- For the preview, see /Preview
Can't Trust the Weather, Man is the thirty-third episode of Back in Action: Alien Universe.
Story[]
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Part I[]
[Galvan Mark II at Azmuth’s headquarters: Azmuth and Eunice don full biohazard suits and chit-chat as they teleport away. On Azmuth’s array of Omnitrix monitoring screens, however, alarms blare. Surveillance shows Wavelength from multiple angles.]
[City Hall of Bellwood, 12:58PM: In the background of an active newscast, a distant empty podium is before a crowd of raving fans. A federal limousine pulls up, armed with the seal of the President of the United States and surrounded by two other black federal vehicles. A Senator emerges, whose signature hairstyle is accompanied by graying towards the ears, stylized to his advantage.
The caster, after watching the Senator pass through, speaks to a woman in the audience, holding up a picket-sign reading “Vance for America.”]
Senator Vetteroy takes the stage. He’s certainly gotten a little wider with age, but the navy blue suit negates this. He clasps his hands around either edge of the podium and leans into the microphone.
The crowd screams and shouts. He flattens his hand to his side to lower their volume, eyeing his assistant at the edge of the stage.
[An hour on: The Senator has wrapped up and is en route to his next event. Within his sleek black vehicle is a comfortable leather interior. In spite of how advanced it is, with several screens, high-speed charging ports, and built-in broadband, only his assistant takes full advantage, armed with his laptop, smartwatch, and two cell phones. The Senator revels in a local newspaper. He feels the ride jump onto a curb.]
The tinted window dividing the front seats and back rolls down. The Senator continues skimming when the driver catches his eye, pointing a gun right at the Senator.
He drops his newspaper.
The Senator’s door flies open. Another agent stands outside with a weapon targeting him, so he jumps out of the vehicle with his hands up to find every member of his detail pointing at him. Soon, his assistant is flung out of the vehicle as well.
The Senator swallows, eyeing his assistant. The two make their way forward down an alley. This withering neighborhood sports brick upon brick peeling off the walls of bygone buildings of yester-century. He turns back around to find his entire detail has shifted forward, nudging him further forward. But he’s reached a dead end.
At once the agents regain self-control, lowering their weapons and looking around in a daze. Then a rift tears open in the wall, they raise their weapons and one even fires as an arm reaches out and pulls him in. The rift shuts before the nearby assistant or any agent can join.
On the other side of the brick wall is Streak, clearly more feminine in shape and of a black and white color scheme.
Rather than respond, this alternate Streak bears its hidden Omnitrix symbol, raising out of their skin. It’s distinctive: an entrancing purple swirl rather than the intergalactic symbol of peace.
A purple projection emanates from this Streak’s badge, depicting seven year old events: Vance Vetteroy, then an ambitious anchorman, accidentally terrorizing Chicago with his haywire weather machine, turned elemental monster, named S.A.M. Every moment seems to be from the young Ben’s perspective. The projection shuts off.
The Senator eyes this warped Streak for a moment, scanning his expressionless face and bouncing his pupils around as he mulls it over.
Another projection, this time minus video, overlaying audio on a sonograph.
While unseen, the recording makes his walking away on the wooden stage audible. The projection shuts off.
The Senator unfolds his arms. One last projection appears: a photo of an older man’s mug shot, of the name “Dr. Aloysius J. Animo.”
[Max’s Plumbing department store in Bellwood: The federal limousine screeches to a stop out front. Senator Vetteroy, flanked by two of his agents, enter the shop. Product lines the organized shelves, but at the checkout desk, there is nobody in sight. “Ring for assistance,” reads a sign below a bell on the desk, and so the Senator rings.]
[Plumber HQ, below Max’s Plumbing: Max, in his classic Hawaiian shirt and baggy brown slacks, is trailing behind a group of Plumbers in the midst of transporting Animo to a new cell block. He keeps one hand hovering over a holstered Ulam laser pistol. Other items on his assorted Plumber utility belt include an ID Mask and a wrench. His comm headset is on, speaking to Rook.]
Max taps his headset.
[Max’s Plumbing: Said tape begins to play.]
The Senator looks around for where Max could be, spotting a locked bathroom behind the registers. As part of the illusion, the sound of a pipe bursting plays over Max’s straining.
The recording stops there. The Senator eyes his two agents and nods. As he steps towards the bathroom, one pulls his hand back and shakes her head. He yanks his hand out from her grip and goes off, with or without them. Standing in front of the bathroom door, his agents reluctantly approach him, guard up and weapons drawn.
The Senator scans the room, eyeing a surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling in a corner.
[Inside the Plumber base: Animo tries to make a break for it from his transport guards. They’re chasing after him with Max in tow when Max receives another call.]
He taps his headset.
The call ends and he removes his headset, pulling out his Plumber badge and affixing it to his chest. As Dr. Animo swats at a Plumber trying to contain him, Max fires the Ulam laser. Rather than injuring the doctor, it contains him in a bubble for as long as Max holds down the trigger. A draining bar on the barrel seems to indicate battery is waning.
Max pulls out his badge, providing to him his surveillance camera’s view of Senator Vetteroy in his store.
[Upstairs.]
The Senator’s brows angle aggressively.
[Downstairs: Max taps his badge to play a clogged flushing sound.]
[Upstairs.]
The Senator rolls his eyes. He motions bashing his elbow into the door and steps back as the agents follow that lead. On each agent’s right hand, they count down: 3.
[Downstairs: Max witnesses. He swiftly hands a nearby Plumber his containment gun, being careful not to let go of the trigger and rips an ID Mask out of his pocket.]
[Upstairs: 2.]
[Downstairs: Max dashes around the corner and off to the elevator.]
[Upstairs: 1.]
[The elevator platform arrives on the other side of the bathroom door. A toilet manifests, as well as the rest of the bathroom façade. Max slaps his ID Mask on, which extends to transforming his badge into a plunger.
The agents signal each other, and more than simply elbow the door, they kick it right open. Max steps out of the murkily lit bathroom, in unsettlingly stained overalls and a belt of more earthly utilities. He acts unnerved by the break-in, focused on plunging the toilet.]
He extends a hand.
The Senator eyes the dripping hand, which Max sees and partly wipes off onto his overalls.
The Senator pulls a rolled-up paper from his back pocket and uncurls it. Like a Wild West wanted ad, Dr. Animo’s mug shot is layered over a red background.
The Senator sighs and turns to the door.
He and the agents proceed toward the door.
The Senator stops in his tracks and mutters something inaudible.
He whips around and marches over to Max, who steps to behind the service desk.
The agents keep their weapons to their sides but remain still.
The Senator grits his teeth and slams his fist on the counter before storming out to his limo. His escort opens the door for him and inside, he seats himself with his assistant and the well-armored Dawn.
Dawn looks to him.
Dawn nods.
[Ben’s bedroom: He’s still actively playing SuMMO, as the sticker reads on his custom console controller and Sumo Slammers-branded headset, while the phone on his bed buzzes on. His match ends, and the voice chat becomes peep-silent, so he notices the call just in time. “Grandpa.” He gulps, shakes his head, and silences the ringer just before the ring ends.]
Part II[]
[An hour later: A bedroom, fit for a teenager, by the spacefaring knickknacks and clothing thrown on the walls, ceiling, and floor. An unmade bed is where Ben sits, legs crossed, in his white socks, Sumo Slammers-patterned boxers, and iconic white tee with a black line running right down the center.
Most significant is his Omnitrix, or the arm-covering gauntlet would be, if it wasn’t being ignored by hands mashing buttons on a controller and if its user wasn’t yelling at his TV.]
Ben’s phone rings again. He glances the caller ID, double-taking when he sees the name. Ben slaps his headset’s microphone mute button and sweeps his phone up.
Ben gulps, eyeing a photo on his desk of the summer that started it all.
Ben turns on his mic.
He manually powers down his console.
[Outside, minutes later: Ben is wearing a tee that’s half-white, half-black, separated vertically. His olive green cargo pants seem to be a size too big but he doesn’t care as he walks to his car, the well-washed DX Mark 10, and sits inside.
Into a mount on his dashboard, he locks his phone. It briefly flickers on, revealing the wallpaper of himself and one long-lost girl who wore pink sweaters all too often. The screen quickly fades off.
He snaps on his seatbelt and starts driving.]
Ben shrieks, almost veering into some parked cars in his narrow neighborhood. When he regains control, he eyes his rear-view mirror, reflecting Eli in the backseat.
A tap on Ben’s shoulder.
At the corner of his eye, Aion has manifested in his front passenger seat. Both he and Eli are dressed casually, though Aion continues to mask his face from the mouth up with part of his knight’s helmet.
The car screeches to a halt, Eli’s unbuckled seating causing him to bang his head into the center console.
Ben is distracted, watching just outside his car at Max’s Plumbing. Inside, the Senator is present again, this time with the Mayor of Bellwood behind him, facing off against Max just at the storefront’s entrance. Members of the Senator’s Secret Service detail are leaving with Dr. Animo hand- and ankle-cuffed.
Ben becomes an alien polar bear, with ice-covered fingers, antler-like ears also born of ice, and a snowflake pattern about his belly. He steps out of the vehicle and makes his way into Max’s Plumbing.
Within the store, Ben’s alien polar bear is used to produce snowballs and erect a wall of snow at the exit door.
All present continue arguing, ignoring Ben’s transformation entirely. To garner more attention, he forms another snowball and lobs it into the Senator’s face.
Ben’s eye twitches. He switches to Streak, scratching a rift into the doorway instead.
He points to the exit. One of the two Secret Service agents draws his weapon on Ben.
He puts his hand through, which comes right back out.
Streak stands his ground.
Max receives a call that he takes on his badge.
The Mayor’s eyes gape.
The Plumber’s projection over Max’s badge nods. Max looks to Streak, who scoffs before taking down his portal for a brief moment to let one Reginald Poe inside. A darker-toned man with curly black hair, suited from head-to-toe in navy blue.
He pans the room. Many eyes look to him, not one with a smile. He steps over to the mayor and shakes her hand.
Reginald nods, and Streak rolls his eyes, offended that Rook would call them both.
The Senator audibly clears his throat.
She nods.
Max stands behind the unconscious Animo and takes him, moving to the bathroom HQ entrance. Meanwhile, Streak’s zero-way door closes.
If he could curl his lips into a devilish smile, Streak absolutely would have. His expressionless face doesn’t do him justice. The Mayor proceeds out of the building.
Outside, the Senator chats with the Mayor before she enters her own vehicle – a sedan of a chestnut color anointed with the Seal of Bellwood on the hood.
She shuts her door and signals her driver to leave. The Senator kicks the curb as part of a temper tantrum.
In the Senator’s periphery, Eli and Aion depart from Ben’s car. The zero-way door having blocked them before, they now enter the store easily, where Reginald engages Streak.
Streak is apprehensive at first, but finally reverts to human. Reginald is roughly a head taller than him, Ben notes as he shakes hands.
Ben elbows Eli.
Body blow.
We hear the bathroom elevator “flush,” signaling its return to this floor.
Max departs from it and wobbles over. Upon sighting him, Ben masks himself as Streak. His grandfather stands next to Reginald, at arm’s length from Streak, and stares daggers into him.
Max, shedding a tear, embraces him in a bear hug.
Part III[]
[Max’s Plumbing: Streak reverts to human and accepts. Max pulls away for a second.]
Ben shakes his head.
Max turns to Reginald.
Ben can spot Reggie playing with his fingers and glancing back and forth between the floor and Ben. He walks up to him and lays his hand gently onto Reggie’s back.
Eli murmurs something quickly and quietly.
Max approaches Eli and Aion.
Max and Reggie eye Ben with judgmentally raised brows.
Ben cups a hand over Eli’s mouth and pushes his sword back down.
Max gives some form of side-eye to Reggie’s rather inclusive invitation.
[Outside: Ben shuts Eli’s door after having kicked him in and stomps around the car to get into his own seat. As soon as he shuts the door, before even buckling his seatbelt, he starts off.]
Eli is silent.
Ben glances the inside of the car, with Aion and Eli now mystically gone.
[Mr. Hook’s Candy Emporium, upstairs apartment: Mr. Hook stands idly by with a platter of food waiting. Eli and Aion ignore this and head into a bedroom.]
Aion scans the room bewilderingly before pointing to himself.
Aion’s violet lips gape, as if to almost say “what?”
The room around them becomes a simulation of five minutes beforehand, with Ben chatting with Reggie.
Aion nods. The simulation zooms out, but rather than physically out to the stars, it turns this simulation into one of many on a linear timeline of Ben’s life, Carl’s life, Max’s life, and many Tennysons before.
Moments from Ben’s life manifest as square-inch videos in this space now.
Aion stops the simulation.
Aion crosses his arms.
Aion taps a finger on one of the crossed arms.
The simulation erupts.
He stops.
The simulation pans back out.
Aion stays silent.
The simulation scrolls across the linear timeline like scrubbing across timestamps on a video. It halts in 1827, focused on a toddler.
The simulation plays the rest of this Tennyson’s life, right up to the end in his 60s.
[Hours later, Eli, stands with notebook in hand and quill stuffed behind one ear. His hair is ruffled, and sheets from the notebook have flown off the book and suspended in the air like objects floating through space.
The simulation stops, with George Tennyson at his father’s bedside in the 1880s. Eli tries to organize all the papers but they crash to the floor, with Aion pointing behind Eli.]
Ben’s Streak analyzes Eli and Aion – both dressed exactly the same but appearing now even more casual because of the messy hair.
Aion pauses time. Eli grabs a comb and tidies up his hair and grabs his Forever Knight—err, Second Gynuran— garments. Aion also joins in this, both wearing their full-body armor.
Time resumes.
Streak stares at them with his expressionless mug.
Eli and Aion look at each other than back to Streak and nod.
[Max’s Plumbing, bathroom elevator: Ben flushes the toilet in the dark room, which raises the tank door on the back of the seat to reveal an input panel. He enters a code – E0316 – and flushes again, turning on the lights, compacting the toilet and beginning the descent of the elevator through a dark shaft into the Plumber base below.
Ben feels the tap on his shoulder.]
Clink. The hand that tapped him pulls back, rubbing the suit of metal at the shoulders.
The elevator begins to slow.
The elevator enters the base. Not unlike a ballroom, the base’s ceiling has rounded out and the normally green and white lighting is a dim, alluring violet. The round room is lined with tables at the walls, atop them balloons with holographic images of those assigned seating to each. As one approaches the center, an open checkered dance floor encircles a ten-square-foot stage with two pieces: a microphone, and the alien singer strumming away at their otherworldly eighteen-string bass.
Noting the droves of well-dressed Plumbers elegantly waltzing to the musician’s rhythm, Ben covers his blushing his face and gestures Eli and Aion to say nothing.
The whole room halts, including the musician.
Aion sighs and nods, as every Plumber in the room draws a weapon at the supposed intrusion, including the musician. Even the lights transition to red.
Ben uncovers his face, Max running ahead of everyone aiming at him. They re-holster.
Most of the room continues moving to the groove of the musician’s more upbeat song, but others dissipate, surrounding Eli and Aion.
Eli, who had had his eyes closed and head pompously raised, opens to see the crowd solely enamored with Aion, to the point where Ben and Eli can no longer spot him.
Ben and Eli turn to see Reggie, drinking some strange viscous teal refreshment – if one can even call it refreshing.
Ben raises his hand to fist-bump Reggie, who is at the same time offering a polite shake. Each switches roles: Ben adapting to a handshake, and Reggie to a bump, culminating in a rock-paper scenario of Ben cupping Reggie’s hand.
Reggie chuckles, almost spilling his drink.
He leans into Ben to whisper.
Eli taps him on the shoulder. Reggie whirls around to see him offering a shake.
Reggie curls his brows confusingly.
He walls a side of his mouth off from Eli’s direction to say something to Reggie.
Eli and Ben’s faces fume red.
He trails off before snapping back to reality.
Ben slips his phone out of his pocket to display the wallpaper: as before, Julie and him together. Taken from the third person – or more particularly, taken by Gwen – they kiss on a well-lit summer night.
Eli has been focused more heavily on Aion’s popularity, but now his interest is piqued by Ben and Reggie’s conversation.
Eli’s eyes gape.
His eureka moment stops their conversation.
Ben lazily waves him off while continuing to chat with Reggie. Eli, however, rushes towards the huddle around Aion. Leaving the congregation is Molly Gunther, in tears laughing. Confused, Eli parts through the crowd to get to Aion and grabs him.
Still unspeaking, Aion shrugs.
[Meanwhile, at the Bellwood Police Department, 2nd Precinct: The officer guarding the front desk opens the front door for the Senator.]
The Senator examines the officer’s uniform, reading the name plaque.
The Senator’s Secret Service detail enters the building.
The officer eyes the agents’ all-black uniforms, concealed earpieces, and the mighty U.S. flag pin on their lapels, which she also spots on the Senator’s. She salutes.
She grabs a walkie-talkie mounted on her belt.
[5 minutes later, the Officer motions the Senator into the Chief of Police’s dimly-lit office. The man is seated on a couch taking his time with a plate of pasta – and other things – pulled from a heavy-duty lunchbox at a coffee table.]
Rather than on the same couch as invited, the Senator drops himself onto the adjacent sofa. He sits upright, head held high and arms-crossed. The Chief continues digging away at his food.
The Chief, without another word, unearths a second plate and fork from his lunchbox and plops some of his pasta – and other things – down.
On his last word he eyes Vetteroy.
Officer Albright comes to the door with a light knock. The Chief looks to her, half a forkful of the pasta in his mouth.
Both the Senator and the Chief stand up.
The Chief nods to Albright, who steps away, shutting the door.
He picks up.
The Chief squints his eyes, nodding and giving off “mhm”s. At one point, he stares straight to the Senator.
He continues, looking away again. The Senator stands and shoves his hands into his pockets, walking over to a closer corner of the room and analyzing a case of trophies, medals, and plaques, hoping to overhear something.
He hangs the ancient, wired phone up.
The Senator puts his hand to the glass, eyeing several “Most Wanted Crackdowns” plaques, one for each year before this one.
With no response, he turns around to look the Chief in the eyes.
The Chief scoops up his food and sits at his desk with it.
He gestures the Senator to sit and eat.
[Plumber HQ, Bellwood: Eli and Aion are peering a year back, at the former J. Edgar Hoover Elementary. Amidst light protest, men in lime green and white construction gear remove the old name placard and, in its place, affix the metal lettering for “Bellwood Elementary.”
Eli swipes, which Aion takes to mean to go further back, to Ben and Reggie’s shared time at the school once honoring the former FBI leader. He scrubs across the time period like any other might scrub through a YouTube video. In all the frames and the years they represent, Eli catches something just at the end.]
Entering the year just before there were ten, Aion stops in place. It’s New Year’s, and in Ben’s home, the “9” balloons are still up from the joint birthday party with his cousin. He crosses his arms and holds his head down in his cousin’s presence, spitting in her general direction to his parent’s chagrin.
Eli holds Aion’s hand as he helps him to finely move back some few months, before the birthdays, before the holidays and the summer. School is still in session here, when on one unfortunate day a kid is hit in the face.
Eli holds Aion’s hand as he helps him to finely move back some few months, before the birthdays, before the holidays and the summer. School is still in session here, when the bell rings for gym to begin, but Ben is hiding under a bleacher with some wide portable video game console.
[Eli leaps into this memory of Ben’s, leaping into his body and following a script.]
He can hear the class assembling. The teacher can be heard saying something.
The familiar voice of an aspiring bully cuts in.
His partner-in-crime, a shorter and wider-bodied redhead, nods. They lock their sights on a set of bleachers across the room, the only set with a brown baggy on top.
[Under the bleachers, Eli’s Ben continues facing his game, but warily eyes his periphery, knowing the bullies are coming.]
Eli acts surprised, leaping out of his seat in such an exaggerated manner that he hits his head on the bleacher above. In the meantime, the taller, lanky bully unbuckles Ben’s belt and pockets it. Eli’s Ben stops rubbing his head to look up to Eli.
Cash snatches Ben’s wrist and starts dragging him out.
Ben shakes his head, to Cash’s chagrin in the form of a “hrmph.”
When they reach outside of the bleachers, JT drops down and joins them. Cash pushes Ben against a wall under a basketball hoop. A darker skinned boy in glasses joins Ben, next to a janitor.
Enguells, the janitor, leaves the gym.
Ben shuffles over with a pouty lip.
The teacher rolls out a bin of dodgeballs and passes them out, first to Cash, then JT, who each distribute the rest to their teams.
The teacher holds up 3 fingers, drops 1, then another, and blows her whistle. Immediately the teams start chucking balls. Each player knocked out takes a spot on their respective sides’ bleachers.
Of note, the small boy in glasses keeps to the back wall under the hoop, trying to cover his face. He manages to successfully dodge throughout the game, until he’s finally hit.
Another kid tosses a ball at him, but he stays hiding at the back wall rather than joining the other knocked out players. The teacher looks ready to interfere.
When Cash realizes no one’s passing a ball to him, he turns around and sees the only player left on his team is Ben, who doesn’t want to give it to him.
Cash gets behind Ben and whispers over his shoulder.
Cash starts to tug on the ball. The feeble boy across the room uncovers his face to watch the altercation. The teacher begins blowing her whistle as she runs over to protect the boy, causing Ben to release the ball and Cash to accidentally toss it full force into the boy’s uncovered face.
The teacher begins muttering to herself.
The whole room begins observing the boy, as the teacher rushes him out of the room, protecting him from visibility the whole time. What Ben expects is blood – the kind he’s seen a million times in TV and movies. But in Ben’s face is complete terror, as a brief glimpse of the child in the exit doorway reveals a teal face and tentacles.
Part IV[]
[Chief of Police’s office: The Chief finishes rifling through files as Vance chows down.]
The Chief collapses the folder and shuffles it back in place in a file cabinet aside his desk. At the same time, a knock comes to the door – Officer Albright again.
The Chief leans forward in his seat, eyes gaping. He eyes a picture-in-picture box on the broadcast, showing the stage inside the Plumber HQ where Max is speaking (though muted).
[Plumber HQ: At the commencement stage, every present Plumber has gathered to watch Max introduce Reginald. In the center of the crowd are Eli and Aion.]
Aion nods.
Aion points to a dim, pulsing red dot high up on the back wall of the room. Eli nods in response.
On stage, Poe has been welcomed to the center stage.
Everyone claps in unison. In the mayhem, Ben isn’t. He’s taking a call.
Ben tries to shove through the crowd, but the big bodies around him make it difficult. He becomes Brawnoceros.
In the same breath, every Plumber draws their weapon. Eli and Aion make their move. With Eli pointing to the stage, Aion leaps and blasts Reggie right in the face, causing him to collapse to the ground. Everyone sets their sights on Eli and Aion, as Aion wraps him and Eli in his cloak and dissipate. They all stand, confused, until the microphone-blasted groan of Reggie from the stage takes their attention.
Max tries to conceal him, but Reggie pushes him out of the way, revealing a forest green array of tentacles on a humanoid body, taller than the human form that used to be there. He kneels over an ID mask, that from Aion’s blast was swiftly aged.
After a moment, Reggie looks up to the crowd. He stands up, revealing the green body of a Vilgaxian.
Max snatches the mic from him and stands with his arms out to protect him. Every Plumber maintains a weapon on Max.
Max keeps one arm up while having the other on Reginald’s shoulder.
Everyone maintains their aim. Molly Gunther, however, leads in slightly lowering her weapon. She taps a neighbor’s shoulder, and gradually everyone else does the same.
Brawnoceros reverts to human.
Silence.
Molly approaches the stage. She removes the badge on her chest and places it at Max’s feet, level with her chest, looking disappointedly at her own feet.
A hand with a strange texture taps her shoulder. She looks up to see it’s Reggie’s.
Reggie stands up, Max passing him the mic.
In the minutes that follow, Max approaches Ben in the back of the room.
[Bellwood PD, Precinct 2: Vance pats himself down then makes his way to the door.]
The Chief swallows, still taken aback and mouth agape from the broadcast.
The Chief stands in the way of the name plaque as Vetteroy eyes that direction.
He steps outside to view the plaque adjacent the door.
The Senator holds forward his suit jacket lapels.
[Max’s Plumbing: Vetteroy furiously mashes a bell on the checkout counter. Behind him: a group of policers, at the back of which is the Chief.]
[Downstairs, in the Plumbers HQ: Max gulps. He turns to Ben.]
Max raises a brow.
[Upstairs: Vetteroy points to the bathroom door and orders a charge. The group bashes down the door and finds just the toilet.]
[Downstairs.]
[Upstairs: The police officers frantically tear up the bathroom, removing the faucet of the sink, and beginning to dismantle the toilet. From within the toilet, Ben is teleported up.]
Ben sighs, directing the group to it.
They enter, one at a time. The Chief stays outside, a look of defeat casting his eyes down to the tiles.
[Minutes later: They all exit, with Animo in tow. Along with them come Max and Reggie.]
Max shoves past the Chief’s human barricade and continues to berate Vetteroy, but the Chief continues blocking the door for his son.
[Middle of the night, Precinct 2: In a cell is a pile of makeshift tech in one corner and Dr. James Aloysius Animo right in the center. He rubs two rocks together. Beyond the cell bars are two heavily armed guards – maybe SWAT.]
The guards instantly point their red-dot sights at Animo’s head.
The two guards sigh and return to firm stances looking away.
[Beyond the back wall of the windowed cell is the exterior of the precinct.]
Three other voices, belonging to invisible parties, shush her.
Shush.
A final male voice chuckles.
A loud whirring from within the cell.
The owner of the third voice, a 5’4” young adult also in Plumber gear, also reveals himself as he transforms from a human into a white and black Loboan.
Everyone plugs their ears as the humanoid wolf lets out a piercing howl, localized in a sphere facing the wall of the precinct in Animo’s cell. When it gets damaged, Graca – the owner of the third voice – becomes visible as she reveals her extra two Tetramand arms. She knocks through the wall.
The group is stunned.
Animo is gone. The guards outside the cell are down. No visible escape route and no broken bars.
A group of more SWAT-looking guards approach the cell from opposite the bars, sights set on the squad.
[Dawn’s headquarters, undisclosed location in Bellwood, moved since the last location was compromised: an ocular rift opens in the room, a variety of black lines drawing from it so as to appear corrupted. Animo walks out, and behind him comes Dawn’s Streak. Senator Vetteroy meets the two.]
Animo looks to Streak.
Streak rolls their eyes to the best of their static face’s ability as they reenter the portal.
[Precinct 2, Animo’s former cell: Reggie, Mars, Graca and the Loboan named Armando are escorted in cuffs out of the cell and down the hall.
A slash through reality brings a rift back to the room, releasing Dawn’s Streak again. The purple-toned feminine Chronospect variant of the alien scoops up Animo’s “beautiful” pile of garbage in his solid holographic arms. In making his way to the rift, Armando, being shoved forward by one guard, spots Streak. Dawn, unable to simply wink, salutes the wolf as he’s pushed out of view. Streak slips back into the rift.]
[Back in Dawn’s HQ: Streak comes through a fresh rift and holds out his pile over Animo, releasing it with only barely enough time for Animo to properly catch it.
Animo affixes the tool to Vetteroy, which appears like a rudimentary Omnitrix. A red circle is in the center, in a thick dome. Thick coils, covered in dirt, wrap around the body.]
Animo turns to Streak.
Streak approaches Animo and holds the latter’s head up with the point of his fingers. Animo gulps.
[Mr. Hook’s Emporium: Second floor apartment. Eli and Aion sit in the dark, thinking. Something crashes through their window, breaking the silence. They turn on the light to see a thick disc now lodged in the ceiling. It wobbles and wiggles like a worm struggling for freedom. A moment of that passes before it stops and a loud autotuned scream raises in volume. Frisbit comes flying hand-first through the window and stops when he’s got a hand on his frisbee.]
Frisbit reverts to human. With the frisbee no longer serving as his anchor, he falls eight feet to the floor.
After a moment, Ben leaps to his feet.
A car crash sounds from several blocks away. Ben keeps his attention locked on Eli.
Another crash a mile away.
Ben looks back to Eli.
Ben scrunches up his lips.
[Dead of night, approaching the morning in Downtown Bellwood: Vertigo levitates in a meditative position at the center of an intersection. For every car that comes, they absorb that momentum and cast it into a different object – a traffic light, a fire hydrant, and so forth.
Above, Frisbit makes his entrance. He leaps off his frisbee, which he continues to remotely control to bash Vertigo in the head. While Vertigo recuperates, Ben’s robotic transformation lands straight on the villain’s head, knocking them down to the ground. Frisbit recalls his enhanced frisbee and latches it onto Vertigo’s purple Omnitrix badge. Spider-like legs cup the symbol and begin tinkering, visibly producing sparks.
But Vertigo’s newer Omnitrix fights back. A purple spark leaves Frisbit screaming, damaging his frisbee and by extension him. While he’s writhing, Vertigo catches their breath. From a short distance, they wrench their hands. Using a short-distance form of telekinesis, they twist the dial on Ben’s own Omnitrix symbol, located on his frisbee. Commanding it down transforms the robot into the hulking rhinoceros form-]
He lifts Vertigo up and proceeds to smack him into the ground, pick him up ,and smack him back down left and right for a solid minute. Vertigo, with only a moment to spare before their head crashes yet again into the pavement, casts the momentum of an oncoming vehicle into a parked car. The parabolic flight pattern that Vertigo chooses for this idle vehicle sends the vehicle right onto Brawnoceros. He notices, drops Vertigo and attempts to catch the car. Failing to do it in time, he is crushed, laying on his back with the vehicle on top of him.
Vertigo hovers over and manually twists the dial through the transformations, until they land on the lanky bottled-up transformation of Wavelength. Vertigo smacks down, turning Brawnoceros into the glass hurricane. Before he can get up, Dawn cups both Omnitrices, placing them in Scan Mode, as denoted by their newfound yellow tinge.
Vertigo takes on a curly grin. After both devices return to their respective colors, he takes on the form of Streak and leaves once more. Wavelength, casting a local storm, removes the vehicle from himself.
[Dawn’s HQ, where Vance and Animo each inspect the robots on the back wall.]
Dawn’s Streak becomes Wavelength. Almost no changes are made to adjust for gender.
Part V[]
[Dawn’s HQ: The poorly maintained headquarters has lights flickering. A metal rod rolls through the room. Animo ensures the Regulator is tightly on the Senator.]
Animo looks up to see Vetteroy’s brows furrowed at him.
He grabs a syringe and approaches Dawn.
He attempts to prick Wavelength but fails.
Animo points inside the bottle.
Dawn rotates their Omnitrix symbol, which unlike a standard one is a black swirl on a purple background.
The Alphaline Omnitrix makes two light pings. Wavelength looks up to inquisitive faces on Dr. Animo and the Senator.
Vetteroy runs behind a series of pods. Animo picks up a wayward metal rod sitting on the floor. Dawn turns back to the Omnitrix.
The Omnitrix pings again.
Dawn’s bottled hurricane grabs Animo by the neck and stares its googly eyes at the (supposed) doctor.
Animo pulls his arm back swiftly. He stares hesitantly at the bottle, inhales, then swings. Wavelength drops Animo. A crack forms in the bottle that in no time busts the thing open. Animo drops the rod and whips out his syringe, attempting to grab something physical like blood. Though he doesn’t manage this impossible feat – to make a hurricane bleed – he does convince some of the torrent into the syringe on its own. Quickly, though, it gets out of control and begins to grow in strength, demolishing parts of the already dilapidated headquarters and whisking Animo up into the air.
With Animo fifteen feet in the air, he prepares for the worst. Dust and blinding winds blur the area for him and the Senator, who tries everything to protect his face from the growing onslaught of debris. In the mayhem, a pair of antennae grow out of Animo’s head. Their red tips glow, and simultaneously, the Regulator on Vetteroy unstraps. Its body swivels around and boosts itself over to Animo, strapping onto him.
Dawn’s Omnitrix deactivates, reverting them to their armor-covered human form. Animo is on the floor, his Regulator detached and to his side, and the antennae still poking out of his head.
Dawn walks up to Animo, picks him up by the chest of his shirt, and slaps each cheek until he regains consciousness.
They toss the doctor back. The Senator comes up behind him.
He sloppily reattaches the device, accidentally catching a piece of Vetteroy’s suit in one of its arms.
Dawn’s Omnitrix pings, signaling its completed reboot. They become Streak, casting a portal in front of Animo, inside which is his former prison cell.
A projection appears before Animo, cast from Streak’s Omnitrix, of a portly gray-haired man proudly displaying his award. In a lab coat, a younger, more average looking Dr. Animo grits his teeth.
The Senator seems completely unaware of this as Dawn goads him into agreement.
Animo’s ears perk up, and Dawn leans in over his shoulder.
Animo grabs the vial containing Wavelength’s DNA sample and clicks it into a port at the top of the Regulator.
Animo strokes his chin, grinning.
Streak closes the portal but continues speaking telepathically solely to Animo.
Streak backs up and reverts to their armored human form.
[Outside the headquarters: Vetteroy’s screams and a bright red glow as the transformation begins.]
[Precinct 2: Combustiball rolls up to the stairs where a cop blocks him. They point to scorch marks still burnt into the stairway from the last time he went in in that form. The alien rolls his eyes and reverts to human to ascend the front stairs and enter. Inside, Max greets Ben.]
He presents the hologram of Wavelength.
Max squints. Ben clicks the dial twice to expand the projection’s size.
Ben holds up his phone with aerial photos of the exterior of Dawn’s headquarters, one when it was pristine (or at least, as pristine as it could be), one with Wavelength’s hurricane growing, and another with Animo’s red glow.
Ben salutes, running to the door and rolling out as Combustiball, the police outside waving their fists angrily at him.
Inside, the Mayor of Bellwood appears and welcomes Max into the holding cell segment of the precinct. They talk as they walk down the hall.
The mayor points to the cell adjacent her, containing Reggie. Max peeks down the aisle to see Mars, Graca, and Armando in the subsequent ones.
She steps away.
Max sighs and leans towards the bars.
He points to Reggie’s face. He touches the skin of his human cheeks.
He briefly pulls the ID mask off his face to show his true form again.
[City Hall of Bellwood: News network vans surround a large crowd yet again at the foot of the steps. Vance Vetteroy – clean, human, in his suit, and no Regulator to be seen – cuts through the side of the crowd, brushing past his irritated assistant, to make it to the podium where he stands upright and proudly. To the ruckus of his adoring fanatics, he waves a hand to lower the volume.]
The crowd cheers.
His assistant crosses their arms.
The cheers subside partly and are joined by bewilderment.
The crowd, as well as the assistant, begins to disperse as clouds roll in. Pockets of snowfall soon transform into hard cubes of piercing hail.
[The Bellwood home of Frank, Natalie, and Gwen Tennyson: In the driveway, a white sedan pulls up behind a parked SUV. When the car shuts off, from it depart its passenger Kevin and its driver Gwen. The latter has a pep in her step as she approaches the front door of the home.]
The door unlocks.
Gwen’s father Frank sits at a recliner in the living room with a large tablet in his hand.
Frank turns his tablet to Gwen.
Gwen resists the urge to bring her dimming palms full speed to her face. She walks over, picks up the tablet and rotates before returning it to her father.
He leans back.
Gwen gives Kevin a stink face.
Outside the house, Gwen and Kevin make their way for his car.
Something lightly hits her on the head, but she ignores it and proceeds.
Gwen half-chuckles, unsure if the very controlling sentiment was sincere or a joke.
Another piece of something hits them. Clouds roll over, then a rapid storm of hail bombards them. Each person rushes to protect a car – Gwen casting a bubble over herself and her dream car while she stands next to it, and Kevin absorbing a piece of pavement to form a box around himself and his still-amazing muscle car.
[A coffee shop in Bellwood: Low jazz hums through the spruce wooded interior. Inside, at window seats, Chelsey and her new boyfriend sit at either side of a narrow table.]
Her boyfriend puts an open palm up on the table between them. Chelsey puts one hand in his and he cups it with his other.
She grins as she scans him. He’s a pale boy with a smooth face, thin jaw, and shoulder-length brown hair.
She looks up above him to a muted TV. The newscast displays Vance’s speech as it happened, and in short order, the hail begins to tap the window. Chelsey’s bo sees where her attention is drawn and takes in the news as well.
Chelsey nods, stands up and kisses him on the forehead. She then spawns a sword built of mana, as well as a set of mana earmuffs around her head, and charges screaming out of the window that was about to burst from hail damage.
The boy pulls out a book and turns a page.
[Dawn’s headquarters: The roof, previously cracked open by Dawn’s Wavelength, is very visible as Ben makes his way inside. The building was already falling apart but now a broken pipe spills water gradually into the main room. Lights flicker as well. As Alkamine, he uses several gel sacs to create a slime ball that he remotely controls and rides ahead to just under the roof hole.
Empty pods stick out, each open and smoking. A pin pad next to them shows a green confirmation message. He makes his way over to it and, with one new gel sac, scrubs the pad.]
He looks at the rest of the room.
Snatch.
Darkstar steps out of the shadows ahead.
He looks up behind him to see the spitting image of Darkstar, in the same armor, right down to the helm.
He looks back to the talking Darkstar.
Alkamine remains perfectly still.
He steps up to Alkamine and reaches his hand out for Alkamine’s left, where he holds the gel sac with the fingerprint.
Darkstar hears a hissing, watching the acidity of the gel sac increase in Alkamine’s hand. The tall and sinister fallen star snaps his hand back to his side. Taken aback, he returns to his place farther away.
Darkstar nearly gives himself whiplash with the speed he twirls around to look Ben in the eye.
He pulls himself back.
He starts firing a continuous beam out of one hand at the Omnitrix.
Gradually, a ball of energy starts to grow around the Omnitrix.
He adds his other hand in to fire at Alkamine’s chin-mounted badge. Alkamine returns to shaking furiously.
Darkstar simply utters a positive grunt as the size of the energy blasts reaches a critical mass. Too large and too blinding for Alkamine to see out of, Darkstar stops firing. The Darkstar clone escapes the ball of light and grabs the real Darkstar. The clone’s feet then transform to add jet boots, with which the two vampires depart out of the hole in the ceiling once created by Dawn’s Wavelength.
The Omnitrix’s feedback finally gives way, bursting and destroying a sizeable portion of the room.
When the dust settles, much of the building is collapsed. Underneath the rubble, Alkamine is suspended, as if an object in gelatine, in the middle of a giant gel sac. He continues to grip in one hand the smaller sac with someone’s fingerprints on it. The building continues to try and push through the bigger sac Alkamine is, though, gradually making his position more tenuous.
To make matters worse, the Assault Omnitrix crackles.
The Omnitrix beeps.
The Omnitrix beeps.
It powers down.
The collapsing ceiling ruptures Alkamine’s containing sac.
From an outside perspective of the collapsed building, there is a bright green burst.
Part VI[]
[Just beyond Bellwood: Darkstar and his clone bot fly into an open manhole cover, deep into sewers, and finally arrive at a deep underground area. Things are thrown together, clearly impermanent. Dawn’s other bots are present, and in the room’s center are Dawn and Animo. Darkstar and his clone land in the corner, where the press of a button reverts the bot into a clone of the armored Dawn.]
Darkstar steps up to Dawn’s side to look around.
He sighs then straightens up. Looking ahead, he notices Animo’s movements, twirling in the air and moving his hands like he’s playing the piano.
[Close-up of Senator Vetteroy’s Regulator.
Pan out to a TV behind the checkout counter of Max’s Plumbing. Standing before the counter is Senator Vetteroy’s impatient assistant, staring scornfully at the screen. He mashes the bell. In that moment, Gwen, Kevin and Chelsey all enter the store as well, bickering. Gwen dispels with a mana covering, punctured several times over on the walk inside by the pounding hail.]
The assistant comes to the entrance and presses the phone against Kevin’s chest.
The assistant raises their phone up to a photo taken earlier.
He zooms into the eyes of the photo of the Wavelength-transformed Senator Vetteroy.
Chelsey eyes Kevin then Gwen.
Chelsey breathes a sigh of relief.
Having waited a moment for his response, Chelsey and Gwen glare at Kevin.
At that moment, XLR8 dashes into the store. He pauses and looks at everyone.
Everyone nods.
[Precinct 2: In the holding area, Max and the Mayor stand side by side, a couple cells down from where the Omega Squad are held.]
The mayor turns around.
The mayor eyes Max, darting her eyes between his before sighing and losing her upright posture. She drops her head into her palm.
Marie Rivera nods, shaking Max’s hand before he starts to make his way to the door.
The mayor sighs.
[In the lobby of Precinct 2, Max comes from the holding area. Ben as Alkamine is joined by Gwen, Kevin, Chelsey, and Vance Vetteroy’s assistant.]
Everyone nods.
He turns back to Max.
Max nods.
[Inside the holding room, the Mayor gets off the phone with her office and looks to the Omega Squad’s cells. Each is opened, with a trail of ink dripping from each padlock.]
[Bellwood City Hall, the upper floor room: Mayor Rivera’s office is guarded by his Secret Service who have still yet to receive the order to stop defending the demented Senator. Inside the room, the Wavelength form of Vance Vetteroy peers out of a window, admiring his work and blasting hail at any who attempt to approach the building.
Outside, the gang shows up and joins the police at a safe distance from the building. Vance blows open the window of Rivera’s office with a gust of wind. As the wind brushes past the gang, the air around them whistles in his voice.]
The police hold him back from entering unsafe ground. From his safe area, Vetteroy retreats into the room.
He rotates the Omnitrix to a slight right then slams it down, becoming XLR8.
Gwen elbows him.
XLR8 dashes through the lower level doors, up a flight of stairs, and stops before the two Secret Servicemen.
They open fire at him, forcing him to strafe through the bullet paths to snatch their handguns.
He races past them, smacking them unconscious. He slams right into the locked door, however. Unable to make his way through, he transforms into Alkamine and uses a gel sac to melt through the doorknob. He slaps the door open with his tail, but as soon as he does, Vetteroy, waiting on the other side, blasts him off of the upper floor railing with a mix of heavy winds and hail.
As he tries to get up, Vetteroy lunges from the upper floor onto Alkamine’s torso.
The front door at this point bursts open, with Gwen tossing a very weak mana blast at Vetteroy. Unfazed, he keeps a hold on Alkamine while raising a glass hand to blast hail at them. To save herself, she erects a wall, twirling with a mix of gymnastics and martial arts finesse as she hurls a stronger ball of energy at him. This time, it is enough to push him just slightly off of Ben’s transformation.
Kevin rushes over and picks the Jade Friboozell up, but Vetteroy takes a shot at Kevin. Gwen, unable to save him from her angle, attempts to get a better vantage point, but instead Chelsey, wearing a pair of mana-made earmuffs, protects him in summoning a trio of Stone Creatures.
She jumps on one of the Stone Creature’s backs and rides it forward into the fight.
[Outside, Max chats with the Chief Poe, who’s establishing a “DO NOT CROSS” line of police tape.]
One cop murmurs while another points to the roof of City Hall.
The Chief grabs a pair of binoculars, with which he’s able to clearly make out the Omega Squad. Mars creates a platform out of ink for them to jump down onto and make it into the open window to the mayor’s office.
[Inside the mayor’s office: Reggie whispers for everyone to halt as he taps the Plumber’s badge on his chest, linked to his phone.]
The sound of the phone on the other end getting shuffled around is heard.
Graca slaps her shoulder. Armando laughs.
Graca’s third and fourth arms unravel. Mars rolls her eyes as she backs up.
Reggie taps his badge, ringing out two beeps as the call ends.
He gestures with two fingers forward. The group proceeds out into the hallway, looking over the collapsed railing to the battle downstairs.
Chelsey rides on the back of a Stone Creature that runs on all fours. She has a spear, created with mana, in hand facing forward as she charges into Vetteroy.
Kevin makes a mad dash for Vetteroy while he’s distracted with Chelsey. Having successfully baited her, the Wavelength doppelganger blows a gust when she’s close that knocks her off of the rock monster. As he readjusts after, Kevin makes a metallic helmet that he places over Vetteroy’s head. He stops moving for a moment and stands upright.
Kevin is thrown onto the floor, the Senator tossing the cap off of himself. He prepares to blow a gust of wind, but Alkamine throws a gel sac onto his face, increasing the acidity solely to melt his fake mustache off while he runs over and picks up Kevin. In the meantime, Gwen lifts Chelsey in a bubble of mana out of her precarious spot in Vetteroy’s area.
A gust of wind blows Alkamine right onto Gwen.
Gwen is taken aback.
Alkamine throws gel sac after gel sac at Vetteroy’s Regulator, covering it completely.
[Dawn’s new sewer headquarters: Animo stops twisting about randomly.]
Part VII[]
Darkstar lifts his hand and nods.
[Bellwood City Hall, lower floor lobby: Alkamine tries to communicate with the Wavelength form of Vance Vetteroy. His Regulator is still encapsulated in gel sacs.]
Kevin gets up behind him and creates a metal casing gluing a foot to the floor.
Alkamine taps his Omnitrix to communicate with Max.
Alkamine gets no response, remembering his Omnitrix is out of commission beyond his three-transformation playlist. He begins to throw more sacs with one hand as the other mashes the badge to turn on. The sacs coagulate to create a giant bubble for the Senator.
Alkamine turns toward the entrance.
The four members of his team drop down from the upper floor, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room. Reggie elongates the tentacles on his body to pierce the gelatin container, as Graca embraces her full Tetramand powers and begins wailing on the Regulator.
Gwen and Chelsey, bewildered, begin tossing mana at them.
Kevin tries to draw Graca’s attention, forming massive metal fists to pound her head in. Before contacting her face, he ends up covered in ink. After wiping his face, he sees Mars – visibly resembling a fox – raising a small battalion of ink-based soldiers. They each chase after him.
Alkamine looks down to his Omnitrix intending to activate Scan Mode, but it’s still powered down.
Armando steps into the center of the room and clears his throat loudly. Everyone pauses to look at him.
His face quickly transforms into that of a Loboan, the four quadrants of his mouth peeling open to reveal the supersonic-supporting inner layers. His ensuing howls are so powerful, each and every individual ahead of him is launched into the walls. Chelsey is even flung out of the building, watching, as she flies, Graca successfully break the Regulator. With it, the hurricane within Vetteroy’s glass chamber breaks free.
Outside, Max runs to Chelsey’s aid, picking her head up.
Chelsey simply shakes her head before knocking out. Max looks up as the top of the building is destroyed. He turns to the band of police behind him.
Vance’s hurricane bursts through the front of the building, hurling members of Ben’s team in the meantime. The officers outside the building dash away. Max, not so eager to die, grabs an item from his utility belt that acts as a very short-range grappling hook. He uses it to get onto a lamp post, but uses the extra momentum to get a little farther down the street. All the while, he’s carrying Chelsey over his shoulder.
He looks back to the assistant, who upon saying that is gobbled up by the hurricane Vetteroy.
Max turns back to the hurricane to see a blue blur circling the thing over and over.
Another blue blur makes its way to Max from the opposite side of town. It stops in front of him to reveal another Kineceleran, the always welcome Magister Karin Frikton.
Karin sighs then dashes straight into the mayhem. She watches the hurricane briefly shrink in size but then explode back up to full height, now facing a different direction. Seeing this, she joins XLR8 in circling the drain so that they end up side-by-side.
XLR8 nods, leaving the hurricane’s epicenter with Karin to rejoin Gwen.
XLR8 nods, as Karin swiftly turns around to wipe her eye, then looks to Gwen.
He turns around to see Vetteroy’s size increased, and headed for a coastline in the distance.
A Plumber Humvee rolls up aside them, stopping in a close proximity to the hurricane. Stepping out are Molly Gunther and her esteemed squad. Following behind her are a number of other Humvees, all but one bringing battalions of Plumbers. XLR8 pumps a fist, while Gwen tries to get him to contain his excitement by holding him back.
A Tetramand, in a red Plumber suit with an orange streak diagonally across his torso, jumps into action. He gets extremely close to the hurricane, pulls his arms back and claps powerfully. The hurricane takes in the powerful winds, only speeding it up.
A garden variety of aliens and humans unleash what they can on the hurricane.
At one point, victory seems secure, but the ground around the hurricane up until the surrounding humvees begins to rumble. A ring of the ground sinks as the hurricane doubles down. The body of heavy winds looks shorter as it does this, and more so when again it pulses the ground, capturing a few Plumbers and flinging them.
She points to the sky.
The last of the Plumbers are gobbled up by the hurricane and thrown across town. Gwen catches some with bubbles of mana. One of them, Slaps, is carefully let down in front of Max.
Staring out to the epicenter of chaos, a lone Flourana stands their ground. Their wide-bodied stance roots them deeply into the ground. They infinitely extend their vine-like arms, wrapping around and around the hurricane, capturing and slowing it.
A close-up of the Plumber’s green armor. A badge of honor on his torso is addressed to “Pax.” After prolonged struggling, he is ripped from his roots, the hurricane picking up speed and again launching him into the distance. Gwen catches this Florauna as well and lowers them.
The final Humvee, which elected to take a position adjacent the Tennysons and Magister Frikton, lets out. Rather than Plumbers, however, out pour Eli, Aion, and three freshly minted Knights. Two of the newer knights wear matching Comedy and Tragedy-style golden masks. The other is maskless, revealing a very rounded girl’s face and pulled back blonde hair. Each of the newer three carries a shimmering pink sword.
Aion raises his glowing hands and converts the Knights’ weapons. The Comedy Knight's weapon becomes a long, sharpened sword. Next, Tragedy Knight's weapon becomes a wide shield. Finally, Blonde Knight's into a large mallet. Armed, they charge into Hurricane Vance.
The Comedy Knight steps up beyond the other two and clutches his blade valiantly. At that moment, something is hurled from the eye of the Splat! Tragedy Knight blocks it with his shield, shattering the egg on impact. Assorted debris spills out. As more eggs are spewed out, the Tragedy Knight blocks. In between shots, Comedy frantically sweeps his sword in the air, sending energy beams into the hurricane. Said energy beams are worthless.
XLR8 looks to the pair of time traveling Knights to his side. Aion continues magical gestures at his waist to power up his allies' weapons. Eli, standing to his side, merely fidgets with a set of keys.
He attempts to race over to the Knights to save them from their dangerous positioning, but mid-movement, Aion captures XLR8, from the neck down, in a box frozen in time.
XLR8 bites his tongue.
Aion rises into the air. He raises his hands back over his head.
Aion fires a beam out of his hands. As XLR8 is freed from his own shackles, Aion constructs a new time stasis around the hurricane, capturing the whole of it. The hurricane is halted in its place.
The box starts to break from the inside.
Aion leans deeper into his gestures, toughening his grip. Holes popping up along the box’s exterior are patched immediately. Within the box, though, Hurricane Vance begins to spin, though infinitely slower than before.
The newer holes the hurricane makes are patched more lazily, Aion covering them with duct tape-like inaccuracy.
The box finally breaks. With it, Aion drops from the sky, with Eli catching him.
Each of the Knights on the frontlines loses their weapons. They attempt to run from the engagement but are quickly engulfed by it. Before it throws them, XLR8 catches the Comedy Knight, races back to the group, and repeats for the other two.
With their safety set, the team prepares to make a new plan. But Dawn falls from the sky, transforming into Vertigo on the way down, tossing their downward momentum into a car that collapses. They land gracefully, while Darkstar is dropped onto the scene by a Dawndroid.
He races over to Dawn’s Vertigo. An inch away, Vertigo casts his momentum elsewhere, causing XLR8 to abruptly stop and, from a lack of control, fall over.
Vertigo cackles, as the transformation is incapable of direct speech. They revert to their suited disguise. Sticking out are green and purple glowing cracks emanating from their Omnitrix.
While XLR8 is pinned down, Dawn speaks.
XLR8 attempts a comeback but nothing comes out. Gwen, Chelsey and Max stand idly by behind them.
They point to Ben.
Dawn shrugs, fully understanding Darkstar is at fault.
XLR8 reverts to Alkamine.
He becomes his titanium-plated alien, bearing armor similar to but taller than Dawn’s.
Through the eye slits of his armor plating, the titanium alien contorts his brow-less eyes in confusion. He looks to the side of his hands to see a few rocks floating around his hands.
He raises both his hands up, commanding pillars of rock to rise out of the ground, perfectly surrounding Dawn in the process.
[Minutes have passed, and the continued destruction of Hurricane Vance has sped it up to the point of nearly reaching a coast. Ben, Dawn, Gwen, and Kevin – rejoining the group along the way – have closely followed the warpath.
A Will Harangue national newscast spins Hurricane Vance as the target of “political brainwashing” or “cloning” to ruin his reputation.
Gwen’s plan, spoken before they followed the hurricane, serves as narration as the group executes.]
Ben’s XLR8 zooms after Vance and twirls around him, beginning to reverse its course again.
Dawn’s Wildvine, rooting like Pax, wrapping around Vance. The hurricane doubles down again, shaking the ground and briefly throwing XLR8’s balance. Dawn holds on as best they can.
Dawn’s legs snap, unrooting, getting captured and thrown away. By controlling the direction of the hurricane back at Gwen and Kevin, the hurricane throws Dawn in their direction.
He creates a giant baseball glove, catching Dawn’s brown-rooted Wildvine, curling them up and throwing them back out.
Mid-air, Dawn becomes the titanium alien. They land before the hurricane, attempting to withstand the still-extreme winds.
Dawn holds their hands up, raising inch-high pillars around the hurricane before finally being whisked away, cracking pieces of their armor with flying debris.
As Dawn’s titanium alien is whisked up, XLR8, still running, grabs them and runs from Vance, breaking Dawn’s rock chains.
Dawn sighs, becoming XLR8 instead. Ben’s XLR8 helps them back to the ground so they can run in his place. Ben’s XLR8 then becomes the Titanium Alien.
As the titanium alien, Ben runs head first into the hurricane. Feet away, like Dawn was before him, he braces to be whisked away. He starts lifting the pillars further, but just before pulled up, he locks his feet to the ground by wrapping them in the earth itself. He’s rooted, like Pax and Dawn’s Wildvine before him. He finally raises the pillars of the earth, ignoring the seismic disruption beneath his feet.
The hurricane shrinks, as Dawn’s XLR8 backs off. Eventually, it fits into a 10-by-10 cube of rock.
Kevin sweeps Gwen and spins her around as they cheer together.
Ben’s Seismix detaches from the ground as Dawn’s XLR8 runs him back to Kevin and Gwen.
Seismix, Gwen and Kevin each look to Dawn’s XLR8.
Seismix gasps.
Seismix captures Dawn’s XLR8’s tail in rocks.
He taps his own badge to ensure the Omnitrix is still off, then nods.
It merely beeps twice.
They become Vertigo. They cast momentum from a distant car equally into Seismix, Gwen, and Kevin. Kevin catches Gwen in another mitt and Gwen catches the two of them in a bubble. Meanwhile, Seismix is unmoved, having strapped himself back in the ground. He again locks Dawn down, this time growing pillars of rock around Vertigo from their hovering waist-down.
Dawn’s Vertigo shrieks.
The Alphaline clicks in. Orange lines curve around the top and bottom regions of purple hourglass.
Dawn, flustered, becomes their blue-skinned gladiator Four Arms, punching through their rocky shackles.
It makes no sound.
He taps his powered-down Omnitrix.
Panicked, Dawn releases Seismix and leaps into the air, transforming into Starhavoc and dissipating in the process.
Gwen and Kevin make it close enough to him.
Seismix gulps.
Azmuth’s voice suddenly booms.
Azmuth teleports into the area, on a floating teleporter pad.
Gwen shrugs.
He hovers over to the Omnitrix and taps it.
Azmuth sighs heavily, pulling the Omnitrix apart for a brief moment and clicking a piece of a miniscule circuit board. He then puts the pieces back together and taps the Omnitrix’s face. It powers back on and reverts Ben to human.
He pulls back and teleports away.
The group looks over the earthy container of Vance as Plumbers arrive to extract him.
[Null Void Incarcecon: Vilgax enters the courtyard. Everyone immediately straightens out and quiets down. Malevolence, who only possesses one full arm, follows the towering squid alien.]
Vilgax and Malevolence move up to their usual table, where a group of new inmates sits, chatting. Everyone outside stares at them. Those sitting turn around.
With his one full arm, he slaps the inmate so hard he falls out of his seat. The other four there get up or crawl away to other tables. Vilgax and Malevolence fall into their seats.
Everyone returns to their chatter, keeping close eyes on the malicious pair.
Vilgax raises a harsh brow at him.
In the background, there is distant commotion – cheering by the courtyard entryway from inside the prison.
Vilgax smashes the table.
Vilgax turns and leans into Malevolence’s face. He scans his whole face, watching the purple-lined Mechamorph began to shake a bit.
Vilgax stands and turns around to see a wide-bodied Vaxasaurian male standing at the door, many surrounding him. He laughs with them. Vilgax stands up and walks over, beginning to hear chants of the dinosaur-esque alien’s name.
Vilgax shoves through them to reach the middle. Along the way, he hears rumblings about him.
Only further angered, he powerfully shoves a group out of his way, stopping at Jefe.
[Vilgax throws a punch at Jefe’s face. The crowd backs up in a circle distanced around the Chimeran and Vaxasaurian prisoners. As a battle begins, narration of Vilgax asking Malevolence about him is overlayed.]
Malevolence’s past galp can be heard.
Jefe, in the present, prepares to land a knockout blow on Vilgax in the present.
Jefe shakes his head and goes in for it, Vilgax attempting to counter but missing. As Jefe’s shot nears connection, Malevolence cuts in. He manages to contort and transform, creating a sword for Vilgax that cuts right into Jefe’s chest. The Vaxasaurian back peddles and falls down, pierced and holding his torso.
Guards spot this and rush over, taking Malevolence.
They slap another inhibitor on Malevolence, noticing the complete absence of his current one. They also attempt to take Vilgax, putting the blame for the final blow on him. He shakes them off, knowing full well they intend to do with him.
They keep attempting to capture him, as he walks into the prison, up the stairs and enters solitary confinement himself. The guards, perplexed, lock the cell and work on Jefe’s recovery and containing Malevolence.
[The Mother System: Scarogus’s enters an unlit room in the back of his small vessel. A feminine voice speaks out to him.]
Synopsis[]
Senator Vetteroy takes Bellwood by storm, as Ben Tennyson quarrels with the Plumber who "stole" his promotion.
Major Events[]
- Vance Vetteroy re-appears for the first time since the original series.
- Vance Vetteroy is merged with Wavelength's DNA.
- The titanium alien's name is revealed to be Seismix.
- After revealing Wavelength's species Transtella are the sentient cosmic storms capable of creating To'kustars, Azmuth disables Wavelength in the Ben's playlist.
- Ben activates the SDM on the Alphaline Omnitrix.
- More new members of the new Forever Knights/Second Gynurans debut.
Assault Omnitrix Alien Debuts[]
Alphaline Omnitrix Alien Debuts[]
- Wavelength (forcefully stolen from Ben)
- Wildvine
- Seismix (scanned from Ben)
Characters[]
- Ben Tennyson
- Max Tennyson
- Vance Vetteroy (first re-appearance; transformed into Hurricane Vance, imprisoned)
- Dawn
- Omega Squad (debut)
- Second Gynurans
- Eli Griswold
- Aion
- Cash/Comedy (past and present)
- JT/Tragedy (past and present)
- Selina
- Dr. Animo
- Darkstar
- Mayor Marie Rivera
- Chief of Police Francis J. Poe
- Kevin Levin
- Gwen Tennyson
- Chelsey Tennyson
- Vance Vetteroy's Assistant
- Chelsey's boyfriend (first appearance)
- Rook Blonko
- Plumbers
- Azmuth
- Molly Gunther
- Slaps
- Pax
- Jimmy Jones
- Will Harangue
- Frank Tennyson
- Mercedes Barnes
- Whitney Brist (uncredited, as "Caster")
- Gym Teacher (past)
- Officer Albright (minor)
- Eunice (brief)
- Mr. Enguells (brief)
- Vilgax (Endgame #1 only)
- Jefe (Endgame #1 only; first appearance)
- Malevolence (Endgame #1 only)
- Scarogus (Endgame #2 only)
- Mother (Endgame #2 only; voice only, debut)
Aliens Used (by Ben)[]
- Koldiak (first appearance)
- Streak
- Frisbit (x2)
- Brawnoceros (x2; second time: forced)
- Wavelength (forced, brief)
- Combustiball (brief, x2)
- Alkamine (x4; second time onward: Trion Lockdown Mode, fourth time: brief)
- XLR8 (x3; Trion Lockdown Mode)
- Seismix (x2)
Aliens Used (by Dawn)[]
- Streak (x3)
- Vertigo (x3)
- Wavelength (first use by Dawn; later disabled)
- Wildvine (first use by Dawn)
- Seismix (first use by Dawn)
- XLR8
- Starhavoc (brief)
Allusions[]
- The title originates from Cadillac Sky's song "Can't Trust the Weatherman."
Trivia[]
- The episode was tentatively titled Heir, focusing on Reginald Poe's ascension to Omega Squad leader. The character of Vance Vetteroy was added further in production, as an antagonist to test Poe's leadership.
- In the original run of the series, the Reginald Poe plot (albeit with the character under a different name) was part of the episode Skeleton Out of the Cupboard.
- The character Mr. Enguells last appeared in Ben 10: Race Against Time.
- Armando was originally named Rafael.
- SuMMO is heavily inspired by the 2016 video game Overwatch and the video game franchise Destiny.
- The personality and appearance of Vance Vetteroy's assistant is based on Erich Bergen's character Blake Moran in the 2014 TV series Madam Secretary.
- Mayor Marie Rivera is an Afro-Latino named after the late actor Naya Marie Rivera.
- Omniverse character Pax debuts as a Plumber.
- Following Madame Regle's transition to one-shot episodes, this was the first episode since then to be released part-by-part.
- Though not directly credited, Chelsey Tennyson claims in Plight of Pinocchio that Michael and Lindsay Tennyson were present amongst the Plumbers who took serious injuries in the initial fight against Hurricane Vance.
Voice Credits[]
- Given a voice actor, this Vance Vetteroy would be voiced by James Arnold Taylor in the vein of his role as G. Gordon Godfrey in the 2010 TV series Young Justice.
- Jefe is voiced by Ray Hurd in the same voice as My Hero Academia character Selkie.
Created by COLOR | |||
---|---|---|---|
Alien Universe (BTAU - BiA - SiC) - Clad in Darkness - Benjection - DC's Hero of Heroes |
Unique Aliens in Back in Action: Alien Universe | |||
---|---|---|---|
First used by Super Ben (Assault Omnitrix) | Obsorber - Nigester - Plastikitee - Anos - Streak - Bugbite - Muckslide - Autosassin - Ultimate Upchuck - Clinger - Healding - Alkamine - Brawnoceros - Combustiball - Cardstruct - Dreadsense - Frisbit - Koldiak - Plasmodic - Seismix - Wavelength - Warrock - Fetterwing - Suctionrupt | ||
Majestic Forms | TBD | ||
First used by Dawn (Alphaline Omnitrix) | Vertigo - Starhavoc - Slyt - Blankslate | ||
First used by Future Ben | Atomhammer - Ultimate Brainstorm |
Characters in Back in Action: Alien Universe | |||
---|---|---|---|
10 Squad | Ben Tennyson - Gwen Tennyson - Kevin Levin - Julie Yamamoto - Chelsey Tennyson - Max Tennyson - Cooper Daniels - Ken | ||
Villains | Future Ben - Thep Khufan Commander - Scarogus - Dawn - Vilgax - Albedo - Malevolence - Darkstar - Sii - Elena Validus - Dr. Animo - Cyanne - Mistress - Hurricane Vance - Project Inferno - Nightcaster II - Clancy - Metalink | ||
Supporting Characters | Professor Paradox - Azmuth - Charmcaster - Eunice - Verdona - Rex - Sir George | ||
Other Timelines/Possible Futures | Gwen 20 - Upgrade Ben - Altrazon - Jennifer-Mercedes Tennyson | ||
Groups | Second Gynurans (Eli Griswold - Aion) - Omega Squad - Plumbers (Karin Frikton - Io) - Thep Khufan Armada - Board of Galvan | ||
Others | Chili - Moira Yourouguaduan |