Half a year since he defeated Darkseid. These months expired at a snail's pace compared to the last few years. Ben felt entangled in his own head most of the time. Perhaps that was what made every minute feel like hours.
Acclimating to Earth culture was more complicated than he expected it to be. Everything here was so convoluted. There was a sense of simplicity in the Null Void that he offtimes missed. If you survived as long as the man standing beside you, you know you cannot truly trust anyone. Despite that, there were those that he did, though.
Good men. Strong men. Men that had integrity and honesty when it mattered. Men that he trusted with his life, and they trusted theirs with him. Though, those connections were not easily found or discovered. It wasn't easy to find confidence in those connections during their infancy. It took time for those connections to be forged. To be trusted. Ben rarely made that mistake after his first string of betrayals. The amount of trust that had to be extended from both sides was unheard of.
If he were a lesser man, he would be lying dead in a ditch from all the daggers he's received in the back. But he learned his lesson. He comprehended the truth about the Null Void soon enough.
Everyone was solely there to improve their interests. Trust in a man's greed, trust in his fear, and his emotional instability. You could always see those qualities and use them to predict their behavior. Ben learned that just as he discovered how to survive, for learning how to survive, you must understand how others think and how they operate.
Asking for help wasn't a strong point of his. Never was. His time in the Null Void left him entirely dependent on himself. Within the Null Void, that quality was sternly ingrained into him. Requesting assistance was such a novel idea there. Surviving in the Null Void alone, it was a pipedream, though, even with the strongest weapon in the universe. You needed those you could depend on, if only a little. A network of individuals you can trust to serve their self-interests. There, he learned the precious skills of aligning someone else's interests with his own to better his position. It saved his life more times than he cared to count.
The threats were never-ending. Never ceasing. Unrelenting. The ocean of filth never stopped gushing from the proverbial and, on occasion, literal sewer.
There was a general rule many lived by. If you ever feel safe in a hostile environment, you are a living, breathing fool. Good thing is, you wouldn't remain that way for long. For one reason or another.
He felt safe once.
Ben made that particular error. He took a spear to the gut for it.
You tend to learn from your mistakes, or you don't last very long. The smart ones, however, learned from the mistakes of others. Ben did both, but it did not stop him from making his own.
In the Null Void, he spent a lot of his time alone. It left him calloused, but it also allowed him to become self-dependent. It was strength in there—a sense of resiliency. One you learned early on. Those that lived, anyway.
Most people, at least those not born there, were already loners. It wasn't difficult for them to adjust.
But Ben, prior to his capture, had a family. He didn't have many friends, not for a while he hadn't. Maybe he, too, was a loner, considering his best friend was his grandfather, and the person he connected with the most was his geek of a cousin. It was pathetic by Earth's norms; he was beginning to comprehend that again. Ben didn't care much about those.
Not anymore.
Spend more than half your life in a dimension with no rules, you start to adopt their methods, their way of thinking. At first, just for survival. That's what you tell yourself. Just to even the playing field, you plead with your own morality. Then you do it because it's easier. You begin to discover that taking unnecessary risks eventually gets you killed. Morals were one of those unnecessary risks. As were discarding any hope of returning back home. Those fantasies would murder you bloody. All of your attention was to be spent on survival if you wished to see another day.
Ben was taught this personally.
"You think you're the only one with a family back where you come from? Kid, you have no idea what you just stepped in. You've just wandered into a dimension so vast… so limitless, it's unfathomable. Get rid of any fleeting notion of escaping. It's impossible, kid. Trust me. I've tried."
Ben's eyes shadowed over at those words. Nevertheless, even after spending years and years in the Null Void, those lessons still rang true in his mind.
Elsewhere, two hundred miles away, Randall Mikavic, the fourth most prosperous illegal arms dealer in the world, oversaw his most recent deal.
The old man was stout, although not very tall. He wore a colorful, eye-catching suit that coincided nicely with his piercing sea-green eyes. Mikavic stared at the massive sphere that was assumed to be a bomb. Mikavic knew about bombs. Not the technicalities, but he'd seen enough of them to understand what was and wasn't a bomb. This thing right here didn't look like one at all.
"The specs check out, but I'm…" Levon Hastings, his demolitions expert, muttered uncertainly. He was here to identify the explosives and ensure they were operational and weren't being duped. "Well, I'm having issues with the readings."
"Issues?" Mikavic inquired. His thick Russian accent made him seem even more intimidating. "What, you and the bomb need to go for marriage counseling or something? What's wrong with it?"
Benjamin Vitale, the man who was selling the hardware, took exception. "There is nothing wrong with it," he told his buyer. He was Italian, just as the cloth was in his suit. "This idiot who works for you doesn't know what he's talking about. The weapon is solid. Trust me."
"Trust you? Trust you, eh?" Mikavic asked. "Do you know how much Mr. Hastings made before he came into my employ? Millions. He worked closely with his government to help create and verify the condition of explosives. Do you know how much money I had to give to convince him to work for me?" Vitale looked stone cold. "No, I do not think you do. Mr. Hastings is the very best at what he does. Insult my staff again, and you will not like the results, Mr. Vitale."
"Are you threatening me?"
"No. A promise. A promise, Mr. Vitale. Much like the promise of three hundred kilograms worth of C6 explosive ordinance. A kilogram of that has more power than ten times that in C4. I am willing to pay you more than I've ever laid down. And to sweeten the pot, you'll have contacts and a quarter of my routes through Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, and finally, Iraq. I am not saying your weapon is defective. I am not questioning your integrity. No, Mr. Vitale, that is for Mr. Hastings to do."
"I—" Levon stammered before sighing as he studied the readings off his device. "I can't see any way this thing can actually blow up. All I'm detecting inside is organic material. Completely biological."
"Biological?" Even though his voice was calm, there was fury in Mikavic's voice. Vitale was beginning to understand why he was one of the most dangerous men in Europe. "You are trying to sell me some plague, Mr. Vitale? I can acquire biological material and weapons anywhere in the world with a snap of my finger for an eighth of the price. I will only ask once before I take my resources and find someone who can sell me what I require. Now, tell me, how does this device work?"
"I don't know!" Vitale barked. "Our inside man got killed. I know it's dropped from a plane, and in four hours, the city's gone."
"And you tried pushing this over to me? Four hours hardly means anything—" Mikavic was interrupted by the sound of pressurized gas, followed by Hastings knees hitting the floor.
Eyes full of terror, he regarded the machine. "I—I think it's active."
"What?!"
Vitale grabbed his men and pushed them back. "Run! Go! We don't know what that thing will do!"
When the Italian finished, a circle opened in the device and what appeared like a lid fell off from the side. Hastings viewed it, blinking, stunned.
"That was, how you say... a bit anticlimactic," he muttered, scanning the metal.
Vitale slowed, carefully approaching it, thinking maybe it was a dud.
"What… what's in there?"
Mikavic neared the sphere. He was only just noticing how massive it was. The orb dwarfed them in size. A black mass of darkness lay inside. So black, so boundless, no light could pierce the hole. It simply existed. Then two red dots flickered.
"It looks like an eye—"
"Neural pathways incomplete. External source input required to begin protocol."
"What the hell—"
Black vines swarmed out from the abyss and snatched Mikavic's soul, much to everyone else's horror.
Mikavic screamed, his voice warping into a disgusting, horrid amalgam of voices. The mere sound of his screams made everyone want to rend their ears off in terror as the abomination in Mikavic's place shifted, growing, its body warping with its voice.
Elsewhere, Power Girl stood atop a high-rise in mild annoyance. She wasn't having a good day. Not at all. Her friend, Ben, had to cancel their plans yesterday because he got busy. The very next, much of the same. Finally, he was free and asked her out to lunch somewhere, but when she received an alert from her company, Starrwave, she was forced to cancel.
Now, she had to deal with another friend's issues.
Booster Gold, or Boost as she liked to call him, was that problem. He was a mild-mannered man. Despite being one of the least popular and forgotten Justice League member, he still had a heart of gold. Unfortunately, not many could see passed his showmanship and exorbitant ego.
Time travelers were strange that way.
Boost was no exception to that rule.
"His name is Max Lord," Booster held up a picture of a smiling man with light hair, frown lines, and relatively slanted eyes. "You've known him for years, and—"
"I heard you," she interrupted him. "He's some tyrannical madman with the ability to manipulate minds who we've all been apparently for years until Wonder Woman killed him. If that's true, if he's really that kind of monster, good riddance."
"Yes," Booster said, looking elsewhere for a moment. He didn't lose any sleep over his death. He just regretted that Wonder Woman was the one who did it. But judging by several factors, Maxwell Lord might not even be dead.
"Except nobody remembers this except you?" she asked skeptically.
"Me, Atom, Fire and Ice. Max wiped knowledge of his existence from everyone else's memory."
Power Girl winced. A story of a man who can manipulate minds, that wasn't crazy or abnormal to her. But to hear that Wonder Woman killed him—not crazy at all, either, now that she thought about it. It wouldn't be the first time she went over that side of the line. But to say no one remembers except him and a few others was a little fishy to her.
"That boat feels a little leaky, Booster."
"I know. I know. I was hoping you'd remembered too. Freaky Kryptonian stuff and all that jazz." He was going out on a limb. He'd already checked every base. Every stone had been turned over. He wouldn't have come here, his only basis for her remembering these supposed instances being "freaky Kryptonian stuff" if there were any more leads.
Power Girl sighed, feeling a rush of sympathy rush over her. Comfortingly, she grasped his shoulder, bringing his attention back to her.
"Boost, I'm sorry. I know you're serious. You would never lie about something like this. Everyone may chalk this up to you making a story to get attention, but I know better. It's not that I don't believe you. Trust me, I do. You're a friend. But I don't have time for this right now."
"I get it," he tried smiling, but it just came out as a grimace. "You're having trouble at work."
"We'll talk later, okay? I promise. You know me. I never—"
"You never go back on your promises," he completed for her with a downtrodden smile. "Okay. See you later, Pee-Gee." With that, he took to the air.
"Damn it, Michael! I told you not to call me that!" She wasn't angry at him. Quite the opposite. Even though Booster Gold was sad, which was a sporadic occurrence. Like Batman smiling, Green Lantern not making jokes, and Flash not pulling pranks. To see Boost upset didn't feel right. Even then, he still managed to make her feel a little bit better with his remarks. Now that was Booster Gold.
Just then, something buzzed in her ear. "What," she mumbled, startled. Oh, right. It's Nico's new earring phone. She lightly flicked her earlobe, answering the call.
"What's up, Nico?"
"You've got to get back here! They're pulling all the hard drives, and not all of the material on them is company business! They're taking everything, god damn it!"
Power Girl growled. Damn you, Donna! When I find you, I'm going to kill you, you stealing, cheating, money-grubbing, lying whore! Donna Anderson a lying, no good CFO. She used her position, gaining her trust, and covertly embezzled what may have been billions. Not only that, but she illegally signed away many of Starrware's intellectual property rights. When Power Girl went to confront her, she disappeared. She had been tracking her since then but to no avail.
And now, as a result, Starrware Industries was facing bankruptcy. Now, if Nico wasn't exaggerating, all of their equipment was being seized.
This day can't get any worse.
"I'm on my way," Power Girl declared. But then, something sneaked into her world. It sounded like a crash, almost. Curiosity peeked, she extended her senses outward and heard screaming, more bangs, rumbles, and loud shattering impacts.
Sometimes, I really hate this job.
Power Girl leaped up into the air, shattering the sound barrier.
"Nico, you and Simon hold down the fort. I've got an emergency."
"What?!" he shrieked in her ear. "Emergency?! We've got Bank Gestapo gutting our offices! What could possibly be—"
Power Girl cut off the device.
Arriving at the scene, she found several warehouses obliterated, all in a row. They were torn through as if a hurricane ran its course through here. They were wasted, smoke and vapor were still rising from some debris. Then, the fourth repository started quaking. Seeing the signs of destabilization, she flew down and used her vision.
There! Someone's inside!
"Hang on! I'm coming! Help is one the… way." Power Girl paused, swallowing saliva down her suddenly dry throat.
A wall collapsed, revealing a very tall purple-skinned humanoid. He had yellow pupilless eyes, no eyebrows, and a wry frame. He must have been at least seven feet tall. Strangely enough, this man, alien, monster, whatever he was, was wearing an odd black and green suit. Upon closer inspection, she noted several small, circular cavities along his arms.
"Didn't see that coming."
"I'm fine," the man spoke. "I have a job to do."
"Which is what? Because if it's interior decorating, I suggest you start with throw pillows and some drapes first. This is all a bit much."
The man's lip curdled like milk. "Great. A comedian. I guess if ya look like a giant basketball player had sex with a grape, yer gonna get the jokes."
Power Girl frowned. "Who are you?"
"Great question!" he said brightly. "I'm having some trouble coughing up the answer since my systems aren't all online yet."
"Okay…" she trailed off. Whatever the hell that means!
"Wild guess, you're a robot?"
"Ya think?!" he snapped. Power Girl stepped back. "I used to be Randall Mikavic… but this thing didn't have all of its eggs in its basket yet and needed to "assimilate this neural pathway structure of a woman brain." Heh. Listen to me! I barely know what the fuck I'm talking 'bout! I'm actually dead! Crushed into meat pizza under eight tons of destroyed warehouse, three doors down! But a copy of my brain's cooking away in this giant Slim Jim! I don't even have junk, for Pete's sake!"
"Junk?" Power Girl raised an eyebrow. So he was a eunuch?
"I'm like a fucking ken doll down south! This no way for a man to have to live!"
She felt pity for him. After all, she couldn't imagine life without womanly body parts. She imagined most men would feel the same about their male organs.
"That's why you're wrecking stuff? Sorry, bud, I feel bad for you, but you can't destroy personal property."
Randall, or whoever this guy was, turned, cocking his head, his eyes crossing.
"Hang on. Apparently, I have a job to do."
Power Girl blinked as he yanked a support beam off the building.
"A "primary function." But I'm still booting up, so its specific nature is still unknown to me. That said, I am at least aware that I am required to destroy all of my surroundings."
Power Girl felt her eyes swell as he abruptly flung the beam at her. Sidestepping, the beam struck another building. The object's speed broke the sound barrier and shattered the windows of the building before the beam even hit it.
"My fault for getting chatty," she mumbled, flying ahead and tackling him. "Sorry, big man, but I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but you're gonna need a time-out!" She plowed him through several walls.
The man put his feet down, halting their progress. "You think I want to do this?!" he shouted as he held her still. "I'm riding shotgun in my own head! All I keep hearing is… "I have a job to do." Power Girl was grabbed, and in the next second, she was thrown into the air.
Okay. This is really friggin' weird, but I so do not have the patience for this today.
Power Girl watched as he grabbed the edges of another warehouse and yanked it up from the ground. He hefted it up without a struggle—an entire building, parts of the concrete it was planted into were being dragged out as well. Power Girl folded her knees into her stomach and shielded her upper body with arms as he flung the building at her.
Part of the structure fragmented upon impact. As she thought, it was pitched with considerable force. But she was Kryptonian. It'll take a lot more to harm me, she thought confidently as pieces of the enormous structure sank into the ocean.
Strong. Whoever made this thing did an excellent job. I hope it's not alien in design. War-mongering alien morons always make much better stuff than war-mongering Earth morons.
Both hands clenched, her eyes narrowed into a deadly glare. No reason to be nice now.
In a snap, she tackled into the ground. The ground under them cracked at the force.
With his face to the floor, he spoke, "I have a job—"
"A job to do. Yeah, I know. I caught it the first time."
He looked up at her from the corner of his eye. "You are Power Girl. Kryptonian. One of three possible objectives."
"One of three possible objectives?" Now, what are you going on about?" She asked, mildly exasperated.
"Systems online. Protocol activated."
"Wha—" the purple man's eyes glowed menacingly. Then, in a flash, before she could even blink, Power Girl was whacked through stacks of shipping containers.
Laying sprawled out on her back, her cape placed underneath her head. Her eyes were half closed, hair sprawled over her muddy forehead. The holes her body created appeared as if a massive bullet had formed them.
Ow. Okay. That hurt. He's worse than Humanite. I just got pasted. He moved faster than I could track. This purple Barney-looking motherfucker just blitzed me. Power Girl forced herself to bring her hands up, his fist smashed into her arms and her bones rattled. He's even stronger than before! I know for a fact he wasn't that strong a second ago.
He entered her vision and hammered her further into the cement.
And faster—
Power Girl tried smacking him, but he caught her hand, twisted her wrist, and rammed his foot into her stomach. Blood rushed up and breached her lips without her consent. Ruthless, he hoisted her up by her throat and flung her.
Hundreds of feet up, she slowed her ascent, grimacing. "Okay. This guy is growing on my nerves..." she trailed off, her voice becoming smaller, unlike Barney. She watched, stunned, overwhelmed as Mikavic suddenly grew a foot in height and gained over four hundred pounds in raw muscle. "And apparently, growing every other way as well."
"Assimilation complete."
Power Girl swallowed. "This isn't gonna be good."
In a flash, he was in front of her. Power Girl just barely dodged a punch but failed to anticipate a kick. She fell to the Earth like a comet. The sheer force of the impact caused an explosion to erupt, decimating the dock and everything within a quarter-mile radius.
She rubbed her head, dirt seeping from her hair. Blood leaked into the ground, out from her mouth. Glaring up through barely parted eyelids, she watched as Mikavic approached, all nine-feet, six-hundred pounds of him. Power Girl coughed, splattering more fluid out from her rosy lips.
Why did I explode? She asked brokenly.
"All systems online. Functioning at full freaking capacity. With that, I am only partially aware of all my protocols. Including my primary objective."
"Right. You did say you had a job to do," she admitted, voice croaky and slight.
"That's right. But my job description has been amped. Now, I am tasked to destroy all of New York City."
"Of course you are," Power Girl whispered, voice strained. She looked down at her dusty and abused hands. "It's unlike me… but I'm gonna need some help."
"No one is here to help you." Hands up, he prepared to unleash another wave of attacks. Throwing both down, Power Girl closed her eyes, waiting for it to come. Only the pain never did.
Cautiously, she opened her baby blue's and found a red four-armed creature standing before her. He held Mikavic's arms with four of his own and struggled mightily. His body quivered as he wrestled to keep him at bay.
"I heard your call," Ben's rough voice cracked out.
"Took you long enough," she murmured weakly.
Losing ground quickly, Mikavic's strength continuing to rise, Ben transformed. Unleashing a high-powered jet of dark green slimy liquid, Mikavic was pushed back. Even though she was still feeling the brutal attacks, Power Girl managed to raise an eyebrow in interest.
This new alien was a bulbous creature resembling a pufferfish with legs colored green on its exterior and pale green on its inner side. He had three spikes sticking out the top and bottom of his head, arms with four-fingered hands, short and stubby legs, and a long tail. His mouth accounted for most of his front, which was filled with serrated teeth, and his eyes connected to the corners of his lips. He wore black pants, and the Omnitrix remained on his stomach, appearing to be attached to a belt-buckle.
Mikavic wiped the goo off his body, not a care in the world.
"I feel amazing! There are thousands of kinds of noise running through my melon right now. Protocols. Computer code. Commands. Probabilities. Strategies. But mostly, it's this enormous rush of destructive ass-kicking power," Mikavic laughed, his now red eyes glittering. "It used to take eight prostitutes, a week in Vegas, and closing a five million dollar deal to feel this good. I like this. How about you, Hot Pants? Y'feeling okay?"
"Screw you," she muttered weakly before addressing her friend. He did seem the type to have to pay for sex. "Tell me you have a plan. Or else, we're gonna be splats on the pavement real soon here."
Ben closed his mouth, ooze seeped past his lips. The Omnitrix symbol on his stomach glowed. He transformed back into Four Arms.
"I'm still playing catch-up. I'll get back to you on that." Ben touched his left ear, activating his communications device. "Grandpa, I have a situation here." Mikavic grinned, sending a shiver down Power Girl's spine; Ben narrowed his four yellow eyes.
"Talk to me."
"I have a…" Ben paused. "What do I have here?" Power Girl gathered her footing, holding her aching left arm.
"He says he has a mission and doesn't have any control over what he's doing. His primary objective is to destroy New York. Said his name was Randall Mikavic."
Ben watched as Mikavic slowly started making his way, heavy footsteps rumbling. "You got that, Grandpa?"
"I'll see what I can do. Be careful, Ben."
The line went dead, and Ben blocked a blow before returning one of his own. A black-gloved fist slammed into Mikavic's admittedly massive cheek. It did absolutely nothing. Ben blinked, and a fist was lodged in his stomach. He doubled down, coughing. Mikavic grinned and went to spike Ben down, only he was kicked back by Power Girl.
"I barely felt that! C'mon! Make it interesting for me!" He elbowed her, then grabbed her face and smacked her repeatedly into the dirt. One eye peeped out through the gap of one of his chunky fingers. Power Girl narrowed it and summed her optic vision.
It caused him to flinch slightly, just enough for Ben to land a blow with all four arms and every ounce of strength he had. Power Girl fell from his grasp. Ben caught her and leaped away, repeatedly, gaining distance. Eventually, he set her down behind a shipping container. Then, he transformed back into human form.
Wincing, he lightly brushed her already bruising cheek. She flinched from his touch, but he held her chin firmly, looking straight into her cerulean eyes. For a moment, they locked gazes, her eyes softening. Ben lightly grazed his finger across one of her prominent cheekbones. Just when she felt a light blush upon her cheeks, he spoke.
"You don't look so good," he said softly.
She lightly grasped his hand. "I feel like a million bucks."
Ben snorted at her dry tone. "I'm sorry."
"For what? There's nothing you could have done."
"You're a friend. I don't have too many of those. But I protect them with everything I have. Down to my last breath, if need be."
Power Girl smirked. "So we're friends now, huh?"
"We've met almost every day for the past three weeks. I actually have someone to drink with now. Yeah, I'd say we're friends."
"Meeting? Is that what you call rocking the bed together?" Ben averted his gaze. She smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. But enough of the soft, heart-to-heart bull-crap. I wanna turn this guy inside-out."
Ben released his touch and stood at full height. He peered over the edge of the shipping container, spotting Mikavic destroying everything in his path. "His primary objective is to destroy New York, you said?" Power Girl nodded affirmatively. "Then I say… we have, maybe, a couple of minutes before he gets bored of this port and moves inland."
"So we've got to come up with a plan quickly, then."
Mikavic picked up a shipping container, peeked under it, and then tossed it. He frowned when he found zilch beneath it.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he sang. "C'mon! Stop hiding!"
"Who's hiding!"
Mikavic turned, only to receive a whack upside the head by a utility pole. Sailing up, his head bounced off the edge of a pearly red container, denting it terribly.
Getting up, he scratched his cranium. "That was so not cool."
"Get used to... it!" Power Girl shouted, striking him several times, only for Mikavic to deflect one blow and return it two-fold.
When Mikavic went for a crippling kick, Power Girl's body was snatched out of the air. "Where?!"
"Up here," said a squeaky voice. Mikavic found a red, humanoid manta ray-like creature floating up with Power Girl in his arms. He let her go soon after, she floated herself.
"Who are you?"
Ben grinned, transforming back into Four Arms. He landed in a crouch, his smirk still in place. Power Girl floated down beside him.
"What's wrong? Don't recognize me?"
"So you can shapeshift, eh? Surprising."
Ben cracked all his knuckles in each of his four hands. "You're gonna regret touching her." Power Girl blinked at his words but watched as Ben and Mikavic crashed together. A shockwave blew her shoulder-length blond hair away.
Following his lead, Power Girl flew above. Ben was swatted away like a bug after landing one shot. She attacked from a higher position. Power Girl got off a few strikes, but they did little damage.
Mikavic grabbed Four Arms and threw him into her. They rolled on the ground, tangled with one another. Mikavic jumped up, hands conjoined, and smashed them down. Land around them cracked before erupting in fissures. A massive outburst of dirt vapor blew upwards.
Power Girl and Ben lay at the bottom of the vast crater, Mikavic standing over them. "I expected more out of a Kryptonian. Pity. Nevertheless, it was a fun bout. Maybe New York City will be the rush I'm looking for."
Ben stumbled to his feet, Power Girl as well. He held his topmost left arm. "If it's a rush you're looking for, allow me." In a flash, he was in the air as Stinkfly.
At first, Power Girl wondered what this alien could do. Her question was answered when Ben spat out a glob of murky goo from his mouth. Arrogant as he was, Mikavic allowed it hit his chest. Ben shifted again, this time into Heatblast. A flame lit up in his hand, Ben flung it. The fire responded violently, and the Lepidopterran goo vehemently denoted.
This was the first attack that Ben had seen that managed to put him on his back. He retracted his hand back, frowning.
"That's not going to last long," Ben muttered.
"Was that all you had in mind?"
He growled at her statement. "Fine. You want this over? I'll end it. This guy is pissing me off, anyway." He held his hand over the Omnitrix on his chest, intent on taking this battle even further, but a voice entered his head.
"Its name is C.R.A.S.H. It's an acronym. He's basically a bomb that never explodes. Drop him anywhere within a ten-mile radius of a city, and it'll be wiped off the map. There is a catch, though. It seems like he has a time limit."
"How long?"
"Four hours."
"Then that leaves about an hour to go." Ben furrowed his brows, his brain working as fast as humanly possible, scouring for potential strategies. Finally, one in mind, he turned to Power Girl.
"What's the plan?"
"I'll let you know when I do." Ben grasped the symbol on his chest. "Give me something."
For a second, Power Girl wondered who he was talking to until he transformed once again. He took on the form of a grotesque squid-like alien. Its skin was a sickly yellow, and revolting brown blemishes stretched across its body. Although, it, Ben, she had to remind herself, seemed to have two tentacles for "arms." She peered closer, noting a layer of padding or—suction cups?—at their peaks. Its eyes, Ben's eyes, were a burnt red, similar to an aged brick. He had a large mouth and likewise large, flat teeth.
"A Cephalod-ae?" Ben questioned airily. Not only in demeanor, but his voice sounded weightless.
"Is this alien strong?" she asked as Mikavic approached half-hazardly. "Please, tell me it is."
"To be honest, I am not sure. I have never employed this form, I am afraid. Although, his species, I have encountered them several times throughout my daring journeys throughout the Null Void," he spoke eloquently.
Did Ben's alien forms have personalities of their own? Differing and unique speech patterns? Ben never spoke like this. Come to think of it, when he was in that four-armed state of his, he spoke in blunter sentences and growled frequently. Maybe those alien forms did influence his personality somewhat. But these were matters for another time. She made a mental note, if they both made it out of this with their rear-ends still attached, to ask more about the Omnitrix.
"C'mere!"
Mikavic suddenly lunged, reaching in with his bulbous hands. He grabbed Ben and squeezed. Power Girl speared her fist into his rock-hard abdomen, but all she did was obliterate the ground beneath her and further wound her wrists and knuckles. Although, Ben's squid-like body did not break like Mikavic and Power Girl expected. Instead, Ben nimbly coiled around Mikavic.
Their faces were mere inches apart. Ben opened his mouth so-wide Power Girl thought he would take a bite out of Mikavic's melon for a second. But a fountain of black ooze drained from his gullet. Mikavic wrestled against his restraints and prevailed almost immediately. His eyesight, though, was stained by slime that gushed out from everywhere.
Power Girl took that opportunity to ram her fist under Mikavic's protuberant chin, and he cast into a set of shipping containers. Ben's tentacles lengthened. He lugged several pairs of cargo containers and bashed them together. Power Girl lit them ablaze in a single pulse of her heat vision. She then grabbed Ben and retreated backward.
"That will not hold him, my dear. Not for long, leastwise."
"It doesn't need to."
They set down half a mile away. The two of them could still overlook the site. Predictably, the ground, even from afar, vibrated anxiously. His roaring, rageful shout was heard from here.
"I just gave you a minute to think. Get to it—"
Ben briefly returned to his human form. Though, he was still protected by his armor. "I have an idea, but you're not gonna like it."
She sighed, her head hung low. When Mikavic flung several hundred tons of steel damn near into orbit, she nodded. "What do I need to do?" They didn't have time to argue. It seemed like the longer this fight continued, the stronger he got.
"He has a time limit. Four hours. I have an alien that can win us the battle, but I need you to hold him off so I can prepare it. Think you can manage that?"
Power Girl cracked her neck, hunching low, muscles tensing. "My pleasure." In a boom, she was off, clashing fists with the massive Crash.
A breath in, and Ben transformed into a new alien. He was a large, bulky, reddish-brown alien with stony skin, a giant mouth with teeth made of rocks, and a molten lava planet core at the center of his body. His feet were tan with three toes, and he had three fingers and one thumb on each hand. He wore black shorts with white stripes and the Omnitrix symbol on his forehead.
"Haven't used you in a while. Let's give this a shot, shall we?" Gravattack clapped his meaty hands together, his fingers curling into each other. A light rumble wove through his feet and into the scarred soil.
Power Girl crossed her arms over her chest, blocking an attack before giving one back. It was evident that there was a time limit on his power. She felt as if he was slower. There wasn't as much force behind his blows. Granted, her bones still rattled within her skin after every punch, blocked or not. But he wasn't as scarily intense. She could actually contend with him.
Just as she thought that he picked up a car and used it as a battering ram, she gasped, air snapping out of her lungs as she was stabbed into the floor. He was on her in the next second. Mikavic stomped on her head, Power Girl barely managed to dodge. She unleashed her optic vision yet again. Mikavic stumbled back, her attack singing his chest.
Instead of doing significant damage, that only made him angrier. As Power Girl was about to learn, his power responded to his rage like a Kryptonian. Faster than she could react, he grabbed her by her taut torso. Both hands meeting, she was slammed repeatedly like a ragdoll. Each one more brutal than the last. By the end of it, he held her up by her foot. Power Girl dangled, cuts opened up all around her.
Gravattack was what he named this alien before he stopped naming his alien forms. He shut his eyes for a moment before the orange-narrowed orbs snapped open. He held out one hand, gravitation forces reacting to command. Mikavic felt his core churn. Then, to his shock, he watched as Power Girl was stolen from his grasp.
"Hey, what the hell?! That was mine!" Mikavic petulantly stomped his foot.
Ben returned her back to his side. He forged an exemption field around her, ensuring his power wouldn't affect her. Clapping both hands together once again, a dark wave surged from him. The terrain fluttered, arbitrary entities floating off the ground. In a majestic display of authority over one of the primordial forces in the universe, he summoned an invisible aura around Mikavic.
"You're a tough son of a bitch, but even you can't resist gravity."
Mikavic growled as he felt his limbs unwittingly shoot out. His arms and legs were wide, his body now floating in the air. His red eyes burned as his two arms moved a few inches. The gravitation aura around him wavered. Ben gathered more power. His limbs extended further, the pull dramatically increasing as they unfurled.
"What you're feeling is the gravitational pull of a small black hole. Now, why don't you stay there for a while." Unfortunately, he couldn't summon a full-force one and finish him off right here and now. No, that would cause an instantaneous cataclysm, and Earth would cease to exist within milliseconds. He learned the hard way that was consequences for summoning too much gravity.
Power Girl grimaced. "How long can you keep him there for?"
"As long as I need to."
"Sorry, young man, but that is simply untrue."
A light hum formed behind him as a portal opened up behind them. A man stepped out. Power Girl went to make the obvious inquiry, but he held up a small cylinder-shaped device. His finger hovered over a button, and Ben turned his head.
"Who the hell—"
A white flash washed over his surroundings.
Then, he blinked. The man was gone, as was the portal and...
Mikavic was nowhere to be found.
Power Girl was lying face first, barely conscious. Cautious, he crouched to her level, lightly helping her up.
"What happened?"
"Someone," she paused, rubbing her aching head. "Someone came out of a portal. Said his name was Max. He took Barney through the portal. For some reason, you were frozen. I tried shouting for you... but you never reacted at all."
"Whatever used on me made me unaware of everything around me. But you know what he did, so it didn't work on you. So why didn't you stop him?" he didn't mean to sound accusatory, and frankly, Power Girl didn't give a damn.
"What he used on you didn't work on me. He used the next best thing, though." Kryptonite, Ben mused. "After Barney shrunk back down, I blacked out for a second. When I came back, all I saw was his smile. He smiled; the bastard had the nerve to smile. "I'm Max," he said, and he was just gone.
This didn't make sense. "Why would he give you his name?"
"I don't think it was for me."
Ben nodded in understanding. It must have been for Mikavic. "So he and Crash never met before."
"Who's Crash?"
"That's his or its name. The thing that tried to kill us and a few million other people. Crash."
Power Girl snorted. "It fits," she said dryly. "I'm lucky he didn't crash my ribs in. Or crash your head into the floor. He did that to me twice."
Ben shifted back and slicked back his grimey hair. He sat on a jagged rock, a frown marring his lips. "This sucks. I make an explicit effort not to let assholes get away."
She took a seat beside him. The dirt that dirtied her skin couldn't hide her dry smile or her radiant, expressionist blue eyes. "Yeah. We all get our butt kicked sometimes. Some more than others."
"I swear, if you start making a hero speech right now, I'm gonna boot you to the moon."
She hit him upside the head with enough force to sting. He pretended not to feel it, but it added to his already monumental headache.
"Why do I feel like this isn't going to be the last time we see Max or Crash?"
"Probably because you have some common sense," she said teasingly. "That's how things work around here. Look on the bright side. You and I might get the chance for some good 'ol fashioned payback."
Ben groaned, his temple throbbed. The mere idea of clashing with Mikavic again made his head pulse.
"I need a drink."
Elsewhere, back on the battlefield, a done jabbed a needle into the earth. It drew back crimson liquid before vanishing from the battlefield.
During this chapter, you should have noticed that I used a non-canon alien. To avoid confusion and provide enlightenment about these new transformations, I will be adding from now (if you, the audience, enjoy that idea), I will be supplying information about them. Since most, if not all, these transformations will be coming from 5YL, a wiki run by Kuro The Artist, you can head over to his wiki and read more about them if you wish. Though, a lot of their appearances will be slightly different as I will be imagining them in the OS art style.
My reasoning for giving him non-canon aliens, is it's only natural for him to use more aliens considering he has had Master Control for years now. He's bond to use aliens we have not seen canonically. After all, Ben 10,000 had access to ten-thousand aliens. At least. Probably more and he just stopped counting after ten-thousand.
Name: Squidstrictor
Species: Cephalod-ae
Abilities—
Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Flexible Body, Mana/Emotion Sensing, Camouflage, Venomous Ink Projection, Underwater Breathing, Natural Weaponry w/stingers.