Chapter 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3



On that night, Ben had a nightmare. He was ready to fight Dr. Animo and his mutated stag beetle. As Diamondhead, he quickly defeated Animo, by slicing his pet. As the police took the crazy scientist away once again, the people clapped and feted Ben.
But something went wrong. Sinister, dark clouds blocked out the sun. Kevin’s shape slowly evolved from the crowd.
- Nice work, Benjie! So heroic... Forgot how much I hate heroes! – shouted Kevin, and fired projectiles at Diamondhead.
Ben thought as a petrosapien, he’ll remain unharmed, but Kevin’s projectiles tore his skin. He looked to the scars, then to Kevin in surprise.
He wanted to fight back, but the omnitrix timed out. Kevin’s shadow crested him.
- Let’s finish this! – hissed he, as he rose his crystalline hand to stab Ben. Suddenly, Max appeared in his plumber suit. He fired at Kevin, but to no avail. Kevin left Ben behind, and approached Max menacingly. Ben couldn’t move, just watched the events. His grandfather stood no chance against Kevin. He forced Max to the ground, and rose up his hand once more. Then he did it...
Ben woke up. He was freaked out by this nightmare. He looked at his sleeping family. After he found everything all right, he tried to get back to sleep. He tossed and turned, but couldn’t fall asleep again. He decided to go for a walk in the fresh, morning air. He put on his clothes and silently sneaked out from the rv. Ben thought it was a good idea to leave LA, and stay in this camping for the night. He enjoyed walking aimlessly on the grass, breathing the fresh air. He climbed up to a little hill, and watched the rising sun. It was beautiful. Then he looked to the omnitrix. He saw his own reflection in the glass of the device. This was the first time, when he had some deep thoughts, for example, what does it really takes to be a hero. He was just standing there, in the growing sunlight and enjoyed to be alive. The moment soon passed by. Then his nightmare came to his mind, but it seemed nothing else than a pale memory now. Suddenly he heard a noise from nearby. He looked around, but couldn’t recognize anything suspicious. Ben looked around once more and went back to the rv. He didn’t know, he had been watched... After he left, Kevin’s head emerged from the bushes. He made an evil grin...

When Ben got back to the Rust bucket, his family just woke up.
- Where were you, Ben? – questioned him Max.
- I had a nightmare, then I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went out for a morning walk. – explained Ben.
- Okay. Hope you’re hungry, for I have something special for you today... Roach salad with mashed potatoes! – enthused Max.
- That’s gonna be... weird. – declared Ben.
- What’s weird? – asked Gwen, who just came out from the shower.
- You don’t wanna know. – replied Ben with a grimace on his face.
But, something interrupted their chat. They heard an explosion.
- What was that? – asked Gwen.
- Turn on the TV, Grandpa! Maybe we’ll know... – suggested Ben.
Max agreed.
- ...something incredible happened! It appears that a meteor hit the downtown of Los Angeles! It’s unbelievable! Look at that strange smoke! – the announcer said.
- I’d better check that out myself! – said Ben, and turned into Heatblast. He flew into the city on his carpet of fire. Soon, he arrived to the disaster area. The meteor flew through three skyscrapers, and left a wide and deep path of destruction in the ground. Ben couldn’t see the1 meteor itself, it was blazing in orange flames. As Heatblast, he could go into the flames, where nobody else couldn’t He rose his hands and created fire beam, to put out the destructive flames. As he got closer to the meteor, he heard something, but he wasn’t sure, he was busy with the fires. Then he heard it again. He paid attention to it this time. It was a strange voice crying for help. He ran to the meteor. Now, he could clearly hear the strange voice. It seemed that it was coming from the meteor itself.
- Help, help, help me!!! – cried the voice.
- Where are you? I can’t see you! – shouted Heatblast.
- Here, in here! Help me!
Heatblast touched the meteor, and realized, that it’s not a meteor, but a spaceship. He melted the casing with his hands. Enormous amount of black smoke rushed out from inside.
- Are you in here? – shouted Heatblast. He couldn’t see anything from the smoke.
- Here... – the voice was weak now. Heatbalst knew he didn’t have much time. He jumped inside the ship, and tried to locate the source of the voice. Suddenly, he felt something on his foot. He looked down, and saw an arm. A second later, the timeout warning beeped once... Heatblast quickly grabbed the hand... The warning beeped twice... He dragged the pilot out from the ship... The warning beeped for the third time.
- No, not yet, just give me a few more seconds! – begged Heatblast... The fourth beep. He jumped out and grabbed the pilot again and ran away from the flames. As he ran, the omnitrix eventually timed out, but both Ben and the pilot were in safety.
The smoke did not clear up yet, Ben couldn’t see the features of the pilot. He could recognize, it has no legs, and has claws. But he didn’t know what alien this could be.
As the wind blew the smoke away a bit, the alien came to, and stood up... in fact, it was floating close to the ground. It was coughing, couldn’t breathe well, such as Ben. The smoke finally cleared up, and Ben looked to the alien in horror.
- Ghostfreak???
The alien looked back at him, but didn’t reply, just coughed again.
- Oh, if I only knew that it was you, I’d let your ugly butt burn! – he rose his fist and tried to attack the creature. At that moment, the a huge smoke cloud emerged from the ghost’s mouth, when it coughed. When Ben attacked, his fist went trough the alien’s body.
The alien quickly turned around, and opened it’s chest. The black and white tentacles grabbed Ben, and rose him up, right in front the aliens face.
- Let go of me!!! – shouted Ben. He couldn’t move in the tight squeeze of the tentacles.
- How dare you??? – asked the creature.
- Hey... this voice... you’re not Ghostfreak... – recognized Ben.
- What are you talking about? My name’s Lantara. – introduced herself the alien.
- Oh, sorry! I’ve messed it up again, I thought you were somebody else... – explained Ben.
- You should be more careful what you do or say! – suggested Lantara.
- Would you let me go now? – asked Ben.
Lantara put him down, her tentacles disappeared in her chest.
- I’m ben Tennyson. – rose his hand Ben, for a shake.
Lantara accepted the greeting.
- So, you’re an...
- Ectonurite. Yes.
- Then why didn’t you phase through the ship’s casing? – asked Ben the logical question.
- I couldn’t concentrate hard enough, I was so scared...- replied Lantara.
As she spoke, Ben looked at her body.
- What? – asked Lantara in surprise.
- Don’t take it seriously, but you don’t really look like a girl...
- I know. We are not exactly the most beautiful beings in the universe. There’s not much difference between males and females though. – said she.
- Stay away from my grandson! – shouted Max, with a blaster in his hand.
Ben stood before Lantara.
- No, Grandpa, she’s not Ghostfreak! She’s a good guy! – said Ben.
- You can’t trust the aliens, Ben! Come here to me! – replied Max.
Ben obeyed.
- Where are you came from? – asked Max. Gwen and Ben followed the events from behind him.
- My home planet is Anur Phaetos. It’s billions of light years from here. – answered Lantara.
- What are you doing here?
- I did not calculated your planet on the way, I’ve slowed down from hyper speed too late and I’ve crashed. The ship blew up; I don’t know how I got out... All I remember after the impact is Ben.
Max put his weapon away. Suddenly Gwen had an idea.
- Hey, why are you immune to the sunlight? – questioned she.
- Well, it’s a natural ability of the females ectonurites. – Lantara explained that countless eons ago, her planet had two suns, but both of them blew out, and the planet remained in complete darkness ever since.
- So, this is encoded into our genes. The legacy of our ancestors. – she mused a bit.
A huge crowd started to form around them, so Max suggested to go, they have got enough unwanted attention.
- What about her? – asked Gwen.
- Yeah, we can’t just leave her here! – declared Ben.
Max agreed, and Lantara joined them in the rv. They left the city behind and went back to the camping. During the trip, Lantara explained that she’s alone, decided to leave her dark homeworld, and discover the universe.
- How you’re going to travel now? Your ship is destroyed. – said Gwen.
- No problem. We can create a space vehicle from our own ectoplasma. It’s not really a ship, it’s more like a capsule, but you would call it a spaceship. But it takes a long time to make one. – replied the ectonurite.
- And how can you control it? – asked Ben.
- Telepatically, of course. - laughed Lantara.
Lantara told them a lot of informations about herself and her home planet, and other galaxies she visited so far. The Tennysons agreed, that they will help Lantara to create a new space capsule. Then she recognized the watch on Ben’s wrist.
- So it is true. – said she.
- What? – asked Ben.
- The omnitrix does exist...

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