Chapter 52: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

Okay, I admit: I was thinking about the song "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" by Utility Pool during a certain scene in this chapter. No, I'm not a fan of the band, in case you were wondering. I'm just really familiar with the song.

Also, a few of you have been asking me to write a chapter concerning the Jennifer Nocturne episode. I will most certainly do it, I just have to get through the rest of Alien Force to get there, meaning I have to write season three. Now, I'm not a fan of season three-and I imagine many of you feel the same way- and at first I just thought the creators had gotten lazy with it. But then I found out that wasn't the case at all.

You see, Alien Force was only supposed to be two seasons. Look at the end of War of the Worlds Part 2; it was clearly set up to be the end so there could be another series after it. But then Cartoon Network suddenly wanted a third season, and the creators had to oblige. And they did have a pretty decent third season planned out: Ben had new aliens and Kevin got turned into a monster like in Ultimate Alien. The creators were all set to go until at the last minute the Cartoon Network executives told them to scrap the idea, believing the plot to be too dark and leaving the creators scrambling. And thus, we have Ben 10: Alien Force season three.

So please, when you think about season 3, don't blame the writers for it. Blame Cartoon Network.

"Why is always something abandoned?" Sam griped. "Why can't it ever be a building with a population, like a Starbucks, or a haunted mansion?"

"Because that'd be too boring," Carter said as she gave the binoculars to Evan. He took them and peered at the rundown mining shaft. DNAliens had parked beat up cars next to the dilapidated office building and garage. The lights were on in the office building as well as the far away mine shaft, when it clearly shouldn't; this particular mine had been closed for years.

"But why an abandoned mine?" Evan asked the others as he put the binoculars away. "It's empty; there shouldn't be any precious minerals down there anymore."

"Maybe they were just using it as a hideout to build their weapons," Sam pointed out. "No one works there anymore, so no one would suspect anything to be going on. And even if someone suspected this mine was in use, the DNAliens could use their holographic projections to make it look abandoned."

"Or they could just take them out and use them as minions," Carter said pragmatically. Sam and Evan looked at her. "What?"

"Being morbid is my thing," Sam snapped. "Don't steal my thing!"

"But I'm a Goth, I have to be morbid!"

"You already have sarcasm, let me have dark thoughts!"

"Will you two knock it off?" Evan said exasperatedly. "We have a job to do."

"We've already found the headquarters," Carter pointed out. "Our job's done."

"Shouldn't we take a closer look at this?" Sam wondered. "We're already here, we might as well take inventory on what they have going on."

"And maybe wreck a few buildings while we're at it," Evan said hopefully.

"That won't do," Carter told him sternly. "We shouldn't let them know we're here. We just go in, look around, and get out."

Evan thought for a moment before agreeing. "Good point. We can always just send in someone else."

"Shadow powers, activate!" Sam said melodramatically as they traveled through the darkness.

The inside of the mine shaft was lively. DNAliens were running about with laser weapons in their hands. A couple of High Breeds were scattered here and there, giving sharp orders to their servants. Even the pulsing pink walls seemed agitated.

"Something's gone wrong," Sam whispered as a few DNAliens passed over them.

"Tyler has the Key, remember?" Evan pointed out. He quickly stuck his face out of the murky shadows and peered over at a DNAlien with a clipboard. When he couldn't make out the language he quickly went back into the shadows.

And then they all heard someone say, "Tyler." They sharply turned to a group of aliens huddled together. And then the group quickly moved away like aliens on a mission.

"Let's follow them," Carter said rhetorically. They quickly moved undetected, trailing after the gaggle of panicking monsters onto a white ship. It was circular and white and huge, about as wide as a football field. The Pride quickly snuck in as the hatch to the ship closed.

From there they made their way through the sterile white hallways down to what looked like the command center. DNAliens were manning the controls in the circular room, pouring over maps and commands given to them by superior officers.

One of the aliens running by asked another DNAlien, "Are you sure you know where the oscillator key is?"

The other alien gave a sharp rebuttal. "Of course I do! We had Tyler traced. And if we're right he's going right back to it with Ben Tennyson. We can retrieve the Key and take out the human vermin at once."

Evan snapped his neck towards Carter. "We need to contact Ben!"

The Goth got her phone out. "Way ahead of you."

Kevin quickly parked the car at the edge of the cliff. Because it totally wasn't dangerous to do that.

Ben quickly got out the flashlight stowed away in the car and slid down the cliff side with the others climbing down after him. It wasn't long before they got to the bottom. A quick scan with the flashlight revealed broken parts of the truck scattered about.

"I ditched it over here," Tyler said, leading the way. The flashlight revealed the totaled truck. The end of it was smashed, the driver's door was wrenched open and glass littered the ground.

"Nice job parking, slick," Kevin griped at Tyler.

"You can't see it from the road," he shot back. "Driving a truck isn't easy."

"Neither is keeping a piece of equipment this size from the aliens," Gwen pointed out as she walked towards the vehicle. "I'm still wondering about that." She quickly put out her hands and shot mana out of them. The tentacles latched onto the bent doors and tore off the metal. The inside revealed stacks of rectangular boxes; shipping cargo, presumably.

Ben and Gwen took a look inside before Ben turned in Chromastone. Tyler, who earlier had a mini panic attack over Gwen's powers, asked Kevin, "What are you people?"

He smirked. "Get used to it."

"Let me speed this up a bit," Chromastone said. His entire body glowed a myriad of colors. He put his fist out and sent a rainbow blast to the side of the truck, incinerating a hole into it. He jumped into it, pushing at the metal to make it a rounder shape. And then he climbed inside and began to rummage about.

At that moment Kevin got a call. He picked up with a, "What up?"

"Where's Ben?" Carter said sharply on the other side of the line.

"We found the oscillator key and the guy who took it," he said. "Ben's inside the truck checking it out."

"What?" Carter took a sharp intake of breath. "No! The DNAliens have Tyler traced. They know where the key is! Get out of there!"

From inside the truck, Chromastone shouted, "Aw man!" It was quickly followed by a symphony of low hissing noises. The steel wall of the truck was being bent in two, a hole being torn through it. And then Chromastone was thrown through the tear, exploding out of the truck and crashing into the canyon beside it.

DNAliens immediately popped out of the truck, creating more holes in the steel cage. Instantly they were on Chromastone, throwing balls of slime out of their beaked mouth holes.

And then one of them felt a mana blast at the back of its head. Gwen started throwing spells at the creatures only to have one of them push her back into the steel truck. She quickly shook off the pain and went back to fighting.

Tyler stood in the middle of the fray, unsure of what to do. He wanted to help, but he was only a weak human. He heard hissing sounds from behind him. Two DNAliens were ganging up on him. He staggered back, preparing to be killed when suddenly the two heads of the monsters slammed together. They fell onto the ground, revealing Kevin with a steel casing around his body.

Tentacles reached out towards Kevin, bringing him towards another alien. He quickly punched it out of submission and began to lay into another few DNAliens.

Tyler turned to look at the oscillator key still inside the truck. It was unimaginably huge, but that made sense because why else would the DNAliens need a large truck to transport it? It was a pristine white with thousands of circle designs swirled around it. He continued to stare transfixed as his rescuers slowly became overcome by the monsters.

Gwen, who had been facing off one on one against a DNAlien, soon had her hands trapped. The alien she had been fighting glared at her, hissing out, "We are stronger than you, human. Much, much stronger."

Pink energy swirled around her hands. "Yeah, well, body odor isn't everything." Two mana tentacles wrapped around the waists of the DNAlien in front of her and another one standing next to her. She threw them both in opposite directions.

Chromastone, who had been kicking serious DNAlien butt from across the canyon, punched out the one in front of him. Another one crept in front of him, holding a cylindrical container. "You're coming with us," it said, opening the container. A Xenocyte jumped out of it. With a hiss its tentacles clamped onto Chromastone's face.

Kevin struggled as two of the DNAliens had him in a bind. Tyler kept staring at the oscillator key, his eyes travelling to the silvery wires in the middle of it. His mind flashed back to earlier. He was hiding inside one of the pulsing pink rooms, with three of the large, white aliens inside. They were looking up at a green holo-grid with red dots blinking all over it.

"Once the oscillator key completes the jump gate, how long will it take?" one of them asked.

"Perhaps a day, master, perhaps longer," another one answered. "These humans are resilient."

"They are degenerate filth," the third one said, bringing up a fist and shaking it angrily. "The High Breed fleet will pull through and wipe this planet clean as any other."

And then he saw it, the unfinished arch reaching towards the heavens. Ropes were pulling supplies to the top. Inside this arch was a space with a missing component. It had three holes, glowing a faint blue. It had thousands of circular designs all around it, just like the oscillator key stuck in the truck.

"Got it," Tyler said.

Whatever realization he just encountered was instantly forgotten as Chromastone stood up. His face was covered by the Xenocyte and he almost appeared zombie-like. And then he crossed his arms.

"Super compressed silicon, guys," Chromastone said dryly. He grabbed the Xenocyte off him and threw the shrieking monstrosity off him. "Nice try though." He then blasted them away with his rainbow ray of awesome.

Cracking could be heard from the truck. A group of DNAliens were surrounding Kevin, holding him down. One of them had put a giant tear in his armor and was slowly trying to peel it away. They were opening it, revealing the human chest beneath it. All of them were hit by a laser ray and Kevin fell to the ground.

Chromastone kneeled beside him. "You okay?"

Kevin sat up to reveal the gaping hole in his chest. "No."

They both stood up and turned to the last DNAlien on the battle field. Even Tyler looked away from his musings in time to see Gwen face against the creature.

Energy fizzled around her hands as Gwen growled, "This is it, guy. You're the last monster standing."

"Scum," the DNAlien sneered. "There are countless others." He then ran away towards the conveniently parked car not too far away from the totaled truck. He put on his ID mask and started the engine.

All of the DNAliens who had been unconscious quickly woke up and started running towards the truck. The good guys watched as they all piled into the back, pushing and shoving. One of them quickly closed the back doors and the car quickly escaped.

Gwen's hands still had mana fizzling around them. "Let them go," Chromastone told her. The energy disappeared.

"Right," she agreed. "It's the big key we're after." Chromastone changed back into Ben as the metal armor slid off of Kevin.

"Ben!" Tyler piped up. "I got it. The aliens-not these- the other ones in charge…"

"The High Breed," Kevin told him. "The big ones."

"Yeah! They're building a dimensional gateway in Los Soledad!"

"Where are they going?" Ben asked suspiciously.

Tyler shook his head. "Not going; coming. The whole High Breed fleet is gonna invade and destroy the Earth!" When Ben looked unconvinced, he added, "I remember!"

Ben walked over to him. "Yeah, and I think I know why you remember." He grabbed Tyler's face, pulling off the ID mask covering it. It fell to the ground with a clatter.

Tyler took a look at his hands, no, claws. He had only three of them, all black. His scrawny, misshapen body was covered in a yellow jumpsuit. His mouth was covered by purple tentacles, hiding the beaked mouth.

Poor Tyler was a DNAlien.

"Where exactly are these guys headed?" Carter asked the others. The ship had long taken off, heading out of the abandoned mine shaft and into the air to where the oscillator key was. It was only a matter of time before they arrived. Stuck in the air ducts, tired of hanging around in the shadows, the Pride hatched their next course of action.

"Middle of the desert, not too far from the desert patrol," Sam answered as she sent Isaac the coordinates. "The oscillator key's too heavy to just carry, which is why they must be sending the ship."

"In that case we need to take this thing out before it reaches the others," Evan decreed. "Problem is if we do it too soon, we'll be too far away to help Ben and the others. If we do it too late we risk hurting them."

"We have less than fifteen minutes before the ship arrives," Sam pointed out. "It's now or never."

"I agree with Sam," Carter said. "What say you, o fearless leader?"

Evan gave a sardonic smile. "Let's blow this smoothie joint."

Once again the three of them melted into the shadows, heading for the control room. Evan separated from the group to cut off the doors-no one could get in or out. It took a while for the DNAliens to notice. And then the bloodbath started.

It took a moment for Sam to get ready, but soon her chainsaw went flying. She hacked at the first alien from the shoulder, diagonally cutting through to the spine, slicing it in half, and ending the cut at the waist. One side went left, the other right. Blood spurted everywhere as the pieces fell to the floor.

At that moment it was pandemonium. Carter's scythe quickly chopped off the heads of a few DNAliens who tried to get to the doors. They ran like headless chickens before the bodies hit the floor. As soon as the monsters tried to fight the girls, though, they melted back in the shadows.

A few of the DNAliens tried for the controls. A little black portal appeared on the white wall, and a hand with a gun came out of it. Evan made "pew, pew" noises from his mouth as one by one the DNAliens by the controls fell. He retracted his hands as soon as another alien tried to grab his weapon away.

Half of the aliens were dead now. The remaining portion frantically called for help, but the emergency line had been mysteriously cut. Hands appeared by the alien holding the telephone. They grabbed its head and lifted it up off the ground, the telephone clattering to the floor. The alien's neck quickly broke and it fell to the ground in a heap. Carter jumped next to the body and sliced another DNAlien in half when it tried to attack her.

With a final wave of her chainsaw Sam took down the last standing DNAlien, practically gutting it. She was covered in its blood when the body finally fell. "Little help here, Carter," Sam said as she willed her weapon away.

"Yeah, I'm gonna need a clean up too once your done," Evan pointed out. He pushed away the corpse of an alien off the controls and sat in the commanders' chair, pouring over the data. Carter quickly used her liquid-controlling powers to peel the drying blood off Sam's person before doing it to herself, letting the liquid drip to the floor along with the other blood stains. Once she was done the Goth made her way over to Evan.

"Your turn Evan," she said cheerfully. He made a noise saying her understood and stood up. As Carter quickly pulled the blood off him, he said:

"We don't have much time."

"Do we ever?" Sam quipped.

"Well no, that's not our style," Evan joked back. Then his face turned somber. "But what I mean is that we don't have much time before the High Breed invade. The oscillator key is probably the last thing they need."

"Don't they need a power source though?" Carter pointed out. "An oscillator key is for warping space. They'd need a large supply of it to power that thing."

"Yeah, but what powers an oscillator key?" Evan mused as Carter removed the last of the blood off his person. She let the red liquid fall to the floor far away from them.

"Maybe it has something to do with that abandoned mine," Sam pointed out. "Maybe whatever they're doing there is to power up the key."

The other two pondered that for a moment before Carter said, "Maybe. Why was that mine abandoned anyway?"

"And why would the High Breed use Earth for their hyperspace gates?" Evan asked rhetorically. "We're a level two planet; we're pretty worthless."

"Not necessarily," Sam protested lightly. "Earth has a lot of resources. Oil, water, wind…"

"All of those are crude though," Carter pointed out as Sam trailed off. "It doesn't matter how effective they are, no planet above level three would touch them."

"Then maybe the power source the DNAliens want is in that mine," Sam said. "Maybe it isn't a crude fossil fuel but something that could only be found within the Earth itself."

"That's it!" Evan whooped. "Sam, you're a genius!"

"About time you realized it," Sam said smugly. "Now, why am I a genius?"

"Because you might have found a way to delay the invasion," Carter explained. "All we have to do is find out why the mine was shut down, find out what they were mining and stop the DNAliens from harvesting it."

"Or instead of that we fuck with the oscillator key so the High Breed can't use it," Evan said cheerfully. And then the ship dipped violently. The Pride slammed into the controls as the space ship slowly lost altitude, heading past the clouds and down to the ground.

Evan regained his footing and tried to get control back to the ship, his fingers flying over the commands. "I can't control the ship!" he said finally. "I don't really get this technology," he added bitterly.

"Have you tried pushing random buttons?" Sam pointed out.

"I seriously don't think-"

"Do it anyway!"

That's not going to work!" Carter roared as the ship dipped again. The girls clung to the commanders' chair as Evan's head hit the dashboard. He shook off the disorientation.

"Wait, shouldn't we be spiraling towards the ground right about now?" Sam asked as she saw just how slowly they were descending.

"That only happens in the movies," Evan pointed out. "What happens in an airplane is that once the engine fails or anything else that can go wrong actually does go wrong, the wings of the plane keep the plane afloat for a while. The air itself is slippery and will actually try to keep the plane flying. Thanks to that the airplane won't spiral as it slowly descends towards the Earth. While it's true that smaller aircraft may spiral towards the Earth in the event of an accident, the sturdier commercial airlines won't."

"Evan, we're in a spaceship," Carter deadpanned. "It doesn't have wings."

"Oh." Evan blinked. "Then yeah, I don't know."

The plane hit turbulence then. "We need to get out of here!" Carter cried out.

Evan immediately started putting explosives everywhere. "Sam, light these up when I say so!" Once he was done, he clung onto Carter and Sam. "Light it up!" he ordered. With a flick of her wrist the redhead set fire to the tiny explosives. Just before they went off the Pride shadow traveled out of the control room.

They didn't see the explosions go off.

Ben as Humungousaur was helping Gwen lift the oscillator key out of the canyon when a spaceship arrived next to them. It was huge and black, nearly untraceable in the dark sky until Kevin saw it block out the moon. Lights appeared from the windows, creating a surreal picture of a rectangular UFO. It landed not far from Kevin's car, silver spokes attaching themselves to the ground. A platform descended from it, creating the entrance and exit.

A woman in black high heels, a black skirt with matching black jacket and a white lab coat walked down the platform. Her silver white hair was slung over her shoulder in a braid and half of her face was hidden behind a signature triangular bang.

"Cordelia?" Kevin asked stupefied.

"Great," Gwen muttered under her breath.

"Good job team, you've got the oscillator key," Cordelia said, clapping her hands. And then she saw Tyler in his DNAlien form right next to Gwen. "And why is he still breathing?" she said coolly, eyeing Tyler suspiciously.

"He's not on their side," Gwen said sharply, meeting Cordelia's eyes. "He's been fighting the Xenocyte and was somehow able to reverse the process. He has his human brain back."

"And yet he's trapped in a monster's body; how poetic," Cordelia said sardonically. "How do you know for certain?"

"He got the key away from the DNAliens," Humungousaur pointed out.

"And you believe him?"

"We have no reason not to," Kevin said.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Ben, put the oscillator key in the ship." Humungousaur and Gwen quickly pulled the key onto the platform. As the dinosaur alien pushed the key further into the spaceship, Gwen shot Cordelia a look of utmost hatred. Cordelia just smirked.

And then Tyler said, "What's that?" Everyone looked up to see a giant spaceship hovering over them. It was completely on fire.

"Oh no," Cordelia gasped staggering back.

"What's wrong?" Kevin asked alarmed.

"The Pride's on that ship."

"What?" Gwen cried out as the ship flew past them, landing three, four, no five hundred feet away from them. It crashed into the ground with a thunderous sound, debris flying everywhere. The flames were reaching the sky, the acrid smoke blocking out the moon.

"Who else was on that ship?" Humungousaur demanded to know as he climbed down the platform.

Cordelia instantly regained her composure and explained. "The DNAliens had your friend here traced." She gave a curt nod to Tyler. "They were going to retrieve the key themselves until the Pride intervened. Though why they chose to blow it up is beyond me," she added as an afterthought.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Evan admitted. Everyone turned sharply to the Dodge Challenger. The Pride were sitting on the hood, Evan sandwiched between Carter and Sam. He gave a wave. "Hi."

"Why do you insist on blowing everything up?" Cordelia snapped.

"It's a good way to get rid of evidence."

"It's a pain to clean up!"

"Doesn't matter," Carter interjected. "What's done is done. So tell me, are the other so-called lesser beings fighting the DNAlien overwrite or is Tyler here just special?"

"Oh no, they're fighting it," Gwen said. "Tyler's just the only case where it actually succeeded."

Humungousaur chose that moment to turn into Ben. He then put a hand on Tyler's face. "What are you doing?" the lone DNAlien said.

"Fixing you." With a bright green flash the alien turned back into the human. The Xenocyte fell to the ground dead.

Carter summoned a plate of ice so Tyler could use it as a mirror. Tyler took it and exclaimed, "I'm me again! I can remember everything along with it. I was born in Evansdale, and I was in glee club in high school."

"And you play the bass?" Kevin pointed out.

"I do!"

"If you remember everything, than your memories will be invaluable in figuring out how to defeat the High Breed," Cordelia told Tyler. "Not only that, but you've been gone for ages. We need to locate your family and try to get your life back together."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Well, not for free," she admitted. "But yes, we will do that for you." She led him up the platform. Halfway up she turned back to the Pride. "You're riding with us. You need to report everything that happened. And you three need to leave here as well." She nodded towards the inferno not far from them. The heat was starting to become unbearable. "We don't want the authorities catching you."

"Aw, Cordelia, you do care!" Ben said holding his hands to his heart.

She gave a half smile. "Shut up Ben."

Just a little science lesson to prove that you shouldn't believe the movies. Also, did you spot the LittleKuriboh joke? I Just HAD to put it in. XP

So, thoughts anyone?