It was late at night as a black van raced across the road, swerving around the other vehicles. Inside were men wearing black ski masks, they just robbed a jewelry store and were now making their getaway. Earlier they set a nearby apartment on fire to distract the authorities long enough for them to escape and so far it seems to be working.

The driver looked in his rearview mirror and was confused to see an old RV chasing after them. He blinked when he noticed a few orbs of yellow light materialized by the RV, and the next thing he knew he heard what sounded like electricity as the Van was sent flying into the air before smashing into the wall of a building.

The driver clutched his head as his partner tried to shake the cobwebs out of his. Then out of nowhere, a large orange furred wolf stuck its head through the side window near his partner. The wolf bared its fangs, growling menacingly as its paws bend the metal door frame. Terrified, the robbers scrambled out through the other door and began to make a run for it, not caring that they were leaving behind the jewels they stole.

They didn't get far when the wolf jumped in front of them, causing the pair to stop in their tracks and fall onto their hindquarters. The robbers immediately began crawling backward. The driver reached into his coat to pull out a revolver, but before he even had a chance to aim an orange chain wrapped around it and was yanked away from him.

The robbers were shocked by what just happened, and a growl from the wolf reminded them that they were soon to become dog food for it. That's when the sounds of sirens assaulted their ears. Looking up they saw police cars skidding to a stop near them. Neither robbers would have ever thought to be happy to be caught by the police, but they were. It was either spending time in the slammer or becoming dinner, it was obvious which one was preferable.

"Freeze, put your hands where we can see them." one of the officers ordered as they exited their vehicles. The robbers immediately complied, raising their hands in the air.

"Alright, but keep that wolf away from us," the driver's partner said, his voice full of fear.

"What wolf?" the officer asked with a scowl.

"Are you freaking blind, it's large, orange and it's right there," the Driver yelled, pointing toward the wolf. However, in the wolf's place was an orange furred puppy panting as it tilted its head to the side.

"Wha...b-but," the driver sputtered in confusion as officers handcuffed him as well as his partner, "But there was F&%$ing wolf just a second ago, it had huge fangs and long F&%$ing claws!"

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" an officer asked with a deadpan, as the puppy scampered away.

"I haven't had a mother since I was three!" to his credit the officer did grimace at that.

"I just wanted money to open up a bakery," the driver's partner said glumly.

One thing both robbers were certain of, is that their once white underwears were now brown.


"Hahahaha, you should have seen the looks on their face!" Arf exclaimed as both she and Ben laughed.

"You all did a good job tonight," Max said, congratulating the group as he drove the RV down the street.

"Thanks, Grunkle Max-san," Nanoha said as she took off the ski mask Max gave her to wear while she and Ben worked together to get people out of the burning building. She took a deep breath of fresh air. It was somewhat hard to breathe in a burning building with it on, but it was preferable than having to risk a number of people seeing her face. Unlike Ben, whose transformations ironically allowed him a bit more freedom than her. In fact, if it wasn't for his Heatblast form (what he decided to call his Pyronite transformation) drawing everyone's attention, people would have noticed her trying to slip away. The fewer people who saw her the better. On the other hand though…

"Yeah, but as a thank you, I got hosed down with water," he stated grumpily.

"The firefighters thought you were being burned alive Ben-kun."

"Yeah, true," Ben conceded, but he wasn't too upset. After all, as Nanoha said, they were really just doing their jobs. Still though, being hit by high-pressured water was not a fun experience.

"Alright," Max said as he parked the Rustbucket within a parking lot, "It's time to hit the hay everyone."

With that everyone went to bed.


The next morning the group was walking through the local hypermarket, Mega Mart. Arf had to stay in the Rustbucket as the store wouldn't allow pets inside (well pets that were not for sale that is), and she couldn't come in her human form as her only choice of attire was deemed too revealing by Max.

"Only canned octopus," Max muttered, examining a can of octopus, "I thought this store prided itself on wide selection."

"Maybe there's some fresh octopus nearby where they sell meat products?" Nanoha suggested, bringing a finger up to her chin in thought, "that's where I usually see seafood products back in the stores where I'm from.

"That's not a bad idea," Max said with a hum, "Thanks Nanoha."

"No problem," she said with a smile.

"That's probably also where they keep the sheep's bladder," he said pushing the cart forward. The smile on her face was gone and replaced with a grimace, as she tried (and failed) to keep herself from gagging at the mention of sheep bladder. Fortunately, Max didn't seem to notice this.

Fate was going to follow the pair when she heard a strange noise, accompanied by a green flash she saw in the corner of her eye. She also noticed that Ben was nowhere to be seen either.

Going into the aisle she thought she saw the light come from, and her eyes widened in shock at the mess before her. Nearly all of the cereal boxes were knocked over, a few ended up on the floor, and a number of them were opened.

She noticed one of the opened boxes on one of the shelves was rocking back and forth, and as she got close enough she could hear a high-pitch voice coming from inside of it. Picking it up and looking inside of it she saw what looked like a grey-skinned, frog-like, bipedal humanoid that was only four inches tall with a pair of large green eyes, which have rectangular pupils and horizontal eyelids. It wore a white jumpsuit with a thin vertical black stripe down the front and the symbol of the Omnitrix on its back. It blinked in surprise at the sight of the young girl.

"Jeez Fate, don't scare me like that alright!" the small creature exclaimed as it climbed up.

"Ben, what are you doing?" She asked confused as his head popped out from the box.

"Looking for the Gold sumo slammer card duh," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Ben, you're supposed to be using your powers to help people," the Blond girl reprimanded as she took Ben out of the box, before placing it back on the self.

"Ahem!", Both she and Ben stiffened when they heard someone behind the blond girl. Fate immediately turned to face the employee, all the while keeping Ben hidden behind her back.

"Just what do you think you're doing young lady," he asked with a scowl as his fists were on his hips.

"Nothing, it was like this when I got here," Fate said as she squirmed beneath the man's accusing glare.

"Oh, and who did all this then?"

"I-I don't know," Fate lied, she couldn't just say it was Ben. She didn't want him to get in trouble, even if he was the one responsible. She squirmed even more as the employee narrowed his eyes.

"Well someone is going to have to pay for all this," he said as he spread his arms out to emphasize the mess, causing Fate's eyes to widen before looking downcast.

(line break)


A few minutes later the shopping cart was overflowing with Sumo Smack cereals, something that perplexed Fate as she doesn't remember seeing this many boxes for this brand of cereal in the aisle, much less ones that weren't already opened by Ben.

"Um, does someone mind telling me why we're buying all this cereal?" Max asked, scratching his head in confusion.

"Well, we would have only needed to buy the one where I found the gold Sumo slammer card in if someone didn't butt in with their big butt!" the brown-haired boy said annoyed, causing Fate to once again look downcast. Seeing this Ben immediately felt guilty, right before having his ear pulled by Nanoha.

"Don't bully Fate-chan," she reprimanded with a frown as she twisted the boy's ear causing him to let out a yelp of pain.

"Ow ow OW! Alright ALRIGHT, I'm sorry Fate! I didn't mean it, I swear!" he apologized. The brunette let his ear go before giving a friendly smile. Ben brought a hand up to his stinging ear and flinched at the sharp pain when he touched it. He was certain it was red now.

'Ok note to self; don't mess with Fate with Nanoha around,' he thought as he saw Nanoha walking up to a perplexed Fate before giving the blond a smile.

"Now Ben, I can appreciate how much this card means to you, but don't you think you're getting a little bit obsessed with it?" Max asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ben wanted to say he at least deserves it for saving people from a burning building, but his stinging ear told him it would be better if he kept his mouth shut. So instead he just let out an annoyed grumble as he walked with the group.

After a few minutes of walking, he saw a cardboard stand containing the complete set of Sumo Slammer cards. A smile grew on his face as he went over to the stand.

"Someday you'll be all mine," Ben said as he looked in awe at a golden-colored card with the depiction of a sumo wrestler printed on it.

"Why do you want it so badly Ben-kun?" Nanoha asked as she and Fate walked up to him. The burnet recalled how excited Ben got when he saw one of the boys they saved from the burning building holding multiple copies of the golden gold. Nanoha honestly found the sight of a flaming alien about the same size as an adult acting like a child to be quite silly.

"It's the last card I need in order to have the complete set of Sumo Slammers cards," Ben explained with excitement, "Well there's also the Platinum Sumo Slammer card, but so far that one just seems to be just a rumor."

The three of them then felt the floor shake slightly followed by the sounds of screams behind a nearby wall of TVs. The group watched as one of the TVs fell off from the shelf and onto the floor, its screen shattering. The wall suddenly exploded, sending TVs flying everywhere, forcing the kids to duck for cover else they would be hit by the debris.

When the smoke died down, Ben, Nanoha, and Fate saw an elderly man with sickly yellowish-green skin and had shoulder-length white hair. Over his dirty tank top, he wore a harness that had some kind of machine on it and seemed to be connected to the metal strainer with two antennas that he wore on his head. Though the most shocking thing was what the man was riding, it was a giant mutant frog (or toad) with four red eyes, and horns on the side of its head.

"Freeze!" the three looked and saw a security guard running up to the man and his frog. Their eyes widened in horror when the frog's tongue lashed out and ate him.

Smirking, the man jumped off the frog and began making his way down the aisles, occasionally stopping to grab something from the shelves and placing them into his duffle bag.

"Hey!" Ben shouted as he and the girls got out of their hiding spot.

"What are you doing?" Fate demanded with a frown. That kind of surprised Ben a bit, in the short time he spent with the girls, Fate has always been (in his opinion) quiet and polite. So he wasn't really expecting her to act like this.

Ben decided to brush off those thoughts for the moment and focused on the old robber. The man in question responded to Fate's demand by simply snapping his fingers. The giant frog spat out the security officer, nearly hitting both Ben and Nanoha, and instead struck the boxes behind the three. This caused the boxes to tumble over and bury them underneath.

As Ben, Nanoha, and Fate pushed the boxes off of them, the man approached them.

"Don't try and be a bunch of heroes you brats. Just run along and play," he said as if they were just annoyances, before walking away with a smirk.

Ben looked down at the Omnitrix and frowned when he saw that the hourglass was still red, indicating that it was still recharging. He looked back up to see the man climbing back onto his frog before it began hopping away.

"Uh, we got a grab-and-dash in Electronics," the security guard spluttered into his walkie talkie as he popped his head out of the pile of boxes, "Male, five-foot-six, riding on a giant frog or toad. Trust me, you can't miss him...and beware the frog...beware the frog."

The kids couldn't help but feel sympathy for him as he crawled back into the box pile clearly shaken up. Being eaten alive isn't exactly one of the best experiences to go through after all. However, they had more important things to worry about.

"Dang it, I can't go hero," Ben stated as he and the girls ran off in the direction they saw the frog hopped off to, "You girls are going to have to take care of that zookeeper without me."

"We can't Ben-kun," Nanoha said.

"What!, Ben exclaimed, "Why not!?"

"There are too many people who could see us."

"Can't you just wear disguises?"

"It's not that Ben," Fate explained, "We can't reveal the existence of magic on either unadministered or pre-FTL planets such as Earth."

That's...really inconvenient. Though Ben guessed it makes sense, he was fairly sure that the rest of the world would not take the idea of magic being real as well as he and Grandpa Max have.

Screams accompanied by a screech pulled caught Ben's attention as well as Nanoha and Fate's. They saw a couple and their daughter running out of one of the aisles in the pet department, screaming in terror. They didn't have to wait long to see why as a giant mutated hamster with large fangs as it jumped on top of one of the aisles shelves, before letting out a screech.

"I didn't know that there were pets like that on earth." Fate said wide-eyed, perplexing the wielder of the Omnitrix.

"Um, Fate-chan animals on earth aren't normally like that," Nanoha explained with a bit of a sweatdrop. Ben could only blink in confusion at Fate's statement.

"Oh," If it wasn't for the situation they were in, the blond girl would have probably blush in embarrassment.

The mutated hamster jumped in front of them, deciding to focus on the three of them instead of the family.

"But where did it come from?" Nanoha asked as she and the other two took a few steps back, away from the Hamster. She then noticed the elderly man they were chasing sitting on top of the frog behind the Hamster. He twisted a dial on the device strapped on to him and a red beam of energy fired from his antennas and struck a bird within a cage. Her eyes widened when the bird began to grow even larger than a truck.

"Arise to your full potential my pets, ARISE!" he shouted out with pride before letting out a crazed laugh.

'He's transforming them!' Nanoha thought with shock.

"Behold the genius that is doctor Animo," he said with his arms out wide to emphasize the two creatures he just mutated by his side, "Nothing can stop me from getting what I deserve. Mark my words, today I will make history or should I say PRE-history."

Ben looked down at the Omnitrix and grimaced when he saw that the hourglass was still red. The hamster let out a screech. Ben, Nanoha, and Fate began to run in the opposite direction as the hamster gave chase.

Nanoha and Fate can't use their magic in a public area, and the Omnitrix was still timed out. If he hadn't gone Graymatter and gone cereal diving, he could have gone hero and easily kicked furball butt.

Ben heard screeching and looked over his shoulder to see the hamster jump onto him and pinned him underneath.

"Ben-kun!"

"Ben!"

Both Nanoha and Fate cried out at seeing the boy in danger. Fate then noticed a nearby crate containing steel golf clubs and grabbed one. She dashed toward the hamster as it was about to take a bite of Ben's head, and bashed it upside the head with the golf club. The hamster screeched in pain before glaring at the blond-haired girl. She immediately ran in the opposite direction with the hamster hot on her tail.

"Fate!" Ben called out in concern as he picked himself off the floor. Both he and Nanoha were going to help Fate when the giant bird landed in front of them. It immediately reached down and snatched up Nanoha by the collar of her shirt with its beak. Nanoha tried to wrestle out of the bird's clutches but to no avail.

Ben's eyes widened in shock and worry, he looked down and mentally cursed when the hourglass on the watch was still red. He looked up to see people hiding, and became very irritated when not a single one of them seemed inclined to help. Brushing that off, Ben looked around and saw a nearby crate filled with sports balls. He ran toward the crate, grabbed one, and threw it toward the bird's head. The ball hit its mark, however, the bird didn't seem inclined to release its prey as it glared at the boy.

"Hey, bird brain!" He yelled out as he threw another ball, "Let her go!"

This time the ball hit the bird right in its eye, promoting it to let out a screech of pain and releasing Nanoha. The girl fell and hit the floor with a thud. Nanoha let out a groan as she pushed herself up but otherwise, she seemed to be fine. Ben ran over to help her up.

"You alright?" he asked, concerned. Nanoha gave him a reassuring nod.

The bird let out a furious screech, obviously angry, prompting both Ben and Nanoha to run as fast as they could. The sound of the bird's screech was their indication that it was chasing them, as well as the occasional snapping of its beak.

The pair suddenly turned into one of the aisles, the bird was unable to make such an abrupt turn and ended up tripping over its talons. The bird quickly recovered and flew over the aisles. It quickly found its prey and landed in front of them, intercepting them.

Ben looked around and saw that a section of the aisle dedicated to baseball bats, he quickly went and grabbed two.

"Hey Nanoha, here!" He called out as he tossed the girl one of the bats, which she easily caught in her hands. Both held up the bats in a ready position if the bird got too close, Nanoha also considered using Divine Shooter seeing how there doesn't seem to be anyone looking.

The giant bird let out a screech before it began flapping its wing and flew away.

Both Nanoha and Ben blinked in surprise by the completely unexpected turn of events.

"Eh?" was the only thing that they could say.

Running out of the aisle, they saw the bird flying away from them, being careful not to crash into the signs hanging from the ceiling.

"Uh, where the heck is it going?" Ben asked confused as to why such a large creature would, out of nowhere, just give up on coming after both him and Nanoha. He was fairly certain it didn't leave because it was scared.

"Ben, Nanoha!"

The both of them turned to look at the source of the voice and saw Max running towards them, worry written clearly on his face.

"Are the both of you alright?' Max asked as he watched as the bird flew away, "And what was that thing?"

"We're fine Grandpa, but Fate is being chased by an overgrown hamster!" Ben said hurriedly before he and Nanoha began running back to Fate, with Max not far behind.


Fate was running as fast her legs could carry her, occasionally side-stepping whenever the hamster tried to tackle her. If it wasn't for the fact that she was in an area with numerous civilians as witnesses, she could have used her magic to make quick work of the hamster. However she wasn't in a position to freely use her magic, so she would have to find some way to improvise.

She turned into the aisle, before ducking as the hamster leaped over her. The hamster slammed into the shelve, causing it to fall over and lean against the shelve behind it. The hamster shook its head before growling at Fate. The blond girl frowned as she stood with a slight crouch. As soon as the hamster leaped towards her, Fate jumped up and vaulted off of one of the shelves and onto the hamster's head. Fate then leaped up, causing the hamster to fall face-first onto the floor, and landed on top of the fallen shelf. She climbed up to the top and hopped across to the next shelf, before hopping again onto the shelf after.

Fate heard screeching and looked over her shoulder to the hamster leaping towards her. She gripped the golf club with both hands, and with a cry, she swung as hard as she could when the hamster got close enough. The hamster was sent flying back into the first shelf, bouncing off it, and fell onto the floor. The shelf it crashed into rocked back and forth, before falling on top of the hamster. However, the shelf also fell onto the next shelf, causing that one to fall as well. This started a domino effect, and Fate was forced to jump off when the shelf she was standing on started to fall over.

She landed on the floor in a crouch, looked to where the hamster was and saw that it was knocked out and trapped underneath the shelf. She let out a sigh as she stood up. She looked down and saw that the club was bent completely backward. Seeing as it was now rendered useless, Fate discarded the golf club.

Fate heard heavy thuds behind her, she turned around and saw the self-named hop into view riding his giant Frog.

"Young fool, you can not stop me!" He declared, furious that one of his pets was defeated by a child, "I will turn Washington D.C. into Washington B.C.!"

Out of nowhere, the giant bird came flying toward them. Animo jumped onto it just as it was flying by, before smashing through the skylight with the frog jumping after them.

"Wait! Stop!" Fate called out running up right under the skylight, but he continued to fly away and Fate wasn't able to go after him. Not with so many people who could easily see her.

Fate let out another sigh as she frowned as she contemplated what the self-proclaimed doctor said.

'Washington B.C.?' Fate thought in confusion, 'What does that mean?'

'Fate-chan!?'

The blond girl was pulled from her thoughts as she heard Nanoha's mental message.

'I'm here Nanoha, are you and Ben alright?'

'Both Ben-kun and I are alright. The bird chased us, but then for some reason, it decided to leave the both of us alone,' Nanoha explained, confusion evident in her tone. Fate has a good idea why though, 'What about you Fate-chan, are you alright?'

'Don't worry Nanoha, I'm alright,' Fate reassured with a nod, even though she knew Nanoha wouldn't be able to see the gesture, 'but Dr. Animo got away.'

'It's alright Fate-chan, I'm just glad you're alright. Me, Grunkle Max, and Ben-kun are going to where you are.'

'Alright,' with that, the mental link was cut.

"You saved the store," the same employee from earlier said, joy and relief written clearly on his face, "if there's anything I could do to repay you, anything you want!"

Fate was taken aback by this, she really wasn't expecting to be thanked like this. She couldn't help but blush a little by the attention she was getting from everybody. It was more than what she was used to.

"N-no th-that's not necessar..." Fate tried to turn down the offer, but then a thought occurred to her, "Actually if it's not too much trouble...?"

(line break)


Ben wasn't sure what to think of this. In his hands was the Golden sumo slammer card he wanted. After beating up that overgrown hamster, the store decided to reward her whatever she wanted. She decided to just ask for the Golden sumo slammer card and gave it to Ben, much to the boy's surprise. Now don't get him wrong, he was ecstatic to have the card, but he was also somewhat confused.

He looked up from the card to see Arf in her human form (something that Ben still found surprising) sitting across the table from him, looking through the internet on a laptop Fate brought with her. Sitting next to her was Fate who was also looking at the screen with Arf.

"Hey, Fate," Ben called out, gaining the blond girls' attention, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why did you get me this?" he asked, holding up the card for Fate to see.

"Didn't you want it?"

"Well yeah," He admitted scratching the back of his head, "But why didn't you get anything for yourself."

"I didn't really want anything Ben," Fate said simply, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Really," Ben asked surprisedly, "Not even a reward for saving the day."

Fate simply nodded her head. Ben slumped in his seat, not sure how to feel about that. Heck, so far she saved his butt two times. If anything he should be the one giving her something instead of the other way around.

"Being a Hero isn't about others knowing you did something good Ben, it's about you knowing you did something good," Max said from the driver seat of the Rustbucket as he drove, "Being a hero is its own reward."

"I never really thought about it like that," Fate admitted, tilting her head to the side, "I just don't like seeing those around me getting hurt, especially those I care about. Nanoha is like that as well."

Max replied with a smile. Speaking of which, Max took a moment to look at Nanoha. The brunette was sitting in the passenger seat with her eyes closed, occasionally twitching, and has been like that for most of the time since they left Mega Mart.

"Aww" Nanoha suddenly whined, pouting cutely as she slumped in her seat.

"You couldn't find him with your search spell?" Max asked even though he pretty much knew the answer already.

Nanoha merely shook her head, "I can't seem to find him anywhere!"

"How hard can it be to find a parrot the size of an elephant," Ben asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Surprisingly, a lot harder than I thought," She replied dejectedly.

"Speaking of which, we found something about this guy," Arf said before reading the article, "Turns out five years ago, Dr. Animo was a promising researcher in veterinary science. But it turned out he was doing all these screwed up genetic experiments where he was mutating animals-"

Ben could hear the animalistic growl escaping the clearly pissed off woman's lips. Not that he could blame her. Still, he scooted a bit away from her.

"-and when he didn't win some big prize called the "verities award", he flipped out. It says right here he even threw a chair at Dr. Kelly, the guy who won the award instead of him."

"Yikes, sounds like someone has some serious issues," Ben said his brow raised up in surprise. He didn't think this guy could get any crazier.

"How are we going to find him, he could be anywhere in Washington D.C., and so far my tracking spells couldn't find him?" Nanoha asked, scratching her head.

"Back at the store, Dr. Animo said he was going to turn Washington D.C. into 'Washington B.C." Fate explained.

'B.C.?' Ben thought to himself. Out of all the places in Washington, which would be of most use to Animo. Ben's brows raised up as a lightbulb turned on in his head.

"That's it," Ben said, drawing everyone's attention to him, "I know where he's going!"


The group was standing in front of the Natural history museum, which was sporting a massive hole in one of its walls. Ben kneeled down to examine the giant feathers that littered outside of the hole.

"Something tells me we're on the right track," Max said a bit rhetorically.

"What gave it away, the smashed wall, or piles of overgrown feathers," Arf asked sarcastically, with a hand on her hip. Max merely rolled his eyes with a smirk on his face, as he and the rest of the group entered through the hole.

After following the trail, the group eventually found the mad man standing next to a life-size display of a mammoth, as he tinkered with his machine.

"You are very persistent," Animo said annoyed as he turned to face them, "I hate persistent."

"Surrender Animo, it's over," Nanoha demanded as both she and Fate reached up to their pendants.

"Less you want a beat down by yours truly," Arf added as she cracked her knuckles.

Animo just let out a laugh, "Oh but it only just begun. You see I only needed a few more components to push my work into phase 3."

Animo brought up his hand with one finger up, "phase 1: creates and accelerates mutations at the genetic level. Just as I demonstrated at the Mega Mart."

He brought up another finger, "Phase 2: reanimation of dead cells."

"...uh, does he come with subtitles," Ben quipped, earning a shrug from Nanoha.

Animo's eye twitched behind his goggles. 'One of the many reasons why I didn't become a teacher. I don't know how others do it.' "Breathing life back into that which has been long since lifeless."

"So a zombie basically," Arf stated, with a brow raised, causing Animo to let out an exasperated sigh.

"Yes, like a zombie," He brought up the third finger, "And finally Phase 3: energizing the specimen's cells and allowing it to gain abilities beyond their natural limitation!"

"...Okay seriously does he even speak English?" Ben asked confused by Animo's statement, "Cause all I'm getting is crazed rambling."

Animo's face turned red with anger but began to laugh madly. "I'll be honest, I never really intended the last phase," he admitted between chuckles, "All I really needed was a strong enough power source in order to provide my device with enough energy to initiate phase two of my work, and as luck would have had it I stumbled across an...interesting trinket."

"Trinket?" Fate muttered with a frown.

"It was just what I needed to complete my work. The problem was, however, is that it was too powerful. The tremendous amount of energy alone caused the previous prototype of my Transmodulator to literally explode in my face. As well as result in very interesting side effects to some of my...pets, and inspired me with phase 3. So I needed more components in order to regulate the excess energy to prevent a repeat with my current Transmodulator."

Animo grew a crazy smile as he reached for the dial on his chest, "Now behold the genius of DR. ANIMO! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" He twisted the dial, and reddish-black energy fired from his Transmodulatar and struck the mammoth display.

"Master, Jewel Seed energy detected," Rising heart stated.

"What!?" the girl exclaimed.

To the group's shock, not only did the mammoth come to life, but it began to grow twice its original size, its tusk became razor-sharp ice spikes, its fur turned from black to pure white, its trunk split in half and became two separate trunks, and huge chunks of ice began to grow out of its back.

When the transformation was complete, the giant Mammoth took a step forward and the ground began surrounding it began to freeze over. With a smile, Animo fled into a hallway. Seeing this Ben turned to the others.

"Go after Animo, I'll take care of Jumbo," he activated the watch, and dialed the faceplate until he saw the icon of Heatblast, "Time to turn up the heat."

He slammed down on the dial and was engulfed in green light. When the light died down, in Ben's place wasn't Heatblast but a somewhat humanoid dinosaur standing about twelve feet tall with hard skin that is colored brown on its outer side and beige on its inner side, its legs were shorter than its arms, it had a long muscular tail and at the of it was a mace that has three spikes shaped like stalagmites. The symbol of the Omnitrix was on the center of its chest.

'Ok, what part of "time to turn up the heat" indicated I wanted HUMUNGOUSAUR?!' Ben thought incredibly annoyed, he decided to brush it off and focus on the giant ice mammoth.

"Alright, let's wrestle," with that he charged toward the mammoth before slamming into it, causing it to be pushed back slightly. The moment he made contact, however, Ben's skin began to become coated in ice. This forced Ben to back off as he tried to brush the layer of ice off.

"Is he going to be alright by himself?" Fate asked with concern.

"Don't worry Fate, I'll help him take this guy down," Arf reassured as she cracked her knuckles again, "as he said, you guys go after Animo."

With a nod, Max, Nanoha, and Fate went off in the direction Animo went. Arf flew up into the air and conjured up orange chains that wrapped around the mammoth, restraining its movements.

Ben took this opportunity to run up and begin punching it in the face. Like before, the consequence of this resulted in his hands becoming covered in ice. The mammoth wrapped both of its trunks around both of Ben's wrist, freezing them further. Ben winced in pain before the mammoth threw him into a wall. The mammoth used its trunks to grab the chains between it and Arf, before pulling them down and slamming Arf into the ground. The chains that were restraining it faded soon after.


Max, Nanoha, and Fate were running down the hall but stopped when they were blocked by both Animo's frog and bird. Neither Nanoha nor Fate were deterred in the slightest as the both once again reach up toward their respective pendants.

"Raising Heart!"

"Set up."

"Bardiche!"

"Get set."

With that, both Nanoha and Fate were then donned in their barrier jackets with their respective weapons in hand. Max stepped back to give both of them room to work.

The Frog and the Bird charged towards them, however, the Frog was blasted mid-jump by a large pink beam, courtesy of Nanoha, and was slammed into the far end of the corridor. It fell to the ground unconscious.

Fate speed toward the giant bird, and in a blink of an eye, was right in front of it. The ax head rotated backward and emitted a long yellow energy blade, turning Bardiche into an energy scythe. The blond girl slashed at the bird a few times, causing it to shriek in pain as the blade cut and simultaneously cauterized its flesh. With one final swing of Bardiche, the bird was sent flying into a wall. It too fell to the ground unconscious.

Max was both surprised and impressed by the girls' performance. However, there wasn't time to give praise, so they continued down the corridor until they once again found Animo standing in front of a display showcasing the skeleton of a T-rex. Animo looked over his shoulder, and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

'I don't recall those brats wearing costumes,' Animo thought perplexed before simply shrugging his shoulders and turning back toward the T-Rex. Another beam of reddish-black energy fired from his Transmodulator and struck the skeleton.

Max, Nanoha, and Fate's eyes widened as the skeleton erupted in fire. Flesh began to grow all across its body, except for an area in front of the ribs, exposing its fiery insides. Its skin looked to be completely made of charcoal, as fire escaped from the cracks. A pair of flaming horns grew from the side of the T-Rex's head. Finally, A pair of large leathery wings grew from the back of the T-Rex. When the process was complete, the T-Rex let out a mighty roar, releasing a massive wave of heat. All the while Animo stood with a smug look on his face, seemingly not at all bothered by the heat.

Max, Nanoha, and Fate, on the other hand, recoiled by the heat of monstrosity before them. They looked up nervously at the flaming orbs where the eyes should be, as the T-Rex glared at them.

(line break)


"HAAAA!" Arf let out a war cry as she punched the mammoth in the face as it tried to ram her at speeds a creature of that mass shouldn't have. The force of the blow disorient the mammoth, but only slightly. She used that opportunity to gain as much distance as she can before conjuring up multiple orbs of electricity, then launching them at the Mammoth.

All of the orbs hit their mark, however, the Mammoth didn't seem to be affected in the slightest. If anything, it looked mad as it glared at Arf.

Suddenly Ben, now at a height of about twenty feet, ran up and punched the mammoth in the face multiple times.

Arf looked at her fist and frowned when she saw that it was completely encased in ice. She flexed her arm, shattering the ice.

The situation wasn't good, the temperature was so cold that Arf couldn't stop shivering. Nearly the entire room was coated in ice by now. All of this due to the overgrown mammoth, it was somehow freezing everything around it with its presence alone.

Arf was forced to keep her distance using long-range attacks, only using her fists when she had to. Ben wasn't so privileged. As Humungousaur, Ben didn't have any long-range attacks and had to rely on his fist. By now Ben's large body was covered in patches of ice. If it wasn't for his large form, Ben would have probably been completely frozen by now.

Ben was sent crashing into a wall, before collapsing onto the floor. He looked to see the mammoth charging towards, and at the speed, it was going, Ben didn't have time to get out of the way. Orange chains suddenly appeared and wrapped around the mammoth, stopping it in its tracks.

"Thanks, Arf!"

Ben wasted no time as he got up, and swung his tail at it. When the mace impacted the mammoth, it generated a massive shockwave that shattered a good chunk of the mammoth's face off. Both Ben and Arf were surprised by the shockwave, Arf's grip on her chains slackened a bit.

Enraged, the mammoth pushed off the ground, and stood on its two hind legs, before coming back down. As soon as its legs slammed onto the ground, a huge chunk of ice erupted from the ground and slammed into Ben. He was sent flying into the air, before crashing into one of the exhibits. The mammoth used its trunks to once again grab onto Arf's chains. Not wanting a repeat of what happened before, she quickly dispelled them. The mammoth began to charge toward her. She barely was able to jump out of the way of the mammoth's charge, however, the mammoth was still able to use one of its trunks to grab Arf's ankle.

Arf found herself slammed against the floor with enough force to cause the air to escape her lungs. She tried to pick herself up off the ground but found that most of her leg was encased in ice. She looked up to see the mammoth pointing it's trunks towards her before a large amount of cold air escaped from its nostrils. Arf was helpless as she was quickly frozen in a large chunk of ice.

"Arf!" shouted in shock at seeing her completely frozen. He narrowed his eyes as he got to his feet before growing to about thirty feet in height, the growth causing the ice on his body to fall off. Ben cracked his knuckles, before growling, "you are going down, peanuts."

With that Ben charged toward the mammoth. The mammoth having the same idea as well, also charged toward Ben. They clashed in the center of the room with a loud boom. Already feeling his hands being encased in ice, Ben wasted no time grabbing the mammoth by its trunks before spinning around as fast as he could. He launched the mammoth to the far side of the room, as it crashed into the wall.

Not only was Ben shivering from the cold as his hands covered in ice, but he also felt extremely nauseous due to all that spinning.

"Oh, I think I'm going to hurl," he said before almost spilling out his stomach contents onto the ground. Ben looked back up to see that the mammoth was getting back up.

"Oh come on!" Ben whined as he shivered. He really wished he had gotten Heatblast. Still, it could have been worse, Ben could have accidentally transformed into the guy that shoots out water. That form would have resulted in an instant loss.

'I bet the others are having an easier time than I am right now.'


Nanoha, Fate, each grabbed one of max arms as they pulled him into the air with them as they avoided a huge stream of fire. Animo's eyes widen in shock at the sight of the girls flying

"What how is that-" He shook his head as the T-Rex bought its head down next to him, "It doesn't matter."

He then climbed onto the dinosaur, somehow unaffected by the flames as he sat up on the T-Rex's neck.

"No matter what kind of powers you girls possess," he yelled as he pointed a finger toward them, "It won't stop me from claiming the award I so richly deserve!"

The T-Rex fired off another stream of fire from its mouth. Nanoha and Fate dived down to avoid the flame. When they got close enough to the ground they let go of Max's arms, dropping him safely onto the ground. They then split up and flew to opposite sides of the T-Rex. Fate fired off multiple bolts of electricity at the T-Rex, not only causing it to roar in pain but also drawing its attention away from Nanoha as the brunette aimed her staff at the dinosaur.

"Divine Buster"

The large beam stuck the side of the unsuspecting beast, pushing it back a few yards. Animo had to wrap his arms around the T-Rex's neck and hold on as best he could do, less he would have fallen off.

"Why do you want it so badly?!" Nanoha asked with a Rising Heart aimed directly at Animo, not able to understand why he would go so far just for a trophy.

"Isn't it obvious," Animo clenched a fist in the girl's direction, "That award should belong to me, I deserve it! There is no one who could match my genius, my intellect, especially not that half-brained Kelly!"

The T-Rex fired off another stream of fire at Nanoha, who was able to dodge it quite easily. Even though the flames didn't touch her, she could still feel the intense heat through her barrier jacket.

"As you can see, my work is more than enough proof that I am deserving of it," Animo stated condescendingly.

"Not if it ends up hurting people!" Nanoha countered, shocked to hear such a petty reason.

"Mere stepping stones for my future," He stated uncaringly as he shrugged his shoulder, "Why should I care for brained dead roaches."

Everyone in the room glared at the crazed man's complete disregard of life. Suddenly the ground began to rumble beneath their feet before the wall exploded. Ben came flying into the room, half-covered in frost.

"Ben!"

"Ben-kun!"

Max, Nanoha, Fate called out shocked to him in such a state. Their attention was then brought to the hole he came flying through and saw the ice mammoth, with nearly half of its face gone, stomping into the room. Animo smiled as he saw an opportunity.

The T-Rex swung its tail and Fate didn't notice until it was too late. She was stuck with full force and crashed against the wall on the other side of the room.

"Fate-chan!" Nanoha cried as the blond girl fell to the ground. She immediately flew to Fate's side and saw the pained look on the other girl's face as she clutched her stomach.

"Fate-chan are you ok!?"

Fate nodded her head, "I'm fine Nanoha."

Her barrier jacket managed to protect her from the worst of the attack, but Fate was still able to feel the searing heat through it.

Nanoha looked up to see Animo's T-Rex smash through the wall and outside the museum.

"I'd love to stay, but it's about time I retrieve my reward," he said before the T-Rex spread its wings out and flew into the air. Nanoha was about to go after him when a loud screech assaulted everyone's ears. The giant bird flew into the room and snatched up Max by his shoulders.

"GRUNKLE MAX!"

"GRANDPA!"

Both Ben and Nanoha yelled out in worry before Nanoha shot after the bird. Ben and Fate were about to do the same, but the burning feeling on the girl's side prevented her from taking off into the air. At the same time, Ben noticed that the mammoth's attention was now on the fallen blond girl. His eyes widened when he saw it pointing both of its trunks at the fallen girl.

Without really thinking, Ben rushed forward and onto the girl, being careful not to accidentally crush her, and shielded her from the blast of freezing air.

Max noticed this from within the bird's clutches, he looked toward Nanoha as she closed the distance between him and her.

"Nanoha, forget about me!" he yelled much to her shock and confusion, "Help Ben and Fate!"

Nanoha looked back and her eyes widened in horror as she saw both Ben and Fate being frozen by the mammoth. She was torn, if she went to help Ben and Fate, she would lose sight of Max. On the other hand, the rate the ice was covering both her cousin and best friend was alarming, and she wasn't confident enough that she could ensure Max's safety fast enough to help them. Especially since she didn't want to risk hitting Max with one of her more potent spells.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine!" Max reassured, but Nanoha wasn't completely convinced. Still, with reluctance, Nanoha turned around and sped toward the museum.

Meanwhile Ben and Fate were not in a good situation. By now Ben's legs, tail, and right arm were completely frozen in chunks of ice and even though Ben kept increasing his size, the ice kept spreading across his body at an incredibly fast rate. Even with Ben acting as protection, Fate was, relatively slowly, still being encased in ice. The sharp pain Fate felt as the ice covering the area that the T-Rex struck didn't help improve their situation either.

The Mammoth ceased freezing the pair before charging at the both of them, intent on skewering them with its ice tucks. Fortunately, it was knocked to the side by a massive pink beam of energy.

Looking up they saw Nanoha floating in the air. Her staff's head now had a triangular shape to it, making it resemble a spear. She pointed her staff at the fallen mammoth, and numerous pink energy rings appeared and ensnared the icy beast. The mammoth let out a trumpet as it struggled with its binds. Ben wasn't going to say he knew much about the magic Nanoha and Fate use, and by that he meant he really didn't know anything at all, but he was positive that those weren't going to hold it for long.

Nanoha then pointed her staff at Ben and blasted the ice off of him. Fate, now no longer being hit with a torrent of freezing air, used her magic to melt off the patches of ice on her. Both Ben and Fate were still shivering but at the very least they weren't popsicles.

"Thanks for the save Nanoha," Ben said as he shivered a bit, "Where's Gran-"

The mammoth let out a loud trumpet, earning the three's attention, as it snapped the pink bindings. It quickly got onto it and glared at them with its remaining eye.

"On second thought I'll ask you later," Ben as he and the girls got into their stance, "for now we got to send Manny back to the Ice age."

With a warcry, Ben made a mad dash toward the ice mammoth. It responded by stomping its feet on the ground, causing waves of ice spike to erupt from the ground towards them. When the ice spike almost reached Ben, the boy turned alien instinctively turned on his heel and swung his tail at the spikes. When mace impacted the ice, it generated a shockwave much stronger than the one from before, not only shattering the ice but also caused cracks to form on the walls, ceiling, and the mammoth itself. Nanoha, Fate, and Ben were taken surprised by this and moved to avoid the falling debris.

'Woah, did I do that,' Ben thought to himself in astonishment before recalling what happened when he struck the mammoth with his tail, 'Yeah I did, not only that but it's a lot more powerful than before, probably due to my size.'

He looked to see Fate swinging her energy scythe, sending the blade of energy flying toward the mammoth, hitting its mark and causing an explosion.

Ben couldn't help but find that to be so awesome, but another thing he noticed that it didn't really do much damage. Not even Nanoha's attacks seemed to do much damage either. To make matters worse, the room was freezing rapidly. They needed to take it down and quickly. However, the mammoth was hardly fazed by almost everything that was thrown at it except for when Ben…

Ben's eyes widened in realization, now noticing the newly formed cracks on the mammoth.

"Nanoha, Fate!" He shouted, gaining the girls' attention, "lure it outside, I think I got a way to beat it for good!"

They both gave a nod in return. Fate flew between the mammoth and the giant hole, floating near the ground, before conjuring up multiple orbs of electricity.

"Plasma Lancer"

The orbs shot toward the mammoth and all struck its face. The mammoth shot the blond an irritated look before charging towards her. She flew back toward the hole as fast as she could, as she continued firing off orbs. She almost got it through the hole when the mammoth brought up its trunks to fire off another blast of cold air, Fate avoided it by quickly flying to the air.

"Arc Saber"

Fate swung her staff, launching another blade of yellow energy at the mammoth's feet. This made the mammoth lose its balance. Behind it Nanoha pointed her staff at the creature.

"Divine buster"

She fired off a massive pink beam that slammed into the mammoth, sending it flying outside the hole.

The mammoth crashed into the ground, causing dust to fly up. Before it was able to get back onto its feet, it was again binded by rings of pink energy, as well as yellow energy cubes to reinforce the bindings.

"Ben, we got it pinned," Fate yelled over her shoulder, "whatever you have planned, do it now!"

In response Ben grew twice his current size, growing stegosauridae features such as plates on his back, a crest on his forehead, the plates on his shoulders and arms also separate and grow, and more spikes grew on his tail and mace, before charging toward the bound mammoth. When he got close enough, he swung his tail down toward the mammoth. A powerful shockwave shattered the mammoth into tiny pieces, the shards were sent flying all across the field. Both girls brought their arms up to protect their face from the shards, as well as trying not to get sent flying back due to the shockwave.

When they brought their arms down, their eyes widened at the massive crater where the mammoth used to be.

"Wow, that was kind of overkill Ben-kun," Nanoha said in surprise. Fate blinked at that statement, before giving Nanoha a strange look, which the brunette didn't notice. Ben did but didn't really think too much about it as he looked at Nanoha with half-opened eyes.

"Y-yeah well when you're f-fighting something that f-freezes you just by being near it, y-you kind of want to make s-sure the fight ends for sure," Ben deadpan as he shivered, before the hourglass symbol of the Omnitrix began blinking red and he reverted back to his human form, "E-especially when y-your on a t-time limit."

Both girls flew down to him as he rubbed his arms in an attempt to warm up.

"Are you ok Ben-kun?" Nanoha asked, to which Ben gave a nod. Though he looked around with a confused frown.

"H-hey, w-where's grandpa?" He asked, noticing Max was nowhere to be seen. Nanoha grimaced before looking away in shame.

"Nanoha," Ben asked again, seeing the guilty look on the girl's face, "Where's Grandpa?"

"I couldn't get to him," Nanoha admitted, unable to look Ben in the eye, "not without letting the both of you get hurt."

Ben's eyes widened in both shock and disbelief before they narrowed.

"You lost him!? YOU LOST HIM!?", he yelled causing Fate to take a step back in shock and Nanoha to flinch. Ben stomped towards Nanoha, "Why did you let him get taken!? You were the only one that was able to get to him!"

"I-I'm sorry Be-"

"Sorry not going to get Grandpa Max back!"

Fate stepped forward and placed a hand on Ben's shoulder.

"Ben, that's enough, you need to calm down," she said calmly but flinched when Ben directed his glare toward her.

"Don't tell me to calm down Fate, it wasn't your Grandpa that was taken!" Ben stated, brushing off her hand before bringing his arms up in frustration, "We don't even have any way of finding out where that stupid bird went!"

"And yelling isn't going to help get Max back Ben," Fate countered.

The boy flinched, realizing the blond girl was right, yelling at Nanoha isn't going to help get his grandfather back. He looked away, his arms falling to his sides, a frown still on his face.

Fate placed a hand on both Ben's and Nanoha's shoulders, causing the both of them to look up at her.

"We'll find your Grandfather, and we'll save him," Fate said in reassurance as she looked at both Nanoha and Ben. {it wasn't much but at the very least they were reassured] She suddenly realized that there was someone else missing, "where's Arf?"


Arf's frozen form was placed within the bathtub of the Rustbucket with the air conditioner firing off hot air (it took the group a while to figure out how to activate the heater with the Rustbucket's...quirks). Ben, Nanoham, and Fate were seated at the table, both Nanoha and Fate still donned in their barrier jackets, and all three of them had worried looks on their faces.

"So what are we going to do now?" Ben asked, having calmed down since his outburst, but he did have a worried look on his face, "I mean we don't know where beak breath took grandpa Max, nor do we know where that wack job Animo is heading."

"There shouldn't be that many places for a bird of that size to be able to roost, the problem is though is that we don't really know where to look," Nanoha explained. True enough Nanoha didn't really know a lot of areas in Washington other than the White house really, Fate knew even less than the brunette, even Ben only knew a little bit more about Washington than Nanoha.

"I don't know about the bird," Fate admitted before placing a piece of wrinkled paper on the table, "but I think Animo dropped this."

Looking at the paper Nanoha saw that it was a news article of some kind, the picture showed a photograph of three men wearing suits and ties. Two of them were shaking hands, one of them was also holding a trophy of some kind. The third man standing in the background was none other than Animo, whose hands were clenched into fists as he glared at the man holding the trophy.

As to what that article said, Nanoha couldn't tell, and she knew Fate didn't either. While both Rising Heart and Bardiche are able to translate practically any known language into Nanoha and Fate's respective languages and vice versa for easy communication, they sadly can't do the same for text. It also doesn't help that English wasn't either of the girl's strongest subjects.

"Dr. Kelly accepts verities award."

Fortunately, they had Ben with them to read it out loud for them.

"He's finally going to pick up his award! We got to stop him!"

"Yeah, but we also need to find Grunkle Max Ben-kun."

Suddenly the phone in Ben's pocket started to ring. Pulling it out, he looked at the number before almost immediately answering it.

"Grandpa, are you all right!?" Ben asked into the phone.

"Don't worry, I'm alright," Max said over the phone. However, Ben's concerns were not alleviated when he heard his grandfather let out a brief yell. , "though I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on."

"Where are you Grandpa!?" the boy asked urgently.

"I'm on top of the Washington Monument."

"Got it," Ben replied before looking at the two girls, "He's at the top of the Washington Monument!"

"We'll need to split up," Fate said.

"I'll rescue grunkle Max. Fate-chan, you and Ben-kun go and stop Animo," Nanoha stated as she stood up.

"You sure," Ben asked with a bit of concern. Nanoha gave him a reassuring nod. Ben decided to try and trust her, there wasn't really much time to argue and he could tell that Nanoha was determined.

After looking up where the Washington memorial was, the group exited the RV. Nanoha flew into the air before stopping and looking back towards Ben.

"I promise I'll get Grunkle Max back Ben-kun," she said with reassurance, before speeding off in the direction of the Washington Monument.

Ben watched as his cousin flew over the sky scrappers before looking down at the Omnitrix and popping up the transformation dial. Before he got a chance to pick an alien to change into, Fate spoke up.

"Wait Ben, it would be a better idea if I carried you."

"What!" Ben exclaimed flustered, his cheeks heating up "Why!?"

"You don't have full control of your transformation. There's a chance you would turn into an alien that would take us longer to catch up to Animo, and you have a limited amount of time you can stay as an alien," Fate explained, though she was somewhat confused by the boy's reaction, "It would be much better if I just carried you until we catch up to Animo."

Ben let out a groan, he didn't like it but he knew Fate was right. So he let the blond girl wrap her arm around his torso, however, she let out a hiss when her torso pressed against Ben's.

"You okay?" Ben asked, his voice filled with concern, in which she simply nodded with her lips pressed together in pain. After exhaling a breath of air she once again wrapped her arm around Ben, being careful to make sure that the spot where she felt the painful sensation wasn't making contact with Ben.

The pair flew into the air. It didn't take them long to find a path of burning rooftops, no doubt caused by Animo's pet. Fate quickened her pace down the path.


At the top of the Washington Monument, Max was hanging onto dear life at the top of the structure where the giant parrot left him. Where the bird was now he had no idea, it flew off and disappeared not that long ago. Unfortunately, he was losing his grip

"I should go back to working out like I used to," Max commented with a grunt as he tried to keep his grip on the pole. Unfortunately, he lost his grip and began to fall to the ground. He saw the ground speeding towards him. However, about half-way down the Washington Monument Max felt something grab him from underneath his arms, saving him from becoming a pancake.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw that it was Nanoha who caught him.

"I got you Grunkle Max!" She said with a bit of exertion. Her great uncle was heavy and it took a bit of effort to carry him without help.

Both of them heard a familiar screech and saw the giant bird speeding towards them. Nanoha was barely able to maneuver out of the bird's flight path.

The bird did a u-turn and flew right back toward the pair, and nearly took Nanoha's head off with its claws. As long as she was holding onto Max, Nanoha wasn't able to fly nearly as well as she normally does, much less fight back properly.

So when she looked up and saw the bird once again speeding toward them she waited right until the bird was close enough, and with a thought and a murmur, she deactivated her flight spell.

Both of them dropped like brinks as the parrot speed over them. As Nanoha and Max fell, the girl concentrated, forming the glowing pink orbs of DIvine Shooter. She fired them toward the bird.

The bird let out a screech as the pink orbs struck its face, wings, and torso, forcing it to fly away.

"Flier fin."

Nanoha heard her device words, reminding her that she needed to bleed off speed before she and Max hit the ground. She reactivated her flight spell and slowed their descent toward the ground. Once they were close enough to the ground did Nanoha set her great uncle down.

Before she got a chance to ask him if he was alright they both heard the screech of the giant bird as it flew down towards them.

Nanoha narrowed her eyes before rocketing into the air.

The bird saw the girl fly up into the air and flew towards with the intent of biting her head off. However as it was flying towards the girl, it felt its muscles tense.

All animals rely on their instincts in order to survive, regardless of their level of intellect. Whenever an animal comes across a threat their instincts tell them they have two choices; either to run away from said threat or fight it. And the bird's instincts were telling it that it needed to run away. However before it got a chance to fly away, the bird's world was engulfed in pink.

Max couldn't help but flinch as the bird was smashed into the ground by Nahona's laser before being engulfed in an explosion.

The smoke cleared, revealing the unconscious form of the giant parrot. Nanoha wasted no time in ensuring that it was securely binded before flying towards Max.

"Grunkle Max are you ok!?"

"I'm alright Nanoha, thanks to you," Max reassured the girl with a raised hand, "I'm guessing Ben and Fate went after Animo?"

Nanoha simply gave the older man a nod.

"Then we better go see if they need our help."


At an office building called Kelly Industries, Dr. Kelly was talking to a group that was taking a tour of his complex.

"And here is my verities award," Kelly said gesturing toward the small gold statue shaped similar to that of a flask, "of course it was an honor just to be nominated with a distinguished group of scientists, heh."

Suddenly the building began to shake, just before the ceiling caved in, and through came Animo riding his creation.

"Kelly, I believe you have something of mine!" the mad man shouted before jumping off of the T-Rex and walking past Kelly, shoving the man to the ground as he did so. Animo stopped in front of the flask-shaped statue, and with a prideful smile, picked it up.

"I'd like to thank the committee for this honor," he said as if he was addressing an audience.

"Animo, is that you?" Dr. Kelly asked as he picked himself off the floor, "what is this about!?"

Animo shot him a glare, "I am simply getting what I rightfully deserve, and proving once and for all my superior genius!"

"You performed inhumane experiments on animals, did you honestly think that anyone would reward you for that!?"

"Of course, it was thanks to my experiments that not only was I able to resurrect the dead, but to evolve them beyond their genetic limitations," Animo stated proudly as he climbed back onto his flaming T-Rex, "as you can see with your own eyes."

The T-Rex let out a stream of fire toward Dr. Kelly. The man could only scream in terror as the flames speed toward him. Thankfully, a black and yellow blur pulled him out of harm's way.

"What!?" Animo screamed as he looked toward where the blur went, and let out a growl when he saw that it was the blond girl from before setting Kelly on the ground. Who then promptly fainted. Not only did she defeat one of his creations back at the mega-mart, but now she seeks to deny him his vengeance.

The T-Rex was about to let out another stream of fire when a breath of cold air froze the dinosaur's mouth in ice.

"What!?" he once again screamed. Animo looked toward the other interloper and saw that it was a giant blue humanoid moth creature, "What are you, you little pest!?"

"The name is Big Chill, and I'm here to kick some tail," Ben said with a breath of cold air escaping his mouth. With a growl, Animo fired off a beam from his Transmodulator toward the boy turned alien. Ben flew to the side to avoid the beam, he tried to fly back toward the mad doctor but came face to face with a stream of fire headed towards him. His eyes widened as he performed a barrel roll to avoid the fire, however, he was unable to see the tail until it was too late.

The tail struck Ben, sending him flying and smacking into a wall before collapsing onto the floor. He clenched his head with his hand as he let out a groan. He smelled sulfur and looked up to see the T-rex looming over him, and Animo shooting a mocking smirk toward him. Sure enough, the ice that encased its maw has been melted away, and it was wide about to swallow Ben whole.

That would have been the case if large yellow spears haven't pierced the flaming dinosaur. The dinosaur let out a roar of pain as the spear penetrated not only its torso but also its head. The sudden impact caused by the attack caused the mad doctor riding on top to lose his grip and fall to the floor with a thud.

One would think that injuries that the T-rex had sustained would kill it. It didn't. The T-rex glared in the direction of the offender and saw the blond-haired girl that twice now denied the dinosaur it's prey.

With a roar, it began charging toward Fate. the girl in question flew up high into the air and avoided its snapping jaw.

"Zanber Form"

Bardiche said before the ax head rotated backward and split into two halves. one of the half flipping toward the opposite end, forming a trident becoming the hilt of an enormous mana blade, and causing the Device to resemble a claymore.

Fate swung her weapon downward and cleave the dinosaur's head in half right down the middle. Her eyes widened when the two halves fused back together almost instantly. The T-rex let out a roar as it let out a large stream of fire toward the blond hair girl.

Fate flew out of the way but the T-rex continued firing streams of flames toward the blond-haired girl. This was until Ben flew over the T-rex and began firing massive amounts of cold air at the dinosaur, encasing its body in ice. However, the heat generated by the T-rex's body melted the ice faster than Ben could freeze it. It did however cause the dinosaur to shift its attention to him instead of Fate.

The T-rex fired streams of fire at Ben, which he avoided by either flying out of the way or becoming intangible, all the while firing back cold air from his mouth.

Fate watched from the sideline as she saw Ben's ice melt. Fate narrowed her eyes in thought trying to think up a plan before something caught her attention. She looked to the side and saw Animo pushing himself up off the floor, and more importantly the transmodulator that was on his head.

Knowing what she needed to do, Fate turns her staff into its scythe form before shooting toward the mad doctor. Animo saw the blond dash towards him and began to panic, and in doing so lost his footing and fell backward just as Fate swung her weapon. Instead of striking Animo's Transmodulator as she intended, Fate's energy scythe ended up slicing the golden flask trophy.

"NOOOOOO!" Animo cried out in despair as he looked at the two halves of his most desired treasure within his hands. His body shook as he clenched his teeth, before glaring at the blond girl that caused him so much trouble in just one day. With a turn of his device dial, he fired a beam toward Fate. She was able to dodge it before it could hit her, but Animo didn't let up and continued firing beam after beam at the nimble blond.

Fate wasn't sure what would happen if a human were to be mutated by the mad doctor's device, but she wasn't so keen on finding out. She needed to put an end to this quickly. However as she was avoiding Animo's attacks, she noticed a large stream of flames advancing toward her from the corner of her eye and barely had time to conjure up a shield.

Using the distraction provided by his pet, Animo was about to blast Fate with his transmodulator. However, it was ripped off of his head before he had the chance to do so.

"What," he exclaimed as he spun around to see Ben hovering before him, holding his device over his head, "My Transmodulator!"

He screamed as Ben smashed the Transmodulator onto the ground, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The effects were almost immediate, the T-Rex onslaught on Fate ceased before it's flesh began to dissolve, leaving behind the original skeleton remains. Unable to support its own weight any more, the bones collapsed on itself.

"And he's history," Ben quipped as Fate floated next to him, "or should I say PREhistory, hehe."

"Curse you, you brats," Animo yelled out as he stomped towards the pair, "curse you and your meddling ways. Mark my words you will rue the day that you crossed Dr. J. Anim-"

The mad doctor's rant was cut off when he was frozen head to toe in a block of ice, courtesy of Ben.

"Ben," Fate reprimanded.

"What? he was about to go on and on on how he's going to enact his revenge," Ben defended with a shrug of his shoulders, "that's what all villains do when they're defeated."

'That and it was a bit of payback for almost turning us into popsicles,' Ben thought to himself before asking, "Didn't you and Nanoha have to go through something like that?"

"No, we haven't," Fate answered truthfully.

"Really?" he asked a bit surprised, "how long were you two doing this for exactly?"

"About a year", Fate explained, "but we really only had to go through two incidents,"

"Huh."


(the next morning)

"Let me go! I deserve that award!" Animo yelled as he was escorted by officers toward one of the police cars, "I'd got it coming to me! I want it!"

With that final outburst, Animo was shoved in the back of the police car and the door was closed before he had a chance to continue shouting. Animo looked out the window and glared at the group that was responsible for this humiliation, as well as a fierce glare toward the damn blond girl that destroyed his precious award. He swore he would get his revenge yet on those brats one of these days, and then he would show the world his genius.

As Ben watched the mad doctor being arrested, he couldn't help but feel that Animo's obsession with his award seemed familiar. Animo was a genius, Ben had to admit to that, but he practically wasted that just because he wanted a useless golden statue, and now he's going to spend years stuck behind bars.


As the group drove away within the rustbucket, Ben, Nanoha, Fate, and a now thawed out Arf sat in the dining area of the RV.

"Not only did we stop Animo but we also snagged ourselves a trophy," Ben stated as he held up the part of Animo's Transmodulator that had the dial on it before placing it on the table, "Plus I guessing saving the city from Dr. wacko is its own reward."

"You also saved me to Ben," Fate said, earning a confused look from the boy.

"I did," He asked, "When?"

"The first time at the museum when Animo's creation was about to freeze me, and the second time when Animo was about to use his device on me," she said with a thankful smile, causing the boy to blush, "Thank you."

"Ahh, well it's no big deal," Ben replied while leaning back in his seat, with his hand behind his head, "saving the day is what we heroes do best. Right?"

This promoted the girls to giggle.

"Right Ben-kun," Nanoha said with a cheerful smile. Though Nanoha couldn't help but feel that their encounter with Dr. Animo was only the beginning.


AN: And here's the second chapter, I am so sorry that it took me so long to get this up. I kept running into writer's block and then having to redo certain scenes due to me not liking how they were originally (heck I went through three different ways on how I wanted to end this chapter). Not only that but I had a bit of lack of confidence in regards to how I wrote the characters. There's also the fact that I got Civ 6 for free from the epic game store and let me tell you that game is addicting as heck, then college came around...Yeah, I'm terrible at focusing.

Anyway 25 favorites and 10 reviews...I'll be honest...I wasn't expecting to get that many with just my first chapter, Thx you guys.

Also, I hit a bit of a dilemma with the story, mainly in regards to Ben's group arriving at the plumber's base at Mt. Rushmore. I looked it up online and really it's only a take about a day to drive from Washington to the base and, unlike in canon, Max will want to get there ASAP due to the events that occurred so he won't be making too many stops. I'll try to find a way to make it stretch out just enough to put the important stuff in there, such as making ben start using his head instead of just brute force, and so on. I'll also try to improvise in order to fill up the gaps up until the first confrontation with Vilgax. I've also fixed somethings up in the last chapter (it's nothing much to be honest though).

Also, am I using the correct honor-fic when I have Nanoha referring to Ben? And what's the closest honor-fic that I should have Nanoha use when referring to Max? And was Ben's outburst earlier believable?

Have a good day, leave a review, and most of all stay safe out there. There's a lot of crazies out there right now.