Author's Note: Hey again! Welcome back to Ben 10: Secrets of the Omnitrix! A big shout out to everyone who still reads my fics. You guys mean a lot! I hope to keep the Danger Watch Universe coming. Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 07

"So, why'd you build the watch?"

"It was meant to be a peacekeeping device."

"Pfft. That worked out," Ben said sarcastically. "How'd you meet Tetrax?"

As Azmuth worked, Ben had grown bored, and begun pestering the old alien with questions. Azmuth would grunt out answers, hardly glancing away from the Omnitrix the entire time.

"She saved my rear end, running through Diamond Space," Azmuth said.

"Diamond Space?" Ben asked.

"Dangerous place," Tetrax added from her vigil near the viewport. "If you think I'm scary, wait till you see a Homeworld gem."

"Once we were clear of Diamond Space, we picked up the Omnitrix's distress signal. I've been searching for it for quite some time now," Azmuth said.

"Welp," Ben said, awkwardly gesturing to his wrist with his free hand. "Ya found it."

Azmuth snorted back a laugh. "Now, I have a question for you, Ben. I want you to give it some thought; you don't have to answer it now. Just think on it, and let me know before I'm done with my work."

Ben shrugged. "Sure, what's the question?"

Azmuth's eyes, keen, wizened, and large for his size, peered at Ben, as if searching him for truth.

"Do you want to keep the Omnitrix?"

The question confused Ben at first, until confusion bled to realization. At this point in the summer, he had pretty much resigned to the fact that this alien wristwatch would be a part of him until he died. Now, Ben was speaking with the device's creator, and he could simply… take it off. Ben's mind then suddenly began to reel with the implications of this.

On the one hand, he would no longer have bounty hunters and their ilk chasing him and trying to kill him. On the other hand; he wouldn't be able to turn into cool aliens like Four-Arms anymore. Even then, certain aliens presented their own problems: like Wildmutt or Ghostfreak. Ben thought it over as long as he could (15 seconds) before he opened his mouth to speak.

"I-"

"Ah-ah!" Azmuth cut him off with a tiny hand. "Think on it!"

"Fine," Ben sighed. "Then I got more questions. Like, are the aliens in the watch alive?"

"Alive? No, certainly not," Azmuth said. "The DNA gathered in the Omnitrix was taken from living specimens, but it is sterile inside of the device. Nothing could incubate in it, and the device itself certainly doesn't live."

Ben frowned. "So, then… Why does Ghostfreak seem like it has a mind of its own?"

Azmuth raised an eyebrow. "Ghostfreak? Are you talking about the Ectonurite DNA?"

"I don't know man! He's freaky like a ghost! He's got one creepy red eyeball, like this," Ben said, using his fingers to stretch his face akwardly.

"Yes, I suppose that is what they look like," Azmuth hummed, stroking his wispy chin hairs. "What exactly do you mean by it having a mind of its own?"

With some reluctance, Ben told Azmuth about his strange encounters with Ghostfreak. How, when he had first seen it in the watch, it's red eye had seemed to stare at him. Ben told the little alien about the dream he had, floating through an eerie green wasteland. Ben had transformed Ghostfreak once, when he had been trying out each alien for the first time. Like Wildmutt, he had sworn off the transformation. Unlike Wildmutt, Ben didn't lose control. Instead he had gotten wildly sick after the transformation, puking his guts out and ending up with a sniffle that he still hadn't full gotten over.

Ben finished recounting his experiences with the Ectonurite, and Azmuth ran some calculations on a small holo-screen.

"Hmm," he said. "My best guess is that your Terran physiology may be incompatible with the Ectonurite DNA in some way, and that's causing malfunctions with the Omnitrix. Potentially some hallucinatory memory transplantation as well."

Ben stared at Azmuth blankly. The alien clarified.

"I think you're allergic to 'Ghostfreak'," he said, forming quotations with his little grey fingers.

"Ohhh," Ben realized.

"For now, I will disable the Ectonurite DNA. That should help avoid further complications. This would all be a lot easier on my lab, of course, but we make do with what we have…"

"Oh. One more thing," Ben said, suddenly remembering a final, vivid detail in his story about Ghostfreak. "What's the Null Void?"

As soon as the word 'void' had left Ben's lips, the air in the room seemed to change. Tetrax, who had been standing motionless, keeping watch, now seemed to snap into attention. Azmuth stopped in the middle of his work, letting a wire fall from his grip. He turned, gravely, to lock eyes with a confused Ben.

"You must stay very far away from there, Ben. Do you understand?" Azmuth warned. Before, his words were somewhat light, with the tone of a wise yet jovial grandparent. Now, his voice was grim and serious. "Nothing good awaits you in that abyss- and I refuse to let my device fall prey to it!"

"Null Void's bad news, kid," Tetrax said.

"But what is it?" Ben insisted.

"What is what?"

A new voice joined the conversation, as Max and Gwen returned from their trip. Ben got excited, before he realized that there were no hamburgers. In fact, Max and Gwen's faces seemed just as dire as Azmuth's.

"The… Null Void?" Ben offered sheepishly.

"Where did you hear about the Null Void?" Max demanded, seemingly shocked that Ben knew of it.

"What matters, Ben, is that you avoid it at all costs. Do not go there!" Azmuth repeated.

"OK, fine!" An overwhelmed Ben snapped slightly. "I won't!"

"If you do!" Azmuth said, scampering over onto Ben's forearm. He gestured to a small dial-and-button combination on the left side of the Omnitrix. "Twist this dial and then press this button. That will return you (and more importantly, my device) to our dimension."

"The Null Void is another dimension?!" Ben asked incredulously.

"Listen, guys, this is a great science lesson or whatever, but we've got bigger fish to fry right now!" Gwen gathered everyone's attention by clapping her hands once. "Animo is on our trail. Grandpa and I just trashed one of his mutant's at the junkyard."

It was Tetrax's turn to ask a question. "Who is this Animo?"

"An old Plumber scientist," Max said. "I trusted him… he made me regret it."

"Yeah, and now he's on his way here, probably with a whole buch of his freaky mutant monsters," Gwen said. "We gotta move!"

"We cannot depart until my work is complete," Azmuth warned. "Any disruption to the repair process could damage Ben (or worse, the Omnitrix) permanently!"

"Hey!" Ben protested.

"He doesn't know our exact location yet," Max said. "We shook off the mutant in town."

"Then we have some time," Tetrax said. She donned her silver and black spacer helmet, sealing it with a snap-hiss. When she spoke again, her voice came through the helmet's speakers. "I'll go and meet any guests we might have."

"I'll go too," Max said. "I have some neutron mines in the R.V. that might come in handy."

Then, Max turned to Gwen and Ben. He put on his stern 'grandpa' voice.

"You two," he said. "Stay here, with Azmuth. Tetrax and I will take care of Animo, if he comes. We might get lucky and he might lose our trail"

"We should probably assume he'll find us," Gwen said. Ben looked at her, confused. She dangled the dimmed Charm of Bezel at him. "Our luck is kinda running thin."

"Stay put," Max repeated, going to the door beside Tetrax.

"Don't worry, kid," Tetrax said. "If we can stand up to Vilgax, some old doctor shouldn't be a problem."

With that, the two of them left to prepare their defenses, leaving an apprehensive Gwen, a focused Azmuth, and a glum-looking Ben behind on the ship.