AN: I don't own DC/Young Justice, Ben 10, or anything else.
Chapter 4: "Community"
Max has stopped at an ice cream parlor, in the middle of a desert it looks like, to give the teens traveling with him a frosty treat. The old man in question was at an ATM outside the building while Jason and Gwen were inside, choosing what they would want. A truck soon pulled up and a grumpy bald man wearing a trucker hat walks up behind Max at the ATM.
"Out of the way, grandpa", the trucker tells Max, "I got a major withdrawal to make.", he then grabs Max and throws him to the ground before another man. This one had buck teeth and was wearing overalls.
Jason and Gwen were till inside, unaware at this time of what was happening.
"What do you have that's nonfat with less than 3% sugar?", Gwen asked the ice-cream seller.
"Napkins", the grumpy old soda jerk tells her before asking Jason, "What about you, kid?"
Jason goes to answer but hears a clank outside to see the trucker dragging a chain to the ATM and the bucktooth in the driver seat of their truck.
"I'll take a rocky road", Jason tells him before racing outside and activating the watch.
Outside, trucker hat guy jams the hook onto the ATM, breaking it.
"Hit it", he tells bucktooth with a thumbs up for him to drive.
Said bucktooth presses his foot down on the gas peddle but the truck doesn't move to his confusion. Suddenly, the steering wheel warps out of his hands into the dashboard as a metallic looking figure morphs out of it before him.
The figure was black and green with green bars in the black and black bars in the green and green circle appears in the roundest part. the symbol was on its chest. (B10 UA with destroy All Aliens metallic sheen)
"Your cash request has been denied", Upgrade says as a digitized version of Jason's voice, different from the other forms as they had unique voices separate from Jason. The circle that could be considered this forms face flashed brighter with each word spoken.
The outside of the truck looked almost completely black with glowing green decals. It shook before the bucktooth man was launched out the driver door. Upgrade then ditches the truck to reveal his full form to the trucker hat guy.
Said guy took of the hook from the ATM and spun it around like a lasso before throwing it at Upgrade. It wrapped around his arm but Upgrade used his bigger size to pull on it and throw the trucker hat guy into a telephone pole. He goes to gut up but Max appears and puts his foot on the guy's chest.
"Where do you think you're going?", Max asked the man before looking to Upgrade, "Good work".
"You expect anything less, old man?", Upgrade says as Gwen walks up to them, "I'm ready for anything. What's next?".
"We're heading off to see Vera for the weekend", Max tells him.
"Uh, who?", Upgrade asks in confusion.
After this, the trio were driving down the road in the Rustbucket.
"When Aunt Vera said she wanted to move away from it all, she really meant it", Gwen comments as they are travelling through the middle of nowhere.
"Man, I was hoping to have fun this summer, not hang out at some old lady's place", Jason groans in despair, sitting at the dining table in the RV.
"I like Aunt Vera", Gwen shares with him while she was washing at the kitchen sink.
"That's because you act like your 100 years old sometimes", Jason snarks, but Gwen continues to smile, excited to see Vera Tennyson.
Speaking of Vera, she was talking with a neighbor, "It's been years since I've seen Max and Gwen. I'm not sure I'll even recognize them. Stop by and say hello", she tells the old man next door before leaving him be.
"I'd like that", the old man says before heading into his house.
The old man sits on the couch in front of his TV, watching something will eating some nuts from a bowl, not noticing a greenish slime enter the bowl. When he goes to grab more, the slime attaches to his hand
"Ooh! Help Me--MM--", he calls out before the slime covers his head
The Rustbucket is driving down the road in this retirement community with nothing but old people as far as Jason could tell.
"This is going to be sooo boring", he groans again to Gwen, who was sitting across from him on her laptop. "Their idea of excitement in this place is probably watching the grass grow, or old people sex", these comments drew Gwen's ire.
Jason sees an old man outside trying to reach his satelite only to slide off the roof and flip backwards before landing like a seasoned gymnast.
"What the...? Did you see that?", Jason asks Gwen.
She looks up from her laptop just to see a bunch of seniors going about their day.
"See what?", Gwen asks, "The heat must be frying that pea-sized brain of yours."
Jason just scowls while resting his chin on his hand.
Not long after, they finally arrive at Vera's home.
Jason steps off the rustbucket, greeted by the sun blaring down from a cloudless sky.
"Seriously, why do old people have to live where it's so hot?", Jason questions, due to the stereotype of old people moving south or something when they retire, like in Florida. He and Gwen continued to walk before a stream of cold water hit his back. "Hey!", he yells and turns around to see a evil looking Gwen holding a one-handed water gun.
"Ha ha ha!", She laughs before running on ahead.
Jason takes a look around to see the old an scowling at him from the window. The elder man seemed to hiss at him with his jaw unnaturally wide open. His neck twisted around in a grotesque manner before he closed the blinds on Jason.
"Really ae you feel welcome here", Jason sarcastically says aloud as Max walks by, making note of the weirdness.
"Just watch your cheeks", Max tells him, "Vera's a pincher".
"Max!", Vera cries out happily.
"Vera", Max greets back. They hug and Jason could see that Vera almost looked exactly like Max just a little womanly and wearing a pinkish old lady dress.
"I can't believe you're finally here!", she then hugs Gwen before separating, "And look at you",
pinching Gwen's face cheeks while shaking her head around, "So grown up!".
"Ow", Gwen moans in pain.
Vera then hugs Jason as a greeting, to which he didn't return, he doesn't hug people he just met. Jason the backs out of the hug to avoid his own cheeks being pinched.
"Come on in. I can't wait to chew the fat with all of you", she says as she leads the trio inside her home. Unknowing to the elderly man glaring from the blinds in his home.
The quartet enter into Vera's living room, with Jason smelling around.
"Ugh, why do old people's houses all smell the same?", Jason asks himself.
Later, they were sitting at the dining table with a orange jello
"Oh, Vera, this is delicious", Max compliments, though that's not saying much considering Max's tastes, "What are these brown chunks in the old?".
Gwen and Jason were just poking at their slices, to scared to try it.
"Pork chops", Vera answers MAx, "The the white parts are cauliflower".
The teens look at each other, silently communicating that they weren't eating this.
"So, you two, what have you been doing so far this summer?", Vera asked the teens.
"Dealing with alien life forms", Jason replies nonchalantly, much to Max and Gwen's chagrin.
"Ohohoho, You", Vera laughs off, thinking it was a joke.
Gwen siles at Vera's joy before looking to the side she gets up and walks over to a self to her let ot look at the stuffed birds Vera had.
"Aunt Vera, is that a stuffed Red-Billed North American chickadee?", Gwen asks with a smile.
"Ohh! How perceptive, Gwen", Vera says as she puts a hand on her grand-nieces shoulder, "And did you know the song of the Red-Billed North American Chickadee is actually..."
"A call indicating alarm or excitement", both Gwen and Vera finish together before they both imitate the bird call in question. Jason takes the distraction as a signal to place his jello portions on Gwen's plate.
"Boy, am I stuffed", Jason announces as though he finished his plate.
"Jason, would you like some candy?", Vera asked him, while offering a bowl.
"Oh, no thanks", Jason waves off, he already knew it was some kind of hard candy, and from the smell it was Coffee flavored. 'who would invent such a thing?', Jason thought. He then leaves the table to escape, "I need to use the bathroom".
He enters the bathroom and closes the door before laying his back against it.
"Ugh, never more have I missed Alfred", Jason says. When it came to food, Alfred was practically a god. Jason had studied it under him so he didn't end up hopeless like Dick and Bruce in that field. Also, Jason found Alfred more interesting due to him being a badass for an old man. "Alfred would be 80 now, right?", Jason asks himself.
Jason looks to his watch, "Maybe I could have my own fun in the meantime", he scrolls through his options and choose a ghostly looking silhouette. Pressing down on the dial, he then transforms in a green flash.
This form had a gaseous appearance and claw-like hands, and light grey skin with black lines running all over him. His skin is removable with black and white striped tentacles underneath it. he had a single eye on the left side of his head, peaking through the grey from the black, which was a pinkish color unlike the green the ther alien forms had, for those that had eye's like Jason. He had the circled-hourglass symbol on his chest along the black lines (B10 UA with OS eye, for now). This is Ghostfreak. This form pretty much allows him to do anything a ghost is rumored to do.
He goes invisible and intangible, appearing black with white lines to his own eye, and flies out of the room.
"And this is a valentiana", Vera shares to Gwen as she held a sea shell before handing it to Gwen, "Can you hear the ocean?".
Gwen holds it up to her hear, but Ghostfreak was near and whispers to her in his raspy voice, "Kiiiiit. Kaaaat. Hehehe".
"Jason?", she quietly asks while looking around for him, the elders were distracted conversing with each other.
"See ya, wouldn't want to be ya", he waves goodbye to her and heads outside.
"There has to be something fun to do around here", Ghostfreak tells himself as he surveyed the area as he's still invisible to the naked eye.
He spots golf cart with no one in sight. Soon, he's driving it while invisible, leaving the elders around him looking stunned, wondering if they're senile.
He then smells something. Following it, he find a lone pie sitting on the window sill like you see in most media.
"Hmm, pie", Ghostfreak notices before looking inside the window into the house to see the baker trying to swat a fly with a flyswatter.
The fly lands on the ceiling out of the woman's reach before the elder woman jumped up to the ceiling, sticking to it with her hands and feet, and ate the bug.
"What the fuck?", Ghostfreak questions. The woman jumped down and cracked her neck in a similar manner to the old man from before.
He turns to the street as an different old man is driving down in his gold cart. The sprinkler system on the lawn he was in activates and the man steers away from it in a panic, like he was a semi-truck with a deer, and races away in fear.
"Wonder what's up with that", Ghostfreak remarks.
He followed the old man with some carpet sticking out of his golf cart with his own stolen golf cart. Ghostfreak follows while the old man carries the rolled up carpet over his shoulder. The old man then stretched his legs to step over a ten foot gate to a walled off area for the dumpsters.
"This place is getting weirder by the minute", Ghostfreak comments due to the freaky abilities of the senior citizens.
The elder man moves the middle dumpster over to reveal a floor hatch as Ghostfreak flies through the gate. The old man unbolts and opens the hatch, just as the device begins to timeout for Ghostfreak and he changes back to Jason.
The old man's head morphs to look behind him at Jason, due to the beeping drawing his attention. He drops the hatch door and the carpet before his body morphs to face the same direction as his head, towards Jason.
"Shi-roooar", the old man roars in an otherworldly tone.
He charges Jason but he dodges the old man's grab and runs for the gate. Jason jumps over the wired gate while the old man chased him, stretching his legs over the gate. Jason hops in the stolen golf cart and races away as the old man roared after him. The old man was gaining on him.
"What kind of vitamins are these freakish old people taking?", Jason jokingly asks.
The old man stretches his arms forward and craps onto the front pipes of the golf cart. He plants his feet to the ground and begins pulling the cart back to him, despite the cart still driving forward.
Jason grabs one of the golf clubs in his cart and whacks the hand closest to him, Cutting it off in a goopy way at the old guy's wrist. The other hand let go and Jason was able to drive away.
The old man, however, jumps on top of the cart's roof and begins trying to grab at Jason, causing the teenager to serpentine. He hits a parking spot concrete wheel stopper and the cart goes flying, landing on its side in the grass.
The old man landed away from the cart while Jason gets out of the totaled cart. He looks to see the old man right himself before he launched his hand at him. Jason tried to jump away but the hands got his right leg, wrapping around it like a lasso or something.
Jason as now being dragged towards the man. He checked his wrist to see the transformer was still glowing red and starts preparing to fight off his assailant the old fashion way.
Just then, the sprinklers for this lawn activate around them. the old man shrieks, letting Jason go, and then runs away.
"*sigh* What is my life?", Jason asks himself, looking to the sky.
It was nearing sunset when Jason made it back to Vera's.
"Max, Gwen!", he yells for them as he ran inside through the front door.
"Shh, Vera's in bed", Max quiets.
"Seriously? It's only, like, 6:30", Jason questions, "Never mind. Listen. There's some freaky things going down in this place. I first saw an old lady jump up to a her ceiling and munch on a fly. Then Marty, that weird next-door neighbor", how did he know who that was before I did, "is an alien or something. His face could shift behind is head and his body was all oozey and stretchy..."
"Jason, you snuck out", Gwen cuts in, "Aunt Vera was hurt".
"How does that matter right now? There's freaky shit in the neighborhood", Jason says, "Should I transform and investigate Marty's?"
"Maybe we should, but you stay as you are", Max decides and walks away.
"You know", Gwen tells Jason, "Ever since you got that watch, you're like a magnet for the weird."
"You're right", he says as the then twists and moes like he's possessed.
Max went next-door with the teens behind him and opens the door, since it was unlocked.
"Hello? Any one home?", he calls into the darkness of the house.
No response, so Max puts a finger to his lips as a sign for the two teens to keep quiet as they entered. A clock chimes the hour as they quietly move through the house.
"ye-ah!", Gwen is then spooked by something moving.
Max turns on the lights to reveal a hat and trenchcoat on a coat hanger.
"Well, nothing here seems out of whack", Max says.
"Except for whatever he rolled up in his rug that was right here", Jason tells him, gesturing to the spot outlined form long term placement, "He was placing it into a hatch under some dumpster when he caught me snooping".
"That's going to have to wait, it's getting late and I don't want to repeat the Krakken incident with our sleep schedule", Max says and they head back out of Marty's house.
"You to sleep well. I'll be in the guest room if you need me", Max says in Vera's living room, "I'm going for an early walk in the morning, but once I'm back, we'll check things out. Now, get some rest". he then leaves the two alone.
Later that night, Vera is laying in bed as a green slime moves around her room. It grabs slides up her hand to her face. Vera awakens as it covers her head.
The next day, Jason is looking in Vera's fridge, "Prune juice, prune juice, more juice", he turns to look at Gwen who was getting a glass of water, "Why does it feel like old people have always been old?", he asked her.
"Morning, Aunt Vera", Gwen greets as vera walks into the kitchen, "How'd you sleep?"
"Just.. fine", Vera replies, a little robotically, "How about you?", and goes to pinch Jason's cheeks with a deadpan expression.
"Fine", Jason dodges her hands.
"I made you some coffee", Gwen tells her with the coffee and water on a tray, but she hits the counter and drops the drinks, breaking the cups and spilling their contents, "Oh! Sorry!".
As the water approaches Vera's feet, she jumps up and does a perfect split with her legs landing on the dining table and the doorway counter.
"Clean it up!", she demands of them with fear in her eyes, "Clean it up right now!".
The teens look at each other before back to Vera.
"I'm sorry", Gwen apologizes and cleans up the mess.
Vera looks to the guess rom with the door open.
"Where did your grandfather go?", she asked them.
"He said he was going for an early walk", Gwen answers.
"Well, behave yourselves. I'll be back soon", Vera tells them before leaving the house.
"She is totally one of them", Jason shares with Gwen.
"One of what?", Gwen questions.
"Whatever is possessing these old people", Jason responds, "Something or someone's got to Vera and who knows how many other of the elders around here".
The sun was low as the teens walk in the alleys as no one else was in sight.
"So, where are we headed, Sherlock?", Gwen asks Jason, adjusting her backpack.
They hide against a wall as some elders walk by. After they left he turns to her.
"Trapdoor by the dumpster, remember", Jason reminds her of what he said yesterday.
At another location, Marty and another old man were looking around before Vera approaches them.
"Is the food supply ready for transport?", she asked them
"The pods are in the final stages of gestation", Marty replies, his teeth sharpened, "What about the young ones?"
"Too chewy", Vera says with a dark look in her eyes, "They need to age more before they get nice and tender".
"I'm not talking about eating", Marty dismisses, "The boy suspects too much."
Vera only added an evil smile to her look.
The teens were walking down a quiet street for the dumpsters.
"Alright, it should be this way", Jason tells her.
"Just follow the disgusting smell", she snarks.
Some old ladies playing shuffle spot them and his, exposing their monstrous teeth, befor using their cues to whack the disks out them
"Duck!", Gwen yells as she ducks.
"Run!", Jason yells, knowing it's better to keep moving, grabbing her hand to follow.
They round a corner to escape and take a breather.
"Guys, what's going on?", Max appears and asks the duo.
"Grandpa, they're everywhere!", Gwen tells him.
"I know", he says as his teeth change to points as he smiles, "Come here and I'll protect you", before his mouth open oscenly wide with a roar.
"Let's get out of here,", Jason says and the teens run before the false Max could grab them.
They run till they come across Vera, Marty, and the other guy holding up a car and roaring at them.
'Nowhere near as strong as Bane if they need three of them to hold up a car', Jason thinks.
The three before them and the stretchy arm Max behind them left Jason to say, "This is not good", before Vera and her friends threw the car at them.
The teenager duo dodge as fake Max nears them, leaving him to get hit by the car.
"No", Gwen cries, fearing her grandpa was killed.
Only for the green slime to slip out from the wreck and reassume his form, save for his left eye.
"Trapdoor", he yells to her while pointing behind her as they were right next to the dumpsters.
They rush inside the gated garbage area. Gwen spots the hatch under one of the dumpsters and tries to move it. Jason now felt like it was the time to transform. He slaps his left wrist and it releases a green flash.
Wildmutt appears behind Gwen and he grabs the dumpster before throwing it at the elder copies.
He growls and slobbers as to tell Gwen to open the hatch.
She looks to it and back to him, "Got it", and begin to work on it, "That's scary, I'm starting to speak mutt", she tells herself. Wildmutt looks back out to see the four having recovered and rushing them.
Gwen got the doors open and Wildmutt went between her legs so she could ride his back and he hopped down the hole before the four could reach them.
"Whoa!", Gwen cries out as they fell. They went down for a while before they hit the bottom where there was no concrete or ladder like at the top. "Does the expression "Look before you leap" mean anything to you?", she asked the orange alien as she rubs her head. She looks up to see the four crawling on the walls after them, "Move it!", and Wildmutt runs deeper into the cavern.
They continued running, with Gwen looking behind them to ee them gone, before they came to a break whee there were many split off tunnels.
"These tunnels ust fo under the whole complexe", she concludes before hopping off Wildmutt's back.
Wildmutt notices the Max copy behind him from his senses and bites down on the hands whenthey stretched for Gwen, scaring her. Wildmutt hen used his mouth to throw the fake into the cavern wall but he righted himself. Wildmutt got in front of Gwen before charging. The fake charges also and grabs him by his neck before german suplexing Wildmutt. Fake Max looks to Gwen for a moment before giving Wildmutt a three-piece combo before Wildmutt ducked and launche them into another cavern wall. he then bites the guy arm before throwing around like a chew toy, he then goes for an axehandle attack on the copy before it fixed it's face to look completely like Max.
"You wouldn't hurt your Grandpa Max, would ya?", he asks, causing Wildmutt to hesitate for a second, allowing the copy to kick him away to Gwen.
Gwen hops back on his back, "Hey, Dumby, Rule One, that's not grandpa. He's an alien freak.", she reminds, "and that leads into rule two, which is we kick alien butt."
Wildmutt rushed forward as the copy got up and rammed him, sending him flying into a cavern wall again, with heavy debri falling on him. Then, he catches a whiff with his senses.
"What?", Gwen asks before he then rushes them down a cavern hall, "Whoa, you don't come with seat belts!", she yells for him to take it easy.
They approach a boarded up and slimy wall as the time out function begins for Wildmutt.
"Look out!", Gwen yells before Wildmutt slams into the wall and he transforms back to Jason.
Jason was laying on his stomach with Gwen still on his back. The duo soon get to her feet with Gwen admonishing Jason.
"Hey, Freak Show, what do I look like, a crash-test dummy?", she complains, to which Jaosn ignores
"Listen. I picked up some kind of scent in here", Jason tells here before walking in the direction he was heading as Wildmutt.
They continue forward til they come across an alien ship that was circular with a mushroom shape in the center and pink accents, surrounded by green pods of some kind.
They walk among the pods to see the faces of those inside.
"It's like everyone in retirement village has been podded up", Gwen remarks.
Jason was looking around the pods before stopping at a special one, "Max", he then tears at it before it bursts open and Max slides out.
"Oh", Max groans as he gets up, Jason helping him, "I was out for a walk, and then, oh, I can't remember what happened next."
Jason goes to tear open another pod before a voice calls out, "I wouldn't do that if I were you", Jason looked to the voice to see the Vera copy with here allies.
"Well, you're not me", Jason snarks as Max gets to his feet.
"Not yet I'm not", the MArty fake says before the trio take their true forms of green warped slime with visible pink organs and orange eyes.
"You can fill me in ater", Max tells the teens as they backed away from the aliens.
Gwen accidentally backs into the ship and opens the door before backing in. The sees the yellow and green insides of the ship before looking around to see more pods.
"Look what they got here", Gwen calls out to Jason and Max
"Their ship", max states before rushing in.
"They found it", one of the aliens cries out, "We can't let them out."
"Get the pods on board.", another orders, "They've been marinating long enough"
"Marinating?", Max asks aloud.
Gwen notices one stored in the ship, "They've got Aunt Vera"
Jason looks to the watch that was green again and activates it and shifts to a certain hothead, "Time for things to heat up", he puns at them before slapping down the dial and changes into Heatblast in a green flash.
the green slimy aliens back up as Heatblast charges a fireblast, launching the inferno. However, instead of being in pain, the slimes seemed to fuse together.
"Whatever you are, you just made a terrible mistake", they tell him, "Us Limaxes live for the heat", they form a giant monster with one orange eye above the mouth and five below it, "Why do you think we came to the desert in the summer?"
While Jason tried to think of what to do, the creature grabs him and begins throwing him around. They soon notice, Gwen and Max rushing the pods off the ship. They launch to slime shots at them and they chase them into the ship. They form into bodies with one attacking Gwen, knocking off her backpack and Max came to help her. The two see the water gun that fell out and shriek in fear, backing away from it.
Gwen picks it up and smiles, before chasing them down and firing the water pistol hitting them and they fall to goop.
"They hate water!", Gwen yells out to Jason, "Aunt Vera when she was in the kitchen."
"And Marty with the sprinklers", Heatblast states. He looks up to see a pipe fare above them and a drop a water falling from it.
Unable to escape from the Limax, he sent a blast to the pipe causing it to rain down on the giant alien slime. It began to melt as it dropped Heatblast.
He runs away to avoid the water himself, "See ya, slime ball", as the Limax falls into a heap.
gwen and Max gets the last of the pods off as the ship powers up.
"Sorry. There's no drive-thru service here", Max spitefully comments.
Some of the surviving Limaxes get on board the ship before it begins to lift off, revealing its spiking bottom before they then blast off throw the cavern straight up and out to space.
Max looks to the pods before telling the teens, "We should put them back in their condos so they think they never left".
"Ugh, that could take hours", Gwen groans in despair due to how heavy they were.
"Give me a few minutes", Heatblast tells them, "I'll see if XLR8 can help out".
They were able to find each elders home and place them there while removing them from the pods.
End of the Weekend
Jason, Gwen, Max , and Vera were standing in front of the Rustbucket as the two siblings hugged each other goodbye.
"Don't be strangers", Vera tells them as she ended the hug.
"We won't", Max says before leaving for the RV.
"Bye, Aunt Vera", Gwen tells her.
"Goodbye dear", Vera responds, "Oh, this is for the road", handing her a green jello, "Jason mentioned how much you like my gelatin mold. This one's lime with chunks of grouper and chickpeas.".
Gwen briefly looks to Jason to see him holding in laughing.
"Uh, thanks", Gwen says in gratitude to be polite before boarding.
"And you have a great summer, Jason", Vera just waves to him, now knowing how he hates physcial contact with strangers.
"You too, Vera", Jason waves back before also boarding the Rustbucket.
They drive away and soon pass the open cavern where the ship was, not knowing about the Limax that was once Max that was still down there, slithering around.
Chapter End
AN: bit of a cliffhanger, but I don't think it goes anywhere.
Ghostfreak will be one of the few aliens that will actually change a bit in appeearance throughout the story, you know why.
I'm sure you may have noticed, I've been avoiding calling the Omnitrix by name in the story, that's because Jason doesn't know it's name yet. He'll learn it next chapter and I'll start actively use the name.