Chapter 8: Tangled in Fear
Kuphulu stood before both scientist and hero, readying himself for aid.
"Now remember, if any of us gets savagely mutated or a part of my face is fried, you cover it up and say we fell." said Ben.
The Thep Khufan nodded in amusement. Since Lord Transyl saw Frankenstrike last time, it'd be better to get sneakier if they didn't want him to learn about their plan and separate them. So, if their experiments went wrong, they needed to have someone on task that would help them cover anything suspicious.
"Thanks to last time, we figured a new way of triggering the Omnitrix's function. Now I may not be allowed to touch it, however this little trick I learned may be of help."
Viktor rubbed the palm of his hands, producing a few electric sparks. He spread his hands and carefully aimed the sparks at the Omnitrix, trying not to electrocute Ben doing so.
The device made a few green sparks but didn't budge. It had even less reacted than before, much to Ben's disappointment.
"Try a higher charge."
"You sure?"
"If I die, you can just blame it on me freeing a prisoner who decided to kill me afterwards."
"And let someone else take credit for that? No way." smirked the scientist.
He rubbed his hands harder, sending a bigger charge. No sell.
Frustrated, he kept rubbing and rubbing... until a piece of bandage jumped out of his hand charged with energy, going right on the watch.
"Oh come on!" said Ben.
However, the Omnitrix started making sounds as the energy on the bandage seemingly went inside of it, emitting green sparks. Ben was ecstatic it was finally having a reaction after a week.
"Alien DNA scanned and recognized. Thep Khufan's. Unlocked and available on Playlist 2." said the device, its core popping up.
"Wait what?"
Without any other warning, there was a flash of green, and Ben correctly guessed he was now Snare-Oh.
"Great. Snare-Oh, of course. Why not?"
"Ha, that's a weird name." pointed Kuphulu. "What did you call this one before?"
"If I tell you 'Benmummy', will you be mad at me?" sighed Snare-Oh. "Okay, let's switch aliens and see if I can-"
He paused, suddenly shivering. The two other Anur aliens stared at him, waiting for the end of his sentence. They did not expect him to crouch on the ground as if he ate something... worse than what he had at lunch.
"Uh, Tennyson? You okay there?"
"He's... close..."
"What?"
"He's near!" panicked Snare-Oh.
"Okay, calm down." said Viktor, putting his hands on Snare-Oh's shoulders. "Who is near? Lord Transyl?"
The mummy teenager somehow gulped with his bandaged neck, furiously nodding. "I don't know how, but I can feel him, he's there. And... if he sees us, he'll know we're interfering with his Corruptura's effects!" he pointed to the small creature on his head piece, its eye now shut again. "He's coming from the East wing of Zs'Castle Zs'Skayr... if he sees me like this, we're toast!"
"Okay, okay. We'll just move, he won't see us if we take that path." said Kuphulu, pointing to one of the back doors leading to the dungeons with his band finger.
"We have to be careful!" insisted Snare-Oh, his usually malicious eyes now looking distressed. "You may not have nerves and blood streams like humans, Transylians or Loboans, but I could smell your scent with Whampire."
This earned him a slightly disturbed look from both ex-criminals.
"Look, this is gonna creep you out, but even if you don't have that much life energy in there, your energy smelled delicious when I was a Vladat. It wasn't a lot, but it was certainly better than the rest of your gang in quality."
This earned him an even more disturbed look from them.
"Look, let's just- Oh no, he's getting close!" whimpered the teenager.
"Come on, let's get back to our cells until you time out." snickered the Thep Khufan, putting his hand on Ben's back.
"I'll stay back." said Viktor. "If he finds us all three, he'll know your identity. Besides, I'd like to settle a thing or two between us."
The way he palmed his fist both amused and concerned Ben. "Be careful!"
As he dragged the teen away, Kuphulu wondered since when Ben got cold feet like this.
"Another mountain of paperwork..." sighed Max, resting his head on the table.
It was a busy day like any other at the Plumbers HQ. Well, less busy than usual since Ben was gone for a mission for a while by now. Rook came along when they had to deliver a weapons shipment to the base on Anur Transyl.
He wondered why he had been decided they went there instead of sending any other active Plumbers. Though he hadn't visited the Anur System, he knew Rook was friends with the local and currently only Plumber around, Scout.
It as a good idea to let Rook go, but he wasn't sure it was wise to send Ben too. Ben could get a bit... excited when it came to new stuff, and who knew when someone else would strike while his grandson was gone.
When he asked the ones responsible for the shipment, they barely recalled doing it. It was a minor mission anyway, it wasn't like Ben couldn't do it. Though a part of him wondered if his grandson hadn't stopped at the planet to relax...
He'd have to ask Ben about the local food in there, if his grandson didn't stall too long. Ben has now been away for several weeks, he'd have a mountain of work to deal with when he'd come back. Even if recently, the attacks lessened since he wasn't on Earth anymore, criminals would have to look at the edge of the galaxy if they wanted revenge or the Omnitrix.
Some days ago, they received a visit from Princess Looma, who was still looking for Ben. Though he noticed something off with her when they told her Ben wasn't there.
She mentioned "the Incursean brat", probably Princess Attea, "being right". It made him wonder if Ben didn't meet her during the mission. Well, if they didn't receive a warning Earth would be destroyed soon, it must've meant Ben handled it well.
He had other things to take care of at the moment, sources informed him of Psychobos and Limax working together recently.
"Didn't know you were such a wuss."
He could feel Snare-Oh glare at him from behind.
"This isn't normal. Usually I don't feel like this as Snare-Oh, you saw me at first. Now I just... feel scared. Like my entire body is super sensitive to any feeling."
"Us Thep Khufans have good anticipation, you must just have your scared animal attitude heightened to our level of intuition."
"Super anxiety? Great."
They had been walking through the dark corridors for a short while, and Kuphulu had to admit Ben's behavior was actually pretty normal. His species was known for having a big sense of personal space and being mostly introverted among the other residents of Anur Transyl. They were also very sensitive to mood changes, most of them didn't openly show it.
They've also had a level of instinct close to what Loboans had. So if 'Snare-Oh' was a prime specimen Thep Khufan as Ben said, he must've had pretty good instincts.
Though the levels of fear and panic upon sensing Lord Transyl he witnessed with Ben were astounding. He didn't know how, but Ben apparently managed to feel him through several miles underneath the ground. And the way he did it, it wasn't natural.
Ben actually felt Lord Transyl's presence like some type of radar, and it hadn't happened before. He guessed being a Thep Khufan helped, but if so Ben must've already had a small level of awareness beforehand. It wasn't natural to detect a threat like that this precisely.
"Not there." said Snare-Oh as they were about to take a turn.
"It's the fastest way back to our part of the dungeons." Kuphulu raised a brow.
"It's also the easiest way to intercept someone, believe me." said Snare-Oh. "Lord Transyl could get to us quick if we take that path, let's just switch at the next turn." he followed nervously.
Kuphulu rolled his eyes as they kept going. "Is it just me or you're more afraid than usual?"
"I'm not afraid, I'm just... Ugh..." complained the teen with a deep hiss. "Whenever Lord Transyl is here, I just... kind of lose control."
"What do you mean?"
"He just... makes me lose sight of what I'm doing. I can't focus anymore, I get easily flustered when he does anything to intimidate me, I get nervous when he... touches me and gets close to me just to tease me."
Kuphulu gave a confused eye to Snare-Oh, who was shaking like a leaf. Ben almost sounded like one of those teenage girls he sees passing by while going through town. Except as far as he knew and in Ben's case, this was more of a life-eater mocking his prey than a stud flirting with a cute girl.
Poor Ben was so fragile at the moment, Kuphulu almost felt pity. It truly became hard to believe this boy was the same insect they tried to annihilate a while ago.
"Not this way either." said Kuphulu. "I've seen that path. We barricaded it for good measure to limit the movements of prisoners. There's a door but we don't have the key."
"Can't you just roll yourself inside the keyhole and get to the other side? Or go underneath the door?"
"No, we made sure none of the prisoners from any species on the planet can escape, look."
When they arrived, there were effectively a hundreds of bars blocking the path, with a door allowing to get through. The spaces between the bars was so tight it would be hard to pass even for their bandaged bodies. Unless...
"We don't need a key, hold on." said Snare-Oh.
With brilliant ease, he fully untangled himself, becoming thinner than toilet paper as a part of his body went to the other side. Kuphulu stopped him by holding him from his head piece.
"First of all, what kind of activity do you do in this body to reshape yourself better than me? Second of all, great idea, genius, but I can't get there."
"Oh. I'll show when I can next time, lemme think."
"It's okay, just rush in back to the others while I distract Lord Transyl." said Kuphulu.
"No, he already saw Dr. Viktor on his own earlier. If he sees you in there, he'll know what we're up to and who knows what he might do to you?"
The saddened and worried look on Snare-Oh's face was somewhat endearing.
"Glad you feel concerned about me, but you got any other idea?"
Snare-Oh was still held by the head while the rest of his body was almost fully formed on the other side. He mimicked scratching his head with his hand in the air, then he came to the simple conclusion.
"Hey, mind stepping back for a bit? Keep holding on."
Kuphulu obliged, getting away from the door. He blinked as Snare-Oh's fist simply punched the lock, making a loud metallic sound as the door broke down.
"When you can't find an opening, make one!" said Snare-Oh, reforming.
"I like the way you think, now let's hurry!"
The two Galvans were arguing again. Those two would probably never stop, even for their own sake.
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
It was just another day passing by. Except when Max came in, visibly in a hurry. "Look, I don't know what your argument is about, you two, but did Ben get the memo?"
Blukic and Driba turned to him.
"I believe he did." said Blukic.
"Or not." said Driba.
"What do you mean?!" argued the other Galvan. "Of course he did!"
"If Ben received the message, he wouldn't have answered like he just did."
The holographic screen showed Ben's answer to the transmission Max sent him earlier:
'Dear Grandpa,
I received your warning loud and clear, my trusty partner Blonko and I are currently taking care of the Limax situation. You must not worry, because we have all the backup we need on the surface of Anur Transyl. Blonko's friend Scout rallied everyone to our cause, we are handling the issue perfectly well. I'm also sorry for not answering the other dozen messages you sent me, my Omnitrix's inbox is broken because I meddled with it again, another mistake on my behalf.
Sorry for the late answer and I will see you soon enough.
P.S.: Would you mind restocking some of those broth cubes from Peptos XI? I will invite some new friends over, and they will be very, very hungry when they come.'
"It doesn't sound like Ben to write like that!" argued Driba.
"Well, maybe Rook wrote it!" said Blukic.
"Why would he pretend to be Ben?!"
"Maybe he just wrote it for Ben?!"
"Then it's settled." said Max. "If Ben is okay, we don't have to worry. He can't handle this alone, but if he really managed to get along with everyone on the planet, it should be okay." 'Though I'm surprised, I didn't think he liked my meal that much last time. He probably meant Peptos XII, the other one was destroyed.'
"If anything else comes up, contact me. And tone down the arguing for today, we have a lot of work to do."
As he walked away, Blukic and Driba were still glaring at one another.
"It's strange that they took this long to answer, some of us are worried for them in here."
"Maybe the communications are not working too well, Anur Transyl is at the edge of the galaxy after all. And I'm surprised Rook even used contractions when he wrote this."
"I wouldn't worry too much about it."
"I would."
"Would not."
"Would too!"
"Would not!"
"Would too!"
"Would not!"
What were they arguing about in the first place?
"Everyone hates me in here..." moaned Snare-Oh, looking down as they were reaching their destination.
"Not everyone." said Kuphulu, patting his back. The other prisoners hadn't warmed up to him yet.
There was a beeping, and Ben made a relieved sigh as he finally turned back into himself.
"Finally, now I can stop chickening out like crazy. How do you manage with all of this pressure every day?"
"I don't, because I don't have those thoughts." said Kuphulu. "If anything, it comes from you. Are you sure you're okay, Tennyson?"
Ben sighed. This was what it was all about, wasn't it? "No, it's just been so long... I miss Grandpa. I miss Gwen. I, I miss my whole family and, all of my other friends. I know you used to think I was loose, easygoing, pretty flexible of a guy. But at some point, all of these emotions just... fall apart on me."
"Hey, it's alright. We were at odds before, but I get it. You're still a kid." The mummy gave a thumbs up. "We're thieves and experts at it, we've been to jail back and forth. You still need to adjust to it, but it's normal to feel this way."
Ben looked at him strangely. Over a month ago, they were the wary, cold ones and he was using lame pickup lines to befriend them. Now he was being emotionally comforted by one of the very guys he had trouble convincing. This felt... oddly warm coming from Kuphulu.
"Thanks, dude. For real."
They finally arrived back at their cells, where they found Rook visibly upset.
"Hey, Rook. What's up?"
"They took my Proto-Tool."
"W-what?!"
Scout came down from the bed to explain.
"Zs'Skayr came by earlier, he ordered us to give it so he could send a false message to Magister Tennyson and the Earth. We could do nothing to stop him from doing so."
"Of course... Grandpa would know something is wrong if we aren't coming back." realized Ben. "I should've stayed with you guys! I could've coerced him into giving you your stuff back. He didn't bring it back to you?"
"It's expensive and unique technology." said Crüjo. "Master Zs'Skayr won't give it away any time soon."
"Part of me hopes Magister Tennyson realizes it's all fake." said Rook, looking down. "I can't believe I let it get taken away, I can't get any other one nearby."
"You didn't have a spare one?" asked Crüjo.
"Only Blonko ever had those kind of tools." said Scout. "I wanted one too when I graduated, but Blonko was more what our examiners expected from us. He's the only one allowed and able to get any version of the Proto-Tool."
"I'll try to get you another one when we go home." said Ben. "Or who knows? Maybe I can Juryrigg you another, a better one?"
Rook looked up, sadly smiling at Ben's attempt to cheer him up. "You plan to add a smoothie maker to it, right?"
"No?!" complained Ben, trying not to smile at Rook's joke.
Then he gulped down as he felt something that became now very familiar. There were chills down his spine and with a nervous face, he turned around to find Lord Transyl at the door, behind an obviously disgruntled Viktor.
It felt like a staring contest between the human and the vampire alien. Ever since their last interaction, Ben felt anxious about seeing him again. Viktor helped him before but...
What was he here for? He hoped it was to return Rook's Proto-Tool.
"I've found a meal roaming around while looking for you, my slave."
'Does this guy even make a difference between people and burgers?' was the question that went around everyone's head at the moment.
"I must ask, what was he doing so far away from the rest? Did you send him for another attempt to escape me?"
"N-No." lied Ben. He did try to escape Lord Transyl, but not exactly the prison.
"Really?" hummed Lord Transyl. He wasn't convinced. "These pests are still your enemies, of course."
Ben thought it over. Enemies or not, they were working together. And if he didn't want the king to know, he had to lie. "Yes, we're still enemies. This is just a small way of standing each other, I can't really tolerate them much."
The henchmen could barely hide a smirk at Ben's lying, though they wondered what was up with his face.
"And you swear you haven't done anything against me?" asked the lord again.
"Yes, I swear." Ben was almost sweating with the pressure coming in. Kuphulu was right, he was an emotional mess in this place.
Lord Transyl then came forward and grasped Ben's face with his cold hands, much to the surprise of everyone else. He really was that touchy.
"You're doing this completely on your whole free will, because that Ectonurite's plan worked well enough to tear any rebellion down. Am I still not mistaken, my slave?"
Ben felt a bit confused at that question, but he kept hiding what he was really doing.
"Yes, Zs'Skayr totally won this. Especially after trying to get my watch and after taking Rook's equipment."
Lord Transyl hissed angrily. Ben felt he said something wrong, until he heard what came next.
"I've had enough of this charade. Come out from my slave's body this instant, Ectonurite."
There was an awkward silence as everyone tried to understand what he meant.
"I know you're hiding yourself in here, you've been trying to meddle with the plans for your own ideas I already rejected. Come now." he hissed.
Ben tried to look at the others in distress, not knowing what Lord Transyl was talking about. From the looks they gave, they had no idea either.
Lord Transyl hummed again as he could see Ben's heartbeat lowered down. He brought his nose to Ben's neck, smelling the energy emanating from under his skin.
Ben almost felt like exploding as soon as that happened. He held his breath, feeling the man might bite him if he even dared making a sound. This was a whole new level of getting too close for comfort. He was now madly blushing, his vision was getting blurry. Was this hypnosis again or...?
He thanked Alien X or whatever greater being above when Lord Transyl stopped... whatever he was doing and simply put his hands on Ben's shoulder, his angry features fading.
"I apologize for that pest of an Ectonurite forcing you to act against your will, you must've felt in pain before he left." Ben was definitely confused. "Now, I cannot smell him on your body, he must've left using his invisibility. I ordered him to take care of the next plans, but he seemed to take a liking to fooling around and taking advantage I can't see him yet. I will make sure he's punished, have no worries on that."
He caressed a lost Ben's cheek tenderly, smirking. Ben didn't really understand what was going on, nor why he acted like that, but he felt a bit startled at the gesture. He simply waited for it to pass, not feeling as uncomfortable as before, oddly.
Lord Transyl then released him and walked back to the entrance. He gave him one last look, one that felt like he wouldn't leave him alone for too long, before leaving.
It took Ben several minutes to regain his composure, before he could finally talk again.
"What just happened?"
"Um, Tennyson?" said Viktor.
"What?"
"Unless Master Zs'Skayr possessed you without any one of us noticing, mind explaining why your left eye kept twitching?"
Ben and Rook exchanged a look that both meant 'that was close!' and 'really?', as they guessed what actually went on.
"Um, guys. Promise me you can keep this secret?" Brows were raised at his question. "Kevin sorta figured it out when we were fighting Albedo."
"Who?"
"Ben's evil twin." said Scout, earning a confused look from the three other Anur aliens.
"Albedo is a Galvan who made his own replica of the Omnitrix but ended up turning into a duplicate of Ben, he's now permanently stuck in a younger version of Ben's body."
"Zs'Skayr wasn't the only one." snorted the Loboan Plumber. "But where are you getting at, Ben?"
"Well, uhm... Not a lot of people know but... my eye kinda, twitches like crazy when I lie." He received a disbelieving look from the other four. "I'm serious! Kevin made fun of me for a while after admitting it, so don't go around gossiping about me, I don't need paparazzis analyzing everything I do next time I have to lie on camera."
Somewhere else on Earth, in a garage, Gwen handed Kevin a box of tissue after the crazy sneezing fit he just had.
The three ex-criminals gave him a pondering look. Then they all shared the same malicious expression, a glint in their eyes gave away that thing were not gonna be easy for Ben next.
"Did you really get over that girl who dumped you or do you miss her every night?"
"Master Zs'Skayr said you were afraid of clowns, is that true?"
"Have any other embarrassing secret we could take advantage of?"
Ben didn't know which one of them said that, but aside from thinking 'Wow, really straightforward there, pal.', his first reaction was to back away.
"No way I tell you! Uhhhh, Rook, help me out here!"
"Well, I could give them all the information they wanted with my Proto-Tool if it was still there." Rook brought a finger to his chin while teasing Ben. "But since they took it away, I will simply have to talk about everything I saw in your file."
"Rook!"
Ben pouted as the other laughed. This really wasn't what he expected when he came here. But he had to say it was kinda fun.
"What did you want to do with it before they took it by the way?"
"Convert it into a distress beacon so that the HQ would pick up on it and send rescue." 'And also send a message to Rayona. I miss her a lot.'
"I promise I'll try to get it back to you, partner."
Rook smiled, though he had a bad feeling. He never separated himself from his Proto-Tool, and it had plenty of functions that could've helped them.
A blaster, a shield, a radar, a DNA identifier, a fishing rod...
Though Scout gave him a comforting pat while Ben was still dealing with the thugs, Rook felt uneasy.
And thus, after decades of waiting, the update has come!
Ben now experiences what it's like to be a mummy and would rather stay in his comfort zone/sarcophagus.
He also experiences direct contact from Lord Transyl, on a whole new level: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)人(。・_・。 )
Jk, but it's getting there! :P
Anyway, sorry after the looooooooong ass wait, and I hope to hear your opinions about this chappie, cya!
Heato, out!
