Chapter 30: Unhinged Kevin, Heatblast vs. Diamondhead
The massive, crimson-skinned figure of Four Arms smashed through the entrance of the San Francisco Mint, leaving a trail of shattered concrete and twisted metal. Ben darted in right on the alien's heels, his boots crunching over the debris. But the moment he stepped into the cavernous lobby, the four-armed behemoth was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did he go?" Ben muttered, his eyes scanning the shadows of the ruined foyer in confusion. Without waiting for backup, he bolted down the left corridor.
Moments later, Klein and Gwen jogged through the breached doorway, stepping over a pulverized security desk. They paused, taking in the empty, dust-filled lobby. Ben had already vanished.
Klein sighed, his hands stuffed casually into his pockets. He did not look particularly worried. After a brief second of consideration, he nodded toward the right corridor. Gwen followed his lead, with Grandpa Max hurrying in right behind them, his heavy boots thudding against the marble floor as he brought up the rear.
handling through the smoke-filled halls, Klein, Gwen, and Grandpa Max rounded a corner into the main printing room. A massive printing press lay in ruins, the metal groaning and sparking. Standing right beside the wreckage was Heatblast.
The magma-based alien had a terrified mint employee hoisted off the ground by the collar. Klein raised an eyebrow, a dry thought crossing his mind. 'Why isn't that guy cooked yet? The heat radiation alone should be giving him third-degree burns.'
"Ben!" Grandpa Max shouted instinctively, his eyes widening at the sight of his grandson seemingly attacking a civilian.
The fiery figure slowly turned his head. The flames licking off his charcoal-like face flared a violent, unnatural orange. "I'm not Ben."
He casually dropped the gasping employee, raised a burning hand, and hurled a massive, roaring fireball straight at Klein and the others.
Gwen flinched, throwing her arms up to shield herself from the blinding heat.
Before the flames could connect, a crystalline blur dropped from the upper catwalk.
"He's right!"
A towering figure made of pale green, indestructible crystal landed heavily in front of them. Diamondhead crossed his arms, taking the full brunt of the fireball. The flames washed over his crystalline body, dissipating harmlessly into the air.
Diamondhead lowered his arms, glaring at the fiery imposter. "I'm Ben!"
He pointed a jagged, glowing finger at the fake Heatblast. "I don't know who you are, but I am never going to let you ruin the reputation of these aliens!"
With a sharp, grinding sound, Diamondhead morphed his hands into razor-sharp crystalline blades. He lunged forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. He swung his right arm in a vicious arc, followed immediately by a backhand slash from his left. The fake Heatblast leaned back, his fiery body contorting as he narrowly dodged both deadly strikes.
The imposter retaliated instantly. He unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of blazing projectiles, turning the printing room into a blistering inferno. Diamondhead stood his ground, batting the fireballs away with his bladed forearms. Sparks and embers rained down on the concrete floor, sizzling against the scattered debris. For several tense moments, the two forces of nature clashed, neither giving an inch.
"Who exactly are you?!" Diamondhead demanded, his voice echoing with a deep, crystalline resonance. He leveled his arm and fired a volley of razor-sharp diamond shards.
The fake Heatblast shifted his weight, twisting his torso with unnatural fluidity to let the deadly projectiles sail past him. They embedded themselves deep into the concrete wall behind him.
The fiery alien chuckled, a dark, raspy sound. "You still haven't recognized me?"
He stopped moving. The flames around his head began to warp and bubble. In a grotesque, fluid display, his facial structure melted and shifted. First, it morphed into the heavy, armored brow of Four Arms. Then, the bug-like, stalked eyes of Stinkfly. Next, the sharp, angular features of Diamondhead.
Finally, the shifting flesh settled into a familiar, sneering human face.
Kevin Levin.
"Kevin!" Diamondhead gasped, his crystalline jaw dropping in sheer disbelief. "I thought you ran out of the Omnitrix energy you absorbed!"
"No! Not even close!" Kevin spat, his voice dripping with venom. The flames around his body flared higher, reflecting the madness in his eyes. "It lets me transform into any of your ten aliens whenever I want! As long as I concentrate hard enough. The only catch is... the time I can actually stay human has decreased!"
His face twisted into a mask of pure, unhinged rage. Kevin suddenly went berserk, thrusting his hand forward to launch a massive, concentrated blast of fire straight at Diamondhead's chest. "And it is all your fault! You made me a freak!"
"What does that have to do with me?!" Diamondhead yelled back.
He swatted the fiery blast aside, the heat barely warming his crystal skin. Lowering his shoulder, Diamondhead charged like a freight train. He closed the gap instantly and delivered a brutal, ringing right hook to Kevin's jaw. The impact sent the mutant sprawling across the floor.
Even in the heat of battle, Ben was utterly speechless at the sheer absurdity of Kevin's logic. He certainly had not forced the psycho to grab the Omnitrix and drain its energy like a battery.
Kevin scrambled back to his feet, leaning heavily against a scorched sorting machine. He wiped a streak of soot from his mouth, a manic grin spreading across his face. "So I am going to ruin your precious reputation! Ben Tennyson, I will commit the crimes, and you are going to go to jail for me!"
With a feral roar, Kevin launched himself forward, throwing a wild, haymaker punch aimed right at Diamondhead's face.
Diamondhead simply tilted his head. The fiery fist sailed harmlessly past his ear, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. Without missing a beat, Diamondhead pivoted, driving a heavy, crystalline fist straight into the side of Kevin's head. The blow snapped Kevin's neck to the side with a sickening crunch. Before the mutant could even register the pain, Diamondhead planted a solid front kick directly into his chest.
Thud.
Kevin flew backward through the air, slamming violently into a massive industrial press. The thick steel chassis dented inward under the sheer force of the impact.
Coughing violently, Kevin peeled himself out of the cratered metal. "Ben Tennyson!" he shrieked, his voice echoing through the ruined mint. "I told you! I do the crime, you do the time!"
His body began to bubble and warp once more. The fiery magma flesh dissolved, rapidly replaced by the sickly green, segmented exoskeleton of Stinkfly. Four translucent wings burst from his back, buzzing with a deafening hum. He shot straight upward, smashing through the glass skylight in a shower of jagged shards, and disappeared into the night sky.
Diamondhead stood in silence, watching the broken glass rain down onto the factory floor. His fists slowly unclenched. Deep down, a lingering sense of pity for the kid who had briefly been his friend made his reaction just a fraction of a second too slow. He had hesitated, and Kevin was gone.
Shaking his head, Diamondhead turned to leave and regroup with his family.
"Freeze! Do not move a muscle!"
A harsh, authoritative voice cut through the silence. Floodlights suddenly snapped on, blindingly bright, pinning Diamondhead in their glare. Captain Steel marched into the room, flanked by a heavily armed squad from the Special Alien Capture Team. Every single operative had their high-tech energy rifles leveled squarely at the Petrosapien's chest.
"Alien freak," Captain Steel sneered, his eyes narrowed beneath his tactical helmet. "I finally caught you. You have had my men running ragged across the entire state for the past week."
The Captain began rattling off a list of locations, his tone dripping with absolute contempt. He listed the hijacked train, the demolished bridge, and the looted tech firm, declaring them all as scenes of the alien's destructive rampage.
"That was not me!" Diamondhead protested, taking a step back. He pointed a crystalline finger up at the shattered glass roof. "The criminal you are actually looking for just flew out of here!"
Captain Steel did not even blink. He had no interest in listening to an alien's excuses. He raised his hand, signaling his men.
"Whether it was you or not, I do not care. I am only responsible for the arrest!" Captain Steel barked. "Take him down! Open fire!"
Seeing the situation rapidly deteriorating, Diamondhead spun on his heel and sprinted toward the exit. He fired a rapid volley of diamond shards at the ground near the operatives' feet. The team members scrambled backward to avoid the explosive impacts, their disciplined formation fracturing just enough to create a narrow opening.
Diamondhead burst through the gap, his heavy footsteps thundering down the corridor. But Captain Steel was relentless. He quickly rallied his squad, leading them in hot pursuit.
As he ran, Diamondhead slammed his hands against the floor, erecting massive, jagged walls of solid crystal to block the hallway. Energy blasts slammed into the barriers, shattering the top layers, but the walls held long enough to slow the soldiers down.
Just as Diamondhead realized he was getting boxed into a dead end, the Omnitrix badge on his chest began to emit a frantic, high-pitched beeping. The hourglass symbol flashed a warning red.
"Oh, come on! Annoying!" Diamondhead groaned, his pace faltering.
Before he could even begin to panic about timing out in front of a heavily armed government hit squad, his feet suddenly left the ground. The world tilted sickeningly as he was hoisted into the air.
"Cousin!"
Looking up, Ben saw that Klein had transformed into a completely unfamiliar alien hero. It was a sleek, reptilian creature with a jetpack-like structure on its back, soaring through the air with incredible speed.
"Cool!" Diamondhead grinned, instantly relieved to be rescued. The adrenaline fading, his natural chatterbox tendencies kicked right back in. "What is this one called?"
Klein's voice echoed down, dry and utterly unimpressed by the chaos below. "Astrodactyl."
With a powerful burst of propulsion from his back, Astrodactyl hauled Diamondhead upward, rocketing straight through the shattered skylight and disappearing into the night.
Down below, Captain Steel skidded to a halt beneath the broken roof, his energy rifle lowered. "Damn it!" he cursed, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached. He glared up at the empty sky, watching Astrodactyl and Diamondhead fade into the darkness. "They escaped again!"
"Sir!"
A voice called out from the hallway. Several team members marched into the room, escorting Grandpa Max and Gwen. "We found citizens who had not evacuated the mint."
Captain Steel turned, his sharp eyes sweeping over the elderly man in the Hawaiian shirt and the young girl beside him. They clearly were not mint employees, and he immediately wondered exactly what these two were doing in the middle of a warzone.
After a long, calculating moment of silence, Captain Steel stepped closer, his imposing figure casting a shadow over them. "Do you know the alien from just now?" he asked, his tone deceptively calm.
"No, of course not!" Grandpa Max replied instantly, waving his hands in a perfect display of flustered civilian panic. "How on earth could we possibly know any aliens?"
Gwen nodded vigorously in agreement, her eyes wide and innocent.
Captain Steel stared at them. His gaze lingered on Max's face, searching for any hint of deceit. Finally, he straightened his posture. "Let them go."
The operatives lowered their weapons and stepped aside, clearing a path to the exit.
Max offered a polite, nervous nod and quickly ushered Gwen out of the ruined building.
Captain Steel stood perfectly still, watching their disappearing backs until they were completely out of sight. He tapped the comms unit on his shoulder, his voice dropping to a cold, dangerous whisper.
"Keep a very close eye on those two."
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