Kevin was driving at high speed.
"So, anything new?"
"Nothing..." replied Gwen. The young woman on her knees on the back seat remained in magical concentration. Beams of mantra flowed from her hands and circled Ben's unconscious body, searching for what had affected her cousin. "Did you talk to Grandpa Max?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And he said he has no idea what happened."
Without slowing down, Kevin makes a sharp left turn, causing Gwen to hit her head on the glass and lose concentration.
"Ouch, Kevin!"
"Sorry..."
"We can't help Ben if we die! Will you please drive properly?"
"You're the one who told me to run."
The car makes another turn, this time to the right, and it was Ben's turn to hit his head on the window.
"Ouch!"
"Ben, you're awake!" said the girl.
"Who said you have to be an expert in magic to wake someone up, huh?" Kevin smiled with irony.
Gwen offered a disapproving look in the rearview mirror and slapped the young driver on the head.
"Easy there, you nervous girl." said Kevin.
"What are you guys arguing about?" Ben still looked a little dizzy.
"Sorry, Ben," she said. "How are you feeling?
"My head hurts, but I think it's from hitting the glass." His hand stroked the sore spot on his head. "What happened?
"You blacked out, Tennyson," said Kevin.
"What do you mean I blacked out?" He began to get restless on the bench. "Did you manage to catch Albedo?"
"No..." replied Gwen.
"But why? Guys, we have to go after him!"
"And we will, calm down!" Gwen put her hand on her cousin's shoulder, "But you need help, so let's take you to Grandpa Max first."
"What? No guys, I'm cool, look!" Ben touched his own body showing that there was no injury "See! Let's go back, our objective is Albedo!"
"Our objective is also to take care of each other, Ben!"
"Then I'll go alone."
Ben touches the Omnitrix disk, which activates with the Jet-Ray hologram already evident. However, as he tries to press the core of the watch, his hand hits a pink, extremely resistant bubble that coated the watch and his hand.
"What!?"
"Ben, give it up, we're taking you to Grandpa!" said the girl.
"Gwen, let go of my hand!"
"Hey there, kid!" said Kevin "I agree with you that we have to go after Albedo and beat the crap out of him, but seriously, you're messed up, so just stay cool and we'll take you to your grandpa's whether you like it or not!"
"What do you mean, messed up?"
Gwen and Kevin looked at each other in the rearview mirror. It was left to her to explain:
"Ben, when we were walking back to the car, we heard you scream. Right then, we ran back..."
"Screaming?"
"We saw you covered by the green glow of the watch, you were supposed to be transforming, but... You were howling in pain..."
Ben put his head down and tried to remember something.
"It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough for us to hear several of your voices at once, screaming and crying and begging for help from within the green light..."
"It was scary," said Kevin.
"When the green light was gone, you were standing up, your face was wet with tears, and then you collapsed."
"I-I..."
"You were out for about twenty minutes, Tennyson."
"What?"
"That's why we called Grandpa Max," said Gwen. "He said to drop you off with him and to go after Albedo. Maybe he did something with the watch and we don't know about it."
Ben was silent. He couldn't remember any of this. He felt tired, but it was 1:30 AM now, who wouldn't be tired? He thought. He looked at the landscape outside the car and saw his own reflection in the window. What happened there?
"Okay, I'll stay with Grandpa Max," he finally said.
"I'm glad you accepted," said Kevin, "because we have just arrived."
The car brakes sharply, just a few inches away from hitting the bumper of the trailer parked in front of Ben's house.
"Kevin!" say the cousins.
The trailer door opens and from inside emerges the figure of Max Tennyson with a cybernetic goggle resting on top of his head and advanced technology gloves on each hand.
"Hi, kids," said Grandpa Max with his characteristic smile.
"There you go, Mr. Tennyson, it's delivered." said Kevin, unlocking the car doors.
Gwen changed seats and moved to the front seat, while Ben went towards his grandfather.
"I almost forgot," said Gwen. She snapped her fingers, undoing the bubble around Ben's hand "Keep an eye on him, Grandpa!"
"Don't worry, Gwen," he waved goodbye. "Any news, let me know, and be careful!"
Kevin's car screeched as it left and continued down the street into the night. Ben got into the trailer right behind his grandfather.
"Grandpa, I..."
"Relax, Ben, Kevin already told me everything."
"And can you explain what happened?"
"No."
Ben stared sadly at the watch on his wrist.
"But I have a guess," concluded Max, who walked towards a panel full of buttons that appeared underneath the microwave oven.
"The Rust-Bucket never ceases to amaze me" Ben smiled.
Max pressed two buttons and the dining table sank to the floor making room for a circular pilaster with five metal spikes. The structure resembled a half-closed hand with its fingers pointing upwards.
"Come on, Ben, put your hand here in the middle."
"Grandpa... are you sure this is safe?"
"Yes, I'm sure. This will create a ghurtyl isolation field, preventing any of the Omnitrix's defense systems from hurting us."
"Like self-destruct?"
"Like that. Now, come on, put your hand in there."
As Ben leaned the watch over the pillar, a new blue bubble coated, not only his hand, but part of his forearm as well.
I've had enough of these bubbles, Ben thought.
Grandpa Max put on his glasses and pressed the activation buttons on the sides of his gloves. His appearance resembled that of a mad scientist. He reached inside the isolation area and cautiously investigated the surface of the Omnitrix.
"Ben, what happened to the watch? It has cracks in the surface of the disk."
"Albedo tried to rip the disc out of the Big Chill's chest. No, I mean, he tried to smash the disk actually..."
Ben strained his eyes to try to see inside the luminous bubble.
"Actually, Grandpa Max, the holes he made in the Omnitrix looked bigger before."
"Maybe the clock is trying to fix itself," Max removes his hands from inside the bubble and moves towards the panel. "Maybe if I scan it I can find out if there is any internal damage."
Max pressed a button on the panel and both watched from the roof of the trailer as a semicircular device descended and positioned itself over the ghurtyl field.
"I'm going to start scanning," Max said as he pressed a button on the confirmation screen.
A horizontal beam of light started a path from one side of the bubble to the other. As soon as the first wavelength of the scanner touched the surface of the Omnitrix, the clock changed color. It turned orange and a high-pitched sound was heard from inside the device like an alarm. A spherical electromagnetic pulse coated the clock and expanded inside the van to cover the entire residential neighborhood, immediately shutting down all electrical devices in the area.
Ben and his grandfather stood paralyzed in the darkness inside the Rust Bucket.
"Grandpa?"
"I'm here, Ben."
"What happened?"
"Probably some defense mechanism of the watch."
"But wasn't the ghurti-whatever field supposed to contain exactly that?"
"It did," Max opened one of the trailer windows. "The light only went out in the neighborhood, not in the country."
Ben's eyes widened.
"What do we do now?"
"You'd better get some rest, Ben. I'll try to get the power back on somehow."
One of the electric aliens would be of great help now, Ben thought.
However, the Omnitrix was running the typical red light that signaled "I'm recharging, so forget about being a hero for now."
"Are you sure you don't want help?"
"Don't worry, you can go and rest, I think that by sunrise everything will be sorted out," Max was pacing back and forth in the trailer, looking for equipment and tools. "I will contact Azmuth again as well."
"Have you spoken to him?"
"I tried, but I couldn't get him to answer me. Now go to sleep."
Ben left the trailer and the only light in the area was the crescent moon that reigned in the sky. Before opening the door to the house, he looked over his shoulder at his grandfather's trailer and thought about going back to help him, but realized that his hand on the lock was shaking.
Fainting is not the same thing as sleeping. I need to rest... – he thought.
And he went inside.