Chapter 7: The Omnitrix and the Anodite Spark
Late at night, under a star-studded canopy, the eerie silence of the forest was shattered by a streak of black and blue lightning.
The afterimage darted through the dense underbrush, kicking up a storm of fallen leaves before coming to a screeching halt. The friction-reducing visor on the creature's face slid back with a sharp mechanical hiss, revealing a sleek, dinosaur-like Kineceleran.
"Hm? It should be right around here, shouldn't it?" Klein muttered, his voice carrying a slight metallic echo.
He tapped his foot impatiently, the spherical wheels embedded in his toes spinning idly against the dirt. After a brief moment of hesitation, he dropped his visor back down. His curiosity simply wouldn't allow him to leave without finding out exactly what had crashed into the woods.
Whoosh!
He blurred into motion again, the wind howling in his wake. A few seconds later, he skidded to a stop in a smoking crater. Resting at the center was a spacecraft—or what was left of it. The hull was heavily scorched and dilapidated, looking more like a chunk of scrap metal than an interstellar vessel.
Klein approached the wreckage, his clawed hands fiddling with the exterior paneling. With a harsh screech of tearing metal, the hatch gave way. He slid inside, handling the dark, slanted corridors with effortless speed on his wheeled feet.
"Where exactly is this?" he murmured, coming to a halt in front of a heavily reinforced door. His intuition—sharpened by his unique soul—tugged at him. Something extraordinary was resting just beyond this bulkhead.
He forced the door open, stepping into a room cluttered with alien machinery. In the dead center of the room sat a pristine circular platform. Taking advantage of his hyper-accelerated perception, Klein blurred around the console, his claws flying across the alien keyboard in a random but rapid sequence of keystrokes.
The platform hummed to life. The center iris spiraled open, releasing a hiss of pressurized steam to reveal a metallic, spherical pod resting inside.
"Oh? So it is this," Klein said, a dry smile crossing his face.
Without a second thought, he snatched the pod from its pedestal, tucked it under his arm, and vanished from the ship in a blur of black and blue.
A few moments after his departure, a faint, mechanical groan echoed from the deepest, darkest depths of the ruined spacecraft.
The next morning.
The Nevada sun beat down mercilessly on the deserted highway. The Rustbucket cruised along the cracked asphalt, the only vehicle in sight for miles, surrounded by an endless sea of dry brush and towering cacti.
Inside the RV, the AC rattled noisily.
Stare.
Ben shifted uncomfortably on the couch, his thumbs mashing the buttons of his handheld console. He tried to focus on his Sumo Slammers game, but the intense, unblinking gaze burning into the side of his head was making his skin crawl.
"Uh... Cousin?" Ben finally cracked, pausing his game. "Why are you staring at me? Is there something on my face?"
Sitting across from him, Klein rested his chin on his hand, his expression completely unreadable.
Across the table, Gwen crossed her arms, looking slightly annoyed. She glanced between the two boys, her brow furrowing. Was the Dweeb suddenly more interesting to look at than her?
Klein held the silence for a few seconds longer before suddenly asking, "Ben, do you want to be a hero?"
Ben blinked, caught off guard. "Of course! Who doesn't want to be a great hero?" His excitement flared for a second before his shoulders slumped. "But I also know I'm just an ordinary kid. Unlike you, Cousin. I don't have the ability to be a hero."
He looked down at his game console, suddenly feeling very small.
"What if you did have the ability?" Klein asked smoothly.
He reached into his backpack resting on the sofa, pulled out the sleek, spherical pod he had acquired the night before, and held it out.
Ben stared at the object, his eyes widening as the implication hit him. "Cousin, what is this... Could this be—!" He practically vibrated with excitement. "Is this really for me?!"
"It is exactly what you think it is. Open it and see." Klein placed the sphere on the table.
Ben reached out, his fingers trembling slightly as he brushed the smooth metal. The sphere hissed, the top panels sliding back to reveal a bulky, strange-looking watch resting on a glowing green display. The Omnitrix.
Ben's face lit up with pure joy. He eagerly extended his left hand. As soon as his wrist neared the pod, the Omnitrix sprang to life, leaping from its cradle and clamping tightly onto his arm with a sharp mechanical whir.
"Woohoo! Who's the big hero? I'm the big hero!" Ben jumped up onto the sofa, raising his left hand triumphantly. "Cousin, thank you!"
"Don't get carried away, Dweeb!" Gwen snapped. She was pouting, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. It wasn't that she was mad Ben got the watch—she was just upset that Klein had given Ben such an amazing gift and left her completely empty-handed.
Klein caught the disappointed glint in her eyes. "Sorry, Gwen. I promise I'll find something perfectly suited for you in the future."
As he said the words, a dormant memory suddenly clicked into place. A specific piece of lore surfaced in his mind, bringing a very important detail to his attention.
"Actually... wait," Klein corrected himself, a sly smirk tugging at his lips. "I do have something for you right now. But before that..." He shifted his gaze to the driver's seat. "Grandpa?"
Up front, Grandpa Max gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. He had been completely dazed, his mind racing with panic. When did Azmuth make two watches? he thought frantically. He knew all about the Omnitrix—he had even helped Azmuth collect some of the DNA samples for the Codon Stream. Seeing Klein casually hand a second one to Ben had nearly given him a heart attack.
Hearing his name, Max snapped back to reality. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Klein looking at him with an expression that practically screamed, I know everything, old man.
Max broke out in a cold sweat. "Wh-what's wrong, Klein?"
"Grandpa, the first time I met Ben and Gwen, my watch had a very specific reaction," Klein said, his tone casual but loaded with implication. "But its reaction to Gwen was especially unique. Do you know what that means?"
Max swallowed hard. He knew the Omnitrix was advanced enough to detect dormant alien genetics within a human host. If Klein's watch had scanned Gwen, the jig was up. He couldn't hide the truth anymore.
"As expected of you, Grandpa," Klein added dryly, his single sentence effortlessly crushing the last sliver of Max's hope.
Max let out a long, heavy sigh. "Ben, Gwen... I have something to tell you. Actually... your grandmother wasn't from Earth." He avoided Klein's piercing gaze in the mirror, feeling entirely too embarrassed to be cornered by his own grandson.
"Aliens?!" Ben and Gwen shouted in unison, their jaws dropping.
"Yes," Max began, his voice taking on a nostalgic, wistful tone. "The story of your grandmother and me goes way back to when I was young. It was a warm summer night—"
"Alright, Grandpa, let's skip the romance," Klein interrupted ruthlessly. "Just tell us what kind of alien Grandma was first. You can save the love story for later."
Max chuckled nervously, assuming the kids just didn't have the patience for an old man's stories. "Ah, well. Your grandmother is an Anodite. They are a race of pure energy beings, and easily one of the most powerful species in the entire Milky Way Galaxy."
"Perfect. That's all I needed to know," Klein said, thoroughly satisfied. He raised his left wrist. "Omnitrix, activate voice control mode."
`[Voice control mode activated.]` A crisp, distinctly feminine mechanical voice echoed from the device.
"Gene selection: Anodite."
The faceplate of the Another Omnitrix shifted, its dark blue glow bleeding into a brilliant, burning orange-yellow. Klein watched the dial shift with mild amusement. So, even though Anodites are beings of pure mana without physical bodies, they still leave a genetic footprint in the database. Fascinating.
"Gwen, shake my hand," Klein instructed, extending his glowing left hand toward her.
"Ah? Okay, Cousin," Gwen stammered, still reeling from the revelation that her grandmother was a glowing space alien. But she trusted Klein unconditionally. She reached out and placed her small hand in his.
The moment their skin touched, the Another Omnitrix flared, unleashing a blinding wave of orange-yellow light that engulfed the RV's interior.
When the light faded, the Another Omnitrix had returned to its default dark blue state. But Gwen had completely transformed.
Her physical body had vanished, replaced by a silhouette of crackling, deep purple energy. Her hair and eyes glowed with a brilliant, purplish-white light, shifting and flowing like liquid fire. Her feet lifted off the floorboards as she floated effortlessly in the air, radiating raw, untamed power.
"Whoa..." Ben whispered, dropping his game console.
"Gwen, I just used the watch to forcefully activate the dormant Anodite spark in your body," Klein explained, his tone entirely casual as if he hadn't just rewritten her biology. "Your Earthling genes are still perfectly intact. You can change back to your human form anytime you want."
"Oh! Okay, Cousin." Gwen closed her glowing eyes, focusing her mind. A second later, the purple energy retracted, and her feet touched the floor as she returned to her normal, human appearance. She looked at her hands, breathless. "Thank you, Cousin! Now I have the ability to fight alongside you guys!"
Klein waved his hand dismissively, completely missing the emotional weight of the moment. "You really don't have to worry about fighting. The weirdos on this planet are incredibly weak. I can totally protect you both without breaking a sweat."
Gwen's face flushed a bright, cherry red at the casual declaration of protection.
Up in the driver's seat, Max watched the entire exchange through the rearview mirror. A fond, knowing smile spread across his weathered face.
It's finally my turn to laugh at you, you little brat, Max thought, amused by Klein's absolute blindness to the Dork's blushing face.
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