Location: Arizona – Outskirts of Quartzsite
10:14 AM
The sky was cloudless, a piercing blue that stretched endlessly over a flat expanse of desert rock and brush. The Rustbucket hummed down a rarely used dirt road, its tires bouncing over dips in the terrain. Inside, the mood was unusually quiet.
Ben, slouched in his seat, twirled a wrench in his fingers. "So let me get this straight. There's been five different tech-related incidents in the past three days?"
Max nodded from the driver's seat, scanning his portable Plumber readout. "Each one involved minor power failures, electrical anomalies, and strange sightings."
Gwen added from her spot, flipping through notes. "And each time, someone swore they saw something skittering through the power lines."
Ben perked up. "Skittering. As in… spiders?"
Max gave a grave nod. "It's a theory. One that reminds me of an old foe."
Ben's eyes widened. "No way. You don't think—?"
Gwen groaned. "Please don't say it."
Max pulled the Rustbucket to a stop just outside what looked like an abandoned power station. "Only one way to find out."
Location: Desert Electrical Substation Z9-B
11:01 AM
The trio approached the chain-link fence. Warning signs lined the perimeter, but the gate was left slightly ajar.
"Subtle," Gwen muttered.
Ben rolled his shoulders and stepped inside first. "Well, if anyone's home, they're not great at hiding."
The air buzzed faintly with static, the kind of prickle that lifted the hairs on your arms. Loose wires dangled from broken consoles. A faint, rhythmic clicking echoed through the complex.
Gwen scanned the surroundings with her modified Plumber tech. "I'm picking up residual electromagnetic energy... but it's not stable. It's pulsing like sonar."
Ben frowned. "Sonar? You think something's mapping the area?"
"Not the area," Max said, squinting at a tall transformer tower in the distance. "Us."
That's when they heard it.
A screech — high-pitched and inhuman — from overhead.
They turned just in time to see a spindly, metallic shape crawl along the underside of a power line like an arachnid. Gleaming red eyes glared down from a sleek, semi-transparent body.
Ben's jaw dropped. "Oh no. Not him."
A voice echoed down, staticky and cold:
"Tennyson... upgrade... terminated... power... repurposed."
Gwen gasped. "It's... Megawatt?"
Ben shook his head slowly. "No. Worse."
Max grunted. "That's Upgrade's old enemy—Hexbyte. He's a technovore parasite from Galvan B. He's evolved... merged with other tech. A digital predator."
Hexbyte's limbs stretched, forming needle-like arms that stabbed into a transformer. Electricity surged as his form expanded, the structure around him groaning under the load.
"Target... power... Ben Tennyson... replication required..."
Action Sequence:
Ben slammed the Omnitrix dial. "Alright, wire-brain. You want to copy me? Copy this."
Flash of green.
Upgrade emerged in a blur of liquid tech. His form instantly slid into a nearby console and jumped across circuits.
Inside the system, the world was a nightmare of code and wire—Hexbyte's domain. Binary tendrils lashed out at Ben as he tried to navigate the corrupted network.
Back outside, Gwen tossed an EMP grenade toward the transformer. "Ben said he trapped Echo in a data loop—maybe this'll help!"
BOOM. A wave of static rocked the station. Hexbyte reeled, his body convulsing as portions of his form destabilized.
Inside the network, Ben seized the moment. He tackled the core consciousness of Hexbyte, uploading a corrupt sequence directly into its code. "Let's see how you like a virus."
Hexbyte screamed.
In a flash, Ben ejected from the system—reverting to human just as Hexbyte's body crumbled into inert metal scraps, twitching.
Aftermath – Substation Z9-B
12:25 PM
Max collected samples of the metallic remains while Gwen pulled logs from the substation's computers.
Ben leaned against the Rustbucket, catching his breath. "That guy was worse than Zombozo. At least Zombozo has a mouth."
Gwen held up a corrupted log file. "He wasn't just trying to copy your powers. He was hunting specific energy signatures."
Max turned. "Like the Feartrix?"
Ben blinked. "Wait, you think Hexbyte was after Sharim's signal?"
"No," Gwen said, pointing to the data. "He didn't find it. But he was scanning for something... older."
Max looked uneasy. "Something buried deeper in Earth's grid... maybe predating even the Plumber installations."
Ben folded his arms. "So we've got one freakshow crawling out of the past after another… and they're all sniffing around the same scent."
Gwen nodded. "A scent none of them can place. But they all feel it."
Ben clenched his fist. "Sharim's alive. I know it."
Max put a hand on Ben's shoulder. "Let's keep moving. The pattern's becoming clearer."
Elsewhere – Uncharted Cavern Network – Deep Below Earth
Unknown Time
A faint flickering light pulsed in a massive chamber of obsidian stone. Ancient conduits ran through the walls, humming low with dormant power.
A figure stood in the center of the chamber—shrouded in darkness, barely humanoid, yet unmistakably familiar.
Sharim.
His breathing was shallow. The Spacetrix on his wrist had changed. Where once it pulsed with vibrant blue-white energy, now it glowed dull crimson.
He looked up at a massive stone carving—half-machine, half-myth.
The Fear Relic.
It called to him in pulses, ancient and steady, like a heartbeat echoing through time.
Sharim's hand twitched.
His voice was ragged.
"I am not afraid."
The Feartrix hummed in defiance.
Yes you are.
Back on Earth – That Night – Rest Stop Outside Tucson
8:19 PM
The Rustbucket was parked in the lot of a dusty rest stop. Inside, Gwen and Ben sat at the small table, piecing together a map from scribbled notes, scanner readings, and Plumber transmissions.
Max stood outside, sipping coffee and watching the stars.
"Three attacks," Gwen murmured. "All with a different angle. Fear. Echo. Power drain."
Ben nodded. "Different methods… same goal?"
Gwen tapped the center of the map—a wide zone near Death Valley.
"We're heading here next. Something's broadcasting… something."
Ben looked at her. "You think it's him?"
"I don't know," Gwen said honestly. "But I think he's trying to reach us."
Ben stared out the window, the Omnitrix dim on his wrist.
Somewhere in the dark, something stirred.