Ben strolled into a gas station while Max was out. He put his hand on his stomach.
"Damn, I'm hungry."
He noticed a stack of cookie tins beside him. He pulled one out, causing the stack to fall on unsuspecting Gwen.
She stepped out of the pile of cookie boxes and glowered at her cousin.
"Well done, Tennyson." She said as Ben smiled at her.
They left the gas station store and headed for where Max was wiping the words "Wash me :)" on the rear window of the Rust Bucket.
"Nice work of art, Ben." Said Max.
"Strong message." Said Ben with a shrug.
Suddenly, there was a loud explosion and the back of the truck across the street burst into flames.
"No! That's a strong message!" Gwen exclaimed.
The door to the Rust Bucket swung open and Hayden staggered out, his hair unravelled and a mess.
"Who did that bummer?!" He shouted, still half asleep.
Three people in biker uniforms and helmets approached the truck holding laser rifles. One of them noticed the Tennysons and Hayden watching them.
"What are you looking at?!" she growled, pointing her rifle at them.
"Oh shit, now they attack!" Hayden thought.
"Gwen, Ben, Hayden! Get back!" Max shouted, pushing them out of the way and taking cover as the gang leader fired her rifle and left a giant hole in one of the gas station's pillars.
"Gotta save Grumpa." Ben said, activating the Omnitrix.
"Ben, no!" Hayden shouted.
Ben transformed into Four Arms-Ben and charged at the thieves, who now had bags full of cash, while Hayden quickly pulled Gwen and Max behind the Rust Bucket.
The gang grabbed bags of cash through the hole in the truck, but a rumble soon drew their attention. Four Arms-Ben hit the ground, sending a shockwave that topples the gang.
Just then, the driver of the destroyed truck comes out holding his head.
"Are you all right?" Four Arms-Ben asked, attracting the attention of the driver, who was terrified when he saw him and fled. "Yeah, I should be used to that kind of answer."
Taking advantage of the fact that their adversary was distracted, the gang leader sent Four Arms-Ben back into the gas station by shooting him. They fired a second time, but Four Arms-Ben managed to dodge, only to hit a gas tank instead, which exploded in a great blaze.
"Ben!" Max shouted.
The gang pointed their guns at the fire. Unexpectedly, Four Arms-Ben emerged from the column of smoke and surprised the three women, knocking the leader to the ground and sending the other two flying against the truck. The visor of the leader's helmet cracked. Four Arms-Ben picked up the two accomplices and removed their helmets, only to discover that they were women.
"Huh? You are... All women? Look, I'm all for equality, but I don't..." Four Arms-Ben says.
"Ben, be careful!" Hayden shouted.
He was suddenly shot in the back and fell to the ground. Behind him stood the unmasked leader of the gang: a woman bearing the name Rojo.
"So cute." She said with a smirk.
A laser almost grazed Four Arm's shoulder. He turned to see that Sound Wave had tackled the third gang member and the leader.
Just then, a laser shot out of the sky towards Four Arms-Ben. He dodged and the laser struck the truck, smashing it to pieces.
"Hit it!" Gwen and Hayden shouted.
Four Arms raised his head and as Rojo pointed his gun at him, he noticed something in the sky.
Two drones similar to the ones he and Hayden had faced earlier descended from the sky and began attacking Ben.
The two members of the thieving gang fled, frightened, while the leader knocked Sound Wave down and took his rifle.
The drones began firing. The gang and Four Arms dodged, and the robot fire hit the truck, blowing it up even more. Bills floated into the air.
"Hey, that's my heist! Rojo said before taking aim at Four Arms as it confronted the drones.
She was about to fire when a tire hit her in the back.
"Ben, those drones must be after the watch!" Max shouted to his grandson after throwing the tire.
Rojo stood up and took aim.
"You shouldn't have done that, old man."
She fired the rifle over him, causing the gas station roof to collapse and a large chunk to fall onto Max's back, knocking him to the ground.
"Max!"
"Grumpa!"
"No!"
Four Arms-Ben ran towards him but was blocked by the droids. He grabbed them both and crushed them together. Then he threw the crushed robots at the gang leader like Frisbees and knocked her out in a single blow.
He ran to Max's side while Hayden cleared the rubble away from him.
"We've got to get her to hospital!" Gwen shouted, pulling out her phone. "Should I call 91- Ben?"
Four Arms-Ben grabbed Gwen, Hayden and Max.
"No time! The hospitals are down the street!"
And jumped.
"Your Grumpa has suffered a severe concussion and will be out for several more hours. He also has several lacerations and a broken leg." Said a doctor shortly after Max was hospitalized.
"He'll be fine, won't he?" Says Hayden, looking at Max's motionless body lying in the hospital bed.
"For a man his age, he's remarkably strong. He'll be fine after a bit of rest." Said the doctors, looking down at his notepad. "But, it says on his admission form that he was "hit by a car bumper. Did someone rear-end him?"
Ben was about to say something when Hayden stepped forward.
"Yes, it was an accident." Hayden lied.
The doctor nodded before leaving. Ben looked at Max. Hayden noticed and put a hand on his shoulder.
"He's going to be all right."
"Ben, you heard the doctor, he's going to be fine. It's Grumpa." Said Gwen a little later as she, Ben, and Hayden sat next to Max's hospital bed.
"I'm worried about him," said Ben.
"Hey, your Grumpa isn't a frail old man, getting hit by a few rocks won't kill him." Hayden said calmly.
Well, he sounded calm, but in truth, he was baying with rage. This episode was one of those that had marked him. For a variety of reasons, but the main one was Rojo, and the fact that she was one of the most immoral villains in the original series, and yet had gotten away with nothing more than jail time. And the fact that she went after innocent people instead of just taking the money and running only motivated him to do what he'd planned to do when she showed up again.
"I'd be more worried about how a girl kicked Four Arms's ass!" Said Gwen, trying to lighten the mood.
"Hey. Heroes don't hit girls." Says Ben.
"That's where you trip, Ben." Says Hayden. "Aside from looks, girls are humans like any other. Chivalry only applies in peaceful contexts. Faced with a criminal, man or woman, don't hesitate. Because hesitation in this kind of situation can result in wounded innocents. Heroes don't kill. But they do protect the innocent. That's their priority. The criminal's condition is secondary, as long as he stays alive. But then, that last statement is just me."
Ben didn't reply. He looked downcast, not the loud, obnoxious kid he usually is.
"You know, maybe if I became..." He said before being interrupted.
"No, Ben. The doctor said all he needed was rest. Turning you into an alien won't change anything. The machines only allow us to observe his condition. And we don't have any aliens to help him recover faster." Says Hayden.
"But..."
"All we can do is wait. No matter how guilty you feel, it won't change a thing." the teenager retorted.
Ben sighed resignedly.
Later, Ben and Gwen were sitting outside the room when Hayden stormed out and knocked over a garbage can in frustration.
"I think he feels guilty for not doing anything." Said Gwen.
"Maybe. Usually I'd blame him for doing nothing. But at least he was able to stay as backup in case you were in danger.
Suddenly, there was a loud noise as something broke the window.
They emerged from the hospital room to see Rojo in shock, but now she had red skin, drone-like eyes and metal claws.
Hayden stood protectively in front of Ben and Gwen as she approached him.
"Give me the Omnitrix!" She demanded.
"Ben... stay with Gwen in the bedroom... that's an order." Hayden growled, anger dripping into his voice.
Ben wanted to protest, but hearing his friend talk like that made him feel obliged to obey and enter the room with Gwen before closing the door.
"So you're going to give her to me?! Said Rojo.
"You want it? Come and get it!" Hayden shouted, throwing a garbage can in his direction.
Taking advantage of the diversion, he went around it and jumped out of the window, activating the Omnitrix.
He changed into a Glacial and flew off into the city, urging Rojo to follow.
"I have to thank Vilgax for not putting a camera on his drone, otherwise he would have known long ago that Ben was the carrier. Which allows me to fool her and neutralize her for good." He said, flying over the city in search of a building where he could initiate his plan.
They began to hurtle down the corridors as the chief pursued them, firing a cannon at them.
"Ben, this thing, it's the girl from the robbery! It's as if she's merged with those..."
"Robot drones!" Ben concluded.
"We've got to go and help him!" Said Gwen.
"No, Hayden said we should stay here." Ben retorted.
"And since when do you do what you're told and not insist on being a hero?"
"You heard him... he sounded so angry... can you imagine what it would be like for us if we didn't listen to him?"
That's when Gwen realized something, Hayden had scared her cousin. Usually she'd be really angry with him, but now... the more she thought about it, the more she found Ben was right. Hayden was really angry with this girl for attacking their Grumpa, even if it wasn't Hayden's.
Later, Rojo arrived on the roof of a building where she had seen Glacial-Hayden land before reentering the ground.
She cut a hole in the roof where Glacial-Hayden had landed, with the drones' laser cannons strapped to her shoulders. Allowing him to see that the floor was now black with green patterns.
"A dubious choice of carpet." she said, before jumping into the hole.
However, as her feet touched the ground, a substance began to reopen it as the "carpet" disappeared from the floor. It wasn't carpet, but Hayden in Upgrade form.
She stumbled, trying to tear Upgrade away as he advanced on her, but he managed to melt into her cybernetic parts while covering her whole body, immobilizing her.
The building disappeared and Hayden now found himself face to face with Vilgax.
"Listen carefully to every word. Tremble with fear. You can't escape me, you can't hide from me. I will find you. When the time comes, I'll retrieve my Omnitrix and destroy you." Vilgax said.
"We'll see." Upgrade-Hayden retorted before finding himself back in the building. "Now it's just the two of us."
"Get out of me!" Rojo demanded.
"Didn't you have some wording that wouldn't make this sound like rape, please?" Upgrade-Hayden retorted before getting down to business.
She shrieked as electricity surged through her. As Upgrade-Hayden detached from her, all her cybernetics melted from her body and she fell to the ground, making her human again.
"What?" she asked herself before looking down at her hands, realizing that she was once again a mere human.
Upgrade-Hayden se transforma à nouveau en Glacial et attrapa Rojo par son t-shirt.
"Are you ready to spend some time in the prison?" He asked.
"I've had enough of prison. Besides, you're not going to hit a girl, are you? You stopped last time, didn't you?" Rojo said before trying to hit Glacial-Hayden, who didn't react to the impact, worrying him.
"You're confusing me with my friend. I can't tell you how pleased I am with your first statement." Glacial-Hayden retorted, startling the criminal. "I'm going to make sure you can never hurt anyone again."
She began to struggle and hit him. But he finally grabbed her arm and blew on it, covering it entirely in ice.
He then approached one of the building's pillars and smashed his arm into it, shattering it into a thousand pieces from hand to elbow.
Rojo screamed at the sight, more for the loss of his arm than for the pain of the ice anesthetic.
"My arm!" She shouted as Glacial-Hayden looked at her indifferently, which terrified her. "Please, stop." she begged.
"And all the people you've hurt in your criminal career, did you feel sorry for them? For that old man you hurt in front of his grandchildren, did you?! Are you going to have any for me?!" Glacial-Hayden shouted, to which Rojo gasped. "But don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. I don't kill people. On the other hand... I will take the time to make you regret every one of your actions. Oh yes... I'm going to take my time."
This statement made Rojo's eyes widen as she apprehended what this kid, no, this monster, was going to do to her.
An hour later at the hospital, Max was awake and listening to Ben's explanation of what had happened.
"Then Hayden told us to stay here. We heard him running away and turning, and we haven't heard from him since." he finished.
"He did well to put your safety first. But I hope he's all right." Max says, affectionately holding his grandchildren in his arms.
"Yeah, I hope he's okay." Ben said, looking at the Omnitrix. "But since whoever sent those drones doesn't know about his watch, that means it's me who's getting you into trouble."
"No, don't say that." Said Gwen. "You've seen all the weird stuff we've stumbled across since the start of the vacation. Even without counting the drones, we could have had a lot worse. Grumpa could have ended up as an alien snack, and I'm not even talking about that."
"Maybe... And with Hayden acting smarter than me about it, we always have backup plans... but..." Ben muttered.
"But what?" Max asked.
"Nothing... it's just that when we took care of Zombozo, he was just as angry as before. But it was much worse."
"What do you mean?" Gwen asked.
"As I was about to turn into a Spectral..." Ben began.
Flashback
As Hayden helped Ben to his feet, Zombozo quietly approached him. Ben sees ghosts reflected in the orbs of Zombozo's body, flying to that of his top hat. On it is Gwen, lit by fire, dying of laughter.
"Come on, boy. Don't tell me you're afraid of old Zombozo?" Taunted the Clown.
Ben stepped back as the teenager placed himself between Ben and the Clown.
"What do you want?!" he asked.
Zombozo snapped his fingers and a spotlight illuminated the big machine in the tent. It was filled with howling ghosts. The cable coming out of the machine was connected to Zombozo's back, lifting him into the air.
"All a clown worthy of these big shoes wants to do is make people laugh! THEN DRAIN THEIR POSITIVE ENERGY, LIKE A SPONGE AT A POOL PARTY! Is that so bad?"
"Is this the machine you use to suck the happiness out of your audience? Like a vampire?" Ben asked.
"I like to call it 'the psy-clown'. Clever, isn't it? Soon, I'll be performing in major cities. Millions of people will be laughing for me! It'll feed me... make me STRONGER!" Explained the clown.
"If you say so, Krusty. Where's Gwen?" Hayden asked.
Ben lifts his head, gathering some courage, "I want my cousin back, you reject Pennywise!"
"Gwen? Are you talking about the kid, big boy? Haven't you heard the news? She ran off with the circus!" Zombozo replied, pointing to Gwen.
She's lying on the floor, out of the way, her body exhausted and fragile, still coughing out a few weak laughs.
Zombozo lets Ben and Hayden run over to her, enjoying the terror in the young boy's eyes.
"Gwen? Gwen! Please, Gwen, say something!" Ben says, shaking his cousin.
Gwen simply looks at Ben with a blank expression.
"B-Ben? Héhéhé..." Was all she could say.
Ben looks at her, shocked, tears in his eyes, horrified by the state his cousin is in. Then he looks at Zombozo. His fear of the clown quickly turns to pure, unbridled rage as tears sting his eyes. But he can hardly notice. He stands up and turns on the Omnitrix.
"No, Ben." Hayden says coldly, turning to the clown. "You stay with her. I'll handle this Killjoy on the cheap."
"How many pop culture clown names can you think of?" Ben asked with annoyance.
Hayden turned his head to Ben in response, and the look in his eyes terrified him more than any clown in his life. The anger in his eyes was so intense that Ben was convinced he was looking into hell.
He obeyed and stayed with his cousin while Zombozo watched the teenager direct his gaze at him.
"I don't know this Alien, so I wanted to save it for a desperate case... but well..." Hayden said, activating his Omnitrix to transform himself into a StoneSaver and use his crystals to destroy practically every spotlight in the tent.
This left him plunged into darkness, with only those directly illuminating Ben, Zombozo and the machine.
Then a green light illuminated the room for a few moments, before fading in a second.
"What, that's your plan. Use the darkness to hide from me and leave those two kids at my mercy? How brave." Taunted the clown.
"You've got it all wrong." Answered an unfamiliar voice, but it sounded darker and more mischievous than Hayden's.
"What? Who's there?" Zombozo asked as he looked around, trying to see who spoke in the gloom.
"You thrive on joy, don't you? Yet you enjoy Ben's fear. So why don't you gorge yourself on another Pongo fear... your own."
"Ah, I see. So you're using that voice to try and scare me?" Zombozo said, putting his feet down and starting to walk in a relaxed manner, no longer taking it seriously. "Well done big boy, I almost believed it for a second, but even if you've become that crystal chandelier, it's going to take more than that to make me..."
Zombozo couldn't finish his statement because as he looked ahead he saw a monstrous snake-like face as he was struck in the face. This made him step back, before trying to hit the creature, which disappeared into the darkness before he could be hit.
"You almost got it."
"You think you're clever..."
"... But you're not capable of understanding who you're up against."
While Hayden tormented Zombozo by talking to him in several different directions as if he were everywhere and nowhere, Ben could see the clown looking all around him.
And that's when he realized what his friend was doing: he was psychologically torturing Zombozo. But why do that instead of just beating him?
"All right, I'll admit you're doing a good job of driving me crazy. But you forget you're letting me see two poor kids. Perfect human shields!" the clown retorted, before dashing towards Ben and Gwen to find himself face to face with the monster.
"You think?" Hayden retorted as Zombozo stepped back, using the cable to elevate himself in front of the machine, while the teenager transformed back into the darkness, laughing maniacally.
Zombozo took advantage of his height to get an overview despite the darkness, while staying out of Hayden's reach.
But at the last second, he saw the monster perform a diving kick that hit the clown in the face and threw him into his machine, causing sparks and explosions. Souls came out of the machine; one flew towards Gwen, the others were released in a wave across the sky, bringing all the inhabitants who had visited the town's circus back to normal.
Zomozo emerged from the machine, his mouth bloody from the kick, and found himself facing Hayden. Ben could now see the Alien into which he had transformed thanks to the projector illuminating the machine.
It was a sort of magenta humanoid snake with black or darker zones, green fang-shaped worm-eyes and an eye symbol on its torso bearing the Omnitrix symbol.
"I forbid you to approach me." Asked the Clown.
In response, Hayden sprouted a tentacle of sorts from his arm, which planted itself in Zombozo's body.
"You know the funny thing about fear? It causes the brain to send out tons of very specific signals that spread throughout the body to give all the sensations associated with it. Goosebumps, hyperventilation, panic, ect... and what I'm giving you right now is a poison made to give you these sensations 1000 times worse, Horny the Clown. You feed on joy and die of fear. Literally." Hayden explained as Ben could see Zombozo shaking like a leaf as he looked at his opponent before falling to the ground and backing away, folding in on himself and shaking like a leaf once the tentacle was removed.
"Come on, boy. Don't tell me you're afraid of SnakeEyes?" SnakeEyes-Hayden taunted with sadistic glee at seeing his enemy.
"P-Please!" Zombozo begged as he sweated profusely.
"For people like you? Never..." SnakeEyes-Hayden retorted, preparing his point to strike the clown again.
Zombozo screamed in terror as his head suddenly expanded like a balloon and his whole body exploded in confetti just before SnakeEyes-Hayden's fist hit its target, creating a small crater in the ground where his point had struck.
He changed back into Hayden and ran towards Ben and Gwen.
"What? Ben, Hayden? Say, where's the popcorn? What happened earlier?" Asked Gwen oblivious to what had happened.
Ben hugged her cousin tightly, surprising her when she felt her cousin cry.
"I'm just glad you're okay." Ben told her.
Gwen found herself hugging Ben, while Hayden watched the comforting scene with a smile.
End of Flashback
"...And after that, we never talked about it." Ben said, finishing his story.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Max asked.
"I don't know. Hayden told me I could tell you everything. But I've never been able to until now." Ben replied. "Do you think it was that Alien that made him act that way?"
"No, I don't think so. With all these other aliens, he's still acting normal." Gwen reflects.
"Yes, and I've already had a conversation with him about his methods. He's aware that they're not necessarily good, but he's convinced that being brutal with criminals will force them not to do it again." Max explained.
"But he was about to kill someone, and that's no mean feat." Gwen retorted.
"I know, but I think Zombozo did something when he met you that made him angry. That doesn't excuse what he did, but it explains it. And I think that's why we should be worried about what he's going to do to that woman." Added the Grumpa of the two children.
"You trust me that much?" Hayden asked as he entered the room, earning suspicious looks from the Tennyson family. "Oh yeah, you really think I killed?"
"There's good reason, after what you did Zombozo." Gwen retorted.
"You finally told them about Ronald McDonald." Hayden said lightly, looking at Ben. "But no I didn't kill her. I just made sure she wouldn't hurt anyone else, while leaving her alive."
"I find that hard to believe." Said Gwen.
"Gwen, I may be brutal with criminals, but I'm not a murderer. A dead criminal slightly reduces crime. Criminals who are alive but seriously injured deter others from continuing their activity." Hayden explained.
"Maybe so. But at least make the effort to really hurt them if we have no other solution." Max said. "You almost crossed the line with Zombozo, so make sure you stay as far away from them as possible."
Hayden thought for a moment before nodding.
"Okay." Hayden nodded.
The next day, Ben, Gwen and Hayden emerged from the hospital, helping Max who was on crutches.
"Ah, it's good to get out of here and back on the road!" Max said, taking a deep breath of fresh air.
"So Hayden, are you sure you haven't gone too far with this woman?" Gwen asked.
"No, I made sure she couldn't hold a gun before handing her over to the police." Said Hayden, earning a suspicious look from the Tennysons. "Okay, maybe I went too far with her. But don't worry, I promised I wouldn't go that far with criminals. By the way, it was kind of weird but when I connected to her in Upgrade, I saw an alien with a head like an octopus."
The two children and the teenager noticed the grim expression on Max's face.
"Grumpa, are you okay? You look scared." Ben asked.
"I'm... fine." Max said, smiling at them. "And you'll be fine too. As long as we stay together."
"Sounds good to me." Said Ben.
The kids and the teenager climbed into the Rust Bucket, leaving Max in the parking lot, the grim expression returning to his face.