Author's Note: Hello again, and welcome back to Danger Watch! The dust settles and the two sides come together. Thank you so much for keeping up with the story! We're only a month away from the 1 year anniversary of the Danger Watch universe and I have to say that's just so crazy to me! Hard to think that I started this crazy project last May with Jake Long... How time flies.

Anyway, right now be sure to be supporting your Asian homies and giving them as much love as you can. Until next time, enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Nine - Differences Aside

While Wakeman was setting up the broadcasting device, an awkward silence fell across the room. It was something like a war room and something like a place where people hold board meetings. Near the end of a long table riddled with swiveling chairs were the gems. A gaggle of pastel women with deep-set scowls and closed-off demeanors. Near them, looking somewhat more amiable, was Lao Shi. He had shed his midnight scales and was now sitting comfortably in his blue robe, hands clasped politely on the table before him.

Slightly farther down the table sat Max, the older man with the Hawaiian shirt that had rushed to help Steven. The gems had seemed to tolerate his presence for that reason, but their eyes bore into Wakeman, silently demanding explanations. Wakeman, for her worth, ignored them completely, focused on getting her machine up and running. The shrewd woman knew that there was one more person who ought to be in attendance for this particular conversation. She had already swallowed her annoyance with it and resigned to the fact. She needed to Skype in her boss.

"Hah, here we go," she said, as the screen snapped on finally. A cluster of dots spun in a circle for a few brief seconds before an image of a person came through.

He was a man with short cropped, graying-brown hair and a serious, wrinkled face. He was wearing a white suit and sitting in a desk chair. As he came into view, his eyes seemed to survey the room, as he took in the image he was no doubt receiving on a similar screen somewhere else.

"Wakeman," he finally said, a curt greeting.

"Phil."

"Max."

"Hey, pal."

"... Now, you, I'm not sure I've met."

His eyes, it seemed, were looking in Lao Shi's direction. The old dragon nodded kindly, excusing the younger man's blunder.

"I'm afraid you are mistaken," he said, "but I understand your forgetfulness. It has been many long years since we fought together, and I was hardly who I am today."

"Enough formality. Let's cut to the chase, humans," the slender, pale gem known as Pearl said. "Why have you been spying on us?"

Max's eyebrows shot up, and he turned from Pearl to the video image of Phil. The officer grimaced at the camera, holding up a hand to stop the string of questions he had no doubts were about to come out of his old partner's mouth.

"A mere precaution," Phil said.

"Phil, really? After what they did for us?" Max started.

"Oh, come now, Max. We already talked about this," Wakeman said.

"Talked about what?" Garnet said, her voice slicing coolly through the conversation.

Wakeman wasn't intimidated.

"We've been monitoring your activity for some time. You might be very ancient residents, but you're extraterrestrials stationed here nonetheless. With the recent uptick in glitches we had to make sure all of our boxes were checked," she said, her voice focused and straight to the point. "You were a very big box."

"Was I box as well?" Lao Shi piped in. Max gave him an awkward smile and Wakeman raised a pale brow at him.

"Sort of," she said. "To be honest, I didn't believe you existed at first. However, with what happened this spring in NYC… All the mindwipes we had to do. Plus, Max had always been a staunch advocator for the supernatural."

"You think I was bad," Max said, "you shoulda heard my partners. Fenton was the worst, but even you, Billings, had your share of ghost stories."

"And now, it seems, they're becoming quite real," Phil said soberly. "If we can, let's try to stay focused on the topic at hand."

They all nodded in agreement, and the tone shifted back to seriousness.

"So, let's go over what we know," Max said, his old leadership instincts kicking in as he addressed the table. "Vilgax, who we all know quite well-"

"I do not know this Vilgax," Lao Shi said. "Does he sell vapor rub?"

"That's Vick's," Amethyst said.

"How do you know that?" Pearl asked. The smaller gem shrugged.

" 's tasty," she said.

"No, he doesn't sell vapor rub," Wakeman scolded the other end of the table. "He's a very dangerous alien warlord. We don't know all that much about him, but in the late-sixties-early-seventies he came down to Earth. Apparently, looking for an army. Now at that time Skyway Patrol had already been established."

"We know," Garnet said.

"We were acquainted," Pearl said. Wakeman waited for them to finish, glaring at them before she continued.

"Well, the reason I bring it up," she said, the words dripping like venom from her tongue, "if you'd let me finish… Is because by that time, Skyway had already put away a lot of aliens to… Study and rehabilitate."

Max instantly tried to smooth over the explanation to the disgusted looking gems.

"It was a different time, then," he said. "Trust me, all of us agents were against the idea, but we had no sway over the big wigs in charge. These were guys who had been around since the old war days."

"Anyway…" Wakeman seethed. "You can imagine how this might turn out. A warmonger looking for forces and a large number of likeminded captives just waiting for him to rally them. Needless to say, he did."

The woman stood back, her arms crossed. The rest of the story, all of them knew; though she told it anyway for the sake of Lao Shi. Vilgax had led his makeshift army to freedom, and then they sought bloody vengeance against the humans and any who stood with them. The secret war had lasted for nearly 2 years, ending ultimately in a last ditch raid on Vigax's land base. There, the united forces of plumbers and aliens who refused fealty to Vilgax staged an assault. The final battle had severely wounded the alien warlord, and sent him and his remaining forces fleeing to the stars, never to be seen again.

"Until, we think, now," Wakeman finished. A graphic suddenly appeared in the center of the table: a glowing green hologram. It was a slowly rotating model of a strange, alien looking wristwatch. The center of the watch, instead of a clock, bore a green hourglass.

"That's the intergalactic symbol of peace," Pearl said, instantly recognizing the shape. Wakeman raised a brow once more.

"Is it?" She said. "From what our intel has been giving us, we think it might stand for something closer to the symbol of rebellion."

"Regardless," Phil said, now fed up with the tangents. "This is the Omnitrix. It's a powerful alien shapechanging device, and we think that Vilgax wants it. On top of that, any moment a dangerous geo-weapon called 'the Cluster' is set to explode and wipe out our hemisphere like a chicken hatching from an egg. Does that all sound about right?"

Tense silence hung in the air, but everyone nodded. Phil nodded with satisfaction, and continued to speak in his commanding, 'I'm-the-boss' voice.

"Good. Our first order of business is to get working on this drill. We'll have the Glitch Techs work with the Crystal Gems and get it digistructed for you as soon as possible," Phil started. Pearl and Bismuth instantly swapped wary glances. Phil continued, ignoring Wakeman's correction of 'Hammer Agents'. "Then, our next priority should be finding out where Vilgax is setting up his base of operations. Most likely, he plans to stay a while: at least until he gets his hands on the watch. I think its best we find him before he finds us."

"He'd have to be somewhere off world," Wakeman added, "none of our terrestrial scanners have picked up a base."

"Probably somewhere hidden, too," Max said. "After last time, I doubt he'll expect to just waltz around in orbit. A satellite would spot him."

"Unless he has a stealth cloak?" Lao Shi said, almost more a question than a suggestion. Bismuth snorted, and Pearl explained it to the Dragon gently.

"A… good suggestion, Master Dragon. However, human technology has advanced sufficiently to detect large spacecraft, even if they are hiding behind a stealth field of some kind. A warship like Vilgax is no doubt commanding will have a mass too huge to hide from a satellite's radar."

Lao Shi blinked, and then nodded sagely, trying to act as if he understood.

"Oh, right," he said. "Yes, of course."

"So he'd have to have somewhere to land… Somewhere with cover from radar," Max said. They all started to see where he was going.

"Most likely, somewhere with an established, fortified position. It's doubtful he would make a brand new base if there was one waiting for him."

Amethyst finally got it.

"No way," she said, prompting them all to turn and look to her. "Is he on the moon base?"

Pearl gasped.

"No… But… Yes, of course!"

"You know this place? You can lead us there?" Phil said, instantly interested.

"We'd need a warp pad," Garnet said. "But I could show you."

"I saw one when we were landing" Bismuth said. "Looked a little messed up, but I could get it fixed up and hooked to the galaxy warp."

"How did you know to build your base on a warp pad?" Amethyst asked. Wakeman shrugged.

"Pure serendipity," she said. It was the first time her voice had been somewhat kind jovial the entire conversation. "This will have to be a recon mission, first. Stealth and observation only, until we know what we're dealing with. I'll get my best H.A.M.M.E.R agents on it."

Phil rolled his eyes as she used the term again, knowing that she was dead set on it. He didn't know why she couldn't just call them Glitch Techs like everyone else at Hinobi. Of course, that had always been Nora's style. Her way or the highway. With that, he clasped his hands together and nodded from behind the digital screen.

"Alright," he said. "With that, I think we're done here. You know your roles. Good luck to you all."

Elsewhere on the Hinobi base there was a small lounge that was normally used by the younger techs. The room had now been repurposed to house the teens as their mentors discussed the matters at hand. It was a plush sort of recreational space, with sofas, bean-bag chairs, a large television, and several arcade game boxes. Hinobi was partially a gaming company after all, and their signature capital 'H' was found covering everything in the room, from the carpet to the lampshades.

Jenny, who often came to this room with Five and Miko, was leaning against the tall glass window beside the door, her arms crossed. She was partially watching the other teens, but sometimes glancing out to watch the techs moving around the base, hoping maybe to see someone in need of help. Anything for her to do besides babysitting the terror that was Ben. The young boy had already gotten into a fight with one of the other kids: Jake.

Jake and Gwen had been sitting on the couch, and there had been awkward silence as everyone sort of adjusted to each others presence. Steven had tried to clear the air with a joke a couple of times, and while Jake had sort of laughed, the other three had stayed quiet and reserved. That was, until Jake cleared his throat, and gestured to the book that Gwen was paging through.

"Yo, is that a troll?" He had said, reaching over to stop her from flipping the page over. His goal was to linger on the page a bit longer and look the illustration, but he ended up accidently brushing his hand over Gwen's. The girl had froze, and sucked in a breath through her nose, before looking to Jake. The boy was sitting a bit closer to her then, but his attention was fully seized by the page of the book.

"You... know about trolls?" Gwen had asked. Then it hit her. "Wait, ahaha, of course you do. You're like- the Dragon."

Jake rubbed the back of his neck humbly, and Gwen's cheeks flushed slightly pink.

"I'm not the Dragon," he said. "Heh, not yet anyway. I'm more like dragon-in-training."

Gwen giggled at that, and Jake gestured to the book.

"This thing is awesome. So, where'd you get it?" He said.

"My, uh, grandpa gave it to me," she said. "Corny, I know."

"Nah, that's dope," Jake said, causing Gwen's cheeks to turn a deeper shade of red. "I wish my grandpa would give me cool stuff like that. All I usually get is grocery lists, and chore lists, and exercise lists…"

"That a lotta lists," Gwen said.

They both laughed again, and at this point, from across the room at one of the arcade boxes, Ben seemed to take note of their little encounter. Seeing them sitting so close to each other, he made a quiet gagging noise, followed by a disgusted face. He started to walk over to try and break it up.

"What are these ones like?" Gwen asked, pointing to a page in the book.

"Minotaur? Oh, man," Jake said wryly. "Tough. Mean… But pretty chill if you get to know them."

"No way," Gwen said.

"Didn't you say you fought a minotaur?" Steven asked, from his spot in a nearby blue beanbag. "And won?"

Gwen raised her eyebrows and looked to Jake, who quickly waved away her surprise with a sheepish hand.

"Well… yeah," he said. "I didn't really do it alone, though. I had some help. Not to mention the dragon's form saved my butt in that fight."

"Wow, you're so cool," Ben said, finally showing up on the scene and crossing his arms as he leered over the pair on the couch. "You can turn into one thing."

Gwen glared daggers at Ben.

"Ignore him," she said. Jake, however, was not going to take that lightly

"Yo, what's that supposed to mean?" he said, quickly standing.

"Oh, nothing," Ben said smugly. "Its just way cooler to have multiple transformations. That's all."

"Well, at least I don't have to rely on some alien tapeworm for my powers!" Jake countered.

Steven quickly stood as well, trying to get in between the other two boys and mediate. The tension between then was growing however, and they all but ignored the half-gem as they continued to glare. Jenny had now keyed into the conflict as well, and was watching with mild curiosity from across the room.

"Come on, guys," Steven said.

"You think you can take me, Dragon Boy?" Ben said. Jake snorted.

"I don't think it'd be worth my time," he said. Rage flared up in Ben's eyes and there was a telltale chime as the Omnitrix's face suddenly popped out, prime for action.

"Ben!" Gwen said incredulously, as if he had just pulled a knife.

"Grrr, FINE!" Ben said, and the watch switched back to its passive mode. "Then we settle this the old-fashioned way… Mortal Kombat!"

Jake suddenly grinned.

"Oh, you're so on!"

The two boys instantly ran over to the nearest arcade box, which had been jailbroken by the Hinobi science guys to play dozens of retro games for free. They quickly chose their game of choice, and Steven and Gwen came to crowd behind them. Even Jenny walked over, now, her arms still crossed. She stood in the back, easily able to see the screen from her towering height above the others. Both boys selected their characters. ('Johnny Cage!' for Jake. 'Reptile!' for Ben.)

"Ready?" Jake asked.

"I'm taking you down, Dragon Boy!"

"3… 2… 1… Fight!" the tinny announcer voice said.

The boys instantly flew into a flurry of fingers, focused intently on the game. Their plxelized avatars began to move back and forth, throwing kicks, punches, tongue lashes, and more as they tried to beat the other into submission. As they continued to duke it out, it proved that Jake was slightly better, but Ben was holding his own through some lucky close calls. The battle started to get so intense, that Gwen, Steven, and Jenny began to cheer for particularly brutal combos. It even got to the point that the XJ-9 started shouting "I call winner! I call winner!"

From outside of the lounge, across the open floor of the Hinobi Base, two agents were watching the youths through the glass windows. Miko grinned as she saw a bit of Jenny's childishness shine through, and she gently nudged Five.

"Aw, look at her," she said. "Makin' friends."

"I knew she'd warm up to them," Five said. "Its good for her to have some people close to her age."

The two continued to watch with a strange sense of happiness and pride, before they were suddenly flagged down a jogging H.A.M.M.E.R agent. The young man informed them that Wakeman wanted them in her office, and that the reason she hadn't called them over their comms was because it was highly confidential. Five nodded seriously, and began walking towards the Director's office. Miko watched the courier walk off, and then jogged to catch up with Five.

"What's that all about?" She wondered out loud.

"Don't know," Five responded, mostly out of habit, as they approached Wakeman's door. "Guess we'll find out."

Miko knocked.

"Come in," came a voice from behind the door.

Five opened the door, and the two of them strode into the small office, closing the door behind them. There, Wakeman sat at her desk, hands steepled before her. She gestured across from her to a pair of vacant seats, and the two young adults took them. Then, she slid a manila folder across the desk to each of them. The two agents opened them, and found various documents held down by a fountain pen, also branded with the signature Hinobi 'H'.

"What are these?" Five asked.

"Liability contracts," Wakeman said instantly.

"Huh?" Five asked. "What for?"

Wakeman sighed, and Miko and Five looked at each other nervously.

"I'm putting you on an assignment," she said. "And we are under strict rules from corporate. Your first time going to space you have to sign the liability forms."

"Wait, did you say space?" Miko repeated. Wakeman's face was almost smug.

"You heard me. Now, hurry up and sign those. We're burning time."