The abandoned part of the lab was a creepy place to walk through. Everything was rusty and dirty, screaming NEGLECT like a flashy neon sign on a strip club, just less exciting. Ben's feet would on occasion kick a nut or bolt across the floor into some contraption or another with a answering clunk directly available. At least it was something besides eerie silence. The Omnitrix's battery had, unfortunately, expired just before he reached his destination and he was now stuck searching the old fashioned way - on foot (dun-dun-duuuuuun).
"I should have asked for a GPS or something, this place is freaking huge!" he lamented. His echoes bounced back at him, as if mocking his thoughtlessness.
He head movement behind him and ducked into a machine. The Dexters said the robots were only after him... or well, them but he wasn't taking any chances unless he had to. The name plate on the platform of the machine labeled it as a 'Interdimentional Doorway'.
'Good thing it's not on' Ben figured.
However as the universe would have it, luck was not on his side today. The broken power cable was laying over the robot's path and as it moved over the break it completed the circuit and so the device was activated.
-The Opposite Effect-
"I wonder how Ben is fairing."
"I'd bet terribly."
"Really? For what reason?"
"He doesn't know where the filing cabinets are, you moron!"
"Oh dear! I didn't even think about that! Should we go help him?"
"Nah, let 'im suffer. He wanted to go, it's his fault he's lost."
"But there are dangerous inventions there! What if he accidentally sets one off? I don't mean it badly, but you know how clumsy he can be in a lab."
"We're not fucking going."
"And we're not even sure if the robots there are only after us or if they'd go after any poor fellow that passes by! What if he runs into them? Poor Benjamin! Oh he should have never gone!"
"Oh goddamnit are you his mother? He's got the Omnitrix for fuck's sake, I don't see the problem here!"
"The problem is Ben is out there! Alone! And possibly in danger! How will we sleep at night if something happens to him?"
"FINE!"
"What are you doing with those weapons?"
"WE'RE FUCKING GOING, YOU ANNOYING TWAT!"
-The Opposite Effect-
Now that we're all catched up on events I can tell you that Ben has struck gold and found a cave extending out from the path and had quickly jumped in. Panting like and ox, Ben hugged the wall and listened for the booming footsteps.
He listened with rapt attention.
And listened.
...And listened.
...And listened...?
"I don't hear anything. Maybe it ran past?" he whispered moving out the mouth of the cave " how would it move past with footsteps soloud?" He looked around. "Wow. Guess it was so stupid it didn't notice me dive into that hole," he stated smugly. Then he felt hot breath creep down his neck. The monster had appeared behind him.
"This scene is so overused," Ben deadpanned as he turned to look.
It was a big and lumpy mess of a living organism, with unsymmetrical eyes on a blob of flesh that probably served as it's head. The mouths were on it's huge and bulky arms, with jagged and gnarly teeth, salivating like it was their job (which, okay, it probably was). The beast gave a bellowing roar that must have come up from wherever it's stomach was suited that vibrated through, well... everything.
"But apparently still effective!" Ben yelped and started running. Again. Be was sure his legas were going to give out and quit their job as legs and be tentacles instead. Live the dream legs! Live the dream!
Noticing a rock Ben skid to a halt and threw it. The results were phenomenal! It's head actually exploded! Ben stood there, so puzzled the might as well have been a chameleon in a bowl of skittles. "You have got to be kidding me." And, in fact, I am. It did not take long for the monster's head to grow back, all the while Ben stood there and contemplated his life choices.
"I'm starting to think I should have stayed in bed today," he wondered out loud oh so helpfully. The monster wacked him with a back-hand so hard that he was left flying off the path in a straight horizontal line for quite a while before he started to descend to the abyss below, falling for what would be an eternity without aid. Luckily, though, the Omnitrix had finished recharging a few seconds into his free fall. "It's about freaking time!" he shouted at a device to scold it for something that could not be helped. Shame on you, Ben.
More helpfully, he dialed the Omnitrix and selected-
"Big Chill!"
-and flew through the monster to freeze it from the inside out. He was left to marinade in his success for all of two seconds before the creature's body heat melted the ice into a little waterfall off the side of the tiny path. Ben heaved a sigh. "I don't suppose you know of a way back?" He asked the big lumpy blob of flesh.
The monster contemplated him for a while. I assume it's thought process was along the lines of I don't want you here, you don't want to be here, might as well help a bro out because after about a minute it punched the ground and created a vortex.
"Cool, thanks!" Ben didn't feel like questioning it so let's follow his example and just continue through to the other side of the vortex with him and see what that brings.
-The Opposite Effect-
"You are such an irritating prat for talking me into this and I regret coming with," RD grumped as he piloted an updated and larger version of the hover craft they first discovered this part of the lab with.
"You and I are the same person, though we may only be aspects of his personality we still feel emotion of our own therefore I did not talk you into this, you are just as worried as I am. Also, I am not the one that dragged you along, you dragged me along," PD so astutely educated him, playing lookout for any and all signs of Ben. RD rolled his eyes and let the lecture flow into one ear and directly out the other seeing as it held no interest for him. Like hell was he worried! He wasn't capable of being worried, annoyed on the other hand...
RD wasn't worried about Ben. AT ALL. That'd be stupid. And gross. He didn't have the patience to be worried. It was for sissies. Weaklings. People like PD. Yep. No worrying going on here, so sirree. Nada. Zip. Ziltch. No worries. Akhuna ma tata.
He was not worried because point one: Ben has the Omnitrix, point two: he was annoyingly resourceful and point three: that nice, lithe body of his with just enough muscle to be-
"Watch out!" PD yelped just in time for RD to dodge a pillar. "Ben is nice to think about, I know, but please do be sure not to crash," PD teased.
"Shut up, you motherfucking-"
"Pillar!"
RD swerved to find there was actually no pillar near them.
"-prissy son of a bitch."
"Hey, is that a vortex on the ceiling?" PD asked, pointing to the location of it.
"Yes. And that is Big Chill coming through it. I told you it was stupid to worry."
"He obviously set something off, he just came through a vortex!"
"He's obviously fine, dumbass!"
"BEN! Oh Ben! You're alright I hope? Didn't run into too much trouble? Inter-dimensional monsters are quite the threat if you go through random portals!"
"Shut up moron! You want the horde to know we're here?"
"Oops! Sorry!" PD apologized and covered his mouth with both hands.
"Yeah, because there'll be time for 'sorry' when we're getting KILLED!"
"Look out for that pillar!" Ben yelled.
"Fucking pillars and their getting-in-the-way bullshit," RD muttered as he yet again nearly avoided a crash. "AND THE FUCK IS WITH ALL THIS YELLING? YOU TO WANNA DIE?"
"But you're the one yelling now," PD pointed out.
"Fuck you! You started it!"
"So you end it," Big Chill demanded. Both Dexter's shivered as the temperature dropped a few degrees due to his close proximity. "What are you doing here?"
"It's our fucking lab, we can do whatever the hell we want!"
"We realized we forgot to tell you where the filing cabinets are so we got worried that you might run into trouble wandering-"
"I was NOT worried."
"-so we decided to come-"
"You nagged me to come here."
"-and assist despite the danger that may or may not be waiting for us here." PD finished with a pleased smile.
"At least I thought to bring weapons," Rd grumbled.
"Nah, don't worry, with me around you won't even need 'em!" Ben proudly boasted. PD was awestruck and beyond smitten, however RD...
"Thin with something besides you ego, shit-for-brains."
...was not so impressed. And so the trio set off into the sunset...
Joke. They just made a short and uneventful trip to where the filing cabinets are. "This is where they are? Dammit I was so close!" Ben whined.
"Goody for you. You want a medal for that non-achievement?" RD drawled in a voice so dry somewhere in the world, a desert went through a drought. Meanwhile PD was searching through the labels on the drawers to find the RSS blueprints. But upon finding it...
'Uh-oh...' he thought 'this isn't good. Not good at all.'
"What's taking so long? Too complicated a job for ya?" RD complained. PD turned to him and handed over a slip of paper as if he were a reluctantly dead man handing the Grim Reaper a signed death certificate. "This isn't what we were looking for," RD stated pulling a face and grinding his teeth. In a small voice a rather pale PD requested "Read it."
Rolling his eyes RD snatched the paper out of PD's hands and went red with rage an he finished reading it. "THAT STUPID-" he started to yell at the top of his lungs before PD clamped a hand over RD's mouth, now it was just muffled screeching.
"What?" Ben asked, having transformed into his very human self. Still holding RD's mouth shut, PD handed him the loose-leaf.
DEAR DEXTER
I WAS BORED AND I DECIDED TO MAKE A SCAVENGER HUNT!
SO I BORROWED YOUR BLUEPRINTS FOR THE THINGY AND HID IT!
IF YOU WANT THEM BACK, JUST FOLLOW TH CLUES!
LOVE,
DEEDEE
"Does she do this often or...?" Ben puzzledly asked.
However there was no time to get an answer, and RD's shouting had attracted the horde of robots who came speeding in all screeching REVENGE. PD and Ben made for a retreat, but RD, still in a rage, saw no reason to to so and went rushing in with a hand sized lazer pistol and started blindly shooting, sometimes hitting the mark most of the time not, but he hadn't a care in the world, all he was thinking about was the many different ways he was going to maim his sister with his bare hands.
"-that insolent, rotten piece of-" he raved through the violence until there was so much of it he could no longer be heard between retaliating shots. Ben had to physically drag him to the hover craft and shove him on-board, and even then he continued with his onslaught as they flew off. "-fucking annoying, destructive, useless-" Ben and PD just ignored him and let him blow off steam. Better that than have him blow up on them.
"So what was the first clue? I lost the paper," Ben asked.
"Old foes are sometimes allies," PD answered him grimly.
"Mandark." RD growled.