Mad World (Star Spirit)

Mad World is the fifth episode of Tech 10: Star Spirit.

Episode
[Open to the middle of a downtown area surrounded by tall buildings. Thick, obscuring fog fills the area, and everything is suspiciously silent, completely absent of life. Theo is laying in the middle of the road, unconscious. He begins to stir, slowly waking up.]

[Theo]: “Ugh...what happened?”

He slowly pulled himself up to a standing position and started rubbing his head.

[Theo]: “I feel like I got hit by truck...”

After a few seconds, he took a moment to crack his neck, then looked at his surroundings.

[Theo]: “Wait a second, am I downtown? And where’d all this fog come from?”

Before he could start questioning this, air raid sirens suddenly started blaring in the distance, adding to the unsettling atmosphere.

[Theo]: “...You have got to be kidding me.”

He quickly began running, taking off down the streets of the city.

[Theo]: *Thinking* ‘I should try to find Nova. Maybe she knows what’s going on.’

The sirens continued to blare, slowly fading as Theo ran further into the thick fog. The fog started becoming thicker and thicker, eventually reaching the point where he couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of him. All of a sudden, the air raid sirens snapped back to their initial noise levels as the fog suddenly thinned out to its original thickness. Caught off-guard, Theo stumbled a bit before stopping to look around.

He was right back where he started.

[Theo]: “...Yeah, okay, no. Not dealing with this today!”

He pulled up the StarTrix and transformed into a tall, lanky alien with six eyes and clad in what appeared to be a dark purple suit.

[Theo/Smooth Criminal]: “Alright, let’s see if I can find anything.”

Smooth Criminal closed his eyes and reopened them, changing their color to a vibrant orange. His surroundings switched to a dark blue color, with his body becoming shades of yellow, orange, and red.

[Smooth Criminal]: “Weird...there aren’t any other heat sources in the area.”

Before he could start reasoning as to why this was, the loud smashing of solid rock meeting asphalt sounded behind him. He turned to see what appeared to be Rolling Stone with an inverted color scheme and a magenta-red/white Omnitrix symbol on its belt stomping towards him.

[Smooth Criminal]: *Jumps back* “What the heck?”

He scanned the approaching alien up and down, unable to find any heat signature coming from it.

[Negative Rolling Stone]: “You aren’t going to find much using your thermal vision, you know. I’m not really here.”

[Smooth Criminal]: “Who are you?! What are you talking about?!”

[Negative Rolling Stone]: “Well, I don’t know what you call this transformation, but I personally like the name ‘Deathrock’. As for what I’m talking about...actually, you know what, screw explaining myself. I’m just going to kill you.”

Deathrock suddenly lunged forward with a sound-charged punch, which Smooth Criminal swiftly dodged with a quick backflip, landing several meters away and blinking his eyes again, switching their color to a dull red. Deathrock’s pressure points lit up like a string of Christmas lights, indicating where he should strike.

Deathrock wound up for another punch, prompting Smooth Criminal to swiftly jump towards him and twist around his arm, ending up right behind him. He swiftly and accurately smashed several pressure points on Deathrock’s back, sending him reeling forward with a grunt of pain. Before he could react, Smooth Criminal swooped forward and smashed a weak point at the base of his neck, knocking him out.

As soon as Deathrock’s unconscious body hit the ground, it suddenly vanished, fading away into nothing with a brief burst of red energy. Smooth Criminal stared at the spot where he had disappeared from in confusion, switching through several vision modes in an ultimately fruitless attempt to see where he had gone.

[Smooth Criminal]: “What is this, a video game?! People don’t just disappear once you beat them!”

Frustrated, he pressed down the StarTrix symbol on his chest, reverting to human. He stopped to think for a few moments, running through the current situation in his mind. After some time of this, he eventually let out a sigh of frustration

[Theo]: “I guess I might as well try leaving again. Not like there’s much else for me to do.”

He walked off into the fog again. After a few moments, he reappeared back where he started. Grumbling a bit, he tried to leave again, but looped back to the same place again. He repeated this process several times, but each pass left him right where he began.

[Theo]: *Yelling* “What the hell?! What is going on here?!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard footsteps begin to come up from behind him. Snapping to attention, he quickly turned and transformed into All☆Star, assuming a fighting stance. As he scanned the fog, a humanoid figure slowly came into view as it approached. As the figure stepped out of the fog, it was revealed to be a lean man in a rather odd outfit with spiky purple hair. His gaze was firmly affixed to a map he was holding up in front of him.

[Theo/All Star]: “Wait a second, F3?”

The man walking towards him suddenly stopped and lowered the map, finally taking notice of the tall, glowing yellow alien hovering in front of him.

[Fair’s Fair Fairy]: “Oh, hello, citizen! How can I help you?”

All Star didn’t respond for a few seconds, utterly confused as to what was going on.

[All Star]: “Uh...what the heck is going on here?”

[F3]: *Scratching his head* “Truth be told, I don’t know. Seems like everybody’s in some weird dream or something.”

[All Star]: “How do you figure that?”

[F3]: “Nemuina DNA! When it comes to figuring out dreams, I’m just the man for the job!”

[All Star]: “...Hold on, what do you mean by ‘everybody’?”

[F3]: “Seems like everyone in the city is trapped in their own little squares or something. Well, except for me, of course.”

[All Star]: “Good for you.”

[F3]: “I know, right? It’s pretty handy!”

[All Star]: *Rolls his eyes* “What are you doing, then? Just wandering around the city or something?”

[F3]: “Yep! I’m trying to find City Creek Center, but...well, I’m not very good with directions.”

[All Star]: “Why are you trying to find the city center?”

[F3]: “Well, that’s probably where all these vines are coming from.”

All Star looked around the area, scanning for any vines, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

[All Star]: *Raises an eyebrow* “What vines?”

[F3]: “You can’t see them either? Everyone else I meet says they’re not there too! The dang things are all over the place, how can nobody see them?!”

[All Star]: “...Hang on a second, what do the vines look like?”

[F3]: “Well, they’re about an inch and a half wide, and they’re covered in these weird thorns.”

[All Star]: “...Give me a sec.”

He pressed down on the StarTrix symbol, reverting back to human. Theo pulled up the StarTrix and transformed into Broken Dream Boulevard, then looked around again. This time, he could see the vines F3 had been talking about. They crept along the ground and buildings, laying themselves out in a zig-zag pattern that covered the most area possible.

[BD Blvd]: “Well, whaddaya know?”

A quick realization suddenly popped into his head, prompting him to turn back to F3, who was staring at him with a very confused expression.

[F3]: “Uh...”

[BD Blvd]: “Oh, right. I can transform and stuff.”

[F3]: “...Huh.” *Shakes his head back into focus* “Well, at any rate, weird transforming teenager-”

[BD Blvd]: “I’m weird?!”

[F3]: *Ignoring him* “I need to continue on my quest to the city center! See you on the other side!”

[BD Blvd]: “I thought you didn’t know where you were going.”

[F3]: *Freezes* “...Oh, right.”

[BD Blvd]: “Besides, if you want to find out where the vines are coming from, why not just follow the vines?”

[F3]: “...You know, with the benefit of hindsight-”

[BD Blvd]: “Look, now that I know what’s going on, I’m going to head towards the vines’ source myself. If you’re really intent on going there, just follow me.”

[F3]: “Sounds like a plan!”

BD Blvd rolled his eyes and began walking off towards the source of the vines, with F3 walking quickly in tow.

[Cut to a different part of the city, with BD Blvd focusing on the vines while walking. F3 is following behind, still looking at the map.]

[F3]: “Man, I don’t recognize anything in all this fog! The city might as well be upside-down!”

[BD Blvd]: *Glances back at F3* “You’re holding the map upside down.”

F3 examined the map for a moment, then flipped it right side up.

[F3]: *Happily* “Hey, that’s a lot better!”

BD Blvd rolled his eyes and kept walking.

[F3]: “Say, how long can you stay transformed for? Is it like two hours or something?”

[BD Blvd]: “I can stay transformed until the thing I transform with overheats. Usually around ten minutes.”

[F3]: “Wow, I was way off. Actually, since this is a dream, shouldn’t you be able to stay transformed as long as you want? It’s not physically overheating or anything.”

[BD Blvd]: “That’s...actually a good point.”

The two continued walking in silence for a few moments.

[F3]: “Hey, are you related to Ben Tennyson?”

[BD Blvd]: “What? No!”

[F3]: “Then how do you have one of those watch things?”

[BD Blvd]: “It’s called an Omnitrix. Mine is the StarTrix, specifically. It was custom built.”

[F3]: “Man, you must be one smart kid to build one of those!”

[BD Blvd]: *Annoyedly* “I didn’t build it! My dad did!”

[F3]: “Oh. Well, your dad’s gotta be really smart, then.”

[BD Blvd]: “Yeah, I guess.”

There were another few moments of silence.

[F3]: “Hey, kid-”

[BD Blvd]: *Snappily* “What do you want now?!”

[F3]: “Just telling you that we’re being approached by what appears to be a particularly cross gentleman in a diving suit.”

BD Blvd looked up from the vines to find a large, armor-clad humanoid approaching them. Its armor was an icy white/blue color, and it wore the same red/white Omnitrix symbol as Deathrock did.

[BD Blvd]: “Oh, that is not good.”

The armored alien kept approaching them at a steady pace. BD Blvd pressed down the StarTrix symbol, reverting back to human. Theo pulled up the StarTrix and transformed into All Star again, hovering above the ground and assuming a battle stance.

[Theo/All Star]: “Okay, not sure where you guys are coming from, but I’m already sick of it. Who are you?”

[Negative Holy Diver]: “I like to call this one Unholy Diver. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

[All Star]: “Not really.”

[Unholy Diver]: “Well, there’s no accounting for taste.”

He suddenly retracted the fingers on his right arm, summoning a drill and lunging towards All Star. All Star’s superior speed allowed him to easily dodge and fire a beam of light towards Unholy Diver. The beam hit, sending him stumbling forward a bit and leaving a charred dent in his armor.

[Unholy Diver]: “Not enough sunlight in here to power up your beams, is there?”

[F3]: “No breeze, either!”

Unholy Diver turned towards F3, only to get a faceful of sleep dust for his troubles. Unfortunately for F3, this didn’t seem to have any effect.

[F3]: “Aw, what?! I hit you dead on!”

[Unholy Diver]: “And that would mean something if I weren’t breathing air from my filtration tank.”

[F3]: “Oh.”

There was an emerald flash from behind the two, prompting Unholy Diver to turn around again. As soon as he did, he was greeted by a kick to the face from a set of tank treads. His armor caved in slightly as he was sent flying. Before he hit the ground, Theo, who had transformed into Move Along, Flash Stepped beneath him and grabbed him out of the air with his clamps.

He quickly started running alongside the buildings on their current block, smashing Unholy Diver’s upper body into them and dragging him through the brick walls as he went. Without Broken Dream Boulevard’s Dream Manipulation, the looping effect was fully in place for him, allowing him to loop the area at incredibly high speeds, smashing Unholy Diver’s head through multiple building levels. He eventually ran out of intact walls at his height to drag his opponent through, and simply hurled him at the ground.

Unholy Diver hit the ground rolling, and was able to recover relatively quickly despite being dazed. He stood up and charged at Move Along, jumping up into the air to strike at his head with a rotating drill. Move Along dodged by falling to the ground and speeding away from the blow using the wheel embedded in his torso, then sprung back up to a standing position once out of range.

[Move Along]: “Well, I was kinda hoping that I wouldn’t have to use this, but I really need to get this over with quickly.” *Turns to face F3* “Hey, clear the area. I don’t have much practice with this yet, and I might destroy a good chunk of my surroundings.”

F3 nodded and ran in the direction they had been heading before being interrupted. As soon as he was gone, Move Along turned to face Unholy Diver, who was laughing smugly despite his injuries.

[Unholy Diver]: “And exactly what are you going to do with that alien? The only thing it’s got going for it is its speed, and let’s face it, that’s not exactly unique!”

[Move Along]: “It may not be unique, but it is effective. Besides, speed is only a small factor of this thing’s potential.”

[Unholy Diver]: “Is that so? And exactly what would the other half be?”

[Move Along]: “Why don’t you stick around and find out?!”

Move Along’s torso wheel suddenly began spinning, revving up to high speeds. The exhaust ports on his back began shooting out jets of steam that slowly increased in intensity. Nothing else appeared to be happening.

[Unholy Diver]: *Sarcastically* “Wow, such amazing potential!”

As soon as he had finished speaking, however, a large creaking could be heard coming from underground. The buildings around them started shaking, and Unholy Diver himself suddenly felt a magnetic pull slowly start dragging him forward.

[Unholy Diver]: “What are you doing!?”

[Move Along]: “Wait for it...”

Move Along pointed his right arm towards a nearby sewer plate, causing it to fly into his grasp. He positioned it on front of him and let go of it, leaving it to levitate in the air.

[Move Along]: “So, by now I’m sort of figuring that you’ve seen and/or used all of my aliens at some point, whoever you are. In spite of that, you still don’t seem to know how Move Along’s powers work.”

[Unholy Diver]: “...He uses his speed to go fast.”

[Move Along]: “Bit more complicated than that. See, this is something I actually only recently figured out myself.”

As Move Along was talking, the sewer plate he was levitating slowly began to rotate in midair.

[Move Along]: “As it turns out, Move Along’s wheels and such don’t have any sort of driving engine or anything. Instead, Move Along moves them with something I like to call Nentokinesis, or Spin Manipulation.”

The sewer plate’s spinning had begun to reach high speeds, creating a low-pitched whine as it whirled in place.

[Move Along]: “With enough practice, he can use it on pretty much anything you want, including this here sewer plate I have.”

[Unholy Diver]: *Slowly backing away* “Hey, now, hold on a second-”

[Move Along]: “And do you know what’s going to happen when I let go of this plate?”

[Unholy Diver]: “...I’d rather not find out.”

[Move Along]: “Too bad.”

With that, he let go of the spinning sewer plate, letting it hurl itself forward at an incredible speed. Before Unholy Diver could even process what had happened, the plate had already smashed through his armor, cutting a massive hole through his body and exiting through the other side. While he was still in shock, the sewer plate managed to perform a high-speed full loop of their block and carved through him again, this time at a different angle.

[Move Along]: “Oh yeah, I put a slight twist on the plate, so it’ll hit you in different places each time. Have fun with that.”

As the sewer plate looped again for a third pass, it had lost a bit of momentum. Unholy Diver managed to recover enough of his senses to drill out a small pit in the ground beneath him and lay low, causing the plate to miss him entirely. He dragged himself out to the side, away from the plate’s directory, and clumsily brought himself to his feet.

[Unholy Diver]: *Gasping weakly* “It’s...not...over...yet!”

[Move Along]: “Not for me, maybe.”

Before Unholy Diver could react, Move Along shot forwards at high speed and smashed into him with a punch, putting a bit of a spin on the blow. Unholy Diver was flung backwards into the air, the exaggerated spin of the blow ripping apart his body and causing him to vanish in the same manner as Deathrock. Move Along sighed and pressed down on the StarTrix symbol, reverting to Theo, who quickly transformed into Broken Dream Boulevard again.

[Theo/BD Blvd]: “I have no idea what’s even going on anymore.”

With that, he turned and once again began following the vines.

[Cut to the tram station at City Center. Vines extending through the entirety of the city are sprawling out from a single bundle mounted on top of a tall, thin vine tower built onto the rails. F3 is already in the area, examining the vine tower. After a few second, BD Blvd runs into view, catching up to F3.]

[F3]: “Wow, that was fast! I figured that diver guy would’ve been a bit more trouble for ya.”

[BD Blvd]: “Something tells me that the person I fought wasn’t exactly the real deal.”

[F3]: “How do you figure?”

[BD Blvd]: “Call it a hunch.”

BD Blvd looked up at the large vine bundle sitting atop the tower.

[F3]: “Hey, do you happen to carry around a chainsaw or something? I feel like climbing this thing might be a bad idea given the whole ‘thorny vines’ thing.”

[BD Blvd]: “Yeah, don’t touch any of the vines. Even mere skin contact would probably put you to sleep instantly.”

[F3]: “But I’m wearing gloves.”

[BD Blvd]: *Glances at F3’s outfit* “Huh. So you are.”

[F3]: “What, did you think these things were just for show? Fighting crime can bring you into contact with many a skin irritant!”

[BD Blvd]: “I can’t say I ever actually thought of that. As for the chainsaw thing, I do not have one of those, but I do have something better.”

BD Blvd pressed down on the StarTrix symbol, reverting back to human. Theo pulled up the SpecTrix again and turned into Roundabout, backing away from the vine tower by a couple of meters.

[Theo/Roundabout]: “You might want to back off from the vines to about where I am. This is going to get kinda weird.”

[F3]: *Backing away* “Are you going to chop it down using those claws or something?”

[Roundabout]: “Nah. I’d be fine because of the exoskeleton, but it’d take too long. Instead, I’m doing this.”

Roundabout raised his arms into the air and started rubbing his claws together, generating an odd clicking noise. A few seconds later, the ground around the vine tower cracked and crumbled upwards, revealing a massive swarm of squash bugs scuttling up from beneath the Earth.

[F3] *Flinches* “What the heck?!”

[Roundabout]: “Yeah, I know. Not even sure how this works, to be honest.”

The squash bugs swiftly covered the entire stalk of the tower, sucking the vines dry at supernatural speeds. Before long, the once vibrant vines had been reduced to dry, withered husks, prompting Roundabout to cease the attack. The squash bugs promptly scurried back underground, after which he stepped forward and snapped apart the tower’s support with a single swing.

[Roundabout]: “Lumberjacks ain’t got nothing on this guy.”

The mound of vines that had been mounted on top of the tower smashed to pieces after hitting the ground, having been made brittle as well by the squash bugs’ attack. After a few seconds of silence, the debris from the mound suddenly shot outwards as a rather angry plant alien burst its way from the wreckage. It appeared to be identical to Broken Dream Boulevard, save for its color scheme of white petals with a pink/black body and the same Omnitrix symbol as the other two negative aliens Theo had encountered.

[Negative BD Blvd]: “I must admit, I rather despise you right now.”

BD Blvd assumed a fighting stance.

[BD Blvd]: “Oh, is that so?”

[Negative BD Blvd]: “I go to all the trouble of getting this city asleep, and then you come in to ruin all of it!”

[BD Blvd]: “Well excuse me, princess, but trapping people in comas is somewhat frowned upon in modern culture. You new around here?”

[Negative BD Blvd]: “In a manner of speaking.”

[BD Blvd]: “Alright, at this point, you have two choices. Choice one: surrender peacefully and wake everybody up. Choice two: The former, except against your will. Choose wisely.”

[Negative BD Blvd]: “You think you intimidate me? I don’t know how you use that cheap pastel imitation of this alien, but I assure you, Nightmare Garden is far superior in combat!”

[BD Blvd]: “Come over here and say that to my face!”

[Nightmare Garden]: “How about I stay over here and tear off your face?!”

Nightmare Garden began to summon more of his vines, but was interrupted by a direct punch to the side of his head, knocking him out. BD Blvd looked to the side, spotting F3 standing there shaking his hand.

[BD Blvd]: “What did you do?!”

[F3]: “Well, it looked like that was gonna get ugly, so I decked him.”

[BD Blvd]: “...You just...decked him?”

[F3]: “I mean, he’s made of flowers and plant stuff, right? I do a lot of gardening, and let me tell you, flowers are hard enough to keep alive when you’re not punching them.”

There was a brief silence.

[BD Blvd]: “Well, that’s nice and all, but we’re still stuck in the dream world. We kinda needed him to undo that, you know.”

[F3]: “But you’re the same kind of alien, right? If there isn’t anyone else in control at the moment, why can’t you do it?”

[BD Blvd]: “I...honestly never considered that.”

[F3]: “See? What would you do without me?”

[BD Blvd]: “Probably figure this out on my own, eventually.”

[F3]: “...Oh.”

BD Blvd raised his arms in the air, summoning vines that wrapped around them. The vines began to glow with a cloudy white light.

[BD Blvd]: “Alright, here goes nothing!”

[Cut to Theo talking about the incident with Alpha and Nova in Plumber Base UT1]

[Alpha]: “Well, it’s fortunate that you were able to end the issue, at any rate. Are you sure you don’t know anything more about the aliens that attacked you?”

[Theo]: “Yeah, I wish. I’d say they were Projection Transformations, but they all had personalities, not AI.”

[Nova]: “Yo, hold on a second. You said you explained Move Along’s spinning powers to the guy you were fighting?”

[Theo]: “Well, I mean, I had to distract him somehow!”

[Nova]: *Mockingly* “Oh crap, I just got jumped by a mugger! Better distract him by giving him my credit card!”

[Theo]: “Oh, whatever. Alpha, did the cameras pick up anything while this was happening?”

[Alpha]: “Unfortunately, no. Assuming the culprit has the exact transformation set you do, he may have used the Saccularius’s jamming field to disable the cameras in his area.”

[Theo]: “Uh...which one is the Saccularius again?”

[Alpha]: “The one you call...Smooth Criminal, was it?”

[Theo]: “Oh, okay.” *Pauses* “Wait, Smooth Criminal can generate a jamming field?!”

[Alpha]: “It appears your opponent was not the only one that needs to learn more about their abilities.”

[Theo]: “...I guess not.”

[Cut to a dark alley later that night. A person with their face obscured by a white hoodie is leaning against a brick wall. After a few moments, he is approached by Nightmare Garden.]

[Nightmare Garden]: “Well, that was a complete waste of our time! Did you even do anything while I kept the city asleep?!”

[???]: “You should already know the answer to that.”

[Nightmare Garden]: “Then what was the point?!”

[???]: “The point was to figure out how far this ‘Theodore’ is willing to go. Judging by Unholy Diver’s fate, I’d say ‘pretty far’.”

[Nightmare Garden]: “I would’ve crushed him if that stupid fairy-person whatever hadn’t knocked me out, you know!”

[???]: “Good for you, but ultimately, it turned out better this way.”

[Nightmare Garden]: “What do you mean by that?”

[???]: *Chuckles softly* “Oh, you’ll see.”

“Just give it some time.”

Major Events

 * Smooth Criminal makes his debut.
 * Deathrock, Unholy Diver, and Nightmare Garden make their debuts.
 * The mechanics behind Move Along's abilities are explained.

Protagonists

 * Theodore Logical
 * Fair's Fair Fairy

Antagonists

 * Unknown Omnitrix Wielder

By Theo

 * Smooth Criminal
 * All☆Star (x2)
 * Broken Dream Boulevard (x2)
 * Move Along
 * Roundabout

By Unknown Omnitrix Wielder

 * Deathrock
 * Unholy Diver
 * Nightmare Garden