As Garth was busy collecting the Omnitrix, Grandpa Max and Gwen were still at the campsite.
Looking out in the direction Garth had walked in, Max worried, "Garth's been gone a while. Well, I guess he can't get into too much trouble out here."
Hearing this, Gwen stopped typing. A contemplative look crossed her face. Eventually, she let out a weary sigh and closed her laptop. "You know, Grandpa. I think I'll go looking for him." Setting her computer aside, she stood up.
"Really," Grandpa asked curiously. "Well, then I can go with you."
"No," Gwen denied. "Like you said, he's probably fine. Unless he wound up bear food, but a girl can dream. Anyway, you wanted us to get along, right? Well, maybe we can find some come on ground on the way back."
"Okay, but don't venture too far. We wouldn't want to lose you too. If you can't find him come back and we can head further out together."
"Yes, Grandpa."
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"Most of these I can recognize easily enough. Looks like Atilea gave me all the 'main' ones. Though, who knows if she's made any other changes to the thing. Still, some of these…I swear I saw Goop twice. Unless there's another goopy alien I'm forgetting. Plus, I think I saw Vilgax and what looked like a Drenai from WoW."
Having gone through the list, Garth more or less recognized the fifty aliens he had been given.
"Now that I'm done, I guess I should head back to Max and Gwen…"
Garth looked to the still raised dial of the Omnitrix.
"I mean, I'm not a dumb kid whose just going to play with this thing…It isn't a toy…Buuuut…It's not like I know how to turn it off now that it's up. If master control isn't on, then I should change back in ten minutes…They can wait ten more minutes, right?"
Slowly rationalizing his desire to use the Omnitrix, Garth raised it as he switched the dial to show the alien known as a Pyronite – more popularly known as Heatblast.
"If I'm going to do this, I should at least pick a safe one." It was with this thought that Garth pressed down on the dial.
In a flash of green light, Garth was transformed. Though it only took a moment, for him it felt much slower as he could feel his skin turning to stone, his organs changing into something else, and his blood turning to magma. As his molten blood flowed through his body, it expanded. His stone skin split apart as it flowed through him. His hands and feet lit up with a fiery glow and his head combusted into a blazing fire.
As the green light faded, Garth took in his new form.
Moving around his joints, Garth familiarized himself with his new body. He breathed deeply as he tried to keep his bubbling excitement under control. Remembering canon, getting too excited is what led Ben to causing a forest fire. However, he was an adult (in a teenager's body). He should not let himself get carried away. He would use his newfound powers, but carefully.
Once he familiarized himself with his Pyronite physiology, Garth understood how a ten-year-old child could use them to play superhero. Everything felt…natural. There was no sense of disconnect – as though his body had always been a walking mass of magma and rock.
Trying to use the alien's (Heatblast's) power pyrokinesis, Garth could feel the power and shifted it between his hands. Getting use to it, he focused and created a fireball he immediately began throwing up and down and then between his hands.
"I shouldn't go using trees for target practice," Garth thought. "But, is shooting fire all Heatblast can do? There was that flying trick, and he got ice powers when he was sick. But how does that work? If he can get ice powers when sick, why can't he have them all the time?"
Noticing smoke rising around him, Garth saw that his feet were burning into the ground. Stumbling away, he had a thought. "Heatblast's powers involve controlling the fire he creates…"
Looking over to one of the surrounding trees, Garth approached it before reaching out a hand and pressing it against it. To no surprise, his hand began to burn the tree with smoke rising up. Any moment, it would likely catch fire.
However, Garth closed his eyes to concentrate. As he expected, he could feel it. The heat he was giving off as it was absorbed into the tree and causing it to burn…
As Garth went about testing to see if he could discover something about Heatblast's powers, Gwen was looking around for him with growing concern. "Where are you, Garth," she muttered. "You'd better not have actually become bear food."
There was no telling if Gwen had strayed too far from camp or not. She may not have been happy to be here, but she had decided to make the most of it and maybe try to get closer to her cousin. Having him die right after making that decision?
As this thought crossed her mind, Gwen stopped mid step – a look of worry on her face. However, she quickly shook off this feeling and began walking faster. "Garth," she called out – growing less concerned about expressing care for him. "Garth!"
Suddenly, there was a loud crash and Gwen could feel the earth shake. Worried that something may have happened to Garth, she ran in the direction of the noise.
Nimbly avoiding the foliage in her way, Gwen soon came to a small clearing where she saw…a humanoid monster of fire and rock standing in front of a frost covered tree…
Looking down at the fallen tree, Garth clenched his fist. "I did it! If Heatblast can control his fire, and a little cold gives him ice powers, then the obvious connection is temperature. Maybe if I practice enough, I can be like Shoto Todoroki, but for now, it looks like I can at least absorb heat as well as put it out. The sudden temperature drop causes things to practically flash-freeze and become brittle."
Flexing his hands, Garth also considered, "I should see about controlling Heatblast's body heat. Maybe avoid burning things I don't want to burn. Still, he got ice powers from being sick. Should be careful not to accidentally hurt myself."
"YYYYEEAAHHH!!!!" A sudden battle cry was heard as a large branch was suddenly smashed over Garth's head.
"Ow!" The flames around his head spiking, Garth put one hand to the back of his head as he turned to see Gwen standing there with a broken stick she probably found on the ground somewhere.
"Okay, whatever you are," Gwen glared. "Where's my cousin!?"
Garth stood silently as he tried to consider the situation he was in. "I avoided starting a fire, so why'd she come into the forest…At least a stick probably hurts less than a fire-extinguisher."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with it?"
"Oh, I don't know. My cousin is missing, there's some fire monster knocking down trees. You tell me?"
"Maybe he just wandered off?"
"Hmm…Maybe, but for some reason, getting eaten by a fire monster seems more likely."
"How!?"
Mentally shouting this, Garth stared blankly at Gwen. He then sighed. "It's me."
"What?"
"I said, 'It's me,' Gwen."
"Huh-, Wait. How do you know my name?" Gwen's gaze hardened as she raised what remained of her stick.
"Ugh, like I said. IT'S ME! Garth Haze? I am him, he is me."
Realization slowly setting in, Gwen lowered her stick. "Garth? How?"
"Short version? Alien watch fell from the sky, jumped on my wrist, I pushed a button, and then I turned into this."
Gwen stared at Garth for several moments before finally saying, "Why would you push a button? I don't watch a lot of movies, but I know you never push alien buttons."
"I thought it would get it off me," Garth lied in a false defensive tone.
"And, what was that about," Gwen demanded as she pointed toward the fallen tree.
"I turned into a giant fire monster," Garth replied plainly. "I was curious to see what it could do and wanted to avoid causing a wildfire."
Gwen opened her mouth to argue but stopped herself. In the end, she pinched her brow in frustration. "A forest fire would have been bad." Letting out a sigh, she said, "For now, let's…let's get you to Grandpa to try and figure out what to do."
"Okay," Garth nodded.
Gwen turned to lead the way and Garth followed.
Walking beside her, Garth glanced at the clearly irritated Gwen. "You're handling this awfully well."
"Hmm?"
"I mean. Alien watch turning me into a big fire monster. Not exactly most people would be willing to roll with."
Clearly the heat radiating off of Heatblast's body was getting to Gwen as she wiped off the sweat gathering on her brow. "I can tell it's still you, Dweeb. So, it's just…something latched onto you, you messed with it, and got turned into a monster…This makes absolutely no sense, but somehow it feels very you."
"AGAIN HOW," Garth internally complained.
"First getting eaten by a fire monster, and now this? How does that feel like something that would happen to me," Garth said aloud more calmly than he felt.
Gwen shrugged as she pulled at her color due to the heat. "I don't know. It just is. You're a freak. Nothing about this makes a lick of sense, and if it were anyone else, I'd be freaking out." She then turned an unimpressed look at him. "But something about it being you makes this feel normal."
Using his increased height to make it look like he is simply looking down at her and not down her shirt, Garth internally considered this. "Is this part of being an MC? Where people just roll with stuff because it's you? The universe favors the MC. Maybe there's actually some sort of brainwashing thing they have that explains why some stuff works for them the way it does. Like Talk-no-Jutsu and power of friendship…"
Walking in silence, the two eventually returned to the campsite.
Spotting their grandfather standing there, Gwen called out, "Hey, Grandpa, look who I found."
"Oh, were you able to find Garth okay-," Max began to say as he turned to face his granddaughter. However, when he did, his eyes widened at the sight of the Pyronite walking beside her. "Gwen! Behind you!" The older man then charged toward the alien with a determined expression.
However, Gwen quickly stepped in front of Heatblast. "Wait! Grandpa! It's Garth!"
Having Gwen step in his way, Max stumbled to a stop. He then registered her words and looked over the creature. "Wha?...Garth?"
"It's me, Grandpa," Garth waved – easily repeating the canon line.
Max stood straight as he looked his grandson over – eyes momentarily focusing on the emblem on Heatblast's chest. "What happened to you, son?"
"Mind if we talk over some roasting marshmallows," Garth asked. Now that he had the Omnitrix, he really wanted to get back to the talk about marshmallows.
Max gave a small laugh while Gwen rolled her eyes.
The family proceeded to set up a small fire pit.
Recalling how Heatblast had managed to ignite Gwen's shoe in the first episode, Garth tried to do the same. Focusing his concentration on the collected firewood, he could feel the heat around it begin to condense around it. In a moment, the wood ignited, and they had fire. Although, the sudden flame startled Gwen and Max – causing him to apologize.
Sitting around the fire, Max pulled out the bag of marshmallows while Garth explained what happened – more or less.
After hearing his grandson's explanation, Max, asked, "And, you say that this 'watch' just jumped up and clamped onto your wrist?"
Gwen tossed Garth a marshmallow that he lobbed into his stony mouth. "Uh-huh. That's pretty much it."
Garth shivered. "Instant roasted marshmallow! Heatblast is officially the best alien, confirmed!"
While Garth enjoyed the instantly melted marshmallow, Gwen asked, "Do you think he's going to stay a monster forever?"
"He's not a monster," Max quickly corrected. "He's an alien."
"What's the difference," Gwen asked.
"Alien implies 'not of this world'," Garth suggested. "A monster could still be from Earth."
"That's right," Max confirmed.
Looking between them, Gwen then asked, "And, how do we know one from the other?"
At this, Max became flustered. "Well, I mean, look at him? What else could he be? And he said the watch was contained in something that fell from space."
Garth eyed Max. "Uh-huh~ That's right, just keep your past as a government-sponsored alien fighter secret. Definitely don't reveal it to your grandchildren despite one of them having a piece of genetic-altering alien tech strapped to their arm. Honestly, might be good to know now rather than later."
It was then that an all too familiar and dreaded beeping was heard.