Chapter 13: Origins - Part 13
A pained groan escaped Ben's lips—deep, gravelly, almost unrecognizable—as words tumbled out in a voice that sounded like it had been dragged over gravel and left to age in a barrel.
"Okay... didn't think that through." Each syllable rumbled in his chest, resonating in ways that felt weird. "Letting go was... definitely a bad idea."
He shifted, debris sliding off him with soft clatters, dust pluming around his—
Wait.
Ben froze.
How am I even alive ?
The thought cut through the haze of pain and confusion like a knife. He'd fallen from the sky. Crashed through a building. Hit concrete and steel and glass with enough force to—
He should be dead.
Paste. A smear. A cautionary tale about why you don't let flying monsters grab you.
But here he was. Breathing. Thinking. Alive.
"What the..." Ben's hand—or what should've been his hand—moved to rub his head, to check for injuries, and his fingers found...
Nothing.
No hair.
Just smooth, hard skin stretched over a skull that felt too big, too angular, too—
"CURRENT DESIGNATION: TRANSFORMATION ALPHA-ONE.
SPECIES CLASSIFICATION: TETRAMAND.
PHYSIOLOGICAL CONDITION: OPTIMAL.
SUCCESSFUL GENETIC INTEGRATION CONFIRMED. DNA OVERLAY ACTIVE AND STABLE."
The Omnitrix's voice—calm, clinical, utterly indifferent to Ben's mounting panic—echoed from somewhere on his body, though he couldn't immediately locate where.
Ben's fingers—four of them, he realized with creeping horror, only four—explored his head frantically. Bald. Completely bald. No hair, no fuzz, just plates of what felt like armor beneath his touch.
Where did my hair go? What happened to my—
His gaze darted around, searching for context, for answers, and landed on the wreckage surrounding him. Office furniture—desks, chairs, filing cabinets—lay scattered like toys. Fluorescent lights dangled from exposed ceiling panels, sparking weakly. Papers drifted through the air like snow.
We fell into an office building.
Ben spotted a desk nearby—heavy, wooden, the kind meant to project authority—and grabbed it for leverage, trying to pull himself upright.
His hand closed around the edge.
CRACK.
The desk imploded.
Wood splintered. Metal supports bent like foil. The entire structure collapsed inward under his grip, reduced to kindling in a heartbeat.
Ben stared at the wreckage in his hand—hands, plural, because there were four of them now—and fell backward, landing hard on his rear with an impact that cracked floor tiles.
'What the—how did I—'
He scrambled upright—easier this time, his body responding with strength he didn't understand—and turned toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Metropolis's burning skyline.
And saw his reflection.
Ben's breath caught.
Staring back at him from the glass, limned in firelight and emergency lighting, was something that shouldn't exist.
A humanoid alien.
Twelve feet tall—easily, towering over where a normal human would stand. Three hundred pounds, maybe more, every inch of it pure, densely-packed muscle that bulged beneath armor-plated red skin. The coloration was striking: deep crimson across most of the body, broken by a black stripe that ran from chin to lower lip like war paint.
He had four eyes.
A main pair—large, bright, positioned where eyes belonged—and a smaller pair set just below them, giving him a field of vision that was dizzying in its scope. No ears. No nose. Just smooth plating and sharp angles.
Four arms.
Two pairs, each ending in four-fingered hands that looked strong enough to crush stone. Whisker-like spikes jutted from each forearm—organic, sharp, almost decorative in their symmetry.
His feet were massive, two-toed, built for stability and power.
And he was wearing clothes—somehow, impossibly, his outfit had transformed with him: a sleeveless white hoodie-shirt that strained across his chest, black pants that reached his feet, both sized to fit this impossible body.
The Omnitrix sat on his chest now—just the faceplate, glowing faintly green, embedded where a heart symbol might go on a superhero costume.
Ben's reflection raised one hand.
Four fingers.
He raised another.
Four more.
Oh god.
He touched his face—smooth, hard, alien—and then his extra arms, feeling the mass and muscle respond to his thoughts.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!"
The words came out as a roar, deeper than anything Ben had ever produced, and the Omnitrix responded with the same maddeningly calm tone:
"GENETIC OVERLAY PROTOCOL INITIATED. YOUR HUMAN DNA HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY SUPPRESSED AND REPLACED WITH A COMPLETE TETRAMAND GENETIC SEQUENCE DRAWN FROM THE STORED SAMPLE LIBRARY. YOU WILL RETAIN THIS FORM FOR THE DURATION OF THE TRANSFORMATION CYCLE, APPROXIMATELY TEN MINUTES, UNLESS MANUALLY TERMINATED OR CRITICALLY DAMAGED."
"Change me back! CHANGE ME BACK RIGHT NOW!"
"TRANSFORMATION REVERSAL REQUIRES EITHER MANUAL DEACTIVATION VIA FACEPLATE INTERFACE OR AUTOMATIC TIMEOUT UPON CYCLE COMPLETION. RECOMMEND ADAPTING TO CURRENT FORM FOR OPTIMAL SURVIV—"
SCREEEEEECH.
The sound cut through the Omnitrix's explanation like nails on a chalkboard amplified through stadium speakers.
Ben—Fourarms, his mind supplied helpfully, the name appearing in his thoughts like a title card—spun around just in time to see the parademon launch itself from the rubble, wings spread, claws extended, eyes blazing with feral rage.
It slammed into him.
The impact drove Fourarms backward, through debris, through what remained of the office walls, and they crashed together through the weakened floor into the level below.
BOOM.
They hit hard—Fourarms on his back, the parademon pinning him down, claws digging into his shoulders, wings mantling to block any escape.
The two locked eyes.
Four glowing green orbs met four red-and-yellow ones, and for a heartbeat neither moved, both assessing, both calculating.
Then the parademon's mouth began to glow.
Orange light built in its throat, spilling from between jagged teeth, heat radiating outward in waves that distorted the air.
Oh no. Oh no, that's—
FWOOOOM.
Flames erupted from the creature's maw, washing over Fourarms's face in a torrent of superheated fire that should've melted flesh, should've charred bone, should've—
Fourarms screamed—not from pain, but from pure instinctive terror, eyes squeezing shut, every muscle tensing—
—and then the fire stopped.
Fourarms cracked one eye open.
Then the other.
His face felt... warm. Tingly. But not burned.
He touched his cheek with one hand—smooth, unharmed—and realization dawned.
'Tough skin. This body has really, really tough skin.'
The parademon shrieked in frustration, rearing back for another blast—
Fourarms's lower arms shot upward, fists clenched, and slammed into the creature's torso with pile-driver force.
WHAM.
The parademon was launched sideways, tumbling through the air, and crashed into the wall with a sound like a car hitting a brick barrier. Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface, and the creature slumped, dazed.
Fourarms gasped, chest heaving, and stared at his lower hands.
'I did that. I just—those are MY arms and I just—'
BAM.
The parademon recovered faster than expected, launching from the wall and tackling Fourarms from behind, driving him face-first into the opposite wall hard enough to crater the drywall.
Stars exploded behind Fourarms's eyes—all four of them—and before he could recover, the parademon stomped on his back, driving him through the weakened floor.
CRASH.
Down another level. Eighteenth floor now. Maybe seventeenth.
Fourarms rolled instinctively, shaking off debris, and looked up just in time to see the parademon diving toward him again, claws extended, wings folded for maximum speed.
No time to dodge.
Fourarms's hands scrambled, closing around the nearest object—a massive reception desk, solid wood and steel, easily three hundred pounds—and he swung it like a baseball bat.
CRACK.
The desk connected with the parademon mid-dive, and the creature was sent spinning, slamming into a support column with a wet crunch.
Fourarms dropped the destroyed desk—now in three pieces—and scrambled to his feet.
Or tried to.
His massive frame—twelve feet tall, broad-shouldered, built like a linebacker crossed with a tank—didn't fit in the narrow office corridor. His shoulders scraped the ceiling. His bulk filled the hallway wall-to-wall.
Too big. I'm too big for—
Down the corridor, the parademon rose, shaking itself like a wet dog, eyes glowing brighter with renewed fury.
It was at one end of the hallway.
Fourarms was at the other.
The parademon tilted its head, confusion flickering across its alien features.
Where did this being come from? What is it?
But confusion gave way to certainty: Destroy it.
The creature charged.
Wings tucked, claws forward, screeching that horrible metallic shriek, closing the distance in heartbeats.
Fourarms raised all four fists, dropping into an awkward boxing stance—upper arms high, lower arms guarding his torso—and gritted his teeth.
No escape. Can't run. Can't fit through the doors. Can't—
Fight.
The parademon leaped—
Fourarms swung—
BOOM.
---
Down another hallway, on the fifteenth floor, a massive red figure exploded through the wall in a spray of drywall and insulation.
Fourarms hit the ground face-first, skidding, leaving a furrow in the carpet.
The parademon landed beside him gracefully, wings spread, and immediately began slamming Fourarms's head into the floor—once, twice, three times—
The floor gave way.
They fell together, tumbling through open air, surrounded by debris and sparks from severed electrical lines.
Mid-fall, Fourarms's hands shot out, grabbing the parademon, and he twisted, pulling the creature in front of him like a shield.
CRASH.
The parademon hit the fourteenth-floor lobby first, Fourarms landing on top of it with all three hundred-plus pounds driving the impact.
The creature screeched—pain, genuine pain—and thrashed weakly.
Fourarms rolled off, grabbed the parademon by its wing span*—leathery membranes stretched between bony fingers—and spun.
One rotation. Two. Building momentum.
Then he released.
The parademon shot through the shattered lobby windows like a missile, tumbling end-over-end into the night sky, wings flailing uselessly, and vanished into the smoke-choked darkness.
Fourarms stood in the ruined lobby, chest heaving, fists still clenched, and allowed himself one shaky breath.
I won. I actually—
GROAN.
The sound came from above. From below. From everywhere.
The building—already weakened by the battle, by falling bodies and smashed support columns and fires spreading unchecked—began to collapse.
Fourarms looked up just in time to see the ceiling crack, massive chunks of concrete breaking free, floors pancaking downward in a cascading failure that turned the skyscraper into a death trap.
Oh no.
He ran—or tried to—but there was nowhere to go, no escape, and the building came down around him in an avalanche of steel and stone.
CRASH.
Darkness.
Pressure.
Weight piling on weight, burying him under tons of debris.
Silence.
---
One minute later.
BAM.
A chunk of concrete the size of a car shifted.
BAM.
Another piece lifted, tossed aside.
BAM.
And then—
Fourarms exploded from the rubble with a single powerful leap, muscles coiling and releasing, launching him fifteen feet into the air.
He landed on top of the debris pile, boots crunching broken glass, and stood there—covered in dust, clothes torn, but completely unharmed.
Fourarms stared at his hands.
All four of them.
Flexed his fingers.
Felt the power thrumming through every muscle.
"Whoa," he whispered, voice still deep and rumbling. "I'm... I'm okay. I'm actually—"
He laughed—short, disbelieving, edged with hysteria.
"This is insane."
The Omnitrix pulsed on his chest, and Ben—Fourarms—whoever he was now—stared out at the burning city and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do next.