The world had ended.
No—worse. The universe had.
Feet struck the broken pavement, each step sparking with static vibrance. A boy, lean and restless, streaked through the carcass of a city. His boots crackled blue with electric charge, each landing more desperate than the last. The ruined skyline loomed overhead—once Earth's proud towers, now bound together by grotesque webs of alien flesh, meat-vines strung between skeletons of glass and steel.
Behind him, the husks came.
Once, they were people. Humans. Tetramands. Vulpimancers. Even tiny Galvans. Now they moved in jerks and spasms, their skin stretched tight and glistening, their eyes hollow and vacant, their limbs lashed together by the virus' lattice. A moaning chorus of what was left of life.
The boy's name pulsed across the back of his jacket in glowing white letters—KV. On his shoulder, etched into a chest plate tinted yellow, the unmistakable crest of the Omnitrix burned like a warning.
Kid Volt.
With a hiss, he spun his rod—a collapsible spear of Plumber alloy—sending arcs of electricity through the husks closing in. The weapon cracked skulls, split open meat-webs, and left glowing scorch marks in his wake. Still they came, swarming like water through a broken dam.
He vaulted onto a rusted car husk, spun, and struck down with a crack of thunder that lit the street like a strobe. For a moment, the army of the fallen staggered. And in that breath, KV ran.
A metallic hatch—half-buried, rusted, its seal scorched—yawned before him. A Plumber tube.
With one last charge, he dove inside. The hatch slammed down as husks clawed against it, their nails screeching on metal. KV slid down the spiraling shaft, sparks trailing his descent, before slamming into a maintenance tunnel. He didn't stop. He couldn't.
The device clutched to his chest pulsed softly—a compact sphere of Galvan design, alive with green veins of circuitry. He held it tighter as he sprinted, ducking under collapsed beams, smashing through stray husks that had clawed their way inside.
He reached the bottom of the Plumbers' headquarters. Or what was left of it.
The great hub that had once stood as Earth's shield was nothing more than bones. Walls blackened. Consoles shattered. The air stank of burnt circuits and rotting flesh.
KV staggered into a final chamber, its door still sealed. His rod clanged against the entry panel. The door screeched open—revealing a cramped bunker lit by the soft glow of fading Galvan tech.
And there they were. The last of them.
Blukic and Driba.
The two Galvans looked older than he'd ever seen, their tiny forms hunched over failing machines. Their wide eyes softened when they saw him.
"You made it," Blukic said, voice cracking.
KV stumbled inside, collapsing to his knees. He shoved the device toward them, hands trembling. "Ken… the others… they didn't…" His voice broke. "…they didn't make it."
Silence.
Driba's hands hovered, unsure. Then, gently, he took the device. "We feared as much." His small voice carried a weight no Galvan should ever have to bear.
Blukic placed a hand on KV's arm. "Your fight… your losses… will not be for nothing. But there is no time to mourn. You must rise."
The chamber shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. Outside, the husks had found them. The moans rose like a storm tide.
The Galvans scrambled, loading the device into a strange platform pulsing with blue light. A time machine cobbled from the wreckage of their species' genius, powered by desperation alone.
KV's breath quickened as the doors groaned under the husks' assault. Shadows slipped through cracks in the wall, clutching, clawing.
Blukic shouted over the din. "Into the chamber—now!"
"I'm not ready—!" KV tried to protest, his body shaking with fatigue and rage.
"You were never meant to be ready," Driba said. His tiny hands shoved against KV's chest, guiding him toward the platform. "But you are all we have left."
The boy's heart pounded. He thought of Ken—his mentor, his brother-in-arms, the one who had believed in him more than anyone else. Gone. All gone.
The door finally gave way. Husks poured in, their chorus of hollow voices filling the chamber. The Galvans' consoles sparked and died.
KV's feet dragged, then stumbled onto the platform. Light engulfed him. He looked back—just long enough to see Blukic and Driba turn to face the tide, their tiny silhouettes dwarfed by the oncoming swarm.
The last thing KV heard was their voices—defiant, unyielding—as the machine roared to life.
And then he was gone.
All he had ever known, all he had ever loved—consumed in the dark.
***********
Bellwood. A city that never slept — or maybe it was just that the aliens who had moved in since Ben's hero days never quite learned what quiet meant.
Down a dimly lit street tucked between abandoned warehouses, a deal was going down.
The first buyer stood tall, broad, his skin slick and purple with folds of extra flesh dripping down his frame like melted wax. His eyes didn't blink. His mouth didn't move. And yet, his voice oozed out of him like a thought forced into the world:
"Payment. Now."
He extended a heavy limb, skin writhing with grotesque elasticity as he shoved a box forward. Inside was a collection of crystalline shards — glowing faintly, pulsing with something no human should ever touch. To call it "drugs" was underselling it. These weren't just narcotics; they were portable chaos, banned across ten galaxies.
The buyer on the other side was a sleek Appoplexian — tiger-striped, muscular, a little too eager for trouble. His claws hovered over the shards, almost trembling.
"Looks pure. Real pure," the Appoplexian grinned, already picturing the profit.
"Of course it is," the purple alien whispered without whispering, its folds quivering. "You think I would dare sell impurity?"
They shook on it. The deal was done. Or so they thought.
"Plumber Division!"
The shout came from behind, breaking the stale tension like glass. Rook Blonko, disguised moments before as the Appoplexian's hired muscle, tore off the holo-projector from his wrist and leveled his Proto-Tool. His calm voice cut through the chaos:
"You are under arrest. Surrender peacefully."
The warehouse roared alive. Hidden doors burst open as armored Plumber agents swarmed, their rifles glowing.
The Appoplexian snarled and lunged. His hired thugs drew plasma blades. Chaos erupted instantly.
But the purple one didn't fight. Not yet. It simply turned — slow, deliberate. Plasma shots hammered its chest. The fleshy mass absorbed the impacts with wet thuds, sizzling holes sealing shut like liquid clay. Then, with terrifying grace, it hurled its body toward the nearest wall. Flesh elongated like a whip, crashing through the glass.
"Target is escaping," Rook barked, pinning the Appoplexian with expert precision. His comm clicked alive. "He is heading east. Intercept."
Static. Then a voice — casual, light, and unmistakably smug.
Somewhere above the city, a shadow shifted on a rooftop. A boy leaned lazily against a billboard, sipping from a juice box. He set it down with a slurp, smirk tugging at his lips.
"Alright, sunshine. Time to cool you down."
He cracked his knuckles. His sleeve slid back, and the Omnitrix — familiar, iconic, eternal — gleamed green against his wrist.
He slammed the dial.
The world exploded in emerald light.
Where Ben Tennyson had stood, something new now soared. A sleek, blue-skinned alien with icy ridges across its arms, crystalline wings that refracted the city lights, and a gaze colder than deep space. Frost streamed off its body in ribbons.
The chase was on.
The purple alien barreled down the street, flesh splitting into whips and tendrils that ripped cars off the pavement and hurled them like grenades. Each impact burst in violent shockwaves.
The blue alien — Big Chill — darted through the debris, its wings folding and unfurling like a glider's. Each explosion passed harmlessly through as the alien's body shimmered, phasing in and out like frozen mist.
The purple one roared without sound. Flesh peeled from its shoulders, detonating in sticky bursts of corrosive plasma.
Big Chill cut through the storm, gaining ground with every dive. His voice, layered with Ben's familiar cockiness, echoed like a smirk made audible:
"Nice party trick. But you're throwing too much of yourself around."
The purple alien tried to leap for an alley — too slow.
Big Chill dropped from above, wings folding around him like a hunter's snare. Cold fire spiraled outward in a storm of frost, encasing the purple alien mid-motion. It froze in place, tendrils crystallizing into grotesque statues mid-flail.
The wings folded away.
Green light flashed.
And there he was. Standing over the defeated alien, drug crate slung casually under one arm, signature smirk on his face. Black shirt, green stripes. A bold number "10" stretched across his chest.
"Ben Tennyson," he said, mostly for the recorders in the Plumbers' helmets. "Hero, ice delivery, and, uh…" He looked at the frozen purple carcass, tapped it with his sneaker, "…pest control."
He twirled the box once, tossed it in the air, caught it one-handed.
"Another day, another bad guy"