Chapter 3

[Arthur West]

Watching the sphere open filled him with a sense of uncertainty.

He knew nothing about whatever alien was in that, if it even was an alien and not a robot. It could be whatever, really, since he knew there were few impossible things in the universe. He'd been confident with Max, of course, and he was confident, but there was such a thing as overconfidence that one had to look out for.

It was better to go into a situation thinking of worst case scenarios, that way you could get ahead of things when they inevitably went to shit. Plans hardly ever went smoothly, after all. If you were caught flatfooted because you were too confident, then that was because you were an idiot.

So, he watched, nervous tension coursing through his body, as a door of sorts opened. Immediately after, two hands slowly moved out and grabbed at the sides of the opening. They were black as ink and there were bronze-colored… things at the fingertips. They were certainly not nails or claws though. They looked more like someone had stuck their fingers in short tubes, really.

The creature pulled itself outside then and Arthur took a slow, deep breath in to keep himself calm.

The thing was humanoid, for whatever that was worth. Two long braid-like tentacles came out from the top of its head, and at first, he thought they were hair. They moved and shifted as if controlled by a will of their own. At the end of them, there were two attachments too, but these ones looked like they had… 'Plugs?' Arthur wondered with a tilt of his head.

"Well, that was a smooth trip," the creature said as it stretched itself. Hands were raised high up toward the sky while it arched its back backward. A satisfying sigh left it – Or he, if the male-like voice was any indication. Arthur wasn't entirely sure when it came to aliens. – "Back in my day, your ship crashed and you hoped that you survived. We didn't have these fancy hover brakes thingies. Youngsters these days are too accustomed to the easy life-"

The creature seemingly stopped its soliloquy once he noticed Arthur standing there. A few seconds of awkward staring ensued which he gladly used to gather his thoughts on the situation. 'Well, it speaks English, at least,' he mused to himself, wondering how to approach the situation.

"Welcome to Earth, I guess," Arthur greeted after a moment.

"Greetings… human?" the creature said, phrasing it as a question. His body language was weird to Arthur given that it had a single eye, but he had the feeling the alien was raising an eyebrow in askance. To which he answered with a nod. "Greetings, human! The name is Ohm… or Ohm to my friends. Conductoid extraordinaire. I heard your species isn't very used to visitors around here, or at least that is what Azmuth told me. But, let me add that I am not here to cause any trouble, so if we could skip the whole part where you start screaming in panic and all, it would be appreciated."

"I wasn't going to scream, don't worry. Not my first time dealing with aliens," Arthur replied, a little amused. That was one way to drop on a different planet and greet the locals, he guessed.

"Really? Hah! Azmuth was wrong. Twice in a row at that! Energies above, I'm gonna hold this one over his tiny little head for the next century." The creature, Ohm, grabbed its… stomach and doubled over in exaggerated laughter. It was still quite jarring to see such human gestures on something that was most definitely not. 'Uncanny Valley, such a wonderful thing.'

"Here on a vacation? Because this world sucks, just to let you know," Arthur commented casually. He was sure this wasn't the case, but talking always had a chance of getting new info.

"About half and half, really. I was getting a bit bored, so I got some errands from a friend to stretch my legs a little bit, around here. Nice planet by the way. It is all so… green around here. Is it always so dark though?" Ohm asked while looking around.

"Generally, it's like that when you're not on the side our system's star shines on," Arthur started answering, trying to keep his mind working overtime. "Doing work on a break though? That doesn't sound so good."

There is only one thing Arthur could think of that could bring an alien to that particular location at that specific time. The alien was after the Omnitrix, no doubt about it. No, what he needed to figure out was who he was dealing with, why, and how he could do it.

"You could say so… man?" the creature asked again, to which he answered with another nod, subtly flexing the fingers of his left hand. "You could say so, but I like to multitask. Still, I would rather enjoy as much of the free time as possible, sightseeing a bit on this planet, you know what I mean? See the landscape, eat some of the local food, the usual," Ohm said, standing to its full height and crossing its arms in front of its chest. Arthur became distinctly aware that the alien must be at least seven feet in length. "Say, why don't you help a poor little tourist here? Make my job a little easier. Don't worry, it's nothing hard. I just need to know if you know someone called Benjamin Tennyson who is around here."

'As expected.'

"I know a Tennyson. His name's not Ben. He a friend of yours?" Arthur asked because there was no point trying to feign being detached from things. At least this way he could likely get some info and maybe not have to fight right away. The alien seemed "friendly" enough to at least push his luck a little.

"Ah, so I assume I am close then," Ohm said to himself before looking at him again. "Don't know the guy, to be honest. You could say that someone made an oopsie and delivery got mixed up, if you know what I mean. I am just here from part of the sender to see if the product is alright. Spooky alien technology can be dangerous in the wrong hands."

"Sounds like it," Arthur replied. "Anything I should worry about?" he added, mostly to buy himself some time to process that information. There was no guarantee this alien was really from the group who had been transporting the Omnitrix. He could be from the ones that sent the robots before, taking a more hands-on approach, as far as he was aware. 'Ohm, Azmuth,' he thought, going over the two names the thing had spoken about. Neither were familiar to him, but then again, he was no outer space expert. That was Max's thing and the man hadn't been able to tell him much about the Omnitrix other than the fact that he'd heard some legends about it.

"Oh, nothing much now that I am here. I just have to make sure the displaced shipment is in the right hands and I'll be right out of your head-wiring. As long as that is the case, you can continue doing… Whatever humans do when on the side of your planet facing away from your local star. Now, can you point me towards this Tennyson guy you know of?"

"Sure, let me just make a call, yeah? I'd rather my planet not get blown up because of whatever thing that is," Arthur said, pulling out his phone. 'Azmuth, Ohm…' he repeated to himself. "That ok?" he added, just in case.

The Conductoid, if Arthur remembered the word right, just looked at him for a few uncomfortable moments. Not that he let it show, keeping his casual act going to the best of his ability. Which meant that it was a damn good act, if he did say so himself. That singular big eye of him not blinking at all as it seemed to scan him from head to toe.

"I guess there is no harm in that," Ohm finally said with a shrug and a grin.

"Great. Are you sure the name was Tennyson though? The one I know is nothing special, really," he said then, keeping going as if he hadn't noticed or cared for the previous silence. As he did, he also started calling Max, hoping against hope.

Ohm chuckled and reclined against the sphere-like spaceship. Arthur filed in his head that the thing must still be scorching hot after breaking through the atmosphere, but the Conductoid didn't show any signs of discomfort. Either the thing had some super advanced cooling mechanism, which wasn't a stretch of the imagination, given the whole alien shtick. Or the alien was very resilient to high temperatures.

"Well, the tracker led me here, and unless your species naming convention is the least original in the galaxy, I doubt there can be that many Tennyson's in this particular place, at this particular time. So might as well take the clue and start with the one you know."

"Ah, yeah I guess that makes sense," Arthur replied, making a show of chuckling.

"Arthur? Did something happen?" Max said, finally answering his call.

"Hey Max, there's a… You're not gonna believe this, but there's an alien here," he said, keeping his act in front of Ohm. "Ohm, he said his name is, and was sent here by some other alien, it seems, Azmuth, I think the name was?" he continued, giving the alien a questioning gaze that got him a nod. "Yeah, Azmuth. Something about a product getting lost and he said he's looking for a Ben Tennyson. You know anything about this?"

"I know of Azmuth, for sure," Max said, his voice all business. "He's not bad, but I don't have a way to confirm this. He is widely known and there is no way to know if this… Ohm truly comes on his behalf."

"Yeah, I know this is all weird," Arthur replied with a fake uncomprehending blink. God, how he hated acting so much for so long, but needs must. "Er, he said he needed to check that it wasn't in the wrong hands or something, if that helps? He's a… Conductor?"

"Conductoid," Ohm corrected his "mistake" with a raised finger.

"Right, sorry, Conductoid."

"Black? Odd attachments in hands and tentacles coming out of its head with attachments too? Single eye?" Max asked, his voice getting more and more tense with every question.

"Yeah, and he doesn't look as weird as I'd have expected an alien to look like."

"They can control energy, like electricity. Be careful, Arthur. We'll move and hide now, but you-" Whatever else the old man was going to say was interrupted by static. He let his act fall and a weary smile formed on his face. Well, the game was up, it seemed.

"Ah, shit. Caught in the act already?" Ohm asked before chuckling. "I'm getting rusty for sure. Didn't expect your race to know about mine, to be honest. Seems this Max guy is more informed than I expected. That was my mistake," the Conductoid said while stretching a little bit. "Well, it doesn't matter. I have his location now, so I can just ask him directly."

"Sorry. Can't allow that," Arthur said, ironically actually being apologetic. He'd rather not have to deal with any of that shit. Alas, such was life when one lived on that side of the world. "Any chance I can convince you to talk this out with me a little more, Ohm, buddy?" he asked, raising his left hand. Because it seemed like things were about to escalate… and quickly.

"My my, tense are we? But no need to worry, I just want to ask him and Benjamin a few questions. I promise that I won't do anything violent as long as they cooperate. But you know how it is… I can't just let go of my biggest clue, you know? What if they run away?" Ohm explained, electricity running all around its body and coalescing on the tentacles that simulated hair. "So what about you let me pass, buddy?"

"Can't do until I am sure you are not going to start attacking. Won't you take my word for it? I thought we had something special."

"Heh, what do you mean? I see the sparks flying in the air," Ohm said as he suddenly moved at worrying speeds. He was faster than his eyes could track, but Arthur was expecting that already. Or, at least, he'd expected something much stronger than himself.

Immediately, several pitch black chains came out of Arthur's arm wrapping around the flying alien and pinning him to the ground. 'Gotta love automatic spells,' he thought to himself. However, he had to hold back a groan. 'Well, now this is troublesome.'

"How about that talk now?" he asked, acting as calm as he could. Ohm didn't need to know that he could do nothing other than hold him down, after all.

[}-o-{]

[Ohm]

Well, he got to admit to himself he didn't see this one coming. He was definitely getting more rusty than he thought if he was caught like this.

"Of course, it had to be magic. Of all things your species could develop, it had to be magic," he said with a sigh. Why couldn't they just make cannons or some railgun tech? He could deal with those easily.

Energies beyond, magic sucked.

"Not a fan? Shame. I happen to love it," said his captor, Arthur, if he got what was being said through the device by the other human, Max, correctly. There was a cocky smirk on his face as the shadow-like chains came out of his arm and coiled around Ohm.

He tried to conduct electricity through them, but, as expected, magic wasn't exactly conductive. Magic just didn't play nice with anything but more magic, after all. He couldn't even absorb them either. Ohm really had the worst luck.

"I guess we can't agree on everything, right? A shame. I felt a connection between us here, but this is definitely a deal breaker," he said with a smirk while trying to come up with a plan to get out of this and reach this Max person who was clearly involved with the Omnitrix situation.

The Conductoid would prefer not to harm the human facing him if possible though. He seemed to be doing this out of responsibility rather than malice. At the same time, he couldn't just pass on a big clue like this. The signal-cloaking tech of the Omnitrix was as strong as ever, and he had no real way to track him other than the approximate coordinates Tetrax had slipped him when Ohm entered the system. If he let go of this, it would be a blind chase.

Not to mention that the longer the Omnitrix was out in the open, the more danger this planet found itself in. Different from him, Vilgax seemed to have some kind of way to track the damn thing's location so there was no telling when he would get bored and start bombing this whole hemisphere. Azmuth would be angry at him if he fucked up that bad, which would be a shame since he owed quite a bit to the little guy.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Ohm," Arthur said, half continuing to play along and half meaning it, surprisingly enough. "I'm afraid I can't let you go anywhere near Ben, but I can assure you that it's not in the wrong hands. I'm here to make sure anyone bad stays far away, after all."

'Well, I already suspected it, but that confirms this guy knows the current carrier.'

Now it was just a matter of getting out of there and catching up. He tried to channel his electricity again through his body. After all, even if the chains were insulated, that didn't mean his powers weren't there. Or at least that is how it was supposed to be.

Magic, as always, had decided to give him another kick in the eye. Whenever he tried to call for his energy, be it physical strength or electricity, he felt the spell surround his power and cage it back inside of him. It seemed that these chains were more than just insulated.

"Well well well, I seem to be in a bit of a bind here. This is a pretty impressive spell." Ohm meant it too. He had experienced magics that burned, froze, absorbed his electricity, and many, many others during his long life. He had to admit this one was new though.

"Thanks, took me quite a bit to get it done. It's quite useful when I come across something or someone a little more troublesome than normal," Arthur replied, smirk still in place.

It wasn't that his power wasn't there, no. He could feel it, the maelstrom of electricity he kept tight in his core was still as powerful as always. He could feel his muscles tensing and relaxing as he wished, devoid of any paralysis or anesthetics like slowness.

For all he knew, his body was as well as it had been a minute ago.

He tried to raise his leg and took a step forward, but his body wouldn't obey. Almost as if the moment he decided to move from his spot, his whole body was trying to be crushed from all sides at the same time. All he could equal the feeling to was increased gravity.

It was encompassing.

It was powerful.

But it wasn't enough.

Electricity, the birthright of any member of his species, coursed through his body in droves. His energy output increased to be enough to power a household but didn't manifest, the chains suppressed it inside him. He did it again, except this time he increased the output enough to power an entire building. Nothing changed. Electricity stirred, but didn't move. He could feel the proverbial chains – not the actual shadowy ones – creak and strain, but remain steadfast.

Ohm augmented the output again. He was sure that this amount of power was enough to power a decently sized battleship. The chains remained strong, but…

"Urkh-" he heard Arthur groan in front of him. The human doubled over, his arm still extended in his direction but now trembling with unseen effort as his veins popped up. Sweat gathered on the man's forehead as his head went red.

Yet he continued to look at him resolutely, not letting go.

By this point, Ohm had a general idea of how the spell worked. For as weird as it was, even magic had its limits. There wasn't such a thing as the perfect unbeatable spell in the entire universe, after all. Everything had a source and a limit and the mystical forces weren't exceptions to that rule.

"You better give it up, kid. You did a good showing, but that is enough. I got a job to do and you are getting in my way. Do the smart thing and get out of my way and I promise not to harm you. If you keep this up the only one that will be getting hurt here is you."

Being honest with himself, Ohm was impressed. The kid had a real talent. He didn't know how to gauge human age, but he didn't look old by any Conductian-looking species standard. In the younger end even, he would say.

To manage a spell like this one at that age was certainly impressive, but Ohm was old and with age came experience. This was hardly the first time he had fought against a magic user or had been trapped by one. It probably wouldn't be the last either.

As if to prove his point, Ohm briefly increased his output for just a second. In that second, the energy came out of him like a tidal wave, enough to power a small city. The chains rattled, as the sound of bending metal filled the ambience. Both the shadow ones and the ones leashed on his power, buckled as they strained to not fall apart.

He immediately reigned that energy, something he had more experience than probably anyone else in the galaxy doing, going back to the previous output level. If possible, he would rather not kill Arthur. Call him a softy, but he preferred to avoid killing as much as necessary. So, he hoped the kid got the message of how outmatched he was and let him go already. Lest Ohm found himself forced to do something he didn't want to do.

"Fuck!" Arthur cursed, his voice rough as he fell to his knees. His breathing was haggard and raspy. Blood trailed down from his two eyes. And yet again, Arthur refused to dispel his chains. "Sorry, but I owe a debt," he said, sounding almost like he was growling with how badly he was taking the strain.

"Does this Benjamin mean so much to you? Are you a family member or something?"

"Met him today, actually," Arthur said with a weary, pained chuckle.

Ohm blinked owlishly with his single –and rather dashing, in his opinion – golden eye.

"...You are going to put your life on the line for a single person you met today?"

"I don't know him," Arthur admitted, trembling where he knelt. "But Max… He's important to Max and I owe that man my life. So… A life for a life, sounds fair to me," the young one said, looking up at Ohm with bloody eyes.

Three targets were shot from the machine. All of them were easily taken down by volts of energy that spawned from his fingers. The targets let out a slight sound, indicating that the amount of energy they had been hit with was between the acceptable parameters.

"Booya!" Ohm cheered. He wasn't really sure what it meant, but it pissed off Xylene every time. So, naturally, the Conductian endeavored to make it a habit.

"Well, it seems you can finally keep yourself in control. Congratulations, you achieved your species' equivalent of being potty trained. Now, get off my planet!" Azmuth grumbled from behind him, noting down some sort of charts and algorithms Ohm couldn't make heads or tails of. What looked like some kind of bracelet flashed on the screen for a second before it was minimized together with the other thousands of screens at the terminal.

"Yeah yeah, Azmuth. Whatever you say," Ohm responded with mock offense, but there was no hiding the grin on his face.

"Hmmph! All of you are taking so much of my precious time. If I had known you would be so high maintenance when I took you in, I would have made some caretaker robots."

Ohm didn't take offense. That was just how the old man was.

Still…

"...Thanks. For everything" Ohm said with full sincerity. The old man didn't reply, instead remaining quiet. Both of them stood there for a few moments before he turned and went toward the prepared ship. Neither of them were made for goodbyes, and if he had anything to say in the matter, this wouldn't be the last time they would meet. He owed Azmuth too much for that, and he planned to repay his debt.

Ohm stared at the struggling kid. By now, he looked like he would croak at any moment. Even so, Arthur, much like his chains, refused to yield. The Conductian knew with every fiber of his being that he would continue to do so until his last breath.

"A compromise," Arthur said, and Ohm was kind of impressed he could talk at all by that point. "Maybe we can compromise," the man offered, his voice more of a ragged breath, but he still understood it.

Ohm let out a sound that not even he could understand if it was a sigh or a snort.

"I am listening," he said wondering what the guy's plan was.

"I can't let you go see him, because I don't know if you are good or not," the young one said, breathing hard but visibly getting himself together. "But I might be able to confirm that. You said you are here on Azmuth's behalf and Max said he was good so… Any way to confirm that?" Arthur asked, struggling to push himself to a standing position.

"Well, that… is a bit troublesome," Ohm thought out loud, grimacing. He had, of course, a way to contact Azmuth. He could only do so a limited amount of times though. The old man didn't trust someone from Vilgax's crew who could track the Omnitrix to not be able to hack conversations after all. So, all he had was a single burner call he could do before the line died forever.

It was meant to report how the Omnitrix user was doing and receive further orders from there. That was it. If he used it now, without any info on the user themselves… Well, things could become quite troublesome. Not to mention that Tetrax would be pissed he let the coordinates the Petrosapien stole from Vilgrax become obsolete, but that was a minor issue because Tetrax was pissed at anything Ohm did anyway.

For all accounts, his training and rationality told him to just end the guy in front of him and check the kid while he could. If it was good, then that was it. If it was a bad guy, he would just take it to Azmuth for extraction.

"An oath?" Arthur asked, clearly taking his silence as a cue to continue with his offer. "If you can confirm for me that you are good. Then I'll take you to them myself. I don't know if you are aware, but oaths for people like me are important."

By all means, he should not take that deal. Rule number one against magic users is to not sign or agree to any contract their abstract grubby selves want you to sign. It is anti-magic 101.

And yet… as he saw the young human fighting to die here for owned debt he couldn't bring himself to follow the rational choice. One simply couldn't fake the look in his eyes after all.

"Fine," he interrupted with a sigh. Energies, he was an idiot. Why did he have to be such a bleeding heart? He was a soldier dammit! "We can confirm with Azmuth from here and do the oath thingy. But only if you lead me directly to this Ben person after verifying I am not with Vilgax," he acquiesced.

"... And you won't take him away or pull any funny business?" Arthur asked even through the exhaustion.

"Hey! If someone like you is willing to speak up for this Benjamin. Then it can't be that bad right?" he asked jokingly, hoping he was right because he was about to waste his only call on this gamble.

'And there goes my vacation, I guess,' he mourned in his head.

Arthur looked at him for a few more seconds, before dropping his hands to the side of his body. The shadow chains disappeared together with the effect that suppressed his powers, going back to the arm they had come from. If he wanted, he could still rush and try to catch up with the runaways, but there was no need for that. Ohm was a Conduction of his word, after all… most of the time. When it suited him.

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: Well, off to a tense start with these two, I'd say… Or maybe this is how they make friends? Who knows? Aliens and magicians are weird.

Arc: Not exactly the best foot for these two to start their friendship, but at least it is a start and nobody got truly hurt which is more than what you can ask for when aliens or magic are involved. I do hope their situation can be fixed soon though, a free call to Azmuth is not a low price, especially when Vilgax is still patrolling the area.

Adrian: I'm sure it'll be fine. What's the worst that could happen? Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Random Adrian Question: Which is your favorite alien from the first iteration of Ben 10? I was always a fan of Wildmutt myself. I guess I'm a dog person like that.

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ