sorry for the tardiness, but please still enjoy!
Rex is starting to notice that they're getting stronger. He heaves in his breaths, chest rising and falling, sweat pouring down his temple and blood racing. He's never felt beaten down when fighting these guys before. Yeah, they are unconcious now, but heck, barely.
Rex stands to his full height, huffing and looking around at Eon's lackeys on the ground. He's afraid to have his back turned, fearing that there were more of them just out of sight.
Fear.
Huh. He hasn't felt that in a long time.
The thumping in his chest spikes painfully as his brown eyes catch a pinkish-white light enveloping the bodies on the ground. The light consumes their head, their chest, all the way down to their feet, and then they're gone.
Rex stares, frozen, at where the bodies used to be. The first thought to come to mind after he finally regains his senses is I have to tell Ben.
.
It's been two weeks already and no sign of 16's Gwen and Max. They, Ben and Rex, started calling ten year old Ben 16 after asking what year he got the Omnitrix: 2016. 16 didn't get suspicious at all about the question, and why would he? He had no idea who Ben was. Easier for them. 16 was still on his first summer of having the Omnitrix. Ben wouldn't want to mess with him in case something happened. If maybe 16 knowing about him would change his future somehow.
Ha, as if this entire situation hasn't already messed everything up.
Ben laughs and puts his blue contacts in.
He can't let himself risk anything until the Professor gets here.
"Prime! Food!" Comes a whiny yell from the front of the cabin.
Gosh, Ben barely even knows how to cook! How is he nineteen and already taking care of a child? Even if the kid does happen to be himself.
Still, he sighs and pulls his grey hoodie over his head, then wraps the bandana around his face. Yeah, it's hot, and yeah, he doesn't really need to do this anymore, but the less 16 sees him the less he'll recognize himself when he's older.
Ben walks out of the bathroom and into the dimly lit, narrow, and short hallway. His bright blue and turquoise sneakers walk closer toward the tangerine light of the kitchen, the tired wood under his feet silent as he moves. He steps into the room, eyes rising from the floor, and screams.
The multicolored feathers lower to reveal Rex's delighted face. He and 16 burst out into laughter. Ben stares, wide-eyed and heart pumping, then rolls his eyes and relaxes. "Real funny."
"Your face!" Rex can barely breathe, tossing the peacock lawn decoration to the floor and bending over his knees. "It was priceless!"
"When you said he was afraid of peacocks, I thought you were joking!" 16 squeaks as he laughs, patting Rex on his blue arm sleeve.
Oh, you just wait until you're older.
"Ok, now go eat your Chocobuns." Rex pats 16's head and pushes him towards the table to the grocery bags. 16 takes a chocolate covered bun in plastic wrap out of its seal and chomps down as Rex grabs Ben by the shoulder and leads him into the master bedroom.
"Uh..?" Ben takes off his bandana as Rex closes the door behind them and starts towards the bedside table. Rex rummages through the drawer and Ben sighs as Rex throws bandages on the bed, then bandaids, then a cream, and then puts the bandages back inside the drawer. Ben feels an inch of relief seeing the more serious first aid go back where it belongs.
Ben grabs the bandaids as Rex sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his jacket. Sitting beside him, Ben takes off his hood and twists off the cream's cap, watching as Rex peels off his arm sleeves and reveals the cuts and scratches on his arms.
Ben's voice is quiet. "Is this it…?" He hopes. He hopes and hopes and hopes.
The robot boy grins lazily at him. "If we don't count the bruise forming on my stomach, then yeah." Rex lifts his muscle shirt and looks down at the darkening brown spot right under his chest.
Ben's brows lower at the sight. He struggles to keep his mind blank as he applies the cream to Rex's shoulder.
"They're getting stronger." Rex mumbles. "A little lower and we'd have matching scars."
Ben says nothing, keeps his gaze focused on the bandaids he places over Rex's arm.
Rex dips his head, trying to get Ben to look at him. "Hey," he says, "I'm okay."
Ben frowns. "I just don't know what they're after."
"I don't know either," Rex admits. "But from now on, it'd be best if we don't let 16 out by himself. I also think it'd be good if we went out on patrol in teams from time to time."
He nods, eyes down.
.
It's the first sunny day in weeks. The sky is blue and the sun is high and bright. All the bad guys are in jail cells and fed, there are actually people roaming outside— though, not many. Ben does cartwheels in the grass of the front lawn, runs circles around the house's freshly-mowed backyard and surrounding area. Prime and Rex are painting the front of the house and deck a fresh pearl white. Rex's got good reach with those monster arms of his.
It is summer, no matter how hard it is to believe. It's like they live in the rainforest or something. If there were a dam in this town, it would have overflowed by now. Ben, though, was glad to be out of the house. He still searched the forest and city every day, or every other day, for his relatives, but it was always a downer having it rain all the time and coming up with nothing. Rex said he was searching for them too, but Ben didn't really believe he was looking too hard. He had never seen them. Didn't know how dorkish Gwen was and how lame his gramps could be. Maybe every old guy in the city wore Hawaiian shirts, Ben didn't know.
Today, Ben spreads out his feet and arms and lays on the still wet and soggy grass. He sighs and watches the sky.
Then he gets bored with that and goes back in the house, making sure to jump over the wet spots on the deck as Rex calls over to remind him. He grabs himself and the other two some popsicles from the freezer, then, at the last second, decides to go out of the kitchen door instead. It's warm enough outside, but it's the humidity that's relentless. It's usually humid, but the cross between the sun and the lack of wind today makes it overbearing.
Ben hands the two their popsicles, one pink, one green, and they all relax against the only side of the house where paint can't get on their clothes. Prime lifts up the hem of his hoodie(why the heck is he still wearing that?) to his face and wipes the sweat off his forehead, revealing a New Jersey-shaped birthmark(scar, maybe?) on his lower flank. They silently lap at their sweets and look into the trees of the surrounding forest. It's as dark and foggy as usual.
Some things never change.
It hits Ben that when he's gone, he'll miss these two.
.
"Agh! Come on!" Ben growls, slamming his hand down on his watch over and over again. "Stupid watch! Why. Won't. You. Work!" He hits it against one of the many trees around him, then continues fiddling with it. How can the watch stop working now? When he's lost in the middle of nowhere! He screams throatily, gritting his teeth and bending backwards. His second summer with the omnitrix and he's already broken it! Gwen will get a laugh out of this.
"But first I gotta get out of here," Ben mumbles aloud to himself, once more turning the face of the watch, trying to get the green light to start glowing. The growing smog around him is making him antsy, like Vilgax could return from the dead and come out of it like a zombie or something.
Instead, it's something infinitely worse.
A voice, very familiar, like his— if it were recorded and played right back to him, "Whoa, is that my voice?"
It came from his left. No, his right. No—
"Ah!" He screams, jumping away from himself, hands up and beside his face, knee lifted as if to kick the intruder.
Himself. As if to kick himself. But a smaller version of himself, he'd say. With bouncier hair, and bigger eyes with no pupils. Just large green irises. They wore the exact same clothes, down to the shoes. He was about an inch shorter. Two inches.
He stares at him, and he stares back.
In unison, they burst out into identical, high-pitched screams.
The screams are followed by the sound of a completely different voice saying, "Ow, Ow, Kevin don't leave me behind!"
Their screams slow to a halt as a...porcupine? A humanoid porcupine-opossum hybrid? in an orange outfit runs up to them and stops suddenly, big eyes wide and mouth hidden behind his turtleneck jacket.
He stares at it and it stares at him and he stares at him and it and they all start screaming.
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