Ben 10 and Monster High belong to their rightful owners
Grammar issues ahead
PLAN A, B... C?
The bright neon green circle that served as Upgrade's eye was focused in the direction of the building that served as the high school. Although his face was the definition of expressionless, his mind was in chaos. He was careless and ruined the opportunity to retrieve the camera and accomplish his mission. Literally, his target went down the toilet along with a fragment of his body. This could be even more counterproductive than the photos, if someone mistakenly found their way to his fragment and managed to activate the nanomachines somehow, that meant they could get to him. He could only hope that no one would be so bold as to start experimenting with a black slime that came out of nowhere. Things like that never ended well in the movies after all.
"What should I do?" His computerized mind began to evaluate the possibilities, the possible routes the three objects he lost could take as they traveled through the pipes, he could only pray they didn't end up in a nasty place.
He evaluated the idea of entering the school and retrieving all the objects at once, after all, it was just after nine-thirty in the morning, he still had about three hours to accomplish his mission. If he entered the school, that meant he would have to be very stealthy, avoid being seen as a six-foot-nine alien, which would be difficult since his current form glowed like a beacon in the dark and not figuratively, his lines glowed in the dark almost automatically.
If he wanted to get in, he was going to have to be as discreet as possible, not to mention that he was going to have to hide the car first, a pile of vehicle-shaped junk in the same place where Frankie's car was parked before would raise some suspicions, so the right thing to do would be to take it somewhere else. Another problem was that she couldn't tell any of her new friends, or failing that Cleo, about her plan. So they were not going to be able to help him.
He thought and rethought every idea that came to his mind, the good thing about his Galvanic Mechamorph form being a genius helped him when it came to thinking, although that smart one was mostly used for mechanics and not for coming up with plans, it was useful to him at the moment.
An idea of how to enter the school without standing out too much came to his mind and his head dived out of the vehicle and emerged inside the trunk, where the box full of objects that belonged to him and that he was able to rescue from the wreckage of the proto-truck rested.
"I know I saw it here..." he muttered as he removed the lid of the box with the help of some tentacles and began to check the contents of it. "Bingo."
Two tentacles carefully lifted an object whose shape resembled that of an expressionless mask, like those used in the theater. This object was none other than an ID mask, a kind of camouflage that created a hologram so that the user could pass unnoticed among alien species. In reality, these masks were used by aliens to go unnoticed among humans, it was very common to see them since they did not exceed level 3 technology. It was a simple but effective camouflage, perfect for their current mission.
"Monster High, you're about to get a visit from Ben Tennyson." His tone of voice was jocular as if he was amused by the whole situation.
With an almost perfect plan developed, there was only one thing left to do. The alien started the car's engine and once again created the hologram that was identical to his true form and rolled down the window just so as not to arouse suspicion.
VROOM
The noise caused by the engine starting up startled some of the students in the nearby trees. Some students inside the school also heard the noise and looked out the windows, only to see the black vehicle drive off the school grounds.
One of these students was a young ghost, she was roaming the halls of the school, making sure no one saw her as she was a shy and introverted girl who took refuge behind the screen of an ICoffin.
Chains and shackles were strange ornaments to be used as school attire, but they only complemented the attire of the young woman whose appearance was reminiscent of a ghost.
Pale almost transparent skin accented by violet makeup, gothic-looking clothing consisting of a black tank top with light magenta trim, a tattered magenta and black foulard along with a second translucent overlay skirt, her legs were covered by platform boots that came to her ankles and a necklace made of chains rested around her neck.
This girl watched through the window with some curiosity the black vehicle leaving the school grounds, she already knew that car and knew who it belonged to, but she was sure that the owner was still in her classroom because she herself had made sure of this since she intended to go to that car for journalistic reasons. Seeing the car drive away was strange, but what it caused in her was annoyance, for that would be her next story to cover, the interior of Frankie Stein's car, this to find more clues about the mysterious brown-haired boy she saw when that car first appeared and the commotion it caused when it was discovered, or at least when everyone interpreted, that this boy was the partner of Frankenstein's monster girl.
Resigned at having lost her chance to get her new news, the girl prepared to leave the place, but some accelerated footsteps were heard and this forced her to hide, sinking completely to the ground.
This action prevented her from being seen by three catgirls who were none other than Toralei, Meowlody and Purrsephone. The three monsters looked upset, besides being somewhat wet for some reason.
"We're taking too long! Break it up!" ordered the tiger-like cat girl and her friends nodded. The three girls took different courses as they arrived at a crossroads between corridors, moving away from the scene in a hurry.
Carefully, the ghost girl poked her head up from the ground, making sure there was no one around so she could get out.
She was curious about what happened to those three girls and what they were looking for, but dismissed the idea, from Toralei's tone of voice she could guess that they were not happy and she did not want to be on the bad side of the three girls who could detect her almost instantly. The best thing for her to do was to go look for new news or rumors elsewhere, she was sure she would find something.
When the bell rang and signaled the change of period, Frankie Stein gathered her things and went in search of her friends, she knew that two of them would be taking an exam in the next period, so she would only be able to meet with one of them.
After wandering around the school a bit, she finally came across Clawdeen, the young werewolf woman was doodling in a brown covered notebook. Her concentration was so much that she didn't notice Frankie approaching her until the young woman spoke to her.
"What are you doing?" asked the girl made of parts.
The werewolf woman was startled for a few moments, but when she saw that it was only her friend, she relaxed and went back to her work.
Frankie looked over her friend's shoulder, saw the drawings on the sheets, they were different clothing designs and reminded her of a certain teenager from space.
"Do you like them?" he asked. "I had some ideas and used Upgrade as a base." Hearing this aroused Frankie's curiosity, who took a closer look at the sketches, four pencil drawings were there, they were female outfits of different styles.
For a few seconds the young Stein examined the drawings, she was far from possessing her friend's level of skill as she had been doing things like that for a long time, designing and making outfits that she sometimes sold to other students at school.
Although the four outfits were different from each other, they all had one constant, they were black and had lines similar to circuits, as if mimicking the techno design of the alien's body. One in particular she liked more than the rest as it was very similar to the clothes she was wearing at the time.
"I like that one." He said pointing to the drawing. "You're trying to make clothes for Upgrade? You know he said he's a boy, right?"
"it's not for him. He doesn't even wear pants." Remembering that made Frankie's face color darken a little. "I just like the way his body looks, his lines look like some kind of tattoo and it gives him a more aesthetic look." Despite not understanding what her friend meant by that Frankie nodded, she was only good at sewing, but Clawdeen was a master when it came to fashion and clothing. "I just used it as inspiration to create my next clothing line, I'm calling it, Updeen's!"
Frankie couldn't help but arch an eyebrow at that unimaginative name, her friend had only taken the first two letters of the alien's name and the last four of her name, that wasn't very creative of her.
"Your creativity just boils down to designs." The werewolf woman looked offended by her friend's comment and pretended to be hurt at her words.
"I just wanted to give the big guy a little credit." Like a drama queen, the wolf girl brought a hand to her forehead and pretended to be very offended, causing Frankie to laugh. "Not much obviously, you have to keep him from getting greedy, I was thinking twelve percent."
"I'm sure he'll be happy to know you created something inspired by him."
Clawdeen went back to her work, while Frankie decided to reach into her bag and pull it out, an object that had captured her attention ever since she got it, the translator that Upgrade handed her and that she was more than sure had other functions.
Before doing anything, she made sure they were the only ones in the hallway and then pressed the red part, revealing the holographic display.
"That's a hologram?" questioned Clawdeen in surprise. "Cool! Does it have space games? " she asked with interest. "Maybe a space camera? Space music? Space internet? "
"I'm not sure." Frankie replied. The young woman ran her fingers over the screen, allowing her access to other parts of the software. "I've been thinking about how it works, it looks a bit like an ICoffin, but I honestly don't know what I'm doing." She explained as she tapped an icon and before her a smiley face opened up.
This caused Clawdeen to arch an eyebrow, and question why that device had such an emoticon.
"You didn't ask Upgrade how that thing works?" Frankie denied her friend's question, which confused her. "I mean, now you can talk to him no problem and you asked him absolutely nothing about that thing? Or about him? Nothing?"
"It's not like I didn't try, when he created this plan to come to the school and steal the camera, he invited me to see a movie. I think it was called Terminator."
"How does he know Terminator?" Frankie shrugged, she was just as confused as her werewolf friend.
"I don't know, I tried to talk to him while we were watching that movie, but he didn't seem to be listening to me, he even said "Shut up Gwen"."
"Who is Gwen?" questioned Clawdeen again. "no, that's not the important thing, why didn't you insist? I thought you'd be the curious one, you live with him."
"He lives in my garage." She corrected. "And, I don't know, you know I still have a hard time talking to new people and I didn't have my magazines to help me." At that answer, the wolf woman let out a sigh of disappointment, she couldn't believe her ears. "And it was kind of rude of he not to pay attention to me."
"When we get out of school, we'll question him. I feel something isn't right."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, but something smells bad and my nose never lies." She replied as he touched the tip of her nose with her index finger.
Frankie wasn't sure how to respond to that, she was aware that Upgrade was strange, not just because he was an alien, but because of all his knowledge of Earth and his apparent connection to a human named Ben Tennyson.
"I'm sure this all has something to do with that human, Ben Tennyson." Clawdeen said aloud.
As if responding to the name said by the werewolf woman, a new information window opened on the holographic screen, taking both girls by surprise. The information appeared to be locked as a padlock appeared on the screen next to the word "User".
This caught the attention of both young women, who looked at the object with confusion.
"What is that?" questioned Clawdeen. She brought a finger up to the screen and pressed the padlock that appeared there and a new tab opened.
Enter your password: ...
"Password?" read Frankie out loud. She wasn't sure what was going on with that device, the night before she didn't act that way, maybe they did something that got them to that point.
"Why does it have a password?" questioned the werewolf woman. "Oh! Try one, two, three four."
"Clawdeen, we don't even know what's going on with this thing, it could be bad." Frankie instantly dismissed the idea of entering any numbers or letters into that tab as she had no idea what could happen. "Here, look." Frankie pointed to the top left corner of the screen, a username could be seen there.
"Ben Ten? What kind of name is Ben Ten? It's like his parents wanted him to rhyme or something." The werewolf woman couldn't help but find that name strange, though her mind related it to another one Upgrade had already said.
"Ben... You think that's a nickname? Upgrade said he was looking for a boy named Ben Tennyson, maybe it's the same boy?" Frankie's words made Clawdeen think carefully, she remembered clearly the day they met the alien, as they managed to get a good scare when the alien just wanted to return Cleo's Icoffin and make a call.
"Now that you mention it, I remember that. Maybe Ben Ten is a nickname for Ben Tennyson?" she suggested.
"Benjamin Tennyson." The young monster made of parts' expression turned thoughtful, she had a vague idea of who Ben Tennyson was since Upgrade could create a hologram of him inside the car mimicking the boy's image, but she couldn't relate him to anything else. "Any ideas?" Clawdeen shrugged in response.
Frankie was about to take a chance and touch the tab to enter a password, maybe they would get lucky and find out who Ben Tennyson was and help the alien find him, but she was interrupted.
"Lagoona, come on, you have to understand."
Frankie was startled at the sound of that voice and quickly hid the device and held up a teen magazine to hide her face, while Clawdeen returned her face to the sketchbook and pretended to be doodling.
Two young men appeared down the hallway, one of them was Lagoona, the young water monster had an annoyed expression on her face and was walking hurriedly and stomping her feet. Behind her and with a clear desperation was a male water monster, the boy possessed light blue scales all over his body, along with a fin on his head giving an appearance similar to a mohawk.
The boy's attire consisted of black sandals on his feet, gray jeans, a purple T-shirt and over this a jacket that was part of the Monster High uniform since it had the school's emblem. The feature that stood out the most was that she had a dome full of water to avoid dehydration and to be able to breathe.
Franke and Clawdeen followed the young couple with their eyes, looking with some discomfort at what was happening in front of them.
"I do what I can! You know my parents are very stubborn about it, if I tell them about us, they might send me to another school! I wouldn't be able to see you anymore!"
The boy's statement made Lagoona stop and turn to look at him, her expression was annoyed, but there were also traces of disappointment in it.
Her partner tried to take her by the hands, but she took a step back and folded her arms, causing the young man's face to reflect even more concern and fear as he did not wish to make his girlfriend angry.
"I know it's hard Gill, but I told my parents about you. You still hide me, you can't even hold my hand when we go out for fear of someone seeing us." The girl's gaze turned away from her boyfriend, she was disappointed in him, very disappointed. "I understand that you don't want them to be mad at you, but I don't like you hiding me, it's like you don't really want to go."
"I want to be serious!" replied Gill, the young man emphasized his words with his arms, but it didn't seem to convince the girl. "I'm very serious about this! That's why I can't take any chances!"
"And how long will I have to wait? A week? A month? A year? I don't want that." Gill made puppy dog eyes at hearing that, things weren't going well, that a little chat with his girlfriend, secretly, would end up in an argument like that was not in his plans. "I want our relationship to be public, like Clawd and Draculaura, they are together even when that silly vampire/werewolf feud is going on. Even Draculaura and Clawdeen are best friends, we can't even be that because of your parents!"
"I know my parents can be a bit harsh..."
"Harsh? They hate me for being saltwater!" shouted the young woman, her gaze was riveted on her boyfriend's, who was surprised at this outburst. Lagoona closed her eyes, she didn't want to be angry with her boyfriend, she didn't, but the whole situation was unfavorable, she needed to relax. "Let's talk later."
"Lagoona, I..." The young man once again tried to move his hand closer to the young woman, but she once again prevented him.
"Please Gill." The girl hugged herself and chose to look at the floor instead of at her boyfriend. "I don't want to have this discussion now."
The freshwater young man could only watch as his girlfriend walked away down the hallway, he tried to reach out his arm to stop her, but in the end, he just lowered it and turned around, taking the opposite path to the blonde.
When both boys disappeared from the scene, Clawdeen and Frankie, who did their best to remain hidden, lowered their respective covers. An uncomfortable feeling permeated the air, hearing their friends argue as that left them with a bad taste in their mouths.
"We shouldn't have heard that, should we?" questioned Frankie, she was still looking at the place where Lagoona had disappeared, and wished she could go to comfort her, but that would expose that they were present during that argument.
"No, no we shouldn't." Clawdeen replied. She arched an eyebrow at the melodrama those boys were having. "Those two need couples therapy." The werewolf woman looked down at her sketchbook with a frown, witnessing that scene took all her inspiration away. "If they have so many problems, why are they still together?"
"Don't be hard on them, it must be hard on both of them. That Gill's family doesn't want Lagoona just because they're not the same species and won't let them be together because of prejudice and..." Frankie was silenced by her friend's hands waving in front of her face to stop her talking.
"Okay, I get it, I was a bit of a jerk to Draculaura, I already apologized, stop reminding me." Frankie let out a low chuckle at that and returned his attention to the device. Clawdeen for his part grumbled a little. "So, will you try some password?"
"I can't think of any." Frankie replied.
"Do you have any idea what other function that thing has?"
"Well, last night I was able to activate some sort of map and there was something called Omnimatrix."
"And what is that?"
Frankie could only shrug, she didn't have an answer and this exasperated Clawdeen a little.
"We need to know more, I don't want to sound like Cleo, but, it's suspicious." Even if she said this, she wanted to find out more to satiate her curiosity, she wanted to know what things existed out there, in outer space.
"Maybe Upgrade is that thing called Omnimatrix." Frankie picked up the translator again and under Clawdeen's watchful eye opened different options until she came to a map, which had two dots, one red, which pointed to their position, and another with a strange hourglass symbol that seemed to be moving. "I'm not sure he's a normal monster, maybe he's a simulacrum."
"Like a robot?" Frankie nodded in response. Clawdeen thought about it for a few seconds, her friend's words made sense, as her sense of smell only detected a metallic scent emanating from the alien. She chose to leave those thoughts for another time and focused on the screen in front of them. "That looks like the GPS in my dad's truck." Clawdeen commented a bit quizzically at the similarity. "And what's that?" the werewolf woman tapped the moving symbol, causing a response from the device.
Omnimatrix detected. Failure to connect to the bidirectional communication system.
"Omnimatrix?" asked Clawdeen, the young girl this confused but full of curiosity. That was perhaps an opportunity to discover more of the space monster they knew.
"I don't know, but..." Frankie moved the little device, trying to find the straight path to the green dot. "You said the same thing last night and the green dot was closer." The young woman looked in the direction the green dot seemed to be in. "It's coming from that direction and it's moving."
"That's near the school entrance. Do you think we should investigate?"
"I don't know, it could be something dangerous." Frankie replied, and even though logic dictated that they shouldn't, but she was curious to find out more about the device and its owner. "But maybe it's Upgrade, we'd better make sure, he didn't tell me what exactly it would do and according to this, whatever it's detecting is getting into the school."
"That could be a bad thing." Clawdeen put a hand under her chin and her expression became thoughtful. "It's an alien, what if he doesn't understand the norms of our society and tries to have a baby with someone's face?" Frankie looked with a very dismayed expression at her friend, who shrugged as if it wasn't something strange. "What? That's the thing about Alien, there's this thing that hug your face and..."
"Please, no." Frankie implored, she didn't want to know what her friend is talking about, so she preferred to return her gaze to the holographic map. The green dot was still moving. "It's this way, come on." She said as she began to move forward. Her friend quickly followed her after gathering her things. "Do you think Upgrade is doing something wrong?"
"For our sake, I hope not."
A human boy with brown hair and a flamboyant outfit was standing in front of the Monster High building.
That young man was wearing black overalls with green lines that seemed to be glowing slightly, black shoes were on his feet and his eyes seemed to emit a slight neon glow.
This human was none other than Upgrade in disguise.
After taking the car that was his disguise out of sight of prying eyes, he walked back to school and used the ID chewing to pass for a normal human. A normal human with a strange fashion sense if I might add.
"I hope this isn't too flashy." He said to himself as he saw his reflection in the glass of the school door. "If anyone asks, I'll just say I like TRON."
He entered the building, ready to get it over with on a mission that turned out to be more problematic than he had originally planned.
His nanomachines scanned everything in a nearby radius, giving the necessary information to his mind to create a 3D image and allow him to move forward. At that moment there was no one in the corridors, so he could walk without worries.
He examined the corridors carefully, despite being a school for monsters, he already observed that they did not differ much from the behaviors of an average human teenager and his school was not very different from an average human school, except for the design of the lockers, which were shaped like a coffin and that the roof of the place seemed to curve in defiance of architectural logic. Although he had no idea about that and could only speculate.
"The last thing I saw was a light and a lot of water..." the alien tried to recall some extra detail of what happened to his fragment, but he had no concrete clue. "Maybe I should investigate the bathrooms first."
Following his knowledge about high schools, the boy followed a mental route to where he could find the objects he went to look for.
When he got far enough away from that place, a pair of violet eyes appeared in one of the lockers and looked at him. The owner of these eyes was excited to see that the boy who brought the car the first day and that everyone related him as Frankie's boyfriend showed up at school, that was the premise she wished for.
The eyes disappeared as if they had never been there and a translucent silhouette began to follow the young "human" unnoticed.
"Did anyone find that thing?" asked Toralei to her two friends. The three girls had been hanging around the school for about an hour looking for any sign of the thieving robot and they would soon run out of time. "If I don't turn those pictures in today, I'm dead."
"I looked outside the school, I didn't find anything." Meowlody said. "I did see Gill though, it looks like he argued with Lagoona again."
"As much fun as it is to annoy that fool and his little girlfriend, I don't care right now." Toraleí turned his attention to Purrsephone. "Did you find anything?"
"I went to the second floor, I didn't see anything strange, but I passed Frankie and Clawdeen, they seemed to be looking for something. Do you think they spotted us?"
"No, everyone knows Clawdeen is too focused on her sketchbook and Frankie is easy to manipulate, she won't even have noticed." Toralei brought a hand to her chin and put on a thoughtful expression. Things were complicated and she didn't have much time left and if she didn't want to get a punishment, she had to take that camera to the headmistress's office after lunch.
"I still don't understand something." Meowlody leaned back by the nearby wall and examined his fingernails. "What was that thing and why did it want the camera?"
"Let's go over what we know." The striped-furred cat woman began to hold up a finger to list the information they had. "That thing came out of the vent, attacked us, stole the camera and tried to get away."
"Then you got mad and flushed it down the toilet." said Purrsephone. "Maybe it got stuck in the pipes."
"Or ended up in the catacombs." Added Meowlody "Both options are horrible."
Toralei patted her face, her temper working against her, now she understood why some teachers, and her adoptive parents, were always pointing out to her that she should control her temper. She distanced herself from the conversation, the twins continued to share their ideas about where the strange black and green robot might have gone to end up. The orange furred girl with stripes was pensive, there was something strange about that device, other than it appeared out of nowhere and went straight for the camera, she didn't understand that, why did it target only the camera? There were only pictures she took of everyone at school and the embarrassing ones she took with her ICoffin for future pranks. Something didn't fit.
Her ears twitched slightly, a sign that her sensitive hearing picked up a sound. Muffled footsteps, as if some sort of jelly was hitting the floor were approaching. She turned her gaze to the source of the sound, it was coming from a nearby hallway so she moved closer and peeked out curiously. Something familiar appeared in her field of vision, a black outfit with a peculiar pattern of green lines, this was worn by a young brown-haired man who, to her surprise, was a human.
The young man had not noticed her presence yet and continued to approach where she and her friends were.
"Hey, his clothes look a bit like the painting on that robot that stole the camera." Toralei looked down, Purrsephone was there, looking up at the human boy.
"What's a human doing here?" asked Meowlody, who was standing below her twin.
"A prank, maybe? Remember last year when they changed the soccer team's water tank with pink paint? And when they won and threw it at Clawd he ended up with pink fur and had to shave it off?" Toralei and Meowlody nodded at what Purrsephone said. "Maybe that's it, he's alone though, it must not be anything big."
Toralei wanted to say something, maybe shut her two friends up so that this boy wouldn't discover them, but she noticed that the young man turned around and began to retrace his steps, something that was strange without a doubt.
What the cat girl could not guess was that the young man was doing that because she noticed them.
Upgrade's nanomachines, while scanning the area, detected the three young women peeking out and sent that information to the computerized mind. To avoid trouble, the alien chose not to go that way and took another path.
Toralei's feline cunning made her put some pieces together. That boy was human, he was at Monster High, a school with which all the human schools in the area had a certain rivalry with pranks, he possessed an outfit too similar to the black paint that covered that thieving robot and he was looking for something.
"He owns the robot." Toralei shared her resolve with her friends. "He sent it to steal my camera!"
"Why would a human do that? There are only yearbook photos." The black-haired cat woman commented.
"Unless the humans are planning something." The white-haired cat woman suggested.
"With the yearbook photos?"
"Hey, it's just a thought."
Toralei rolled her eyes, her friends could sometimes go off the deep end, although they had a point, it was all strange, besides, that boy looked familiar, had she seen him before?
The orange-haired cat woman noticed that the boy was starting to walk away from the place, so she decided to go after him. Meowlody and Purrsephone looked at each other, unsure of what their friend was planning, so they decided to follow her in case she did something drastic, they were aware of her bad temper.
"What are you planning?" whispered Meowlody.
"Follow him, if he sent that stupid robot he's responsible for this and we'll kick his ass for playing with us." Her response, though aggressive, pleased her two friends.
"Sounds fun." The twins followed their friend, but Purrsephone added something else. "Hey, doesn't he look like the guy in the Ghostly Gossip?"
The three girls followed, being part cat they all had an innate ability to be stealthy, so they were sure they would not be discovered so easily.
Of course, this was no longer possible, as the alien was aware of them, but he did not recognize them as the girls who had thrown his fragment into the toilet, as they remained in the outer range of his field of vision, so he could only see blurred silhouettes.
Taking them for mere curious monsters upon seeing him, he chose to continue searching, eventually, they would get bored.
He reached some stairs and climbed to the second floor, continuing his search and even with three felines glued to him until he finally reached two doors that had signs he identified as a boy and a girl.
"Where is it?" Upgrade tried to use his connection to the nanomachines to activate them and force them to return to him but was unable to do so.
"Hey you!" the voice of Toralei caught his attention and he turned his face, finding the three werecats looking at him with some anger. "You're the owner of that thing aren't you!"
The "human" said nothing, he just looked at them and slightly curved his body forward. The girls noticed this and braced themselves, it was obvious he was going to try something.
At the same time, a ghost monster girl appeared inside the women's bathroom and stuck her ear to the door, she had been following the boy for over twenty minutes and finally, something was happening and she wanted to know what it was.
"He's that the guy in the picture!" remarked Purrsephone. "Wow, he's... cuter than I thought."
"Sis, really?" questioned Meowlody, she looked at her sister as if she was a weirdo, but she just shrugged her shoulders.
"What? I like her eyes, they seem to sparkle."
"I remind you that he is a human!"
"I don't think it matters, he's dating Frankie, isn't he? He must like monsters."
"Or he has weird fetishes." Meowlody shook her head in disappointment. "Sis, you have horrible tastes."
"We have the same tastes."
"Girls, focus." Toralei massaged the bridge of her nose, she couldn't believe her friends would make a scene just as they found the person responsible for everything.
Upgrade was in a similar state to Toralei, only he was rather offended by what they said, he didn't have any strange fetishes... That he dated girls of alien origin was not a fetish and he didn't limit himself to looks. Although he did find Frankie and Clawdeen pretty despite their unique appearances.
"Oh my god, am I like Grandpa Max?" he mentally questioned himself after comparing himself to his grandfather, who had a few flings with alien women. He could only hope that was all he got from his grandfather and that the eccentric palate wasn't hereditary.
"Enough!" Toralei snapped him back to reality. The catgirl stepped ahead of her friends and began cracking her knuckles. "I'll give you two choices, Normie, give back the camera and I'll beat you up, or don't and I'll beat you up even worse."
"I think I'll choose the third option." He replied in his mind. He began to back away. Although he had the skill and strength to take on all three and still not break a sweat, he was aware that he couldn't attack them just because of how that situation unfolded, he might hurt them badly if he didn't control his strength, so the best thing to do was to run away.
He continued backing up until his back hit a window. Toralei smiled arrogantly at this, for she thought that boy had nowhere to run anymore. She never imagined that he would charge at her.
The werecat opened her eyes and gritted her teeth, throwing a punch to teach that human a lesson. Of course, Upgrade had no intention of getting hit.
When he was far enough to close to Toralei, he bent his knees, as if it was a scene out of an action movie, slid on the ground avoiding the girl's blow, and ran away, passing between the astonished Meowlody and Purrsephone, who did not expect that level of reaction from a human.
Recovering from the initial surprise, Toraleí ran after the boy, being a cat woman, her physical abilities should be by far superior to the human's ace, even so, the boy managed to take enough distance so that he would not be caught so easily.
"Don't let him scape!" she ordered her two friends, who followed her.
"I'm using platforms!" complained Meowlody.
"I told you we shouldn't wear these shoes!" his sister replied.
"Shut up Purrsephone!"
The ghost girl, realizing that her news was getting away, didn't hesitate to go after them with her Icoffin in hand, ready to capture as many images as possible.
"This will earn me a lot of visitors!" she squealed excitedly as she flew after the four teenagers.
The chase was strangely difficult for the three catgirls. That boy was more athletic than they thought and they even had some difficulty in following him, but they would not let him get away.
Toralei gritted her teeth and accelerated, every step she took was a step closer to the boy.
They were approaching the stairs, there would be the perfect place to catch him because if he wanted to get down safely, that human was going to have to slow down. And as she imagined, so it was.
She managed to shorten the distance that separated them at that moment and stretched out her right arm to try to grab him from his attire. Her fingers slowly inched closer to the human's clothing until she was sure of what would catch him.
"Gotcha!" she exclaimed. She closed her hand around the back of the human's coverall collar, but her fingers ran through it as if it were something intangible. She was surprised at this, but her surprise increased when the boy disappeared from her sight.
In the blink of an eye, that young man jumped over the safety railing that prevented students from falling from the second floor to the astonished gaze of the cat woman.
She didn't think that boy would dare to do something crazy like that and she was more than sure that such a fall would hurt him, but once again, her thoughts were wrong.
As if he were an acrobat, the human landed on the ground and spun around to break his fall as much as possible, then stood up and looked at her.
Toralei's temper exploded like an erupting volcano when that human-made a small gesture to her that meant "goodbye" and then ran down the hallway, out of the girl's visual range.
"Grrr..." she growled. She was very offended by what had just happened, that human not only proved to have better athletic skills than she thought, s not that he also took the time to taunt her before escaping when she got her hands on him, she was going to hurt him badly.
"That lunatic just jumped?" questioned Meowlody as she approached next to her panting twin sister. "Toralei, what do we do?"
"Let's not waste any time, we must catch him." The orange-haired cat girl clenched her fists and sped down the stairs, she wasn't going to let him get away.
The twins wasted no time in following their leader, they were going to catch that boy at all costs.
The three young werecat girls ran down the same hallway down which the "human" left. None noticed the ghost girl who appeared floating on the floor above.
"They run fast. " complained the girl, although she could fly and this made it much easier to chase those young men, she was not fast at doing so, so she was left behind. "Where did they go?"
The girl looked from left to right, not knowing which way to go, finally choosing the opposite path to the one the three catgirls and the disguised alien took.
Upgrade was running through the building, he wasn't even sure he knew where he was going anymore, he was just thinking about hiding from those three girls, he wasn't afraid of them, but he wasn't a fan of getting beaten up either.
"Hide, hide, hide, hide..." the alien had its nanomachines scan all the surroundings, there had to be somewhere to hide.
Turning into a corridor, the alien saw that a door was open, and without hesitation he headed towards it and crossed it, making sure to close it once inside.
He leaned his back against the door, he could use his weight as a way to block it, this would make those girls think it was locked and he continued running.
Seconds passed and he heard the hurried footsteps of their pursuers and, as he imagined, they tried to open the door, but did not succeed.
"It's locked, let's keep going!" he heard Toralei say.
Even though he heard that he didn't move from the spot until the footsteps of those three girls started to move away, being too confident could mean getting caught.
Once he was sure he was left alone, he allowed himself to walk away from the door and let out a cybernetic sigh, things weren't going as he planned.
His attention then turned to the place where he was. It was a large space with an Olympic size swimming pool, which was somewhat surprising to him and made him question how much money that school had to afford a place like that.
"What else does this school have, a time machine? " Upgrade noticed something strange near the pool, on the opposite side from where he was standing there was a bench with some things, he was confused at that, he wasn't sure but those things seemed to belong to someone. His gaze narrowed as he noticed something familiar among those objects. Inside a water bottle was what appeared to be a black liquid with green lines. "That's..." The unmistakable sound of sloshing water alerted the alien, who ran behind a column and hid, but peeked out a bit to observe who was in the place.
From the water emerged a girl with blonde hair that looked familiar. That girl was Lagoona, the young woman who was swimming in the place, which explained things on the bench.
The outfit that Upgrade saw her in earlier in the day was replaced by a fuchsia-colored swim trunk.
Since there was not enough distance separating them, the alien could see the girl, but she could not see him. Upgrade did not expect to meet anyone there, that was a bad situation, that girl found the fragment and the camera, this would make it difficult to recover them, although he could approach and ask for them, he did not have the translator with him and he had no excuse to explain what he was doing there without being taken for a peeping tom.
He watched the young woman's movements carefully, perhaps if she was distracted he could run and retrieve those things, but he had to find a suitable moment. He watched her emerge completely out of the water and head for the bench. In the process, she adjusted the bottom of her outfit by running her fingers inside the garment in the area of her buttocks. Almost instantly Upgrade stopped looking, he could be sure that, if he wasn't a biomechanical entity at that moment, he would be blushing.
"This is no time for inappropriate thoughts, I have to get those things back." He scolded himself then looked around for a way to distract the girl, seeing nothing useful he peeked out again just to be sure she wasn't approaching his hiding place. He watched her arrange her swimsuit in the chest area and almost instantly stopped looking at her "I don't know if this is good luck or the universe messing with me." He peeked out one last time and saw her wrapping her body in a towel to dry the excess water. "I'm still not sure which it is. "
Lagoona sat on the bench, there was the ICoffin that belonged to her, and three objects that she stumbled upon inside the pool when she arrived at the site almost an hour ago.
The first was a camera, the second was a green digital phone and the third was a kind of black molasses with green lines, the latter was inside an empty water bottle.
The girl took this last object and brought it close to her face to examine it. She wasn't sure what it was, when she found it, that thing was floating on the surface, she had to use some ingenuity to be able to get it out as she thought it was some toxic material, it wouldn't be strange if something like that appeared in the pool sometime, some students loved little dangerous pranks.
"What exactly are you?" she muttered as she twirled the bottle. The black liquid didn't even change shape. To compare that to a jelly or something similar would be correct, still, she was sure that jelly was not supposed to feel like liquid metal to the touch. She decided to put the bottle aside and look at the other two objects.
The camera and cell phone were soaked, she found them at the bottom of the pool, next to a broken filter screen, she wasn't sure how they got there, but the right thing to do would be to take them to the director's office and wait for someone to claim them.
She picked up the phone and pressed the home button, turning on the screen. She discovered that the item was waterproof when she found it, as it was still working, which was not the case with the camera.
"What will this phone do here?" he muttered, even though the object had a locking pin, a photo set as a background gave him some clues as to who it belonged to.
The photo showed a boy and a girl, both hugging and making the peace sign with their fingers. The girl was a young woman with tanned skin and black hair and was wearing a red jacket and the boy was a teenager with brown hair and green eyes wearing a white sweatshirt.
She recognized the boy in the photo, as he was the same young man who had given a car to one of her friends, Frankie Stein. Lagoona knew that the human and Frankie had some kind of relationship, but she was not sure what kind of relationship, as her friend claimed that they were not a couple and it was all a misunderstanding, but she was more than sure that a car was not a gift to give to someone who was just a friend.
She examined the photo in detail, both teenagers there seemed to be happy to be with each other, as if they were a happy young couple, which meant that maybe her friend was telling the truth and he was not her boyfriend.
Some feelings surfaced in her because of that picture, it was inevitable to think about her current situation with her boyfriend Gill. She loved him very much, but he turned out to be a coward when it came to her parents, she didn't even know anymore if he loved her or not.
Resigned to the emotions that seeing that photo caused her, she turned off the phone screen and put it aside, and then approached the edge of the pool and put her feet in. The wet, cool sensation of the water between her webbed feet was soothing, that was her element after all and when she swam she felt so much more free and carefree.
A resigned sigh left her lips, her situation with her boyfriend was not good and did not seem to be resolved soon, but thinking about it too much was not a good thing. She wanted to be with him, but he seemed to be more intent on making excuses than facing the problem, that is, his parents.
The young woman hugged her legs, those unwanted thoughts and insecurities born because of her boyfriend plagued her, even though she tried to push them away. Even though her parents were much more flexible than Gill's, she empathized with him and wished he could muster up the courage and face his parents. Of course, she wouldn't wait forever, but, even if they were no longer a couple, she would continue to support him in doing so.
Unable to think of anything else and knowing that it was time for her to leave the place, she took her things and the objects she found inside the pool and went to the women's bathroom to change from her swimsuit to her normal clothes and go to her last class of the day.
When the young woman entered the girls' restroom and the door closed completely, Upgrade found that moment propitious to come out of hiding.
"I'm definitely not going in there." He said aloud as he folded his arms, he had principles and he wasn't going to break them.
He began to think of a way to get the three items from Lagoona's hands without causing too much of a stir, he needed to create a distraction so that she would leave those things unattended and he could take them. The question he asked himself was, what kind of distraction would be the right one?
Something explosive would draw a lot of attention and possibly attract the police. Something more discreet like throwing something at him was a more realistic option, only he had nothing he could use as a projectile except the ID mask resting in his right hand.
Maybe luck would be on his side and the distraction he needed would come walking through the door. Of course, the possibility of something like that happening to him at that moment was remote, the universe and he didn't exactly have a good relationship, as the cosmos always found a way to mess with him so he dismissed those thoughts instantly.
Despite the low probability of such a thing happening, it still existed and contrary to what the alien teenager thought, the distraction came walking through the door and looked like two monster girls in grunge-style outfits who were his friends in that reality.
Frankie and Clawdeen cautiously entered the place, making sure not to make any noise in case there was something dangerous in there, as the badge in the hands of the former indicated to them that the target was around the place.
Both were surprised to see a human boy with his back to them. The brown-haired young man was looking in the direction of the girls' bathroom and had not yet noticed their presence.
"What is that human doing here?" whispered the werewolf woman to her friend, who cocked her head slightly as she sensed that she had seen that human before. "He's wearing clothes like the ones I designed? Someone beat me to it? That's not fair." The loudly made complaint reached the human's ears and he turned around in exultation, letting both girls see his face.
For a few moments, the three teens just stared at each other. Frankie was sure she had already seen that boy, but the memory was a little hard to find, while Clawdeen analyzed the outfit he wore and tried to memorize it to make her version. The human on the other hand raised a hand in greeting, this action was done in a very casual way, as if he already knew them, which increased the confusion of both of them.
Finally, the memory managed to appear in Frankie's mind, for the face of that human was identical to the face of the hologram that Upgrade created in the car, in other words, the face of Ben Tennyson.
"Upgrade?" she questioned after seeing the insignia signaling that the "Omnimatrix" was in front of her.
"Upgrade?" repeated her friend who did not understand why Frankie called that human Upgrade. Only when her nose caught the metallic scent emanating from the alien did she understand and speak again. "Upgrade?! What? How? You look very... human."
The alien approached them both, allowing them to get a slightly closer look at "Ben Tennyson". The human was shorter than Frankie but slightly taller than Clawdeen without his platform shoes, his hair was tousled and fell in a short fringe over his face and slightly hid his green eyes.
"Frankie, Clawdeen, we have a problem." The young women's suspicions were confirmed as she heard the alien's cybernetic voice emerge from the human's lips. Which made Clawdeen question even more why he looked like that.
"Of course we do!" The werewolf woman took a step back and her expression turned a horrified one. "You ate a human and took his form!" she exclaimed pointing a finger at him.
The alien in disguise looked at her as if she had grown a second head, and he was not the only one, Frankie also looked worried at her friend as she did not expect such a statement.
Realizing that neither reacted as she expected, she thought they may not have understood what she was trying to say.
"There's this alien movie called The Thing and..."
"That's racist." interrupted the alien to the wolf girl's surprise. "And Lenopans don't eat humans."
"What?" questioned Frankie. To her surprise, her space friend looked offended at that comment, as the young man folded his arms and looked somewhat angrily at the wolf woman.
"Spare me the references to The Thing." He responded a little annoyed at that accusation. He shook his head, he was getting carried away with the pop culture shared between his reality and that one and opted to explain the situation to them, maybe they could help him. "Your friend, the girl with the light blue scales and blonde hair found my shard, the camera and my phone, I need you to retrieve them. "
Both girls looked at him a bit confused, they didn't understand exactly what he meant by that part of the "fragment" and knowing that Upgrade owned a phone took them by surprise.
"Girl with blonde hair and scales. You mean Lagoona?" asked Frankie as he recognized the description. Upgrade nodded. "Where is she? And why are you inside the school?"
"Plan A went wrong, this is plan C." he replied.
"Plan C? And what happened to plan B?" questioned Clawdeen confused at the small jump between letters.
"Some cats intervened. " Both young women didn't understand what he was referring to, but before she could question him, he continued speaking. "Your friend is in the bathroom, I found her swimming here and saw that she found the things."
"You were spying on her? Upgrade! For god's sake, she has a boyfriend!" The alien observed with a flat stare at the werewolf woman. "You're so bad."
It was fortunate for Upgrade that the face mask could not create certain reactions, such as showing embarrassment or blushing, because he was embarrassed by what his friend had just said.
"Frankie, you stay with him, I'll go with Lagoona." After saying that she leaned close to her friend's ear and whispered. "Try to talk to him while I'm gone, we need to find out his secrets." Before the alluded could respond, Clawdeen walked away on her way to the restrooms and entered the women's one.
Biomechanical alien and monster girl made of parts stood in place, silent. Frankie began to feel a little nervous, after her talk with Clawdeen, she understood that she had not had a normal conversation with Upgrade up to that point as he seemed more interested in ignoring her questions, that was a good time to get something.
The seconds were slowly starting to pass, but for Frankie, they were taking forever, she was nervous, making new friends was always difficult for her and even though she had some history with Upgrade, a bit of a strange history, she didn't know how to start the conversation. Except, she didn't have to.
"Your school is great." The girl looked at the costumed alien, who was observing the surroundings. "Mine never had a pool or a greenhouse, but here they have them."
"Did you go to school?" he asked almost out of inertia, which earned an arched eyebrow from the alien.
"Yes, I did, I'm seventeen remember?" Upgrade walked around a bit, her friend followed him with her eyes, intrigued by what he would do. "I had to leave it though." Upgrade stopped talking at that point, something that caught Frankie's attention.
That was strange for the girl because her parents had always told her how important high school was, that it served to open a path to her future, besides her own experience told her that school was a very fun place where they could make many friends, although disastrous moments could also occur, she could not understand why someone would want to leave her. Maybe something bad happened to her? Were her school days a nightmare and that's why she left? She had so many questions and had no idea where to start asking them.
The young alien approached the pool and began to see his reflection for some reason. Frankie approached him curiously, he noticed that the human face reflected some discomfort.
Her heartfelt small in that instant, her imagination led her to create scenes and scenes where Upgrade had a hard time at school, just as it happened with her a year ago when she was a new student at school and her social skills were deplorable.
She tried to bring her hand closer to show her empathy, but an accidental shock occurred when her fingers brushed the alien's shoulder.
A groan of pain came from the alien, who lost his balance and fell into the water, frightening the girl in the process, who did not know what to do.
"Upgrade!" she exclaimed in fright. Her friend from outer space emerged to the surface and for a few moments her disguise failed, a sign that the mask was shorted. "Are you okay?"
"What the hell was that!?" he questioned annoyed at being electrocuted.
"I'm sorry! It was an accident! I still can't control my electricity!" the girl started to get excited and her bolts released some sparks, which caused the alien to panic. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that to you!"
The alien rolled his eyes. He could forgive it if it was an accident, but that electric shock, despite being small, hurt like hell for him, electricity was a Mechamorph's ultimate weakness and he knew it.
She stretched her arm towards the edge of the pool and began to climb out of the water, just as the door to the girls' bathroom opened and Lagoona emerged, followed by a very dismayed Clawdeen. Both young ladies came upon the scene of Frankie and the "human". The Frankenstein girl was flushed with shame for what she had done and the boy was completely soaked.
"What's going on here?" questioned Lagoona. "And who is he?"
The two monster girls who knew the secret of the alien, and said alien, looked at each other as if telepathically trying to come up with a plan to get out of that situation. Once again, Clawdeen acted without even waiting for the other two to think of something.
"He's... He's Frankie's friend! Yes! Frankie's friend!"
"What?" said the three young men. This caused Lagoona to look confused at Frankie and the human, both of whom looked in opposite directions. The saltwater girl arched an eyebrow at that, it was a strange reaction.
"His name is Ben, Ben Tennyson!" Clawdeen continued her lie. She hadn't thought too much, she just said the first thing that came to mind and kept improvising. "You know, the guy who gave Frankie the car."
"Ben?" repeated the water monster. He looked at the human, noticed the resemblance the boy bore to the photos uploaded to Ghostly Gossip a few days earlier. Brown hair, green eyes, except for that strange outfit, that human matched the photo perfectly. "So what's he doing here?"
"It's just that Frankie and he wanted to see each other and that's why they came here." Clawdeen explained. Frankie and "Ben", kept to themselves, the former because she was embarrassed by her friend's lie and the latter because if she spoke, her voice would sound like a cyber-voice and Lagoona would find out. "That's why I went into the bathroom, to distract you."
"I thought you wanted these things." Lagoona held out her hands, there were the three objects Upgrade was searching for so tirelessly. "And what is this liquid?" the girl shook the bottle back and forth, causing the green lines on it to intensify, in response Upgrade became nervous, this was a sign that she was about to activate. "Something wrong with you mate?"
Seeing himself under the monster girl's gaze, the boy merely shook his head but didn't take his eyes off the bottle, which the blonde noticed.
"Oh that, it's just..." Clawdeen was at a crossroads, she hadn't given Lagoona details, just said she needed the camera, the phone, and the bottle, but didn't tell him what for. "It's..."
Upgrade approached Frankie and whispered something in her ear. The girl looked at him a little unsure but decided not to question it.
"It's an experiment, Ben did it." The girl pointed to the boy, who nodded. "And he also says forgive him for not talking to you, he's shy." "Ben" nodded, confirming what Frankie had just said.
"Really?" Lagoona watched him closely, he didn't look like that kind of guy at first glance, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions just based on his appearance. "Okay, and how did it end up here?"
"Ben asked me for help, you know I'm a science nerd." Frankie was quick to reply. "It doesn't work the way he wants it to so I helped him, you know, because we're friends and friends do that." Her bolts released a lot of sparks, an obvious clue to Lagoona, who didn't need to be a genius to know that Frankie had rattled.
As the four young men chatted, a pair of violet eyes appeared in the stands and watched them.
"She brought her boyfriend to school? That's better than the car news!" whispered a female voice excitedly. The eyes disappeared from that spot and reappeared much closer to the three teenagers, along with ghostly hands holding an ICoffin with the camera activated.
It took a few minutes to convince Lagoona of her lie, who ended up returning the three objects to "Ben", who gratefully did so.
"It's nice to see that you have a friend who doesn't mind how you look or what background you come from." Lagoona let her situation with her partner seep out with her words. This made Frankie a little nervous as she still felt bad for accidentally overhearing the argument the two of them had. "But for next time, don't meet here, you know not many people like humans around here."
Upgrade arched an eyebrow at that statement and looked at his two friends. Did either of them despise humans? He was one, would they despise him? And what was the reason behind that? Maybe he needed to look into that a bit more into the situation of that world.
"Okay, thanks for being understanding Lagoona." Frankie smiled at her friend, who smiled back.
"Don't worry, at least this time you didn't create a boyfriend or something."
"They're never going to let me forget Hoodude, are they?" Frankie patted her face as her two friends laughed amongst themselves and Upgrade looked at her with a confused expression, Frankie had created a boyfriend for herself?
"This world is strange." The alien couldn't help but think that.
"I'm proud of you Frankie." The girl looked confused at her friend's words. "You didn't back down, even though everyone was whispering behind your back because you're friends with a human, keep it up."
"Yes! Exactly, my human friend, that's what he is, a human." The girl started to get nervous at Lagoona's words, this produced her bolts to release some girls and Upgrade to move away, using Clawdeen as a shield to avoid being electrocuted again.
"Don't use me as your wolfish shield!" complained the wolf woman at the clear intentions of the costumed alien, who only shrugged. It was survival of the fittest.
The two young monsters shared a few words with Lagoona, while Upgrade stayed on the sidelines, he didn't want to interfere and for some reason felt uncomfortable, as if someone was watching him. Soon after they said goodbye to the saltwater girl and left the place.
Once in the hallway, Upgrade allowed himself to relax and look at his fragment trapped inside a bottle.
"That reminds me of a video game." She muttered then looked at her friends. "The halls will be packed with students, they can't see me, so I can't join the shard or do anything with that camera."
"Relax, I've got that covered, let's go to the craft room, no one's there at this hour." Clawdeen said.
Alien and Frankenstein girl were guided by the wolf woman through the school until they reached a room on the second floor and after making sure that there was no one around, they entered. Upgrade advanced towards a table and left the objects to be repaired on it.
"This was harder than fighting Vilgax." He muttered. Clawdeen arched an eyebrow at hearing that, what was a Vilgax? And why would Upgrade fight something like that?
Both young women watched as the alien removed the ID mask from his face and returned to his normal form, ready to perform some of his magic with the technology.
"So, will you explain to us what's up with that weird mask and why you look human when you put it on?" questioned the werewolf woman.
"Alien technology, cool, right?" He said as he set the mask aside and Clawdeen took it. "I'll be about five minutes, I have to repair the burned circuits and delete the photos."
Both girls watched the alien turn into its slime form and launch itself at both devices, covering them with its body. Clawdeen, seeing that the alien was distracted, took the opportunity to grab the ID mask and play with it.
"Hey Frankie, do I look pretty for you?" asked Clawdeen. Frankie looked at her and arched an eyebrow, her friend looked like that boy with the Cataño hair and it was very strange to hear the werewolf woman's voice coming out of a human boy's body. "It's weird, I don't feel anything." She started patting her body looking for something out of place, but found nothing, she could still feel her true self. "It's like a hologram."
"Clawdeen, take that off! We don't even know if we can use it!" scolded Frankie.
"The big guy didn't say no, besides, it's cool, I look like a normie, although like that normie, do you think that's what Ben Tennyson looks like?"
"It's possible, Upgrade seems to have a very close connection to him."
"Yes..." Clawdeen took off her mask and left it in place. "Frankie, can we talk for a second?" Although she found her friend's request strange, the Frankenstein girl agreed and they both walked away from the alien. "Listen, I don't want to sound like Cleo, but don't you think it's strange?"
"What thing?"
"Everything. Upgrade falling out of the sky, him knowing things about Earth and looking for a human named Ben Tennyson, and now the mask - doesn't that seem strange to you?"
Frankie sat back and thought about her friend's words. She was right, she couldn't understand some things, as the extensive knowledge Upgrade had about movies and anything pop culture, not to mention that he liked to make comments with references that were hard for her to understand. They didn't know much about him, but they were aware that he had some connection to Earth.
"Do you think we should ask him? It seems like his story has a lot of holes in it, we need to know what's going on, I want to help him, but if he gets us in trouble..."
"In more trouble than we're already in." Clawdeen added.
"Yeah, that." Frankie let out a sigh, things around the alien were strange, too strange.
Clawdeen looked at the ID mask, it reminded him a bit of a movie where an alien stole people's appearance and impersonated them and then assimilated them.
"Do you think he'll be honest if we ask him?" Frankie looked curiously at her friend, she didn't understand what she could mean. "He's not much of a talker, you said so, maybe he's lying to us."
Frankenstein's monster girl's expression became thoughtful, her friend was right, they couldn't be sure if Upgrade would tell the truth or not, plus they couldn't tell if she was lying since her face wasn't very expressive.
For a few moments, both were thoughtful, the direct way did not ensure that the alien was telling them the truth, but perhaps there was another way.
"Got it!" Clawdeen slammed her fist into her palm, catching her friend's attention. "Let's try to crack the password on that thing he gave you, maybe we'll find something. Also, what's with that phone, where did he get it from?"
"Maybe it's his phone?"
"Frankie, it's an alien, aliens don't have phones, he may have stolen it." The sound of something hitting the floor alerted them and they turned to the table where Upgrade was trying to repair the phone and camera. "Let's talk to Cleo and Draculaura later." Frankie nodded and they both returned to where Upgrade was.
"All set, although there was no photo to engage us."
"Wait, you mean..."
"That I risk my disguise, my dignity and a possible trip of no return to Area 51? Yes, that's right." He replied. "On the bright side, I edited the photos a bit, I caused trouble for that cat girl and it's my way of apologizing."
"Wow, that's nice of you." Frankie commented.
"Now we just need to get this to its owner and we're done."
"You'd better take it straight to Bloodgood's office." Clawdeen said. "You don't want to deal with Toralei, trust me."
"Okay, that's also an option." The alien held out his hand and picked up the camera and phone. The latter caught the attention of both girls, who looked at each other suspiciously. "I'll go through the ducts, it'll be faster, can you take the mask and my phone?"
"Sure." Clawdeen said as he took both items. "Good luck."
"Please don't curse me." That answer confused both girls, but they chose not to question it.
Moments later, the alien merged with the camera, transforming it into a spider-like robot.
The girls watched him go into the ventilation duct and disappear. Clawdeen was ready to leave, but she noticed that the alien forgot something that was hers.
"And now what do we do with this?" questioned the wolf girl. She lifted from the ground the bottle that possessed a small part of her friend's body. "Something tells me he's not good at remembering things."
"Give it to me, I'll put it in my bag."
"And now..." Clawdeen looked at the phone in his hands. "You want to see what he's got in here?"
"Headmistress Bloodgood, I'm telling the true! A human stole the camera! He had some kind of robot that attacked us in the bathroom!" Toraleí desperately explained to the school principal what had happened and why she no longer had the camera with the photos intended for the school yearbook.
Opposite the young cat woman stood a middle-aged woman. She was a rather attractive woman, it would be difficult to tell her age accurately as her face still had a youthful essence in the
Her hair was short and black with light purple highlights. Her skin was pale which helped to highlight her beauty and she wore formal attire that looked outdated as if it were old. It consisted of a white shirt with ruffles and a red tie, over this she had a purple jacket and a knee-length skirt of the same color as the jacket.
The woman looked with some skepticism at the student, who was getting a little more and more nervous because, although she was known for getting into trouble, this time she was innocent.
"Toralei, please calm down." The woman was polite as she spoke, even though she was aware that this girl was a total troublemaker, she was still her student and for her, that was enough to not show anger at what happened. "Tell me where it was that you lost the camera."
"I told you! It was that human! He and his robot stole my camera!" the young woman insisted.
"Okay, let's say I believe you, could you tell me what the human looked like?" the woman arched an eyebrow as she saw the girl pull out her ICoffin and show her the screen.
She took a close look at the picture there. It was a picture taken outside the school, and a single person inside a car was the protagonist. It was a human, one she had never seen before, but he looked no older than sixteen or seventeen. The note attached to the picture caught her attention and she read it carefully.
"So this boy is Miss Stein's rumored boyfriend?" he asked with surprise and genuine curiosity. Though internally happy that one of her students would put aside the absurd rivalry that existed between humans and monsters and follow her heart. "Are you sure it was him?"
"Yes! He had the same outfit as that spider robot, and, besides, he's a human!" The woman let out a sigh at that response. Maybe Frankie progressed, but all her other students remained the same concerning humans. "I know I'm not the model student, but I was really hooked on this picture-taking thing."
"Okay, first let's go to the bathroom where you threw the robot, maybe we'll find something there."
Toralei wanted to retort, to say that it would be best to go after the human and punish him in some way, she is the one to punish him, but she chose to keep her thoughts to herself, it was not unknown to anyone that the headmistress of Monster High was a woman who advocated for equality between the species.
Both monsters exited the office, leaving it in complete silence, and it wasn't until a grate in the ceiling opened that the silence was interrupted.
A small spider robot swooped down from up there and landed perfectly on the desk.
"They're finally gone." Upgrade commented and then detached himself from the device he had merged to. The alien made sure the camera was in the center of the desk so it would be impossible to miss. "Voila. " Pride was embodied in his voice and he was ready to retreat, but his attention was caught by something he saw.
On the walls, there were different framed things, certificates, post-graduates, photos of the director with important people, and even some newspapers. One of them had a news item that he found interesting and he went over to examine it.
"A world more magical than we thought." He read aloud, the news was about the discovery, or, rather, the revelation to the public that humans coexisted with monsters, an event that undoubtedly marked that world, similar to what happened with aliens in his reality.
His curiosity led him to look at the other framed newspapers, most of which were at least ten years old and talked about different things, but with one constant. Monsters. Each clipping had a news item reporting an important fact about them.
"It looks like this world has more history than I imagined. I should do some more research." He said to himself as he turned away and walked back to the desk. To get out of there he would have to climb the grate one more time and he needed a little extra momentum.
Moments after he left the scene, the office door opened, revealing Bloodgood completely drenched, accompanied by Toralei, in a state equal to that of the woman.
"I did mention that the robot broke that water faucet, right?" the girl asked somewhat nervously.
Bloodgood for her part chose not to say anything, she was not truly angry, but she did learn that silence in front of the students could cause them some nervousness, which served to maintain respect for her.
As he approached his desk he noticed the presence of an object that was not there before.
"The camera?!" The Headmistress heard Toralie exclaim.
Somewhere inside Monster High, a pair of violet eyes appeared at a locker door and looked around. These eyes went from left to right, inspecting the surroundings, making sure no one was around.
The eyes disappeared and a head popped out. It was a young ghostly monster with violet hair and pale skin. She did not fully emerge, still trying to catch a glimpse of a student in the vicinity.
Being one hundred percent sure that she would not be seen by prying eyes, she allowed herself to peek out, revealing her full appearance.
"You really showed off this time Spectra." The ghost girl congratulated herself. She was the one who had been following Frankie, her supposed boyfriend from this one, and Clawdeen, who she said was a bad third in that relationship. She wanted to take some pictures of them, maybe holding hands or kissing, but those two never did anything, maybe because of the presence of the werewolf. Still, she managed to get some shots where the two of them were very close together.
After following them for a few minutes, he lost sight of them when he was distracted by an argument, but it turned out to be just a student plant monster trying to force another to recycle, nothing out of the ordinary at that school.
By this time, she was resigned to seeing them again, most likely the boy had already left to avoid being seen by the other students, which made sense, they might beat him up just for being human and although she didn't have the best relationship with humans, she was one before and didn't want any of them to come to harm.
She decided it would be best to concentrate on the photos he had so far, so she went into her ICoffin gallery and started going through the photos.
"They're great! These photos are good to show off the new Monster High couple!" She was proud of the pictures she managed to get. Her effort to remain undetected by the boys was great and her reward was good. Did she have any talent as a paparazzi?
PAFF
The sound of a falling object was heard and she hid inside the floor and looked around once more, but there was no one in the hallway. A little confused at this, she started to come out of her hiding place, but again, the sound of something hitting the floor was heard, but not coming from inside the school, but from outside.
The young woman peeked through the wall and almost instantly went back into hiding, only leaving her eyes and nose out.
There, outside the school, stood a monster I had never seen before. Tall, black, and green and with a strange symbol on its chest. She saw it pick up the grill of a ventilation duct from the ground and put it back on, then melt like slime and move at full speed into the forest.
"What the hell?" she questioned aloud, perplexed at what she had just seen.
Although it might be somewhat dangerous to approach a stranger, it wasn't for her, after all, it was a ghost, so without a second thought, she went after that strange creature, following him into the forest.
The young woman observed the surroundings, although it was the middle of the day, the place was dark because the treetops hindered the passage of sunlight, which could make her job of finding that strange monster more difficult.
"Where did he go?" she asked in a whisper as he floated through the trees.
A momentary flash caught her attention, it was as if a neon green light had moved through the trees, so she floated over to the spot and there she saw it again. That strange monster was walking carefully through the forest, making sure not to fall through the uneven ground or get hit by a branch.
She tried to get a little closer, she wanted to observe it and take a good picture, her instinct was screaming at her that in front of her was a great story, one that would perhaps replace the Friday the 13th legend that the school had and that thanks to Fear Squad, was dismantled. She still couldn't believe it was all because of a monster wanting to celebrate his birthday.
She pointed her ICoffin's camera at the monster and took the picture. The flash emitted by the device startled the ghostly girl and alerted the following monster, causing it to turn around.
Upgrade carefully scanned the area with his eyes and then scratched his head in confusion.
"Werid." He commented unaware of violet eyes watching him from a tree. "I thought I heard a camera flash." The alien did not move, his computerized mind telling him that there was no one nearby. He decided to resume his walk, but not before looking back once more, just to make sure he was alone.
When he was finally lost in the trees, the ghost girl emerged from her hiding place and looked in the direction in which the alien had gone. She had a confused and at the same time excited expression. That monster, whatever it was, had left the school and gone straight to the forest, which meant it was possibly juicy news. Her imagination instantly kicked in and made her come up with hypothetical scenarios about that mysterious monster, fill in the missing information with her ideas and give her a hypothetical picture of what was going on.
She could barely contain her excitement, that was a story, he couldn't wait to upload the photo she had just taken to her blog and...
"Oh no, really?" she questioned as he saw that the picture she took came out blurry. In the picture only a black and green humanoid silhouette could be seen turning around, no defined features were shown, so he had no clear image of that monster.
Desperate, she searched around, she needed a better photo if she wanted to upload that news to her blog, but there was no trace of the monster.
The young woman grunted in annoyance at this, another piece of news slipping through her intangible fingers, but at least she had a picture, proof that she saw something and that that something didn't look like your average monster at all.
Resigned to this, she decided to go back to school, she still had to upload the new photos of Frankie and her boyfriend. She was sure that she would have many visitors thanks to that.
Once again, the school day came to an end and the four young monster girls who were aware of extraterrestrial life walked down the hill since Upgrade never returned with the car. Of note, this was not amusing to Cleo, who didn't miss her chance to curse him in ancient Egyptian. Although she calmed down when they found him down the hill.
The alien did little to excuse himself and none of them questioned him for his decisions, limiting himself to return to the homes of each of them.
When they arrived at Frankie's home, only Clawdeen and Draculaura were still in the car, both got out after the vampire parked the vehicle in front of the garage and said goodbye to the alien.
"When it's summer vacation, we should go to the beach!" she said excitedly as she peered out the window. "You'll really like it!"
"I hate sand between my circuits, but it sounds like fun." He replied with amusement.
As the three girls walked away from the car and Frankie was about to enter her home, Clawdeen stopped her.
"Remember the plan." The werewolf woman and the Frankenstein girl were full of doubts about Upgrade, even more so after seeing that picture he had in the background on his phone, which made them question even more what they knew about him.
"I'll try my best" she replied. Her friend nodded and walked away along with Draculaura, Frankie let out a sigh and turned her head towards the car that was now hers. She and Clawdeen talked to Cleo and Draculaura about the werewolf's plan to find out a little more about the alien, and if Frankie was honest, she felt bad about invading the alien's privacy like that.
He chose not to think about it anymore and headed for home.
"I'm back!" she said aloud as she entered. Making his way to the living room, he found his mother and father standing there, both with their arms crossed and annoyed looks plastered on their faces. "Did something happen?" she asked with concern.
"Frankie Stein, sit down right now, we need to talk."
"What's wrong?" she asked worriedly.
"Could you explain what this is?" her mother showed her her phone, there was Ghostly Gossip open and one of their latest posts had a picture of her and "Ben Tennyson" at school, along with a slightly yellowish caption.
The Romeo and Juliet of Monster High! Ben Tennyson and Frankie Stein, the new odd couple?
Realizing what was happening, the girl knew she was more than dead and looked at her parents with a nervous smile.
"I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Father and Mother Monster looked at their daughter with flat expressions.
xxx
Hey, what's up, I'm still alive. Quick explanation, it took me a while because I had to prepare 2 binders full of structure calculations for November 30, it was hard, it was horrible and I will have nightmares with beams for the rest of my life, but I made it, I think... I hope so. Anyway, from now on my nightmares will be those sheets full of numbers and graphs.
I have to say, I got some help getting this chapter done. Helpless Lemon, I owe you one
Well, I don't have much to say. If I know the chapter was strange, I'd think in my spare time and try to create the best possible scenarios and give some life to the other non-protagonist characters.
I had to discard many ideas that I liked, plus I wrote many others that I will save for later.
I have certain ideas that, although they fit perfectly with the world and the rules it creates, are also a bit... eh... delicate? Whenever it happens I'll let you know, believe me, I don't want anyone to feel bad reading this, but I think it would be wise to take risky turns.
About Ever After (one of you, I don't remember who, asked if I would put them here), we all know it shares a world with Monster High, right? And we know about that crossover movie that never saw or will see the light of day. I have ideas and they will take a while to appear, I want to do some new things and they are risky and you may not like them, but I want to do it.
Also, the length of the chapters will vary, although I'm sure it won't go under 9000 words, some things will take me time to write and develop properly. Like the current look of the Ben 10 characters, yes, I've been designing them, I've been going to art classes and they have to be good for something. I love how I drew Lagoona. She's my favorite character if she's not already obviated.
What else... I told them why it took me so long... I told them about my risky ideas... I mentioned character development... I think that would be it.
As always, thanks for reading this far, and expect the next update after my exam. More or less around Christmas, yes, horrible date to have an exam. Or already by next year, around my birthday, by the way, technically speaking, this story has its first year (if we count the previous version) In any case, the idea itself has its first year. They grow up so fast...
Note: Ghosts and Cats.
Legends say that cats are sensitive to the supernatural and that they "walk on the edge of both worlds", so Spectra is aware that, out of the whole school, Toralei, Meowlody, and Purrsephone (any other Werecat) would be the ones who can catch her with extreme ease. (Applies to Ectonurites)
Note: A bigfoot reference:
The first "real" footage we have of Big Foot is referenced when Spectra tries to photograph Upgrade but only a humanoid silhouette is seen.
