Chapter 3: Ten Thousand Names
The journey back to the Rustbucket was a frantic, whispered argument. Ben kept shaking his arm as if he could dislodge the watch through sheer motion, while Gwen peppered him with a thousand questions he couldn't answer.
"What does it feel like?"
"I don't know! Like a watch!"
"Does it hurt?"
"No! It's just… there!"
"Well, don't just stand there, try to get it off!"
"I am trying, dweeb!"
They found Grandpa Max near the edge of the crash site, his face pale in the glow of his flashlight. He had been circling the crater, assessing the damage, when he saw them emerge from the woods. His eyes immediately locked onto the device on Ben's wrist.
"Ben… what did you do?" he asked, his voice low and dangerously calm.
"It wasn't my fault!" Ben yelped, holding up his arm. "It just jumped on me!"
Max rushed over, grabbing Ben's wrist gently. He turned it over and over, his fingers tracing the strange seams of the watch. His expression was a mixture of awe and profound dread. "Incredible… the level of technology…" he murmured, mostly to himself. "This is not S.H.I.E.L.D. tech. It's not Kree or Skrull… this is something else entirely."
The names meant nothing to Ben and Gwen, who exchanged a confused look.
"Can you get it off, Grandpa?" Gwen asked, her voice small.
Max shook his head slowly. "I don't think so, sweetheart. It looks like it's bonded with his DNA. Tampering with it could be… catastrophic."
The word "catastrophic" hung in the air. Ben felt a fresh wave of panic. Bonded with his DNA? He was going to be stuck with this thing forever? His summer of freedom was officially over. Now he was just a kid with a weird alien bracelet he couldn't take off.
Back inside the dim light of the Rustbucket, the mood was tense. Grandpa Max was trying to get a signal on a strange-looking satellite phone, muttering about "secure channels" and "old contacts." Gwen was on her laptop, typing furiously, trying to find any information online about "glowing alien watches," an effort that was proving fruitless.
Ben sat at the small dinette table, sulking as he fiddled with the device. He twisted the dial, watching in fascination as the silhouette in the center changed with each click. There was the big muscular one he'd seen first, then a fiery-looking creature, a thing that looked like it was made of crystal, a bug-like alien with four eyes, a ghost-like being, and more. Each one was a dark green shadow, a promise of something unknown.
"Stop touching that!" Gwen snapped without looking up from her screen. "You don't know what it does!"
"Maybe it does something cool," Ben retorted, his frustration bubbling over. "Maybe it's not a stupid watch, maybe it's a super-weapon! Maybe I can shoot lasers or something!"
He pushed the dial, frustration giving way to a reckless curiosity. What was the worst that could happen? It was already stuck to him. He hovered his finger over the faceplate.
"Don't you dare, Ben!"
He ignored her. He slammed his palm down on the faceplate.
A flash of brilliant green light engulfed him, so bright it forced Gwen and Max to shield their eyes. Ben felt a sensation that was beyond description. It wasn't pain, not exactly. It was… change. A violent, fundamental rewriting of his entire being. He felt his bones stretch and melt, his skin crackle and reform. His insides felt like they were boiling, turning to liquid rock. He screamed, but the sound that came out wasn't his own. It was deeper, harsher, a voice made of grinding stone and embers.
The light subsided. Where ten-year-old Ben Tennyson had been sitting, there now stood a being of living magma and charred rock. Flames danced along its shoulders and head, which was a floating, fiery skull. It was tall, nearly seven feet, and the heat radiating from its body was so intense that the vinyl on the dinette seat began to bubble and melt.
Gwen and Grandpa Max stared in absolute horror.
Ben—or the creature he had become—looked down at his hands. They weren't hands anymore. They were lumps of molten rock, dripping fire onto the floor. He could feel the heat, not as pain, but as a part of him, a core of stellar energy burning where his stomach should be. He could feel the air shimmer around him.
He opened his mouth to speak, to say "Whoa," but what came out was a volcanic roar. The force of it sent a plume of fire and smoke blasting across the small space, igniting a stack of magazines on the counter.
"Fire!" Gwen shrieked, grabbing the small fire extinguisher from the wall.
Ben panicked. He was a monster. He was on fire. And now he was setting the Rustbucket on fire. He flailed his arms wildly, trying to swat at the flames on the counter, but he only succeeded in spreading them, his flaming hands igniting the curtains over the sink.
The creature's body was a prison of power, but the mind inside was still just a terrified ten-year-old boy.