"Mouth-to-mouth? With her? Give me some credit, Ben."
Tyler looked at Gwen with mock disdain, then glanced back at Ben. "Besides, if I really wanted to wake her up, I'd transform into something with massive lung capacity and just... blow. She'd be awake in a second. Or deaf."
"Ugh, I'm fine!"
Gwen's eyes snapped open. She scrambled backward, putting distance between herself and Tyler while looking at him with lingering dread. "You're human again? Good. Stay that way. Don't come anywhere near me with that... that thing on your wrist."
"I knew you were faking it," Tyler said, rolling his eyes. He'd only said it to flush her out; she'd been terrified of opening her eyes and seeing a nightmare staring back.
"It's still that watch," Gwen muttered, her face flushing as she realized she'd been caught. She felt like a fool, especially in front of Ben.
"Actually," Ben said, uncharacteristically serious. "I'm with Gwen on this one. That ghost thing was... a lot."
"Alright, enough," Max interrupted, his voice heavy. He pulled the group into a huddle. "We can't afford to be careless. Those mechanical freaks weren't a one-time thing. They're hunting those watches, and they'll be back."
Tyler clenched his fists, feeling the new, dense power in his muscles. "Don't worry, Grandpa. Ben and I are ready."
"If those scrap-piles show up again, I'm turning them into soda cans," Ben vowed. "I mean, how scary can they be? They're just metal. They aren't nearly as creepy as Tyler's aliens."
Max gave Ben a look of speechless concern before standing up. "Fine. Then let's get some food in you. A high-protein, survivalist feast!"
Minutes later, Max presented a bucket of wriggling, off-white beetle larvae.
"You've got to be kidding me," Ben gagged.
"Tyler, tell me we have actual food in the RV," Gwen pleaded, huddling closer to Tyler in shared horror.
"Don't worry," Tyler said calmly. He walked to the Rustbucket, grabbed a heavy-duty roasting pan, and set it over the embers of the fire. He tossed the larvae on the heat, seasoned them with a bit of dry rub from the pantry, and began searing them until they smelled like charred steak.
"Wait... that actually smells incredible," Ben said, his nose twitching.
"Everything's better roasted," Tyler replied, taking the first bite. The others quickly joined in, a small but necessary moment of normalcy in a world that had gone insane.
After dinner, as Max was cleaning up, Tyler sat by the Rustbucket's radio, scanning the frequencies. In the original timeline, this was when the distress call should have come in.
"Tyler? Look," Gwen said, standing by the open door and pointing toward the horizon.
A thick, oily column of black smoke was billowing into the night sky from a few miles away.
"Something's wrong. Everyone in the car! Buckle up!" Max yelled, slamming the back doors shut and diving into the driver's seat.
"Yeah! Hero time!" Ben shouted, but the excitement was tempered by the sight of the fire. The Rustbucket roared to life, tearing through the forest paths toward the source of the smoke.
They crested a hill and the campsite came into view. It was a war zone.
A massive, ten-meter-tall robot was stomping through the burning ruins. Its orange-red armor glowed in the firelight. It raised a mechanical claw, and a high-intensity laser cannon incinerated a nearby SUV.
On the other side of the clearing, a second Titan Drone was wantonly crushing tents and leveling the park's facilities. There were no distress calls because there was no one left to make them. The destruction was total.
"Vilgax," Max hissed, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "He doesn't care who he kills to get those watches."
"Ben, let's go," Tyler said, patting Ben's shoulder. Ben was frozen in a mix of shock and fury.
They stepped out of the Rustbucket. The cold wind bit at their faces, but Tyler felt a burning heat under his skin.
"Tyler, how do we stop those things?" Ben asked, looking up at the metal giants.
"We don't just stop them," Tyler said, raising the Carnitrix. On the jagged display, the silhouette of a Petrosapien was pulsing. "We crush them."
"Right. Hero time," Ben growled, his voice dropping all pretense of playfulness.
They slammed their watches simultaneously.
A flash of green and a burst of blood-red collided in the center of the clearing. Ben transformed into the classic Diamondhead—a muscular, crystalline warrior in a black-and-white suit, sleek and focused.
Tyler, however, was a vision of geological violence. He was taller than Ben, his crystalline body a deeper, bruised teal. His face was dominated by hollow, deep-red sockets with glowing golden pupils. Jagged, obsidian-sharp spikes erupted from his shoulders and back like a hedgehog made of glass.
His muscles were corded and thick—the "Peak Human" buff from the system had translated into a massive increase in his alien form's power.
"I'll call mine Diamondhead," Ben said, eyeing Tyler's form. "Yours... that's a Crystal Reaver if I've ever seen one."
The Titan Drones suddenly halted. Their sensors swiveled, focusing entirely on the two new energy signatures.
Warning: High-level Petrosapien signature detected. Threat Level: Severe.
The few survivors hiding in the shadows looked up with hope, but the moment their eyes fell on Tyler, that hope turned to sheer terror.
"Oh god," one man whispered, trembling as he looked at the Crystal Reaver's predatory face. "The machines were bad... but the Demon King is here to finish us off."