Cooper awoke to the hum of a moving car; someone had snuck up on him and cracked the back of his head. He's surprised that he even woke up at all, the blonde definitely has a concussion. It took him a couple seconds to realize he was in his car. And Lucy was driving. He prayed to anyone that would listen to wake him up from whatever nightmare this was. Cooper tried to move his arms and found them bound the same way Gwen had it.

"I couldn't have you waking up and freaking out," Lucy urged.

Cooper was silent for a while as he watched her drive towards a forest.

"So what now? You gonna kill me?"

"No. I'm not going to kill you."

The rest of the ride was quiet. Cooper found himself shooting quick glances at Lucy's solemn face. It felt weird to see her so serious all of a sudden. He thought over what Gwen was telling him about someone putting him up to this. There was someone who put the idea in his head but how was he gonna explain that an inner voice commanded him to kill Lucy. He'd sound crazy and the redhead would trust him even less. Not that he wasn't already prepared to lose most, if not all, of his friends after pulling a stunt like this. Cooper felt stuck in time, where he's forced to constantly relive that period of grief shortly after his mother died. He couldn't move on. And nothing he did worked.

The Dodge Charger rolled to a stop in front of a small trail opening. Lucy took a deep breath and stepped out of the car and strided over to the passenger side, to open the door for Cooper. The blonde took his time getting out and looked around the area. He was looking for escape routes, if a fight was to break out. Lucy seemed to be in some sort of trance, staring out into the dark forest. It took her a minute to recompose herself and untie the freckled man's hands. Cooper was beyond confused at this point. He couldn't understand why Lucy was doing this.

"Do you know where this is?" Lucy hummed.

Cooper shook his head.

"Redwood Hiking Trail or if you're me then it's where my parents hanged themselves four years ago."

His eyes widened at the sudden information.

"After abandoning me, they adopted a child in hopes that the torment would end and they'd be able to integrate into a normal life. The harassment from society got worse and worse until they decided enough is enough. I haven't seen my step-sister since but I'm sure her corpse is rotting in a garbage bag somewhere."

Cooper gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. There was no reason for her to be telling him this right now

"You think a sob story is gonna make me forgive you?" he shouted.

"No. In fact I hope it does the opposite," she responded.

Lucy pulls a 9mm handgun from her waistband and offers it to the defensive blonde. He looks between her and the weapon a couple times before quickly yanking it out of her hand. Cooper points the gun at her with no hesitation; his finger tracing the safety switch.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want to die," Lucy said firmly. "My flaws made me realize that I don't belong anywhere. I'm tired of trading people's trust for a little attention."

Cooper kept the pistol trained on the girl and looked around for any traps. He still didn't know if this was a trick or not, but he didn't sense any bullshit from her. Lucy's tragic background was none of his concern; he must exact his revenge.

"I don't know why I picked here exactly. Maybe I wanted to try one last time to see if my parents will accept me after the source of their torment has been eliminated."

Cooper narrowed his eyes at the woman in despair. He bashed the butt of the gun across her face in a quick swipe. The blonde watched her tumble to the ground and he pulled her up to her feet by her arms. Lucy found herself, bleeding from her nose, bent over the car hood with cold steel pressed against the nape of her neck.

"You don't get to enjoy this, you stupid bitch! This isn't some crazy suicide dream that I'm helping you with. You along with those other psychopaths killed my mom and I'm putting you down like the mad dog you are," Cooper growled.

He felt the rage coming. It was the weight of everything crashing down on top of him. Cooper held his finger firmly against the trigger, it was a slow and deliberate motion. Amongst all the emotions was a sense of relief that all of this would be behind him. He could finally put a foot forward.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about your mom."

His finger relaxed on the trigger. He didn't know why he stopped but that statement sent a response to his brain. Cooper was confused by the apology. He painted Lucy as a murderous villain and that type of sincerity shouldn't be possible for her. Maybe it was one of her tricks. Or not. He couldn't make up his mind, everything was fuzzy inside and nothing seemed clear. He had hesitated for the second time, this opportunity was given to him on a silver platter and yet still...

"Me too," he murmured.

In that moment a bright flash of pink blinded the freckled blonde. He backed away from the car and blinked away the dizziness. When his vision was clear, he was able to make out two figures standing near the road. Charmcaster conjured a giant hand of mana that wrapped around the barely conscious Lucy and pulled her away from Cooper. Gwen stared at the blonde with a solemn expression on her face. The redhead was disappointed to say the least.

"What happened to you, Coop?" she called out. "You were the most understanding person I've ever met."

Cooper threw the gun down and pulled out the same circular device from earlier but attached it to his chest instead. The device unraveled across his body like a second layer of skin. Nanobots enter his bloodstream as Cooper's new suit reveals itself. It was still in the testing phase but any consequences were blind to him at the moment. The man was clad in silver body armor with streaks of blue that resembled veins around his arms and chest. A helmet crafted around his face and made him look cybernetic. Cooper's nanosuit went hand in hand with his technokinesis. It's ability to adapt to any situation based on the user and his power to manipulate technology gave him an overwhelmingly unfair advantage. He would only have to think it and the nanobots would transform into any weapon or device he needed.

"Is that a trick question?" he said in a robotic voice.

"We're not gonna fight you!" Gwen urged.

"Then leave Lucy and turn the other way."

"You know we can't do that."

"Of course you can't."

Cooper's hand transformed into a large cannon and blasted several orbs of blue energy at the women.

"Keep Lucy safe," Gwen said to Charmcaster, as she put up a shield.

Cooper rocketed into the air and 30 small missiles launched from the nanosuit's shoulders towards Hope. Gwen summoned a multitude of tendrils to intercept the oncoming explosives, most of the projectiles were slapped into the ground or a tree. A couple made it through the forest of mana, but were crushed like tin cans by Hope's enlarged mana hands. Smoke kept Charmcaster from seeing Cooper blitz her with a blade, attached to his arm, aimed for Lucy. Hope had no time to dodge so she shielded Lucy with her own body. She winced when the weapon sliced her cheek like butter. The witch gave him her best death stare, and was about to retaliate when Cooper was blown away by a beam of magic.

Gwen flew past her friends in her Anodite form. Her emotions had gotten the best of her. She was tired of all the problems thrown her way the past couple weeks. It was driving her insane to be the only reasonable person who wanted to solve their issues without violence. Gwen landed a few feet away from a kneeling Cooper. She approached him quickly and placed a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from standing.

"Stand down. Last chance."

"This isn't something you can talk about."

Cooper unleashed a dangerous amount of energy at Gwen's chest; a blue light engulfed the fighting duo. The usual aura that protected her in this form was being breached by the strange energy. She couldn't let this attack slip past her and risk harming the others. Gwen tried to push back against it with her own attack, but it was too late and she was overwhelmed. Cooper transformed his hand into a pincer before grabbing the distracted Gwen and flinging her into a tree. The blonde cursed as he looked at the critical level warnings from inside of the suit. He didn't expect to exert this much energy in a little scuffle with Gwen. She was a lot stronger than he previously knew, plus he didn't exactly know mana's weakness. He saw the redhead standing back up from tanking an attack that had enough power to erase a small city. This wasn't a fight he could win without more research on her powers.

Gwen rubbed her head as she watched Cooper take off into the sky. That hit she took from him seemed to calm her down a bit; the redhead had reverted back to her human form and leaned against the splintered tree trunk. Gwen had no intention of chasing after him. She had gotten what she needed: Lucy was safe. The young Tennyson glanced back at her friends and saw them just as tired as she was. Cooper would come around, she was sure of it. Everyone was dealing with their own shit; all they had was each other to help pick up the broken pieces. If they were gonna rescue Ben and eventually fight the Plumbers then they needed to get their shit together.

**PAGE BREAK**

Ben was processed and sorted out within the next day. They were planning to place him in solitary confinement until his trial, then he'd be placed inside the galactic supermax prison until his death sentence. The ex-agent was digging the new gray jumpsuit he was rocking. At least the plain look kinda took his mind off things. He was currently sitting in a chair waiting for his last visitor, Carly. This was the first time since the initial arrest that he saw Carly. Ben wasn't in much of a mood to see her. He wanted to hate her for what she did and curse her till the day he died. He couldn't though. No matter how hard he tried. Carly was there for him since the beginning of his shit-eating career for the Plumbers. For him to dump her now would seem unbelievably cruel. And he knew a thing or two about cruelty.

The door opened to a casually dressed Carly with a soft smile on her face. It was the first time he noticed her in normal clothing, or rather he noticed her beauty. The blonde was dressed in a black wide-leg jumpsuit paired with heels, and she wore her golden hair down. The small amount of makeup made her lightly tanned face light up. She sat down at the chair across from her ex-boss.

"Ben I-"

"Don't worry about it. I know they threatened you," Ben interjected.

It was all the evidence he needed when he saw the sign of relief on her face. He knew that Carly would never betray him.

"Ben, they're planning on giving you the death penalty," Carly said in a shaky voice.

"I know I know," he chuckled before leaning in close to the blonde's ear. "Listen to me. I need you to leave the Plumbers. And find my cousin."

"You want me to go AWOL? Ben I can't-"

"You think that they just let you off the hook? You were involved in this little shitstorm of theirs. They're gonna want to tie up loose ends and if they're not gonna put you in a cell to rot then it'll be your head on a pike. They'll file some BS K.I.A. report and give your family your Plumber badge. The only reason why they didn't do the same to me is the difficulty of explaining how the most powerful person in several galaxies died."

"All this and you still find time to brag," Carly taunted.

"I'm serious!"

"Why are you even telling me this? I didn't even stand up for you."

"Because I li- I guess you remind me of someone else who was backed into a corner with no way out. I'm offering you a way out."

Carly didn't reply to him and instead kept her head down. Ben knew she was thinking about it, but the chances of that stubborn woman leaving was slim. His eyes widened when she gave him a small kiss on the cheek and stood up aggressively.

"NO I WON'T GIVE YOU A BLOWJOB! BURN IN HELL, ASSHOLE!" she yelled for the camera to hear as to keep suspicion off them.

Ben laughed at her acting skills and gave her one last wave before she left the room. Carly almost fell apart on the other side of the door, she put her hand over her face to stifle her small cries. Ben was again left in the silence of his own thoughts. He relaxed in the chair with no plan to escape like the first time he was imprisoned. The job was done, he got the last person he cared about out. Next week will finally be the end of the Ben Ten. Usually the man was scared of a future without him but seeing the team that Gwen put together put his faith back in others. The galaxy was in safe hands with or without him and that's all he wanted.

"You got your work cut out for you, cuz," he muttered to himself.