Chapter 155: Static Shock: Part Four
Disclaimer: I Don't Own Ben 10 Or Any Of The Characters. I Don't Own The Rights To Nathan Black Or Any Associated Characters, The Rights Go To annihalator2015
Author's Note:
* Hello and welcome to Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Five!
* Before we begin, I just want to say that this will be the last chapter from me for this year.
* Anyway, this chapter is going to be big! Expect Ben to resolve the conflict with Mr. Fargas/The Electric Man in a very different way.
* I don't really have anything else to say in regards to this chapter, so let's get right into it!
Earth-Prime
Wednesday, March 13th, 2019
Docks and Warehouses District – The Sewers
Ben
I had made my way back into the sewers in the Docks and Warehouses District sometime after leaving home. I made my way back to the chamber, trying to think about how I was going to settle this. Once I made it back to that area, I looked in through the hole in the wall, to see Mr. Fargas standing by the terminal, interacting with it as if he were going to turn the machine on.
If he's made of electricity, how can he type on that terminal?
I had to do something. As reckless as it was, I was about to make my move. I leaped into the chamber through the hole in the wall and shot out a web line, before swinging from the ceiling.
"Stop!" I exclaimed. "You don't know what you're doing!"
Mr. Fargas turned to look at me as he let out a staticky growl of anger.
"Why do you insist on following me around?!" he yelled with anger as he shot a bolt of electricity at me.
I somehow managed to dodge the bolt before it could touch me.
How does he know that I've been following him?! Does he know that I was here earlier today?
I continued swinging in a circle around the room as he continued attacking.
"Please, just listen to me! That machine isn't going to do what you think it does!"
He fired another shot at me, which missed again. I was beginning to get tired from swinging around in circles. I had always seen Spider-Man doing exactly this in the comics, but I didn't realize how tiring it could get.
"Why can't you just die?!" he exclaimed as he sent another bolt my way.
This one actually cut my web line and caused me to fall toward the floor.
"Ha!" he let out a triumphant laugh.
I hit the floor like a ton of bricks and laid there, unmoving. I continued laying there, as I turned my head to look up at Mr. Fargas. He levitated over to me and once he reached me, started zapping me with bolts of electricity. But to my surprise, the electricity seemed to do no damage to me. I wasn't being electrocuted!
How is this possible?! Wait, the new form that the Omnitrix gained yesterday... Could it be possible that it's an insulated alien and it's giving me some kind of resistance to electricity?
It really sounded outrageous, but Mr. Fargas soon spoke, only adding evidence to my hypothesis.
"I see you've somehow become immune to my electricity attacks. No, matter. You won't stop me!"
I wonder, if I have resistance to electricity, can I...
I quickly maneuvered so that I was face up and sent a kick toward Mr. Fargas. To my surprise, when my foot impacted his face, I didn't feel a shock of any kind. After receiving a strike to the face, he was sent backwards a bit, but he didn't stop levitating nor did he ever touch the floor.
"It seems that you're no longer much of a threat to me!" I exclaimed as I jumped back to my feet.
"I would not be so cocky if I were you, youngster!"
I still had to get through to him. That machine isn't going to do what he thinks it will!
I jumped up again, but instead of swinging this time, I started running along the wall as I dodged more of Mr. Fargas's attacks.
"Look, you have to listen to me! I—"
"Shut up!"
He sent another blast my way, which once again I dodged. I ran a complete circle around the spherical room and once I came back around, I leapt off of the wall toward Mr. Fargas. Once I reached him, I put my feet up in front of me, so I came down and kicked into his chest.
"I'm serious, please listen to me! That machine won't do what you think it will! It won't cure you, it'll form a suction vacuum—like a black hole—and it'll start to take in everything in this room, then more and more of the surrounding area!"
He let out a growl of anger before speaking.
"You fool! I know exactly what it will do! If I can't be normal, than no one else can!"
This is worse than I thought, I have to—
He cut off my thought process before I could finish that, by hitting me with a big blast of electricity. He was right. I was being cocky after I learned about my apparent resistance to electricity. He blasted me backwards through the hole in the chamber's wall and back into the tunnel. I hit the wall of the tunnel back first. After the impact, I found myself having a hard time to keep my eyes open. Everything was getting dark and by the time I knew it, everything had gone black.
Four Weeks Ago – Thursday, February 7th, 2019
Nathan Black's House – The Country Outside of Bellwood
After I had taken the time to go over the file found in Enoch's safe last night and making a copy of it, I was ready to go talk to Nathan about my findings. I drove over to his house after school the following day after I had told him earlier that I was going to drop in because I needed to talk to him. I knocked on the door and waited for him to answer. Once he did, he greeted me.
"Tennyson, you said you needed to talk to me. I assume it has to do with our other business, so its best we go downstairs to discuss this." Nathan said as he let me inside of his house.
I stepped inside as I nodded my thanks.
"I agree. It's probably best to have this conversation in a private space."
Upon getting downstairs, I spoke first.
"So, about that information that I found in Enoch's safe, the file that I took to make copies for myself. Do you want me to sugar coat it or be as brutally honest as I can?"
"Don't bother with sugar coating it, always best to know exactly what I'm dealing with." Nathan said as he pulled a chair from the bar inside the lounge and sat down on it, his arms across the back as he waited to hear what I found.
"That's what I thought. Nathan, I think the situation with the Forever Knights just got a whole lot worse."
As I finished my sentence I handed him the original file, while I kept my copy beside me.
"I've taken the liberty of saving the original file for you. You can trust me when I say that I haven't altered or removed anything. Take as much time as you need to look through all the information here. I don't have any prior commitments to tend to today, so I'm all yours until you decide that we're done here."
Nathan took the file and looked it over, remaining silent as he read the contents for around five minutes as he went through the entire folder. Once he was done, she shut the folder, took a breath, and sighed.
"Fucking Nazis, seriously?" He said as he raised the folder and looked at me. "Well the castle itself is old, likely has a couple secret entrances they shouldn't know about since they abandoned it a while back, so I might be able to find them if I look hard enough. But right now, I can't do anything with this information yet, it's not like I'm going to be able to hide the fact that I went to Scotland. I think I'll have to wait until after graduation, where I can disguise this as a business trip of sorts."
"That's what I was going to suggest. You're better off staying here until we graduate, then figure out how you're going to deal with them. I hope you don't mind me saying that you're on your own with this. I've had enough of the Forever Knights and if any stragglers have relocated there, I'm not interested in handling them. The situation has overstayed its welcome."
"I figured I was going to be solo on this. Though the fact that the stragglers have retreated to an old abandoned building to continue their research says that the Forever Knights are on their last legs. Once I finish this group off, that should be it, the Forever Knights will have been totally finished, knock on wood." Nathan said as he put the folder on the bar. "Trust me, I'm well aware of how much shit the Forever Knights have put you and your family through, Tennyson, I'll make sure they can't do it again. But if that's everything, I think you should go be with your family, you've been blowing them off lately. I know it's filthy rich coming from me, but you should stop being a hero for a week or two and just be a regular guy, before you forget what that feels like."
I dismissed what he said about going to be with my family, deciding to talk for a little while longer.
"Not to mention that in an old place like that, they'll be dealing with technology that hasn't been used in decades. So, it'll take them a while to get anywhere substantial when it comes to producing things that will ruin peoples lives. Also, if it makes sense, they don't have access to any funds or technology from their American branch. Even if they do try to send parties over here back to the States to raid the old hideout, it's likely that S.E.C.T. will have hit all of the technology with an E.M.P., so it's unlikely that anything in that old tower will now be useless to them."
"Yeah, so at least we shouldn't have to worry about them for a few months. They're still a threat until I finish them off for good though. But you should probably go be with your family, I know your brother isn't exactly doing well, so try and get him to cool down if he's feeling angry about the eye. And remember, that wasn't your fault, Tennyson. The blame is mostly on me for not being there in time to prevent that from happening in the first place."
I decided to let the part about who's to blame for Albedo's injury go for now, as well as ignore what he said about going to be with my family again.
"Before I go, level with me, Nathan. I'm not accusing you of having been dishonest with me, but did you have any prior knowledge of their castle in Scotland? That is the fact of its existence?"
"To be perfectly honest, I had assumed they had other bases of operation besides the one in Bellwood, but I thought they'd all been abandoned a while back as they flocked to their new headquarters here. I wasn't wrong, though I wasn't aware of the locations of said bases or hideouts, just that I correctly suspected that some did exist."
He didn't say anything about me going to be with my family this time, so I continued the conversation.
"Fair enough, do you find any irony, or maybe not irony, does it surprise you, regarding that two of the most evil groups in our history, crossed paths and did work together?"
"Not really, though I'm surprised they started working together that late in the war. I would've expected them to have been working together as far back as 1914, at least concerning Germany and not Nazi Germany. But that definitely explains the horrific experiments the Nazis performed, and that it wasn't just Nazis doing the deed."
Yeah, The Forever Knights and the Nazis working together from 1943 to 1946. Who would've thought?
"You've also looked through all of the conspiracy shit, right? About Die Glocke and all that? Apparently, the Nazis had miles of underground tunnels in the German wilderness, yet to be fully explored and if it was real, Die Glocke was never found in any of those locations. Do you think Die Glocke could have ended up at that castle? Or is it not worth thinking about it?"
"Might be there, though if it is, it's been half a century since it was last fired up and has just been collecting rust in a dank underground basement. I doubt it even works if it is real, been way too long without any maintenance. But if I do find it, I'll be sure to turn it into scrap metal, because the last thing we need is the Forever Knights to get their hands on a Nazi time machine, or antigravity device, or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be and do. As it stands, it won't be our problem for too long."
"I was only curious, but glad to know your intentions. There was a lot to unpack here, so I hope you aren't upset about me taking the night to fully digest what I was looking at, before coming to you with this."
"Yeah, it's definitely a lot. But again, not much I can do with this at this moment. I'll be sure to let you know once they've been dealt with, should keep you from getting any headaches caused by Forever Knight related situations for the rest of your life."
"Now that I think about it, in the data that we recovered from the tower, I found a list of employees—scientists, security—whatever. And what I found in this was that out of the people that were there last night, one of the few people I didn't see was Wayne Li. When my friends and family sprung me from the simulation, Cooper recovered some data and gave us an idea of who Li is. He was one of Enoch's subordinates, however he seemed to be disloyal to Enoch, wanting to create bioweapons using alien DNA, rather than continue hoarding alien technology and advancing it or integrating it into their tech. If Enoch is dead, do you think that Li is the castle's acting director?"
"Probably..." Nathan was silent for a few seconds before swearing loudly. "Okay, you know how we saw Enoch with Animo? Right before we were attacked by the roboscorpion? Enoch ran off with a large vial of my blood, but when we cornered him in his office, he had no fucking clue what we were talking about when that was brought up. I don't think it was Enoch with Animo, I think it was Li trying to actively undermine Enoch that night, us being there was a happy coincidence for him. Meaning Li has a vial of my blood, and some alien DNA to splice it with."
Okay, but what's so important about your blood in specific?
Meanwhile, Nathan was now rather agitated, as he had gotten up and was now pacing back and forth across the room.
"Okay, they have decades old tech, meaning if they wanted to create a clone, it would take them a considerable amount of time, right? Maybe a year or two? That gives me enough time to graduate, head over to Scotland, and shut down their entire operation before it even gets off the ground."
"It definitely sounds like something Li would do, seeing as he was disloyal to Enoch. And splicing your blood with alien DNA sounds like something he'd be interested in trying, seeing as his M.O. never matched Enoch's. I wish you luck with dealing with them when the times comes. So, is there anything else we need to talk about?"
Nathan sighed and sat back down, shaking his head.
"No, not as far as I'm aware. I think this was pretty much it. You watch yourself Tennyson, we made a big power vacuum when we took down the Forever Knights last night. The criminal underworld is going to be absolute chaos as they fight each other to fill that vacuum. You got the biggest target on your back right now if anyone was watching us last night."
"Here's hoping nothing bad happens. I'll take your advice and continue lying low in the meantime. If that's everything and we have nothing else to discuss, I'll get out of your hair."
"Yeah, later Tennyson." Nathan said as he rubbed his eyes.
He was clearly unhappy about the Forever Knights using his blood.
But what was so important about it in the first place? I'd have to figure that out another time.
Wednesday, March 13th, 2019
Docks and Warehouses District – The Sewers
When I finally came to, I heard something from down in the chamber. As I moved to get up, I had no idea how long I had been out. I took a peek through the hole in the wall and my worst fears were confirmed. Mr. Fargas was interacting with the terminal and it had looked like he turned it on. A small, black hole with gray streaks along the edges of it, had formed above the center of the pedestal.
Oh no, I thought. What now?
The vortex was beginning to suck in small things within the chamber. Small bits of brick, pencils and papers from the couple of desks in the room. I had no idea what I was going to do. That's when I heard Sunny's voice in my head.
You know, if Kaine can't do anything, then maybe Ben Tennyson can.
I continued watching the vortex take in more mass. Mr. Fargas was unscathed in all of this, as it slowly got bigger.
Try, Ben, Sunny's words echoed in my mind. Try to do the right thing.
I continued watching, as it slowly got worse still.
This might be the only way, I thought. I'm going to do what Sunny suggested. I'm going to reveal myself to Mr. Fargas.
I then jumped out through the hole in the wall and swung toward him.
"Mr. Fargas!" I exclaimed as I reached out with one hand. "Stop! You need to—"
He spun around, showing no visible reaction to me saying his name.
"Why can't you just stay down?!" he exclaimed as he began sending bolts of electricity toward me again.
I did my best to dodge all of them and swung my way into him, knocking him to the ground. Once he was down against the wall, I shot two balls of web onto his hands to keep him restrained while I was talking. I was surprised to see that his electricity didn't burn the webs away. I wasted no time in pulling off my mask.
"Mr. Fargas, it's me!" I exclaimed. "It's Ben Tennyson!"
He only responded by snarling, trying to get free, so I had to try harder.
"Mr. Fargas, do you remember me?! My name is Ben Tennyson, you're my AP Chemistry teacher!"
And that's when it happened. He seemed to struggle for another split second or so and then his eyes changed. The color changed from bright electric yellow, to a soft, light blue. He just stared at me for a few seconds, as if he were confused. Then at least, he spoke.
"Mr. Tennyson, my favorite student."
Wait, was it really that easy?! Does he really just remember now, despite the damage to his mental facilities?!
But he sounded dazed, as if he were still confused. He didn't say anything else after that, he just kept staring at me. So, I had to take the initiative and speak.
"Mr. Fargas, we have to shut the machine down! If it's allowed to keep running, it could destroy everything!"
All he did in response was give me a blank stare. I thought I was going to have to speak for him again, but he eventually did speak.
"It can't be shut off. It's self-sustaining now. See for yourself."
I turned to look at it, to see that the vortex had gotten bigger. It was beginning to suck in bigger objects now, such as the desks which were now sliding across the floor, at a slower pace mind you, but it was still noticeable. I turned back to look at him again.
"Mr. Fargas, please. There has to be a way to stop it. You wouldn't do something like this!"
He shook his head.
"I told you, there's no way to shut it down. It's hopeless."
I once again turned to look at the vortex, beginning to grasp the hopelessness of the situation."
"Unless..." he began to speak.
I turned back to look at him with a serious gaze. A spark of electricity came from one of his stuck hands, which somehow melted the web.
"...Syphon the power out of it."
Seeing as I had a new alien form that were natural conductors of electricity, so I should be able to handle it. I dialed up the Omnitrix, but to my surprise, Mr. Fargas zapped me, which shut down the Omnitrix, putting it in its red recharging state.
How could his electricity shut down the Omnitrix?
"I'll do it." he said as he began to move.
He began levitating again and ripped himself free of my other web ball.
So, restraining him like that was for nothing?
Mr. Fargas approached his machine and once he was close enough, he held both of his hands out and bolts of electricity began to fly from both of his hands. I watched as he seemed to focus, using his abilities to drain his machine of its power. For several seconds, the bolts of electricity fluctuated up and down in an erratic fashion.
At this point, Mr. Fargas began to let out staticky grunts of pain and I began to get worried. The first thing to happen next was the lights in the room began to slowly flicker on and off. Following that, Mr. Fargas's form began to flicker as well. For some reason, I had a feeling that something bad was coming, so I stood up.
"Mr. Fargas!" I cried out as I began running toward him, with one of my arms outstretched.
I was surprised when he suddenly spun the top half of his body to face me and sent a bolt of electricity into me. I was knocked back into the wall and was temporarily left incapacitated. When I looked back at Mr. Fargas, not only were the lights in the room dimming even more, but his body was starting to flash between a dark and pale yellow. As the noise of the machine grew quieter, he left out a static-filled scream, as if he were in pain.
"Mr. Fargas!" I cried out again as I reached for him.
But it was no use. He let out one final static-filled scream of pain and then it was over. After that, he was gone. First his arms and legs disappeared, then along with the rest of his body, as the lights went out fully. It was like he had been atomized. But at some sort of sick price, it had worked. The machine had been shut down and would likely never be turned back on again. It was covered in black burn marks and the pedestals had sagged a bit, as if the metal had been weakened. Mr. Fargas must have fried the machine as he was syphoning its power before he went. Other than that, it seemed like my work here was done.
Sometime Later
Downtown Bellwood
I sat atop a building in Downtown Bellwood, where I was reflecting on the events of tonight.
We machined to shut the machine down, but at what cost? Mr. Fargas lost his life. Maybe I could have helped him, maybe S.E.C.T. could have found a way to rehabilitate him somehow. Or maybe he was always destined to go like that. But, he gained back some of his humanity for just long enough to correct his mistake.
I let out a sigh as I stood up to look out over the city. I grinded my teeth together as I let out a growl of anger.
God damn it, I thought. Another perfectly good human life wasted thanks to greedy people like the Enochs and Wayne Li.
I jumped from the roof, ready to go home, as I let out another sigh.
When does this ever end?
Later That Evening
The Tennyson House
I had returned home and now that the issue with Mr. Fargas had been "resolved", I was ready to confront Albedo about whatever he wanted to talk to tell me. I walked downstairs into the basement and to the door to Albedo and Sunny's bedroom. I knocked on it.
"Albedo," I called. "are you still awake?"
I didn't hear anything from inside the room, so I assumed that they were asleep. But then, the door opened and Albedo stepped out, wearing pajama pants and a short sleeved shirt. Before he shut the door behind him, I saw that Sunny was lying in bed, also in pajamas, so I assumed that they were just lying down for the night.
"Did you take care of what you needed to take care of?" he asked.
I nodded without a word to him.
"How did it go?"
"Good and bad." I replied as I walked over to the couch.
I sat down and turned back to look at him as he followed me over.
"So, what did you want to talk to me about?"
He stopped at the arm of the couch but didn't sit down. He just stood there for a second or two, as if working up the courage to say what he wanted to say.
"I wanted to apologize." He said at last.
I just stared at him.
"You wanted to apologize?"
He nodded.
"Yeah. I was greatly hostile toward you about my injury, going on to voice that it was your fault that I wanted nothing to do with you and that wasn't right of me to do. I've been kicking myself about it ever since Sunny told me that it was you who got Director Steel to get me to pair me with the robotic eye. So, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."
I patiently listened to everything he had to say and when he was done, I gave it some thought.
Well, it's good of him to apologize. But now I need to do something that he may not like. It'll hurt a little bit, but it had to be done.
I let out a sigh before I spoke.
"I don't want to hear it."
He looked back at me with a look of shock on his face.
"What?" he asked with disbelief. "But, why—"
"Think of it this way, Albedo. I felt guilty—I still feel guilty—about you losing your eye, so how do you think it made me feel to have you blame me for it, as well? That fucking hurt, you just adding salt to the wound. I get it, you were angry and I suppose you had a right to, but you didn't need to pin it on me."
"But I just want to apologize to—"
"I understand that you want to apologize and that's great. But after the things that you said to me and what you put me through, I'm not sure that I care for your apology."
Not to mention the fact that you gave me a black eye, I thought. Part of me wants to give you a black eye, but I'll just keep that to myself.
He just looked down at his feet, not saying anymore. Did I feel even a little bad that I had potentially hurt his feelings? Yes, I did. I got up and approached Albedo, putting my hand on his shoulder.
"Albedo, you're my brother and I love you. Nothing will ever change that."
He looked up at me with a blank face and still said nothing.
"But my friendship is something that you're going to have to earn back."
I then left him to reflect on how he had treated me in the past and his "punishment" for having done so. It had been a pretty bad day, anyway. I just wanted to go to bed and try to forget.
Epilogue One
Frank and Natalie Tennyson's House
Ken Tennyson
I stood in the bathroom in my parent's house, once again over for dinner. We had just finished up and I went to the bathroom to clean myself up before leaving. It was when I was splashing my face with water at the sink, that I heard it.
"You've taken your eye off the ball." A ghastly sounding voice spoke out of nowhere.
I looked up and the first thing I noticed was the figure in the mirror. It wasn't my reflection. Instead, I was looking at what looked like one of those goblins from those comic books that Ben was always reading. I backed up from the mirror with surprise and fear, blinking as I did. But of course, as soon as I blinked, the figure was gone and I was looking at my own reflection again. I was somewhat disturbed by this occurrence and decided that it was best to just get out of here.
What the hell was that?
Epilogue Two
Docks and Warehouses District – The Sewers
Deep underground in Mr. Fargas's secretive chamber, among the displaced desks and server machines, and the burned out machine, there is nothing but darkness. Everything is silent. All except for one sudden spark of electricity coming from the machine.
Author's Note:
* And that's it for this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed!
* What did you guys think of this chapter? I want to make it apparent, even though it's pretty obvious, but I pulled a lot of inspiration from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 when I was deciding Mr. Fargas' fate. I hope you all liked it, even as badly told as it may have been. If you have anything to say about this chapter, please ask me any questions or give me any comments that you feel like giving me.
* Anyway, I'm going to go, though. So have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and I will be back in 2022.
Next Chapter: Old Man Ben calls onto Ben Prime and the rest of the multiverse to help assist him in raiding a prison on the outskirts of the Bellwood Ruins.