Author's Note: Hello, and welcome to Danger Watch's inaugural...

LATE. NIGHT. CHAPTER.

Things are heating up as tensions rise between some unexpected forces! I hope you're enjoying the story so far, and thanks for reading! Let's jump right in.

Chapter Seven - Worlds Collide

"Did you know that pixies are real?"

Ben groaned audibly.

"No, they aren't," he said.

"Yeah-huh," Gwen said, flipping around her large, leather bound book so that the pages were facing her cousin. Ben could hardly be bothered to shift his gaze towards the drawings and notation there. Gwen made an annoyed face with him. "You know, this stuff might end up being pretty useful to you some day. You might want to know that a pixie can make you see things that aren't there."

"Oh, great, I'll be sure to store that in my brain! Right next to what to do in case there's a dragon attack," Ben said, rolling his eyes.

He and Gwen were now sitting out on the grass in front of the Hinobi Base, watching the Glitch Techs work. Despite their general annoyance with one another on a frequent basis, the two of them were close in age and family. Thus, they had spent a lot of their time in this unfamiliar place together, to soften the blow. Neither would admit it, but they both felt more comfortable with each other than they had at the beginning of the summer. Gwen snorted.

"You'd better hope you don't get attacked by a dragon," she said. "Every creature written about in the journal seems to have at least some respect for them. They're the top dog of the magical world."

"I bet I could take one," Ben said haughtily, nursing the machine that was stuck to his wrist.

He glanced down at the Omnitrix, and was tempted to use it. As if reading his mind, there was a quiet chirp, and the cylindrical button popped out of the watch. Gwen quirked an eyebrow at him and he grinned like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. She just shook her head, going back to perusing the pages of the book. Ben felt a tingle on the back of his neck, and turned around to see that a figure was floating in the air above him, slightly blocking the sun.

Ben squinted at the shape, and then rolled his eyes as he realized it was Jenny. She was 'keeping an eye on him.' Neither of them were happy about it. The boy stuck out his tongue at her as the button retracted back into the cyber-watch, and the deadpan android girl made an obscene gesture at him in return, which made Gwen snort to hide a small laugh. As they were glaring at each other in annoyance, one of Jenny's twin tail's suddenly twitched and started to rotated on her head. Then, her eyes contracted into deadly points, and before Ben could react, she suddenly flew off, shooting through the air and fading into the distance.

"What the-?" Ben started to say.

Seconds later, an alarm began to sound from inside of the Hinobi base. Gwen and Ben swapped nervously glances and then jumped to their feet, looking around and cautiously moving towards the entrance of the building. They both jumped as two figures came up quickly behind them, grabbing them by the arms. To Gwen's surprise, it was Agent's Five and Miko.

"Hey! Let me go!" Ben growled, struggling and trying to reach for the Omnitrix.

"Dude- Kid! Quit it!" Five said, as he wrestled to calm the frantic 12-year-old, and keep his hand away from the watch. "Calm down! We need to get you both inside. We have multiple flying objects inbound!"

Ben blinked to his senses, and he and Gwen allowed themselves to be dragged inside, and ushered away through the flashing hallways and back towards their room. Once they arrived, Miko quickly barred the door and Five shuttered the windows. Gwen and Ben stood off in a corner, looking around in confusion. Gwen's was tinged with fear. Ben's with annoyance. Miko made her way across the room and peeked through the blinds.

"Can you see anything?"

"Shut up, Five."

"Let me look."

"No."

"What's-"

"Five, shut up!"

Gwen and Ben swapped another glance, as they took into account the fact that these two were supposed to be their assigned guardians. Gwen gulped, and Ben placed his nose promptly into his palm.

They were doomed.

After a few minutes of digging around in Amethyst's room, the gems and dragons managed to resurface the probe that she had captured. As she had suspected, Pearl confirmed that it was not in the design of the Gem Homeworld, nor did it use any similar tech. A few more minutes of tinkering brought the spy drone back to life, and a brief spat of hacking provided its home location to Pearl's meticulous, prodding fingers. The location, from what she could tell by its rudimentary GPS, wasn't near any active warp pads. The nearest one was miles away. They would have to warp and then do some flying.

So, now, they were soaring through the air. Jake and Lao Shi, with their mighty gift of flight, acted as ferry for Steven, Bismuth and Pearl respectively. Amethyst, meanwhile transformed into a mighty, purple bird, and bore Garnet on her back. As they flew, Pearl had Bismuth's arms around her waist for support, and was monitoring a makeshift tracker she had fashioned from the remains of the spy drone. Nobody seemed to notice her cheeks twinge periwinkle as the two gems flew upon Lao Shi.

Amethyst and Garnet ended up taking point. They were accustomed to working together, and moved faster than the others (Lao Shi with two passengers and the inexperienced Jake unaccustomed to bearing any). As they soared across the rolling hills, puncturing fluffy clouds as they did, the lavender bird and her burgundy passenger began to scope out the area for defenses or dangers.

"See anything?" Amethyst called up.

"You're the one with the bird eyes," Garnet quipped coolly. Amethyst snorted a laugh.

"Touché," she said, turning back to focus her attention on the ground. Unfortunately, she should have been looking straight ahead. "I don't see anythi- Woah!"

Looking up at the last moment, the Amethyst barely stopped herself from jousting directly into another flying object. She paused, flapping her mighty wings veer off and do a lazy loop around the area. As she did, she and Garnet got a better look at what they were up against. Appearing like a bolt of white light was some kind of android. Rocket-fire, burning white hot, was shooting out of the soles of her mechanical feet, propelling her to float in the air. She stood with her arms crossed, her head swiveling on a gyro to keep pace with them in a creepy, mechanical way.

"What the heck is that?" Amethyst said.

"Don't know," Garnet said, "stay on your guard."

"This is Global Response Unit XJ-9," the android said, her voice carrying as if it were coming out of a loudspeaker. "Alien lifeforms, stand down, and submit to custody."

"Like hell we will," Amethyst muttered, continuing to do figure-8's in the air while they pondered the situation. "What's the plan, G?"

Garnet grimaced, but didn't respond. She was focused on the robot. As they continued their aerial pacing, some kind of weapon protruded from the XJ-9's shoulder, and a red dot sight suddenly trained itself on Amethyst's side.

"Woah, woah! Red laser, red laser!"

"Submit to custody and we will resolve this peacefully," the robot said, her voice coming out with a cold edge, despite its oddly human characteristics. "Come any closer, and I will have no choice but to resort to more forceful means."

"We don't want to fight!" Garnet called down. However, her voice was drowned out by a duet of battle cries.

All three of them turned to see a brick red torpedo come flying into the scene. Jake, with Steven aboard, came zooming into view. The dragon reared back a fist, as if he were coming in to punch the android in the face. Steven held on for dear life. With no hesitation, the laser sight swiveled from being trained on the gems to being trained on Jake and Steven. Garnet and Amethyst shouted out in dismay as the laser blast went off.

"Steven!" Garnet roared. Amethyst dive bombed towards the smoke cloud that had resulted from the robot's attack. Blowing through the smoke layer, they saw Jake and Steven plummeting towards the surface below. "Amethyst!"

"On it!" Amethyst said.

Garnet, who by this point was crouched on Amethyst's back, used her as a springboard, propelling herself through the air and towards the XJ-9. The android, caught by surprise as her sensors scanned the obscuring smoke, received a powerful, smashing punch to the face from Garnet's gauntlet. The impact sent her blasting back, leaving a brief disturbance in the clouds as she went, until she faded from view, leaving only a faint dust cloud to mark her crash.

Then, Garnet dropped into a freefall. She spread her arms out and connected her legs, creating a graceful swan dive that caught the air as she fell. The wind whipped her sunglasses off of her face, but she snatched them quickly with two fingers, and held onto them as she continued to fall. She saw, far below, that Amethyst had recovered Steven. Jake, too, seemed to be coming back from the blast, though weaker, and in no shape to carry anyone. That left Garnet falling closer and closer to solid ground by the moment. At this speed, she'd surely shatter on impact. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth, waiting… Waiting...

Woosh! Garnet suddenly felt the wind knocked from her abdomen as she was caught by something sleek and textured. Snapping her eyes open, she found that she was now sprawled out over the back of the midnight dragon, Lao Shi. Bismuth and Pearl looked back at her with concern, and she quickly repositioned herself into a seated position.

"Thank you, Master Dragon!" Garnet called up to Lao Shi, who nodded his mighty head.

"Who shot first?" Pearl asked. Garnet bared her teeth, putting her sunglasses back on her face and pushing them up with two fingers.

"Them," she said. "We don't have time for the semantics. If we're gonna stop the Cluster, any wasted time could mean the end of humanity. If it has to be this way, so be it!"

They all nodded. Every member of that flight was a veteran, an experienced fighter, capable of making difficult decisions. They took no pleasure in destroying, and as they flew towards the robot's crash-site there was only hardened faces of resignation.

As they hunkered in their room, waiting for the 'all-clear', the last thing Ben and Gwen expected was for an android to come smashing through their window. They were now waiting impatiently, arms crossed, watched over by the vigilant Hammer Agents. One moment, Five was trying to make a joke about beans; the next, glass and steel were flying in every direction, and what had once been a wall was suddenly open air. Every person in the room was blasted to the floor.

Gwen recovered first, having been furthest from the debris. Looking around the destroyed room, she spotted Ben, and quickly helped him to his feet. He was lightly scraped from broken glass, but otherwise fine. Then, the two of them looked around for the source of the explosion, and found Jenny, on her back, a crater made from destroyed window behind her. There was a small scuff mark on the bridge of her nose.

"Jenny!" Gwen shouted, dashing over to her.

The android waved her hands away and stood on her own, her twin tails swiveling as she recalibrated her balance, her eyes staring back out the window she had come crashing through. Then, suddenly, Jenny turned towards a pile of smashed wall, and tilted her head. With a quick heave of her mighty limbs, she displaced the debris, revealing Five and Miko beneath, gasping for air. She helped the two tech's up, thankful that they had sustained no serious injuries.

"Jenny, what happened?" Five panted. The XJ-9 turned once more towards the sky, and frowned. The flying objects were close enough that they could see them visually now. Some kind of huge serpentine creature, as well as a strange menagerie of other alienoid beings. Gwen gulped, and Ben blinked in surprise.

"Gotta go," Jenny said. She turned to Ben and pointed an accusatory finger at him, much to his chagrin. "You. stay put! These are dangerous aliens! Mom will flip!"

Then, her rocket thrusters activated and she kicked off, flying up into the sky once again. As they watched her fly away, the two Agent's didn't hear the sound of the Omnitrix button protruding from the watch until it was too late. Gwen, however, did.

"Ben, wait," she started to say. This prompted Miko and Five to turn around. Then, their eyes flew wide, as they saw Ben's hand hovering over the watch.

"Wait, stop! Director Wakeman said that-"

"I don't care what she said. I gotta get out there and help fight!" Ben said indignantly. Then, as they moved to try and stop him, he slammed his palm down on the dial. "Heatblast!"

There was a blinding flash of green light, causing the other trio in the room to throw up their arms to shield themselves from it. As the light died down, and they blinked back their vision, they turned anxiously to see what had become of Ben. First they heard the low, rumbling growl. Then, their noses picked up on the pungent, canine stench. Finally, they were able to see the tawny fur, the wicked claws, the pulsing, fleshy gills.

"Um, Ben…" Gwen said, as the beast that was her cousin continued to snarl. "That's Wildmutt."