Forge's contraption

Over the next few weeks Ben has been training in singling out some of his forms with the professor, something which like Xavier predicted is a rather uncomfortable and painful experience. Ben records his sessions with the professor to better recall which energy is which, explaining it to the camera as a reminder.

During this time Ororo's nephew, Evan joined Xavier academy and together with him Ben started school a little under a week ago.

|school yard - lunch time|

"Go to Duncan Matthews party? No, I don't think so." Scott tells them, since Jean proposed the idea.

"Come on it might be fun." Jean replies.

"Matthews is a jerk." Scott tells her.

"No he's not, I'd go." Kitty says hoping to do something normal for once, still not too thrilled about being a mutant.

"No freshmen allowed." Scott informs her.

"Well Matthews is a jerk." Kitty then says crossing her arms disappointed.

"Half the school will be there. Suppose someone will get to close to Kurt, that holo-projector won't stop them from feeling his fur." Scott argues.

"Hey, chicks dig the fuzzy dude right?" Kurt argues, asking Kitty.

"I'm like so outta here. Later." Kitty tells them and leaves their lunch table.

"Oh yeah, she can't resist." Kurt jokes, throwing his hair back, making Ben grin at his joke while Evan is stealing everyone's milk.

"I'm trying to be serious here, look we go to Matthews party and suppose Dukes or Maximov try to start something. We're not the only mutants in the school you know." Scott reminds them, pointing at Blob and Quicksilver, Evan's former teammate who's joined mystique's group.

"Just the cool ones." Evan jokes high fiving Kurt.

"Come on Scott what's wrong with a little socializing?"

"I'm sorry, I just don't think it's a good idea." Scott replies.

"Why don't we just let the prof. decide?" Ben suggests.

"Dudes it's just a party, time to shake that tail." Kurt says hopping onto the table and doing a little dance during which his tail pops out.

Scott grabs his tail and yanks him back to his seat yelling at him "Watch the tail. See that is exactly what I'm talking about."

"You pulled my tail man." Kurt yells back.

"Do you know why they're fighting even harder now?" Jean asks Ben who's watching the spectacle from the seat beside her.

"Well getting your tail yanked is unpleasant." Ben murmurs thoughtfully, getting a intrigued look by Jean.

"Long story don't ask. And remind me not to try new forms while on a treadmill." Ben tells her, making her laugh.

"Lighten up dude." Kurt tells Scott.

"You're always goofing around." Scott replies.

"And you're seriously craping my style." Kurt counters.

"Listen…" Scott says.

"No, you listen there is a sound I want you to hear and it's…" Kurt says teleporting away making his familiar 'puff' sound and leaving in a cloud of smoke.

"Blew it didn't I?" Scott asks them.

"Oh yeah." Jean tells him with Evan agreeing.

"I'll go look for him." Ben offers and gets up, taking his backpack and leaves to search for his furry friend.

Kurt teleported somewhere into the basement by accident and Rogue who was reading a book in the small yard close to the basement entrance hears a lound crash and smells smoke, so she goes to see what happened.

"Ugh, I've got to work on my re-entries." Kurt groans, having landed on a stack of boxes and threw them with himself to the floor, crashing his holo-projector.

"Who's there?" Rogue asks going into the basement and Kurt who doesn't recognize the voice tries to hide and teleports into a room with a sign hanging on it saying 'stay out'. Once he lands in the room he goes further into the room, which has multiple screens on it's walls and looks like it hasn't been used in a long time.

Unnoticed by him he walks through a light sensor and starts up the computer where a Spanish-looking teen appears and tells him that in 10 seconds the lab will self-destruct.

Kurt tries to stop the computer from self-destructing but doesn't have the expertise with computers, resulting in him getting blown out of the former lab by an explosion and flying right past Rogue, landing on a few boxes.

"Hey are you OK, what happened?" Rogue asks him.

"Lab, booby-trapped." Kurt groans.

"Lab?" Rogue asks herself and goes into the room to check it out.

"Woah, whatever this stuff was it's thrashed now. Except for this." Rogue says looking around the destroyed room and finds a weird machine with two handles and picks it up.

"What are you doing here?" Kurt asks rubbing his head and entering the room.

"Look who's talking, at least I didn't blow the place up." Rogue replies.

"Hey let go of that." Kurt then shouts, grabbing the device while it's still in her hands.

"Back off blue boy." Rogue replies angry. They struggle for control of the device until Rogue gets knocked back by Kurt, making her stumble with the device and accidentally press a button. The device then shoots something spherical at Kurt and he disappears in front of her eyes.

"He's gone." Rogue says shocked and drops the device.

Meanwhile Kurt lands in a different dimension somewhere in school and sees Evan and Kitty walk past him, talking about Scott. Kurt yells out for her and tries to grab her but his hand passes right through her.

Rogue after getting over the shock that Kurt disappeared takes the machine with a broom by its handle and carries it outside, where she tries to throw it in the dumpster but it falls out, landing right in front of Toad.

"Ohh, what's this." Toad says interested and picks it up.

"Don't touch it." Rogue yells at him.

"Why not?" He asks confused.

"Never you mind, just leave it alone." Rogue tells him.

"What's the problem, did little Rogue get into some trouble?" Toad taunts her.

"Trouble? No, there is just one less X-men to push us around." Rogue tells him, taking the gizmo and putting it in the garbage.

"Say what? You mean you toasted one of them goodie-goods with that thing?" Toad asks her, looking at it.

"Hey, just leave it alone. Got that swamp breath?" She tells him.

Toad however pick it up and hits a button, trying it out but upon hearing a sound coming from the machine he drops it and hops for cover. The machine lands in front of the garbage can and zaps it away.

A few minutes later Scott and Jean are walking through the school with Jean telling him to not be so strict with Kurt, when they see some kids running out of one of the bathrooms yelling about a blue demon and Scott rushes in, intending to lecture Kurt but can't find him and asks Jean to look for him telepathically.

Jean searches the entire school as well as the Xavier Institute but can't find him anywhere.

"I can't find him anywhere, it's like he doesn't exist." Jean tells him confused, unknown to them Rogue is standing around the corner listening in on them feeling guilty for making the Blue furred teen disappear. After hearing Jean confirm that Kurt is gone she runs away scared while Jean and Scott start a fight with Blob and Avalanche, thinking they are behind Kurt's disappearance. While all this is going on Toad is screwing around with the gizmo and zaps everything in Mystique's office as well as her car as payback for her chewing him out earlier today.

After Rogue runs away, she bumps into Ben, who's still looking for Kurt. Seeing Rogue run away in a panic he approaches her asking "Hey, everything OK?".

"Yes, why wouldn't it be?" She lies, out of breath.

"Well you're running like a pack of wolves is after you and you look like you want to cry." Ben tells her, standing next to her now.

"I'm so sorry, I can't lie to you guys. Kurt's gone and it's my fault." Rogue cries.

"Huh? I was just looking for him, what do you mean he's gone?" Ben asks her confused.

"We found this gizmo and he tried to take it away from me and in the struggle, he got hit by some blast and now he's vanished.

"So, vanishing is kinda his thing you know." Ben tells her, putting his hand on her back supportively.

"Not like this it isn't. I heard Jean say she can't find him telepathically." Rogue tells him guiltily.

"Well, can you show me this gizmo then? Maybe I can figure out what happened." Ben suggests.

"OK, come on I threw it in the dumpster behind the school." She tells him and they take off headed for the dumpster. Once they arrive however, they see that the gizmo is missing.

"Curse that slimy mudball." Rouge says annoyed.

"Come again?" Ben asks.

"Toad must have taken it, he was here when I threw it away." She informs him.

"OK, let's go look for him then." Ben says and they take off together, looking for the hopping teen.

While they are starting to look for Toad the other X-men have already started to chase him after seeing him hop around Zapping stuff. After they chase him through the yard near the school Evan manages to catch him by throwing a spear sized spike at his suit, pinning him to a tree.

"What did you do to Kurt? You better tell us." Scott threatens the still hanging Toad.

"Wha… I didn't do anything." He replies scared.

"He didn't I did." Rogue tells them catching up to the group with Ben.

"Rogue, Ben?" Scott asks shocked.

"Just chill and let her explain." Ben tells him and Rogue leads them to the lab where she found the gizmo in the first place.

"If you've hurt him, I'm gonna…" Scott threatens her once she shows them the remains of the former lab.

"You start threatening me and you're never gonna find your friend." She tells him.

"Cyclops, shut up." Ben says, getting an angry look from the older teen but Ben replies by shifting his head into that of Rath and snarls at him threateningly.

"Guys, we've run a diagnostic on this thing. It seems like it sends of a steady pulswave that seems to disappear into thin air." Kitty tells the others, looking at the device with Evan.

"Well we figure that the pulse traps the crawler in another dimension." Evan tells them.

"OK, so let's thrash this thing." Scott says, making Kurt and Forge the creator of the device who was trapped in it a long time ago freak out.

"Everyone I'm gonna use full power, this could get messy." Scott tells them and puts the device on a chair, getting ready to blast it.

"You know I could just phase through the gizmo and quietly short it out." Kitty tells him.

"Wait a sec, before anyone does any destroying let me take a look at that thing." Ben stops them and moves over to the device.

"What is that going to accomplish?" Scott challenges pissed that Ben took Rogue's side.

"It can't hurt to let him try." Jean tells Scott, stopping him from blasting the device.

Ben gives her a thankful nod and shifts into one of his smartest forms, a little grey alien lookalike (greymatter) and hops onto the chair with him only being as tall as the gizmo.

"Wait, who is that little guy?" Evan asks confused, not knowing Ben's powers yet.

"That's Ben, he can take different forms which have different kinds of abilities." Kitty explains to him while Ben is looking over the device giving an understanding nod or grunt every so often.

"OK, we just have to reset the device and Kurt should be able to exit the other dimension. Good job figuring that our by the way." He tells them before hopping off the chair and turning back to his human form.

"I don't trust you, I still think blowing it up is the best way to go." Scott tells him when suddenly Kurt appears, wearing a contraption made by forge, letting him appear before them shortly.

Kurt quickly says "Reset, don't d…"

"He's still alive after all." Rogue says relieved.

"What was he saying?" Jean asks.

"He said Reset, don't. So don't reset it, he wants you to blow it up." Evan says.

"I don't know, it sounded more like a warning to me." Scott says thoughtfully.

"If he wanted us to blow up the sucker why didn't he just say don't reset instead of reset and then don't. I think Ben might be right after all." Scott adds and looks for a button saying 'restart and presses it, causing a bright light to be emitted by the device and open a gateway into the other dimension.

"Come on, teleport through." Scott tells Kurt and the other kid appearing in the gateway.

"Hang on." Kurt tells Forge, who then stops him saying "Crap, we can't the battery has run out."

"What now?" Kurt asks his friend.

"I don't know, we'd need another power source but the portal is already closing." Forge tells him.

"Guys, step back, I think I can help them." Ben says and closes his eyes, concentrating, trying to recall a certain form he stumbled upon by accident and steadily his skin turns purple while his hair begins to glow in a bright pink.

"What, is this a light show or something?" Avalanche asks arriving in the basement with his companions.

"Buy me some time." Ben tells the others and concentrates on using his magic powers to keep the portal open, telling the two on the other side "Hurry up, I can slow it down but it still won't hold for long."

"Rogue, mystique send us to find you. So you with us or them?" Avalanche then tells the brunette with a white strand.

"Mystique? You're working for her?" Scott asks her accusingly.

"Listen Summers, you got your friends, I got mine but this ain't my fight." Rogue tells them and leaves the basement.

The X-men then start to fight against the others with Jean and Scott facing off against Blob, while Avalanche tries to take out Kitty and Toad goes for Spyke. Jean and Scott manage to stop Blob for now by throwing him over, yanking out a piece of floor right from under him while Kitty just phases through the wall Avalanche wanted to throw her into with his rock powers. And Toad gets cocky, jumping at Spyke, who side steps him and erects a wall of spikes, where Toad is flying at, making him hit his head.

While this is going on, on the other side of the portal Forge manages to patch in the car Toad zapped into their dimension into Kurt's device and he gets enough power to teleport them out of the dimension with his principal's car, driving right into Blob, who then throws the car to the side and crashes the device, making them retreat since they have no reason to fight anymore.

Once they're gone Ben slumps down against a wall, exhausted.

"Man, that was wicked, I didn't know you could to that." Kurt says hopping over to him, patting his shoulder.

"I can't, that's why I'm like this now." Ben groans in reply.

"Sorry I doubted you." Scott apologizes to him.

"Don't worry, you were just pissed I defended Rogue. Where is she anyways?" He replies.

"She left once mystiques troupe showed up." Jean informs him.

"I see." Ben says, standing up wobbly.

"Here, let me help you." Kitty offers and puts his arm around her shoulder, supporting him and receiving a weak thank you.

Once they are out of the basement everyone goes over to Scott's car while Ben sees Rogue watching them from behind a tree and asks Kitty to help him over there. She complies while not happily and they walk over to the hiding brunette.

"Thanks Kitty, you can just put me down here." Ben tells her, sitting down against the tree.

"are you sure?" She asks eyeing Rogue carefully.

"Yes, thank you." Ben tells her and she goes back over to the rest of the group, who's offering Forge a place at the Institute but he tells them that he wants to look for his parents first and leaves, heading to his old address to check if they still live there.

"What is Ben doing over there?" Evan asks, looking over at Ben.

"I don't know he wanted me to put him down there." Kitty replies.

"Should we wait for him?" Scott asks.

"Nah, that guy'll manage to get back home." Evan says and hops into Scott's passenger seat yelling "Shotgun, only to be levitated out of the seat and put in the backseat by Jean, who gets in the front seat with the rest squeezing in the backseats and they then take off headed home to the Institute.

"You don't want to go with them?" Rogue asks him, breaking their silence with her leaning against the tree while he's lying against it.

"Nah, look up. It's a beautiful night." Ben tells her.

"I guess." She agrees, laying down to his left, with enough distance between them so they don't touch accidentally.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened today, it really was an accident." She apologizes.

"Hey, I don't doubt you. And you have no reason to apologize to me or anyone, well maybe to Kurt but that's your call." Ben tells her.

"So, why didn't you fight with the rest of mystiques troupe? Aren't you part of them?" Ben asks her curiously.

"Somewhat, look Mystique is the one who brought me here but that doesn't mean I'm just gonna do whatever she wants from me." Rogue tells him.

"Hmm, so it wouldn't be a full-fledged Romeo and Juliet story if we got together huh?" Ben teases her.

Rogue responds with silence and a blush on her face, which she is glad he can't see.

"I was just joking." Ben tells her, worried she is angry.

"Yeah, yeah. Like I could ever have a romantic story with this curse of a power of mine." She responds sadly.

"Rogue listen I've made some progress with my idea of how you can touch me. I'd offer for you to try it now but I think you'd just knock me out with how drained I'm right now." Ben tells her chuckling.

"Are you serious?" She asks stunned and sits up, looking down at him.

"Hey, I told you I was going to work on it." He tells her with a small smile.

"I didn't think you were serious though, or at least couldn't pull it off." She says.

"Well thank you." Ben laughs.

"You know what I mean." She says.

"Yeah and it was hard but if my theory is correct it should work, if you like we can try it soon. Just tell me when you're ready to find out." Ben offers, sitting up himself now with some of his strength returning.

"Thanks, I will." She agrees and gives him a brief smile.

"You know, you should smile more often. Your smile is gorgeous." He tells her flirtingly before he turns into the blue form she's seen before and takes off quickly, but she can still see a streak following him because he isn't as fast as usual.

"I'm looking forward to finding out if you've managed to do the impossible." She says hopeful and gets up heading home herself.