The Nevada sun didn't just shine; it punished. It was a physical weight, a white-hot hammer that beat against the salt flats until the horizon shimmered with the ghosts of water that wasn't there.
Leo Vance wiped a smear of black grease across his forehead, leaving a dark streak against his tan. At nineteen, he'd already learned that the universe didn't owe you a living. He was currently perched three hundred feet up on a rusting satellite array, his fingers slick with grit and sweat. He was trying to coax a signal out of a transceiver that had been outdated before he was born.
Below him, his battered 2009 pickup truck looked like a child's toy in the vast, bleached white of the desert. There was no one for fifty miles. No help, no witnesses, just the hum of the wind through the high-tension wires and the rhythmic clink-clink-clink of his wrench.
"Come on, you piece of junk," Leo grunted, bracing his shoulder against the hot metal chassis. "Just give me the green light so I can get paid and pretend I'm not rotting away in this wasteland."
He wasn't supposed to be here. Two years ago, Leo had been a scholarship student with a future in aerospace engineering. Then his father's medical bills had piled up, the scholarship had evaporated, and the future had been replaced by a toolkit and a mountain of debt. Now, he was a ghost in the machine, fixing the tech that connected a world he no longer felt a part of.
He tightened a bolt, his knuckles raw and bleeding. For a second, the desert went silent. The wind died. Even the insects seemed to hold their breath.
Then, the sky cracked.
It wasn't thunder. It was a sound like glass shattering on a cosmic scale. Leo looked up, shielding his eyes with a gloved hand. A streak of violet-white fire was cutting a jagged wound through the blue. It wasn't a meteor—it was too sharp, its deceleration too erratic. It hissed as it fought the atmosphere, trailing a plume of emerald smoke that smelled like burning ozone and something metallic, something ancient.
The impact hit three miles out. The shockwave arrived a heartbeat later, a wall of hot air and dust that hit the satellite tower like a physical punch. The metal groaned. Leo gripped the safety rail until his knuckles turned white, his boots slipping on the narrow platform as the entire structure swayed dangerously.
"That wasn't a satellite," Leo whispered. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Most people would have stayed on the tower. Most would have called the authorities. But Leo knew the authorities in this part of Nevada were either three hours away or part of the black-ops military units that patrolled the "Dead Zone"—the areas where communication signals mysteriously vanished. If that thing was salvageable, it was his ticket out of debt. If it was dangerous, he was dead anyway.
He scrambled down the ladder with practiced speed, jumped into his truck, and tore across the salt flats. The engine screamed as he pushed the old V8 to its limit, the tires kicking up a massive "rooster tail" of white dust behind him.
The crash site was a perfect circle of fused glass and smoldering sand. The heat coming off the crater was so intense it warped the air, making the center look like a liquid. In the heart of the pit lay a pod.
It wasn't a sleek, silver craft. It looked biological—dark, ribbed metal that pulsed with a faint, sickly green light. It reminded Leo of a heart, or a chrysalis, something that was meant to protect life, not destroy it.
Leo slid down the embankment, his boots sliding on the cooling glass. The smell was overwhelming now—like a computer fire mixed with a graveyard.
"Hello?" he called out. The word felt small in the emptiness.
The pod groaned. A seam opened along its side, venting a cloud of freezing white vapor. The contrast was so sharp that ice crystals formed on the hot sand. Inside, nestled in a bed of thick, translucent fluid that looked like liquid opal, sat a device.
It was a gauntlet—or a heavy watch—crafted from a dull, charcoal-colored obsidian. It didn't have buttons. It didn't have a screen. It had a dial with an hourglass shape that seemed to be watching him.
"Just a quick look," Leo told himself. His hand was shaking so hard he could barely keep it steady. "Maybe there's a serial number. Maybe it's a black-box recorder."
The moment his fingertips brushed the cold surface, the "metal" didn't just move—it liquified.
"What the—!"
Leo tried to pull back, but the device shot forward with the speed of a striking cobra. It snapped around his left wrist, the cold, oily weight tightening with a mechanical snarl. Leo let out a strangled yelp as thin, needle-like filaments pierced his skin. He felt them sliding past his dermis, weaving through his muscle fibers, and finally, clicking directly into his nervous system.
The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. It wasn't just a sting; it was an invasion. It felt like liquid nitrogen was being pumped into his veins while his bones were being vibrated by a high-frequency drill.
"Get off! Get off me!"
He collapsed into the sand, clawing at his arm, but his fingers couldn't find a seam. The device was becoming part of him. A searing, white-hot current surged up his arm, into his shoulder, and slammed into the base of his brain.
Suddenly, the desert vanished.
Leo was flooded with data. He saw the birth of stars. He saw the DNA of a thousand species—creatures made of living rock, entities of pure sound, giants that walked through suns. He heard a billion voices screaming in a language he didn't know, but he understood the emotion: Fear. They were fleeing something. They were hiding.
[SYNC RATE: 1%]
[HOST DNA DETECTED: UNSTABLE HUMAN]
[ATMOSPHERIC SCAN: DEAD ZONE CONFIRMED.]
[AEGIS PROTOCOL ACTIVATED. STABILIZING BIOLOGY.]
The voice didn't come from a speaker. It echoed from inside his own marrow, a cold, synthetic resonance that vibrated his teeth.
Leo gasped, his lungs feeling like they were filled with dry ice. He looked at his wrist. The device had settled into a heavy, metallic cuff. The center dial glowed with a steady, rhythmic emerald light that pulsed in perfect time with his racing heart.
This was the Omnitrix. But in this world, it wasn't a hero's toy. It felt like a parasite. It felt like a survival suit for a war he didn't know he was drafted into.
He tried to stand, but his balance was gone. His left arm felt heavy, as if he were carrying a mountain. He looked at the dial. It was flickering, showing a silhouette of a flaming humanoid.
"What did you do to me?" Leo hissed at the watch.
The watch didn't answer. Instead, the sky did.
The low, heavy thrum of turbine engines filled the air. Leo looked up to see three black, unmarked VTOL dropships descending from the clouds like vultures. They had no lights, no flags, and no insignias. They were ghosts of the military-industrial complex. The Vanguard.
"Target located," a voice boomed over a loudspeaker, cold and robotic. "Containment Breach in progress. Authorized to use lethal force on the civilian scavenger. Recover the asset at all costs. Do not let the DNA escape."
Soldiers began rappelling down on fast-ropes, their black tactical armor absorbing the desert light. They weren't police. They weren't even regular army. They were recovery specialists.
"I'm not a scavenger," Leo whispered, his thumb instinctively hovering over the glowing dial.
His vision began to tunnel. His DNA was screaming, the filaments in his arm glowing a brighter green as they sensed the approaching threat. The watch knew he was in danger. It was offering him a way out—or a way in.
"I'm just a guy who's tired of being pushed around," Leo said, his voice growing deeper, more resonant as the Omnitrix began to hum.
The dial popped up like a mechanical iris. The green holographic silhouette of a creature made of volcanic stone hovered in the air, casting a sickly light over the sand.
"Please work," Leo whispered, his heart hitting 180 beats per minute.
He slammed his palm down onto the dial.
The world exploded in white.