The familiar sensation of the Omnitrix timing out washed over Asher like a wave. One moment he stood as a towering alien warrior, the next he was back in his human form, teenage and ordinary. The green flash faded from his wrist, leaving only the circular device and its steady crimson glow.
Back to being just a kid.
Asher exhaled slowly and turned toward the restaurant's back entrance. Ben and Gwen were already there, having slipped through during the chaos while the police secured the area out front. The kitchen staff had wisely evacuated, leaving only Max waiting patiently near the walk-in freezer.
"Grandpa." Asher's voice came out tight with worry. "We've got a serious problem. Vilgax just rescued Dr. Animo."
Max's weathered face darkened instantly. "Dr. Animo? The geneticist who can mutate animals into giant monsters?"
"That's the one." Asher ran a hand through his hair, feeling the weight of what this meant settling on his shoulders. "One Vilgax is bad enough. Now we've got him teaming up with Dr. Animo, and Kevin's already on his ship. The number of enemies actively hunting us just tripled."
"The most troubling part isn't even that." Max's expression grew grim, his military training showing through. He'd faced down worse threats during his Plumber days, but that didn't make this any less dangerous. "Vilgax's behavior has changed. He's suddenly become active again, frequent operations, rescuing villains, building his forces. I think... I think he's preparing to come for us personally."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"Personally?" Asher felt ice crystallize in his gut.
Vilgax handling things himself was a completely different threat level than fighting his drones or hired mercenaries. The Chimera Sui Generis warlord wasn't just some punk villain playing at conquest. He was the real deal, a genuine intergalactic tyrant who'd conquered ten worlds and destroyed five others. The kind of monster that made entire civilizations surrender at the mention of his name.
"I'm not certain," Max admitted, "but something's changed in his tactics. These recent moves feel like he's laying groundwork for something bigger. Like he's clearing obstacles and gathering assets before making his real play." He fixed them each with a serious look. "Whatever happens, we need to stay sharp in the coming days. No one goes off alone. Understand?"
Ben had been unusually quiet, but now he spoke up, curiosity evident in his voice. "What does Vilgax even look like? I mean, he's supposed to be this big bad space tyrant, right? Is he like... fifty feet tall or something?"
Asher and Max exchanged glances. Ben still didn't really grasp what they were up against.
"Trust me," Asher said quietly, "you don't want to find out."
Outside, police cruisers blocked off the entire street, their lights painting the restaurant's walls in alternating red and blue. Officers were already taking statements from traumatized civilians and documenting the property damage. The place looked like a warzone, shattered windows, melted furniture, scorch marks on every surface.
The Tennysons slipped out through the kitchen's rear exit before anyone could rope them into hours of questioning. Max's RV, the beloved Rust Bucket, waited in the back alley where they'd parked it.
Once they were all safely inside, Max started the engine and pulled away from the chaos, heading for somewhere quieter to regroup and plan their next move.
As they drove off into the night, nobody noticed the small drone hovering three blocks away, its camera lens tracking their departure with cold mechanical precision.
Meanwhile, in Low Earth Orbit
Dr. Aloysius Animo sat perched awkwardly on top of a flying robot, his weathered hands gripping the machine's smooth carapace as it carried him steadily upward through the atmosphere. The robot was small, barely three feet across, but strong enough to lift him without strain.
Below, the restaurant and its surrounding neighborhood shrank to toy-sized insignificance. The blue-green curve of Earth stretched out beneath him, beautiful and serene in a way that made his current predicament seem even more surreal.
The sky around him darkened from blue to indigo to black. Stars began appearing, first a handful, then dozens, then thousands, more than he'd ever seen from the ground. The temperature plummeted. Frost began forming on his hippie-style sunglasses.
His lungs started burning.
"I... I said..." Animo gasped, fighting for air that wasn't there, "where are you... taking me? Can't... breathe..."
His chest felt like someone had wrapped steel bands around it and was slowly tightening them. Black spots danced across his vision. His fingers went numb.
This is it, he thought with a surge of panic. I didn't escape Ben's clutches just to suffocate in space! What kind of idiot rescues someone just to kill them?!
"You are entering Earth's upper atmosphere," came a deep, mechanical voice from the drone's speakers. The voice was synthesized but carried an undertone of genuine confusion. "The vacuum of space awaits beyond. Your biology cannot survive these conditions."
"No... kidding!" Animo wheezed. His face had turned an alarming shade of purple.
There was a pause, whether from processing delay or actual consideration, Animo couldn't tell.
"Descend. Descend immediately," the voice commanded. The drone tilted and dropped several dozen meters in seconds, carrying Animo back into breathable air.
Animo sucked in a desperate lungful of oxygen, coughing violently. "Thank you! Earth-based life forms require a little thing called oxygen to survive! Remember that for next time!"
"This presents a problem," the voice mused. "I require you functional for the proposed collaboration. Suffocating you would be... counterproductive."
"You think?" Animo's sarcasm cut through his gasping breaths.
"Wait. I will send another unit with appropriate life support equipment."
The drone maintained its current altitude while Animo hung there, shivering in the thin, frigid air. His legs dangled uselessly. At least he could breathe again, even if each breath burned his lungs.
Several minutes passed in uncomfortable silence before another drone approached from above. This one carried something that looked almost comically like a vintage diving helmet, clear material with built-in air supplies and communication equipment.
"Secure this to your head," the voice instructed. "It will provide necessary life support."
Animo fumbled with the helmet, eventually managing to seal it around his neck. Blessed, warm, oxygen-rich air flooded his lungs. The relief was almost overwhelming.
"Better?" the voice asked.
"Much." Animo adjusted his glasses under the helmet. "Now, shall we continue this little spacewalk before I freeze to death instead?"
"Proceeding to the designated location."
This time, the ascent was smooth and survivable. Animo watched in genuine awe as Earth fell away beneath him. The atmosphere's blue glow faded entirely, leaving only the stark black of space punctuated by distant stars. The sun blazed off to his left, a sphere of nuclear fire that could fit a million Earths inside it. Orbital debris floated past, glinting in the harsh unfiltered sunlight.
It was beautiful. Terrifying. Humbling.
For the first time in years, Dr. Aloysius Animo felt small.
And then he saw it.
The ship.
Vilgax's warship hung in the void like a mechanical nightmare given physical form. It was massive, easily three times the size of a naval aircraft carrier, bristling with weapons turrets and sensor arrays. The hull was dark crimson and black, angular and aggressive, designed to inspire fear in anything that saw it. Running lights traced patterns across its surface, giving it the appearance of some vast predatory creature lurking in the depths.
Animo's hippie glasses slid down his nose. His mouth fell open.
"My God," he whispered.
So this was what real power looked like. Not his little basement laboratory and collection of mutated animals. Not even his greatest creations could compare to this. This was the kind of power that reshaped worlds. That conquered civilizations.
That made someone like Ben Tennyson look like an annoying insect.
Asher, Animo thought with dark satisfaction, you have absolutely no idea what you've gotten yourself into.
The drone carried him toward the ship's ventral hangar. Massive doors irised open, revealing a cavernous bay filled with hundreds, no, thousands, of robots identical to his carrier drone. They moved with perfect coordination, maintaining the ship's systems, performing diagnostics, loading munitions. Every single one of them working in synchronized silence.
No crew. No organic beings visible anywhere.
Just machines. An army of machines serving a master who clearly couldn't rely on traditional soldiers.
The drone carried Animo through twisting corridors, past rooms filled with technology he couldn't even begin to understand. Holographic displays showed tactical information in alien scripts. Energy weapons lined the walls. Advanced manufacturing facilities churned out more drones in assembly lines that would make any Earth factory look primitive by comparison.
Finally, they entered what could only be described as the command center.
The room was enormous, high ceilings, wide open spaces, dominated by a central raised platform surrounded by computer terminals and viewscreens. Starlight streamed through massive reinforced viewports, casting everything in pale silvery illumination.
And standing at the room's center, backlit by the distant stars, was him.
Vilgax.
Animo's breath caught in his throat.
The creature was huge, easily twelve feet tall, perhaps more. Powerfully built, with thick slabs of muscle visible beneath what looked like tactical armor integrated directly into his skin. His head bore tentacles where a beard might be on a human, writhing slowly with their own unsettling life. His skin was a sickly pale green, marked with scars that suggested countless battles.
But his eyes...
Vilgax's eyes burned with scarlet light, not metaphorically, but literally glowing red in the dimness. They fixed on Animo with an intensity that made the scientist want to crawl into a hole and die.
This wasn't just dangerous. This was apocalyptic.
Every instinct Animo possessed screamed at him to run, to hide, to do anything except stand before this walking nightmare. His body actually trembled, an involuntary physical response to being in the presence of something that could casually exterminate him without effort.
The drone gently lowered Animo to the deck. His legs nearly buckled when his feet touched solid ground.
"The first time we meet..." Vilgax's voice was a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate through Animo's entire skeleton. Even speaking quietly, the warlord radiated menace like nuclear radiation. "My name is Vilgax."
"D-Dr..." Animo's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Dr. Aloysius Animo."
Vilgax moved closer, not quickly, but with deliberate, measured steps that made his sheer size even more apparent. Standing this close, Animo barely reached the alien's chest. He felt like a child standing before an angry parent, except this "parent" could crush his skull like a grape.
"I understand you have questions," Vilgax said. His tone was surprisingly... reasonable? Almost diplomatic? Which somehow made him even more terrifying. A mindless monster you could predict. An intelligent monster was infinitely worse. "I have considerable time available. You may ask whatever concerns you, it will facilitate our future cooperation if you understand the situation fully."
Animo swallowed hard. His mouth felt like sandpaper. "I... okay. Let me ask then..."
Over the next several minutes, he posed question after question. Where was he? Who was Vilgax? Why rescue him? What did this ship do? How had he tracked the Tennysons? What exactly did he want with that watch Ben wore?
Vilgax answered each question with patient thoroughness. He explained his history with Max Tennyson, how the Plumber had been one of the few beings to ever defeat him in combat. He detailed his quest for the Omnitrix, that device the Tennysons guarded so carefully, and what it could do. He described his ship's capabilities, his drone army, his resources.
By the time the explanation finished, Animo's mind reeled with implications.
The Omnitrix wasn't just some alien gadget. It was the single most powerful weapon in the known universe, a device that could transform its wielder into any species in the galactic database, granting them all the powers and abilities of that race. With it, someone could become literally unstoppable. An army of one.
No wonder Vilgax wanted it.
And Ben Tennyson, that obnoxious little brat who'd repeatedly humiliated Animo, currently possessed it.
Animo felt a slow, cold smile spreading across his face.
"So let me make sure I understand correctly," he said, his confidence returning now that the initial terror had faded. "Asher and his family have been actively thwarting your plans to acquire the Omnitrix. They've destroyed your drones, defeated your agents, and generally made themselves a persistent nuisance."
"Correct." Vilgax's eyes narrowed slightly. "They will be dealt with."
"And when you do deal with them..." Animo couldn't keep the satisfaction from his voice. "When you finally crush those meddling children and take what's rightfully yours... Asher won't be getting back up. He won't be interfering in anyone's plans ever again."
"He will not survive the encounter," Vilgax confirmed flatly. "I do not believe in leaving loose ends."
Animo's smile widened into something genuinely cruel. "Then I have excellent news for you, my large friend. You've just made a very enthusiastic ally."
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
That punk kid had made Animo's life hell for weeks, destroying his experiments, ruining his plans, humiliating him in front of the entire scientific community. The brat had even forced him to rebuild his Transmodulator from scratch twice.
But now? Now Asher would learn what it meant to make a true enemy. Now he'd face something his little alien watch tricks couldn't defeat. Now he'd experience real fear before the end.
Vilgax regarded him with those burning crimson eyes, completely unmoved by the display of vindictive glee. "So. Do we have an arrangement, Dr. Animo?"
Animo didn't even need to think about it.
"Oh yes," he purred, adjusting his glasses with one finger. "We most certainly do."