Omnitranyl (Ben 10 Alien Force)

"Ready, Gwen?" asked Kevin.

"Not yet."

Gwen and Kevin returned to the area around the Bellwood Power Station. More specifically, the place where Albedo landed after jumping into his apopplexian form. In the center of the crater that had formed, Gwen was using her magical knowledge to look for traces of the villain. Kevin was leaning impatiently against his car.

"What now?"

"Not yet."

"Come on, Gwen, how much longer is this going to take?"

"If you let me work, maybe I can finish it sooner."

Kevin looked at the surrounding landscape. At one end of the road was the power station with its electricity towers clustered behind a large wall. At the other, you could see the entrance to the commercial part of the city, with its buildings and billboards. In the middle of all this path, the temperate climate forest that fills much of the unoccupied land of Bellwood. In the sky, the same crescent moon as before.

"I did it!" Said Gwen.

"Finally! I couldn't wait any longer."

Between Gwen's hands, three pink orbs orbited each other. The orbs moved away from each other and around Gwen they descended until they touched the ground where the crater was. Gwen stepped back from inside the hole. A set of four footprints resembling that of a giant feline lit up in the center of the spot.

"Now what?" Asked Kevin.

"We wait."

"We already know that he fell there," he said pointing.

"Kevin, please, just be quiet and wait!"

"Okay! Okay..."

A trail of lighted footprints began to emerge from inside the crater, heading towards the road.

"Into the car, come on!" said Gwen.

"Now you're talking my language."

The trail of feline footprints reached the road and continued towards the city. Kevin was driving along behind the lit up path.

After a few minutes of driving, Kevin said:

"I liked the GPS. Not only does it literally draw the path we have to follow, but there is no annoying voice telling us to go there and there. What did you do?"

"It's a different tracking spell," Gwen replied. "Anywhere Albedo has stepped or touched, the spell will reveal itself."

"I must say, it's quite useful."

"And cute too" she smiled proudly.

The car continued just behind the trail that was lighting up, as if they were following an invisible creature with dirty paws of phosphorescent paint.

After about five minutes on the road, the silence inside the car was becoming uncomfortable. Gwen sometimes looked at the landscape through the passenger window, sometimes at the trail. Kevin kept his eyes on the road, not even looking out the rearview mirrors.

"What are we going to do if we find him?" The young osmosian broke the silence.

"I don't know."

"Last time-"

"I know," Gwen interrupted.

"Last time," Kevin insisted, "he finished us off."

"I know, Kevin."

More silence...

"Are you afraid?" She asked.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I'm not sure about that."

"Whether you are afraid or not?"

"I'm wondering whether I should look strong around you to try to impress you, or whether I should confess that I'm absurdly terrified."

The girl laughed.

"What?" he smiled too.

"Only you could make me laugh in a horrible situation like this."

"Humor isn't really my forte, but I try."

"But you're right" she said. "What are we going to do when we find him?"

"An aggressive approach might not work."

"Kevin Levin not opting for violence," she said with a false air of impression, "that's new."

"I'm still hurting from the beating I took," he said turning his right shoulder. "Besides we both agree that the main thing is to find out what Albedo did to Ben."

Gwen turned her gaze sadly back to the trail of paws. The memory of her cousin's screams resounded in her ears.

The feline footprints on the trail changed shape and took on the appearance of tennis shoe prints on asphalt.

"I think this is where Albedo returned to normal," Gwen said, pointing to the images that were beginning to approach the first buildings in the city.

"How about we stop the car nearby and walk on foot?"

"I think that's a good idea. Maybe this way we can get closer without attracting attention."

Kevin stopped the car on the first street on the left that he found. The two got out of the car and followed the pink tennis shoe prints that lit up the sidewalks of the city.

They continued for two blocks in a straight line, then crossed a street and went right, another left turn, and were halfway down the block when they heard the sound of trash cans acting as obstacles in the nearest alley.

Gwen and Kevin ran toward the noise. As they got closer, they hid near the entrance to the alley to look at what might have caused the sound.

If you don't mind me interrupting your reading, I would like to propose a kind of question game for you, the reader: What could be responsible for knocking over trash cans in the middle of the night?

If we stop to think about it, it could be Albedo trying to hide in the dark.

It could be a cat or a dog turning over cans.

Some drunk who could barely walk and fell down, maybe?

It could be anything, even two small gray and green pyramidal ships that were launching scanning beams amidst the garbage cans.

Well...

"What are they?" Gwen whispered.

"I don't know," he whispered as well. "I don't recognize the style of the ships from anywhere."

"What about Albedo? Do you see him anywhere?"

"No. Are you sure he came here?"

"Yes I am, look at the ground, the footprints are entering the alley."

Kevin and Gwen followed with their eyes the footprints that were lighting up in the alley and their gazes only stopped when they found the visors of the ships that were also curious about the footprints that were lighting up.

"Damn it!" said Kevin, pulling away from the entrance to the alley, pulling Gwen along.

"Freeze!" a metallic voice ordered from one of the ships.

Obviously, the order was not followed, and the two ran down the empty shopping streets.

"And now what?" asked Kevin to the girl.

As they turned a corner, they came face to face with one of the ships that was floating in mid-air. Two other ships were approaching from behind, and then they found themselves trapped in a semicircle, with only the wall of a building behind them.

"Identify yourselves," said another metallic voice.

"Identify yourselves!" complained Kevin "Who are you and what are you doing on Earth?"

"Kevin, what are you doing?" Gwen whispered

"I don't know," he answered whispering as well. "Buying time?"

The ships floated silently. The only sounds that could be heard were those of the engines and thrusters that kept the ship in a slight oscillation in the air.

"Well?" asked Kevin again. "Who are you?"

The same scanning beam as before now swept across Gwen and Kevin's bodies, analyzing every inch of them.

"Traces of Omni energy identified in both carbon-derived beings." said one of the ships. "According to article 876-KFL900-00000000\111\BN100-A0-0..."

"That's a big code, huh?" said Kevin.

"...045JGFF: you are under arrest."

"What!" they said at the same time.

A metal ring shot toward Gwen, locking her arms around her body and pushing her against the wall of the building.

"Gwen!" the teenager shouted, seconds before he too was pinned by a ring.

Kevin touched the wall behind him, and his osmosian nature allowed him to absorb the building's composition. In a matter of moments, his skin took on a grayish hue, with a dry texture. His body was pure concrete. Kevin then forced his arms against the metal ring, causing it to creak and open like a brass ring.

Without taking his eyes off the ships, he asked:

"Are you okay?"

"Yes" she answered, her eyes already emanating a pink glow. "You can go ahead."

"You're the boss!" He set off toward the ship that had trapped Gwen and, with one punch, launched the alien vehicle into the building across the street.

The girl covered herself in a pink color as she formed a shield over her entire body, in the space between her skin and the metal of the ring. This rigid silhouette then began to expand and open the circular prison. As soon as she was free, Gwen shattered her magical silhouette and began firing mana disks at the ships' visors, pushing them away with each impact of the disks.

From the sides of the ships came armament cylinders, one on each side, which began firing lasers toward the teens.

Gwen defended herself with a circular barrier in one hand, and with the other, tried to hit the ships' weapon systems.

Kevin, on the other hand, took advantage of the fact that his concrete skin gave him a certain resistance and opted for the brute attack. He made his hands grow like two huge blocks and, like a boxer, threw hooks and punches that sounded like a car crashing into a pole over and over again. A puff of crumbling concrete accompanied each blow.

A spaceship was trapped inside Gwen's magic bubble and hurled towards a car parked nearby, crumpling much of the bodywork and setting off the vehicle's alarm in the middle of the night. The sound was very disturbing, but not enough to make anyone come and check the car. As always.

"No form of resistance will be tolerated" said one of the ships. "Give yourselves up!"

"All right, we're going" replied Kevin, knocking a traffic light pole out of the ground and bouncing the ship like a baseball.

The ship rolled down the street and only stopped when it crashed into a newsstand on the sidewalk. The noise resounded through the streets along with the car alarm that kept beeping insistently.

The only remaining ship stared at Gwen Tennyson as if in a Wild West duel. The two kept their eyes open for who would make the first move. From the ship's right armament, a laser beam was fired toward Gwen. The young woman spun her body back and to the right to deflect the laser, while at the same time projecting a huge hand of mana slamming the ship and hurling it into an electronics store. The sound of glass, metal and technological products being shattered was enough to make any geek drown in tears. And the car alarm kept blaring.

"Yes!" Kevin ran toward the young woman.

"But what are these things?"

"I don't know." He looked at the surroundings and the trail of destruction the fight had generated. "It's been a while since I've been off the planet, so I can't tell. But it sure isn't from here, this is level four technology upwards."

"We have to tell Grandpa Max about this."

"Good idea. In the car I have a communicator and by the way..."

"What?"

"Did you notice that the annoying alarm stopped?"

There really wasn't any more noise. Gwen and Kevin turned toward the source of the alarm and noticed that a shiny black liquid, with small greenish beams, like circuitry, was dripping from the sides of the ship and coating the vehicle's hardware. Slowly, the body, steering wheel, engine, and tire axles were twisted and incorporated into the ship. What had once been a small triangular ship now became a bipedal machine about two and a half meters tall. A ship-car-robot, Ben would say, if he were present.

"Incorporation of technology?" asked Kevin.

"I've seen this before," said Gwen, "It looks like what Ship does."

"Ship?"

"Julie's dog, Kevin!"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember, the galvanic-mechamorph dog," Kevin looked in the direction of the electronics store. "But then, Gwen, I think we have even bigger problems."

From inside the store, an electric squeak could be heard, accompanied by flashes of light going on and off. A vacuuming sound was heard, and again there was more squeaking.

"To the car!" shouted Kevin.

The two of them run through the streets, going the opposite way from the trail of footprints. Behind them, the ship-robot-car was racing and firing thick beams of lasers from where the car's headlights would be. The two tried to dodge the shots that raised smoke and debris as they hit the asphalt and the surrounding landscape.

Gwen sees a hydrant on the sidewalk a few meters away and shouts to Kevin:

"Go get the car, I'll try to slow it down!"

"What are you going to do?"

"I have a plan, now go!"

Kevin accelerated his run even faster while Gwen slowed down and concentrated a considerable amount of energy in her hands. She passed the hydrant and, after a few meters, turned and shot a strong beam of mana onto the sidewalk at the base of the reddish object, causing its structure to weaken enough to not withstand the pressure and shoot a strong jet of water into the sky.

The robot-car-ship stopped running as soon as it saw the hydrant break and managed to keep the water from hitting it.

"Oh, come on!" said Gwen. Then she was forced to dodge another laser beam coming towards her from behind the water raining down from the hydrant.

She then remembered a common phenomenon between water and cutlery and decided to add a new step to her plan. Using magic again, she projected a concave shape — something resembling a large spoon — over the jet of the hydrant, causing the water to be deflected toward the robot-car-ship-car-robot-, ah! Never mind. You got it.

The alien ship began to suffer from shorted circuitry and crashed into the buildings, sparking sparks and smoke from inside.

"Gwen!" shouted Kevin from inside the car, which, in a drift, had already offered the passenger side to her.

"What took you so long?"

"You're kidding, right?" he said, already starting the car in the direction of the road.

Gwen ran her hands over her clothes, which were covered in splashes.

"Did you manage to warn Grandpa Max?"

"I tried, but it seems that his communicator is off."

"Grandpa never turns off his communicator."

"This time he did."

"That's strange. I'll try again."

"Try again later," Kevin looked in the center rearview mirror, "now we have other problems to worry about."

Gwen looked back and saw a bipedal black metal cluster, made up of monitors, laptops, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and air humidifiers, interspersed with wires and cabling, with a pyramidal ship serving as a head, turning one corner and racing after them.

It seemed that the dawn would be long over...