Chapter 61: The Broken Omnitrix
The tires of the Rustbucket crunched to a halt against the damp, uneven earth. Thick, fog-shrouded Florida swamp stretched out in every direction, the humid night air clinging to the windows like a wet blanket. The RV's door swung open, and Grandpa Max stepped out into the muggy darkness. He threw his arms up, stretching his back until it popped.
"Alright! We are way ahead of the crowd!" Max announced, taking a deep breath of the swampy air.
'An event that starts tomorrow, and you drag us out here in the dead of night?' Klein deadpanned internally. He stared out the window at the murky, mosquito-infested waters. If it weren't for the comfortable interior of the Rustbucket, no sane human being would ever choose to sleep in a literal swamp. Shaking his head, Klein turned his back on the damp wilderness and retreated toward his bunk, fully intending to sleep through whatever nonsense was about to happen.
Outside, Gwen wrapped her arms around herself, eyeing the murky water. A chorus of bullfrogs croaked loudly in the darkness, the sound echoing through the eerie mist.
"Grandpa, are you absolutely sure a bunch of people are actually going to show up here?" she asked, her voice laced with heavy skepticism.
Max chuckled, placing a reassuring hand on his granddaughter's shoulder. "Don't you worry, Gwen. Tomorrow kicks off Florida's annual Alligator Season! This entire bank is going to be packed shoulder-to-shoulder by sunrise. We just beat the rush and snagged the best viewing spot in the house."
While Max admired the foggy scenery, Ben was sitting on the RV's fold-out steps, completely ignoring the swamp. He had a flathead screwdriver wedged under the dial of the Omnitrix, gritting his teeth as he tried to pry the metal casing apart.
"Dweeb! What on earth are you doing?!" Gwen marched over, her eyes wide with disbelief. "You're going to break it!"
Ben didn't even look up, merely shrugging as he dug the tool deeper into the alien device. "Heaven only knows how many more awesome aliens are locked inside this thing just waiting to be great heroes. I have to figure out how to unlock them!"
Gwen threw her hands up in exasperation. There was no reasoning with him when he got like this. "Fine. Break your stupid watch. I'm not talking to you anymore." She spun on her heel and stormed back inside the RV.
Ben stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth, applying more pressure.
Click. Snap. Clang!
The screwdriver slipped. The entire faceplate of the Omnitrix popped clean off, flying through the air and landing in the damp grass a few feet away. Ben froze. His jaw dropped open wide enough to catch a fly, staring in absolute horror at his exposed, sparking wrist.
Sizzle... crackle...
The detached faceplate suddenly erupted. A blinding, pulsing wave of emerald energy flared from the metal disc, washing over the swamp grass in a rippling wave of radioactive light. Panic seized Ben's chest. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, snatching the glowing faceplate from the dirt and aggressively shoving it deep into his pocket to hide the light.
The RV door banged open. Grandpa Max and Gwen rushed out, alerted by the sudden flash and the sharp metallic snap. Klein, naturally, stayed perfectly still in his bunk, having absolutely zero interest in whatever headache his cousin had just caused.
"What was that sound?" Max asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked around the dark campsite, eventually landing on his grandson.
Ben snapped to attention, hiding his left arm behind his back. "Uh... thunder! Yep. That was definitely just some swamp thunder." His eyes darted nervously from the grass to the RV.
Gwen crossed her arms, fixing him with a deadpan glare. "There isn't a single cloud in the sky, Dweeb." She knew that look. He had definitely broken something.
"Well, Florida weather is crazy! Anyway, let's hurry up and get to sleep. Wow, I am suddenly so exhausted. Good night!" Terrified of being interrogated any further, Ben bolted past them, practically diving into the safety of the Rustbucket.
Max sighed, shaking his head before following the kids inside. Under the cover of the foggy night, no one noticed the patch of dirt where the faceplate had landed. The grass there was twisting, mutating, and rapidly sprouting into bizarre, alien-looking flora.
The next morning brought a blindingly bright Florida sun.
Ben was the first one out the door. He stepped onto the damp grass, taking a deep breath of the humid air and stretching his arms high. When he opened his eyes, he blinked in surprise. The previously empty, spooky swamp was now absolutely swarming with tourists. Pedestrians crowded the shoreline, and dozens of brightly colored temporary stalls had been set up overnight, selling everything from plastic gator teeth to deep-fried swamp snacks.
"Whoa. Grandpa wasn't kidding," Ben muttered.
Then, a sudden jolt of panic hit him as he remembered his current crisis. He quickly dug a piece of bubblegum from his pocket, popped it into his mouth, and chewed it furiously until it was sticky. Spitting the pink wad into his palm, he smeared it directly onto the exposed circuitry of the Omnitrix. He then fished the detached faceplate from his pocket and jammed it down hard onto the gum, holding it there until it stuck.
He pulled his hand back, admiring his handiwork. The dial sat slightly crooked, a tiny bit of pink gum oozing from the seam.
"Perfect. Good as new!" Ben whispered proudly.
"What's good as new?"
Ben jumped. Klein was standing on the RV steps, holding a cup of coffee and looking down at him with an incredibly unimpressed expression.
"Uh—nothing!" Ben squeaked, immediately shoving his left arm behind his back. "I just meant... the weather! The weather is good as new today. What a perfect, sunny day!"
Klein took a slow sip of his coffee. Ben was sweating bullets, his guilt practically radiating off him in visible waves. The idiot had clearly broken something or caused another disaster. But Klein really couldn't bring himself to care. With Alien X sitting in his own genetic database, he was basically carrying a pocket god. Whatever mess Ben had made, Klein could fix it with a thought. He gave a dismissive shrug and walked past him.
Max and Gwen emerged from the Rustbucket shortly after, both dressed for the heat.
"Alright, troops, let's move out," Max announced cheerfully, adjusting his floral shirt. "We don't want to miss the main event. The hatching of the baby alligators is the absolute must-see moment of the season!"
Max took the lead, marching enthusiastically toward the edge of the swamp. Klein, Gwen, and a very stiff, nervous Ben followed close behind.
Down by the water's edge, a massive crowd of tourists had formed a wide semi-circle around a muddy nest filled with large, leathery eggs. Camera flashes went off like strobe lights as people jockeyed for position behind the safety ropes. Just as Max had promised, their early arrival paid off. They had the absolute best spot on the bank, standing right at the front of the barricade, mere feet away from the nest.
Crack. Crack. Squelch.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd as the leathery shells began to fracture. Tiny, scaly snouts poked through the membranes, and the newborn creatures began to claw their way out into the Florida sun.
Except... something was very, very wrong.
Klein lowered his coffee cup, his brow furrowing as he stared at the nest. "Uh... Grandpa? Are you absolutely certain those are alligator eggs?"
Max leaned forward, squinting hard at the muddy bank. "I was very sure... at least, I thought I was?"
"Since when are alligators born with eight-pack abs?" Klein asked dryly, pointing a finger at the bizarre creatures.
Instead of crawling on their bellies, the newborn reptiles were standing upright on two muscular legs. Their scales were a deep, unnatural crimson. They each possessed four thick, heavily muscled arms, a chiseled set of abdominal muscles, and four glowing yellow eyes blinking in the sunlight.
Staring at the unmistakable traits of a Tetramand mixed with swamp reptile, the pieces instantly clicked together in Klein's head. So that was why Ben had been acting like a cornered rat all morning. The ambient energy from the broken Omnitrix had mutated the local wildlife with Four Arms' DNA.
Max and Gwen slowly turned their heads. The memory of the loud crack, the green flash, and Ben's terrible lie about 'swamp thunder' flooded back to them. They fixed Ben with identical, withering glares.
"Uh... well, you see... the thing is..." Ben stammered, sweating profusely as he awkwardly shuffled two steps backward, desperate to escape the heavy scrutiny.
"Hmm. Why are they running away?" Klein suddenly asked, his attention shifting back to the nest. The mutant baby alligators were currently scattering in absolute terror, diving into the murky water as if fleeing for their lives.
CROAK!
A deafening, bass-heavy roar shook the swamp water. The surface erupted in a geyser of mud and algae as a monstrous, mutated frog the size of a dump truck leaped onto the bank, crushing the empty eggshells beneath its massive webbed feet.
"That's Dr. Animo's frog!" Max shouted, instantly recognizing the grotesque, oversized amphibian. It wasn't the exact same one they had fought in Washington, but the genetic tampering was unmistakable.
"I'll handle this!" Ben yelled, leaping at the chance to divert attention away from his massive screw-up. He sprinted forward, putting himself between the giant frog and the screaming tourists. Honestly, fighting a giant mutant amphibian was far less terrifying than facing Grandpa Max and Gwen's wrath for another ten seconds.
"Get ready to become a roasted frog!" Ben declared, raising his left arm to activate the watch.
In his rush, he completely failed to notice that the wad of bubblegum had lost its grip. The Omnitrix faceplate popped off, tumbling silently into the grass just as Ben slammed his palm down onto the exposed core.
A blinding flash of emerald light consumed him.
As the light faded, Gwen gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Heatblast... Ripjaws? No... what exactly is that?!"
Standing in Ben's place was a horrific, mismatched amalgamation of alien DNA. The creature possessed the scaly, razor-toothed head and anglerfish lure of Ripjaws, attached to a torso that seemed caught halfway between aquatic scales and cracked magma. Its arms and legs, however, were entirely composed of the blazing, charcoal-like rocks and roaring fire of Heatblast.
"Heatblast mixed with Ripjaws? Hmm..." Klein rubbed his chin, studying the bizarre fusion with mild amusement. He brought his right fist down onto his left palm in a sudden moment of inspiration. "Let's call it... Heatjaws!"
"Cousin, how do you have the time to make sarcastic remarks?!" the creature wheezed, its voice a horrific, gurgling rasp. The fusion immediately collapsed onto the dirt, clutching its throat. The intense heat radiating from its own fiery limbs was rapidly evaporating the moisture its aquatic gills desperately needed to survive. "I can't... breathe! Water! I need water!"
Heatjaws thrashed on the ground, reaching a burning, clawed hand out toward Klein in a desperate plea for help.
Klein didn't leave him to suffer. He casually strolled forward, ignoring the intense heat, and tapped the glowing, glitched Omnitrix symbol embedded in the alien's chest.
A flash of red light washed over the creature, instantly reverting the agonizing fusion back into a very human, very traumatized Ben.
"...I seriously thought I was going to die!" Ben rasped, lying flat on his back in the mud. He took several massive, greedy gulps of the humid Florida air, his chest heaving as he slowly regained his bearings.
Gwen marched over, her shadow falling over him. "I told you! That sound last night wasn't thunder at all. You completely broke the watch, Dweeb!" she scolded, glaring down at him with zero sympathy.
"Alright! Alright! I was wrong, okay?!" Ben groaned, waving a weak hand to shoo her away. He knew he had messed up big time, but he really didn't need a lecture while he was still trying to remember how to breathe.
Meanwhile, standing atop the giant mutant frog, Dr. Animo watched this entire familial bickering session unfold with growing fury. He had made a grand, terrifying entrance, and these insolent brats were completely ignoring him!
"You disrespectful little pests!" Animo shrieked, his wild hair blowing in the wind as he pointed a bony finger at the group. "Crush them into paste!"
CROAK!
Receiving its master's command, the colossal frog coiled its massive, mutated legs. With a thunderous boom that shook the swamp bank, it launched its multi-ton body directly toward Klein and the others, its massive maw opening wide to swallow them whole.
Klein didn't even flinch. He calmly watched the giant shadow descend over them, his expression utterly bored, before casually raising his hand and slapping the dial of the Another Omnitrix.
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