Chapter 13: LTGG
"I haven't done this in a while," scoffed Gwen as she pulled a box from the back of her closet. Taking off the lid revealed a black silk costume accompanied by a similar-fabric helmet.
Of course, in a sense she was Lucky Girl - something she called herself when dressed for the occasion - but nobody really knew that. The costume differed from the one she used to wear quite some time ago. It was the only way to keep Ben's wondering mind at bay. That and the voice disguising spell as well as the spell which allowed her to manipulate air moisture to appear to have a clone. To anyone who was close enough though, they would realize that it was a hoax. But to anyone far enough - they would see the blurry image of someone.
"It took long enough for someone to make something interesting happen around here," she spoke to herself as she began putting the skin-tight costume on. It was a bit smaller now. Almost too small.
This time, she thought, this is the last time Ben is going to be on my mind. No doubt he's going to be at this warehouse break-in, and he won't ever know who I am. Never. As long as I make sure I do what I have to quickly, then he probably will forget about Gwen Tennyson and think more of the girl who kissed him.
Stretching her black gloves along her hands, she put her hair into a ponytail and equipped the silk helmet.
. . .
"We promise! We won't let the cops know anything!"
"For the last time, shut up! Unless you want a hole blown right through that useless head of yours!"
The warehouse employee quickly quieted and put himself back on the ground. It was no use. They were hostages. If the marauders let them go, the cops would have no trouble sending in a the SWAT team, which was waiting outside for their chance
There were only four employees working that night. It was nearly time for them to leave - ten minutes until the shift was over - and it just happened to be that they were held up right before then. Time was cruel.
Stacey, one of the workers who had been in charge of overseeing inventory count, was the only person to see all of the robbers.
Six. There had been six that came right through the front doors. Five of them wore ski masks and black leather jackets. Just the typical look for any thug.
However, Stacey clearly remembered the look of the last one to enter. He was, by far, the oddest and most intimidating. Just his sheer height was, on its own, enough to make someone stop and stare. But that was the least of it all.
He didn't feature a jacket or jeans, or even a ski mask like his comrades - or maybe even underlings - but rather, he wore a hooded, red woven robe that draped about his entire body. Accompanying the look was a mask that had a theater face with a crescent moon as the frown. Were it not for the other five mean-looking men, Stacey would have laughed as the guy came through the door.
But now, the final four employees were in one of the many clearings of the warehouse. Surrounding them were beige crates stacked high, with only a dim light above to allow them all to see. The sun usually served as their main illumination coming from the windows high above, but it was late now and the moon had long overpowered the fiery source.
"Did you ask the boss what we're actually gonna do with all the stuff we're gettin'?" asked one of the two masked thugs that were left to watch the hostages.
"Me? Ask the boss?" the second one laughed. "You're crazy. If you wanna sign a death-warrant with him for asking questions - go right 'head. You know how he hates that."
"I just wanna know why we keep runnin' around with him like we're some group of errand boys grabbin' all this weird tech."
"He pays well. Don't care what we do, as long as the cash rolls in."
"Mercs!" shouted a downed employee. "You're all just a bunch of stupid mercs doing things to get paid. Why don't you get a real-"
He was cut short by a thick boot landing on the side of his face. One of the masked villains had kicked him.
The attacker kneeled down and spoke closely to the worker.
"A real job, huh? Like you right? You got 'cha self a real job working in a place like this? Ha! What do you do? Count the hundreds of boxes in here. Yeah, that sounds like a real job." He began to prod a shiny gun along the employees neck - who shivered from the cold metallic touch.
"Now you listen, I've been killin' people since I was fifteen. Robbed my first gas station back then. The clerk thought it would be funny to pull one of them old bats on me - didn't end well for him."
Still teasing his weapon, the masked villain read the nametag on his hostage's shirt.
"Stacey - assistant manager. Look what we have here-"
"Hey!" cried the other marauder. "Look up there. On the crates!"
The two looked along the wooden, stacked storage containers until something dark, but human, could be seen.
"What is it?"
"I...I don't know. Could it be one of the cops?"
"No, they wouldn't just throw one of their guys in here. Right?"
Gwen smiled behind her mask. She could tell the two down on the ground felt threatened. It was the biggest thing she missed about crime fighting - the feeling that the bad guys were scared.
Before making her first move, she spied something outside the large rectangular window in front of her. It led to the roof, and standing on that appeared to be a thin flame emitting from red rocks.
Heat Blast!, she thought to herself mirthfully without a doubt. Even though it was her guess that Ben would come, it was still good to know that he was there. Now she had backup.
What was really odd was the fact that she could have sworn he briefly smiled at her. Maybe it was because he hadn't seen her in a long while. Yeah, that was it.
Wasting not another second, Gwen took a confident dive from almost forty feet in the air straight to the concrete warehouse floor. She laid her arms flat on her sides and lifted her chin up - getting as much speed as possible.
Coming close, she now aimed directly at one of the captive holders. Her hands landed perfectly upon his shoulders, and he tumbled to the ground from the weight while Gwen swiftly flipped backwards and patted the ground with her feet.
The second masked guy had no chance to retaliate. Just as Gwen chose to charge at him, glass from above rained upon them. In another brief second, Heat Blast used his own fire as a landing bed and appeared before them.
His flaming face boasted a grin just before kicking the final warden in the chest, causing him to fly backwards with force enough to smash into one of the crates.
"Hi," The pyro alien said in his deep, charismatic voice. "Where've you been all this time?"
Gwen shrugged, speaking with her voice covered in layers of magical shimmering. "I needed a vacation. Decided this city still needed more help, and I came back."
"I'm glad you did."
Behind her mask, Gwen's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Yeah, it was kind of dull without you around. Things just weren't the same with someone to be in competition with."
Of course, she thought dismissively, a competition.
One of the workers, who was rather confused, stood up wearily and looked at both of his rescuers.
"So," he began pointing at the two, "are you guys here to kill us, or..."
"Oh right!" Ben said, as he had forget the four employees that were still squatted around them. "You guys can head out the front. It should be safe."
"Should be?"
"I didn't see anyone over there. And there are cops and a SWAT team waiting outside. Once you're close - they'll be there."
The employee nodded and gestured for his other co-workers go with him.
Ben turned his attention back to the heroine and the situation that had four more living, breathing problems.
"Did you see the other guys towards the back?" asked Heat Blast.
Gwen nodded. "I did. They're destroying every box they can find. Either they are looking for something that isn't fragile, or they were just hired to destroy this company's stock."
"I really don't think they were hired to let another company get an advantage," Ben walked over to the villain who he had kicked into a crate.
Gwen watched him and mused, "What makes you think that?"
"I'm not gonna tell you."
"Wh-why?" His sudden rejection to let her know something about the crime surprised her.
"Not until you tell me who you really are," Heat Blast knelt down and started to inspect the contents that had fallen from the broken crate.
"I don't have to tell you that!"
"You do if you want me to keep helping you out, because I know there's no way you could do any of this on your own."
Gwen huffed. "Just who do you think you are?"
"Ben Tennyson. Wielder of the Omnitrix - probably the most powerful weapon in the galaxy," he said nonchalantly. "See? It's not so hard. Now your turn. Please state your name and your weapon. Thank you." He began to laugh.
Were it not for his flaming body, she would have shoved him down. "Come on," Lucky Girl spoke, "let's go get this done." She walked into a narrow walkway cleared of boxes. Ben followed without another word.
They walked as quiet as they possibly could. All the while, Heat Blast did his best to not catch the crates on fire. Setting a whole building ablaze was just one of many ways to blow secrecy.
All the boxes were nailed shut, with five thick, steel nails on each corner. These guys didn't joke around with their stuff.
Soon, the two came upon another place similar to that where the hostages had been held. Except in this clearing, three ski-masked guys were tossing around smaller crates and bashing into larger ones with crowbars.
One, who was not doing anything, was standing in the center of it all. This guy had the red robe and mask that had been described earlier.
It was hard to tell what he was thinking by looking at his facial expression, because it was hidden. This made it all the worse when confronting them.
Heat Blast and Lucky Girl swiftly moved behind a box big enough to hide them but small enough to allow them visual of what was going on.
"It ain't here, boss!" the guy on the far right, who had just looked through a storage unit, said. "There's nothing in these boxes except junk, and I ain't lookin' through all of them. So just pay me and I'm outta here."
The smashing stopped as the other two thugs turned and looked at the one who had just spoken. Silence leveled the large clearing. Obviously, nobody had spoken like that before, or at least, not to the hooded figure.
"Didn't ya' hear me? Pay up, or else I'm walkin' right out and comin' back with some boys to bash your head in. You joke." He faked a laugh - a laugh that showed he was confident. "I don't even know why I took your offer. Just look at you! All dressed up for halloween. I doubt you even have any money."
All the while, the hooded man stood. Tall and unmoving, he stared directly ahead of him - not showing any effect brought upon by the insults.
"Hey! You givin' me the silent treatment?" the thug put his hand on the shoulder of the red-clad man. That's where it seemed to hit a nerve.
Gwen shifted in her place and looked over to Heat Blast confusingly. "Do you...do you hear that?"
Ben tried to listen - and he did hear something. Something that wasn't coming from the police outside, or anyone inside. It sounded as if it were coming from the ground.
Suddenly, thick, black tendrils sprouted from the ground around the hooded man and the sharp-tongued robber. They slithered around in the air, waving back and forth. They were dark, so very dark, and looked dry and unwelcoming. Just like the guy in red.
"What the...what a-are those!" shouted someone.
Finally, after so many episodes of silence from the mysterious cloaked man, there was a laugh. It was a laugh like metal being scratched by sharp knifes - something inhuman. Yet, from it, he still did not move. His mask still kept his real self hidden, and he still appeared expressionless.
Now, the one thug had removed his hand from his former-employers shoulder and recoiled. "T-this...ain't s-some magic show," he stuttered and tripped backwards.
"No," the dry, vain voice spoke again. "It isn't."
Then a snap rang into the air, and the tendrils wound their way around the guy who had been talking so arrogantly. Wrapping themselves around him, they picked him up as he had begun to mutter and thrash.
"My god...cold...so cold!" His very skin appeared to be whitening and shriveling like a prune.
Both Ben and Gwen watched with horror at what was happening. Out of nowhere, at what they thought was just a simple robbery, came this happening.
Gwen was the first to speak up. "Ben, you have to do something."
"I'm not sur-...wait what? How do you know my name?"
Rolling her eyes, she said, "You told me earlier remember? Ben Tennyson - wielder of the Omnitrix blah blah blah. Ring a bell?"
"Oh. Alright, you know who I am now. If we want to keep this trust thing going, you tell me who you are."
"No!"
"Well okay then. I'm just gonna sit right here until you do." And that's exactly what he did. He slid from his crouch position until his flaming body was sitting on the ground. From there, he pouted with one rocky lip protruded under the other.
Gwen's mind was about explode. "What! You can't just sit there!"
He can be so impossible sometimes!
"Yes I can," responded Heat Blast.
With a sigh, Gwen compromised. "If you help me, I'll tell you my name after we're done."
"Really?"
"Truth."
There was a moment when he seemed to think about it. One finger went up to his chin and one eye squinted slightly.
"Alright," was his final answer.
With that he jumped high in the air, flipping over their hiding crate, and landing ten feet in front of the red-cloaked guy.
When he looked up, he stopped and stared with disgust.
The black tendrils were no longer holding a person anymore. They seemed to squeeze even tighter around the clothes its hostage used to be wearing.
Still, something was coming from the attire. A peach-colored watery-looking substance was floating from the clothing and into the mask of the hooded figure - entering right through the crescent frown on the mask. As more of whatever was emitting out of the clothes, the icy black tendrils tighten even more.
Heat Blast's rocky face tightened up. He was...somehow devouring the other guy!
Finally, after there seemed nothing left to squeeze, the black spires receded into the ground - leaving nothing but bones, jeans, a jacket, and a ski mask to fall onto the concrete.
"What did you just do to him!" Ben shouted angrily. Even though one less villain was on the Earth, what had been done was still cruel and inhumane
The other two thugs, who had possibly watched their friend be killed, turned to look at Heat Blast. They hadn't paid enough attention to notice him earlier.
The voice of the hooded man spoke once more.
"Your name is familiar through these ears, Benjamin."
Lucky Girl appeared from the crate she had been hiding behind. Only the dressed marauders flinched.
A loud smash was heard from behind everyone - near the entrance. Suddenly, armored police stormed the building with professionality of the marines. Their heavy boots patted abruptly upon the ground.
Accompany this was a thunderous noise from the sky. Purple lightning then struck right through the warehouse roof and right onto the hooded man. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
"We need to leave," Gwen said, as she stared back at the place where purple lighting had just appeared.
"Right," answered Ben.
Gwen was prone to use her magic to fly them out of there, but that would have given her away. And she still hadn't accomplished what she set out to do yet. After she did, it would be over. No more Ben obsessing over her, or her obsessing over him.
Quickly, she ran and hopped onto a crate and began zigzagging upwards towards the shattered window and onto the roof.
"Wait!" Heat Blast called. "You haven't given me your name yet!"
"I will. Meet me on the roof!" she called back.
Ben's stomach jumped. He was finally going to figure out who this amazing person was. Quickly, he used his flames to propel upwards just before the police were too close.
Behind him, the last two surprised and confused mercs were left slowly drifting their hands upwards - preparing to be apprehended.
. . .
Standing in his human form, as the Omnitrix had timed out about a minute ago, Ben stood balanced on the slanted roof. He stared down into the building and watched as the local SWAT team took martial control over the whole situation.
The night winds were slightly chilling. They always were in the fall.
"Hey Alien Boy," a familiar shimmering voice called. Even though it seemed to be distorted, the voice was still so soothing.
Ben looked up to see the mysterious heroine, who was constantly able to evade him, balancing perfectly on an upper roof.
"Who me?" Ben teased. "You never know, I could just be some random guy walking around on rooftops. It's actually a hobby of mine."
Gwen giggled. "Oh I'm sure."
"Now remember, no side tracking. I want to know your name."
"You don't even care much for the purple lighting, do you?" She said, crossing her arms. Getting right to the point, I see.
Ben held his hands in a peace gesture as if she was attacking him. "No, it's not that. But I can worry about it later."
"What about that guy who basically killed someone right in front of us? There's no way that could have slipped your mind."
"It didn't! I really don't even think whoever that was is human. There's no way anyone could have done what he did. And now that I think-...wait! I'm not up here to talk about what just happened. I'll deal with that later."
"Really?"
"If it means that much to you, yes, really," Ben assured her.
Gwen thought for a moment. In truth, she was only stalling. Because, in her own honesty, she was nervous.
"Alright," she said. Jumping from the elevated part of the roof, Gwen landed a few feet in front of him.
"So you want to know my real name?" she spoke teasingly, walking circles around him.
"Yep," answered Ben bluntly. "That's why I'm up here. On a roof. On top of a warehouse. In the middle of a city, in the dark. And not at home in my warm bed..."
Faking a laugh, she continued: "Okay, I'll let you know me. But you have to close your eyes." Her voice became softer and more seductive as she stopped circling and walked closer to him.
Ben coughed timidly. "M-my eyes? Why my eyes?"
"Trust me. You won't ever want to know. Just relax and close your eyes."
He was weary. Maybe she was one of the bad guys trying to trick him? Maybe she was after the Omnitrix like half the galaxy?
But for some reason, he left those conscious thoughts behind him and did what she asked. He stood straight and closed his eyes.
Gwen watched him stand there - eyes closed - and finally took off her helmet. "No peaking," she warned, "or you won't ever open those eyes again."
She moved as close as possible to him and peered at his face. Never once did the thought cross her mind that, if he were to open his eyes just slightly, she would be discovered and her master plan gone.
In an instant, she let her lips slide and then latch onto his. Cold, they were cold and not warm like had always been described. However, when they made contact, they began to warm each other's. For a moment, she kept the familial kiss still and light. To her, there was a wall - a barrier - that needed to be taken down. And just as her thoughts shifted towards it, the kiss broke passed that barrier, and entered the gates to a different world.
Her first real kiss, his first real kiss. Amateurs, that's what they were. But to each other, they seemed skilled and masterful. Both of their heads churned in directions like a waterfall as they continued what had been started unexpectedly.
Then, Gwen began what felt weird at first. She prodded her own lips with her tongue just before gaining the courage to thrust it at his. Catching her drift, Ben repeated the gesture.
In another minute, Gwen pulled free from the lock.
"No peaking remember."
Ben stood, with his eyes still closed. He waited just until he could hear footsteps moving across the rooftop away from him. She wasn't going to tell him her name.
Gwen had put her mask back on and was, in fact, ready to run off and head home - leaving what had just happened behind her.
But something, an empty, lonesome feeling, arose inside of her. She looked back and felt her own chest began go through painful sensations.
It's just like staring at someone you really like, and never saying anything.
Still, she had promised herself one kiss to him. One kiss to make sure he would never think of Gwen Tennyson romantically - but focus on the girl that was just like him. The girl who ran around in a costume fighting crime, and who liked to taunt the bad guys - just like him.
But that was her.
Running back to him, she slid a note into his hand. Just before making to leave again, she was tempted to relive the same experience with his lips - to satisfy the intense burn that had been bestowed on her own, just like on every place of her he would touch. She decided against it.
After Ben could no longer hear the footsteps and was sure he was alone, he opened his eyes. Lifting the note to his face, he read aloud.
"L T G G?"
