There was a buzz in the air, Sunny could feel it. It was in the mana, pulsing and flickering through the minds of people that were peering over at their phones and communicators. Some used fingers, others had fins, and Sunny could even see a few tentacles weaving their way across small keypads, while the telepaths among them simply stared at the screen and thought really hard, lips twitching as text automatically scrolled past their faces. Either way, Sunny found herself huffing and turned back to the bartender.

'Get me, like, an Appoplexian appetizer,' she said. 'The rest of this room's so quiet and boring with everyone all plugged in, that I need something exciting to happen, even if it's just to my taste-buds.' She laughed and pressed a finger against the neon light-strip that ran round the kidney-shaped curve of the bar, causing it to flare a bright purple for a moment. 'Of course, I could get a regular light show going on here...anyone up for a little disco?'

She clapped her hands and suddenly there was a revolving ball of light spinning far above her head, throwing flecks of silvery light across the room. Occasionally they would develop a pink hue and she had to grit her teeth a little with the effort of forcing them back into a richer shade of white.

A few aliens with facial muscles immediately frowned at her, and one Chimera Sui Generis waved a few tendrils of his beard at her threateningly – enough of a gesture to get the Bartender, a Nemuina, involved.

'Quit it, girlie,' he snorted at her, abruptly zooming into her view. She made a face as some of the dust spraying from his wings landed on the dish of breaded meats he shoved into her hands. 'Think of the screen flare. Annoying as fuck.'

Sunny paused, a little bewildered by the Earthian curse. 'I thought this place was supposed to be fun,' she stressed, her tone developing into a sulky whine. 'Not lame.'

'You want fun, sweetheart? Try Ben Ten's party.'

She perked up the last word. 'Wait, what party? Ben's not quite as much a stick in the mud as Gwen, but...'

The bartender rolled his eyes and then slowly, as if he were speaking to a small child, he said: 'the party that's swamping all the social media feeds? He's throwing some wild shindig out on some abandoned space-station in the Dark Delta quadrant. He's a goody-goody but from the photos and short video clips he's put up, it looks kinda funky. All swamped up with ice statues holding alcohol and lava pits that somehow aren't melting the floor.'

Sunny blinked. 'Lava pits.'

'Yeah, that's even some robot-bashing game on one of the lower decks. Looks sweet.'

Slowly, Sunny's face broke out into a wild grin. 'I'm there. Totally.'

'Thank you, Jury Rigg,' sighed Ben, wiping the sweat from his brow. He leapt down from the clanking metallic monstrosity he had pushed together not minutes before, comprised of pipes and spare metal plating and looking very much like a drone built from a garbage heap. It was a far cry from the sleek Dimension Twelve robots Sunny had favoured smashing the last time she was on Earth, but it would have to do. He glanced up at the bland shiny white patch that shone out from the surrounding rust on its main body as the final resting place of a fridge door, and squashed down the urge to find a marker and scrawl a smiley face over it.

'Very impressive,' Rook noted from the corner, though he couldn't help but glance a little sourly over at one machine that looked a little too much like a balloon animal. He watched with suspicion as its sleek silver lines extended into bulbous curves; Ben had found some sort of gelatinous foil for that one. 'But the lava pits were a bit much, I fear.'

'You don't have to go in them,' Ben said. 'Just hang out by those alcohol towers I built with Big Chill. All the way on the top floors.' He sighed. 'Urgh, this took hours. It had better work.'

Rook was quiet for a moment. Then, looking down at the ground, he said a very quiet and muted 'thank you.'

Ben sighed. 'Don't thank me, yet,' he warned. 'There's still time for it to go horribly wrong.' He paused to tilt his head to the side, a sly look twinkling in his eyes. 'And you're gonna have to loosen up. Think you can lose the stiff Plumber cadet thing you've got going on for a few hours? You'll stick out like a sore thumb if you don't.'

Rook smirked, though there was no real heart in it. 'I know the Electric Slide. And I am familiar with the boogie-woogie genre. I even,' he declared, now with a definite hint of pride in his voice, 'know how to waltz.' He smiled at Ben, and though the line of his mouth looked a little stiff, the hand he extended out to his partner still slid out into the air with all its customary grace intact. 'Care for me to show you?'

Ben laughed and backed away, out towards the wide, grey space of the wall. 'Nah. Ben Ten does not dance. At least not well. I've got way too many other more important things to do, like saving the entire universe.' He paused, locked in thought briefly as Rook's smile widened and he barely noticed as his partner stepped forward, his shadow mingling with his own. 'When did you learn anyway? I thought you said you didn't know how to-whoa!'

Hands snatched from his sides and lifted into warmer, blue ones, Ben found himself gently spun round, his view shifting from robot to robot as Rook's smiling face and broad chest imposed themselves over the background of each of them.

'Internet,' Rook said, a great proud flourish to his voice.

Ben glared at him, though he could feel his lips twitching. 'Dip me and I'll kill you.'

Rook's eyebrows rose. 'Oh dear. We cannot be having that. I will miss all the fun.' He pulled Ben round in casual looping glide, smiling a little as Ben let out a helpless laugh and tripped over his own feet.

'This is weird, man. I haven't done this since I was the ring-bearer at a wedding, when I was like ten.'

Rook hummed and pulled him in close, smiling as Ben wrapped his arms round him in a tight hug in return.

'I love you and everything,' said his human partner, his voice coming out falsely jovial and thick, 'but please don't try to waltz at this party I'm throwing. Especially not with me. It'll ruin whatever street cred we have left. And look completely lame.'

'The only thing lame will be your two right fe-'

'Left,' Ben corrected absently, not even pausing to be disturbed by the fact that he could tell which figure of speech Rook had been attempting to deliver.

'Left feet,' Rook continued, as though he hadn't heard and Ben was forced to lean forward and disguise his smile in the shadow of Rook's armour. 'But not to worry. I will reserve all my dancing for the weird jerking movements customary of the 'grinding' teenagers you find on Earth.'

Ben made a face. 'Do me a favour. Don't try to grind with anyone at the party. Don't even mention that word.'

'Not to worry,' Rook assured him. 'I will reserve all grinding for the bedroom.' And with that, he absently dropped Ben's hands and strode out of the room, leaving Ben to gape after him with amazement. Sometimes even he forgot what a smart mouth the guy had on him.

The plan was...well. It was mainly, 'throw a huge party and hope Sunny shows up.' Though Rook could admit that it was impressive, the amount of work Ben had put into the preparation, even if he had been the one forced to hold the camera steady for the live-stream while Ben hit his watch again and again and transformed the interior of the space-station into a glorified...well, atrocity.

Rook wrinkled his nose and glared at the haphazardous clash of green vines against tables spun out of ice. They sparkled and gleamed beneath the stems, slight cracks sprinkled through their surface as the partygoers smashed fists against their surface and timed each other to see who could chug the most beer. A Pyronite to his right was casually pressing his fist against the centre of a nearby table, causing the ice directly beneath to collapse into a gushing swirl, while the outer rim carved itself into the resemblance of a wonky caldron. And a Piscciss Volann next to him let out a snorting giggle and ducked his head into the bubbling roll of hissing waves, apparently unperturbed by the heat.

'Hey,' said a small Gourmand by his bent knee, clambering up to the rim with his stubby claws. 'Great idea. We could go bobbing for apples, or something.' He hesitated, saliva collecting in the corner of his mouth as he began to drool. 'Mmmm...apples...'

'Yeah,' said the Pyronite, 'or we could just do this.' He kicked the Picciss Volann (very rudely, thought Rook) in the butt, laughing as the guy's legs flailed upright in panic before the entirety of the table crashed and rolled under the sudden weight, slithering down into shards of misshapen ice. Rook took one look at the mess and stepped back, away from the spread of growing puddles, all of him tense and alert. He felt the need to step forward, to try and placate or restrain them somehow, but...

Ben's hand landed on his arm. 'Easy there,' said the human, his grin cocky, even if it didn't reach all the way up to his eyes. 'You're playing the part of an irresponsible teenager for now. You can bust heads together later. Besides, I don't think they're breaking any laws.'

The Gormand snorted, stumbling round in a drunken daze before his teeth latched onto the poor party-goer's tail.

'Yet,' Ben added doubtfully, wincing as the resulting shriek tore through the air.

Rook narrowed his eyes. 'The night, as you would say, is still young.'

Ben shook his head in bemusement. 'I just wish I had an alien who could track mana down. Anodites are pretty good at wrapping themselves up in skin. Sunny could look like anything she wants, be anywhere she-'

There was a loud bang, straight from under their feet where the robot would kept. And, beneath the blast the sound of a very faint 'wheeeee.'

Ben twitched. 'Forget I said anything.'

Rook tilted his head to the side. 'Whee?' he asked quizzically.

But Ben had already taken off running, ducking round the rhythmic sway of couples to push out his own pathway through the thrones of aliens much bigger than himself. Rook followed, heart in his throat as a drunken Highbreed flailed for balance, his large arm brushing by the space Ben's brown head had been moments before – but Ben was quick and nimble, sliding out of the way with a well-timed duck. Rook tried to focus on his own path, but it was hard; his eyes kept being drawn back to the flicker of white on the wrist Ben held up before him, the flash of skin and sleeve alongside it appearing dark and distorted within the huddled flare of shadows that spilled across both their bodies. It reminded him of the way the bandages had swamped Shar's form, the creases in the sheets digging out shadows that made her shape seem darker than it should.

And as they ran, her face sprung up in his mind more firmly, free from the crash of lights this wretched place threw out, her expression small and shuttered as she rested against the pristine white of her pillow. Something swirled in his gut at that, tight and angry, and lowering his head, it became a lot easier to focus. He charged through the masses, his strides easily beginning to outpace Ben's, and seeing an opportunity, he leapt up, hands clutching against one of the overhanging pipes as his feet lodged themselves against the head of a Tetramand below. And then he launched himself off the hard skull to reach the elevator barely a moment later, his Revonnahgander legs almost effortlessly cutting through the space in a way Ben couldn't hope to mirror. He barely paused to breathe before he bypassed it entirely, leaping down the stairs to its side – the light panel overhead had been flashing, marking it as in use, and suddenly those precious seconds spent waiting for the door to open were too long to live through, not when he could probably cover the necessary distance in less.

He ignored the yelled out 'hey!' as Ben's trainers pounded against the tiles behind him. Too slow, especially now when Rook's legs were longer, more resilient, better able to survive a jump, which is just what he did, plopping himself over the railing and dropping a good nine metres below to land in a sensible crouch against the side of a lower flight of stairs.

'Oi, stop acting like me! You're picking up all the wrong habits!' Ben's complaint floated down from above, but Rook ignored it, sprinting through doorways and out into the large circular room where Ben's collection of robots lay. And continued to lie, sparking and shuddering in parody of a living being's death throngs.

'Lame,' said a dark haired girl, launching a pink bubble at a small brown robot Jury Rigg had designed to clamber round on all fours like a misguided dog. The bubble floated casually forward, before it picked up speed and proceeded to tear through the sinewy gleam of metallic muscle like a saw, ripping apart the wires inside and trailing sparks in a shower of blue. She pouted at a nearby Tetramand, who was busy nursing his elbow with a glare. 'Seriously, these guys gave you trouble? Urgh, my boyfriend would have taken done these chumps in with a single punch by now. Don't any of you know how to actually have fun?'

'Does that 'fun' including harming innocent people?' Rook asked coldly, stalking forward, his proto-tool extended.

She blinked at him and it was truly disturbing to see how much she resembled Gwen, the same bone structure rolling beneath the skin to open up her forehead to his view. The only real difference was the hair that fell out from around her scalp like a splatter of dark paint.

'Hey,' she said, breaking into a grin that was all Ben, so much so that it hurt to see. 'You're the second cat-person I've seen this week. Maybe you're not from the boonies, after all.'

'Oh no, your impression was quite correct,' said Rook, his voice so taunt with fury, that it sounded robotic even to his own ears. 'We are not a widely-known species. But thank you for confirming that it was indeed you who put my sister in the hospital.'

And with that he charged. Sunny barely had time to spit out a laugh, before it was choked off by the swing of his proto-tool, the bright orange blade extending to cause a ripple against the small pink shield she hastily threw up. In normal circumstances perhaps it would have held up against the strain. But Rook was running on adrenaline and his feet had already left the floor to bring all his weight to bear down against the laser knife, the shield trembling, before it shook itself out into cracks, and Sunny swore as it fell down around her like the shards of a broken mirror.

She quickly forced her own feet to leave the floor as she swooped upwards in a smooth glide. But even without any levitation abilities, Rook followed her, his strong Revonnahgander legs failing to let him down as he soared up and dealt her a hefty blow to the chin, right before she could clamber to a truly unattainable height. She smashed against the floor with a small thud, a pitiful 'omph' escaping her mouth, but Rook had no inclination to feel sorry for her; he was already reaching down into his pocket for the bracelet Ben had passed to him hours ago. It was a pretty thing, small red markings like gemstones set into its delicate sides and accented by crests of black running over its silvery edges, some of which divided into dashes and ran in short lines, with each end forking out like a snake's tongue.

Before he had the chance to reach down and clamp it over her wrist though, her eyes flared open into burning pits of white. She looked at him and it was like the stars themselves were glaring into his soul; but then her human skin fell off with a sleek shudder like a costume, and the dark purple of her Anodite body was suddenly laid bare before him. It was the first time he had seen one unwrapped from clothes; perhaps she possessed the lack of modesty that he heard was all the rage for energy beings. To his credit, he barely faltered for a second; she was no Rayona, or even Isolceles, and well, Ben's form fell under a different spectrum in regard to his interests, one that couldn't be measured against a female form with any sort of practical judgement—but then light broke in and wrapped around his wrists, squeezing over the thick muscles of his legs as he was shoved down onto the floor, the coils of her hair pressing in like a cunning python.

He grunted, strained but her hair possessed a strength that was beyond that of mere muscles and she grinned down at him without any real spite. 'Hey handsome,' she said, something soft and girlish in the set of her voice and despite the deeper resonance that her Anodite form gave it, it still quivered with the sort of excitement Rook dimly remembered hearing from his days on Revonnah, surrounded by his unwanted fan-club. 'You know, even with the fur, you're kinda pretty. And those orange eyes...mmm, they're like stars.'

'Eeeeew, grosssss,' came a long hiss. And then Ghostfreak charged overhead, long wafting trails of smoke issuing from his arms as he raked his claws against the long glow of his cousin's hair. She screamed in disgust, her hair crawling away from his touch, and by extension, Rook's limbs, as she seized it back and inspected the long curves of it for damage. 'Hey, watch it! I'm waaay too old for grey roots. How is my boyfriend supposed to love me if you do something so horrible as RUINING. MY. HAIR?!'

She emphasised these last three word by sending out large blasts of manner, the discs weaving and dipping into unusual trajectories, ones impossible to manage without some level of psychic control. They raced up and then sideways, their speed increasing as Ben barely made himself intangible for two of them, losing concentration as the third one suddenly flared and exploded into a bright orb of light to burn merrily like a Jack'o lantern. He growled, claws scoring the floor he dived towards, forcing himself to roll through the floor as though he was doing nothing more than performing a mere dodging maneuver before he reappeared metres away, arching up from the tiles behind Sunny in a quick shot of pale grey. He quickly spread out behind her like an immobile sheet, his claws pushing into her back and phasing into her body, though it seemed to take more time then it would with a body formed with actual flesh.

Ben snorted at the effort, and his arms, before they disappeared, Rook noted with concern, were still leaking smoke. It may not have been true light leaking from the Rapunzel-like weave of Sunny's hair, not with the influx of mana spilling from its ends, but it was still bright enough to hurt an Ectonurite.

'Hey cuzzz, I hate to preach, but given the way your hair keeps sssplitting into ssstreamersss, I think you ssshould be worrying more about your actual ssssplit endss.' Ben let out a cackle at this and dived forward, streaking though all the mana Sunny sent towards him and easily passing through her shields like the ghost that he was.

'I doubt very much that an Anodite can actually get grey hair,' muttered Rook, gingerly lifting himself to his feet. 'Since their hair, whilst in their true form, is comprised of mana and not actual cells, which are subject to decay in the way living energy is not.'

But nobody was listening to him. Sunny was screaming and Ben was phasing into her, her eyes flickering from white to green then back again, though the intense shine in her pupil-less eyes never changed.

'Ew, ew, ew, gross, gross, gross!' Sunny was chanting. 'Only my boyfriend's allowed inside me! You're all wrong...and your...energy...dead...!'

Her voice broke on this last word and Ben took advantage of the pause following it.

'Now Rook!' he hissed, out of a mouth that buckled unwillingly under the contortion he forced it under, eyes shining as brightly as the green they always seemed to glow as, no matter which alien shape he struggled to escape into.

Rook needed no telling twice. He clutched the bracelet and leapt once again, even as Ben struggled to push Sunny's flailing body towards the ground. It was hard; Rook could hear the various grunts and curses, as well as a strange sizzling taking place like the fuzzy sound of static on a TV that had lost its signal. There may not have been actual light churning inside the body Ben was currently nestled inside, but then Anodite bodies were much simpler without the mass of chemical reactions that took place within flesh-and-blood organs, and perhaps that could bring its own set of complications.

Rook growled and thrust the bracelet over Sunny's wrist with a casual snap of metal meeting mass; as soon as it came in contact with her arm, Sunny let out a yell, rapidly flickering between flesh and purple-skinned energy. And Ben abruptly fell out of her as though he had been expelled, landing with a flash of green light, back into his human form. After a few seconds, Sunny also fell, rolling with a bump over Ben's back before she gathered her knees up to her chest and gasped, all of her now as thoroughly human as he was.

'What did you...that was wild, man! Urgh...unpleasant afterburn. What kinda drug was that!'

Ben raised an eyebrow, clambering to his feet with a wince. 'No drug,' he said sternly, 'just a recycled gift from Grandpa Max. You look up to Grandma Verdona, right? Well, she once wore that bracelet on her wrist, although I had to tune it up with some help from Grey Matter to get it working again.'

'It will severely limit your powers,' Rook stated, re-hoisting his proto-tool onto his shoulders. 'The most you should be able to manage is some rudimentary telepathy.'

Sunny stared up at them both, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked small and scared, pieces of her hair flattened and swept up by her sweat to be pasted against the side of her cheek.

'Bummer,' she managed, as Rook drew out the handcuffs from his utility belt.

Notes: What a wild night, huh?

And yes, the bracelet is indeed that trinket from the 'Moonstruck' episode in Ultimate Alien.