Cannonbolt confidently rolled through the caves. Grandpa and the others were safe topside, and the 'Yenaldooshi' was pretty much finished. What could survive having a mountain crushing it? And lava, too? Besides him, of course. In this form, rolled-up, he was invincible. He just had to blast through to the surface and this very eventful day would end on a high note.
Ben noticed a funny taste in his mouth.
Suddenly, Cannonbolt stopped! Huh? Before he could react, he felt himself being lifted into the air and thrown in the opposite direction!
The sudden shock caused the alien to uncurl. Immediately, he saw the reason for his unusual detour- The Werewolf alien! It must've survived somehow and got in his path. From what Cannonbolt could tell from it's eyes, it was angry. Very angry.
Not that it mattered. He had trounced this horror-flick reject once, he cold do it again.
"Still wanna play, Fangface?"
The curious taste seemed to fill Ben's mouth. It didn't seem unpleasant...
Cannonbolt rolled up again and charged at his attacker. The werewolf quickly jumped out of the way, and Cannonbolt found himself slamming against a wall of the cavern hard.
He winced. That wall seemed very hard at that moment - maybe his long night had taken a bit of a toll on him after all.
Oh well. He was still up for a fight. Cannonbolt promptly rolled around and charged the alien again.
He noticed that he was a bit - slower than normal. Maybe because he was tired. Maybe because he had had enough of fighting for one day and night.
Whatever the reason, the Yenaldooshi caught him and picked him up again.
"Hey! Put me down, creep!"
And it did. Hard. The werewolf smashed Cannonbolt's ball-form again and again on the cave wall, as if this yellow thing was an egg and he was trying to break it open to get the good stuff inside. Cannonbolt strained with every hit.
Ben swallowed, but the sensation in his mouth persisted.
Suddenly, Cannonbolt snapped open from the strain. He uncurled from his invincible shell to see the werewolf, and saw his X-shaped mouth go straight towards his chest...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Benjamin Tennyson awoke with a start, then tried desperately too catch his breath.
He had been having this nightmare for weeks now, and each time it seemed to get more and more intense, like his was reliving that moment. And now there was that taste...
Ben tried to calm himself down. He was fine. Fine. That fight was over a month ago. Yeah. And he was OK. He had gotten out without a scratch. None. None. So why was this dream haunting him? Why -
Benjamin's eyes adjusted to the dark surprisingly fast. He realized he wasn't in his room. He saw... trees. Yeah, they were trees. A lot of them, all around him. He also noticed that he had been kneeling on grass the entire time.
What on earth? Have I been sleepwalking? Ben thought, his panic slowly increasing. What was he doing out here? He decided to rub the sleep from his eyes and figure things out logically. Yeah...
When he rubbed his eyes, though, he noticed two very odd things. First of all, his nose was much longer than normal. Second, there was something sticky all over his hands.
No. Not hands. Claws. Ben stared in mounting horror at the hairy claws that were pretending to be his hands. He was in one of his alien forms. But more disturbing than the unexplained change was the red stuff covering these claws.
He recognized those claws. And that red stuff wasn't Ketchup.
"No."
The taste. A horrible thought entered Ben's head. He looked down and saw a deer. A dead deer, ripped apart by savage claws.
His. Benwolf's.
"NO!"
The taste.
The Dream.
He HAD been bitten - it must've healed quickly - who knew what these aliens could do? But it had punctured Cannonbolt's soft underbelly, and that was all that mattered now.
Ben recoiled in horror at what he had done...
What he was.
"NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!"
Max awoke with a start, and tried to calm himself back to sleep. For a second, that wolf howling sounded like his grandson screaming.