Episode 2 (1)
Arthur turned to Aelita and asked, "How's that? Can you tell me what sort of effects this will have?"
Aelita had no expression as she informed Arthur, "Thirty-seven-years-ago, the first mutant appeared named Charlie Xavier. Since then, the mutant population has been slowly growing with the meta-gene making itself known as part of an individual's puberty or through some sort of trauma-induced trigger."
"Wait," Arthur paused, "'Charlie Xavier', but I wrote 'Charles Xavier'."
"You have also specified that - in effect - only women are born as mutants."
"So anyone I put in with mutant powers will be gender-bent without me having to specify that? Cool. What about people who gain powers or something like…alien-human hybrids?"
"I am unsure how to specify the former. The current stat of reality connects superpowers to the meta-gene with both exclusively affecting women. If it is an acquired item or learned skill, then it should not have any influence over individual's gender. As for the latter, while mutants can be born from such a union and will be born female, the prospect of being part human and part not will have no bearing on the child's sex."
"Got it. Please continue."
"Aliens rarely visit the planet Earth as it is regarded as out of the way and underdeveloped."
"At some point Azmuth hid away in seclusion. Meanwhile, Xylene would retaliate against Vilgax's attack while she was transporting the Omnitrix and succeed in gravely injuring him - rendering him out of commission for the time being."
"There is no real change to the Possible family save for their inclination toward high levels of aptitude for various and specific fields being confirmed as an innate genetic trait and the predisposition to marry others with such talents. Conversely, the Tennyson family will experience an almost unusual improvement in physicality and predisposition toward marrying those of similar robustness. However, this will come at the cost of your father's passing causing greater strife as disease itself becomes a rarity in the family."
"Aside from the feedback this will have on you, Gwen, and Max, any other changes to your group should be self-explanatory. So too would be the addition of the cities of Gotham and Metropolis and the inclusion of their heroes Bruce Wayne, Batman and Clark Kent, Superman. Although, to accommodate the inclusion of these cities, the dimensions of the earth have been adjusted slightly."
"Your inclusion of the Kryptonian race has also affected nothing and reality has decided to date their destruction as preceding the creation of the Omnitrix. As such, they are not contained within its database."
"Finally, your altering the existence of women to grow prettier with age has had a small, but significant affect on individuals with your inclusion of a scale to grade beauty acting as a sort of sliding scale with which to adjust people's appearances."
"Sounds good," Arthur said happily. "All that's left is to get episode two started." He then looked to the Notebook before adding:
Technology has been developing rapidly.
Rapid scientific development kickstarts super-science.
The first super-scientist is Animo.
Aloysius Animo invents the transmodulator.
Washington B.C. begins with Animo.
Closing the Notebook, Arthur looked to Aelita. "I used the name of the episode, that should be good enough to get it started, right?"
Aelita gave a small nod in response.
"Good," Arthur sighed before turning to return to the Rustbucket.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The night was uneventful. The only thing to be said was Arthur taking advantage of the somewhat snug fit of both him and Kim in one bed to get close to her. He woke up the next morning finding he slept rather comfortably with someone beside him.
Once everyone was out of bed, they took turns either eating breakfast or using the bathroom. Gwen was further confused when she and Kim argued about going first only for Arthur to suggest letting her go today and Kim tomorrow. Though pouting at her best friend not taking her side, Kim agreed to the arrangement with him and Max going last.
It was when his turn to use the bathroom came that Arthur was able to look himself over in surprise. Despite his small size, his physique was anything but that of a child - possessing clear muscle definition. He looked even more like a tiny, youthful adult than before.
After exiting the bathroom, Arthur decided to look Gwen over for similar such changes. He quickly noticed that she seemed slightly more physically fit than before. He also could not quite put his finger on it but he thought she seemed cuter as well.
Similarly, Kim seemed somewhat cuter than before.
Arthur did not notice any similar changes in Max but decided it did not matter. It could be an affect of the man's age or perhaps a case of 'muscle disguised as fat' that was a characteristic of some anime characters…and possibly sumo wrestlers.
Now, on the road again and traversing the last few miles to get to Washington D.C., Arthur had the Notebook open while contemplating how to 'accidentally' discover the power of the Omnitrix or for any other potential plot ideas to start early.
Duel Monsters was invented 1990.
Maximillion Pegasus created Duel Monsters.
Pokémon exist in hidden Regions.
Kanto Region exists near Japan.
Johto Region neighbors Kanto Region.
Hoenn boarders Kanto and Johto.
The government keep Pokémon secret.
Holding his pen in his mouth, Arthur debated how to go about discovering the Omnitrix's power. "That would work, but I don't have any explanation for how the Omnitrix would get activated. I could do it, but that leaves the explanation for how I did it…"
Having the seat to himself, Arthur leaned back as he internally complained, "It's not like I can have it suddenly activate on its own and turn me into…I don't know…the least dangerous I can think of is Gray Matter."
Suddenly, there was a burst of green light that nearly blinded Gwen.
Startled by the light and noise in back, Max pulled over. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he got up to check on his grandchildren and Kim. "What happened, are you kids okay?"
"Yeah, Grandpa," Gwen said standing up and rubbing her eyes. "Ben just…"
Gwen turned to look at her cousin but froze.
Kim had been reading a magazine in bed and had come to see what had happened but was similarly frozen in shock.
Max was no different.
In place of Arthur's brown hair and two-colored eyes was a small, humanoid creature about the size of a frog with gray skin, large head, large - almost bulbous - green and blue eyes, and four elongated digits on its hands and feet. It was dressed in a white long-sleeved jumpsuit with a thick, vertical black line through the middle. On the creature's back was a round disk with a green hourglass icon on it.
While the others looked on in disbelief, the creature - Arthur - demonstrated similar shock. He had intended to feign surprise and fear when 'discovering' the Omnitrix's power, but the sudden and inexplicable transformation made his reaction more genuine. "What just happened? I wasn't even messing with it. What? Does just thinking about…Master Control. It doesn't just give me access to the full database, it also includes a mental-command quick-change feature…Forgot about that."
"Ben," Kim asked as she approached the creature.
Giving a nervous laugh, Arthur replied, "Hey KP. You're looking taller than usual…"
"Yeah, I bet."
"What the heck happened to you Ben," Gwen asked in panic.
Crossing his arms, Max looked down at Arthur. "I think we need to have a talk about that watch you found. It wasn't from a thrift store, was it?"
"Okay, Grandpa," Arthur said lowering his head. However, he had begun to recover from his shock and feigned his disappointment. "Um, Kim, do you think you could help me onto the table so I can see everyone better?"
Kim did as asked and stepped forward to pick up the diminutive creature and gently sat him on the table.
Max, Kim, and Gwen then took a seat around the table.
Gwen eyed Arthur's current form before smirking. "You know, this might actually be an improvement."
"Har, har," Arthur said.
"Stop it you two," Max chastised. "This isn't the time."
"Sorry Grandpa," the cousins said.
"Now, Ben, I'd like an explanation."
Arthur began to tell them about how he had coincidentally saw a shooting star while on his nature walk the other night when it suddenly turned toward him. It almost crushed him but he managed to duck out of the way. He went to check it out only to find it was some sort of pod. Inside was a strange watch that latched onto his wrist and would not come off. He was too scared to do or say anything about it. But, he'd calmed down and figured he'd try to get it off. Then, this happened.
Although Gwen could have noticed the falsehood of how Arthur was not messing with the Omnitrix, she naturally believed his words and assumed she simply had not noticed - not that she was watching him to begin with but still.
Arthur made sure to tell his story slowly and drag it out. He wanted to keep some things quiet and - using the advance intellect of his Galvin form - counted.
Once Arthur had finished his tale, Max leaned back. "While I don't appreciate you lying to me, I understand why you did."
"As if you weren't weird enough already," Gwen said.
"You don't have to be rude about it," Kim argued.
"I'm just saying," Gwen countered. "How's he supposed to do anything like that?"
Kim looked to Arthur and picked him up to his surprise. "Do you think he'll be stuck this way?"
Sitting in Kim's cupped hands, Arthur thought, "Eh, close enough."
Then, there was another flash of green light and Arthur returned to normal. Unfortunately, he did not plan this out as his sudden change in size and his position caused him to fall forward onto Kim and the two tumbled out of her seat onto the ground.
Max winced from the pain the two kids likely felt. He then said, "Well, that answers that question I guess."
Gwen rested her head on her hand with her elbow on the table. "So now we just have to deal with you having some weird watch that turns you into a freaky monster."
"That wasn't a monster," Max corrected. "It was an alien."
"And, how do you know that," Kim asked as Arthur got off of her and helped her to get back up.
"Well," Max hurried to excuse. "That watch came from space; what else could he be?"
As Max hurried to respond, Arthur crouched down to retrieve his fallen pen. He then summoned the Notebook and hurriedly wrote:
Max confesses being a Plumber.
Earth-based Plumbers organization was disbanded.
Once he had this written, Arthur stood back up and questioned, "Yesterday, you said this watch looked like something you saw before? What did you mean?"
Having been set up, Max sighed. "Alright, I wasn't going to tell you this, but you have a right to know. Take a seat."
The three children then pressed together to sit on the one side of the booth.
"You remember what you were told what I used to do for a living?"
"You were a plumber, right," Kim asked as she looked to Max's biological grandchildren.
"Yup," Arthur confirmed.
"One that apparently knows something about an alien watch," Gwen said with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, let's just say I wasn't your ordinary type of plumber. Our job was to basically 'fix the leaks', so we were called plumbers as a sort of cover…"
Max then explained how there was once a government organization founded to protect the general public from unusual threats. They dealt with all kinds of otherworldly things. This included hostile extraterrestrial lifeforms. However, a few decades ago, alien threats became more rare and the department was shut down - phrased as an 'authorized leave of absence' - until such a time that these threats again jeopardized the general public.
During Max's story, Arthur pretended to listen while he internally mused, "This is pretty much the idea I had. I wanted the plumbers to be like how they were in the original story before they were basically retconned into an intergalactic peacekeeping force. But, I have to wonder, just how much freedom does the Notebook give me? Does it pull ideas from my mind as I write to get the desired effect or is it analyzing the individual words and it's all just working out how I want?"
As Max finished his story, he looked to Arthur's arm resting on the table. "Before we shut things down, there were rumors circulating around about some sort of weapon. The description matches that watch on your wrist, Ben. It was called: the Omnitrix."
"I think I'll stick with Alien Watch," Arthur said pretending to inspect the device on his arm, "easier to say."
"Do our parents know about this," Gwen asked.
"I tried keeping it from them when your fathers were younger," Max explained, "but they stumbled on somethings they shouldn't have and I told them."
Remembering something from Alien Force, Arthur added, "Is that why things sometimes got weird between you and dad?"
Max's expression fell and he looked down with regret. "Carl…He didn't really appreciate me lying to them for so long. Things always became tense when it came to my past. He never really wanted you to know."
"And you're telling us anyway," Gwen said questioningly.
Max shrugged, "It just felt right to tell you kids the truth. Besides, with that thing on Ben's arm, it's probably for the best that you know."
"Is there a way to get it off," Kim asks.
"I don't know," Max replied. He then looked to Arthur. "I assume you tried just slipping it off your wrist."
"Uh-huh, it felt like it was going to pull off my skin - maybe more," Arthur lied.
Max then looked thoughtful as he said, "From what I remember from the rumors, I think the Omnitrix has the capability to transform you into different alien species. Its possible that it's bonded with your DNA."
"Wait, you mean Ben can turn into other weird alien creatures and not just that puny bug-eyed one," Gwen asked in slight shock.
"Probably."
"What kind of aliens are there," Kim asked as she eyed the Omnitrix.
"I'm not sure, but I've seen some weird ones."
"So," Arthur said, "What do we do now?"