Marvel’s Omnitrix [A Ben 10 x Marvel Isekai]
[42] The Tick Situation

Chapter 42: The Tick Situation

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Deep beneath Yellowstone's crust, where the Earth's blood ran hot and ancient, something stirred.

In a chamber untouched by human exploration, three figures clustered around a massive metallic object shaped like a distorted egg. This structure wasn't born of Earth; it pulsed with sickly light that hadn't seen the sun in millennia. 

The smallest of the three, a green-skinned creature with six thin arms, pressed all of its hands against its surface, chittering rapidly.

"Great One awakens! Great One stirs!" The Interpreter's bulbous eyes widened, reflecting the pulsing glow. "The sensors detect Arburian Pelarota DNA above! How is this possible?"

The Leader, a tall and gaunt alien with skin like dried leather, hissed through needle teeth. "Impossible. The Arburian homeworld was destroyed. We received confirmation a mere seven cycles ago."

"Yet the readings are clear." The Interpreter's fingers danced across symbols etched into the egg's surface. "And the Great One responds! The seed wasn't meant to activate for another few years, but it hungers for the familiar genetic pattern!"

The third figure was an eight-foot behemoth of muscle and bone who growled. The Enforcer didn't speak often, but when it did, the others listened. "The planet called Vulpin is ash. This could be the last Arburian. The Great One must be wanting to ensure proper extinction."

The egg-shaped structure trembled, cracks spreading across its metallic skin. From within, something viscous and alive pushed outward, tendrils of corrupted matter seeking freedom.

"The Great One… Master Ego's seed… it is corrupted," the Interpreter whispered, backing away as the chamber shook. "The magical interference of this planet... it's altered the seed’s programming. It believes it missed proper purification!"

The Leader's grimace transformed into a macabre smile. "Early activation means our service ends early. We can finally leave this primitive mud ball."

"Praise be to the Great One!" the Interpreter squealed, as the chamber's ceiling began to collapse.

****

On the surface, the tremors intensified.

"Something's wrong with the geothermal activity," Grandpa Max said, professional concern replacing his friendly demeanor. He checked his Plumber scanner, which beeped frantically with readings too complex for normal human technology. "These energy signatures... they're not natural."

Jean Grey staggered sideways, her face ashen. Blood trickled from her nose as psychic feedback hammered her consciousness. 

"So many voices," she gasped. "Worship... hunger... consumption... preparing... oh god, it's thinking about eating the planet."

The ground split twenty feet away, steam and scalding water erupting where there shouldn't have been a geyser. Tourist screams echoed across the park as similar eruptions appeared randomly across the landscape.

"We need to evacuate," Kitty said, already herding the younger X-Men students back. "Like, five minutes ago!"

The Omnitrix pulsed with a strange light on my wrist, similar to when it had reacted to the Yenaldooshi. "Something's scanning me," I muttered, staring at his wrist. "Or... trying to scan Cannonbolt's DNA?" That’s what I felt.

Old Faithful suddenly went silent, the pressure dropping to nothing, before the ground around it bulged upward. Rock and soil pushed skyward like an immense bubble rising from depths that shouldn't exist.

"EVERYBODY DOWN!" Grandpa Max shouted, tackling both Gwen and I to the ground as the Earth itself seemed to rupture.

That’s when Nightcrawler moved. “Hold tight!” He disappeared in a burst of blue mist every other second, and one by one the people vanished. Our turn came soon, as the three of us were lost in a puff of blue and reappeared half a mile away from our previous position.

“Look there!” Gwen pointed. With a thunderous roar that shattered windows for miles, something massive erupted from below Old Faithful. Not falling from space, but rising from beneath—a meteorite in reverse, trailing earth and magma instead of cosmic fire.

The object was massive, easily the size of a building, its surface a nightmarish blend of metal and organic matter. As it breached fully into daylight, those who dared look could make out a shape like a bloated tick, pulsing with sickly orange light.

"The Great One rises!" a voice shouted from somewhere behind the fleeing tourists, loud as if to announce to the world itself. "The cleansing begins!"

Grandpa Max's face went slack with recognition and horror. "Ah, I know what this is.” He said. “Studied a case about it about two decades ago. This is not good news.”

He couldn’t be more right.

In just half a minute, the massive tick-like creature was fully out of the ground, with only its bottom planted on the soil. It wasn't alone.

Three smaller figures burst from the underground crater, rising on individual platforms of twisted metal and organic matter. 

Even from half a mile away, I could make out their grotesque forms. They were as I remembered them from the cartoon, except the realism made them uglier. One of them was multi-armed and chittering, another tall and skeletal, the third a hulking brute that looked like it could go against Hulk.

"Those three must be the Tick’s minions," Grandpa said grimly, his scanner painting their energy signatures in harsh red. "They came out of the ground. Who knows how long they've been preparing this for? Years. Decades, maybe."

The creatures hovered there, surveying the chaos below like generals reviewing a battlefield. Tourists screamed and scattered in every direction as the ground continued to fracture, geysers erupting randomly across the landscape.

"As much as I want to beat up those minions and ask them what was going on, we need to get these people out of here," I said, already reaching for the Omnitrix. 

"Agreed," Jean said, struggling to stand despite the psychic feedback hammering her skull. "My students and I will—"

"No," Grandpa cut her off with military authority. "You're compromised. That thing has absorbed who knows how many planets and civilizations? All those aliens’ souls, voices, they’re clearly having an effect on you. Its psychic emanations are interfering with your abilities. Relax, we got this. Ben, get everyone to the north parking area. It's the only stable ground left."

“On it, Grandpa.” I clicked down on the watch face, selecting XLR8 without hesitation. 

The transformation was like lightning. Everything stretched. My spine snapped upright, limbs elongating and narrowing. Skin turned sleek and obsidian, like polished armor. A tail unfurled behind me and my feet split into two backward-jointed claws. The world tilted as my center of gravity shifted forward.

A helmet-like carapace clamped down over my skull, and I heard the whir of turbines spinning up inside my legs. Suddenly the world slowed to a crawl around me. My eyes traced the world. Panicked tourists moved like they were underwater, their screams stretching into low moans. 

Time to work.

I became a blue-and-black blur across the landscape, a force of nature with a single purpose. A family of four huddled near a collapsing gift shop. I scooped them up in one fluid motion, their combined weight nothing to my enhanced strength. Three seconds later, they were safely deposited in the north parking area, still processing what had happened.

Back to the chaos. An elderly couple trapped between two spreading fissures. Grab, run, deposit. A group of college kids who'd been taking selfies when the world ended. All six of them gathered up and relocated before they could blink.

I was efficient, powerful, but definitely not subtle. My speed created sonic booms that shattered windows and my passage left scorched earth where my feet had touched down. But it worked. The main tourist areas cleared in less than a minute.

– BAMF!

Kurt Wagner appeared beside me in a puff of sulfurous smoke, his blue fur singed from the heat. Where I was a wide net, he was a surgical scalpel. He vanished again, reappearing inside a teetering cable car suspended over a newly-formed chasm.

– BAMF!

One terrified passenger safely teleported away.

– BAMF! 

Another.

He was precise, methodical, but honestly limited. Every jump visibly drained him, sweat beading on his blue forehead as he made trip after trip. I watched him appear inside a ranger station with a collapsing roof, grabbing the staff inside one by one.

"Kurt's burning himself out," I said to Grandpa through the comm system he'd hastily distributed. "He can only take—"

"Tour bus!" Gwen's voice cut through the radio, sharp with panic. "Northwest ridge!"

I spun to see the disaster unfolding. A large tour bus, packed with at least a dozen tourists, had swerved to avoid a massive fissure and ended up teetering on the edge of a cliff. The vehicle rocked back and forth, its rear wheels spinning uselessly in empty air while the front bumper scraped against crumbling stone.

I started toward it, then stopped. The ground between me and the bus was a spider web of cracks and fissures. If I ran at full speed, the vibrations would trigger a landslide that would send the bus plummeting into the unstable riverbed below.

– BAMF! 

Kurt appeared beside the bus, then immediately doubled over, coughing up blood. "Can't... too many trips... need a minute..."

"Ice bridge!" Bobby Drake shouted, extending his hands toward the chasm. Frozen water began forming a path from solid ground to the bus, but the intense geothermal heat from the fissures below melted it as fast as he could create it. "It's like trying to build a snowman in a volcano!"

The bus lurched forward another inch. Screams came from inside.

"I've got this!" Gwen stepped forward, her charms blazing with purple light. She didn't try to lift the bus since it was too heavy, even for her enhanced telekinesis. Instead, she anchored it in place, invisible force fields creating a web of support beneath and around the vehicle.

Her face went tight with concentration, veins standing out on her forehead as she fought against gravity and physics. "I can't hold it forever!" she shouted, glancing at Jean who was still on the ground, clutching her head in agony. "Ben, get them out NOW!"

I transformed back to human form and then immediately hit the watch again, this time getting Cannonbolt. The armored form was perfect for this. I could roll right to the bus without triggering a landslide since my weight was distributed across my spherical form.

I tucked into a ball and rolled carefully across the fractured terrain, using my momentum to reach the bus without putting too much pressure on any single point. Once there, I uncurled and started pulling tourists through the emergency exits, my enhanced strength making it easy to lift them to safety one by one.

"Last one!" I called out, grabbing the bus driver and leaping clear just as Gwen's telekinetic hold finally gave out. The empty vehicle tumbled into the chasm with a crash that echoed across the park.

"Area clear!" Kurt reported through the comm, having recovered enough to finish evacuating the ranger station. "All civilians accounted for!"

But Grandpa's voice was grim when it crackled through our radios. "That’s good, but… Ugh, we need to stop this. It's not just feeding... it's terraforming. Look around you."

I transformed back to human form and really looked at our surroundings for the first time since the evacuation began. The landscape was changing before our eyes. 

Where green grass and pine trees had stood minutes ago, now there was twisted metal and pulsing organic matter. The ground beneath our feet had taken on a sickly orange hue, like infected tissue.

Kitty phased up through the earth, her face pale with horror. "It has weird roots," she gasped. "They're spreading like cancer through the entire park. Miles of them, all connected to that thing."

The air quality had become horrible. It had an oily edge that made breathing difficult. The temperature was rising despite the altitude, and the sky had taken on a reddish tint that had nothing to do with sunset.

"The entire park is being affected already," Grandpa said quietly, his scanner painting impossible readings across its screen. "It's becoming an extension of its body. It's almost as if we're not on Earth anymore."

This was dangerous. No time to call for help, it’d be too late by then. Too many people would die before the entirety of X-Men could come, or someone else. We couldn’t leave this to others.

Above us, the Great Tick crackled with energy with malevolent satisfaction, and its three minions finally began to move.

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