Viral Chapter 2: Broken

"Aliens?! Pfft. Nothing that interesting would ever happen out here. Bellwood, though... well, anyways, nope, nothing out here in the desert." -- Woman to Undercover Plumber

The engine beat almost rhythmically, not unlike the heavy metal played a yard from the boy's face hours before. Ben coughed up dirt and oil as his blackened face screwed up into a sickened look.

Ben had tried to activate the Omnitrix. The problem, you see, was that the teenager had forgotten he was under a car whose underside had been splayed across its owners chest ten minutes before. Kevin had turned on the car so as to possibly do something useful and unintentionally splattered the boy under his car with a faceful of motor oil. Whoops.

He heard the driver side door open (but not shut). A boot slammed down inches from him, and the sound of an unconventional plasma gun echoed across the pavement. His shots apparently made contact; a fresh round of bullets and beams came around the front of the car. Stamping feet surrounded the car, and Ben heard Kevin swing back into the car. Ben wanted to shout - say something - but he was still choking.

Before he knew it, the bottom side of the car sprang to life as the driver rammed down on the gas. A hiss sounded and Ben's view of the outside world was obscured by smoke.

Aw, crap. He knew what was going to happen next, and he had no other choice if he didn't want to get shot. The sound of people was getting closer and closer, smoke or not.

Ben looked rapidly around at the belly of the tank-like car. Might as well try. The teenager hooked his feet into low-riding tow hooks a third of the way up the car. (I'm sure it makes this easy to tow away, he thought sarcastically). Next, Ben heaved his body off the ground as held for dear life onto whatever handhold he could find.

He was lucky, too. The car exploded into motion and the ground under Ben slipped away. The boy gritted his teeth - also greasy and black - and thought of what to do next. He could hang on for a few minutes, but not any longer than that. His shoulders were already starting to ache slightly. So, Ben decided he'd wait it out.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Gwen continued the fight as best they could. Gwen deflected shots away from the car back at the posse, occasionally throwing down those glowing electrical charges. Kevin had scored some successful shots when he got out of the car for a moment, but not much more than that. The attackers had decided it would be a good idea to charge Kevin and Ben; Kevin decided it was time for a getaway.

While our polymorphic hero clung to the bottom of the car, Kevin started it up. He had a limited set of tools, but thought that now was a great time to try out a smoke bomb. While it worked somewhat, Gwen's view from above showed that the group still charged on like the could see through the cloudy green mist.

Kevin shifted his car into gear and spun wildly, turning around and rocketing off onto the unpaved desert land. The men he hadn't knocked down or shot already had run back to some of the motorcycles and rode after him.

Ben dared to open his eyes for a second, stealing a glance at the Omnitrix he had made at an attempt to use. The face glowed a familiar orange, causing Ben to groan lowly to himself. That's all I need. He heard the motor bikes roaring up behind him. He looked upward and could just see out the front of the car, but it was mostly darkness edged by the glow of headlights. Ben felt the car jerk slightly; it had shifted through all its gears and was probably going in the hundreds. It couldn't go much faster from here, but its current speed worried the 15-year-old the most.

The unknown passenger swung wildly around on the bottom as Kevin swerved to avoid shots from his pursuers. Looking in the rear-view mirror, he quickly added up those following him. There were nine motorcycles total - eight cronies and his favorite trader/traitor. Distantly he could spot the double headlights of the other cars, dotted by pinkish bursts of light.

He pushed his foot down on the gas pedal even harder, watching the speedometer crawl past 130 and hover there. What else could he use? Before Kevin could answer that question, he looked back out at the landscape in front of him. Ahead about 100 feet was a steep drop off that could go for hundreds of fatal feet. To the right, maybe 300 feet at most, was a road that snaked through two towering sets of rocks. He'd have to try and make the road.

Kevin lifted his foot and slammed the brakes, throwing the steering wheel to the right and hitting the gas. In the instant he spun, three of the motorcycles puttered past him. They attempted to perform the same maneuver, but skidded left and then backwards towards the drop. Momentum and gravity took turns... they won this one, and the three bikes skittered off the small cliff. Kevin didn't care about them, he just had to get away. Successfully completing his 90 degree turn, he began to speed up again while moving towards the road. The other six were still closely following.

To Ben's dismay, Kevin hit the road hard. His arms were starting to scream for relief when the huge vehicle hit bumped onto the pavement. Ben's right foot fell from its hold, hitting the road and bouncing. The next few seconds were very unfortunate for the ninth grade hero. Kevin was forced to sling around the curve to avoid slamming into another pile of rocks, slowing down ever so slightly into the turn. Ben had no time to recover from the start of the road, and the curve was just enough to sling him off the bottom of the car.

At the high speeds the convoy was going, Ben almost flew while still being a foot off the ground. Arms still above his head, the boy spun around in the air while he jetted off the drop. It was pretty shallow here, but it was still a 20-foot roll at an almost 45 degree angle. He hit the sand hard and tumbled swiftly. Ben Tennyson was unconscious before he could even think it. An audible set of sickening cracks could have been heard.

For a split second, Kevin saw the flying body roll down the cliff. He almost bit his lip off, but that was the least of his worries. His pursuers were quickly gaining. The driver stamped down on the gas pedal.

His phone rang, barely piercing through the motorized storm behind him. Kevin hit a button on the side of the vibrating cell, and the audio cut through his speakers. Shooting around another curve, he spat into a hidden microphone somewhere in the dashboard, "What?!"

"Where are you and Ben?" Gwen's voice was a lot calmer now. Even Kevin didn't have the heart to tell her, so he made a lie of omission. "I'm being chased down by six of 'em. I saw Ben for one sec back around the curve near the cliff. Go look for him while I shake these guys."

A huge explosion sounded over the phone, cutting off Gwen's response. Kevin was almost yelling: "Wait... what the hell was that?"

"Oh, well... one of my energy discharges got into some of their cars..."

Kevin grinned wildly. "... 'Atta girl!" He could almost see the look on Gwen's face in response. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll go look for Ben; all the guys here are knocked out or... what do you mean you saw him for a sec?"

The ex-con winced. "He was... going down the cliff."

"What, like running... ?"

Kevin went down the fourth curve, and he knew what was going next. "Gotta go," he hissed, cutting off his phone. They had tried this road on the way to the meeting place. The road they were going down forked off the highway about two miles back. It was supposed to lead to some town, but stopped with a row of Dead End signs and orange cones before a bridge was supposed to start. It led right into a canyon, and if he kept just the right speed...

The car rounded its final curve and the guys behind him only had a millisecond to see their fates. For the second time that evening, Kevin rammed on the brakes. This time he pulled out all the stops, both shifting downward, braking, and pulling his emergency brake simultaneously. His head ripped forward, but the car plunged out of its hundred-mile speed. Momentum pulled them all forward, and the wall of "DANGER!" signs was shattered. His car pulled up onto the pre-built ramp for the bridge as it came to a stop. Kevin could just barely see the headlights of the motorcycles about fifty yards. They flicked on and off, caused by the motorcycles pulling 360's as they fell.

Kevin stopped to breathe for a moment. He turned around, put the car into reverse, and backed down the ramp. As happily as would like to ignore it... he had to go find Ben.

Meanwhile, Ben was broken. Literally. I mean, broken in the "how-very-lucky-you're-not-conscious-to-feel-this" way. His left arm and both legs looked dangerous. The boy's head was bloodied, and he probably had a broken rib or two. No news on his spine, but it probably wasn't good news.

Two hundred yards away, three men were miraculously walking away from the wreckage of their own motorcycles. Gravity thought it had won that fight, but it was apparently wrong. One of them was carrying a weapon that looked like a cross between a bazooka, and pistol, and one of those kiddy toys that shoots little Styrofoam pellets with suckers on the ends. One of the other two was limping and the final one looked like he was holding his arm on with his opposite hand. Well, that's not saying anything about the guy with the weapon. His helmet was still on his head, and his neck looked vaguely like it was broken in the "there's no way in hell you should be alive" way. Creepy, isn't it?

And they were walking, painfully slow and ghostlike, towards Ben.

Minutes later, they hovered over the cold body of Ben Tennyson.

"Aw, the poor dude looks like he got the same treatment as us," said Broken-Arms.

"'Poor dude?'" That was Broken-Neck. "We're supposed to kill his buddy and make sure to take this guy with us."

Said Broken-Leg, "He must be special, right there."

"Not really sure, dude. He can't be patched up like we can."

Broken-Neck waved his weapon around although there was hardly any light. "Speaking of patched up, I suppose we should empty this out so we can get out of here?"

Broken-Leg responded. "But wasn't that for the guy with the dark hair we're chasing?"

The guy with the weapon sneered, although it couldn't be seen. "Hey, listen here, as long as this thing is emptied, we all get a free pass to the infirmary. Sounds good to me."

The questioner noiselessly shrugged. He lunged down unto his knees and flipped the boy over.

Weapon-toting guy leaned over the fifteen-year-old, placing the quadruple barrels at the base of Ben's spine. The man's head jiggled like a disgusting bobble-head toy. He pushed it down into the teenager's back, leaning all of his weight into it. He then squeezed the trigger. A nasty squelch combined with the noice of a very low bang, as if it was a vaccination needle shot from a gun.

"Good luck to him," said the man holding his arms on.

The creepy group limped away. Their human figures - disguises, rather - flickered off as they walked into the desert. What they were, in reality, was too gruesome to describe.

Now back to Ben. His body convulsively shuddered for about twenty seconds. He took a couple of gasping breaths which then pattered down to gravely shallow breaths. He was in bad shape. On Ben's uninjured arm sat the Omnitrix, which had glowed weird colors this entire time.

Its face faded to a blood red, then to a pinkish-purple, to a navy blue, and then black. And not black as in the color black, but off.

Darkness.