Chapter 1

In a dry desert, only one thing was moving on a ghostly camel, the ghost writer held scrolls in his hand as he began crossing the vast lands. To pass the time, he began to sing.

Ghost Writer: Oh, I come from a land

From a faraway place

Where the caravan camel roam

Where it's flat and immense

And the heat is intense

It's barbaric, but hey-it's home!

When the wind's at your back

And the sun's from the west

And the sand in the glass is right

Come on down

Stop on by

Hop a rectangle and fly

To another Toonraian night!

toonrian nights!

Like toonrian days!

More often than not

Are hotter than not

In a lot of good ways

toonrian nights

'Neath toonrian moons

A fool of his guard

Could fall and fall hard

Out here on the dunes

The ghost writer jumped off his ghostly camel and looked around at his destination, Toongrabah, an Arabian city in the cartoon world. Ben 10 began to walk by, full of boredom, the ghost writer noticed this and stopped the boy.

"Ah, Salaam and good evening my alien friend." The ghost writer greeted Ben, he rose an eyebrow as he looked at the weird man. "Please, please, come closer." Ben walked towards the ghost writer, but he tripped on a rock and came up to his face. "Too close, a little too close." The ghost writer said nervously as Ben backed away.

"What are you doing?" Ben asked the ghost writer, bewildered.

"There, welcome to Tonngrabah, city of mystery, of enchantment..." The ghost writer said before he pulled out a loaded shop, full of collectibles. "Plus – i'm selling stuff."

"Right..." Ben said, picking up a broken umbrella. "These are really for sale?"

"Yep. Look at this! Yes!" The ghost writer exclaimed, pretending to be interested. "This is a famous coffee maker, also makes Julienne fries, it will not break!"

"Oh really?" Ben asked him, turning into Four Arms and crashing the object. He gave the ghost writer a sly smile.

"It broke...you're paying for that." The ghost writer told him. "Ooooh look at this, I have never seen one of these intact before. This is the famous dead-sea tuperwear, listen..." He said blowing a raspberry as he opened it. "Aaah, still good."

"I don't have time for this, I've got a world to save." Ben said, unimpressed as he began to walk off. The ghost writer stopped him.

"Wait, don't go!" He shouted. "I can see you're only interested in the exceptionally rare, then I think you may be most rewarded to consider this?" The ghost writer held up a plain purple lamp. "Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance, like so many things, it is not what is outside, but what is inside that counts."

"Oh man..." Ben rolled his eyes as he tried walking off again.

"This is no ordinary lamp!" The ghost writer exclaimed. "It once changed the course of a young man's life, a young man, who like this lamp was more than what he seemed." The ghost writer looked around before whispering to Ben. "A diamond in the rough..."

Ben sighed, exasperated.

"Perhaps you would like to hear the tale?" The ghost writer asked him.

"No." Ben told him.

"Look, I only travelled this far to catch up with you to tell you a story, so the least you could do is to SIT DOWN AND LISTEN!" The ghost writer exclaimed, Ben sat down on the desert ground and stayed quiet. The ghost writer smiled, satisfied.

"It begins on a dark night," The ghost writer continued, sprinkling some sparkles into the air, to form stars for a night sky. "Where a dark man waits with a dark purpose..."

It was another dark, gloomy night in the desert, the only living life forms that could be seen were one man, one sea creature and one ghostly horse. Soon another figure joined them.

"You are late." The man said to the figure, it jumped off its horse and appeared to be quite short.

"A thousand apologies, master." The figure said through gritted teeth.

"You have it then?" The man asked, coming out of the shadows. He looked like he was wearing a black Arabic tuxedo, he had a top hat on his head and white face paint, complete with black eyeliner and red lipstick, his name was Freakshow.

"I was distracted by a few boxes, but I got it." The other figure came out of the shadows, wore a blue overall, a blue hat and his skin was well...blue. He was the box ghost, he held up a half of a golden beetle. Freakshow reached for it, but the box ghost pulled it back. "Ah, ah, ah, my treasure." He demanded before the beetle was knocked out of his hands by a small green plankton and it was given to Freakshow.

"Trust me my pungent friend, you'll get what's coming to you." Freakshow said as he held another half of the golden beetle and placed the two together, suddenly, the beetle came to life with a glow and sped off into the desert, Freakshow and the Box Ghost jumped onto their horses and sped off after the beetle.

"QUICKLY, FOLLOW THE TRAIL! FASTER!" Freakshow exclaimed as they ran after the beetle, finally, it stopped, separated in two and plunged into the sand, the wind howled and a giant lion head popped out of the desert ground when the wind cleared. It opened its sandy mouth. Freakshow and the box ghost looked at it in wonder.

"At last...after all my years of searching...the cave of wonders." Freakshow said in awe.

"What? That's no wonder," Plankton complained, "it's just some stupid, giant..."

"Oh my box..." The box ghost gasped.

"Now, remember, bring me the lamp." Freakshow grabbed the box ghost by the collar. "The rest of the treasure is yours, but the lamp...is mine."

The box ghost was released and he chuckled as sinisterly as he could as he neared the cave.

"Jeez, where did you get this bozo? Off Ebay?" Plankton whispered to Freakshow before he was shushed.

"Who disturbers my slumber?" The cave said in a deep, threatening voice.

"It is I...the box ghost...a humble box collector." The box ghost introduced himself.

"Know this, only one may enter, one whose worth lies far within, a diamond in the rough." The cave demanded.

The box ghost turned to Freakshow with confusion, Freakshow rose his hypnotizing scepter up. "What are you waiting for, go on!" Freakshow commanded.

The box ghost hesitated, but he moved slowly towards the cave and took one small step in it. He sighed of relief when nothing happened.

"RAAAAAAAWR!" The cave bellowed as its walls came crashing down. The box ghost waited for five seconds before screaming at the top of his lungs and trying to run out of the cave, its walls crashed down on him before he could escape.

"NO!" Freakshow cried out. The two halves of the beetle was laid in front of him.

"Seek thee out...the diamond in the rough." The cave's voice echoed in the distance.

"I can't believe it, I just don't believe it, we're never gonna get a hold of that stupid lamp!" Plankton exclaimed as he jumped down to grab the two halves of the beetle. "Look at this, look at this, i'm so ticked off that i'm turning greener."

"Patience, Plankton, Patience." Freakshow told him as he hopped back up on his shoulder. "The box ghost was obviously less than worthy."

"Oh, there's a big surprise!" Plankton exclaimed, sarcastically. "I think I'm going to have a HEART ATTACK and DIE from not being surprised! We got a big problem here, a big prob..."

"Yes we do...only one can enter." Freakshow said as he interrupted Plankton. "We must find this one...this diamond in the rough."

Freakshow did think that he could find a diamond in the rough, he just didn't expect who he was going to find.

As the morning sun shone over Toongrabah, somewhere in the heart of the city, a teenager was running for his life.