CH 6: Really, Ben? (E2)

(A/N: You all better start commenting or I'll tell the Duolingo Bird about you not practicing your Spanish lessons! Seriously though, comment, reading them is fun. It doesn't need to be something serious or profound, just casual ones for me to read.)

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"Ugh, who would have expected that fire to be a distraction?!" Gwen groaned, serious as Max chased the robbers :"And Ben's taking care of the burning building. Hey, Al." The veteran looked at the noiret in the mirror :"We have to pick up Ben on the way, but we can't lose the robbers. Can you handle it?"

"Already on it!" Alistair kept turning his Nemetrix, groaning :"Ugh, I wish I had small and fast besides actual Kaijus for predators too sometimes. Oh, whatever. Switch to Alien Mode!" The mature British AI spoke :"[Switching to Alien Mode.]"

The symbol changed from fangs to an hourglass, and Alistair quickly found the alien he was looking for :"Alright, it's time to hunt!" Pushing it down, he transformed with a red light. "Wynter!" His ghostly voice came, along with a chill that filled the RV.

"Hooo!" Gwen shivered :"Can you please not transform into that in the car?! It always makes this place chilly!" Causing the alien to snicker :"Hence the name, Gwen. Anyway, I'm off to hunt now~! Catch you later."

He jumped up, but instead of hitting the ceiling, he disappeared and emerged from the roof, before unfolding his wings and flying. "What the hell is that thing?!" One of the robbers said, while the driver growled :"Whatever it is, it has to go! Take care of that thing!"

"Go to hell, you fucking freak!" Pulling down the window, he started shooting at Wynter, who simply went intangible, but his blue figure remained :'This is America intensifies.' He mused :"Oh, shoot the ice ghost who's intangible, how smart. You must have been the top of your class, eh?" Snickering, he went completely invisible.

Hearing the loud screeching of tires, he looked back to see the Rust Bucket fast approaching with Heatblast in the passenger seat :'And there's the disadvantage of going invisible. Your allies can't see you either.'

"Where did it go?!" The robbers searched frantically, but they were shocked by the ice breath that suddenly froze the entire car :"What the fuck?!" Frozen in seconds, they could no longer drive the car. It simply slid on the ground.

'Time to take care of some trash.' He made himself visible, shocking the trio behind as he descended towards the frozen car :"Sweet dreams!" And punched it, causing it to shatter into a million pieces.

Unfortunately, he couldn't kill some mere robbers. He grabbed them both, before launching them at a wall. "Ugh!" They screamed in pain. He couldn't kill them, but nobody said anything about breaking a few bones. "If that didn't teach you a lesson, feel free to give me a reason to come and find you."

He said coldly, before trapping their body from the neck down in ice. Sirens approached quickly, before police cars pulled aside and aimed their guns :"Freeze!" Wynter glanced at the robbers :"Already on it." He was shocked for a moment, before giving orders :"Arrest them!"

"Already on it too." Wynter mumbled, before he saw the cop approaching with a smile :"Thanks for the help... whatever you are." The alien chuckled, giving a two finger salute :"You're welcome, officer. It was my pleasure." And taking off after going invisible.

The RV hadn't stopped for him, careful of not being suspicious, but instead slowed down for him to quickly find it. Wynter flew towards it, before phasing through :"I'm back~." To see Heatblast had already transformed back into Ben.

"Nice work, partner!" The brunet fist bumped him, the alien nodding :"Nice work. You took care of your part safely too?" Smirking smugly, Ben leaned back, hands behind his head :"You already know it. Got everybody out safe and sound. I see that you didn't have any trouble either."

"Trouble? Against who? Two bozos?" They snickered. Max smiled at the two :"Good job, boys. Things could have been disastrous if you hadn't helped out." Walking back, Wynter sat opposite of Gwen, behind the table :"Glad to be of help."

"So where are we going now, grandpa?" Gwen looked at Max, who smiled :"I was planning on stacking up on some ingredients. Apparently, there's a supermarket that has whatever you want! I wanted to see if they had some of the rare ingredients I need to make some actual good food!"

"Oh, god, please don't let there be any." Gwen mumbled to herself, holding her face with her hands. The three youngsters already knew what horrors Max was going to cook just from his excited tone. When it came to food and cooking, the old man being excited was never a good thing.

"Oh, come on, don't act like that." The old man looked at his grandchildren :"Learn a thing or two from Alistair. He knows how to appreciate actual food and delicacies!" Wynter, who hadn't timed out yet, felt two glares on him.

"I blame you for this." Gwen glared, speaking quietly :"If only you hadn't given him an excuse, we wouldn't be in this situation!" He sighed, whispering :"Don't blame me, blame the watch for changing my appetite and taste buds. And c'mon, that's not true. You know he would have made those foods even if not because of me."

"Yeah, but at least it wouldn't be to this extent!" She double facepalmed, sobbing comically :"The foods grandpa makes are getting worse by the day! I can still feel the octopus tentacle squirming in my stomach!" (A/N: ಠ⁠◡⁠ಠ I wasn't the only one who thought about it right?)

'Oh, boy, that could so easily be taken out of context.'

- (Next day)

The group had come to the supermarket Max had talked about, the Megamart. M-Mart for short. While Max was pushing the shopping cart, the kids were looking around. And suddenly, Ben grew excited. And that always screamed trouble. Quietly, without anybody noticing, he sneaked into a certain aisle.

'If I remember right, Dr Animo will show up in this episode, right?' Alistair thought. After all, it had been a long time since he had watched Ben 10. He remembered only some crucial parts. "Only canned octopus?" Max got his attention :"Huh, I thought this store prided itself on wide selection."

Poor Gwen almost pleaded :"Uh, grandpa, no offense, but can we have a normal dinner for once? You know, one that doesn't involve stir fried tentacles?" Max just laughed :"Nonsense. Now where do you suppose they keep the sheep's bladders?"

As her shoulders slumped in disappointment, Alistair patted her shoulder in pity. But their attention was pulled away by the loud beep, and bright flash of green that lasted for a second. "... Please tell me what I think just happened didn't just happen." Alistair closed his eyes, while Gwen flared her nose :"I'm afraid what you think just happened did just happen."

They walked towards the isle the light came from, leaving Max to find the ingredients himself. When they reached the isle, they saw it to be a cereal aisle. Or was, at least. Almost all the boxes were wrecked. While Gwen gasped, Alistair had to close his eyes and take a deep breath to calm down his blood pressure. He had come to find out why people were so annoyed with Ben most of the time in the original.

"Ben?!" Gwen growled, looking for her troublesome cousin. And she found him thrashing around in a sumo smacks cereal :"Oh, man. Another red card." He groaned from inside of the box, before Gwen grabbed him :"Gotcha!" She glared at Grey Matter, Alistair's favorite alien, which he had already scanned and copied :"What are you doing?"

"Uh, looking for the gold sumo slammer card, duh!" Grey Matter said in a matter of fact manner, and Gwen scolded him :"You're supposed to use your powers to help people, not find some stupid trading card."

"And with Grey Matter of all things?" Alistair sighed in disbelief. Obviously, Grey Matter hadn't raised Ben's intelligence when it came to anything nonscientific. Suddenly, they heard a cough from behind, and Alistair found the urge to punch Ben really tempting :"Just what do you think you're doing, kids?"

Hiding him behind her, the two turned to the glaring shop worker. Gwen was about to explain, but the noiret beat her to it :"It wasn't us, sir!" He put on the best innocent face he could, which he knew was EFFECTIVE with his looks :"We heard something when we were shopping with our grandpa, so we came to see what was going on! And we saw this place wrecked like this!"

And from how the man's face eased up a bit, he knew it worked. He held back his evil smile. "You mean you two didn't do this?" The man raised an eyebrow. Frowning, but not at them. Meanwhile, Gwen was smiling and nodding, trying to go with Alistair's acting. She was really shocked by his acting though. One second, he was the confident normal Alistair, and the next second, he looked like the most innocent boy with his wide eyes and voice.

"No, sir, we didn't!" He hurriedly shook his head :"I swear it wasn't us two! Our grandpa would kill us if we ruined the store like this! And if we wanted something, we would just ask him to buy it for us instead of stealing it!" 'Technically, it's the truth. After all, we TWO didn't do this! Hehehehehe!'

"Huh? Then who would have..." The old man scratched his head. Alistair had his charisma on max, because the old man was convinced right away. But still feeling a bit guilty, and to deal the finishing blow, he picked up several cereal boxes that thankfully hadn't been spilled, just opened :"Um, sir, how about this. It wouldn't be fair if we paid for everything, since us two weren't the ones to do this. But we can still buy some of the ones here since we were going to do so anyway."

"Well... huuuh, alright, kid." The old man finally smiled, stroking the noiret's head :"Thanks for not letting these things go to waste. At least the loss will be lowered somewhat with you buying a few. You're a kind child."

"Hehehehe, happy to be of help." He smiled innocently, letting the man pet him before he sighed :"Well, you two can go then. I'm sorry for making you nervous and accusing you of what you didn't do. I'll just go and come back with a few of the staff to clean this place."

"Alright then, take care!" He smiled and waved goodbye, before his smile and acting vanished :"Alright, let's go." When he didn't get an answer, he turned to see Gwen staring at him in absolute shock, mouth wide open, along with Grey Matter's.

Alistair :"What? Careful, or a fly might fly into your mouth."

Gwen :"What was that?"

Alistair :"What was what?"

Grey Matter :"What just happened! What did just happen?!"

Alistair :"Oh, that? It was nothing."

Gwen :"You completely fooled the guy!"

Grey Matter :"I didn't know you were such an actor!"

Alistair, shrugging :"I didn't either. It just came so naturally."

Gwen, guilty :"But was that a good thing? I mean, we technically did do this."

Alistair :"No, we didn't. Ben did. And I never said Ben didn't. I just said we didn't. And if you're going to feel guilty about something, feel guilty for grandpa Max's pockets. Ben easily messed up at least 50 cereal boxes here. And if we consider the price of each cereal box here as just $10, that would be a total of $500! And that's if it's just 50 boxes. As you can see, there's definitely more than just 50 boxes. Would you like it if grandpa Max paid $1,000 for just cereal boxes?"

Gwen :"Well, no... huuuh you've got a point, that's too much. *Gritting her teeth* If only a certain someone actually used the brain, the specialty of his alien, we wouldn't be in this situation."

Grey Matter :"Hey!"

Alistair, glaring :"She has a point and you know it, Ben. Also, you owe me a big one for this."

Grey Matter :"Oh, whatever."

Alistair :"And besides, Gwen, this means we'll have something else to eat than grandpa Max's "food" for a while."

Gwen, smiling brightly :"Yeah, that's true! Phew, maybe this wasn't such an unlucky thing after all."

Grey Matter :"You're welcome."

Alistair/Gwen :"Shut up, you're not getting any."

Grey Matter :"What?! Why not?!"

Gwen :"You're supposed to be the smart one at the moment. So figure it out yourself."