It was early in the morning as Attea decided to leave and take back her place as the righteous heir. The Incursean space ship landed and powered down, waiting for Attea to arrive.

"Are you really going to let her leave like that, grandpa? Who knows what she could be getting up to again!"

The older man decided to turn around and face Ben. "Listen, Ben. I know this is hard to understand, but Attea could be a viable and powerful ally to the plumbers."

Ben could understand that especially at this moment it was crucial for the Plumbers to have powerful allies. But she wasn't happy about it being the Empress of the Incurseans. She finally nodded and they stepped in front of the medical bay as Attea, still bandaged and patched up, stepped out. They escorted her to her spaceship. For a while they walked in silence. After having had enough of silence, Ben finally mentioned Atteas name and she turned around to face Ben.

"You better not make us regret it." Ben stated, crossing her arms.

"A threat from the great Ben 10?" she put on a smug expression, "I am shaking in my boots.".

Ben frowned, "I mean it. This is different from the time before."

The frog-alien frowned back. "You sure have changed.", then she turned towards the Magister, "Magister Tennyson, I assume my package is ready?".

It was the Magisters time to frown, "I still think Raff should stay with the Plumbers a while longer.".

Attea's smug smiled vanished, "Raff was the commander of the Incursean empire. Who knows what the Plumbers could do with the knowledge inside his synthetic brain? And with what has happened in recent times inside the Plumbers HQ and outside of it, I'd like to keep him with me."

Ben grew wary, "What are you going to do to Raff?"

She turned towards the brunette, "I'll do with my subjects what I deem fit and he sided against me, the Empress of the Incurseans. You think traitors are dealt with lightly where I come from?"

The Magister behind them nodded, "I'll have Raff escorted outside. He'll be ready for you in a couple of minutes."

Ben turned around, "Grandpa-"

Magister Tennyson looked down, "This is better Ben. Remember what I told you."

Ben returned back to her quarters and sighed. She didn't feel okay with letting Raff go like this. To become a traitor to the Incursean empire and getting caught meant capital punishment. In Raff's case this might mean a complete resetting of his brain functions and a complete mind wipe. Which was pretty much as good as dead. Ben sat up. Why was she even caring about this synthetic life-form? There were other things to care about, like where Hera went. But a part of her was struggling with letting go.
How could the Plumbers just let Attea get away with this? Was such a punishment really justice? But Ben had no choice but to accept her grandfathers words and hope raff was going to be fine.

A knock on the door distracted her from her thoughts and she stood up to answer. It couldn't be her grandfather. Was it Gwen? No, she was on earth and at University. Kevin was working. That only left one option.

"Ben. How are you feeling?", she took a step back and let Rook in.

He looked around. Well, it used to be his room. "You have not changed anything in this room.", he assessed and turned towards the brunette. His visage betrayed the worry he carried in his heart as he faced Ben. "I heard of your plans. Do you wish to go alone and face Hera?". Even his voice had the same underlying tone.

Ben sat down on the bed and put her head into her hands. "You've seen what happened. I don't want the whol- you guys to see me like that again.".

"What happened on that day?", Rook inquired leaning a little forwards and putting a hand on her shoulder

A sigh left her mouth, "I have no idea. I swear. I am pretty sure I haven't- I didn't want to turn into Alien X! It was just- Professor Paradox gave me that weird necklace and I put it on. And after my transformation I kind of lost it? But I could have sworn it was still there."

Rook sat down next to her, "I suggest you go and visit Azmuth.".

"Azmuth doesn't care about this! About all of this what I'm going through!"

For a while they were both silent. "This is about revenge.", Rook stated.

Ben stood up, "This is not just about revenge! Hera is a dangerous being and if she grows back her power, who knows what could happen."

"But you are still willing to go out alone, without us."with those words he stood up and opened the door to reveal Gwen, Kevin and Zed.

Ben crossed her arms in front of her chest. "How long have you guys been standing there."

"Listen," Kevin started, "you've seen all of us at out worst. At least let us help you in this fight."

Gwen stepped forward and laid a hand on Ben's shoulder, "You're not alone there, Ben. I know you are scared after what happened. But if you have to face her again, it might be better when we help you, Even if it's just for emotional support."

Ben looked away, "After all I've done and how I've acted lately, you guys still want to help me?".

"Especially because of how you've acted lately!" Gwen perked up, "If this can help you and make you feel better then we're supposed to be there!"

Ben took a deep breath and looked at her friends, "Then we should pack up for a long trip."

Rook coughed, and held up his phone. "I have to inform you that Captain Rad Profit Danger Trouble Dudesman has already touched down and is waiting for us."

They all stared at him and he stared back. "I assumed we would want to go as soon as possible?", he replied.

Ben looked at them and then at Rook, "You've planned this from the very start."

"I just analyzed your past decisions and acts and based on this I made a prediction. Then I made certain plans to help you with your future."

Ben kept staring at him. Averting his gaze Rook regarded the wall. He reminded them: "We might go, Captain Rad Dudesman is waiting.".

The brunette hurried along and shoved her stuff into a backpack, while the other three had theirs already packed. And not long afterwards they went into space.

It took quite some time to get there. Time was spent with video games and sleeping. Mostly sleeping. They finally reached it the edge of the universe. Then they realized something.

"Ben?" Rook turned towards the brunette, "How do we find Hera?".

She sat up from the bunk bed and put down her controller, pausing the screen of the video game she was currently playing.
"I've given Dudesman the coordinates, it should still be there. I mean it was a couple thousand years ago but the coordinates that Prof-", she was interrupted as the floor they stood on started shaking.

Over the intercom Rad's voice spoke up, "We have some trouble."

Rook and Ben stormed to the bridge. Gwen and Kevin were already trying hard to peer out into the eternal darkness in front of them. "What's this I can't see anything.", Gwen squinted and Kevin turned towards Dudesman.

"Is there anything you can do?" Kevin asked as the ship shook again, violently and he tried to regain his balance.

Pyxi, the board computer spoke and Rad translated it. "A hostile life-form. Last thing she saw was some debris and rocks coated with a black substance." The pink rectangle garbled out more words and Rad took out a gun, "And it is getting in here.".

Ben faced the duck-like alien, "Rad let me out. I'll deal with that-". The ship convulsed and interrupted Ben.

The duck looked at a map of his ship, and nodded towards Ben as the ship started to squeak and screech under pressure. "You gotta be fast. The only exit not compromised is the loading dock."

They dashed towards the loading dock. For a moment Ben turned around and tried to get to Gwen who was fighting with a black tendril. "Don't worry about me!" Gwen shouted, shooting off one tentacle, with an energy ball "Get out and do it fast!"

Kevin punched at a black substance seeping in, "We can do this, you go and beat up Hera. We'll hold the line."

Ben hesitated, gritted her teeth and ran forwards, not looking back. "Open the shutters!" she pulled up the Omnitrix. And the gates opened in front of her.

Once again the green flash brightened up the sky and the same scene as before played again. This time the scream of a thousand tormented voices was soundless in the void of the universe. Once again Alien X was surrounded by black bile. The form of Hera was twisted and dripping. Every time she tried to hold herself together she flew apart. Hera had been weakened significantly. And before Ben even knew what happened he started eating her, swallowing her up whole. What little resistance Hera had was long gone. It wasn't until she was no more that the world grew quiet again and the ship stopped rocking back and forth.

"We've received a lot of damage." Rad regarded his surroundings. Then he turned towards the others, "We can still make it to the next planet."

The other three took a sigh of relieve before realizing that Ben was still out there. They hurried towards the bridge and looked out the cracked cockpit window. Alien X stood there without moving for a while until the aliens body started to change his form a little.

Inside Alien X formed another mind, consuming Hera meant that she was now a part of Alien X and therefore the Omnitrix. And there Ben was stuck for an entire day trying to deal with three personalities in one body.
After an entire day, Ben had finally managed to make all three of them agree to turn him back from Alien X. It was then that Ben realized that she had forgotten that she was still in space. Just through quick thinking Ben managed to turn into Big Chill. Phasing through the hull of the ship Big chill exhausted transformed back into Ben. At this moment Ben made an important decision.

"Rad-" she took a deep breath, "could we make it to Galvan Prime?".

A random piece of metal barely missed her head and landed besides her as Rad Dudesman pulled out some more ducttape. He locked eyes with the hero and very shortly informed him, "No.".

A few days later the ship was in a repair station on Polyominus. The extensive damage was going to take at least a whole week before it could get back into space again. Safely. The Plumbers had dropped a ship down to pick up Ben and her friends.

"I am glad you finally decided to speak to Azmuth and get his help.", Rook told the brunette sitting in front of him. He seemed quite relieved that she had finally swallowed her pride.

Ben took a deep breath, sounding disappointed, as if she couldn't help herself anymore. "I feel like I've just lost an important battle.".

The other two tried to cheer him up but that didn't help making Ben feeling any better. A few hours later they arrived at Galvan Prime.

Azmuth regarded her from every angle and then pulled up the Plumbers medical files. He nodded.

"I am impressed that you're keeping this up for so long."

Ben stared at him and blinked, "What am I keeping up?"

Azmuth turned back to his work station scrolling through his research. "This appearance of course. Don't tell me you were actually unaware of the function of the Omnitrix. What happened to you was truly impressive, that an outside force could change an Omnitrix bearer, however, even with this change it shouldn't have been a problem to change back. That's the entire point."

Ben started to stare a hole into the back of his head. For a few second she was puzzling together the pieces. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish on land.

"Anyways, all you have to deal is to change some primary settings and you're back."

Ben looked from the Omnitrix to Azmuth and back again,"How?".

With a deep sigh Azmuth decided to walk over and gestured Ben to lower her arm. She kneed down and let Azmuth work on the Omnitrix for a moment. First it worked exatclky the same time Ben has used it countless times before. The dial raised and it seemed to work perfectly normal, then Azmuth turned the lower base of the dial, until a click sound could be heard.
With a green flash Ben turned a lot flatter in the front. The brown haired youth patted his chest with a wide-eyed look.

"I could have done this the entire time." he pressed the words out between his teeth.

Azmuth shrugged nonchalantly and returned to his work-station. "Oh, by the way" he added "I locked away Alien X a-".
He turned around and realized Ben had gone out already. Well, it didn't seem important anyways.

Meanwhile Ben was outside taking deep breaths on his way to the plumber ship. Without a word he went into his temporary quarters until they could reach earth and screamed.

"You son of a-"

THE END