(A/N: There's not really much to say other than I hope you guys like this chapter as much as the last. I guess all that's left is that there could be some possible triggers in this and some dark moments.
By the way, before I forget, thank you so much Snowflake Canary for the review! You're amazing!)
X-V-I-V-X~*0*~X-V-I-V-X
It's been several weeks since Zombozo's defeat at the hands of the boy with the mysterious watch. Enigma told them that the boy had turned into a ghost and that the ghost defeated Zombozo, they didn't believe her.
She came out of the Big Top before the police could arrive and got all of them out of their respective 'problems.' To say they were upset that she did nothing to stop him would be the drop in the bucket full of water. All that could be said was that she struggled to walk and even stand for days. All of that abuse almost made her miss Zombozo. Almost.
They spent these past weeks hitchhiking and committing crimes just to get by. Blending into crowds was near impossible because of their freakish appearances. Out of the four of them, Enigma would be able to blend into a town much better than any of them, but the neglect, malnourishment, injuries, and lack of shoes above all else made her stand out like a panther in a pride of lions.
Food was short and of little quantity and quality, most of the time it was canned food. Much of it had been stolen, if it wasn't stolen it was acquired through the homeless shelters and food drives in the places they passed through.
They slept in alleyways, on park benches, in deserted buildings, and dirt-cheap motels. Occasionally, they broke into people's houses and slept in the living room. No matter where it was they slept, it always seemed to end with Enigma sleeping on the ground.
One day, they found an abandoned warehouse in a nice town that looked like it hadn't had a crime since the day it was founded. Inside were crates and some equipment that looked like it could still be used.
Two days later, Acid Breath decided it was time to do what they do best: steal. There was a school near the warehouse for kids with wealthy parents and kids with special skills; no doubt a place with money. There were doubts on whether or not that was such a good idea, but he shrugged off their concerns.
"Come on. How tough could it be to rob a school? It'll be easy money," he said nonchalantly.
"I don't know…" Thumbskull said doubtfully.
He wrapped his arm around his shoulders, bringing him down close to him, "Oh, what could possibly go wrong?"
'Everything,' Enigma mentally retorted. Of course she would never say it out loud in front of them.
"What about that kid that took down Zombozo?" he asked.
Frightwig scoffed, "What are the chances he's in this town?"
She had a point. What were the chances he could be in the same town they were in? That would be a creepy coincidence if that was the case because it was a one in a million chance. In other words: it was slim.
"Right," Acid Breath said with a curt nod. He stood at the doorway and opened it, "Let's move."
"Why now?" Thumbskull asked.
"The sooner the better," he said, prying the doors wide open.
The four of them made their way to the school, careful not to draw attention to themselves by taking side streets. Fortunately, there weren't many people on the streets anyway, so staying out of sight wasn't much of a problem.
They eventually made it to the back gate of the school, it was locked. No surprise there.
"I got this," Acid Breath said. He inhaled deeply and exhaled his vile breath, melting the lock and chains.
They walked onto the campus and almost as soon as they did a security guard suddenly showed up, "Hey! Who are you?!"
"Who? Us?" Frightwig asked seductively. "We're just visitors."
She did a twirl and knocked him out with her hair. When she was finished she stood in an elegant pose with one hand on her stomach and the other raised up high.
"Now, let's find something good and rob these snobs blind," Acid Breath said.
They opened every door they passed and found nothing but the usual school materials. Some of the items were private laboratory quality, although it seemed only Enigma was intrigued by them because the only way they could get her moving was by pulling on her arm or wrist or slapping her around to snap her out of it.
After opening the twentieth classroom door, Acid Breath looked as if he was ready to melt the entire school. "How does a school as fancy as this not have a single thing to steal?!"
'Perhaps this school is an example of how looks can be deceiving,' Enigma thought.
They were just about to leave when Frightwig saw something in the corner of her eye, a trophy case. Many of the trophies and medals inside were many decades old yet they were all in very condition. They appeared to be made of gold, platinum, and silver along with small gems embedded into the precious metals.
The largest and most expensive looking one was one that was shaped similarly to a kantharos, an ancient Greek goblet. It was engraved with the online of two wrestlers and the handles had tiny white diamonds embedded into the metal.
She had stolen plenty of jewels in the past to know that the trophies were nowhere near fake. These were most definitely genuine, gems and all.
She whistled for them, "Check out the goods."
They went over to check out the trophy case and saw the expensive items inside. Although Acid Breath and Thumbskull were intrigued by them, Enigma doubted they were worth more than the electron microscope inside of one the science classrooms.
"Jackpot!" Acid Breath said, rubbing his hands together.
Thumbskull punched the glass and shattered it, which caused an alarm to go off. A security guard immediately rushed over to see what was going on and ran straight into them.
He backed away in fear and fell to the ground. "What do you want?"
"Ya know? Since we did go through all this trouble, would d'ya say to a little fun?" he asked his fellow 'freaks.'
"I say I'm all for it!" Frightwig said, wrapping up the guard in her hair.
They started walking to the gym as the guard squirmed, "No! No, please, let me go! I'll do whatever you want!"
Acid Breath stuffed a tissue in his mouth to keep him quiet, "Shut up."
They went inside of the gym and Enigma almost collapsed at the size of the room. It had to be twice as big as the Big Top she was normally accustomed to seeing. There were basketball hoops, sports equipment, banners, and the bleachers were humongous.
She was snapped out of it when she was slapped on the back of the head. "Get to work!"
She nodded and used her powers to gather together some of the banners on the walls. She wrapped him up and sent him up into the ceiling, wrapping him around a rafter and allowing him to hang upside down. The three of them started laughing while she stared up at him blankly.
Her heart was racing and she felt like she was completely out of breath. The guard was heavy and lifting him up to the ceiling then tying him to a rafter was a lot of work for her. She was drained of what little strength she has.
"You again?" someone asked. Someone vividly familiar. They looked in the direction where it came from and saw the brown haired boy from the circus.
"It's that kid who took down Zombozo," Thumbskull said.
"That was a sweet gig working for that clown and you ruined it!" Frightwig shouted. "Now it's payback time!"
He starts to play with his watch and declares confidently, "A little Heatblast action should light a fire under you freaks."
The face of the watch elevated and he hit it with his palm. The same green light from when they last saw him engulfed him and cleared just a second later. Instead of whomever he was talking about, he was replaced with Ghostfreak.
He looked down at himself, "Ghostfreak? I didn't pick you."
"Nice trick, kid," Acid Breath said snidely.
Frightwig roughly grabbed Enigma's wrist and held it above her head, directed upwards. It forced her to use her powers and concentrate on the ceiling beams and rafters. They came down onto him and she was mercilessly thrown aside like a dead rat. Acid Breath spewed his saliva over them, melting them.
"We ain't scared of no ghosts!" he declared and they started laughing, although Enigma had a feeling this wasn't over.
Suddenly, he arose out of the pool of acid and hissed warningly, "You should be!"
More acid erupted from his mouth, which Ghostfreak easily dodges by phasing through the floor. He then ejected out of the floor, pushing up a gym mat and forcing it onto Acid Breath who was sandwiched in between the wall and mat and knocked out immediately. The mat fell to the floor with him in tow.
Thumbskull tried to punch him, but he went intangible and dodged. While still intangible, he forced his hands into his ears, stunning him and knocking him down.
Frightwig whipped her hair around his wrist when he returned into a solid form and was just about to throw him aside, but he had another plan. He went intangible again and phased into the floor, dragging her in tow and causing her to hit her head on the hardwood floor. He then roughly grabbed her head and slammed her onto the floor.
He then turned his attention to the last of them: Enigma. He saw how fatigued she looked and noticed that she was just barely standing, it looked as if she could be knocked down with a feather.
Her heart was racing at speeds that could only be paralleled to the speed of a cheetah at its prime. She was still weak from everything she was forced to do and had no strength left. After witnessing how brutally he beat the others and making direct eye contact with him, she collapsed to the cold floor.
The girl with the carrot-colored hair that was with the brown haired boy at the circus rushed into the room with an elderly man wearing a red floral shirt. She looked horrified at what he was doing to the interior of the gym, while he was concerned by how violently he defeated the 'freaks.'
"Something's not right! I've never seen Ben this violent!" he shouted.
"You're trashing the whole gym! Are you trying not to get me admitted?!" she shrieked. "Ben! Answer me!"
He turns to her and narrows his eye, "Ben's not here!" He got closer to her, "Boo!" and she fell to the floor with a surprised shriek.
Thumbskull grabbed Acid Breath, who was still unconscious, and Frightwig wrapped Enigma in her hair. With them in hand, they made a beeline for the exit.
Ghostfreak saw this and held back the urge to chuckle at their foolishness, "I guess they didn't learn their lesson."
"Is he still behind us?" Thumbskull asked as they ran at unbelievable speeds to get away from him.
"Yes!" she shouted in a wobbly and stentorian voice.
Acid Breath came to when Thumbskull jumped over a student kneeling to pick up something. "Put me down!" he demanded and he did just that.
They ran out of the school in a desperate attempt to get as far away from Ghostfreak as possible. However, the pursuit came to an end when the familiar sound of the watch timing out forced him to fall back and retreat into the shadows.
He held his head and struggled against the force that kept him trapped inside the device. "No! I'm not going back!" he shouted.
The familiar red light enveloped his body and when it faded, Ben looked all but relieved, "I'm glad to be rid of that freak."
Then, an all too familiar creepy, whispery voice remarked in a mocking and falsely hurt tone, "Aw, and I thought we were close. So nice to finally meet you face-to-face!"
Ben was terrified to see Ghostfreak before him. Ghostfreak! His transformation! How was that even possible?! He was Ghostfreak! But, somehow, it looked as if he had gained his own sentience, if that was even the case.
He didn't know enough about the Omnitrix to know how it operates. It was entirely possible for the same thing that was happening right in front of him could happen to his other aliens. That was a sobering and surreal thought that he prayed would never happen.
"This... can't be happening!" he backed away from him a little. "You can't be you! I'm you!"
"I was never you!" he spat. "An Ectonurite's consciousness exists even in a few strands of DNA. When the sample was taken for the Omnitrix, I was trapped inside. But now I can reveal my true self!"
Suddenly, claws ejected out from his skin, causing it to tear, exposing purplish skin on his hand. He then tore at the skin covering his face, revealing an upside down skull and a single purple eye. He also shredded the rest of his skin along with it to reveal the rest of his body. He had purplish gray skin with black lines, black and white striped tentacles coming out of his chest, and a partially exposed tail with the same stripes as his tentacles.
He shuddered at his monstrous appearance and retorted to hide his fear, "And I thought you were ugly before. What do you want?"
He started to approach him, "I need the power of the Omnitrix to make myself whole again and the only way to do that is by taking over your body! Now let's see how you like being trapped inside someone else!"
Ben backed away from him fearfully. Just as he reached out to him, sunlight shined down on his hand and caused it to burn. He screamed in pain and held his burning hand, he retreated into the wall to escape the light.
Ben continued to back into the light in case he tried to attack him again. He then looked for his cousin and grandfather.
Ghostfreak went from room to room throughout the school to find a dark room to recover in. He eventually found a closet with no windows so it was completely dark inside. Exactly what he needed to recover quickly.
While he waited for the pain in his hand to stop, he couldn't help but to wonder why Enigma looked so familiar to him. When they made eye contact, he felt as if he was looking in a mirror.
Then, he heard a noise come from the outside of the room he was in. He phased his head through the wall to see if it was safe, he saw that it was a shaded area. He looked to the side and saw a boy playing an instrument he was unfamiliar with.
The boy felt a strange presence and looked to the side, but saw nothing there. He shrugged and continued to play his instrument.
Ghostfreak phased through the ceiling, which the boy saw and screamed. He abandoned his instrument and tried to get away, but he possessed his body before he could. The sclera of his eyes turned black and his eyes turned purple, underneath his eyes were black crack-like lines.
He stuck his hand out into the sunlight as a test, it didn't hurt. He stepped out of the darkness with a malicious grin, "I guess these frail human bodies are good for something after all."
He started to wander around the campus in search of Ben, but he spotted something better. He saw the 'freaks' making their escape. He smirked and made the decision to follow them.
Back at their warehouse hideout, Frightwig was very upset with Acid Breath. "How tough could it be to rob a school? It'll be easy money," she mocked angrily.
Enigma was crouched down in a corner and was trembling with pain. She was so weak she wasn't sure if she would make it much longer. If she uses her powers again she's definitely not going to make it.
Suddenly, the doors flew open and the silhouette of a boy appeared. Thinking it's the kid again, Acid Breath shouted, "It's that kid again! Let's get out of here!"
Enigma carefully stood up on her weak legs as she walked towards them with slow, small steps. Her eyes were puffy and red, the skin around her eyes was red due to constantly rubbing them and possibly more.
"Attention freaks! You are now my minions!" he declared, his voice sounded like Ghostfreak's. "Obey my command or feel my wrath!"
He stepped out of the light where they could finally get a good look at him, it was just a boy that appeared to be in a marching band based on the clothes he was wearing. Acid Breath, Frightwig, and Thumbskull stared blankly before they burst out laughing, once again, Enigma had a feeling that this wasn't over yet.
"I don't think you realize who you're dealing with," he growled.
Ghostfreak arose out of the boy he possessed, who ran away out of fear. Their eyes widened slightly at his nightmarish appearance.
"I am not that kid," he hissed. "Serve me, and I promise that you will never see him again."
"What if we don't wanna help you?" Thumbskull asked.
He mentally smirked, "I was hoping you'd ask."
He possessed him and started to thrash him around the entire space as he shouted. He eventually got bored of it and exited him, tossing his unconscious body off to the side.
"Any other questions?" he asked harshly.
Acid Breath and Frightwig looked at each other and he asked nervously, while she looked up at him sweetly, "When do we start?"
Enigma covered her face with her long sleeves and backed away shakily. Her legs eventually gave out on her and she fell to the floor.
He looked at her with an amused expression at her timidness. She was like a shy little mouse to him.
X-V-I-V-X~*0*~X-V-I-V-X
(A/N: How do you guys like this so far? I would highly recommend you stick around for chapter 3 if you want to know what will happen to Enigma. That's just what I would recommend, you don't have to if you don't want to know.
I recently got started on the next chapter of "No More Chains" and I'm already almost halfway done. It might be a little while though because I'm starting to get a little writer's block with it.)