Chapter 2: And Then There Were 10: part 2; a robot rumble!
Back at the campsite, Ben, still in his fire form, Max and Gwen were currently sitting around a campfire, talking about the situation Ben was in.
"And you say that this watch just jumped up and clamped onto your wrist?" Max asked, after hearing the whole story from Ben.
"Hey, this time it wasn't my fault." Ben said, catching a marshmallow from his cousin as he ate the marshmallow after being in his fiery hand. "I swear."
"I believe you, Ben." Max said with a kind tone to his grandson.
"Think he's gonna stay a monster forever?" Gwen asked her grandfather.
"He's not a monster. He's an alien!" Max reaffirmed, causing Ben and Gwen to look at him with confusion.
"I, I mean… Look at him, what else could he be?" Max quickly asked.
While you think that he's acting weird, Gwen was fully suspicious of her grandpa's words. Like he was hiding something. But what? Whatever it was Ben and Gwen didn't confront him about it, at least not yet. Not until they deal with your Alien problem.
"Don't worry, Ben." Max said with confort. "We'll figure this thing out." Max promised, but before anyone could say anything else, a loud, blaring sound suddenly occurred, coming from the chest piece on your chest as it also flashed red. Suddenly, a bright red flash occurred, flashing Gwen and Max covered their eyes. Once the light died down, they opened their eyes to see that you had reverted back into your human self.
"I'm me again." He said in happiness as Eunice suddenly spoke up. "YOU HAVE REACHED THE TIME LIMIT, PLEASE STAND BY AS THE SYSTEMS BEGIN ITS RECHARGE CYCLE."
"Aw, too bad. I liked you better when you were a briquette." Gwen pouted as Ben gave her a dirty look before once again trying to remove the alien watch. "I still can't get this thing off."
"OMNIMATIX IS BONDED TO USER'S DNA, CANNOT BE REMOVED BY ANY MEANS UNLESS ORDER BY CREATOR." As she spoke, Mex's eyes perked up a bit at the name she used.
"Better not fool with it anymore until we know exactly what we're dealing with." He advised as he got up from his spot. "I'll go check out that crash site then I need to make a call, you guys stay here until I get back."
After grandpa left you and making sure that Gwen wasn't going to interrupt, you hide behind the Rustbucket and began to ask the AI about the Aliens. "So, Eunice I have to ask how many of Aliens are there?"
"THE OMNIMATRIX HAS 1,000,905 GENETIC SAMPLES OF DIIFFERENT ALIEN SPECIES. HOWEVER 10 ONLY CAN BE ACCESSED AT A TIME, SO THAT SHOULD IT FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS THEY WILL BE UNABLE TO ACCESS THE MOST POWERFUL SPECIES IN THE DATABASE."
"Okey, what can you tell me about the 10 guys?" you enquire as she beg list the ten off in a quick description and a small fun fact.
Ben felt a childlike wonder begin to fill his whole being as Eunice describe each alien from size, and powers to characterisations and weaknesses. But, at the same time didn't stop or slow the growing Curiosity that was building within him. No, Ben wanted to see them, to be them and use those powers to become what he always wanted to be!
A REAL Superhero! One who can save everyone! One that can defeat any villain that he'll face! Get the girl, and save the world! And be the greatest hero in the world, and everyone will know his name-
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Gwen yelled from the other side, causing you to fall over in fright. "Grandpa told you not to mess with that thing and yet, here you are! Not even ten minutes later messing with it!"
"Yeah, your point?" Ben responded, picked himself up and continued to work on the watch.
"Did your parents drop you on the head when you were a baby?" Gwen snarkily asked as Ben started to bite on the watch.
"Come on. You can't tell me you aren't even a little bit curious about what else this thing can do?" He asked her as she give him a neutral look, making it hard for him to tell what she was thinking.
"So, what did it feel like going all alien like that?" Gwen questioned, curiously while Ben twisted the dial around on the watch as he answered.
"It freaked me out at first. " Ben tried to explain to his cousin before cycling through the list. "It was like I was me, but it was also like I was somebody else.This thing came to me for a reason. You saw what the fire guy could do with that kinda power, then maybe I could use it to help people. I mean, really help them."
"What if something happens? What if you can't transform back? What if you stop being yourself? I don't want to explain to uncle Carl and aunt Sandra that their son is a big goopy alien monster."
That got him to hesitate a bit, but only for a bit as any fear was dashed away at the perspective of finally getting to be as he felt the pull of destiny calling him.
"Are you sure you're related to me?" He said before slamming the dial down, causing a bright green light, causing another transformation to occur.
"Okey…So big blob guy?" Gwen asked looking over Ben's new form with curious and confused. "So what can this one do?"
While before his voice was deep, now it sounded electronic and Synthy? Ben also felt everything in his body, not just limbs but even square inches of his skin and insides where clearly felt and seemed to even respond to him in a way he had never felt before?
"I wonder." Ben said started moving to Gwen's laptop on the bench, reaching out and when he touched it. When he touched it, his hand merged with it, his being flowing and becoming one with it as he improved, no Upgrade it, vastly beyond what it could normally do while gaining full control of it.
First Ben began to Power up that dinky little CPU, and give its peerless Wi-Fi connection then he added Recharges on solar energy. Look at how small that storage is! Let's fix that, I think a Petabyte is big enough.
"GET OUT FROM MY LAPTOP JERK!" Gwen screamed, running to her laptop and grabbing it.
"Gwen, do you really have all your homework exercises of the past 3 years categorized in a map labelled, revision?" Ben asked wondering how his cousin could have ever become such a nerd.
"Sometimes it helps to revise and going through older notes and subjects when I need older refreshers, AND STOP GOING THROUGH MY FILES!"
"Stop Complaining, I'm upgrading it. Upgrade, hmm. That's as good of a name for this alien as anything." He said, liking the name and decided that it was the perfect name for the alien. "Besides you should be thanking me for upgrading your laptop: it can now recharge through solar energy, your storage has been improved up to a petabyte with peerless wifi connection as well as an upgraded CPU."
Gwen widened in shock at his actions, did he really do that? For her?
"Also, you should really delete your browser history more often. I mean, DAMN, girl!"
And all that good will was gone as Gwen gritted her teeth as she felt a rush of red hot anger.
Lucky for them, neither of them were too hurt as they quickly got up and began looking around to see what just happened.
"W-what happened?" Ben asked confused, dazed having had been blasted out of the laptop.
Gwen was also confused, looking down at her hands seeing sparks of pink energy that crackled around them.
"I…don't know..?"
However they didn't have time to think as the two start hearing an odd sound from the forest. Turning their head to where it was coming from they saw a weird red flying machine coming straight to the camping site. Also Ben discovered that he can also able to zoom in and see in the dark in this form, neat.
Having mere moments, Ben quickly tell Gwen "Something is flying to us from the forest, and it does not look friendly."
Gwen immediately reacts, taking the shovel next to the campfire to arm herself as the two cousins prepared for a battle.
Having mere moments, Ben quickly tell Gwen "Something is flying to us from the forest, and it does not look friendly."
Gwen immediately reacts, taking the shovel next to the campfire to arm herself as the two cousins prepared for a battle.
The thing was clearly a robot and this alien can overshadow technology. So, Ben planning to use the same trick as did with the Laptop, you start moving up to the treeline. Also finding out this alien did not really have a set form, sliding up the tree with ease like some kind of sludge and even slightly splitting and reconnecting around branches. Within seconds Ben was at a low enough height even winding himself around the branch to hopefully not be noticed.
When the Red drone reached the treeline under him it even seemed to slow down, making it easier to go all over it. The process only took a few seconds before the drone was under complete control. Ben then acted quickly removing Tracking and replace with a fake signal, remove footage (if any), remove connection to whoever commands it, reprogram machine into protecting us should he run out of transformation time and trying to Download schematics, communications network, codes, and access keys and transfer them to Gwen's laptop.
However he has put too much strain on the drone's processors, trying to do all these complex tasks at once causing it to melt down.
Without the computer brain, the drone's body loses control and crashes into the ground as also Ben landed splatter on the ground right in front of Gwen, splattering her entire upper body.
"AAAAHHHHH!" She yelled out in shock and disgusted as she tried to clean herself off. Luckily for Ben, he had found out nanobots can go into "liquid mode" so he wasn't hurt, well he wasn't serious, he was still quite dazed by the whole thing as Ben could only look behind him to see what was left of the drone and was just a hunk of scrap and fire.
But the victory was very short lived as another drone was just right in front of the blonde, hovering in the air and looking down at him threateningly and pointing a laser at the young Tennyson.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a shovel struck across against the drones eye, disabling it as it fell to the ground, much to Ben's shock as it turned out to be Gwen Tennyson, the one holding the shovel.
"Ugh! Back off, sparky! No flying tree-trimmer is going to hurt MY cousin!" Gwen growled as she proceeded to bash the robots head in over and over. Ben could help but feel a suddenly surge of affection for the tomboy girl.
"Never thought I'd say this, but am I glad to see you." He said transformed back into Ben. The robot then sparked for a few moments before it was set on fire, causing Gwen and Ben to run away from the sight before the robot exploded.
Later, the two returned to the RV, where Max were currently waiting in.
"I was worried that you might get popular with that thing on your wrist." Max scolded his grandson recent endeavour. "That's why I asked you not to fool around with it until we know what the heck it is."
"You said popular, not killer freaking robots. The warning about killer robots would have been appreciated." Ben said back as Max give his a softer look.
"Sorry, it was my fault I should have known that someone would have come looking for it." Max said, rubbing his hand over his chin as he thought of what. "With a device as powerful as that watch clamped on you, my guess is we better help you learn… fast."
"Alright!" You exclaimed in excitement. But before he could celebrate any further, the radio from the RV suddenly came on, alerting you all. "Mayday! Mayday! Somebody help us! We're under attack by some sort of - I know you're not going to believe me, but - …robot!" The ranger's frightened voice rang out through the radio.
"Sounds just like those things that attacked me. Must be looking for the watch." Ben deduced, getting up from his seat. "Those people are in trouble because of me! I have to help them."
"Uh, you? What are you gonna do about it, Ben?" Gwen asked him as Ben looked down at the DNA changing watch and looked back up with a smirk.
"Hero time!"
"Let's find out," Ben said as the trio arrived to see people running in panic as fire spread and multiple RVs were being blasted apon all over the place. The perpetrator behind all this was a giant sized robot, attacking people so he could find the watch.
"Looks like papa robot this time." He remarked before turning to Max. "I'll get gear-head's attention, you guys get the campers to safety."
Max nodded in response and gestered Gwen to follow him. As they left, Ben run towards the mech terrorizing people in the hopes of stopping it.
'First thing, first thing he needed to Lure the Robot away from civilization.' He thought as Ben called out in his raspy voice, gaining the robot's attention.
"Leave him alone! You want someone to pick on, try me."He challenged the robot as it scans him and sees the symbol of the watch on his chest. The Mechadroid lets go of the park ranger, dropping him onto a car and proceeding to blast at him causing a massive explosion. Luckily this is where Ben learns of what this alien could do and that's to make himself intangible and invisible.
"Cool," He said to himself as a plan formed in his head. "HEY YOU MISSED LOSER!"
The Mechadroid seeing that its target was still alive continued to fire at him, but Ben made himself intangible just as each were about to hit before materialising back just to throw out an insult each time.
Once it was far away from enough from the crowd of people, Ben put his play into affect, flying full speed at it before phasing inside its body. The Mechadroid, a machine designed to obey instructions, absolutely began to tear into itself and rip out its wiring as well as its power source, causing it to fall apart like a dropped Lego set.
"Hah! Looks like you couldn't phase this Ghost, you evil robotic freak!" Ben laughed a rather unsettling laugh. "Hey Ghost....freak, Ghostfreak that could work actually."
"Alright!" Gwen cheered in response.
"Way to go, Be-" Max stopped himself as the people around him stared at him."uh.. freakly...Ghost guy!"
"Oh yeah! Who's bad?!" He exclaimed in triumph while jumping up and down. However he celebration was cut off he saw his family waved at him then see the campers staring at him.
"Well, I…think my work here is done." He said with a confident pose...before quickly flying off from the spot while the people looked on in awe.
"What the hell just happened?" A camper asked as Max and Gwen sneaked away from the site.
After the battle with the robot, Ben managed to get back to the campsite, along with Gwen and Grandpa Max and after making sure he was already, he was told that it was time to hit the hay. Which he definitely agree with as he were tired from everything has happened today.
Unfortunately, your peace and quiet would be short lived as they're was the subject of who gets what bunk.
"I'm top!"
"I'm top!"
As you can see it was going nowhere as the two Tennyson cousins stared each other down with fire in their eyes.
In the end, they essentially played a game of chicken to see which one of them is going to give by both sleeping in the same bunk as they try getting some sleep. However, despite how tired they were, the two were somehow unable to sleep.
"So...Crazy day huh?" Ben asked, Breaking the silence that held the between two.
"Yeah..." Gwen replied, her voice only getting a tiny bit louder as she smiled. " I mean it's not every day that may dweeb of a cousin accidentally got his hands on a watch that they can turn himself into an alien."
"Don't forget the killer robots, those guys were friggin pain." He said with a smile.
"Yeah." Gwen said, sighing as she tries to fall asleep. "Hey, Ben can you promise me something?"
"What?"
"I have a feeling that this summer is going to be one that we will never forget…. But once it's done can you please promise to stay my dweeb's cousin no matter what?"
Call off-guard by her request, he decided to accept. "Yeah, no problem..."
"Thank you, Ben..." She said as she snuggle up to him affectionately. The two calm down as they slowly fall asleep. Unaware of the pink and green Energy that was flickering off from each other.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Deusex
Deusex And done, took a evening off to do it, hope you like my retelling. Next time will be a more slice of life affair, so stay tuned for them.
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Creation is hard and Your gift is the motivation for my creation.
I'm Deusex, and I'll be seeing you next time
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