree.
The trunk snapped with a loud crack, tumbling directly toward Gwen.
Diamondhead moved on pure instinct, throwing herself in front of Gwen.
She altered the crystal structures on her back into razor-sharp, jagged ridges, cleanly slicing the falling tree in half.
“There.
Now we’re even,” Diamondhead grunted.
Before she could catch her breath, the robot snatched her off the ground again.
The machine gripped her wrist, attempting to snap her arm off, but the razor-sharp crystalline edges of Diamondhead’s body cut deep into the robot’s hands instead.
Infuriated, the machine let out a mechanical roar and blasted her point-blank with its laser cannon, throwing her deep into the ruins of a collapsed building.
But Ben wasn’t finished.
She pushed herself up from the rubble, discovering she could use her hands to redirect the robot’s laser beams.
A brilliant tactical realization struck her.
Diamondhead stepped out into the open, actively taunting the machine.
“Come on!
Is that all you’ve got?!”
Grandpa Max watched with bated breath as the robot charged its massive cannon.
Diamondhead raised her hands, bracing herself to reflect the incoming blast.
“You want a piece of me?
Bring it!”
She absorbed the brunt of the laser beam, straining to redirect the energy back at her attacker.
But the raw power threw off her aim, causing the reflected beam to slice harmlessly into the sky.
The robot immediately caught on to her strategy and began adjusting its trajectory.
Right at that critical second, a second Diamondhead sprinted out from the edge of the clearing, intercepting the deflected beam.
This new crystalline figure quickly angled its arms, flawlessly realigning the stray laser and sending it screaming right back into the robot’s core.
The machine exploded into a spectacular fireball, completely defeated.
With the crisis resolved, Ben stared at the stranger in absolute bewilderment.
“Who are you?!”
Instinctively wary, Ben raised her hands in a defensive stance.
But the second Diamondhead ignored her entirely, spinning on its heel and sprinting full speed back into the dense forest.
“Hey, wait!” Ben took off after the stranger, desperate to figure out where this other alien had come from.
Grandpa Max and Gwen followed closely behind.
Ben pursued the figure deep into the woods.
Sensing the pursuit, the stranger fired a volley of sharp crystal shards into the surrounding trees, deliberately causing the heavy branches to crash down to block the path.
Ben sliced through the obstacles with ease, but Gwen and Grandpa Max weren’t as agile.
Although they were only dealing with falling debris, the obstacle slowed their pace significantly, opening up a wide gap between them and Ben.
Just as Ben raised her arms to slice apart a massive trunk falling directly toward her, a familiar mechanical beeping echoed from her chest.
Her transformation time had expired.
A flash of green light left her standing as a regular twelve-year-old girl.
“Oh…
crap.
I’m dead.”
From far down the trail, Grandpa Max screamed in terror, “Ben!”
Ben closed her eyes tight, bracing herself for the bone-crushing impact.
But the expected agonizing pain never came.
Confused by the silence, she cautiously opened one eye.
The strange Diamondhead was standing directly over her, effortlessly holding up the massive tree trunk before cleanly slicing it away.
“Be careful out there, Ben.”
“Huh?”
Hearing that exact, familiar phrase, Ben’s eyes went wide.
For a fleeting second, she could swear she saw Blake’s face reflecting in the crystal.
Fortunately, the forest was shrouded in deep twilight, because nobody noticed the deep crimson blush rapidly spreading across her cheeks.
Just as the alien prepared to make another break for it, a loud, distinct mechanical beeping echoed from its chest, followed by a bright flash of red light.
As the crimson glare dissolved, Ben’s eyes went wide as saucers.
She couldn’t believe what she was looking at.
“Y-You…
You’re…”
Grandpa Max and Gwen finally caught up, completely freezing in their tracks as they witnessed the exact same thing: the second Diamondhead had reverted right back into Blake.
Blake stood there, looking utterly exhausted with life.
He really hadn’t expected the secret he had kept hidden for so long to be exposed in such a spectacular fashion.
Later that night, Blake had no choice but to confess the truth about his red-and-white Omnitrix.
The group sat crowded inside the RV, surrounding Blake for a full-blown interrogation.
“Blake, you really should have told us about this sooner.
We could have helped you,” Grandpa Max said, his voice heavy with concern.
It was clear he was incredibly worried about the boy’s safety.
“I know…
I’m sorry.”
Seeing her grandfather scold him, Ben immediately jumped to his defense.
“Grandpa, come on!
Blake literally just saved my life!”
“Ben, I’m not scolding him.
I’m just worried about him,” Max explained gently.
Hearing their exchange, Blake quickly spoke up.
“Your grandpa is right, Ben.
I should have been honest with everyone from the start.”
Seeing Blake take responsibility so readily, Ben mumbled something under her breath and dropped the subject.
Ultimately, to ensure Blake’s safety, Grandpa Max decided it would be best for him to join them on their summer road trip.
It would also give them a chance to figure out the mysteries behind both of these bizarre watches.
Realizing that Blake was going to be accompanying them for the rest of the summer, Ben pumped her fists over her head in pure joy.
“Yes!
Awesome!”
But a logistical problem immediately presented itself: the Rust Bucket didn’t have any extra beds.
Ben’s eyes lit up with anticipation.
“Oh!
Oh!
He can sleep with me!
My bunk is totally big enough for two!”
Blake completely ignored the offer, pointing instead to the built-in bench.
“I’ll just sleep on the couch.
It’s fine.”
Ben’s face instantly fell.
Assuming Blake found her repulsive, she muttered sadly, “Oh…
Am I really that freaky?”
She looked down at her outfit – perfectly normal pants, a perfectly normal black-and-white striped shirt.
There wasn’t anything weird about her at all.
Gwen, naturally, never missed an opportunity to tear her cousin down.
“Hey, dweeb, nobody wants to share a bed with you.
You kick like a wild animal in your sleep, remember?”
Seeing the genuine disappointment clouding Ben’s face, Blake quickly interrupted Gwen’s impending taunt.
He waved his hands dismissively and offered a reassuring smile.
“No, no, that’s not it at all!
I’m just used to sleeping alone, and the couch looks really comfortable.”
To ensure she didn’t take it the wrong way, Blake added gently, “Don’t overthink it, Ben.”
Hearing Blake go out of his way to comfort her sent a wave of fluster through Ben.
But what caught her attention even more was that he had dropped her full name and simply called her “Ben.” Did that mean Blake felt closer to her now?
As her imagination ran completely wild, a soft pink hue crept back onto her face.
Her internal romantic delusions had successfully cheered her up…
probably?
With the sleeping arrangements settled, Grandpa Max agreed to let Blake have the couch.
Since too much had happened in a single day, everyone began winding down to get some rest…
everyone except Ben.
“Hey, which alien inside the watch do you think is the absolute strongest?”
Ben was still lounging near the couch, chattering away to Blake at a mile a minute.
Fortunately, Blake didn’t find her annoying at all, answering each of her burning questions with immense patience.
“Hmm…
I guess it depends on the situation.
If you need pure speed, XLR8 is definitely the best choice.”
“XLR8?
That sounds so cool!” Ben’s eyes practically turned into twin stars.
“Can you show me which one is XLR8?”
Seeing her boundless excitement, Blake gave in.
He reached his hand over to help her cycle through the dial on her watch.
Ben blinked in confusion as his hand approached, not entirely sure what he was doing.
Suddenly, Blake’s fingers wrapped firmly around the edge of her wrist to steady it, while his other hand began turning the faceplate of her Omnitrix.
Blake was completely oblivious to the fact that Ben was no longer paying a single shred of attention to the alien silhouettes on the dial.
Because he had spent his entire life operating under the absolute certainty that Ben Tennyson was a boy, he completely failed to notice that his casual touch had turned her into a flustered mess.
(Wow…
why is her skin so soft?) Blake thought idly.
Driven by a sudden spike of curiosity, he gave her wrist a gentle squeeze.
(!!!) Ben’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest.
(Huh…
it’s really squishy too.)
After a final squeeze, Blake finally locked the dial onto XLR8’s silhouette.
He let go of her wrist and offered a warm smile.
“There you go.
That’s the one.”
He looked up, only to find Ben violently wrenching her head away, deliberately avoiding his gaze.
“Huh?
Ben, what’s wrong?”
“Are you feeling sick or something?” Blake reached out, looking genuinely worried.
If she managed to catch a cold ahead of schedule, the entire timeline was going to be a disaster , don’t ask me why.
Hearing his voice so close, Ben bolted upright, sprinting at breakneck speed back to her top bunk.
She threw a single sentence over her shoulder: “I’m fine…
Goodnight!”
Blake was left blinking in the dim light of the cabin, utterly baffled.
“Weird…” he muttered to himself.
“I really hope she isn’t coming down with a cold.”
He had absolutely no clue that up in the top bunk, Ben had pulled her pillow tightly over her face, her mind completely consumed by the lingering sensation of his touch on her wrist.
Even with her face buried in the fabric, the brilliant crimson hue consuming the tips of her ears utterly betrayed her.