A glint of light derailed Ben's thoughts. His head snapped up, once again focused as a mint-lime arm slung up over the lip of the elevator entrance. Hefting himself out of the shaft with a grunt of effort, Argyle loomed into view. At the sight of him, Ben automatically looked to his left arm. Sure enough, it was a stump the same way that it had been when Ben last saw it. The end was wiped free of Red Sleep venom but it was slicked with a yellow film. The implication of it, as a scab or a scar on Petrosapiens, made Ben wince. He hadn't wanted anyone to get permanently hurt, not even Argyle. Or, at the very least, he hadn't wanted to be the one doing the hurting.

But there Argyle was anyway, pulling himself up one-armed because the other one wasn't coming back. It couldn't grow back ever again. And that was all Ben's fault.

He forced his thoughts back to the mission. What was done was done. Ben couldn't let himself get distracted thinking about it when he had something that he needed to be doing. Still, that wasn't going to erase his regret.

Like Tetrax had before, Ben slipped out of the small engine room and to the gap in the door. He managed far less gracefully, but to be fair, the aching in his side was starting to get annoying and frustrate him. It was the sort of unbearable itch that made him want to shuck off his skin, just to stop feeling its constant presence.

He managed though, pulling himself up and out with a wince as he waited for Argyle's footsteps to move away. He heard the man catching his breath, muttering something, then the distinctive clanking sound of crystal against steel as he walked.

Ben didn't let him go far. A part of him was so tired, exhausted and sick of it all. He wanted to finish it. And finish it, he planned to. He made sure that the Omnitrix was on and his playlist was hovering over his alien of choice before he stumbled out of the room and stopped in the middle of the hall.

The noise would have been impossible to miss, even if Argyle wasn't actively listening for him. Even as he tensed up, the Petrosapien was turning. Ben slammed down on the Omnitrix just as Argyle let go and, with his good arm, shot a shard of peranite as Ben's head.

In a flash of green, his bones and muscles melted, skin turning transparent and paper-thin as only a weak implication of keeping everything pulled together. And everything did pull together, the cells in Ben's body forced into each other one after the other, their functions combining and then multiplying a hundred fold in size, until he was standing with only a loosely humanoid form that was made entirely of green goo. The pulsing heat in his side was gone — technically, he didn't have a side anymore, so how could it be injured? In the wound's absence, everything felt lighter.

Right as the transformation finished, Goop felt a shard sail through his chest. As a human, that would have been his head, but the peranite projective came out the other side of his chest with little more than a tingling sensation. Goop might have giggled, except that he had no concept of being ticklish and his Anti-Gravity Projector quickly absorbed the waves back into his body.

He cocked his head, at least as well as he could, and regarded Argyle with narrowed eyes. Which was, of course, the closest that Goop could get to smirking. "Ouch. My bad, was that supposed to be an attack?" He trilled, mocking. The plan was to annoy Argyle into trying to kill him, after all. Ben didn't think that it would take very long to achieve that. "Maybe we should do that again. Assuming that you're going to actually try, this time. I don't remember you being so bad at this."

There was no retort or snippy compact or threat. Argyle said nothing. He made a strangled noise that sounded similar to a creaky door being slammed and threw himself at Goop. He jammed his stump arm into what would have been a stomach, had Ben been human, and tried to wrap his fingers around a neck that wasn't there. They fell to the ground, grappling for control. All Goop had to do was let himself flare up and Argyle was quickly scrambling away, once again burnt as green acid dripped from the places where he had been in contact with Goop. At least those body parts would grow back. His arm wasn't nearly so lucky.

"You'll die for this, Tennyson," Argyle hissed, wiping the toxins away even as his body was already regenerating. "I'll kill you. With my bare hands, if I have to." It wasn't a threat. It was a promise. There was a look in his eyes that made Ben believe him.

He was glad that he was Goop at the moment, though. Polymorphs weren't known for being easily swayed by emotions such as fear — or any other emotion, for that matter. "You'll have to manage to land a successful hit, first. I'm still waiting." Goop threw his arms open wide, gesturing at himself as though challenging Argyle to take aim.

He did, avoiding aiming at Goop entirely and pointing his good arm in the direction of the Anti-Gravity Projector. Muffling a mild swell of alarm, Goop tossed himself to the side, his ADP of course following him. The little disc hummed contentedly above Goop's head as he dodged shard after shard being lobbed his way. He was supposed to be getting the man to follow him back to the trap, but Argyle seemed content to keep missing.

"Aren't you tired of being so awful at this?" Goop taunted, impatient. He made the mistake of drifting a little too close.

Argyle knocked the Anti-Gravity Projector out of the air, sending it skidding down the hall with a powerful swipe of the arm. Immediately, Goop collapsed at his feet, a formless puddle. Even as Argyle stood above him, he didn't look proud or triumphant. The look on his face was a sneer, like an exterminator should have been dealing with Ben instead of himself. "Aren't you?"

The ground trembled and shook as peranite shards grew like thorns around him, but by then, Goop's AGP had already returned to him. With a quick fly-by, control of his body returned and the peranite around him went up into toxic green vapor as he dissolved the attempted prison and squeezed out through the forming cracks. Behind him, Argyle let out a shout of frustration, but Goop didn't stop to give him any attention. He flung his body up to the ceiling, sticking his body to the surface with ease.

"Don't make me hurt you!" He called to Argyle, who was continuing to shoot peranite at Goop as though that might have any effect. "I could dissolve you where you stand, easily. It wouldn't be pretty."

Unimpressed, Argyle focused on the ceiling above and gave a good, hard tug. Peranite split the paneling and sent it crashing to the ground, Goop just barely moving out of the way in time to avoid crushing his AGP and sending his body splattering everywhere. "Then why haven't you?" He shot back. "Scared, Tennyson? Afraid to kill a man with your bare hands? All that power and this is how you choose to waste it. This is disgraceful."

The truth of it made Ben wince. He didn't reply to the taunt. It was true. He was letting Popigai and Conway do the dirty work because he couldn't handle watching the light leave someone's eyes. He felt guilty enough about leaving Argyle with a disfigured arm, but actually taking his life? He didn't want to admit that he couldn't do it. That it scared him.

Nothing was supposed to "scare" him. He was the hero, wasn't he?

Goop flung himself down the hall, letting Argyle give chase. The mocking and jests were flung to the wayside. The Petrosapien looked, for the first time, legitimately furious with him. When he said that he was going to make Ben pay, the teen believed it.

He bounced from floor to ceiling to wall and back again, leaving burning holes where his acidic body made contact. Usually, Goop only dissolved things when he had to, but Argyle wasn't making anything easy for him. The hall was practically coming apart at the seams, with peranite bursting in on them at every possible angle. It curved and sweeped and twisted with every forceful gesture of Argyle's hand, chasing after Goop as though the crystal had a mind of its own. It might have even been beautiful, had it not been trying to kill him.

He tore his way through the peranite constructs with ease, almost having to carve his way toward the trap's location. If Argyle knew that he was being shepherded, then he didn't care. He parted the peranite for himself like he was splitting the Red Sea, not charging toward Ben like a mad men but marching with single-minded purpose.

His confidence was going to be his downfall. Goop flung himself around a sharp turn, the barricade of objects that he had set up with the others lying all over the hall or impaled around him on sharp lines of peranite. He skidded to a stop in the middle of the hall just as Argyle turned and, inevitably, set off the motion-detector that Goop had been so careful to avoid. Harmless laser fire was set-off, staggering him. That was it. The signal. Head bowed and eyes closed, Goop waited. Had he possessed lungs, he might have been holding his breath.

The door to his left was flung open but, instead of Argyle's shouts as he was drenched in Red Sleep venom, there was only the faint buzzing of fairy wings.

"Very impressive attempt," Murowa's voice purred, somehow managing to send chills down a spine that Goop no longer had. He whirled around to face her, shocked as he looked between her smirk and Argyle's. "But an attempt is all that it's going to amount to, Ben 10. The outcome of this encounter will be the same regardless of how you feel about it. I would say to surrender, but I know that you won't listen."

Her mocking meant next to nothing to Ben. He took it in stride, used to getting it from worse antagonists. "Where is Tetraxt?" Goop demanded, his artificial voice pitching with fury. "What did you do to Conway and Popigai? If you hurt them, I swear I'll—"

"You'll what?" Argyle cut in, looking unconcerned. He had the audacity to muffle a yawn. "No allies, no friends, no family… Even as grossly out-numbered and out-matched as you are, you're too much of a hero to run while you have the chance. You'll stay right here and fight us. And you'll lose."

Before Goop to react, Murowa darted forward. He brought his hands up to shield himself, but it was too late. Gold dust flickered down thickly, coating his head and shoulders and dusting the ground at his feet. Goop blinked, staring down at it all miraculously unchanged. She had tossed enough dust at him to send him into a week-long coma, and yet he was still awake and energized.

"Maybe next time," Goop said after a tense pause, "don't hinge your plan on putting a single-celled organism to sleep. I don't do that."

Deep in the back of his mind, instincts that the Omnitrix wired into the non-human gaps in Ben's brain hummed in confirmation. No, there was no need to sleep. His circadian rhythm had no need to waste such obscene amounts of time that could be spent making energy.

While Murowa considered the possibilities of strangling a being without a neck or lungs or need for oxygen, Argyle had no such dilemma. "Alright," he grunted. "Back up plan, then." He aimed his hand at the ceiling and, yanking down hard, a slab of peranite bigger than a fridge tore free from where Argyle had been subtly letting it grow and slammed Goop into the ground.

The steel dented horribly but, somehow, didn't tear. His AGP was crushed instantly, and while the puddle of Goop quivered in his attempts to move, he just as quickly went limp and sagged, bits of him pooling into the jagged contours in the floor.

It wasn't the first time that Ben had been crushed and he doubted that it would be his last. Luckily, Goop's body was built to handle it but that didn't mean that he wasn't feeling a little dazed when he shakily pulled himself together. He didn't feel all that eager to come out, knowing what was waiting for him. Goop was considering melting through the floor and launching some sort of sneak attack but, before he could work through the details, he realized that Murowa and Argyle were talking above him.

Maybe "talking" was too generous. It was more like a screaming contest.

"We settled this before we came here, Argyle!" Murowa shrieked. Her voice was high enough to make glass crack. "This is my work, my initiative, my station—! How many times do I have to tell you? He is mine! Lift that fucking boulder up right now, and I swear, if he's dead, you won't be far behind!"

"I'd like to see you try, Pixie. You saw what he did to Diavik! This is justice!" Argyle snapped right back, venom in his words.

The noise that Murowa made in response was unlike anything Ben had ever heard. The closest that it came to was a roar. "You leave Diavik out of this! It was your bullshit plan that kept us here! Had we left when I said to, he would still be alive!" While she was shouting, they both managed to miss Goop's AGP reforming nearby. It swept him out of the hole in the floor, but Ben didn't leave. He wanted to attack, but he was beginning to think that they would be clawing at each other's throats in another minute or so anyway. "How many times must I tell you that I'm not interested anymore? You're so thick-headed, so selfish, so oblivious—!"

Argyle huffed as though bored, cutting her off. "Is that so? Now who's the one flirting?"

The beeping from the Omnitrix dragged their attention away from each other and back to Ben. His body condensed and solidified, reforming bone and blood. With nerve endings and injuries again, Ben felt every scrape and cut and bruise hit him at the same time. He winced, hoping that neither of them noticed and mistook it for fear. After watching them bicker like an old married couple, Ben was starting to wonder why he was ever worried about them at all.

"Hey." He waved at the awkwardly. They were both stunned, staring at Ben without expressions. "So, uh, don't mind me. I was just on my way out. I'll… leave you to it…?"

He didn't seriously make a move to leave, though. Argyle had been right earlier, when he said that Ben was too much of a hero to run. He wasn't going to go anywhere without his friends and both Murowa and Argyle under lock and key.

Neither of them so much as twitched, but Ben didn't care. He reached for the Omnitrix again and that was enough to send Murowa, at least, jerking into motion. She wasn't fast enough. Her claws cut through the air where Ben's wrist would have been, but in a flash of light, he was far out of reach. Suddenly about the side of his foot, Ben's much smaller body grew lightweight and agile, his head and brain expanding in a much wider cranial cavity as everything else became comparatively weaker.

By the time Argyle bothered to get involved, Grey Matter was already on the move. He jumped back toward the jagged peranite slab in the middle of the floor, wiggling his way between a crack and underneath it to grab tight hold of a slight groove. As expected, Argyle lifted the slab — that time, without Murowa needing to scream at him to do it. Grey Matter kept a strong grip on the crystal, making himself as small as possible.

When Argyle leaned closer, scanning the crushed steel below for any sign of a Galvan, Grey Matter let himself drop. He landed on the Petrosapien's head with a dull thud. "It sounds just as hollow as I hypothesized. Unsurprising, though further research will need to be conducted to be certain of the exact lack of intellect at play," he remarked clinically.

He had to jump to avoid being pulverized — apparently, Argyle was not stupid enough to hit himself, but he made a grab for Grey Matter anyway. Murowa soared over his head to grab him as he did a twisting leap through the air, only to miss by a mere few inches as Grey Matter used her head for a launching platform. He dove into the hole that Argyle had torn in the ceiling, ducking behind the exposed piping to catch his breath and, hopefully, formulate a plan.

Clearly, Argyle and Murowa had known about their trap for a while in advance. With the advanced intellect of a Galvan, Grey Matter berated himself for not considering it a possibility sooner. Of course there would be smaller cameras that were easier to overlook. They had probably been being watched the whole time, attacked only because they had willingly separated their group and lost the only advantage that they had: numbers.

That was a good idea, actually. Echo Echo would be a good match for a Petrosapien, which was something that he knew from experience. And it wasn't as though living sound waves could be put to sleep, effectively neutralizing Murowa's most effective maneuver.

He re-focused on his surroundings, mildly surprised that Murowa hadn't fluttered up after him. She was small enough to fit. Were they simply that confident that he would be coming back? It reeked of smugness.

Grey Matter turned to drop back down, planning to shift into Echo Echo mid-fall, until he noticed what he had missed while occupied with his thoughts. The sound of grunting reached him first, then crystal grinding together, but he felt his breath leave his lungs when he finally processed the sight before him.

Lavender peranite clashed against Argyle's lime green, Popigai grunting with the effort of keeping up with someone who had twice the skill and experience that he did. Where had the cadet even come from? He swung a punch, missing by feet as Argyle ducked underneath and grabbed his wrist. With a neat flip, Popigai was sent to the ground, and that was all that Ben had the opportunity to see as his view was cut off.

Suddenly popping out at him, grinning, Murowa grabbed Grey Matter around the torso faster than he could react. He was yanked out of his hiding place roughly, shaken up like a doll. He bit down on Murowa instinctively, to no effect. She didn't so much as flinch.

"Guess I didn't give him a strong enough dose," she trilled, keeping her fingers curled just so to prevent Grey Matter from reaching the Omnitrix on his back. "It's inconsequential. Your other friends will be out for a while still, and this ended up working in my favor, don't you think? Polymorphs may not sleep, but I know that Galvan do."

She rubbed her fingers together, gold flecks of dust accumulating seemingly out of thin air. No matter how Grey Matter twisted and squirmed, he couldn't get free of her hold. Even being so close to her dust made him sleepy. The injury in his side (proportionally shrunken though it was) tore and burned, clumpy green-tinted blood running down his side and between Murowa's clenched fingers. The stitches had split. If he didn't bleed out as a Galvan, then Ben knew that he would be in trouble as soon as he was human again.

"Let him go!" Popigai's indignant cry reached them.

He was pulling himself back up off of the ground, his Plumber suit torn away over his left arm to reveal unsightly cracks. Apparently, Argyle hadn't registered him as a threat and seen it fit to leave him there. Even turning back, the former Magister didn't look all that surprised or concerned. Mostly, he seemed annoyed. It gave Ben a sinking feeling in his gut.

Argyle turned his head toward Popigai curiously, eyes narrowed in a way that made the cadet flinch despite himself. There was a pause, as though no one in the hallway dared to breathe while he thought. Finally, Argyle shifted and shot an unreadable look at Ben. "Consider this retribution for what you did to Diavik, Tennyson. Watch closely — you won't want to miss it."

Even as Popigai ducked and rolled, Ben knew that it wouldn't be enough. Argyle stuck out his good arm and a peranite wall sprang up, stopping Popigai's retreat. On the ground already, all Argyle did was place a foot on the man's back and push him back when he tried to get up. He brought his other foot forward and, looking completely uninterested, Argyle slammed it down. Hard.

He wanted to look away, but Ben couldn't. Popigai's body went limp, the shattered remains of his head soaked through with the clear, acidic-smelling blood of Petrosapiens. Something blue and squishy-looking oozed between the fragments, no doubt the remnants of his brain. Sightless, cloudy eyes rolled with blood vessels and nerves still attached. The golden color that had been so bright when Ben first met him looked dull, like someone had flicked a switch and rendered Popigai vacant. Desolate. Empty.

Something snapped.

The next time that Grey Matter bit down on Murowa's hand, she shrieked in protest. His teeth tore the skin that, before, had been unyielding. Thick purple blood filled his mouth and Grey Matter didn't bother spitting it out. He just bit down harder, as though tearing her hand to shreds would somehow fix the shattered skull lying a few feet away.

It didn't, but it did make Murowa loosen her hold. She let Grey Matter go flying, clutching at her wrist with her good hand. He was in the air for maybe two seconds before he managed to get his hands to the Omnitrix attached to his back and touched the dial.

The transformation was jarring, but Ben barely noticed it through the red clogging his vision. Everything expanded, blew up to a hundred times the size. Denser bones dragged around by muscles that made up over half of his body mass. Eyesight became poor and he grew a tail, but all of that was inconsequential so long as it meant that he could make Argyle hurt for what he had done.

Not just to Popigai, but everyone else that Ben had been too caught up in his own self-pity to properly avenge. They were both going to pay. Until there was nothing left for Ben to beat into the ground.

Humungousaur didn't stop growing just because the transformation was finished. He let his size double, then triple, then quadruple, until he went from being ten feet tall to sixty. With a roar that shook the surrounding area, he crushed through level after level of flooring with no signs of stopping. The steel ground buckled beneath his hulking weight, but Humungousaur didn't care. The satellite would all go crashing down, even if he went along with it.

He swiped his massive tail to the side, knocking down walls and barely feeling it. One hand shoved several layers of flooring out of his way, causing a massive collapse. He was looking for Argyle, but if he crushed the guy with his rummaging, then at least he wasn't risking the loss of anything valuable.

Motion in his peripheral caught his attention and Humungousaur swung his gigantic head around in time to see Murowa flying up toward him. He attempted to knock her out of the sky like a fly with one bat of his hand, but she darted through his fingers without losing speed. He stumbled back, convinced that she would try to put him to sleep again, but Murowa didn't go for his head at all. She slammed herself into the Omnitrix watch-face emblazoned on his chest.

She had spent long enough poking and prodding at his wrist to know a few basic functions of the Omnitrix. There was a flash and Ben found himself on his own, unsteady human feet. His legs were shaking, threatening to give out. Everything was sore and aching. Why was he so exhausted and dizzy? Was everything supposed to be so blurry? He clutched at his side, stifling a gasp at the fresh blood soaking through his shirt. Humungousaur must have forgotten that little detail. It was hard to remember anything other than fury.

He stumbled, wheezing, and was picked up by the back of his shirt with a yank so hard that it almost tore the fabric. It caused Ben to choke, which Argyle paid no mind as he swung the teen around as easily as lifting a pillow. Some rough maneuvering ended with Ben facing the man, his Omnitrix wrist clamped tightly by Argyle's other hand. For all of Ben's tugging and struggling, the man didn't move an inch.

There was no verbal comment, but the gleam in Argyle's eye and the upturn of his lips said plenty. The grip on Ben's wrist tightened to the point of pain, then further still, until he was clenching his jaw tight enough to hurt in an effort to hold back shouts of agony. He swore that he could feel his bones grinding together, that Argyle was being sadistic before just snapping them through the watch. If such a thing were possible, Ben had no doubt that Argyle would find a way to do it.

"Stop that!" Murowa snapped, exasperated and still furious with her "friend" as she fluttered into Ben's peripherals. "I didn't put all of my time and effort into doing this just so you could kill him on the spot. Stop with the tough guy routine and turn him to face me." She flicked her hand and Ben imagined that she was drawing a circle in the air with her finger. The picture was funny to him, but he couldn't figure out why. Maybe he had lost more blood than he thought.

"Funny how I'm not a "tough guy" until it conveniences you," Argyle huffed in reply. Nonetheless, he seemed cooperative. Still holding onto Ben's wrist, he twisted the Omnitrix arm behind his back and rotated his hand until Ben swung gracelessly round to face Murowa.

Had he not been putting all of his efforts into staying awake, Ben was sure that he would be feeling pretty embarrassed. Being restrained made his heart slam in his throat. He writhed weakly but didn't have the energy to kick up a fuss about being contained like he normally would have. He wanted to, of course, if only it wasn't taking so much focus to keep his eyes open. He was tired of passing out and fainting. Whatever they were going to do with him, Ben would stubbornly be awake for the whole process. He didn't try to use the voice commands for the Omnitrix because they would slam his head into the wall long before Ben could finish getting out a string of coherent words. Although, he did sort of wish that Murowa would punch him, just so that he could spit blood back in her face like they did in the movies. That would be badass.

Wow. He really needed a hospital.

Ben wasn't in much of a talking mood, but Murowa was looking at him like the cat that got the cream, so he licked his drier-than-dust lips and gave it a shot. "Fuck you," he mumbled, sounding exhausted instead of delivering the spine-curling threat that he was going for. "You're both psychotic. I don't care what it takes, I'll make you pay with my bare hands if I have to." His blood boiled, livid beneath his skin even as he went lax in Argyle's hold without the strength to keep himself rigid. Even the split wound in his side faded to a dull, background ache when he was too busy being furious with the two of them to think about anything else.

All Murowa did was tisk, shaking her head sadly. "Look at where those spiteful feelings have gotten you, Ben. The only difference between where you are now and before your escape is that there's yet another body on your shoulders. "The Great Ben 10"? I wonder what he would say if bodies could talk. Do you think he wanted to give his life for someone like you?" Ben winced, the comments striking a cord, and Murowa continued without pause. "Let it never be said that I only ever do things the easy way. I think it's time that you learn a long over-due lesson, Ben."

She reached for him, glittering flecks of her golden sleep dust speckling her gloved fingers like stars would blanket the night sky. He recoiled on instinct, lashing out with the arm that wasn't restrained. "Don't call me that," Ben hissed. "Don't call me by my name like we're friends, like you know me. You're a fucking monster, you both are, I don't—"

Gleaming, aureate flecks drifted down, a soft powder that was far less intense than what Ben was expecting. He blinked, immediately calming as a fresh wave of drowsiness hit him. It only added on to the molasses clogging his thoughts. Maybe he should have been sleeping more, like Popigai said. Like he would never say again.

His eyes burned but Ben couldn't tell if that was the dust getting caught in his lashes or because he was crying. He wasn't sure. He wanted to ask someone nearby if he was crying or not, only his tongue didn't want to cooperate. Ben worked his jaw idly, noting with surprise when he reached up to touch his face that both of his hands were free again. That felt significant for some reason, though Ben couldn't remember why. He heard voices, ones that should have been familiar, and then his knees were folded underneath his weight and he found himself kneeling on solid ground.

"Popigai…" He clutched his head with one hand, grimacing at the throbbing headache that was beginning to build behind his eyes. That took priority after the crushed form of his friend, swimming in and out of focus several feet away. Ben reached for him, crawling forward on his hands and knees in an attempt to reach. A part of him was convinced that if he could just get there, had he been there in the first place, Popigai would be alright again. Petrosapiens could grow back so many other body parts. Why not heads? "Hang'in there, buddy. I'll… You'll be…"

His hand came down on a puddle of something that was cool to the touch and sticky. Ben paused, lifting his fingers to squint at what was clinging to his skin. The material was watery and reeked of sulfur. Petrosapien blood.

Then, suddenly, it wasn't. It was the deepest of crimsons and hot enough to burn. Ben wiped it off on his shirt, panting, before he realized that Popigai was gone. The trail of human blood led back to a familiar head of fiery orange hair. Gwen's glasses were dropped next to her in the pool of blood, sightless eyes frozen to match the horror on her face. Tatters of her shirt were scattered around her, torso ripped and torn into like a wild animal had tried to see how much meat it could suck off of the bones. The only thing holding her head to her waist was the cracked remains of her spine.

She was clutching Ben's letterman jacket in a white-knuckled hold, hand separated from her body and lying next to her. It was practically teasing him. Look at what you did, it seemed to whisper, mocking and coy into his ear. If only you had been there. If only you had done something.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught. It wasn't real. He could hear Murowa's voice, light and taunting, and knew that she was doing something to him. He didn't know that Nemuinas could create hallucinations for someone who was awake. Ben pinched himself, hands shaking, but it didn't change anything. He cracked his eyes opened and, sure enough, Gwen's body was still there. Whatever Murowa was doing, it was real. Real enough, anyway.

"Stop it," he panted, staring at the ground. The blood that wasn't really there certainly felt warm and sticky against his fingers. It was leaching into his pants, staining them as thoroughly as his skin. "Stop, you can't… this isn't real. I won't let you—"

Ben cut himself off, wincing, as a wet slap greeted his ears. He knew that what he was about to see wasn't going to be good, but his eyes dragged upward despite himself. Kevin stared back at him, eyes angry. Wherever the rest of his body was, Ben didn't see it. He only saw the accusing gaze and the neck wound with part of the cervical spine still spilling out.

He felt bile in the back of his throat but choked it down. Whatever Murowa was doing, he was still aware enough to know that she was doing something and he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of breaking him. Still, Ben knew that he was trembling and everything felt too hot. He was clammy and pale, sweating and unable to catch his breath. He tried to tell her again to stop but all that came out was a hopelessly pathetic little noise. Words didn't want to form on his tongue.

There was movement at his side and Ben turned to it almost gratefully. Dead bodies didn't move. He didn't care what it was, so long as it wasn't another corpse.

It wasn't. Rook was there, looking as alive as the last time Ben had seen him. He couldn't get out his friend's name, not with the overwhelming feelings keeping him rooted to the spot, but he hoped that his relief showed on his face.

"Ben." At the very least, Rook sounded relieved. Was he real? His voice was so familiar. Even when he knelt down and cupped Ben's face, the metal of his gloves felt cool against feverish skin and the texture was exactly right. "Ben, I was looking everywhere for you," he continued. "Gwendolyn and Kevin, they… Well, you have seen them." The smile on his face twisted into a sneer, one that had Ben flinching away as Rook's lips curled back to reveal razor-sharp teeth. "This is all your fault. If not for you, we would not even need to be here. You did this, Ben. I cannot believe that I ever admired you. That you can still think of yourself as anything but scum." Rook fisted his hands in the front of Ben's shirt, yanking him forward and jostling him in the process. Was it real? "I hate you," he hissed, eyes blazing with fury around slitted pupils. "Do you hear me, Ben Tennyson? This is all because of you—"

He didn't finish, but only because peranite suddenly pierced Rook's chest, snapping his Proto-Armor like plastic. It gleamed with blood all the way down, right to where flesh and pieces of bone stuck out obscenely from his torso. Rook's hands went limp and fell away, eyes rolling back but his furious snarl remaining. It almost seemed to be purposeful, as though Rook was saying, "See my point?" There was a sickening squelching sound as the peranite shard was slowly drawn back. No one was waiting behind Rook, but without the support, his body slumped forward and collapsed on top of Ben.

Numb, he stared directly ahead at nothing as his arms came up to encircle Rook's shoulders. At least Ben hadn't passed out, like he feared he might. He could feel the gaping hole in Rook's chest, his fingers brushing mangled skin and lung tissue, but it didn't horrify him like it should have. Rook's words bounced around in his head. And then they were Ben's words and his voice, thick with undeniable conviction.

This is all your fault. I hate you.

The click of handcuffs around his wrists, drawing his hands behind his back where Ben knew he wouldn't be able to reach the Omnitrix, was almost merciful. He struggled, or he thought that he did, but his arms were having just as much trouble following directions as his mouth was. Had that been the goal? To subdue him? Ben had no idea what was happening, just that he stared at the ground and let himself be led away from the blood. It didn't leave his clothes, but he got the feeling that it would eventually if he was quiet and still.

He heard Murowa chuckle, a cooing voice right by his ear. "Did you think that nightmares could only exist while you were dreaming?" She hissed, gleeful.

There was no way to reply to that, so Ben let his eyes slip shut. Anything to make it stop.

Anything.

A/N: Was that ending cliche? Oh well.

Also, if that ending line sounds familiar, then good. It was supposed to.

Chapter Thirty-Four: In the Crosshairs