Ben was expecting a few things today; a nice lunch with his team, maybe a good sparring match, cuddling with Rook after they practiced today. Most of his normal routine. What Ben wasn't expecting was the Forever Knights.
In hindsight, he should have known better. He usually ends up fighting people without a complete plan. It's not like they built a schedule to see if this was a good time to attack.
Ben and Rook are in the grand hall turned office space. They're alone after the Plumbers that shared the room run out upon the red alert sent out.
Ben feels his Plumbers badge vibrating and glowing red. He looks around the room and sees everyone's badges glowing, the room almost has a red haze from the lights of it all.
Ben and Rook navigate everyone out first, giving orders to different teams on where they need to go. Once everyone is out they finally start running to leave. They need to find Kevin. Hopefully Gwen or Max are already there. As they go toward the open doors their bodies are flung back away aggressively.
Ben lands on his back with a loud thud and Rook is able to brace himself and roll out of the fall. Ben groans in irritation at how quick his partner is.
Ben closes his eyes and leans his head back as his irritation only slightly builds.
When Ben opens his eyes, he's looking at the culprit of their entrapment, the woman slithers around a pillar from the back of the room casually and leans her frame into it.
He suddenly really wishes Gwen were here right now.
Her tall form is slender, and white hair is perfectly kept back into a low pony tail, and she crosses her arms over her chest as she looks over the pair lazily with her bright magenta eyes. Her lips are painted black and are cast into a frown as she looks on at them unimpressed.
"Charmcaster." Ben addresses her dryly.
She rolls her eyes are him. "Benjamin." She groans in annoyance; her eyes roam over to Rook and take in his form. "Who is this new face." She pushes herself off of the pillar and starts walking toward the pair, her heels clicking into the stone floor.
Ben shoves himself of the ground quickly and readies himself with the Omnitrix and Rook pulls out one of his blasters, ready to fire.
She pauses, still unimpressed by the two and rolls her eyes.
"What do you want Charmcaster?" Ben demands.
"What I want is irrelevant right now. What matters is that I'm helping Michael by stalling you two buffoons." She's the last part airily.
The two men give each other a side glance in confusion.
She huffs in irritation, "I'm only here to help him and to pick at Gwendolyn when he's done with her. She's loaded with mana did you know that? All natural."
She's looking at her polished nails in mild interest.
"I had to work for mine. I had to sacrifice everything to learn what I know about magic!" she yells at them.
She throws her hands out at them and her fluorescent magenta mana flings towards them in an attack. The two men dodge easily enough. Her mana hits their coworkers desks and chairs, destroying most of them upon impact.
Ben hits his Omnitrix and he body starts morphing into its new skin.
Rook shots some rounds at Charmcaster in rapid succession, she pulls up shield after shield to block his attacks.
She laughs at Rook's attempt to attack, "Do you really think that little thing is going to do anything against me? I'm a grand master!" she guffaws at him. Her bright eyes pierce Rook but don't shake him.
"No, I did not think it would actually. I just needed to distract you." He smiles at her and ducks his body to floor.
Ben is transformed into his Sonorosian form he's named Echo Echo. He has duplicated himself and all four of the Sonorosian's jump off of Rook's back and screech at Charmcaster.
The sound waves and the frequencies that they scream with make her stumble over herself to cover her ears. The noise they create works at a frequency that can immobilize most full-grown men. Sometimes even Kevin on a good day for Ben.
"What is that?!" she screams and tries to readjust herself to attack them.
One of them stops screeching to answer her, "We are using ultrasonic frequencies! Magic can only do so much, but it can't stop us from using real things like sound!" Ben laughs and continues his attack of sound waves.
She falters in her steps but reaches for her bag, she throws out her stone beads onto the ground. As they roll out they increase in size and begin to glow. The stone golems spring forth. The creatures start running towards Ben, unaffected by noise.
Rook jumps in easily and blasts a handful of the golems with his blaster. They explode into rocky pieces easily enough.
One of the golems makes it to one of Ben's clones and takes him out. The other three rolls away and back up to avoid getting hit again.
The three Sonorosian's that are left jump up on top of each other and the last one jumps off his back into the air and hurls himself toward Charmcaster.
He clings to her face and screeches directly into her ear.
She shrieks at the assault to her ears and tries to pry him off of her face. Her sharp nails dig into Ben but he continues his sound attack. She scratches and punctures her nails into him and thrashes her body aggressively into the wall to knock him off.
The other two that are left flank the sides of Rook and fight the last few standing golems. They take them out easily leaving the rubble behind.
Charmaster is still screaming and pulling at Ben's small form. She grips onto him tightly and casts, "Eradico!"
The Sonorosian on her face stops screeching and starts to crack, the mana coming from her hands is leaking through the smaller alien's form. The overwhelmingly bright pink mana overtakes the small aliens and he poofs out of existence.
Ben flinches at that one and reverts back to his human form. He shakes off the gross feeling and the lingering sensation he feels from his clones and starts using his Omnitrix to find someone more effective.
Rook has his blaster pointed to Charmcaster as she heaves and glowers at the two before her. Her hair has been pulled out of its hair tie and she looks disheveled overall. Her chest is rapidly rising and falling as she gasps for air. She slams her hands onto the ground and proclaims a spell quickly.
"Terra vis silex!"
As soon as she speaks Rook fires at her and hits her directly in the chest sending her flying back. She rolls across the room and her body starts to shake as she lays on the ground.
Her spell still works as the ground shakes beneath the two and rocks force themselves through the floor with such a force they ricochet around the room until their momentum gives out. The debris coming from the ground destroys some of the equipment in the room, sending metal flinging as well.
They can only dodge a few as they spike through the ground rapidly. One smacks Ben in his face, just barley missing his eye. Ben groans and finally uses his Omnitrix again to turn into Goop, a Polymorph. The slimy green alien plops down to the ground quickly and Ben uses his gelatin like body to shield and take the impact of the rest of the rocks. The barrage finally ends and Ben's slime body has around fifteen rocks stuck inside of him with various amounts of metal debris.
"Thank you." Rook says in a rushed breath.
Ben spits the rocks out of his body and the two look over to Charmcaster's fallen form on the ground.
Her body convulses on the ground and the two men look at each other in concern before getting closer to her body. She writhes her body and pushes herself up on shaky arms and turns her head back to them.
Rook takes a tentative step back and points his gun at her again.
"We do not wish to kill you." He tells her.
She scoffs at him and braces herself to the floor, "That's hysterical! Don't try to act like you're the heroes here! Not after everything you've done to Michael."
Ben pauses and looks at her in confusion, "What are you talking about? He's the one who betrayed our trust!" he tells in in exasperation.
"You stole everything from him! He told me everything, how his family was supposed to surpass the Tennyson's!" She's screaming at the two men before her, and she's crawling on her hands towards them. She looks like a demon, her white hair cascading around her body and her bright pink eyes glowering at them.
"Did you know Benjamin, that if you never existed Michael was going to get the Omnitrix? He was the only other Plumbers child besides you. The Omnitrix was going to be his! Then you and Gwendolyn were born. Just a miracle pair you two were. One to inherit the most powerful weapon and the other one born with a massive amount of mana!"
Ben takes a cautious step backwards, the woman on the ground frightening him more than anything. Rook keeps his blaster pointed, but unwilling to shoot yet, he's looking to Ben for instruction.
"It's fine though, really, because if I can't win I'll just take you out with me Ben. Then at least Michael can get revenge on one of the Tennyson's." She grins up at him and grips the stone floor, knuckles turning white.
"defluet et conteram labe terrena vincula!" She begins to chant and she clutches into the broken stone of the ground, blood starts to pool between her fingers and she digs her skin into the stone. Her magenta eyes never once break away from the men as she glares them down.
The space in between them and Charmcaster starts to rip open, the ground falling into itself, a portal below them swirling in shades of deep purple and pink. The hole for the portal is large and take up almost the entire middle of the room.
A wind starts to suck things inside of the portal, desks begin to fall in, pieces of the stone floor, everything starts to slide or fall toward the portal, being sucking into the swirling mass and disappearing quickly after.
Ben's slime body almost falls in but the Omnitrix times out on him, he's able to plant his weight and him and Rook start clinging to the pillars to keep themselves rooted.
Ben looks over at Rook and the two realize they have no way of stopping Charmcaster's spell. The woman herself is laughing hysterically on the floor and clinging onto the stones with the same vice like grip.
"What is this?!" Ben yells at her.
"This is the beyond Tennyson! This is worse than death." She continues to cackle as the winds grow strong pulling in more items to the depths of whatever she's called forth.
"What is it Charmcaster?" Rook shouts, his grip tightening around the pillar.
"The endless abyss! Once you're suck in, you're stuck forever, falling through nothing and everything at the same time. One way in and no way out! A mage only casts this when they're prepared to die. I'll be falling into oblivion with you two for eternity!"
She looks at them hellbent, "The only way for this portal to close is if I die or fall into it first. I refuse to fall in before you two!"
Ben looks over at Rook whose own face is paled. Ben shakes his head and thinks, he only needs to outlast Charmcaster. Ben loosens his grip on the pillar to use his Omnitrix.
He starts sliding and he can hear Rook screaming for him, but he has to try.
Ben's able to use his Omnitrix and transforms himself into Humungousaur. The large Vaxasaurian alien takes up so much space and his weight plants him firmly to the ground.
Ben quickly grabs Rook and holds his small frame tightly to his chest. Ben uses his powers and grows in size, almost hitting the tall ceilings in the room. He grips tightly to the wall and holds himself easily to it.
Charmcaster's eyes widen significantly.
"I'll win the waiting game Charmcaster! Just close the portal! You don't have to die!" Ben roars at her.
The winds and gust keep growing, dragging many more items into the portal. Mostly office desks and equipment.
She doesn't respond outside of a scream of anger. Her grip is starting to loosen and the floor she's clinging desperately too is starting to crumble under her fingers. One of her hands can't hold on any longer and it slips. She's hanging on by a thread.
Ben's own body is shaking as he's trying to cling to the old castle's building. He's struggling with his own muscles and he's used the Omnitrix so much, he knows he's running on luck right now.
Charmcaster's body starts slipping, and she's sliding toward her own portal.
"Just close it! You do not have to do this!" Rook screams at her.
She looks up with fury at the two before her, "I can't! Once it is opened it won't close until I go with it! That's how it works."
"Let us help you! We can get out of here!" Rook shouts to her.
Fear clouds her eyes, she's contemplating her options. Ben can see that she is.
"Charmcaster just let us help, we can get Gwen or Verdona to close this portal, please!" Ben shouts to her.
Her head snaps up at them, she looks at them and gives them an icy glare.
"I'd rather die than be saved by her." She says in a growl.
She let's go of the stone and her body go limp, she's being sucked into the portal. Before the two men can even attempt to reach for her she's gone.
The portal closes quickly with a sickening noise and the remains of the room are less than pretty.
Ben's Omnitrix times out at that moment and him and Rook fall to the ground harshly. They walk over to the dirt and stone remains of where the portal was in the ground and they look on sadly.
Rook grips Ben's shoulder tightly in reassurance. Ben's breathing heavily and he turns away and into Rook's body.
"We should find the others." Ben says after a moment.
Rook nods his head in silent agreement.
Ben feels sick to his stomach. It's not like he hasn't killed anyone before. He prefers not to, but Ben's hands are not free of blood. No one in the Plumbers are free of that. While he didn't kill Charmcaster, he feels like he might as well have. There's something awful about watching a person be so desperate that they bring their own demise.
Ben shakes his shoulders as a chill passes through him. He can't linger on this right now. They have to go find Kevin, and hopefully Gwen's with him.
They have to stop the Forever Knights, before they can control the kingdom. They have to save their friends and their people.