* There was a scene in this chapter that was a little bit toned down here. If you want to read the uncensored version, check it on Archive of Our Own (the link is in my profile page)
Put The Blame On Someone Else
Gwen
Gwen woke up suddenly.
"Gwen." She heard a husky voice calling her name.
"AAAAAH," she screamed, but already charging a ball of mana in her hands to make sure that the intruder would forever regret the idea of coming to her bedroom.
"Wait, wait, Dweeb! It's me!" The intruder said. In the darkness, Gwen couldn't see things clearly, but as soon as the blue light of her mana illuminated the room, she could take a good look at the intruder.
He was wearing a black and green jumpsuit and a mask, but Gwen could recognize her cousin's green eyes. The mask also had a gap, showing Ben's mouth and lower face. She could see that Ben's skin was very pale and his mouth had sharp canine teeth. Speechless, Gwen realized that Ben had turned into a Vladat - that is, a vampire.
"Gwen? What's going on?" Gwen's father, Frank, knocked on the door. He'd probably woken up with the scream and was checking to see if everything was ok.
"Quick, Doofus, hide," Gwen whispered.
Ben turned into a bat and flew out through the window.
"Come in, Dad," Gwen said.
"Is everything alright, sweetie?" Frank was worried about her.
"Yeah, I just had a nightmare. I'm sorry I woke you up." Gwen gave him a half-hearted smile.
"No problem, Gwenny. If you need anything, just talk to me." Frank closed the door and left.
After a few minutes, the bat entered through the window again and changed back to his "human" form. Gwen cast a spell to make the room temporarily soundproof so she and Ben could talk more freely.
"What happened, Ben?"
"Iwokeupatnightfeelingweird-" he rushed the words, very nervous.
"Baby cuz, calm down." Gwen grabbed Ben's hand. "Sit here with me, and tell me everything, slowly."
"I don't want to get too close, Gwen. I'm a v-vampire, I'm d-dangerous," he said, startled.
She was very scared too - anyone would be afraid of vampires, but for Sorcerers it was much worse. The blood of a sorcerer was much more nutritive and desirable to vampires than the blood of an ordinary human. Vladats were the natural predators of Sorcerers.
But that wasn't any vampire, it was Ben.
"I'm not in danger with you, Ben," Gwen said, with confidence. She tugged on his arm and made him sit on the bed next to her.
She tried to remove his mask, but he grabbed her hand. "No, I don't want you to see me like this ..."
"Shhhh, calm down, Doofus." She removed the mask, and gently stroked his face to reassure him. "It's still you. Now, tell me what happened."
"I woke up at night feeling weird, I went to look in the mirror and I didn't see my reflection. I noticed that the Omnitrix was no longer on my wrist, so I thought it was a simple accidental transformation. The watch must have absorbed a sample of vampire DNA the moment I was bitten yesterday. I even came up with a cool name - Whampire. But then fifteen minutes passed, then half an hour, and I was still like this... I'm stuck in this alien form now ... So I-I just wanted to say goodbye to you b-before I leave," Ben said, his voice trembled.
"Leave?" Gwen asked.
"I know I can't keep myself in control much longer, and I don't want to put you or my parents in danger ... I'm leaving town," Ben said, "I want you to know, Gwen, I won't mind if you find someone else - just not Kevin, ok? You can do so much better than- "
Gwen interrupted him by pressing her lips on his in a chaste kiss. That kiss was meant to say, "I won't find someone else, I want you." Ben's lips - Whampire's lips - were cold, very cold, but in a nice way, like popsicles. She let her lips linger on his for a long moment, prolonging what was supposed to be just a quick peck.
"I'm not going to let you out of here until I convince you to give up on this stupid idea of 'leaving'." Gwen said after finally breaking the kiss. "We'll find a way to solve this problem soon."
"Gwen, I can't risk the life of my mom, or my dad, or yours. Especially yours," Ben said, breaking in a cold sweat, "Remember Magus Viridis? Remember how bad that transformation affects me when I'm around you? Now it's worse. Magus was your equal, but Whampire is your predator. Since this time it's not affecting you too, you don't understand how difficult it is for me to control myself now. "
Ben stood up to leave and Gwen pulled him back, but her pull was too strong and the two ended up falling on the bed together, Ben on top of her, in an embarrassing position.
Whampire began to sniff her neck, "You're so sweet ..." He brushed his cold lips against her neck, and for a moment Gwen was afraid he wasn't exaggerating when he said it was hard to control his instincts and thought he was really going to bite her. Ben began to suck on her neck, indeed, but with kisses instead of bites. Gwen let out a moan.
Although Gwen was enjoying that moment, she knew it wasn't right. She gently pushed his head, to make him stop.
"You're flawless ..." he whispered.
"Cousin," She said, emphasizing the word, looking him straight in the eye, "You know we can't let this go too far, especially not here in my bedroom when my parents can-" It was getting harder and harder for Gwen to focus. Ben's eyes ... That green sea ... She could lose herself there. "Forget what I was saying. Kiss me, bite me, do whatever you want to do with me, my love."
Ben glanced away from her in shame. "Sorry, cuz. Vampires can hypnotize people by staring into their eyes for a long time. It wasn't my intention, of course, but I'm still learning to control these powers."
Gwen shook her head, 'waking up' from the accidental hypnotic trance induced by Ben. "I guess this proves that, vampire or not, you're still a decent guy." Gwen smiled at him. "Let's make a deal. Leave a note to your parents saying that you were called for some internship activity very early at S.E.C.T.'s HQ, and had to leave before they woke up. Go to my grandma's house and spend the night there. Tomorrow morning I'll go there too and we'll figure this out."
After the kisses, Ben was much more willing to not leave, but he still seemed a little hesitant about her idea. "Gwen, I'm the natural predator of Sorcerers. I don't know if it's a good idea to stay at Verdona's house. I could end up hurting her too. She probably wouldn't want me there as well."
"My grandmother is not in town and won't be back soon. But I have the key to her house."
Gwen quickly explained to Ben what had happened. Gwen had got Sunny's "evolutionary bracelet." She didn't give it to S.E.C.T., she preferred to take it to Grandma Verdona. Verdona was very excited, and said she had "great ideas" of what the wizard community could do with it. Gwen warned that there was probably some trap in the bracelet - since it had been created by Albedo - but Grandma Verdona said she had contacts, sorcerers who were engineers and scientists, who could analyze the object and remove any traps. She left Bellwood and Gwen didn't know when she would return.
Ben stole one last kiss on Gwen's neck before turning into a bat and flying out the window, carrying the house's keys on his paws.
In the following day, Gwen went to her grandma's house to see Ben, and heard the sounds of a conversation.
"So, Ben, if you're stuck as a vampire for a long time, don't worry. I have a list of people we can kill together. You can drain them down to their last drop of blood. It will definitely help to make the world a better place." It was Charmcaster's voice, in a relaxed and laidback tone.
Ben burst out laughing, "That was funny!"
"It's not a joke, Ben, I'm serious."
Gwen entered the room and saw Whampire and Charmcaster sitting on the couch. Gwen was furious - more with herself than with anyone else. She had completely forgot that Charmcaster was also at Verdona's house quite often. Gwen definitely didn't want Ben to spend any time alone with CC.
"Red, did you come to see your two favorite cousins?" Charmcaster asked, leaning closer to Whampire just to make Gwen even more jealous. "We're getting along very well."
"You're not my cousin, CC, and I'm not here to see you," Gwen replied dryly. And then she turned to Whampire, with her arms folded, "I thought you wanted to avoid being close to people - especially sorcerers - because of the thirst for blood thing. Why didn't you ask Charmcaster to leave?"
"Ah, I've solved this problem for now," Charmcaster said, and then added with a mischievous smile, "I let him suck a little bit of my blood. It was a deep bonding moment between the two of us, to tell the truth."
"WHAT?" Gwen asked furiously, lighting her hands in a blue glow of mana.
"That's NOT what happened, Gwen!" Whampire replied quickly. "She's only joking with you."
"You don't have to hurt poor Ben. It's touching that you're so worried about my well-being, cuz, but he's right, he didn't do anything to me." Charmcaster giggled.
Of course, Gwen's anger had nothing to do with Charmcaster's well-being.
"Ben is cute, but he knows that if he were to get out of control and attack me, I'd have no problem fighting back with everything I got. Unlike you, who would hold back against him. That's why he's more relaxed around me than with you, and didn't ask for me to leave." Charmcaster explained. "But you know, they say that a vampire who drinks a sorcerer's blood can do magic too for a while, maybe I can actually let him suck on my neck a little, just to see if-"
"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" Gwen snapped.
They heard a knock on the door.
"It must be Grandpa Max and Tomyx," Gwen said. "I told Grandpa what happened, Ben. We agreed that the guy who put the watch on your arm could help to solve the problem. "
"That's my cue to leave," Charmcaster said, "Ben, if you happen to get stuck in this form of vampire and Gwen doesn't want you anymore, it is not the end of the world. Just remember there's plenty of fish in the sea, ok?" CC gave Whampire a peck on the cheek.
"You. Really. Should. Go. Now," Gwen said to Charmcaster, burning with rage.
Charmcaster opened the pantry door and entered through what was a secret portal to another one of Verdona's houses in another state.
Tomyx was examining the small plate with the Omnitrix symbol on Whampire's waist. He was trying to twist it, press it, and do something that could turn Whampire back into Ben.
"Perhaps scanning two samples of different DNA at the exact same time has caused a temporary malfunction in the Omnitrix," the Vilgaxian teenager theorized.
"You know how to solve the problem, right?" Gwen asked. "When Ben met Albedo, he told him that Vilgax took off his Omnitrix with brute force and the Omnitrix almost broke. But when you gave it to Ben, it was fixed. You fixed it, right? "
"When I deserted, I stole the Omnitrix and took it to my mother, Myaxx. She fixed it. She definitely could solve this problem in a second," Tomyx replied. "I learned a few things from her, but she's a lot smarter than me."
"You're proud of your mom," Whampire said, surprised.
"She's an amazing person," Tomyx said, still wrestling with the Omnitrix plate.
"And how did she get involved with Vilgax?" Whampire asked.
"She was part of the Anti-Vilgax Resistance. She was captured. But she was very intelligent, and by the standards of my species, very beautiful too. Vilgax gave her a choice, she would be executed or she would help him and do whatever he wanted her to," Tomyx said, almost in a whisper. "She didn't want to die."
"I'm sorry," Whampire said. Gwen lowered her head in sadness.
Suddenly, the Omnitrix beeped and there was a bright green light. When Gwen looked again, in Whampire's place there was a large and muscular gray-furred werewolf.
He approached Gwen, and began to smell her, from head to toe. "Ben," She giggled nervously, trying to get him to see how embarrassing that situation was. Especially because Grandpa Max and Tomyx were there, but also because having a big wolf rubbing his muzzle on her skin was kind of weird.
Then he started to lick her face. "Ben, that's enough!" She shouted, stepping away from him and creating a mana shield between them.
"Is there anything you want to tell me, children?" Max said, looking a little bit uncomfortable with the scene.
"Yes, Ben goes completely nuts when he turns into an alien sometimes!" Gwen said, "And I'm gonna have to take at least five or six baths to kill all the germs this Mega-Doofus passed me. That's so disgusting!" Of course she was exaggerating a little, but she definitely would prefer a kiss from Magus Viridis or Whampire instead of a 'kiss' from Ben's Werewolf.
"Sorry, my bad," he said, finally coming to his senses. "This is all the fault of this ... Benwolf. I would never lick the Dweeb if I were my normal self, OBVIOUSLY."
Gwen noticed Grandpa arching his eyebrows. "Crap, I think he's getting suspicious ..."
"Benwolf is starving!" the lupine alien said, then ran to the fridge and grabbed a pot full of chicken.
"I can toast the chicken for you-" Gwen offered, but Benwolf had already begun to eat, and in a few seconds he had eaten around two pounds of chicken.
"Delicious," Benwolf said, chewing what was left of the bones. "It's just an appetizer, of course."
"Ben, werewolves have a human form too," Grandpa Max said, "Maybe you can try it?"
Ben closed his eyes, focusing. At first, he managed to turn almost human. His face lost its lupine features and became much closer to Ben's normal face, his muzzle turned into a normal mouth, his tail disappeared and his size greatly diminished. But he was still furry, his ears still canine and his nails and teeth sharp.
"You're almost done, Ben. You're in an intermediate form between wolf and human. Keep going," Grandpa Max said.
After a few moments, Ben finally managed to turn human again. Of course, not actually human, but anyone who looked at him would see a normal Ben and not a Werewolf.
"It's better than before, but as long as I'm stuck like this, I can't be any alien other than Benwolf." Ben said, looking at the Omnitrix plate, still attached to his waist, indicating that he was still in an alien form.
"I'll keep trying to solve this," Tomyx said, when Gwen's cell phone started ringing. Not Gwen's cell phone actually, Lucky Girl's cell phone.
"This is Lucky Girl. Who's there?"
"Lucky Girl? It's Kevin. I got your number from S.E.C.T."
Ben began to growl, literally. Although he looked human, he was still Benwolf. His hearing was far better than that of humans, being able to clearly hear Kevin's voice on Lucky Girl's phone, and, of course, he was as aggressive as a wolf.
"Please don't hang up," Kevin said, "I just wanted to apologize. The Kevin you met before was Kevin Eleven, not me. I'm a good guy. I wish I could explain things to you in person, in any public place you want."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea, Kevin..." Gwen began to say.
"Accept it," Ben said, "Of course Benwolf will- I mean, I will go with you. I want to have a little chat with Kevin too ..."
In a café, an hour later.
Watch Boy - actually, the human form of Benwolf - was impatient, "Where's Kevin? I can't wait for him to arrive…" He had a wicked grin on his face.
"I shouldn't have accepted that." Lucky Girl face palmed, disappointed with her own naivety, "You want to kill him."
"I'll confess! I thought about it, but he was clever choosing a public place with many witnesses. I can't kill him now," Ben said, looking from one side to the other. Lucky Girl was pretty sure Kevin mentioned a public place to let her know he didn't intend to harm her, not to protect himself from her partner.
"These wolf instincts will make you do something stupid. Let's go back to my grandmother's house and let Tomyx fix this." Lucky Girl stood up from the chair.
"Tomyx will still be there when we get back later," Ben said, "Hey, look, Kevin's coming."
"Hi, Lucky Girl." Kevin approached their table. "And ... Watch Boy." Kevin was clearly disappointed that Watch Boy had come along, too. "I didn't call you, Watch Boy because I suspected you won't believe what I have to say," Kevin said, sitting down, "But I want to apologize to you both."
"Funny how Servantis lets you walk around on the loose like this, Kevin ... I bet you two are big pals, you're his golden boy," Ben said.
"Do you know him?" Kevin asked in surprise, "I'm not loose. I'm being watched now just like I would be on a mission. And I don't like Servantis. He knows it, so I can say it even if he's watching me. But what I really need to say is..."
Kevin reached out to touch Lucky Girl's hand, but Ben said, "If you put your filthy hand on her, I swear I'll rip your heart out of your chest and eat it, right here, right now."
"Watch Boy!" Lucky Girl scolded him.
Kevin retracted his hands and straightened on the chair. He glanced at Watch Boy with pure hatred.
"Lucky Girl," he said turning to Lucky Girl and ignoring Watch Boy, "My name is Kevin Ethan Levin. My father is Devin Levin, aka Director Steel. I have certain problems with him because he wasn't present in my childhood, but this is not the point. I'm a mutant with the power to absorb matter and energy, but when I absorb a lot of energy, I turn into Kevin Eleven. You can see the difference, he has deep dark bags under his eyes. He's insane and dangerous, I'll admit it. But I'm not like that. If I had a choice, I would never absorb energy again, and I ... I just wanted you to know that." He seemed very sorry and sincere.
"Good story," Ben said. "You can do all the shit you want, and then you can just put the blame on your evil split personality. How convenient..."
"Kevin, I'm sorry, my friend here is a little on edge today," Lucky Girl said, caressing Ben's arm to try to calm him down. "We are very sorry that you are going through these problems."
"Thank you very much, it means a lot to me. You ... I ... " Lucky Girl noticed the way Kevin was looking at her. It was the same way Ben looked at her, and the same way many other boys had looked at her before. Kevin liked her. "Where I work, I don't have many friends. I don't expect you to accept my offer, but if we could, you know, hang out more often, just to talk, just as friends, of course... "
Lucky Girl knew he didn't want to be just a friend. He was a handsome young man and he seemed to be a good person too - Kevin Levin, of course, not Kevin Eleven - but she would never leave Ben for anyone. She was thinking about how she could answer him, a gentle answer, but making it clear that there would never be anything between them.
Then Watch Boy began to speak, "Let me tell you something, Kevin Ethan Levin... I have a proposal for you too. You can forget that Lucky Girl exists, never talk to her again, never get close to her again and never think about her again. In return, I'll let you live. Or you can keep hitting on her, and I promise I'll kill you. Of course I don't expect you to accept my offer. Actually, I don't want you to accept it, because I want to kill you," Ben growled.
"That's enough, Watch Boy!" Lucky Girl got up from her chair, and pulled Ben with her, "Sorry, Kevin. Usually he's not like that. Let's go, Watch Boy."
Later, at Verdona's house ...
After tampering more with the Omnitrix plate on Benwolf's waist, Tomyx was finally able to get him back to normal.
"Thank you very much, Tomyx!" Ben hugged his Vilgaxian friend, "And now I have two new aliens on the watch!" Ben cycled through his aliens, noticing the silhouettes of Whampire and Benwolf there too.
Gwen hugged Ben, "I'm glad you're you again, cuz. That's my favorite Ben, human Ben!" She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and blushed hard after remembering that Grandpa Max was there too.
Kevin
Somewhere else.
"What's your opinion about Watch Boy?" Servantis asked.
"That piece of shit is a psychopath, a mad dog that needs to be put down!" Kevin replied angrily.
"And your answer has nothing to do with the fact that you both like the same girl?" Servantis smirked.
"No. It's a professional opinion," Kevin said, with his arms folded.
Servantis laughed. "Anyway, I agree with you. That's why I'm preparing his replacements." A man came through the door. It was Dr. Aloysius James Animo, one of the new recruits of the Dark Squad. Of course, not for field missions, but for the scientific team. "So, Doctor Animo, how's Project Amalgam going?"
Author's Notes
* Thanks to Aurora Nightstar for beta-reading, and I would like to thank everyone who favorited, followed and/or reviewed. And please, vote on the poll on my profile. It's important for the story. And please review the fic too, I'd love to know what you did like in this chapter and what you didn't like. We had two new aliens, Bwen moments, and a Kevin-Benwolf confrontation…
* In my fic, natural werewolves - werewolves by birth - can change from 'human' form to 'wolf' form any time they want. But hybrid werewolves - humans transformed into werewolves at some point in their lives - only change on full moon nights. The Omnitrix always turns Ben into a natural pure-blood specimen.
* Werewolves and Vampires are also natural enemies. Not like vampires and sorcerers, in a predator and prey relationship, but like two different apex predators disputing to see who is the strongest.
* For the person who asked about Alien X and Celestialsapiens, well, this fic will be over soon, probably around chapter 22 or 23. I won't introduce them here, but maybe in a future 'season' I can visit the concept.
