Deep within the heart of the swamp stood an old abandoned observatory that time had long since forgotten. The once impressive building had fallen apart years ago, with broken walls, collapsed sections of the ceiling, and rust spreading across nearly every piece of metal left behind. Vines crawled over cracked stone while swamp water slowly seeped through the lower floors.
The place had become home to flocks of bats that nested in the dark rafters above.
And unfortunately, one extremely animal-obsessed supervillain.
Dr. Animo stood proudly beside his newest invention with a grin stretched across his face as he tightened another bolt with a wrench.
The machine itself looked ridiculous and dangerous at the same time.
It was a giant ray gun that looked like it had crawled straight out of a cheesy seventies sci-fi movie, complete with oversized coils, exposed wires, spinning radar dishes, glowing tubes, and enough scrap metal welded together to make people question several safety laws at once.
It was obvious Animo had spent days building it from whatever junk he could scavenge from abandoned machinery and swamp debris.
"Fascinating!" Dr. Animo shouted excitedly.
He climbed up onto the side of the massive machine and carefully inserted the Omnitrix faceplate into an open slot near the center console. The piece locked into place with a loud mechanical click before green energy immediately began pulsing throughout the machine.
Lights flickered on one by one.
The entire observatory hummed with power.
"DNA-based technology combined with an energy source unlike anything I have ever seen!" Animo laughed while staring at the readings flashing across the screen. "Do you understand what this means? The possibilities are endless!"
"They are stronger than you imagine."
A deep voice echoed from the shadows behind him.
A shimmer distorted the air before Predator deactivated his cloaking device and revealed himself standing near the broken wall with his arms crossed.
The massive Yautja hunter looked completely unimpressed by Animo's excitement.
"Stronger?" Dr. Animo scoffed while hopping back down from the machine. "Please. With this invention finally complete, those two children will not stand a chance against me anymore."
Predator remained silent for a moment.
He still clearly doubted Animo's confidence, especially after seeing what both Omnitrix users were capable of firsthand. Evan alone had already proven far more troublesome than expected, and Ben's transformations were unpredictable enough to be dangerous.
Still, the hunter chose not to argue. Actions mattered more than boasting.
And both of them had reasons to hate the Omnitrix users. Which led to them currently teaming up.
Predator slowly turned his gaze toward the swamp water nearby just as ripples spread across the surface.
A moment later, the Xenomorph burst out from the water and landed beside him with a hiss.
The creature lowered itself slightly while Predator examined the wounded hand Diamondhead had injured earlier. Green acidic blood still dripped from the cuts.
The Yautja crouched down and activated a small device on his wrist, beginning to treat the injury while the Xenomorph growled softly.
"Interesting specimen," Dr. Animo commented while staring at the creature. "Aggressive. Durable. Adaptive. Honestly, I almost admire it."
The Xenomorph slowly turned its smooth head toward him.
Dr. Animo's grin widened slightly. "Now all we need is a proper test subject."
As he said that, his eyes visibly wandered toward the alien creature.
The Xenomorph immediately snarled. Predator looked up sharply.
"Do not even think about it," the hunter warned coldly.
Dr. Animo clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Fine. Fine. No experimenting on the murder lizard."
The Xenomorph continued glaring at him anyway. Animo sighed dramatically before his attention shifted elsewhere.
One of the bats hanging upside down from a broken section of wall had started screeching loudly from all the noise.
The mad scientist's grin slowly returned.
"Well," he said while stepping toward the control panel, "that will work perfectly."
Predator narrowed his eyes slightly as Dr. Animo activated the machine.
The giant ray gun began humming louder and louder while green electricity crackled through the exposed coils. The faceplate embedded inside the machine glowed brightly as energy surged throughout the entire observatory.
The bat remained hanging there completely unaware.
Dr. Animo grabbed the controls and aimed the massive barrel toward the small creature.
"With science," he declared dramatically, "even the smallest creature can evolve beyond imagination!"
The machine locked onto its target. Then Dr. Animo slammed his hand onto the firing switch. A massive beam of green energy exploded from the cannon and lit up the entire observatory in a blinding flash.
...
Several hours later, after the sun had gone down and the full moon illuminated the swamp in pale silver light, the Tennysons and the Gold siblings could be seen gliding downriver in a rented airboat. The engine rumbled loudly as it cut through the dark water, sending muddy waves splashing against the roots of ancient trees sticking out from the swamp.
The fog had only gotten thicker at night. It curled around the airboat in heavy waves, making everything feel quieter and more dangerous. Strange animal cries echoed from deeper in the marsh, and every now and then something large moved beneath the water beside them.
Max stood at the controls of the airboat, steering carefully while keeping his eyes ahead. Gwen sat near the front, scanning the swamp nervously while holding onto her spellbook. Orfevre sat nearby with her arms crossed, though most of her attention was focused on keeping Gold Ship from leaning too far over the edge of the boat.
Meanwhile, Ben and Evan stayed alert near the back, both watching the water and treeline carefully in case another attack came out of nowhere.
"We've been at this for hours," Gwen complained, brushing damp red hair away from her face. "How big even is this swamp?"
"We have to keep looking," Max replied seriously. "If Dr. Doolittle figures out how to tap into the Omnitrix's alien DNA, who knows what kind of monsters he could create?"
Gwen slowly turned her head toward Ben.
Ben immediately noticed.
"I saw that," he said.
"Saw what?" Gwen asked innocently.
"Go ahead and say it, Gwen. You know you want to."
"Say what?" she repeated, trying not to smile.
"You know exactly what. The whole giant speech about how you warned me not to mess with the Omnitrix, and how you were right all along, and how if I'd listened to you we wouldn't be stuck hunting a mad scientist in the middle of the night."
"I didn't say a word," Gwen replied calmly.
"Yeah, but you're thinking it," Ben argued. "I can feel it."
Gwen finally smirked. "Maybe I am."
"There it is!" Ben pointed accusingly. "See? I knew it!"
Gold Ship snorted loudly while Orfevre rubbed her forehead in secondhand embarrassment.
"Grandpa," Ben complained dramatically, "Gwen keeps mentally saying 'I told you so' at me."
"Shut it, Ben, now is not the time," Evan snapped, his sharp voice immediately silencing him.
Ben grumbled under his breath, but he stopped talking. Evan wasn't usually the type to lose focus during dangerous situations, and the tense look in his eyes made it obvious he was taking the threat seriously.
Honestly, Ben understood why. Somewhere out there in the darkness was a Xenomorph and a crazy scientist.
The swamp suddenly went silent. Then a loud, piercing shriek tore through the air.
Everyone jumped.
"I don't like the sound of that," Max muttered.
Gold Ship suddenly pointed upward excitedly. "Wow! Giant monster fire bat!"
Something huge moved through the thick fog ahead of them. At first it was just a dark silhouette flying overhead, but as it emerged from the mist, the group finally saw it clearly.
It looked like a giant bat fused together with Heatblast.
Its wings burned with orange flames, magma flowed beneath cracked black skin, and its skull-like face glowed like a furnace. Every screech it made sprayed sparks into the air while fire leaked from its mouth.
"Whoa," Ben said. "It's Heatblast gone batty."
"Heatbat," Evan said immediately.
"Honestly, that's not a bad name," Orfevre admitted.
The creature screeched again before opening its mouth wide and unleashing several massive fireballs toward them.
"Hold on!" Max shouted.
The airboat roared forward at top speed.
The group swerved violently around the incoming fireballs as explosions erupted in the swamp behind them. Flaming trees collapsed into the water while steam hissed into the air.
Max expertly maneuvered the boat between thick tree trunks while Heatbat curved overhead to continue chasing them through the swamp.
"Gee," Gwen said sarcastically while gripping the side of the boat, "you think Animo figured out how to use the Omnitrix piece?"
Ben pointed at her. "Okay, that was absolutely an 'I told you so.'"
Another barrage of fireballs rained down from above.
Max jerked the wheel sharply, nearly flipping the airboat sideways. Gwen almost flew overboard before Orfevre quickly grabbed her wrist and yanked her back into the boat.
"Careful," Orfevre muttered.
"...Thanks," Gwen admitted.
"I'll handle this hothead," Ben declared as he reached for the Omnitrix.
"Ben, I don't think going hero is a good idea right now," Max warned. "You have no idea what alien you'll get with that thing damaged."
"I'm literally standing right here, you know," Evan said before activating his Another Omnitrix.
He turned the dial and pressed it down. A burst of golden light exploded outward.
"Shellblade!"
An extinct aquatic arthropod alien with stone-like armored scales, bladed arms, and glowing golden eyes appeared in Evan's place.
The Heatbat instantly launched another stream of fire toward the boat.
Shellblade opened his mouth and blasted out a powerful jet of pressurized water. The two attacks collided directly in midair before exploding into a massive cloud of steam.
The swamp vanished behind a thick white smokescreen.
Max immediately took advantage of it and accelerated deeper into the fog.
"Did we lose it?" Ben asked hopefully.
"Look out!" Orfevre suddenly shouted.
She shoved Ben down just as Heatbat burst through the steam cloud like a missile.
The flaming creature missed Ben by inches before grabbing Shellblade in its molten claws and carrying him high into the air.
Smoke hissed from Shellblade's body as the burning grip tightened around him.
Shellblade struggled violently before firing a point-blank water blast directly into Heatbat's face.
The creature screeched in pain. In retaliation, Heatbat slammed him through several thick swamp trees before throwing him into the water below.
Shellblade crashed beneath the swamp with a massive splash.
A second later he resurfaced as water rolled off his armored body.
Now back in the water, his natural environment, he quickly looked around for the Heatbat.
"EVAN, BEHIND YOU!" Max shouted.
Shellblade barely turned before a massive alligator exploded from beneath the water and clamped its jaws around him.
The monster dragged him underwater instantly.
Back on the boat, everyone stared in disbelief.
"...Did he just get jumped by the local wildlife?" Ben asked.
Underwater, Shellblade struggled as the giant alligator performed a death roll, trying to tear him apart.
Annoyed more than anything, Shellblade raised one of his blade-arms and slashed downward.
Blood spread through the swamp water. The wounded alligator immediately released him and fled into the darkness.
Shellblade glanced down at the bite marks left across his body before swimming upward again.
The moment he broke the surface, another fireball smashed directly into the back of his head and sent him crashing back underwater.
Heatbat screeched overhead, circling him relentlessly.
Shellblade dove deeper to avoid another volley of fire before rapidly swimming beneath the swamp water.
Heatbat flew lower, searching for him. Suddenly, Shellblade burst upward from beneath the surface.
Heatbat fired another fireball immediately.
Shellblade dodged midair before landing on one of the massive swamp roots sticking out from the water. He sprinted across the tangled roots with surprising speed before leaping onto the tree branches overhead.
Heatbat chased after him through the swamp canopy, launching fireball after fireball.
Shellblade coated his blade-arms in water and sliced through the incoming flames before they could explode against him.
He retaliated with another powerful water blast from his mouth. Heatbat barely avoided it.
The two continued clashing through the swamp, fire and water constantly colliding in the night sky.
Seeing the fight dragging on, Gwen suddenly stepped forward confidently.
"I've got this!"
Ben blinked. "Since when?"
Gwen ignored him. She pulled out her spellbook with one hand while extending the other toward the flaming bat.
"Aquata Risa Spackwata!"
Since Heatbat was fully focused on Shellblade, it never noticed the massive column of swamp water erupting beneath it.
The water blasted directly into its body. Steam exploded everywhere.
Heatbat screeched loudly as its flames weakened from the sudden soaking. Panic immediately kicked in, and the mutated creature instinctively fled deeper into the swamp.
Shellblade landed back on the airboat while watching it escape.
"Probably heading back to Animo," Ben said immediately.
He pointed dramatically into the swamp.
"Follow that Heatbat!"
...
Thankfully, the Heatbat's magma-covered body lit up the swamp like a giant flying torch, because otherwise there was no chance they would have been able to follow it through the thick fog. For the last several minutes, the Tennysons and the Gold siblings had carefully trailed the creature from a distance while trying not to get spotted.
Shellblade had already reverted back into Evan by the time they finally reached the creature's destination, leaving him sitting near the back of the airboat while rubbing the bite marks the alligator had left on his body earlier.
Eventually, the Heatbat descended toward a massive structure hidden deep in the swamp. The building was ancient and half-collapsed, with vines creeping across the cracked walls while moss and swamp plants swallowed the lower floors whole.
"It looks like an old observatory," Max noted quietly as he shut off the engine before they got too close.
The sudden silence made the swamp feel even creepier.
Ben stared at the ruined structure. "What's an observatory doing in the middle of a swamp?"
"Without city lights, the stars are easier to observe," Gold Ship answered casually.
Everyone turned toward her.
Gold Ship blinked. "What?"
"...Where did you even learn that?" Gwen asked suspiciously.
"Documentary channel," Gold Ship replied proudly. "Right before the channel switched to conspiracy theories about lizard people."
"That honestly explains a lot," Evan muttered.
As they drifted closer, they noticed a large hole smashed through one side of the observatory wall, big enough for the airboat to slide directly inside.
"Well, that's definitely not ominous," Ben said.
The group carefully paddled the airboat into the ruined observatory. The inside was massive, dark, and flooded with shallow swamp water. Rusted machinery hung from the ceiling while broken catwalks creaked overhead.
Strangely enough, despite the building's size, they somehow ended up directly beneath the massive machine sitting at the center of the observatory almost immediately.
The gigantic ray device towered over them like something out of an old sci-fi movie, covered in cables, generators, and stolen machinery parts. Green energy pulsed through its frame while the Omnitrix faceplate sat embedded near the core.
"Animo's been busy," Max said grimly.
As everyone cautiously looked around the observatory, Evan suddenly narrowed his eyes.
A faint scratching noise echoed from beneath the airboat.
"...Something's under us," he warned.
The bottom of the airboat suddenly split open.
Before anyone could react, the Xenomorph exploded upward from underneath them, completely destroying the boat in a shower of splintered wood and metal.
Everyone was thrown violently into the swamp water.
A golden flash erupted beneath the surface almost immediately.
A second later, a powerful blast of electricity shot upward and slammed directly into the Xenomorph, throwing the creature backward into one of the observatory walls.
Brainstorm rose from the water moments later, electricity crackling across his shell body.
The others quickly swam toward nearby metal platforms sticking out from the flooded floor. Max helped pull Gold Ship and Orfevre onto one side while Ben and Gwen scrambled onto another platform nearby.
The Xenomorph hissed aggressively while focusing entirely on Brainstorm now.
The two circled each other slowly.
Then suddenly, Brainstorm instantly raised one claw and generated a yellow energy barrier just in time to block a blade strike aimed directly at his head.
The impact forced another figure out of invisibility.
The towering Yautja hunter stood nearby with its wrist blades extended, staring directly at Brainstorm.
"I had a feeling someone was watching us," Brainstorm said calmly. "Turns out I was right."
The Predator immediately lunged again.
Brainstorm's eyes flashed brightly as he released a powerful electromagnetic pulse. The blast slammed into the Yautja and sent the massive hunter crashing backward into a rusted control panel.
At the same time, the Xenomorph darted toward him from the side with terrifying speed.
But Brainstorm's hyper-advanced mind instantly processed the tiny shifts in water and air movement, along with the small soundwave created by the creature. He calculated its trajectory almost instantly and sidestepped the attack before the claws could reach him.
The Xenomorph flew past him by inches.
Meanwhile, seeing Evan already occupied fighting two alien monsters at once, the others rushed toward the upper levels of the observatory.
"You really should've knocked," Dr. Animo called mockingly from above.
Everyone looked up.
The mad scientist sat proudly inside the control chamber of his giant ray machine while adjusting several glowing controls around him.
"It isn't polite to sneak up on someone like this."
"You've got something that belongs to me," Ben shouted angrily while pointing toward him. "And I want it back!"
"Ah yes," Dr. Animo replied gleefully. "A truly fascinating piece of technology. DNA-based engineering combined with an energy source unlike anything humanity has ever seen. I will put its to good use."
"What do you mean by 'good use'?" Max demanded.
Dr. Animo grinned proudly while gesturing toward the massive observatory machinery around him.
"With this modified telescope array," he explained dramatically, "I can bounce my transmodulator signal off a satellite and spread its effects across the entire planet. Imagine it! A brand new world shaped by my genius!"
Ben groaned. "Why are evil scientists always so dramatic?"
"Because normal people don't build giant mutant lasers in swamps," Orfevre answered.
"Fair point."
"Science project's over, creepo," Ben declared confidently.
Dr. Animo laughed. "Oh, but it's only just beginning."
The giant ray machine suddenly started humming louder as green energy surged through its core.
"In fact," Animo continued with a twisted smile, "you should feel honored to become my first official human test subjects."
The massive ray cannon slowly rotated toward the group.
Gwen immediately opened her spellbook while Orfevre pulled Gold Ship behind her. Ben prepared to dodge the second the machine fired.
At first it looked like Dr. Animo was aiming directly at Ben.
Then at the very last second, his grin widened maliciously as he suddenly redirected the cannon toward Orfevre and Gold Ship instead.
The machine fired instantly, Orfevre managed to get out of the way, but Gold Ship, with her smaller legs, couldn't outrun it.
"Golshi!" Max shouted.
Without hesitation, Max threw himself forward and shoved Gold Ship out of the way.
The green beam struck him directly in the back. The explosion lit up the observatory.
"GRANDPA!" The kids shouted together.
When the smoke cleared, something large and green collapsed onto the flooded platform.
Dr. Animo had transformed Max into some kind of mutated Stinkfly-like larva creature. His body had become slug-like and swollen, covered in slime while distorted eyestalks twitched from his head.
Gold Ship immediately ran toward him and dropped to her knees.
"Grampa!" she cried while grabbing onto him carefully. "Hold on! We'll fix this, okay?! You will be fine right!? You won't leave Little Golshi right!?"
Orfevre quickly rushed beside her, trying her hardest to stay calm despite the panic building in her chest.
"Don't worry, Grampa," she said firmly. "We're getting you back no matter what."
Even though her voice stayed steady, the fear in her eyes was obvious.
Her brother was downstairs fighting a Predator and a Xenomorph at the same time, their grandfather had just been mutated into a giant bug slug, and a lunatic scientist was trying to mutate the entire planet.
But right now, she couldn't afford to lose control.
Across the observatory, Ben stared at Max in horror and guilt.
"If I'd just listened to you guys about messing with the watch," Ben said quietly, "none of this would've happened."
Gwen shut her spellbook with a sharp snap.
"You can feel guilty later," she said seriously. "Right now we stop Doctor Freakshow before he turns the whole world into mutant nightmare fuel."
Above them, Dr. Animo laughed loudly while the giant ray machine continued charging.