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“Ben…?”
Eunice carefully watched his reaction as she slowly crossed the room toward him. Ben’s eyes were glowing a bright, acidic green as he tracked her movements. He hissed in response to her words. Large, blue wings fluttered behind him.
Crap, I don’t think I’m going to get through to him.
She quickly opened a channel to Azmuth.
“Eunice, what is it? I’m in the middle of an im-”
“Ben’s glitching again! We were practicing partial transformations when it started.”
Azmuth frowned but considered the situation.
“Is he displaying the traits of any particular species at the moment?”
“Necrofriggian.”
“He’s especially vulnerable to electricity and high-pitched sounds right now. Go to the weapons vault and obtain a stun baton. Use that to hold him off and see if you can weaken him. We need to reach his reversion switch. I’m on my way.”
Eunice responded with an affirmative before cutting off the connection. She dodged an ice beam and flipped over a miniature iceberg that had appeared on the floor in front of her. Ben screeched and dived toward her.
“Snap out of it, Ben!”
He simply hissed at her again. She made a break for the weapons vault and slammed a hand against the scanner as another ice beam struck the floor right behind her.
C’mon, c’mon, open already!
The door slid open and she scurried inside. Eunice grabbed the first baton she saw and swung back around. A looming figure in the doorway greeted her.
“Last chance, Ben. Don’t make me use this!”
Ben ignored her words and started toward her. She swiftly activated the stun baton and met Ben with it head on. An inhuman shriek sounded throughout the tiny space as he dropped like a sack of potatoes at her defense.
Before anything else could happen, Azmuth came running into the room. He briefly glanced at Eunice before pouncing on Ben’s neck and hitting the reversion switch. Seconds later, Ben’s core form lay on the ground. Azmuth carefully picked up the glowing cylinder with a sigh. He wondered what had caused the glitch this time. He turned to the Unitrix core.
“Well done, Eunice. Please put the baton back and try your best to clean up this ice. If you can’t get all of it up, that’s fine. I already know you’ll be impatient to join me in the lab while I check up on Ben. This was one of the worst glitches yet.”
Eunice blushed slightly at his remark.
“I understand. Uh, thank you for the compliment?”
Azmuth didn’t hand out words of praise easily so she was unsure how to receive them. Azmuth had already left the room though by the time she spoke. Sighing herself, Eunice got to work on cleaning up the mess.
The journey to the waking world was hard for Ben. It didn’t help that he felt like he had been trampled by Humungousaur after coming out of sleep.
Link to Primus reestablished.
All functions available.
Ben let out a moan and grimaced internally at the voice. Even after dealing with it for a few months now, he still wasn’t fully used to it. He contemplated just going back to sleep before his thoughts were interrupted by Azmuth.
“Omnitrix, voice command mode.”
Ben went rigid in the chair he was lying on. His mouth opened and a monotone version of his own voice answered the Galvan.
“This mode is locked and not available.”
“Command function override, code first.”
“Override accepted.”
Azmuth sighed.
“Omnitrix, run a diagnostic and report any errors that are found.”
“Voice command accepted. Running diagnostic.”
Ben could have sworn he heard a whirring sound for a moment, but it was gone before he could be sure. He patiently waited for his systems to finish processing the request.
“Diagnostic complete. Errors found in memory banks.”
“Omnitrix, cancel voice command mode, code first.”
“Code accepted. Voice command mode canceled.”
Ben turned his head to stare at Azmuth.
“Was that really necessary? You know how much I hate it when you do that.”
“Typically, it wouldn’t be. However, I ran a diagnostic myself earlier and my tests were inconclusive. That meant that there were either no errors or there were errors in a system I did not have access to.”
Ben looked puzzled.
“Didn't have access to?”
“Systems like your memory banks, digestive functions…”
“Oh…that’s actually very thoughtful of you.”
Azmuth ignored the comment and continued looking down at the tablet in his hands. Ben huffed before trying to sit up.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Ben glanced over at Azmuth, but he was still staring at his tablet. Deciding that if Azmuth wasn’t going to listen to him, he wasn’t going to listen to Azmuth either. With that in mind, Ben continued to get up. He was yanked back a moment later with a yelp.
Oh, that’s right, the wires.
He conceded defeat and lay back down.
“You could’ve at least disconnected me before I woke up.”
Azmuth rolled his eyes before approaching the chair Ben was on.
“Ben, you glitched again.”
Ben froze.
Shit!
He cringed and sunk a little deeper into the chair. Azmuth ignored his antics and jumped onto the edge of the chair before sitting down. He fixed his gaze on Ben.
“Listen, Ben. I need you to look at me.”
Ben peeked at him briefly before averting his eyes. Azmuth sighed again. Kids, they were all the same.
“This whole process has been rough on you and your body. Even I didn’t suspect the Omnitrix to act in the way it did.”
A bitter smile graced Ben’s face.
“...And now I’m the Omnitrix.”
“Yes…something both of us and many others are still working on adjusting to. It’s only been a few months since your fusion. While you have begun mastering your new powers and are getting used to your new body, there is still much progress to be made. It’s not something that can happen seemingly overnight.”
“I know, I know. It just sucks a bit is all. I…also think I know what caused me to glitch earlier.”
Azmuth chuckled.
“I suppose it does suck a bit as you put it. I have my suspicions about what happened though I’d like to hear what you have to say first.”
“Just…earlier when I was practicing with Eunice, it triggered a um, bad memory. As a result, I freaked out a bit because I thought I was back where that memory occurred…”
“As I suspected. It’s been a while since you’ve had a glitch. We’ve really started to work out most of the kinks in your systems.”
“...I didn’t hurt Eunice again, did I?”
“No, we were far more prepared this time. I was actually here and Eunice was able to let me know of the situation as soon as it began to occur. Besides, the blame for what happened last time lies fully with me. I should not have left the two of you alone like that. An oversight on my part.”
There was a fleeting moment of silence before Azmuth spoke up once more.
“Have you ever spoken to anyone about your experiences, Ben?”
“Um, you mean like talking with a therapist?”
“Precisely.”
“Not really. I saw one back when I was like 15 for a few months before the same old crap from before started happening again and it got put on hold.”
Azmuth looked thoughtful.
“Would you be disinclined to start seeing one again?”
Ben shrugged.
“I honestly don’t really care at this point. I’ve kind of just gotten used to dealing with all of my crap by myself. But...I trust you. If you think it will help with my glitches, then sure. It couldn’t hurt to try it out again.”
“Excellent, I will start looking for one post haste.”
Azmuth stood up and jumped off the chair. He went behind it and began disconnecting the cords from Ben’s back.
“Eunice is on her way over here now to see you so I suggest you prepare yourself.”
Ben grinned.
“Oh yea, for the mother henning of a lifetime. I swear to God, she acts like she’s my older sister or something.”
This time Azmuth smiled.
“In some ways, she is. As the Unitrix, she is the predecessor to the Omnitrix which you are now by your own admission. As such, it would make sense that she treats you like a younger sibling.”
Ben’s spluttering caused Azmuth’s smile to turn into a smirk. The core jerked himself out of the chair as soon as the last cord was gone and headed for the door.
“Oh, and Ben?”
Ben glared at him over his shoulder.
“What?”
“...Don’t forget to be kind to yourself. Self-compassion and grace in a situation such as yours is very important.”
Ben’s face softened while a few unshed tears sparkled in the corners of his eyes. Azmuth guessed he had probably been trying to hold them back the entire time.
“Thank you.”
With that, he left the lab. Azmuth shook his head. Those two were going to be the death of him, but dare he say it, they were starting to grow on him. He huffed and went back to his interrupted experiment from earlier. Him becoming fond? Preposterous!
Still, a small smile tugged at his lips at the thought. Looks like his old age was finally starting to catch up to him. He rearranged a few tools while listening to the quiet chatter happening a room over from him, allowing a small warmth to build in his chest.