Grandpa Max was a man of his word. Once the decision to hit the road was made, he spent the morning tuning the Rustbucket's engines before gathering everyone for the next leg of their journey.
As the miles rolled by, Max spoke of his younger days.
"Wait..." Ben interrupted, his eyes wide. "So even a hero as brave as you, Grandpa, only 'cleverly' beat Vilgax? You didn't just rip him apart like Tyler did?"
Max's face darkened slightly. "Ben, sometimes the mind is a sharper tool than the sword. Survival is a victory in itself."
Despite the lecture, Max caught Tyler's eye in the rearview mirror and offered a solemn nod. He knew the truth: Tyler wasn't just a warrior; he was becoming a force of nature that far surpassed anything the Plumbers had seen in decades.
"Grandpa, why bother talking about brains with Ben?" Gwen smirked, resting her chin on her palm. "His head is just a hollow echo chamber."
"Oh yeah? When the world needs a hero, they call me, not the girl with the library card!" Ben shot back.
Their bickering was cut short by the scream of sirens. Three police cruisers tore past the Rustbucket, heading toward a cluster of industrial warehouses. Max instinctively pulled over, his eyes narrowing with a Plumber's intuition.
SLAM!
Ben didn't wait. He slapped the Omnitrix, and a pungent, sulfurous odor instantly filled the RV.
"Heroic entrance, coming up!" Stinkfly buzzed, his four eye-stalks twitching. He looked at Tyler. "Want a lift, 'Bro'?"
"Thanks, Ben," Tyler sighed, bracing himself. The night air was crisp, but the overwhelming stench from Ben's back made Tyler wonder if this was actually a "heroic lift" or just a petty prank.
The duo arrived at a massive warehouse just as the police were setting up a perimeter. A panicked manager was shouting at the officers. "There's a monster in there! It's like nothing I've ever seen!"
"I've seen the photos online," one officer whispered, his face pale. "People say there's a ghost-alien killing criminals in the city. If that thing is in there, I'm not going in."
Tyler felt a twinge of guilt. His reputation preceded him—and it wasn't a "heroic" one.
Ben flew Tyler through a high window, dropping him into the dark warehouse. They scanned the shadows until they spotted a small, plump, yellow creature with beady eyes. It looked like a beetle-bug hybrid, barely the size of a golden retriever.
"Hahaha! Look at that!" Ben clutched his stomach, laughing. "An alien smaller than a puppy? What's he gonna do, shed on us?"
THWACK!
The creature spat a ball of glowing, adhesive goo that caught Ben square in the face. Ben let out a muffled yell, falling backward and clawing at the sticky mess.
"Ben, your combat performance is a rollercoaster," Tyler sighed. He looked down at the Carnitrix. The Predatory Targeting System hummed, displaying a silhouette identical to the bug—but warped.
Tyler slammed the dial. A red light flooded the room.
Out stepped a nightmare. It was a beetle-like humanoid, but far more robust. Its limbs were corded with muscle, its back was covered in jagged, obsidian-like plates, and its mouth was a mass of serrated fangs.
The Spit-Grub.
"Whoa... let's go with 'Honey Badger' for that one," Ben muttered, finally clearing his eyes.
The wild Spit-Grub shrieked, feeling the overwhelming pressure of Tyler's presence. It scrambled up a support pillar, crawling across the ceiling like a spider.
Tyler didn't hesitate. He leaped onto the pillar, his barbed feet digging into the steel. He moved with a speed that made Spider-Man look slow, cornering the wild alien in seconds and knocking it unconscious with a heavy blow. "I'll let Grandpa decide what to do with this one."
Suddenly, a series of heavy footsteps and the hum of a laser lance echoed through the warehouse.
"Who's there? Show yourself, freak!"
CLICK.
The Carnitrix on Tyler's chest rotated on its own. The icon flickered. Tyler looked at the display and his eyes narrowed. Him.
In the center of the warehouse, Ben was lying on the ground, clutching his bruised back. A man in a high-tech Plumber's jumpsuit stood over him, leveling a heavy laser rifle at Ben's head.
"Ambush?" the old man sneered, his face etched with a cold, professional murderousness. "There's no such thing as an ambush when you're exterminating vermin."
"Then what about... ME?"
A voice like grinding tectonic plates rumbled from the darkness.
"That voice!" The old man spun around, pointing his rifle into the shadows. "It can't be... Vilgax?!"
Out of the dark stepped a monster. It had the general shape of a Chimera Sui Generis, but it was a localized apocalypse. Its "flower-head" was a mass of twitching tentacles covered in weeping yellow eyeballs. Every inch of its green skin was ridged with muscles that looked like they could crush mountains.
It was The Gax-Fiend—a Cthulhu-esque god of slaughter.
The old man—Phil—trembled. His rifle shook so violently he could barely hold it. His "sanity" was visibly draining just by looking at Tyler's form.
Ben shivered, but a sense of relief washed over him. So scary... okay, that's definitely Tyler.
ZAP!
Phil pulled the trigger in a blind panic. The laser bolt struck Tyler's chest, but the Gax-Fiend didn't even flinch. He strode through the fire, reached out with a massive clawed hand, and crushed the laser rifle into scrap metal.
"You dare... strike me?" Tyler leaned down, his multiple eyes glowing with malevolent light. His aura of killing intent intensified, flooding the warehouse with a thick, suffocating pressure.
Phil, a battle-hardened veteran, collapsed to his knees, his face white with terror. "Vilgax... I was wrong! Spare me! Please!"
"He's not Vilgax, he's—" Ben started to explain.
Tyler grabbed Ben by the collar and leaped through the skylight, vanishing into the night. He had seen enough. He wanted to leave Phil to face the mess he'd made.
Back at the Rustbucket, Max was standing by the road, chatting warmly with Phil, who looked like he'd just seen a ghost.
"Phil, your gear is totaled," Max noted. "What happened in there?"
Phil wiped the sweat from his brow, his voice still shaky. "Just... some rogue aliens, Max. Nothing I couldn't handle. If you ever need some extra cash, you know where to find me. This business pays well if you know how to harvest the specimens."
Max politely declined. As Phil drove off, Ben whispered to Tyler, "That's the guy. He tried to blast my head off."
"I know," Tyler replied. "He's an old colleague of Grandpa's, but he's gone rotten."
Inside his own car, Phil sat in the dark, clutching the unconscious Spit-Grub he had managed to recover. A greedy, twisted smile spread across his face.
"I've finally found it," Phil whispered, staring at his bank balance. "The Tennyson kids... those watches... that's my ticket to the billions."
[Transformation Profile: The Spit-Grub (Ball Weevil Variant)]
Traits: Hard-shelled yellow humanoid with serrated fangs and barbed feet.Ability:Corrosive Resin. Tyler's version doesn't just make sticky balls; it spits a highly acidic resin that hardens into a bomb, melting through armor before exploding into thousands of razor-sharp shrapnel pieces.
[Transformation Profile: The Gax-Fiend (Vilgaxian/Chimera Variant)]
Traits: A mutation of Vilgax's DNA. Covered in sentient eyeballs that provide 360-degree vision.Ability:Psychological Ruin. The mere sight of this form forces a "Sanity Check" on enemies. Weak-willed foes will experience hallucinations and paralysis from pure terror.