After a brief, tense discussion, they decided that Gwen would stay behind to nurse Blake while Ben and Grandpa Max went to track down and stop Kevin.
A short while later, the Rust Bucket was hopelessly snarled in heavy rush-hour traffic on a massive suspension bridge.
Staring at the sea of gridlocked cars, Ben’s impatience boiled over.
Her knuckles turned white against her wrist as she spun the dial.
Right now, she wanted nothing more than to personally deliver a devastating beatdown to Kevin.
“Stinkfly, let’s go!” she cried, slamming her palm down.
But the Omnitrix threw her a curveball.
In a brilliant flash of green light, she transformed into Four Arms instead.
Her towering, multi-muscled alien frame instantly expanded, leaving her comically jammed inside the tight confines of the RV’s passenger seat.
“Are you kidding me?!
Now of all times you give me Four Arms?!” she groaned, her voice echoing off the roof.
Realizing she couldn’t afford to wait for a timeout, she awkwardly threw open the passenger door, squeezed herself out, and began executing massive, bounding leaps down the support cables toward the bridge below.
Down in a maintenance lot beneath the bridge, Kevin’s absorbed Pyronite energy had finally depleted, reverting him back to his human form.
Ben crashed down onto the concrete right on cue, a deep, rumbling growl shaking her chest as she mocked him.
“Looks like you’re completely out of juice, punk.” She cracked her four massive fists.
“Now, you’re finished.”
Kevin, utterly oblivious to the sheer magnitude of the beating that was about to come his way, merely let out a cocky sneer.
Blue static electricity crackled between his fingers as he gestured toward three teenage punks groaning on the ground.
“Yeah?
Well, I still have plenty of voltage left to fry these losers to a crisp.”
Seeing him threaten defenseless people, Ben didn’t hesitate.
She lunged forward, using two of her massive arms to scoop Kevin up from behind.
However, her anger made her sloppy.
The moment her skin made contact with his, Kevin let out a manic laugh, his parasitic mutation triggering instantly.
Blue energy tendrils snaked up her forearms as he greedily siphoned the Tetramand DNA directly out of her core.
Armed with a fresh reservoir of power, Kevin’s body mutated.
He swelled in size, shifting into a distorted reflection of Four Arms.
But because it was a flawed, parasitic mimicry, he wasn’t nearly as massive or physically dense as the original.
Instead of a Tetramand’s standard four eyes, he only manifested three, blinked in a jagged pattern across his face.
Testing his newfound strength, Kevin delivered a devastating, two-handed backhand that launched Ben several meters back through a chain-link fence.
He slammed his four fists together, a malicious grin splitting his face.
“Oh, man.
This is gonna be a total blast!”
The sheer arrogance of his words blew away the last remnants of Ben’s restraint.
A blinding, protective fury consumed her.
She dug her heavy boots into the dirt, her four fists curling so tightly that her knuckles popped like firecrackers.
“Yeah.
To the death!”
With a unified roar, the two titans collided.
They traded bone-shattering blows, but Kevin’s brutal street-fighting instincts gave him a distinct tactical edge over Ben’s unrefined brawling.
Within minutes, he caught her with a sweeping kick, throwing her violently against a concrete bridge pillar.
Right at that exact moment, the Rust Bucket squeaked to a halt on the access road above.
Inside the cabin, the chaotic, crashing echoes of the battle below finally pulled Blake out of his deep stasis.
He pushed himself up from the dining booth, rubbing his throbbing temples as he blinked away the grogginess.
“Ben…
where is she?
Is she okay?”
Seeing him wake up, Gwen immediately rushed over to support his trembling shoulders, though she couldn’t help but sigh dramatically.
“You break your own bones saving a train, and the literal second you open your eyes, you’re worrying about that big bonehead?
What kind of love potion did she slip into your juice box anyway?”
Gwen shook her head in sheer bewilderment.
For the life of her, she couldn’t understand how these two could care about each other this deeply and still manage to act like completely oblivious idiots.
Blake completely ignored her teasing.
He gripped the edge of the table, forcing his shaky, exhausted legs to stand up as he prepared to stumble his way out of the RV.
Down below, Ben caught sight of the familiar shape of the Rust Bucket parking on the bridge above.
The image of Blake lying unconscious and pale on the dining booth flashed vividly through her mind.
A profound, terrifying reservoir of strength exploded from deep within her soul.
Completely ignoring the aggressive, flashing red light and warning chimes of her draining Omnitrix, she surged forward.
She unleashed three consecutive, blindingly fast punches, striking Kevin precisely in his structural pressure points.
“This!
Is!
For!
Blake!” she screamed.
Channeling every ounce of raw physical power left in her alien biology, she delivered a final, monumental right hook straight across Kevin’s jaw.
The impact was cataclysmic.
The force of the blow literally lifted the mutated teenager off his feet, launching him several meters through the air until he crashed into a dirt embankment, buried beneath a landslide of rubble.
The moment the punch landed, her emotional dam burst, and her energy reserves hit zero.
A brilliant flash of red light stripped away her towering form, reverting her back into a breathless, trembling ten-year-old girl.
Realizing that Ben was genuinely trying to kill him, Kevin frantically clawed his way out of the dirt, dropping his mutated form.
He threw both hands up in the air, his voice cracking with a pathetic, cowardly panic.
“Whoa, okay!
I give up!
I throw in the towel!
I’m sorry, alright?
Just have mercy!”
Ben stood over him, chest heaving violently as she drew in ragged breaths.
She slowly advanced on him, her small hands curling into tight fists.
“Oh, really?
Too bad I don’t accept your apology.”
She raised her right fist, determined to deliver one final human punch to avenge the hell Blake had just gone through.
Seeing her march right into his striking zone, the terrified expression on Kevin’s face vanished instantly, replaced by a malicious, triumphant smirk.
He thrust his right hand forward, his fingers snapping toward her wrist.
“Man, you are a total idiot!”
He had never intended to surrender.
The entire display had been a calculated ruse to lure her close enough so he could physically wrench the Omnitrix off her arm.
The trap was seamless, but Kevin had failed to calculate a critical variable.
“Ben!”
A desperate voice shattered the tension.
Out of nowhere, a shadow lunged into the fray.
Blake shoved Ben violently out of the line of fire, his own left hand taking her place as Kevin’s fingers clamped down like a steel vise around his wrist.
Blake had intended to transform the second he left the RV, but his body was still deeply fatigued.
Seeing Ben about to walk right into a fatal ambush, his instincts took over, forcing him to play human shield.
(Man, my life in this universe is a total struggle…
QAQ)
Though he had missed his primary target, Kevin didn’t care.
Realizing his fingers were locked onto an identical, pristine Omnitrix, a manic glee consumed him.
He began violently yanking on the device, trying to tear it from Blake’s flesh.
“Did you lose a screw when you were a baby or something?!
Who throws themselves into a trap to save a brat like her?!”
Having been thrown safely onto the grass, Ben scrambled to her feet, her heart hammering against her ribs as she lunged back toward the struggle.
“Get your hands off him!”
But Kevin simply used his free arm to deliver a rough backhand, tossing her aside.
Fortunately, Grandpa Max arrived just in time, catching her small frame before she hit the concrete.
Seeing Kevin trying to manually rip the watch off his wrist, Blake didn’t panic.
A cold, composed smirk touched his lips.
“You really want this watch that badly, punk?
Fine.
Let’s see if you can handle it.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the Omnitrix’s built-in proximity defense protocol triggered.
A brilliant, blinding pulse of emerald kinetic energy erupted from the faceplate, expanding outward like a shockwave.
The localized blast violently repelled both of them.
Because Blake was directly attached, the kinetic backlash sent him flying backward.
Ben frantically jumped forward to catch him, but her small frame lacked the leverage; the momentum swept her up as well, sending both kids tumbling straight into Grandpa Max’s open arms.
Kevin, however, didn’t have a human cushion.
The blast launched him several meters into a brick wall.
His siphoned Tetramand energy completely evaporated under the surge, leaving him battered and human.
Realizing he was utterly outmatched and cornered, he scrambled to his feet and vanished into the dark shadows of the drainage tunnels.
Once the dust settled and the threat had cleared, the group dusted themselves off, preparing to make the long trek back to the Rust Bucket.
But as Blake turned to walk toward the access road, a soft, trembling voice caught him from behind.
“Blake…”
He stopped, turning around to find Ben standing perfectly still in the center of the clearing.
Her head was bowed so low her face was entirely obscured by her messy, tangled bangs.
Her small hands were clutching the hem of her shirt so tightly her knuckles were white, and faint, wet tear tracks stained her dusty cheeks.
Blake softened his posture.
“What’s wrong?”
Ben’s shoulders hitched.
When she finally spoke, her voice was a broken, choked whisper.
“I’m sorry…
I…”
The evening air was dead silent, allowing her quiet apology to carry perfectly across the distance.
Looking at her fragile, guarded posture – seeing how she was practically trembling in fear that he would despise her for her rebellion, a sharp pang of genuine sympathy squeezed Blake’s heart.
He took a slow, deliberate step toward her.
With every stride he took, Ben’s heart hammered harder against her ribs.
She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the harsh, justified lecture she was certain he was about to deliver.
Instead, a gentle, comforting warmth settled over her head as Blake placed a large, tender hand on her hair, softly ruffling her bangs.
“You did great out there, Ben.”
He wasn’t just saying it to placate her.
Blake genuinely believed that for a ten-year-old kid thrust into an interstellar war, wanting to cut loose and act selfishly for a single afternoon was completely normal.
The fact that she had pulled herself back from the edge and chosen to save innocent lives proved her core character was solid.
As for her earlier angry outbursts?
Blake didn’t hold a grudge.
Everyone went through a rebellious phase.
He suddenly replayed a highly ironic memory from his previous life – recalling a time when, as a stubborn kid, he had locked himself in his bedroom to “starve himself to death” just to spite his parents, only to sneak down for midnight snacks three hours later.
A faint chuckle slipped from his lips.
He gently smoothed down her tangled, messy locks, parting them away from her eyes.
“There.
Much better.
You look way better like this.”
Satisfied with his handiwork, Blake retracted his hand.
During the process, he couldn’t help but wonder internally what kind of premium shampoo she used; her hair felt incredibly soft and silky beneath his palms.
(Wait, is it Pantene?)
Ben remained entirely frozen, her head still bowed in absolute silence.
Seeing her completely unresponsive, Blake bent down slightly, waving a hand across her line of sight with a playful grin.
“Hello?
Earth to Ben?
Anybody home?
Yoo-hoo?”
The playful gesture broke her last line of emotional defense.
The overwhelming torrent of guilt, fear, and relief crashed through her completely.
With a sudden, desperate sob, she lunged forward, throwing her arms around his waist and burying her face flat against his chest, weeping uncontrollably.
“Waaah…
h-he-he…”
Blake froze instantly, his hands hovering awkwardly in mid-air as panic gripped his features.
He stared down at the small, trembling girl crying her heart out in his embrace, completely out of his depth.
(Oh, man…
my mom definitely never included a tutorial on how to console a crying ten-year-old girl in her parenting guide!)
A few yards away, Grandpa Max watched the emotional display, his heart aching for his granddaughter.
He stepped forward to comfort her, but Gwen reached out, firmly grabbing his sleeve.
“Let him handle it, Grandpa,” Gwen said softly, a knowing smile touching her lips.
“We need to trust him.”
Max looked between Gwen and the two kids before nodding slowly, a lingering trace of worry in his eyes as he stepped back to give them space.
Left to his own devices, Blake desperately searched his mind, digging through his memories until he recalled the exact way his own mother used to soothe him when he was a frightened child.
Fortunately, the memory was crystal clear.
His posture relaxed.
He gently wrapped his arms around Ben’s small frame, resting his chin softly against the top of her head as he rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles.
“Let it all out, Ben,” he whispered gently.
“Just cry.
It’s okay.
You’re safe.”
They stood there beneath the shadow of the bridge for a long time until her frantic sobs slowed into quiet, rhythmic hiccups.
She remained perfectly still, resting her forehead against his shirt as if refusing to let go.
Blake gave her head one last affectionate pat, his voice dropping into a gentle murmur.
“Hey.
When we get back to the RV, make sure you give your grandpa a proper apology, okay?”
“…Mmhmm,” she mumbled against his chest, taking a moment to subtly rub her face against his shirt, though Blake couldn’t tell if she was wiping away her tears or just seeking comfort.
When she finally untangled herself, she kept her eyes glued to the dirt, rubbing her red, swollen eyelids with the back of her hands as she quietly followed Blake back up the access road toward the Rust Bucket.
Climbing through the doors, Ben kept her head bowed low.
She walked over to the driver’s seat, her voice tiny and thick with lingering emotion as she looked at her grandfather.
“I’m really sorry, Grandpa…
everything that happened today…
it was all my fault.”
Hearing her genuine, heartfelt apology, the last of Max’s stern exterior evaporated.
He glanced at her through the rearview mirror, offering a warm, forgiving smile.
“As long as you understand what you did wrong, Ben, that’s what matters.
You’re my granddaughter.
Absolutely nothing in this universe will ever change that.”
He paused, his expression turning serious but gentle.
“But…
you’re going to have to work hard to earn my trust back.”
Ben didn’t complain.
She simply nodded softly, a quiet, mature determination settling over her features as she climbed into her seat, staring thoughtfully down at the Omnitrix on her wrist.
Future Chapters are really good…