Chapter 84: The Infinity Killer: Part Four
I Don't Own Ben 10 Or Any Of The Characters
Author's Note:
* Hello and welcome to Chapter Eighty Four!
* In this chapter, as I had said previously, Ben will begin to formulate a plan. I can't really say much more than that, because you know, spoilers. I wouldn't want to spoil the chapter for you guys before you could even read it!
* But anyway, let's get right into the chapter!
Ben
Mid-November
Everyone looked at me. They all had the same looks on their faces. It was shock; all of them were shocked that I would say such a thing.
"Ben, can I ask you a question?" Albedo asked.
"Go ahead." I said as I nodded.
"Okay, I want to put this as bluntly as I can." He said. "Ready? Are you fucking stupid?"
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"You heard me." He said. "Do you really think that letting that sorry sack of inhuman shit kill you is the best solution?"
I said nothing as they all continued to stare at me.
"Oh yeah, he's lost it." Albedo said.
"You guys just don't understand. When I first met him in that park, when he tried to forcefully take Gwen from me, I saw a wild look in his eyes. Last night that look was worse." I said. "So, I'm thinking if I give him what he wants, you know, killing me? Maybe he won't come after Gwen. What else am I to do, anyway?"
"Kill him." Sunny said. "From what I've heard, he deserves it."
"We don't kill." I said. "Because if we did, all of the villains that enjoy torturing, pillaging, murdering and everything else? We'd be no different…"
"Don't give me your "we don't kill" bullshit." Sunny said, interrupting me. "If I had it my way, I'd kill every villain, thug and petty thief we came across."
"Well it's a good thing that you aren't in charge then, isn't it?" I asked.
Sunny gave me an angry look.
"In charge? Is that really what you think you are? Our leader?" she asked. "I mean, a couple days ago, you wouldn't have even have dreamed of putting the costume back on! So, who made you the leader? I think Gwen would make a better leader than you! Or better yet, why not make me the leader? I think I'd do better than the two of you combined! Do I get any votes?"
"You're really challenging me?" I asked. "In my house?"
"What, do you have a problem with that?" she asked.
"I'd just as soon throw you to the wolves for that comment, just as I had allowed you to live here." I said.
"I'd honestly like to see you try." Sunny said as she took a step closer to me.
Albedo got in between us before things could escalate further than they already had.
"Okay, stop it now." He said. "Let's not do something that we'll regret later."
Sunny and I both stared at each other with hatred, before she backed up away from me.
"Thank you." Albedo said.
Gwen walked past me, towards the stairs without saying anything to me and I didn't need to be told that the look of shock was still on her face.
"Gwen, wait!" Albedo said, as he walked up the stairs after that.
That left Sunny and I both alone in the basement. We both stared at each other, before she spoke.
"Shut up." She said, before she walked towards her and Albedo's room. "And fuck you."
"Right back at you." I said, before turning around to head upstairs.
A Few Hours Later
I sat on the bed in Gwen and I's room. I was still figuring out how I was going to pull this off. There was a certain amount of lies told earlier. I had a real plan, but I couldn't let them know what my plan was, in fear of it being jeopardized. I got off of the bed, finally realizing what I could do.
I walked towards the basement stairs and down to the basement, I walked towards the door to Sunny and Albedo's room and knocked. After a few seconds, I heard Sunny's voice on the other side.
"Come on in." she said.
I opened the door and walked in. As soon as she saw me, as usual, an angry look appeared on her face.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Look," I said as I stepped into the room. "I know that we don't get along that well, but I came to ask a favor of you."
"What?" she asked as she sighed.
"I'm going to go out for a while. I need to get some stuff I need for my plan." I said. "I need you and Albedo to make sure that Gwen doesn't come after me. I want to make sure she stays safe."
"So, you lied about everything you said, didn't you?" Sunny asked, ignoring my request.
"Sunny, please…" I tried to get a sentence out, but she interrupted me.
"You know what? No. Fuck you, Ben!" she said. "If you did actually lie to us, which I'm pretty sure that you did, you don't deserve our help! You want to stop Gwen from following, you can do it yourself! We're not your damn errand boys!"
I stood there as I stared back at her in shock.
"Now get the fuck out of my room." She said.
I turned around and I walked out of her room, with a look of shock still on my face.
"Hey, shut the door behind you!" she exclaimed.
I stopped in my tracks.
"Like you said, do it yourself!" I said.
After I said that, I walked back up the basement stairs.
Thirty Minutes Later
I had gone to the grocery store first, as that's where I was going to get a few items for my plan. Said items being a few cans of bug spray, along with sprays that would kill ants and spiders. When I got to check out and put all of the cans on the counter, the cashier gave me a weird look.
"You having bug problems at this time of year?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"It's usually a summer thing." I said. "I just want to be stocked up for next year."
The weird expression on her face didn't go away.
"I get the ant spray, but spider killer?" she asked.
"We deal with a lot of spiders in the summer." I lied.
"What kinds of spiders?" she asked.
"Um, Brown Recluse, Black Widows, Wolf Spiders." I said. "Mainly those three."
"Maybe you need an exterminator." She said, as she rang me up.
"Believe me, we've tried." I said, as I handed her the money from my wallet. "It didn't work out."
"Well don't let me keep you." She said, as she handed me the plastic bag that they were put in. "Here you go. Have a good one."
I took the bag from her and walked out of the store.
Later
I swung through the city, towards Cooper's warehouse on the waterfront. He's the one who could put this together. That's when I heard screaming from below me. I looked down and was surprised by what I saw. I was low enough to see who was screaming. It was Kai and she was being attacked by Clancy.
"Somebody help me!" she screamed.
I watched as all of the people around her ran in the opposite direction. I let out a sigh, as I retracted my grapple line. I dove towards the street and fired my wrist gauntlet once more and swung towards Kai. I swung right past Clancy, wrapped my arm around Kai's waist and then arced fired my other wrist gauntlet.
"Don't worry lady, I gotcha!" I said, as I began to swing on the grapple lines once again. "You're safe now!"
I grappled up to the top of a building and turned my head to look behind us. As expected, Clancy had transformed into his bug form and was right behind us.
"Shit." I cursed as I jumped off of the roof with my arm still around Kai, which caused her to scream with worry.
"Let go of me!" she exclaimed as she tried to force her way out of my grip.
"Do you really want me to let go of you?! A fall from this height could kill a person!" I said. "How grateful are you, lady?"
I fired my wrist gauntlet at another building and zipped in it's direction, which caused Clancy to narrowly miss me.
Kai let out another scream right into my ear as Clancy missed us.
"Calm down lady!" I exclaimed as I adjusted my trajectory. "I'm doing the best I can!"
"Swing or do whatever it is you're doing faster!" she screamed.
"You think you'd be nicer to the person saving your life!" I said as I grappled once again.
"Just shut up and go!" Kai exclaimed as I narrowly dodged Clancy once again.
Wow, Kai was a bitch to Ben Tennyson and she's also a bitch to Alien Guy. Who knew?
I finally grappled onto the roof of another building and put Kai down.
"Go hide behind one of the air conditioning units!" I said. "Hurry!"
Thankfully, she didn't question me. She went and hid behind one of the air conditioning units just like I had told her. No more than five or so seconds later, Clancy landed in front of me.
"Where is she?" he asked immediately after landing. "You won't keep me from my prey."
I shuddered as he said that.
Sounds like a predator, I thought.
"You won't get to her." I said. "She's long gone."
"And you think you can stop me?" he asked as he stalked closer.
"Yes, I do." I said as I dialed up the Omnitrix.
I transformed into Diamondhead and was surprised to see that after the transformation, he was gone.
"Where'd he go?" I asked myself.
Then Kai asked the same question.
"Where'd he go?" she asked.
I turned to face her.
"I told you to stay hidden." I said.
"Well I don't see him anywhere." She said. "Do you?"
Damn. She really isn't showing any gratitude for me basically saving her life just now.
"No." I said. "But I didn't tell you that you could come out, did I?"
"Friendly, aren't you?" she asked.
"Speak for yourself." I said, as I turned to her.
"So, what exactly are you?" she asked.
"I'm Alien Guy, and I just saved your life." I said. "You know, a thank you never hurt anyone."
"What do I have to thank you for?" she asked in her usual bitchy tone. "You just gave me a headache!"
"So, would you rather me not help you and let him kill you?" I asked.
Kai looked shocked and angry at the same time.
"No, I'm glad that you saved my life!" she said. "But could you have done it, I don't know, without all of that swinging or zipping nonsense that you did?"
"That was the fastest way I could get us away from him without putting you in danger. It was the only way." I said. "So, I'm sorry if my methods weren't good enough for you."
"Don't do that." She said.
"Don't do what?" I asked with confusion.
"You're trying to make me feel pity for you, which I won't. You're acting like this is my fault, which it's not." She said. "This whole thing is entirely your fault."
I was shocked and angry at this point.
"You know what? I don't have time for this." I said as I stepped closer to her, picking her up bridal style.
"What the hell?!" she exclaimed. "Put me down!"
"Shut up!" I hissed as I jumped from the rooftop. "You'll give away our position if he's still in the area."
Kai kept screaming after that, mostly disrespectful comments towards me. I eventually landed back on street level, Kai still in my arms. I put her down on her feet and she still gave me a hateful look.
"Now what?" she asked.
"Take a cab or a bus home." I said. "With this lunatic running around it's not safe to be out right now."
She nodded.
"And um, you know, thanks." She said.
Wow, was she being for real? Was she actually thanking me right now?
I nodded.
"Next time don't make it so difficult." I said.
The look of anger on her face was worse now.
"You know what? I take my thanks back." She said. "Fuck you."
"Right back at you, kiddo." I said with a grin on my face. "Now run the fuck along."
The look of anger didn't fade from her face. She backed up, turned around and signaled for a taxi. Once I was sure that she was gone, I grappled back up to the building. Once I was back up there, I looked around the rooftop.
"Was this just a play of his?" I asked myself. "Was he trying to draw me out?"
Once I was sure that he wasn't around anymore, I went back to the building that I had dropped my backpack on. Then, I got back to getting over to Cooper's Warehouse.
Thirty Minutes Later
I had finally arrived at Cooper's Warehouse. The Omnitrix timed out on my way there, so I had to grapple the rest of the way. Before going in, I decided to drop down onto the roof of Cooper's Warehouse to change out of my costume and into my street clothes. But that didn't go as planned.
As soon as I landed on the roof, the warehouse's defenses, which I hadn't seen, activated. Several turrets made their appearance all around me and an intercom came on.
"Warning. You are trespassing on private property." A robotic voice said. "This will be your only warning."
"What the hell is going on here?!" I exclaimed.
I heard the turrets begin to charge up.
"Have it your way then." The robotic voice said before shutting off.
"Shit." I said as the turrets began to fire at me.
I flipped into the air and fired my wrist gauntlet at one of the turrets. I zipped towards the turret and somehow managed to miss all of the laser fire that was shot at me. I hit the turret and forced it into a different position. As I flipped, once more trying to dodge the laser fire, I noticed a camera that was watching me as I moved.
"Cooper, cut the shit and let me in!" I exclaimed.
I noticed the camera follow me once again as I flipped once more. I noticed one of the skylights on top of the warehouse's roof. I decided to try something. I jumped up and fired my wrist gauntlet at the skylight, which embedded itself into the steel roof next to the skylight. I pulled myself towards the skylight and when I hit it, broke through the glass as I retracted my grapple line.
I landed on the floor of the warehouse and saw Cooper standing a few feet away from me. I stepped up to him as I pulled off my mask with anger.
"What the hell was that, Cooper?!" I exclaimed with anger.
"Who are… Wait, Ben is that you?" he asked with confusion.
"Yes, it's me!" I exclaimed. "Who else would be dressing up as Alien Guy?!"
A look of relief appeared on Cooper's face.
"Oh man, is it great to see you!" he said as he walked over to a console. "Hold on, just let me shut off the Warehouse's defenses and we can talk!"
I looked around to see that the Warehouse was virtually no different than the last time I had been inside of it. Cooper began typing away at a console and eventually I heard the sound of turrets powering down from above me. He then turned back to look at me.
"Julie and I haven't seen you for months!" he said. "Where'd you go?"
"I had a couple of personal things happen." I said. "I don't want to talk about it."
"What happened?" he asked, ignoring my question.
"I said, I don't want to talk about it." I said through gritted teeth.
"Okay, well then how are you doing other than that?" he asked.
"This isn't a house call, Cooper." I said. "I didn't come here to see how you've been doing."
"Okay, then what are you here for?" he asked.
"I'm sure that you've heard that there's a serial killer in town. The news calls him "The Infinity Killer"." I said. "He's already murdered two students that I go to school with and he's targeting my friends and family."
"Wow, it sounds like he has a personal vendetta against you." He said. "What'd you do to him?"
"I don't want to talk about it." I said.
"But if you just told me what you did to him, I may be able to understand why he's doing this." Cooper replied.
"Stop it." I said.
"Stop what?" he asked.
"Stop fishing for information." I said. "I don't know you at Cooper. I don't know you enough to the point that I would tell you stuff about my history with persons."
"People." He said.
"What?" I asked.
"People. You said persons, when you should have said people." He said.
"You know what? Fuck this." I said. "I'm sorry I even came here. I'm going to leave now."
I turned around and was about to grapple up and out of the broken skylight, when Cooper spoke.
"Wait." He said. "What is it that you came here for?"
I turned back around to face him and walked back over. I brought around my backpack and unzipped it, so he could see inside of it.
"I want you to attach these to one of my wrist gauntlets and rig it to fire all of it at the same time." I said.
"Cans of bug spray?" he asked.
I nodded.
"But why?" he asked.
"The guy, The Infinity Killer, he can turn himself into a massive array of different bugs." I said.
"Oh. Well in that case, hand them over." He said.
I handed him my backpack and took off one of my wrist gauntlets, handing that to him, too. He took them both from me and placed them on a table.
"Well, how are you going to get home now, if you don't have both gauntlets?" he asked.
I pointed at the Omnitrix.
"I'll use one of my aliens." I said. "Just get to work and make sure it gets done."
"Okay, will do." He said. "Oh and use the front door next time."
I rolled my eyes and left without another word.
Author's Note:
* And that's it for this chapter!
* What do you guys think of the conflict between Ben, Gwen, Albedo and Sunny? What do you think of Ben keeping his real plan from them? Did you expect Kai to be not be nice even to Alien Guy?
* Now we've seen the re-introduction of Cooper into Volume Two. What do you think of Ben accidentally activating his Warehouse's defenses? Was it justified for Ben to be angry at Cooper about that?
* Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I'm going to go though so have a Bwen-tastic day and bye.
Review Responses
csgt (Chapter 78): I liked the happy vibe in this chapter. The thing that Ben's Mom can do and Sunny can't is having babies? Maybe Sunny can't get pregnant? Not sure, just guessing. I like the setting. Blizzard, mysterious power outage, something creepy outside, Ben sees glowing eyes and a hand slammed against the glass… and the horny teenage couple having sex LOL It's basically the set up of a horror movie! I loved it.
So Ben's parents knew all along about Ben and Gwen dating and they're cool with it, nice! Let's see if they will also be cool when they find out the way that Ben and Gwen are using to "keep warm" LOL Great chapter.
I'm glad you liked the chapter. About Sunny being unable to get pregnant? Whether that's true or false will be revealed in a future chapter. Glad you liked the setting, the scare and well, everything else. Ben's parents knowing the "method in which Ben and Gwen used to keep warm", that will be talked about in the next chapter or two. Thanks for the review, as always.
jasongd (Chapter 83): And another great chapter congrats And I think thad Ben keeping his real plan to him self BWEN Forever
I'm glad you joined the review, Jason. And yes, Ben was keeping his real idea to himself. We clearly saw that this chapter, didn't we? Thanks for the review, as always.
csgt (Chapters 79 and 80): I've read this chapter and the previous one at college and couldn't write a proper review for each, so now I'll just write a single review for both. Interesting developments. So the Infinity Killer can turn into bugs, I'm pretty sure he is Clancy then. A little bit cold from Ben to still refuse to act even after two classmates are killed and to say that they were just "acquaintances", but now, with Cash also being targeted and Julie pushing him, it's good to see that he's finally back.
I really laughed with the "swing" prank scene XD With Sunny's dark personality, I was almost expecting her to tease Ben into believing that she'd go all the way, getting them both naked, only to reveal at the very last moment before actually doing "it" that she isn't Gwen and leaving Ben angry (and frustrated lol).
I'm glad that she stopped before that. I thought it was funny, but it was a bit weird to see Gwen thinking it was terrible and yet she went along with it. Instead, I think you could have had Sunny promising to do something Gwen in exchange for her going along with the plan, for example. Oh, I also liked that Ben's father asked Albedo to call him "Dad" too in a previous chapter. Great chapters!
Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. Yes, the Infinity Killer is Clancy. Also, (I'm pretty sure that you've read this far at this point) what do you think of the revelation that Clancy is the homeless, drunk guy that tried to assault Gwen early in the series? You've been here since pretty much the beginning of the series and I'd like the inside opinion from a reader like you.
"Swing" prank? I can't help but ask what you mean. Did you mean to type "switch"? Also, that entire scenario was improvised. It wasn't originally supposed to be in the story, but that chapter originally came out to be so short, that I needed a "filler portion". And that's just what I came up with. What did you think of my reference to your first chapter of WB&LG? Yeah, Sunny and Ben almost going all the way would never happen. Because I'd never pair the two together and also because he hadn't even done it with Gwen yet.
And yes, Ben's father requests that Albedo calls him "Dad". The time will come where Carl and Albedo consider each other to be father and son, vice versa. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Thanks for the review, as always.
Next Chapter: Ben and Clancy face off for the second time.
