Chapter 30: The Madness of Kevin 11
Four Arms and Ben charged into the mint, one after the other. But the moment Ben's feet hit the polished floor, he found himself alone. The towering, four-armed alien was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did he go?" Ben muttered, looking around the vast, echoing space in confusion. The corridor split ahead. He chose the path to the left and broke into a run.
A few seconds later, Klein and Gwen rushed in, only to face the same bewildering emptiness. Ben had vanished as well. After a brief, shared glance of hesitation, they chose the path to the right. Grandpa Max was right on their heels, his expression grim.
It didn't take long for them to find the source of the commotion. Down the corridor, amidst the metallic tang of ozone and scorched metal, stood a familiar fiery figure: Heatblast. The alien was holding a terrified mint employee by the collar, his hand glowing ominously close to the man's throat. A massive, mangled printing press lay smoking beside them.
"Ben!" Grandpa Max shouted, his voice echoing with alarm.
The fiery alien, Heatblast, turned its head. "I'm not Ben," it rasped, the voice a distorted, grating version of Ben's. With a careless shove, it sent the staff member stumbling away before raising a hand and launching a searing fireball directly at the newcomers.
Just as Gwen prepared to summon a mana shield, a crystalline form shot past her.
"He's right!" a resonant voice declared. A towering Diamondhead materialized in front of them, catching the fireball in his sharp, crystalline palms where it fizzled out harmlessly. He turned his head, his green eye fixing on the imposter. "I'm Ben!"
He then faced Heatblast again, his voice hardening. "I don't know who you are, but I will not let you tarnish the name of heroes!"
With a guttural cry, Diamondhead morphed his hands into long, razor-sharp blades and lunged. He sliced through the air twice in a deadly arc, but Heatblast was surprisingly agile, dodging each strike with a fluid sidestep.
Heatblast retaliated, unleashing a continuous barrage of fireballs. Diamondhead moved with a strange grace, batting each projectile away with his indestructible arms. For a tense moment, the air was filled with the sizzle of extinguished flames and the sharp clang of crystalline impacts, with neither alien gaining an advantage.
"Who are you, really!" Diamondhead demanded, raising a hand and firing a volley of sharp diamond fragments.
Heatblast twisted his body, the projectiles whistling past him. "You still haven't figured it out?" he taunted.
The fiery alien stopped attacking. Its head began to shift and morph with a sickening, fluid motion. The rocky visage of Heatblast melted away, replaced for a split second by the four-eyed face of Four Arms, then the insectoid head of Stinkfly, then the crystalline form of Diamondhead himself… before finally settling on the pale, sneering face of Kevin.
"Kevin!" Diamondhead exclaimed, his voice a mixture of shock and disbelief. "I thought you'd run out of the Omnitrix's energy!"
Kevin let out a wild, unhinged laugh. "No! Not at all! It lets me become any of your first ten aliens whenever I want! All I have to do is concentrate." His expression soured. "The only downside is… the time I can stay human keeps getting shorter!"
His face contorted with rage, and he suddenly went berserk. "This is all your fault!" he shrieked, hurling another fireball. "You're the one who made me a freak!"
"What does that have to do with me?!" Diamondhead roared back, swatting the fireball aside with a crystalline backhand. He closed the distance in a flash and drove a powerful punch into Kevin's gut, sending the fiery alien crashing to the floor. Ben was utterly baffled by Kevin's twisted logic; he hadn't forced him to do anything. The choice to absorb the Omnitrix's feedback pulse had been Kevin's alone.
Leaning heavily on a nearby machine, Kevin pushed himself back to his feet. A malicious grin spread across his face. "So I'm going to ruin your reputation! Ben Tennyson," he snarled, "I'll commit the crimes, and you'll be the one who takes the fall!"
He lunged, swinging a wild punch. Diamondhead tilted his head, the blow whistling past his ear. He countered with a swift jab that snapped Kevin's head to the side, followed by a powerful kick that sent him flying.
Thud.
With a sickening crunch, Kevin slammed into a large piece of machinery, leaving a deep dent in the solid steel. He staggered up, his body flickering. "I told you, Tennyson! I do the crime, you do the time!"
His form convulsed, shifting from Heatblast's fiery frame into the insectoid body of Stinkfly. With a buzz of powerful wings, he shot upwards, shattering a glass skylight and disappearing into the night.
Diamondhead stood frozen for a moment, the last vestiges of his complicated friendship with Kevin making him a step too slow to give chase. He was just about to turn and leave when a harsh voice cut through the air.
"Don't move!"
Suddenly, the room was flooded with armed tactical officers. They formed a tight circle around him, rifles leveled at his chest. A man in a captain's uniform, Captain Steve, stepped forward, a look of grim triumph on his face.
"Alien freak," he spat. "Finally got you. You've had us running ragged all week." Captain Steve then rattled off a list of recent crime scenes, all places where an alien matching Ben's transformations had caused significant damage.
"That wasn't me!" Diamondhead protested, pointing a crystalline finger at the shattered skylight. "The criminal you're looking for just left!"
Captain Steve wasn't listening. "I'm not here to debate," he said, his voice cold. "I'm only responsible for arrests. Get him!"
Seeing the situation was hopeless, Diamondhead knew he had to run. As the officers opened fire, he shot a volley of sharp diamond shards from his hand. The soldiers scrambled for cover, creating a momentary gap in their encirclement.
Diamondhead bolted through the opening, but Captain Steve had no intention of letting him go, quickly leading his team in pursuit.
Diamondhead created a series of towering crystal walls behind him, trying to block Captain Steve's advance. But just as he started to think he was trapped, the Omnitrix symbol on his chest began to flash an ominous red.
"Oh, come on! Not now!" he groaned.
Before he could worry about what would happen when he timed out, he suddenly felt himself being lifted into the air. "Cousin!" he yelled, twisting to see who had grabbed him.
He looked back and saw Klein, transformed into an alien hero he had never seen before—a red, manta-ray-like creature with horns and yellow wings.
"Whoa, cool! What's this one called?" Diamondhead asked, the relief of being rescued immediately overriding his panic.
"Jetray," Klein's voice echoed, sounding strangely distorted from the new form.
With a powerful flap of his wings, Jetray soared up and out through the same skylight Kevin had used to escape.
Down below, Captain Steve gritted his teeth in frustration. "Damn it! They got away again!"
"Sir!" one of his men called out. "We found some civilians who didn't evacuate."
A few officers brought Grandpa Max and Gwen forward. Captain Steve eyed them. They clearly weren't mint employees. He wondered what they were doing there. After a moment's thought, a flicker of suspicion crossed his face.
"Do you two know that alien?" he asked, his tone sharp.
"No, sir. How could we possibly know an alien?" Grandpa Max said, waving his hands dismissively. Gwen nodded beside him, her face a mask of innocent confusion.
Captain Steve stared at them for a long, hard moment, then sighed. "Let them go."
His men parted to create a path. As Max and Gwen walked away, Captain Steve watched their retreating backs.
"Keep an eye on them," he murmured to his subordinate.
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