Chicago. The Rock Music Festival.
The sun was shining, and the sky was clear for miles.
The festival grounds were packed with people, a vast, noisy crowd.
Lucian, Grandpa Max, and the others had arrived early that morning.
"Hehe, the Wildvine Band is performing here today. This only happens once every twenty years!" Grandpa Max was so excited he looked like a kid who'd just seen candy.
"Oh, man, this is gonna be so boring." Ben drooped with disappointment.
"Doofus, if Grandpa wants to watch it, then we watch it with him. Stop being so bratty, okay?" Gwen said, hands on her hips.
"Bratty? Who'd want to watch a bunch of old fossils perform? That's boring." Ben looked unconvinced. "A great hero doesn't have time for this."
Elsewhere, a young man in a suit with brown hair stood beside a machine, facing the camera as if he were giving a weather report.
"It's another sunny day today, and the temperature in downtown Chicago is already pushing 40°C," the host, Vance, explained.
The cameraman held his camera on Vance with obvious indifference, like he was long used to slacking off on the job.
Just then, the machine beside him spoke.
"It's so hot. If the temperature doesn't drop soon, I'm gonna crash."
The machine looked like a rice cooker, with three lightbulbs sticking out of its head and purple electricity swirling inside. It looked extremely strange.
Three red English letters were written across its chest: S.A.M.
Its translated name was Sam.
Vance smiled faintly. "Don't worry, Sam. This place is about to turn into a rainstorm..."
After saying that, he looked up at the clear sky, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly...
"Hey, weather guy!" Ben suddenly ran over and stood beside Sam, laughing. "We saw your robot blow up online last night!"
The moment Vance heard that, he snapped back angrily. "It's not a robot. It's a super-precision atmospheric monitoring device I invented. But that ratings-obsessed news station ruined it."
Ben had no idea what he was talking about. He shrugged and walked away.
Vance watched Ben leave, his expression gradually darkening. Then he crouched down and opened up Sam's outer casing.
"Vance, what are you doing?" the machine asked.
"Sam, I'm redesigning your circuitry. Once you rise through the troposphere, you'll release a specially made oxidized water solution to dissolve into the air, create layers of cumulus clouds, and start making rain."
"I'm not just forecasting the weather anymore. I'm creating it!"
Vance's expression grew more and more crazed, his eyes full of a sickly madness.
A few minutes later, Sam's modifications were complete.
Vance pulled out a remote and pressed the red button.
In an instant, Sam's head detached from its body and shot into the sky like a rocket.
Once airborne, Sam's purple head released a large amount of strange matter, and created a small whirlwind beneath itself to keep floating in midair.
The sky began to darken at a visible speed.
The blazing sun was gradually swallowed by black clouds, like the eye of God being covered over, unable to see what lay below.
Crack!
A bolt of purple lightning struck Sam's head, and the purple bulbs instantly went dark.
"No!" Vance shouted. His beloved machine couldn't be destroyed just like that.
Two seconds later, Sam lit up again, bursting with intense purple light!
The glow far surpassed anything from before. It was eerie and deeply unnatural.
Drip...
A single raindrop quietly fell.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
In an instant, all of Chicago was engulfed in violent rainfall. The downpour came hard and fast, sending many of the audience members scrambling for cover.
"This weather changes faster than a flipped page." Grandpa Max wiped the water from his face.
"Oh my God, what am I looking at?!" Gwen's eyes went wide as she stared at the sky.
Everyone followed Gwen's gaze, their pupils shrinking.
At some point, a gigantic monster had appeared in the sky!
Its entire body was made of surging rainwater, covered all over in tentacles that writhed like an octopus's. It was at least a hundred meters tall!
At the center of its head, a faint purple light flickered. That seemed to be its brain.
"Hehe, this is way more fun than watching an old-fogey band perform!" Ben grinned and slammed the Omnitrix. "Ripjaws is go!"
Boom!
The next moment, Heatblast appeared, standing in the pounding rain as steam hissed off his body.
"Doofus, now you've turned into a little alien torch." Gwen sighed, wondering how her cousin could possibly be this dumb.
"Oh, man!"
Gwen looked up at the giant thing in the sky. "I remember water can put out fire, but fire can't put out water."
"Whatever!" Heatblast clenched his fists and rode a cloud of flame straight toward the rain monster at top speed.
At this point, he could only charge in and fight.
Lucian remained calm. "So it's this thing..."
There had been a robot like this in the original series. One that could control the weather. It was not something to underestimate.
Boom!
The towering rain monster swung its thick tentacles and smashed everything at the music festival.
The stage, equipment, seats... all of it was destroyed. That terrifying power tore through everything in front of it like dry twigs.
Vance looked panicked as he kept hammering the remote, only to realize he had completely lost control of Sam.
"No, I can't control it. Why is this happening?!"
"Hey, big freak, let this hero teach you a lesson!" Heatblast shouted as he formed a blade of fire in his hand.
The rain monster seemed to sense him. It turned its head toward Heatblast, then swung a raging rainwater tentacle at him with terrifying force.
Heatblast slashed with his fire blade, cutting through the tentacles in his way. Then his body flashed and turned into a roaring blaze that shot into the sky, appearing right above the rain monster.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Heatblast went all out, firing dozens of blazing fireballs like bombs dropped from a fighter plane, all of them slamming into the rain monster.
But even when the fireballs exploded across its body, they did not injure it in the slightest.
Fire had very limited effect on water, let alone one little flame trying to fight a giant made of water.
"Looks like I'll have to do this myself," Lucian said, pressing the Omnitrix.
"Since it's water, Big Chill it is."
Boom!
A flash of dark green light appeared, and Big Chill materialized on the spot.
Ice-blue all over, with broad wings and a slender frame, he radiated freezing cold with every movement.
"Cool! It's Big Chill!" Gwen's eyes lit up.
But then she remembered an unpleasant memory.
Grandpa Max smiled. "Big Chill, huh? I wonder how his babies are doing."
Big Chill's forehead twitched.
Forget it. Better deal with the problem in front of him first.
Bang!
A red figure came flying back. It was Heatblast, who had just been swatted away by the rain monster.
Big Chill exhaled a stream of cold air, forming a giant ice bowl in midair to catch Heatblast, then landed steadily on the ground.
"Oh, man... next time I'm definitely picking the right one!" Heatblast lay in the ice bowl, scratching his head.
"Roar!" The rain monster actually started lumbering toward them.
Big Chill beat his wings and rushed straight at it without the slightest fear.
The rain monster manipulated its tentacles and smashed them down at Big Chill.
Big Chill phased, becoming immune to the tentacles, then flashed forward and crashed straight into the rain monster's body.
Freezing ability activated!
Crack... crack...
The rain monster's body began freezing over at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Inside its head, the purple robot Sam realized things were going badly and immediately started channeling energy to summon lightning.
Crack!
A fierce burst of purple light instantly shattered the ice around him. Having broken free, Sam immediately abandoned the rain monster's body and flew up into the thunderclouds.
In just a few seconds, Sam condensed a black cloud monster!