"I'm starting to get real tired of playing hide-and-seek with you," Morrigan said as her bats dropped Ben on the alley floor. The swarm of flying rodents then returned to her back to reassemble her wings bit by bit. "Do you realize I had to go looking for you three times tonight? Is 'running away' the only martial art you're any good at?"

"No, Argit still holds the black belt for that." Ben said as he got back ono his feet. His right hand rubbed at a sharp pain stabbing into his back.

"Who's Argit?"

"Nobody important," Ben answered. "And by the way, I wasn't hiding. The Omnitrix timed out after you dunked me into my friend's car."

The wings on Morrigan's head perked up with her ears at Ben's words. "Oooh, you have a friend? Is he any good at fighting?"

"Why was that the only thing you managed to pay attention to?" Ben griped.

"It was the only thing you said that was worth paying attention to, sweetie." Morrigan answered rather bluntly. "Plus, I happen to like the idea of taking on two guys at once."

Ben let out a loud groan while he buried his face in his palms.

"Hey, don't give me that. That was a good pun."

"You notice how there's only one of us who thinks that? Don't get me wrong, I like gross-out humor as much as the next guy, but you…"

"I'm a succubus, kid. Suggestive witticisms are my thing."

"Were they supposed to be witty? I honestly couldn't tell. All this time, I thought you were just vomiting."

"And here I was thinking you were grown enough to appreciate a little bit of crudeness. My mistake, I guess."

"I don't think you of all people should be talking about being grown-up." Ben countered. Of course, he definitely wasn't one to talk either.

"That's where you'd be wrong."

As Morrigan started to walk closer to him, Ben felt his mind beginning to fall under the sway of her seductive influence again. His focus was dominated by her dazzling eyes and voluptuous curves; it was becoming difficult to think about else with her delicate arms around him.

"I happen to be a great teacher when it comes to…adult situations." She cooed in his ear. "Why don't I give you a private lesson?"

Morrigan's voice and the implications it carried tickled Ben ear as it traveled down his spine with an electric charge. As cold as it was tonight, he still found himself sweating under his collar, while his heart was beating as if it were a hummingbird. With Morrigan's lustful spell clouding his mind, there was nothing more he could ever want than her divine touch, and her soft, pump, red lips pressing against his.

Oh, wait, sorry, I was wrong; there was something he wanted more. Something he desired so bad, that the very notion of losing it pulled him out of Morrigan's trance just before she landed another one of her memory-snatching kisses on him.

That thing was getting home in time to watch ghost-ninjas haunt a mall full of unsuspecting teenagers.

Fully awake, Ben quickly slid his hand between his and Morrigan's faces just as their lips were about to touch. "I don't know how things work in the Null Void - and I sorta don't care - but in this dimension, we've got this thing called the 'Age of Consent'," He said as he pushed her away. "And what that means in a nutshell is: 'Get out of my face'!"

"Hmmph, way to ruin the mood, sourpuss." Morrigan pouted. "If you're going to be like that, at least turn into someone before you get physical. Maybe someone with…electric powers - - NO! Swords!" She exclaimed with all the excitement of a child in an ice cream parlor. "Lots of swords! And a huge laser cannon!"

"I already told you, I'm not a jukebox." Ben said as he shuffled through the Omnitrix for an alien tough enough to beat Morrigan in the next thirty minutes or so. "You know what I can't figure out? If you like fighting weird monsters so much, what made you bail out of the Null Void in the first place? It's literally crawling with them."

The air seeped out of Morrigan's smile in the form of a frustrated sigh. "I'm sorry; I haven't been able to catch up on all the changes in human mannerisms for the past decade. Did it suddenly become trendy to spout nonsense repeatedly until people magically understand what you're talking about? I told you, I don't know what a null void is. I came from Ma-"

Before Morrigan could say anymore, three golden tentacles reached out from the darkness behind her, whipped themselves tightly around her head, mouth, legs, and arms with loud wet slapping noises, and hoisted her into the air. Only slightly surprised by the sudden turn of events, Ben's eyes followed the gilded appendages until they fell upon Darkstar, slinking out of the shadows.

"Tentacles? Seriously Mike?" Ben asked, rolling his eyes. "I used to think you were too classy to be this on-the-nose with your creepiness."

Darkstar narrowed his own eyes at Ben's mockery. "Tennyson, tonight has been one of the worse I've had in my life; second to when I had the misfortune of meeting you. I've learned that the woman I love has abandoned me in this wrenched city, I was dragged through the streets from a truck, and my accomplice here failed to fulfil her promise of ending you in a timely fashion. The least you could do for me is still your incessant tongue while I drain this demon's power, and salvage my plans."

"Oh cry me a river, Lovecraft. I've been trying all night to get home in time to watch very important, very terrible B-movie; but I can't do that because I have to deal with nutcases like you."

"You actually have the gall to compare all the humiliation and torment I went through to drain this succubus to that schlock?"

"Considering that your big bad convoluted plans have a habit of sucking and failing anyway, yeah, I dare. At least my movie is going to be entertaining when it fails. But then again, I guess it'll be funny to watch you fall on your face after I punch it into your skull."

"Not this time, Tennyson. This time things are different. This time I have-"

"See, when you have to say stuff like that, it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence – especially since you always say something like that right before you get your butt handed to you on a platter. So why don't we skip to the part where you let the lady down so I can put you both back in the Null Void, and go home?"

Darkstar rubbed his chin thoughtfully at Ben's words. "As much as I hate to admit it, I believe you're right Tennyson." He said as his tentacles began to lower Morrigan's body into his open arms. His greedy fingers twitched in anticipation as he drew her closer. "I suppose the best way to show you the real depth of the power I am about to wield is to let you experience it firsthand."

As Darkstar spoke, his arm reached up to touch Morrigan's leg dangling out of her tentacle restraints. He only managed to brush his fingertips against the bottom of her shoe before her stiletto heels suddenly jutted out and drove themselves into his left hand and right arm like a raven's talons. The brutal sound of bones cracking under her heels brought a hilarious end to Darkstar's menacing façade as he fell to the floor, crumpled into a ball, and cried out in anguish. His tentacles quivered feverishly at his cries, leaving them too feeble to defend themselves Morrigan as her own tendrils lashed out, and tore her out of their hold.

"Hmph, figures that the one good deed I do in a century would come back to bite me." Morrigan muttered as she landed gracefully on the ground next to Darkstar's writhing form. "I guess it's true what they say: No good deed really goes unpunished."

"What exactly made you think helping a power-hungry blowhard like Darkstar was a good deed?" Ben asked. "No, scratch that; what made you think it was a remotely good idea?"

Morrigan shrugged. "It was a good idea when I was chasing wild flares of power looking for you. He said he knew where you were, so I helped him out with a bit of energy."

"Just a bit?" Ben took another look at the several tentacles sprouting out of Darkstar's back like overgrown vines. He could make out thick, grotesque, blue and purple veins throbbing underneath his translucent golden skin, shining with pus. Even with his iron stomach, Ben began feeling a tad nauseous at the sight. "You sure about that? Because I don't remember him ever growing an octopus out his back after drinking mana."

"Oh, that's normal." Morrigan said dismissively. "It's just my demonic energy trying to manifest itself in his body."

"You know – for a girl who's really into body humor – I'm not really sure you know what actually considered normal for the human body," Ben replied skeptically. "Because it's definitely not that."

"I didn't say it was a 'healthy' kind of normal." Morrigan clarified. "I meant it was a normal symptom to show before my energy becomes too much for his body to handle, and he pops like a boil."

"…wait, WHAT!?"

"It's strange though; he should've blown up a couple hours ago, and he doesn't look the least bit bloated. I tried it on a group of cultists some time in the last century, and it only took thirty minutes for them blow…heh."

"What's wrong with you? You can't just go around blowing up people!"

"Why not? It's not like you care about him anyway."

"Well…no, I don't…but the guidelines for being a hero say I can't let anybody ice anybody; no matter how evil, creepy, or annoyingly pompous they may be…plus I don't want to have to fill out any paperwork when I get back to-"

"SHADOW BLADE!"

Ben fell over backwards in surprise as Morrigan suddenly bounded forward and charged towards him. The deep purple blade extending out of her forearm cut right through the front of his sweat jacket, just barely missing his chest. The moment Ben hit the ground; he immediately rolled to the side to avoid being spiked by a two-handed Soul Fist.

"Don't get sentimental with me, Mr. hero. Didn't I warn you about concerning yourself with anything other than fighting?" Morrigan asked while she took more swipes at Ben. "If you don't stay focused, you're going to wind up dead."

"You should take your own advice, my lovely Morrigan." Darkstar said as he leapt onto Morrigan's back. His tentacles latched onto her back tightly as he struggled to force his broken arms to work long enough to touch her. "I find hypocrisy a disgusting trait for a woman to-"

A large spring made of Morrigan's wings punched Darkstar in the gut, pushing the villain of her back. His tentacles fluttered behind him like kite tails as he flew into, and toppled a brick wall.

"And I can't stand men who can't take a hint." Morrigan told Darkstar. Ben could hear irritation slowly bleeding into her naturally sultry tone. "Maybe I need to be a bit clearer for you to understand me. Oh, and if you happen to survive this, do me a favor by crawling into a corner and dying? Okay? Thanks."

"NO! WAIT-" Ben yelled in protest; but Morrigan either didn't hear him, or – more likely – didn't care as her hands began to glow with a familiar purple aura.

"SOUL FIST!"

The skull-shaped shot blazed out of Morrigan's fist with a big burst of magical energy as it rocketed towards Darkstar. However, just as it was about to overtake him, the attack suddenly deflated as it was sucked into the palm of his waiting hand; just as Ben feared would happen. He went into a brief villainous laughing fit before he suddenly doubled over in screaming agony.

Ben let out a long, loud, and heavy sigh before he spoke. "When I asked you why you gave Darkstar energy, it wasn't an open invitation to give him MORE!"

"You know, you weren't this much of a jerk back in the elevator." Morrigan said, sounding even more irritated. "I don't know why you're so bent out of shape anyway. With that much demonic energy ravaging his insides, it's only a matter of seconds before he explodes, and we can get back to-"

"GRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHH~"

With his eyes virtually budging out of their sockets, Darkstar's entire body shook as a long, penetrating, inhuman scream erupted from his mouth. The yell was so loud that – even after Ben slapped his hands over his ears to dull the noise – he could still feel it reverberating in his bones like guitar strings. Underneath all the noise, he could faintly make out the sound of cartilage and bone crunching as Darkstar's arms twisted, bent, and folded themselves back into place. Underneath a downpour of sweat, the color in Darkstar's face – along with the rest of his body – slowly dulled from gold, to bronze, to a dark crimson.

Darkstar's tentacles underwent the most drastic and horrifying transformation as they all began to swell twice their size. The sound of flesh tearing was the next sound to upstage Darkstar's screams as the tendrils ripped themselves apart to create mean scowls full of sharp jagged teeth for the dragon heads sprouting from their tips like gruesome scaly red blossoms. They each made a low unnerving growl before joining their host's screams with a trio of deafening bloodthirsty roars, announcing their unholy birth to the world. It was such a forceful bellow, that Ben had to brace himself against it just to keep himself from falling over backwards.

"Huh, I guess you were right after all." Morrigan admitted casually. "My bad."

"Would it have killed you to realize that five seconds ago?" Ben fumed as he hurried his search through the Omnitrix, franticly looking for the mugshot of Waybig's head. Right about now, he could care less about his promise with the city council. If he didn't do something soon, there wouldn't be a city to break a promise with.

Halfway through the search, Ben realized that Darkstar had stopped screaming. He looked up from the Omnitrix to see him floating about two stories in the air, glaring at Ben with a murderous ire so hot, he could practically feel it searing into his forehead. Floating around him, the bodies of his dragon-headed tendrils were flaring up with deep thick red auras as the all opened their mouths to reveal small raging infernos burning in the backs of each of their throats.

"Aw crud…" Ben cursed.

"BURN!" Darkstar thundered.

The night sky lit up, the cold dusk air became dry and sweltering, and everything started to shake as the three dragon heads unleashed three huge screaming torrents of energy from their gullets down on the streets below. Combined, they were bigger than a cruise ship, and moved twice as fast. There was only seconds before they would hit the ground and whittle the population of Downtown Bellwood down to zero; not enough time to choose the right alien to save the day. Ben slapped his hand over the Omnitrix, and prayed that he'd at least turn into something durable enough to survive being barbequed.

The alien gadget let out a quick flash of light as it instantaneously shifted and warped Ben's body into some sort of alien. With only seconds to spare before the dragon blast leveled everything, Ben took a very very quick look at his hands to find out who he had transformed into, and what he could do. 'Green?', 'Crystal?', 'Diamondhead!', and 'Wall!' were the words that rapidly popped up in his head before he pounded the ground with both his gemstone fists, and a huge expansive crystalline wall punched its way through the concreate as it rose up into the sky. It had just reached its apex when Darkstar's attack hit it with such ferocity; the resulting shockwave threw Ben's adamant body to the ground. The crystal barrier was reduced to a shower of jewel shards, but not before it bounced the blast safely into the sky where it could do no harm to anyone…well, not on Earth anyway.

As Ben started getting Diamondhead's crystalized humanoid body off the ground, he spied Morrigan soaring through the air, making haste towards Darkstar.

"The heck do you think you're going?" Ben yelled after her as he jumped to his feet and gave chase. Using Diamondhead's natural ability to generate crystalline constructs, he created a path of diamond for himself that stretched from the ground to the sky. Though it allowed him to follow Morrigan, she was still flying far out of his reach.

"I'm going to kill that Darkstar kid once and for all." Morrigan answered sharply as she turned her head to talk to Ben. "He's gone from amusing to aggravating faster than any human I've ever met."

"You do realize that every time you've tried to kill him, he's just come back stronger, right?" Ben asked. "I just want to know that we're on the same page here. 'Cause I don't think my stomach can handle whatever else Dorkstar's gonna mutate into."

"So I won't use magic." Morrigan proposed. "It's not like I really need it to beat him. He only has the barest minimum of my power at his disposal anyway."

Morrigan turned her head back to look where she was flying, and cried out in surprise as one of Darkstar's dragon heads sprang towards her with drooling fangs wide open and ready to swallow her whole. Acting quickly, Morrigan held out her arms and legs to prop the beast's jaws open. Despite what she said about Darkstar's strength being inferior to hers, Ben saw her body shake as shake as she struggled to keep the Dragon from devouring her. Morrigan's wings weren't much help to her either. Every time her wings created a whip, a blade, a bat, or any other sort of shape, the dragon's thick sticky forked tongue would divide itself in order to coil around it to keep it still.

"This is only your BAREST minimum, my dear?" Darkstar laughed gleefully. He had that smug look on his face that made Ben's teeth clench, and his knuckles itch. A disposition he could only solved by clocking him square in his smiling mug. "I've never felt this wonderful in my entire life! I feel like I could level the entire planet. If this is only a fraction of your power, I can only imagine the fear that will spread throughout the universe once I drain the rest from your beautiful corpse."

"Sorry Mike, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to cut you off the magic for tonight." Ben said as he made a makeshift crystal staircase escalating towards the dragon head trying to chew Morrigan. Like it or not, he had to save her before she became Darkstar's pre-apocalypse snack. Otherwise, he could kiss pretty much everything goodbye. "You know how cranky you get when you have too much-"

The next thing Ben knew, something big ran into him, knocked him off his crystal road, and into the side of a building. He didn't have long to wonder what hit him before he saw not one, but two of the dragon heads surging towards him like runaway missiles.

Thinking fast, Ben used Diamondhead's powers to sprout crystal hooks out of his back and into the building to anchor himself, then – just as the dragon heads were about to try and plow through him – he grew both his hands big enough to grab both of the beasts by their snouts. Using the wall to brace himself, Ben was able to push both of the dragon's faces out of his, but only just a little bit. The beasts' blood red eyes were wide open and dyed with savagery as they roared, struggled, and flailed wildly in Ben's hands.

"Listen dudes, we're not going to get any closer to beating each other senseless while we're stuck like this." Ben told his opponents. "So what do you say we just cut our losses and call this a draw?"

The dragons responded by spewing two great rivers of flame from their mouths, drowning Ben in a blazing tsunami. The attack was relentless, and would have sealed the hero's fate if it weren't for the fact that Diamondhead could easily withstand fire.

"Alright, I'm just going to abbreviate all that into one big 'no'." Ben said. Even though they couldn't hurt him, he couldn't help flinching a bit as the flames passed over his eyes. "Welp, at least you can't say I didn't give you two a chance to back out before I did…THIS!"

From Ben's fingers, both dragons were overtaken by an outbreak of green crystal crawling over their snouts, over their eyes, and across their scaly skin. The flames erupting from the beasts' mouths were choked off as the crystal crawled past their lips, and down their throats. They didn't even have a chance to defend themselves before they transformed into jade statues. Normally, Ben would have refrained from using such a lethal attack on living creatures. But the way he saw it, the dragons were basically great, big, ugly, magic pimples sprouting out of Darkstar's back, in desperate need of popping.

With both of the monsters out of commission, Ben tore himself off the building, flipped himself on top of one of the crystalized dragons, and followed the length of its back to its master. He didn't get far before he jerked to the side to dodge a magical crimson-colored bolt. Seconds later, he found himself caught up in a hailstorm of magic bolts courtesy of Darkstar, who was floating only half a mile away. In spite of it all, Ben continued down the dragon, and pushed through the onslaught. He just wanted this night to end so he could go home and get some sleep. He didn't even care about that stupid monster movie anymore.

Mostly.

"A stubborn fool to the end, aren't you Tennyson?" Darkstar said as he continued to sling his magiks at Ben. "Even a thickheaded twit like you must realize there's no way to stop me this time. As soon as Morrigan is in my grasp, I'll be a god amongst gods!"

"Okay, one: you already had her in your grasp before, and you still managed to screw that up royaly. And two, I already beat up your overgrown warts." Be countered. "So excuse me if I don't seem worried."

"You really should be, Tennyson. Those 'warts' were only a mere taste of my new abilities. Even without all of that demon's power, I now wield magiks that put Chamcaster and lovely Gwen to shame. Not even your precious alien forms could even begin to measure up to what I can do with just my thumb. And since you've insisted, I'll show you first hand what I-"

Ben stopped listening to Darkstar's longwinded monologue about two sentences in. While the villain continued with his speech, Ben held out one of his arms to his left where a stray magic bolt tagged it in the shoulder. The shot then bounced off Diamondhead's reflective skin, rebounded off the side mirror of a car down below, ricocheted on another mirror posted outside a restaurant drive-thru, and burned right through the spot on Darkstar's back where he ended, and the three dragon's necks began. The sound of Darkstar letting out a wail of pain made all those hours Ben spent on the local arcade's light gun machines to get that one-in-a-million shot down worth it.

"Gee Mike, you don't sound too good." Ben said with insincerity dripping from his voice. "Don't you worry though; Dr. Benjamin K. Tennyson is here to fix you up."

"Get away from me, you idiot!" Darkstar barked as Ben leaped off the falling dragon, and dove right for him like a meteorite. Before he could really think the action through, he hastily fired another magic bolt that reflected harmlessly off Diamondhead's shoulder.

When Darkstar was within reach, Ben wrapped his legs tightly around his midsection, squeezing the air from his lungs. Between losing oxygen and trying to support both his and Ben's combined weight, Darkstar was having trouble staying airborne as he started to slowly fall out of the sky. His newfound powers apparently didn't improve his physical strength by much. "GET! OFF! ME!"

"Uh-oh, looks like somebody's getting a bit uppity." Ben taunted. "Don't worry, I'll give you something to knock you out so you won't feel a thing. The bad news is I forgot my sleeping gas at home, so we're gonna have to do this good ol' fashioned way: with some blunt force trauma."

All it took was one good, hard, solid, well-deserved punch to the jaw to make Darkstar completely lose control of his levitation, leaving both he and Ben to plummet down to the streets bellow. Seconds before they both hit the ground, Ben grabbed a flagpole planted outside a fire station, released his leg lock on Darkstar, and watched the villain hit and tumble wildly down the street until he face-planted into the side of a restaurant. Swinging back and forth on the flagpole like a pole vault, Ben launched himself back into the air, and landed next to Darkstar's stunned frame.

"Oh, now I see what the problem is," Ben exclaimed as he flipped Darkstar onto his back so he could see his bruised and scratched-up face. "Looks like you've got some serious swelling going on in that big fat head of yours. That's a common symptom of absorbing demonic mana, and being a pompous jerkwad creeper. 'Course, it could also be because I socked you right in your face, but let's just go with you being a jerk."

Ben slapped his hand over the Omnitrix badge on Diamondhead's waist and – in another flash of emerald light – he transformed into a tall, slender, ebony-skinned, one-eyed alien wearing a green vest. On its fingers, the long tail sprouting out of its rear, and the two others hanging from the back of its head, were yellow spark plugs that crackled with sparking electricity. Ben liked to call this alien "Feedback".

"Lucky for you, I've got just the thing to fix you up." Ben continued as he kneeled down to reach for Darkstar's face with his metal-tipped fingers. "A Conductoid deep-tissue massage."

"You'll do no such thing!" Darkstar barked. He seized both of Ben's wrists to keep him from touching him. "I won't let you undermine another chance at glory! Not after everything I've went through to attain it!"

"Sorry Mike," Ben said as his head tails slipped through Darkstar's guard and latched themselves to his face. "Doctor's orders."

Darkstar screamed and trashed about in protest while Ben's head-tails started to drain him of his stolen energy. As the red colored energy leapt from his body to Feedback's, his skin began to change rapidly from red, to gold, to a healthy peach color, and finally back to being grey and withered. Inversely, with each second Ben stayed hooked up to Darkstar, he began to feel himself gradually get stronger and stronger. It felt like he was shotgunning a bunch of energy drinks back to back.

"NO!" Darkstar screamed. His eyes were wide and bloodshot with rage while his nostrils flared wildly. "GIVE IT BACK!"

Ben let out a pained grunt as he felt Darkstar trying to take back the energy, draining it out of his wrists. But with so much power already taken from him, he could only sip up a trickle of mana into himself while Ben was gulping down barrel fulls. In no time at all, the underwhelming power struggle came to an end a Darkstar's grasp on Ben's wrists slipped, his shriveled and balding head fell to the ground, and he fell into unconsciousness with one final groan of protest.

Ben took a huge sigh of relief as he stood up and removed his head-tails from Darkstar's face. "Man, I'm glad that's over."

Immediately after saying it, Ben's skipped a beat, he slapped both hands over his mouth, and his cycloptic eye franticly searched the area for something or someone coming for him out of the blue. He prayed that just this once, Murphy's law was on break and didn't…

Right in the middle of his thought, something that felt like a rocket struck his feet from underneath him, and knock him to the ground right on his chin. Doing his best to ignore the blaring pain shooting through his face, Ben whirled around to face his attacker; completely unsurprised to find out it was Morrigan.

"Not by a longshot, kid." Morrigan sang. Her spear-tipped tentacles undulated behind her in anticipation as she spoke. "The night's only close to being halfway done. And now that there's nothing to interrupt us this time, we can finally fight unimpeded."

Ben braced himself as Morrigan lunged forward to attack – teeth bared and tentacles searching the air for flash to tear through – but just as she got close, something fast blindsided her and knocked her out of the air like a clay bird in a skeet shooting contest. The next thing Ben knew, Morrigan was stuck to the building Darkstar fell into by a strange gray goop that encased her entire body. Ben was relieved to see it had even covered her mouth, preventing her from exercising her suggestive wit. Her entire form warped between bat and humanoid as she tried to transform her way out of her bonds, but the goop keep her arrested in her current shape. The best she could do was turn a piece of her hair into a tiny pair of fangs, and part of her left cheek and eyeball into a wing.

"I hope I did not interrupt anything by stepping in just now,"

Ben turned around to see Rook standing behind him with his Proto-tool drooling a bit of the grey goop out of its barrel. He flashed him a smile and a quick nod.

"Eh, all you interrupted was the second worse night of my life." Ben said with a shrug. "Your comedic timing was awesome by the way."

"Yes; well, I would have been here sooner, but…"

"Hey, don't worry about it, partner." Ben gave Rook a thumbs up. He tried pair it up with a wink, but it was a difficult gesture to pull off with only one eye, so he just retuned Rook's nod. "We saved the day, we beat the bad guys, and everything turned out okay."

Rook shook his head. "Not exactly, I'm afraid. We still need to find a way to transport the convicts back to Plumber HQ without the Proto-TRUK."

"I'm sure we can figure something out." Ben said. "Hopefully something that won't take more than the fifteen minutes we have left before the midnight monster movie starts."

"We will have to think even faster than that. The riot foam will not hold Ms. Aensland for long. It will start to deteriorate in just a few minutes."

"Yeah, no pressure or any…hey, did you feel the weather get hotter all of a sudden?"

"No, why?"

"I dunno; I…"

An unexpected mouthful of tongue-curdling bile cut Ben off mid-sentence. He felt horrible wave of nausea fester in his gut. It was as if someone emptied a dump truck full of battery acid into it. His jaw clenched, and sweat began to drip down his forehead as the muscles in his stomach squirmed, pulled, and knotted itself in total agony. With each hammering beat, his heart cried out in pain. Fire traveled through his veins like the wick of a bomb, detonating out his mouth in the form of a throat-shredding scream.

"Ben?!" Rook cried out as his partner dropped to his knees, holding his stomach. A pool of sweat formed underneath his hanging head. "Ben; what is wrong?!"

Faster than either of them could react, Morrigan crumbled her restraints, pounced on Ben like a jungle cat, and sent him flying into the flagpole with a solid punch to the face. He collapsed to the floor with his back against the flagpole, feeling too weak and anguished to get himself back on his feet.

"Yes Ben, what's the matter?" Morrigan asked mockingly. Before Ben could summon the strength to move, she had already kicked him across the street, and into a parking meter. "You didn't happen to get a bit of my energy in your tummy did you? I told you how dangerous that is, didn't I?"

Ben's single eye was wide with horror as he realized the meaning behind Morrigan's words. The energy he sucked out of Darkstar – that's what was boiling inside his guts, he realized. The sweat running down his forehead went cold as he figured out that the wrenching nausea tormenting his body was a countdown to the moment he would blow up like a can of tomato soup in a microwave.

NO, Ben couldn't accept that! It couldn't end like that. There had to be a way out of this. It was just energy, right? If Feedback sucked it up, maybe he could let it out too.

But even that was easier said than done. As Morrigan came in for another attack, Ben had to fight the anguish tormenting his body before he could even begin to charge up an electric blast; his body could only manage a few sparks from his fingers before Morrigan was upon him with magic crackling in her fists.

"It's such a shame our night had to end like this, Ben." Morrigan sighed. "But since you made tonight so interesting, I guess I could do you a favor and make your death a little less painful…"

"That is far enough, Ms. Aensland." Rook barked over the high-pitched whine of his Proto-tool priming itself. From behind her, he aimed the weapon – now in the form of a rifle – at the back of her head. "Step away from my partner, put your hands in the air, and slowly-"

Rook didn't even get the chance to fire his gun before a thick tentacle sprang out of Morrigan's back and knocked him to the ground so hard, it hurt Ben just to look at the impact.

"Don't think I forgot about you, hot shot." Morrigan said with an unsettling cheeriness in her voice. "I still owe you for covering me in all that goop." She clucked her toungue and shook her head. "Didn't even buy me dinner first..."

Beep-beep-beep-BOOOOOOP

Ben expected to feel a lot more dreadful as the Omnitrix timed out, leaving him at the mercy of both Morrigan and the energy tearing him apart from the inside. However, for some reason – now that he was human again – he was actually feeling pretty good. His stomach had settled, his skin cooled off, and he didn't feel like he was going to vomit himself inside-out anymore. Did the Omnitrix somehow get it out of his system?

"SOUL FIST!"

Ben rolled out of the way as Morrigan blasted the parking meter, and sent loose change flying through the air like confetti. The sudden shower of coins made Morrigan flinch, and gave Ben barely a second to dial another alien before the demonic killing machine recovered.

"Come oooonnn Waybig." Ben pleaded as he slammed his hand over the Omnitrix as hard as he could; But instead of flashing green, the device just turned yellow while making a weird buzzing beeping noise.

"Yellow? What the heck is that supposed to-HEY!"

Morrigan's other tentacle bound itself tightly around Ben's ankle, dragged him across the sidewalk, and hung him upside-down in front of the demoness like a cow's carcass on a meathook.

"Oh good, it looks like you have some life left in you after all." Morrigan said with a smile. "In that case, why don't you hurry up and turn into someone interesting? We've only six more hours of playtime before daybreak."

"Six more hours?! We've been going at this for hours already! How are you not tired yet?" Ben asked. He tried to reach for his ankle and undo Morrigan's bind, but the grip of her tentacle was just too strong. "Are you part-robot or just-"

"WARNING;" The Omnitrix interrupted. "Unidentified bio-energy infection detected and removed from the Omnitrix host. Harmful bio-energy must be purged from the system before regular functions can resume. You have thirty seconds to remove this Omnitrix and retreat to a safe distance before purging commences."

"Wait…WHAT?" Ben exclaimed. "Abort purge! ABORT! CODE 10!"

"Purging cannot be aborted without master control permissions enabled." The Omnitrix responded. "Thirty seconds remaining…"

"What does your watch mean by 'purging'?" Morrigan asked.

"Let go of my leg, and let me take it off, and neither of us will have to find out!" Ben yelled as he frantically tried to find whatever tab or button or switch he had to hit to remove the Omnitrix. But with no idea how to take of this new version of the watch, and about a gallon of blood emptying into his head, it was easier said than done. He would've been better off trying to open a pickle jar with a key.

"Well if you want it off of you so bad, it'll be easier to let me help you out." Morrigan offered as she put Ben's Omnitrix wrist right between her pointer and index finger; both of which flattened themselves into two fine-edged scissor blades.

"What is it with you and cutting off my appendages?!" Ben asked hysterically. "Quit messing around, and let me go already!"

Just as Ben pulled his wrist away from Morrigan's hand, the tentacle wrapped around his ankle slithered down his leg, wrapped around his arm, and forced it back between her fingers.

"Just trust me; I know what I'm doing." Morrigan said. "And don't worry; when this is all over you can go get yourself a nice hook hand. Now hold still."

Ben did not hold still. At the last possible moment, he jerked his arm away from Morrigan, and made her scissor fingers cut into the Omnitrix instead. The alien devices otherworldly construction proved to strong for Morrigan to slice through as her digits bounced off its faceplate. In retaliation, the Omnitrix let several beeps before it released a feedback wave that tore Ben out of her tentacles, and threw them both to the ground.

"I thought I told you to hold still!" Morrgan growled as she rubbed her head. "I almost had it."

"I was doing fine with getting this thing off myself. Why would I hold still for you to CUT MY HAND OFF?!" Ben thundered.

"Warning; aggressive force has been taken against the Omnitrix." The Omnitrix declared. "Purge of bio-energy will be initiated immediately to repel offenders."

"Happy with yourself?" Morrigan asked coldly.

"You know what?" Ben said just before the blast from the Omnitrix enveloped them both "I don't know anymore. I really don't."


Despite all of Charmcaster's power, even she found herself struggling to stay upright as the explosion rocked the office building she was spying atop of. She clung onto the massive arm of one of her rock monster familiars until the vicious tremor subsided, and she was allowed to stand on her own two feet unimpeded. Looking down to the streets below, she saw cars blown to pieces, windows shattered, trees became giant torches with their leaves and branches set ablaze, fallen power lines danced under their light, some parts of the street had melted back into tar, and in the epicenter of the destruction, Ben, his alien partner, Morrigan, and Darkstar lied unconscious.

Charmcaster stared at the chaos for a moment, then looked behind her to see the army of rock monsters she had created to attack the quartet – about fifty golems staring back at her, patiently waiting for orders – then back to the chaos.

"Well…that was pretty ani-climactic. Wouldn't you agree?"

Charmcaster looked down to her waist, expecting an answer from the small brown pouch she usually had tied to her belt; only to find that it wasn't there.

"Oh, right, I forgot…" She said with a long defeated sigh. "You're back in Ledgerdomain, aren't you?"

Behind its strange patchwork smile, and its burlap exterior, Charmcaster's pouch held not only a legion of shrunken rock creatures ready to be summoned for battle, but a small stone idol that held the soul of Adwaita: a powerful dark sorcerer who used to rule Ledgerdomain before she defeated him and took his place. When she woke up to find herself mysteriously evicted from the realm, she found the sack missing from her possessions, as well as the stone that allowed her to rule over Ledgerdomain: the Alpha Rune. If Adwaita somehow managed to escape the sack and find the rune unprotected, he would be able to regain his control over Ledgerdomain, and rule over all the mana in the universe.

Charmcaster would rather die than let that happen, and she was more than willing to kill to keep the warlock from regaining his powers. She would do whatever it took to keep that madman from closing his tyrannical fist around the neck of her homeland.

…or at least she was; right until the only five people standing in her way decided to drop like flies without her having to lift a finger.

Charmcaster looked back to the horde of magical standing patiently behind her, regretting profusely the hours she wasted putting them all together for a battle that ended not happening. "Take them all back to the castle." She commanded, gesturing to her fallen enemies. "And bring the succubus to my quarters."