After some time, SAM stopped on the roof of the San Francisco Mint, landing with a light thud before looking around for the target he had been following.
He had already wasted a few minutes searching the surrounding area, but then he spotted them moving through this part of the city, with Four Arms running ahead and Ben close behind. That was enough for him to narrow it down.
He tapped his Omnitrix dial.
A golden flash erupted, and when it faded, SAM had already shifted into something much smaller.
"Stitch!"
Stitch immediately moved to the wall and climbed up it, then crawled across the ceiling to get a better look around. His eyes scanned the area carefully as he tried to locate them.
Then he saw it.
Four Arms' body shifted again, this time into Heatblast.
Not the regular transformation either, but something strange. It looked like the body was changing into a different form altogether, as if the alien was switching species instead of just using the one he had already picked.
"What the?" Stitch blinked, scratching the side of his head. "This is odd."
He narrowed his eyes and tried to make sense of it, but nothing about it matched what he thought he knew.
He could not exactly remember villains in Ben 10 being able to switch between alien forms at will.
"Maybe this is Ben's evil twin who wears red," he muttered to himself, trying to piece it together from what little he remembered.
The original story in his head was mostly fragments anyway. A ten-year-old Ben finds the Omnitrix. Max being with alien women. Alien X being impossible to use. Vilgax is a serious threat early on, then turns into more of a joke later. Everything else was a blur of pieces that didn't always connect right.
That was about all he had.
"Hey, hothead!" Gwen shouted, snapping Heatblast's attention toward her.
Her voice also snapped Stitch out of his thoughts.
"Back off the fireworks before somebody gets really hurt!" Gwen continued. "Now, if you take responsibility for all the whacko stuff you've been doing, I'm sure we can help you."
"Gwen!" Ben suddenly ran up beside Max from behind.
Gwen whipped around immediately. "Not now, dweeb! Can't you see I've got to deal with..."
Then she stopped.
"Ben?"
Her expression changed instantly as she turned back toward the imposter, now looking far less confident than before.
"So who are you!?" she asked, clearly unsettled.
The imposter Heatblast smirked.
"Me?" he asked. "I'm a hottie. Can't you tell?"
He raised one fiery hand and pulled it back, clearly preparing to throw something at her.
Before he could, a golden flash burst from above.
Shellblade landed between them.
"What the?" the imposter said, staring at the unfamiliar alien in front of him.
He had clearly never seen this alien before.
Shellblade did not waste time. He opened his mouth and spat a stream of water directly at the imposter Heatblast, dousing the flames on his body almost immediately.
"Leave, I'll handle this imposter." Shellblade said, tilting his head back a little. The previous endangered security guards didn't argue; they quickly turned and ran off.
"Hey! Watch it!" the imposter snapped, stumbling back as the fire was put out.
That gave Shellblade the opening he needed.
He crouched low, then charged forward with his blade-hands covered in a thin layer of water. He swung both arms in one quick motion, striking the imposter cleanly and sending him rolling back across the ground.
The imposter Heatblast hit the pavement hard, and when he tried to get up, his rocky body now had two long slash marks across it. The flames on him were gone.
"You're gonna pay for that!" he shouted.
His body twisted and shifted again, changing between Ben's other aliens before finally settling on Diamondhead.
Shellblade looked straight at him, then tapped his Omnitrix dial.
A golden flash erupted.
"Sludge!"
He barely had time to settle before the imposter Diamondhead raised both hands and fired off a shower of sharp crystal shards.
Sludge did not even try to dodge. He just started walking forward.
The crystals stabbed into his mud-like body, but they got stuck without doing much of anything. His body absorbed the hits as he continued closing the distance, looking completely unfazed.
Then he drew his fist back.
The arm stretched outward as he swung, and the punch crashed straight into the imposter's face, knocking him backward.
"Okay, who is this guy?" Ben asked from the back, sounding genuinely confused.
He had wanted to jump in earlier, but he had hesitated, not wanting to accidentally confuse Evan if he transformed at the wrong time. So he stayed back and waited until he was sure he was needed.
Now he just wanted to know who this fake was and how he could use his alien forms.
"You still haven't figured it out? Maybe this will help," the imposter said, pushing himself back to his feet.
Then his head began shifting again, switching to Stinkfly, then Heatblast, to Upgrade, and finally, the familiar human face returned.
"Kevin!?" Ben gasped.
Kevin grinned. "Hey, partner."
Ben frowned hard. "I don't get it. I thought you were drained of all my powers back at the bridge in New York."
"That's what you get for thinking, Benji," Kevin said with a smug look. "Turns out I absorbed enough of that weird watch energy to transform into any of those aliens if I concentrate hard enough. Only problem is I can only stay human for a short time."
His expression hardened as he looked straight at Ben.
"You made me this freak."
For a second, the whole area went quiet.
Then Sludge started laughing.
Not a small laugh either. He laughed so hard that it sounded like he had just heard the funniest thing in the world.
Kevin's eye twitched. "What the hell are you laughing at, alien freak?"
Sludge spread his arms wide, still grinning.
"Of all those who face me over the years, there's no one more pathetic than you," he said. "I, Ever, declare you the most pathetic one of them all."
He laughed again, as Kevin glared at him, clearly offended.
He had expected anger. He had expected fear. He had even expected confusion.
But being laughed at like this and treated like a complete fool was clearly not what he wanted.
Sludge wasn't intimidated by Kevin; he just found his situation utterly pathetic and laughable.
Here was someone trying to frame Ben for his own mess, using stolen power to cause trouble, and then acting like he had some tragic destiny attached to him.
To him, it looked less like a villain and more like a guy who made bad decisions one after another, then decided to blame everyone else for it.
Kevin's whole situation was basically someone messing with a live power line, getting shocked, and then acting like the electric company owed him something for it.
Kevin's expression twisted with rage. His body shifted again, cycling through Ben's alien forms before settling on Stinkfly.
He shot upward, hovering just out of reach as he sprayed a burst of slime straight at Sludge.
Sludge stopped laughing long enough to react. He raised his left hand and stretched it outward, letting the slime hit his palm instead of his face. The attack barely slowed him down. A second later, his body expanded, shifting from the smaller humanoid form into a larger, more monstrous shape, one that looked far more suited for smashing things than talking about them.
He clapped his hands together, trying to catch Stinkfly like some annoying bug that had gotten into the room.
Kevin slipped away at the last second, sliding out of reach and firing another blast of slime at him from above.
Sludge tapped his Omnitrix dial.
A bright golden flash erupted.
"Flame Wingman!"
Flame Wingman crouched low, then leaped high into the air, his single wing spreading wide as he closed in on Kevin. Kevin fired another burst of slime toward him, but Flame Wingman twisted his body in midair and slipped past it. His clawed left hand swung across Kevin's face, landing cleanly.
Kevin screamed in pain, but before he could recover, the red dragon-like head on Flame Wingman's right arm snapped forward, clabbing around his neck, and bit down hard. Flames burst from its mouth at the same time.
Kevin yelped as Flame Wingman dragged him down and slammed him into the ground with enough force to make the pavement crack.
"Ughhh…" Kevin groaned, already shifting again.
This time he turned into Four Arms.
He wasted no time. Both pairs of fists came swinging down at Flame Wingman, trying to crush him before he could move.
Flame Wingman tapped his Omnitrix again.
A golden flash surrounded him.
Kevin's fists crashed into the black symbiote body of Noir instead.
"What the?" Kevin started, but he did not get the chance to finish.
Noir had already started merging with him.
The black symbiote spread over Kevin's body, climbing across him and taking control of most of his movement. Kevin tried to fight it, but Noir had already wrapped around him too tightly. His upper arms jerked upward, and suddenly Kevin was punching himself in the face.
Noir's head formed out from Kevin's back, grinning as it watched him struggle.
"Why are you hitting yourself?" Noir asked. "Why are you hitting yourself?"
Kevin snarled, twisting and thrashing, but the symbiote kept forcing his arms to keep moving. Blood and teeth flew from his mouth as he kept trying to pull free. In the middle of the struggle, his body shifted again, flipping through more alien forms before settling on Heatblast. This caused Noir to separate from him.
Noir tapped his Omnitrix again.
A yellow flash burst outward.
Then a jet of water shot from the light.
It slammed into Kevin's flames head-on and overpowered them easily, putting him out before he could do anything else.
"Would you stop that!" Kevin shouted, charging forward recklessly, clearly intending to absorb Evan's alien too.
Shellblade was already moving. He coated his blade-hands with water and slashed forward, sending Kevin crashing hard into the wall behind him.
"Besides being a nuisance for others, you're nothing special," Shellblade said, walking toward him without rushing. "You're just as pathetic as your reason for being bad."
He tapped his Omnitrix once more.
Another golden flash.
Feedback appeared in his place.
Kevin's face twisted even more. "Shut up! How would you know what I've been through to judge me, huh!?"
He shoved himself back up and shifted again, returning to Four Arms.
This time he came charging in without thinking, blinded by anger and rage; he just wanted to smash Feedback's face in.
Feedback watched him approach with a calm look. His single golden eye stayed fixed on Kevin, and he tapped his Omnitrix again.
Three spikes popped out, and a golden glow spread out from his Omnitrix, covering his entire body.
Kevin threw the first punch. Feedback ducked under it just before it could hit him.
His right arm pulled back, and the spike on his right elbow pushed down. Red lightning with a white outline crackled around his body.
Then the spike on his right shoulder pushed down too, and the red lightning shifted into black, now with a red outline.
"Black Flash!"
His fist shot upward in a sharp uppercut and slammed directly into Kevin's chin.
The impact sent Kevin flying through the ceiling, shattering the glass above them as he shot out into the open air and disappeared into the distance.
"Let's get out of here first." Feedback said tapping his Omnitrix and transforming into Fasttrack.
His gaze shifted toward Ben, who nodded in understanding and activated his Omnitrix, transforming into XLR8.
The two speeders pick up Max and Gwen and dash out of the place. A few seconds later, the S.A.C.T. soldiers burst through the windows and doors, trying to surround the place, only to find it was completely empty.
...
Later on, inside the parked Rust Bucket.
"Why does that alien S.W.A.T. team guy think all aliens are bad?" Ben asked.
"Well, he thinks all of your aliens are bad. Not Evan's aliens," Gwen said, while typing something on her computer. "He previously talked with him. Evan tried to explain things to him."
"Still, check this out," Gwen said as she turned her computer over and showed them the news articles she found. "Your friend's been busy, Ben. And not just here in San Francisco. Wildmutt terrorizing Tallahassee, Ripjaws in Chicago, Ghostfreak in Barstow."
"I'm going to get blamed for all that stuff!" Ben realized. "And I didn't do any of it!"
"Can anybody say ironic?" Gwen asked as they heard screaming.
They looked out the window to see a trolley full of passengers with Upgrade's pattern on it speeding past them down the hill they were parked on.
"Kevin!" Ben glared.
"That guy is still running?" Evan sat up.
"The boy must have gone Upgrade to hijack that cable car," Max realized.
"Anything he can upgrade, I can upgrade better," Ben said, slamming his Omnitrix down, turning himself into...
"Wildmutt?" Gwen asked. "Nice choice, fido."
The Wildmutt just growled at her, annoyed. Wildmutt then pounced out of the RV as he chased the trolley.
From the rooftop, the S.A.C.T. soldiers saw him leave and instantly reported.
"Mobile one, a wild dog alien just emerged from that RV. Now it and the liquid metal alien are headed down California St."
"Maintain visuals. I'm on my way."
The passengers in the trolley were panicking as the driver tried to engage the brakes, only for Kevin's eye to appear in the trolley's frame.
"Now why are you doing that?" he asked. "We're just starting to have fun!"
He let out several tendrils and ripped the brakes out of the frame and tossed it out of the window as the trolley sped downwards.
The traffic stopped as the trolley sped downwards, and Wildmutt bounced on top of it as he followed it.
Once Wildmutt reached a close enough distance, he leaped off and landed on the cable car.
"Sorry, Ben. No pets allowed!" Kevin said as spikes shot up from the frame, causing him to lose his balance as he grabbed onto the side of the trolley, and he dodged the incoming traffic.
The passengers freaked out over the dog alien inside the trolley as Kevin stuck his head out beside him.
"Peek-a-boo!" he said before he punched Wildmutt, causing him to stumble as the trolley's bench collapsed beneath him, knocking him unconscious. "That's a good little hero."
Kevin then de-merged with the trolley and smirked.
"Let's see, the breaks are out, heroes are trapped, and everyone's about to go for a dunk in the bay. My work is done."
He then transformed into Stinkfly and flew away as Evan saw this from the Rusk Bucket. Now with Kevin out of the way, he finally made his move.
Activating his Another Omnitrix, a golden flash erupted from inside the RV.
Fasttrack burst out from the RV door and directly ran after the speeding trolley heading toward the open dock.
Without saying a word, he stepped into the speeding trolley and moved the passengers out one by one, and even dragged Wildmutt out before the trolley burst through the dock.
Seeing that they were saved, the crowd cheered. Wildmutt shook his head, finally regaining his consciousness. Fasttrack didn't pay them any attention, his gaze shifting back, trying to locate Kevin, but he couldn't find him anywhere.
Fasttrack then finally noticed the crowd gathering toward him. Their faces filled with gratitude and curiosity.
"Is everyone okay? No one seriously hurt, right?" Fasttrack asks, although it was unnecessary since he had carried all of them out from the trolley himself.
"We're fine, sir." The trolley driver said, grateful that they were saved. "No one is hurt."
"Good. You don't need to worry. I'll go deal with this imposter situation as soon as possible." He said reassuringly, buying time for Wildmutt to leave.
"Imposter?" One of the boys he saved asks.
"Yeah. As you can see, we're trying to coexist peacefully on Earth, and some individuals don't seem to appreciate it. Now, we're trying to deal with him as soon as possible." He said, earning smiles and words of encouragement from the crowd watching. Then, without saying another word, he sped off before they could ask any further questions. He had bought enough time for Wildmutt to leave without being noticed.
AN: Give me more suggestions for his aliens; some of your ideas are quite interesting and if they aren't getting use now, later they might be.
To clear up a few misunderstandings some readers have with Evan and the story itself, I wrote it on the review and pin it up, you guys can go check it out if you are interested.