The Ultimates

Gwen eyed her laptop in thought, frustration lightly marring her features. She paused and looked up when she heard knocking at her door.

"Come in Ben," she called

Her cousin cautiously stepped in, a curious look on his face. He broke off for a split second before speaking in a voice laced with confusion.

"How'd you know it was me?"

"My parents always sort of just knock and come in, Ken asks if I'm decent, and Kevin is the only one who ever asks if he can come in," she answered. "The only other option was you."

"Pretty clever. So, what's up?"

"Well…" Gwen looked slightly sheepish.

"Gwen, you wouldn't have called me over for nothing."

"Well, to be honest, I've been thinking a lot about you and the Ultimatrix really."

"Me and the Ultimatrix? What about?"

"A lot of things, I guess?"

"Like what?"

"Remember that time a few of your ultimate forms gained sentience?"

"How could I forget? You scared my half to death going all Anodite on them."

"And you scared me when you jumped into that pit. But that's not the point. It didn't really bother me that their sentient now; what really bugged me is how they gained sentience."

"I was a bit concerned about that… But honestly, I was more concerned about how weird Kevin was acting when he got back from Galvan Prime. …How long have you been thinking about this again?"

"Two months."

"So, what've you got?"

She turned her laptop to face him and he raised his brow at the collection of notes.

"You really went to town on this one, didn't you?"

"Yeah. What I was thinking was; you probably don't remember this, but when Dr. Borges was questioning you and Ultimate Humongasaur, he mentioned that his mother tried to eat him before he hatched."

"Yikes, no wonder he was so aggressive," Ben looked extremely disturbed at the revelation and tried to not think of the implications of it.

"Probably, but that's not my point. How could an 'empty shell' that just learned how to… Well, be, remember something it never suffered?"

"That is pretty strange... So, I take it you have a few ideas on how that could be possible?"

"Just one."

"Alright then, let's hear it."

"Okay, Azmuth said that the Ultimates were just empty shells for your mind to inhabit, right?"

"Right."

"The way I see it, that's only the case for the un-evolved, or 'original forms'."

"Hmm… And how would that work?"

"The original Omnitrix was intended to replace your DNA with alien DNA, essentially turning you into an alien, right?"

"Right."

"And the Ultimatrix does that plus evolving that DNA, right?"

"Right…"

"Good. So, the way I see it, the Ultimatrix glitched at some point when it evolved those aliens."

"And the glitch is what caused the Ultimates to gain sentience, right?"

"Something like that."

"I'm sorry, how would that work again?"

"To be honest I can't be sure, but my theory is that since Ultimatrix uses some kind of artificial evolution; and it — for lack of better wording — tampers with the original DNA sample in order to do it."

"I guess that make sense, but like you said, Azmuth said that the aliens in Ultimatrix were empty shells for a mind to inhabit."

"I know what he said, but I doubt we should take that at face value."

"Ya'know, you're probably right. I thought it sounded a little 'dumbed-down' anyway."

"And therefore not entirely accurate."

"You're probably right."

"The way I see it, the glitch in the Ultimatrix that caused the Ultimates to gain sentience was that it failed to graft out the specific helices that made up those specific aliens."

"…Could you please put that in layman's terms?"

"How about this? When you meet a new alien species, what do you do?"

"I scan their DNA."

"Then what happened to that scan?"

"It's added to the Codon Stream?"

"Exactly, but what you forget is that DNA is also specific to the individual."

Ben now looked somewhere between completely lost, and absolutely lost. Gwen just gave her cousin a look of disbelief. He at least had the decency to flush pink.

"Did you pay any attention in biology class?"

"Sorta?"

"Anyway… The DNA samples —your aliens — are basically genetic clones of the doners."

"That would explain Chromastone and Sugilite."

"Please don't interrupt me."

"Sorry."

"Now, if your aliens are genetic clones of the original person, what the Utimatrix does is evolve that specific person."

"I follow you."

"So, the glitch that caused the Ultimates was a fault in non-essential helix grafting."

"…Aaand, now you've lost me."

"Alright, crash-course Biology class. Part of what makes you is fifty percent of what makes up your mom, and fifty percent what makes up your dad; plus the way those parts are combined."

"Okay."

"When I say helix grafting, I mean that the Ultimatrix removes that parts of your DNA that make you human, not the parts that make you Ben Tennyson. So, when you transform into say… Swampfire, instead of you becoming that specific Methanosian you become Swampfire."

"I think I get it. Basically, I'm still my parents' kid, just a different species."

"Correct."

"Cool. So that means if at one point the 'helix grafting' failed; then the Ultimatrix created an active clone instead of just a base transformation, right?"

"Uh-huh. And that would explain the Ultimates's memories. They weren't falsely developed; those were the memories of the originals in an evolved form."

"You really think that's what happened?"

"It's the only explanation I can come up with."

"Just then, Gwen's cell phone rang. She answered quickly with a content smile on her face.

"Hey Kevin… Yeah, why? — What! Alright, hurry up… Don't worry, he's already here with me. Say 'hi' Ben."

Gwen held up the device and Ben smirked with a wicked gleam in his eye.

"Hey, Kev-in," Ben drawled, pitching his voice in an attempt to sound like a love-sick puppy.

Gwen glared at the obvious and over-exaggerated impersonation and snatched the phone back.

"Ignore that. See you soon."

And with that she hung up. She glared at her cousin even as he donned a more serious air.

"What's up?"

"Kevin thinks he found one of Albedo's hideouts."

"Is that so? You know… I'm gonna chalk that whole 'glitch' thing up to his shoddy workmanship."