A deep, almost sacred silence was broken only by the familiar hum of a television. A young man sat curled on a sofa, absorbed by the shifting blue light of the screen. He watched Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, a piece of his childhood. The scene showed Ben Tennyson, using the powerful Ultimatrix, unleashing an Ultimate Cannonbolt against a giant enemy. A nostalgic smile crossed his face; this was more than a cartoon. It was a founding part of his imagination.
As the episode peaked, a sudden wave of fatigue washed over him. It was not just sleepiness; it was a heavy pressure behind his eyes. The bright colors on the screen blurred together. His last thought was a whispered line from the show, "It's hero time..." before everything faded into darkness.
When he regained consciousness, he found himself not on the soft couch but on a cold, hard metal bench. His eyes flew open. He lay in a featureless space, surrounded by seamless gunmetal grey walls. The air smelled sterile, like ozone, and a constant low hum filled the background. Panic began to rise in his throat. Where am I?
Before he could sit up, a sharp pain shot through his head—a burning spike of agony. He cried out, clutching his head as a flood of vivid, strange memories surged into his mind. He saw a small, green-skinned alien with a large head working on devices he couldn't comprehend. There were tall spires of a tech paradise and the proud, disapproving stare of Azmuth, the First Thinker of Galvan Prime. A deep resentment had been growing over the years.
Minutes—or maybe hours—later, the storm of memories eased. He sat up slowly, breathing heavily. Those alien memories settled into his mind like facts he had always known. He was no longer just an ordinary human fan. He now shared his identity with another life. His hands, still human and right in front of him, felt familiar, but the mind behind them was shocked with this new reality.
A disbelieving whisper fell from his lips, echoing in the cold cell. "No... this is impossible. I've... I've become Albedo."
He was not just a viewer anymore. He was Albedo, the intelligent but bitter Galvan who had worked for Azmuth and was destined to become a twisted version of Ben Tennyson. He had found himself at a terrible moment: trapped, with his imperfect Omnitrix copy destroyed by Azmuth, and stuck in this cursed human body, marked by pale skin, white hair, and red eyes. It served as a constant reminder of his failure and his connection to Ben.
A surge of his new personality's arrogance and intelligence quickly pushed away the shock. Despair was not an option for his kind. "Very well," he said, his voice gaining steady control and a colder tone. "If I am Albedo, then I will act like Albedo. This human body is a cage, but every cage has weaknesses."
He began carefully assessing his situation. This was not a typical cell. The smooth walls likely prevented energy escape. A single reinforced viewport showed a corridor guarded by silent bipedal robots carrying stun prods. Blinking lights on the ceiling indicated advanced surveillance. The realization hit him: he was in a high-security detention center, possibly a Plumber outpost or a private jail like the Incarcecon Intergalactic Detention Center.
Albedo's Galvan mind, able to calculate many variables in an instant, developed a plan. His escape from Earth in the original timeline had been haphazard and dependent on villains. This time would be different; it would be a work of precision. He spent what felt like days observing the guards. He noted the exact 73-second gap in their patrols when both turned the corner. He spotted a tiny service panel near the floor—an access point to the cell's systems likely installed by a careless contractor.
His chance came during a routine "energy surge" drill. Using a piece of metal he had carefully pried from his bench, he shorted the panel's wiring. The door hissed open for 1.8 seconds. That was enough. Slipping into the corridor, he moved with a predator's grace, avoiding camera blind spots he had memorized. His escape was not a rushed dash but a quiet, calculated walk through the facility's security flaws, his knowledge of Galvan tech letting him bypass key systems.
In a hangar, he found a small, quick prison transport. The controls were easy for someone familiar with the Omnitrix. Inputting the coordinates, he grinned fiercely. The ship shot into hyperstream, heading for Galvan Prime, a small, green jewel 76,000 light-years from Earth. It was home to the greatest minds in the galaxy and, more importantly, Azmuth's most secret lab.
The journey blurred by in a stream of stars. He spent every moment planning and running scenarios. He knew Azmuth's lab would not just be a room but a fortress protected by biological and technological defenses built by the First Thinker himself. Upon landing on the planet, he was shocked. Instead of the vast geometric cities he expected from older records, he discovered a world where advanced tech merged with a swampy, fungal environment. Giant mushrooms housed entire villages, with technology hidden in the very roots and caps. It demonstrated the Galvan philosophy: progress in harmony with nature.
Infiltrating the main lab under this new "Omniverse" layout required a different approach. Using his remaining access codes (which Azmuth probably had not fully revoked) and his extensive knowledge of Galvan security, he bypassed outer defenses. The inner sanctum posed a new challenge. He had to wait for a natural lightning storm to scramble perimeter sensors for 4.5 seconds—a condition he had anticipated, given the weather patterns of Galvan Prime.
Inside, surrounded by humming cores of impossible physics, he found what he sought. Not a finished device, but its heart: the Ultimatrix Core. It lay on a diagnostic pedestal, a symphony of green holographic light and potential. This was the abandoned prototype, the "Superomnitrix" that Azmuth had dismissed. For Albedo, it was the key. His previous copy was a flawed version. This core represented a foundation from which he could create something superior.
Grabbing it, he fled. In a nearby private dock, he commandeered a well-equipped research vessel filled with schematics and stocked with rare materials and tools. Setting a course for Earth, he held the pulsating core tightly. An ambition, darker and more focused than his original self's petty revenge, took over. He wouldn't just take Ben's life or return to his Galvan body. He would transcend. He would master the Ultimatrix's ability to evolve perfectly and use it for his own mysterious goals.
The ship descended through Earth's atmosphere, landing softly in a dense forest outside Bellwood. Security scans showed no human settlements for miles. Here, he would work.
In the ship's lab, under the cool light of holographic projectors, Albedo laid the Ultimatrix core on the workbench. His red eyes reflected its emerald glow. As the second creator of the Omnitrix, he was responsible for its software and expansion modules, but Azmuth had always kept the deepest secrets of the genetic compression algorithms and fail-safe measures.
"This time," Albedo pondered, his fingers gliding over a control panel to display DNA and warped spacetime designs, "there will be no flaws. No forced synchronization. No dependency on Tennyson's base code." He would uncover every secret of this core, comprehend the simulated evolution process behind Ultimate forms, and improve on it. He wouldn't build the Omnitrix from the original story; he would forge an instrument of his own. The path to redemption—or total control—began here, in the quiet woods, with the heartbeat of stolen technology pulsing before him.