[Mastery Progress: 2/100—Unlocking Template: Glitched Zs'Skayr]
A glint of dark satisfaction flickered in Tyler's eyes. His smile, even in his human form, felt slightly more jagged. I can even access Zs'Skayr? As expected of the Carnitrix.
This was the ultimate edge. The original Carnitrix was a failure of design—a weapon that broke its host. But under the System's control, Tyler could do what the original device couldn't: he could wield the nightmare without being consumed by it.
System, Tyler prompted mentally, I recall that Carnitrix aliens are usually 'unstable' or weaker than the Prime versions because of the corrupted DNA. Is this Ghostfreak template also a downgrade?
[Negative,] the System replied with a cold, mechanical bite. [The Glitched Zs'Skayr is an anomaly.]
"Is it just as strong as the original?"
[The Glitched Zs'Skayr is superior.]
Tyler felt a cold shiver of anticipation. He suppressed the urge to transform immediately and turned his attention to the unconscious boy at his feet.
Ben began to groan, his eyelids fluttering open. The first thing he saw was Tyler's face leaning over him in the moonlight. Memories of the bladed, toothy monster flooded back.
"AH!" Ben shrieked, his eyes rolling back. He was a second away from passing out again. To Ben, the creature he'd seen was scarier than Zombozo the Clown.
"Ben, stop," Tyler said, his voice firm. "You have three seconds to get up, or I'm going into the Rustbucket to find your ultra-rare Sumo Slammer gold cards. I'll tear them up, and then I'll use your game controller with hands covered in nacho cheese dust."
Ben's eyes snapped wide open. He scrambled to his feet, a flickering aura of heat surrounding him. "You monster," he muttered, his voice trembling but determined. "I will never let you touch my two-dimensional brothers! The Sumo Slammers are sacred!"
Bleep—Bleep!
A synchronized chime echoed through the clearing. Two flashes of light erupted—one a brilliant emerald, the other a sickly, bruised crimson. As the light faded, the two boys stood in their human forms.
"I told you it was me," Tyler said, sighing as he wiped soot from his shirt.
"Man..." Ben took a deep breath, looking at Tyler with a mix of awe and genuine dread. "Your alien isn't a hero, Tyler. It's like some kind of... Demon Lord."
"Let's just get back to camp," Tyler said, leading the way. "We need to tell Grandpa Max. And Ben? Keep your eyes peeled. Things are about to get a lot more crowded."
At the campsite, the crackle of the fire was the only sound as Max and Gwen listened to Ben's frantic retelling of the night's events.
"And then he turned into this... this black-and-blue nightmare! I thought I was dead! I thought he'd eaten Tyler!" Ben wiped cold sweat from his forehead, his hands still shaking.
Gwen rolled her eyes, her arms crossed. "Honestly, Ben. You and Tyler go for a walk and come back with stories about 'Demon Lords' and 'Alien Watches'? Your imagination is officially a hazard." She looked at their wrists. "Those toys look cool, sure, but if there's a 'Demon Lord' out there, I'd like to see it."
"Be careful what you wish for, Gwen," Ben snapped back. "You'll wet your seat."
Max Tennyson sat silently, his gaze fixed on Tyler. His eyes, usually warm and grandfatherly, were sharp with a hidden, seasoned intensity. Did my grandsons really just stumble into Azmuth's legacy? he wondered. He looked at Tyler's device—the jagged, obsidian Carnitrix. But what in the world is that dark thing?
"It just... looks a little unfriendly, Grandpa," Tyler offered with an awkward shrug.
"I'll show you!" Ben shouted, frustrated by Gwen's skepticism. The Omnitrix had finished its recharge cycle. He dialed the faceplate, the green silhouette of a lithe, fast alien appearing. "I'll transform right now!"
"Hey Ben," Tyler interrupted, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Why don't you turn into the one I used?"
"Fine! You call him XLR8? Well, yours is definitely a Terror-Wheel." Ben slammed the dial down.
In a flash of green, a sleek, blue-and-black Kineceleran stood by the fire. He looked heroic, fast, and entirely non-threatening. He gave Gwen a smug thumbs-up.
"Okay... so you're a lizard on wheels," Gwen said, though her voice betrayed a hint of genuine shock. "I guess you weren't lying about the watch."
But her curiosity shifted to Tyler. If Ben's alien looked like that... what did Tyler's look like?
Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.
The night sky was suddenly cut by the hum of high-velocity engines. Five crimson infrared beams dropped from the clouds, pinning the group to the dirt. Max, moving with a speed that defied his age, tackled Gwen and Tyler to the ground.
"Get down!" Max roared.
Ben looked up. The stars were gone, obscured by five octopus-like Drone Sentinels. Their mechanical eyes glowed red as they scanned the area.
"Omnitrix signal detected!" the lead drone chirped in a cold, synthesized voice.
"Hey, scrap-heaps!" Ben shouted, sliding his mask into place. "You're trespassing!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The drones didn't negotiate. Red laser bolts tore into the earth, sending geysers of dirt and fire into the air. Ben began to weave through the trees, a blue blur of speed, but the sheer volume of fire was pinning him down.
"Ben, move aside," Tyler said. He stood up calmly in the center of the crossfire.
He didn't look at the drones. He looked at the Carnitrix. He dialed it to the silhouette of a hooded ghost and slammed it home.
The drones stopped. Their sensors whirred in confusion.
Warning: Dual Omnitrix signatures detected. Secondary signature—Energy output: ERROR. Level: Catastrophic.
"You wanted to see it, Gwen?" Tyler's voice was already changing, becoming a hollow, echoing rasp.
The red light didn't just flash—it bled outward like a shockwave. A massive, two-meter-tall Ghostfreak materialized, floating above the dying campfire.
This wasn't the grey, wispy alien from the show. This was a nightmare of biology. His chest was a jagged, open wound, held apart by more than a dozen twitching, blood-red tentacles and bone-white spikes. His head was inverted, his single eye tracking the drones with a predatory hunger.
He looked like a Cthulhu-born deity of death.
"Gwen... Grandpa... it's fine," the monster croaked, his skull rotating 180 degrees with a sickening crack.
Gwen stared up at the horror that used to be her cousin's friend. Her breath hitched. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into the dirt, out cold.
Max picked up Gwen, his face pale. He looked at the creature—the "Demon God" Tyler had become—and simply nodded toward the drones. "Tyler... end them."
Tyler turned his inverted gaze toward the Sentinels. In his eyes, the high-tech killing machines weren't a threat.
They were just scrap metal waiting to be forged.