MvT Chapter 7: "Hopping Mad"

"Hopping Mad" is the seventh chapter of the fan-made Ben 10 continuation, Multiverse vs. Tennyson.

## Synopsis

"*The punishment of a scientist with bad intentions may be lifted early by the return of a disgraced warlord and his new partner in crime.*"

## Plot

The opening scene begins with a panning view of the streets of Bellwood, before slowly panning to the view of a hardware store dubbed “Max’s Plumbing” as the view suddenly begins to pan downwards, showing a futuristic elevator system that begins to lead more and more deeper into the Earth.

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***24 HOURS AGO***

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***CENTRAL BELLWOOD, MAX'S PLUMBING HARDWARE STORE***

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***UNDERGROUND PLUMBER HEADQUARTERS, SECRET INTERROGATION ROOM***

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Within a dark, dingy room, only illuminated by a hanging lightbulb, with a metallic table, large rectangular mirror on one of the walls to the side of the table, and single pair of chairs, a somewhat-familiar Conductoid suddenly awakens, leaning his head up very abruptly from the table, as if he was had woken up from some sort of nightmare.

The view briefly shifts to the point-of-view of his very blurry vision, struggling to focus as he glances around at the dark shadows of the classical-looking interrogation room, unable to see anything but the table and the mirror. Hearing mumbling from the shadows, the view shifts back, finally revealing the Conductoid to none other than Lyric Livingston, his face covered in dark splotch-shaped bruises, and his left arm visibly in a sling.

Lyric continues to look around, groaning, as he attempts to lift his other arm, only to find it immovable and making a metallic clinging, to which he looks down, finding a glowing, energy pair of handcuffs restraining his wrist to one of the table’s legs, and his legs and tail similarly restrained to the metal chair he’s sitting in.

“Perfect…” Lyric groans. “If I got an itch to scratch, to hell with me I guess… unless...”

As Lyric grapples onto the energy-compromised chain of the handcuffs and attempts to utilize his absorption abilities to negate it, he suddenly stops, craning his head up to hear tiny voices emitting from the shadows of the interrogation room.

“Who’s there?!” Lyric asks, confused, getting a brief silence as a response, followed by a slightly-muffled cough, a thud sounding quite like a hard elbow to someone’s ribs, and the quiet shout of a deep voice yelling, “Ow! Hey, it’s not my fault that it’s dusty in here!” to which a similarly-quiet, more high-pitched voice responds, “It’s hardly dusty in here! Plumber Headquarters maintenance cleaned this room last week!”

“No, they didn’t!” The first voice responds, to which the second voice exclaims back, “Yes, they did!” and eventually, the two voices eventually begin to argue, repeating the same quotes back to one another while Lyric stares in moderate confusion of where it’s even coming from, before breaking the silence after a couple seconds of bickering.

“WELL, to me, this ominous room, that’s apparently within Plumber Headquarters, looks REAL spotless to me…” Lyric sarcastically exclaims, to which the first voice quietly exclaims, “Hah, I told you!” and the second voice responds, “Blukic, that is the most blatant arrogance of sarcasm I have ever heard with my own-!”

“WILL YOU TWO QUIT IT ALREADY?!” Lyric shouts, frustrated by his predicament, as he briefly struggles against his chair’s restraints. Grumbling, the two voice’s origins reveal themselves, stepping atop the table, revealing themselves as a pair of Galvans, the species of Ben’s transformation, Grey Matter, and Albedo’s original form, with varying silhouettes, the deep-voiced, slightly-cross-eyed Blukic with a thin and tall build, wearing overalls, a Plumber belt, and a cap, and the deep-voiced, albeit to a lesser extent, stout Driba, wearing a black-and-white Plumber’s outfit.

“Big fan, Mr. Livingston. Well, not so much of the podcasting career, but I have no issues regarding it.” Blukic clarifies, to which Lyric exclaims, struggling again, “I don’t WANT opinions, I wanna know why I’m like THIS!”

“Hmmm… I’m not sure myself… let’s ask former acclaimed Galvan scientist Albedo… oh wait, he’s not here anymore.” Blukic sarcastically responds, annoyed, to which Driba exclaims, “Oh, so NOW you know what sarcasm is!” but is ignored.

“Can I not be given vague answers anymore?! Is… is this about the riot?” Lyric asks, to which Driba responds, “The Galvan Prime rehabilitation facility riot? Well, generally, yes… let’s just say, fingers were pointed, a ‘warrant’ has been issued for your arrest, and we’re here to get the truth about the manner.”

“Y-You’re saying I caused the riot?! Driba, look at me! My arm’s in a sling!” Lyric responds, flabbergasted, as Blukic exclaims, “Well, hold on now. I wouldn’t say anything risky.”

“H-HOW IS THAT RISKY? DON’T YOU SEE IT WITH YOUR OWN EYES?!” Lyric exclaims, as Blukic calms Lyric down, saying, “Now, relax. We’re just here to ask you some questions. No harm will be down, and when it’s over, we’ll see how your cards hold up in court.” as Lyric stares with frustration and rage.

“Blukic, you’re just irritating him!” Driba protests Blukic’s attempts to interrogate him, to which Blukic, slightly offended, exclaims, “Well, I’m doing my absolute best! I’m a technician, not a good cop!”

“Well, you’re more of a bad cop, that’s obvious.” Driba responds, to which Blukic exclaims, “No, I’m not!” and Driba responds, “Yes, you are!” as the two begin to regress into their previous state of arguing, leaving an annoyed Lyric to loudly groan, lean over, and begin repeatedly slamming his face against the table.

“*That is enough from you too.*” A sudden voice echoes throughout the interrogation room, as the silhouette of a Galvan figure begins to suddenly manifest from behind Blukic and Driba. “*I can honestly tell the individual who sent you to interrogate had some misjudgement regarding… your skills of interrogation.*”

“Who is that…?” Lyric asks, bewildered at the sight, to which Driba clarifies as “...none other than First-Thinker Azmuth, Mr. Livingston” as the glowing figure finally fully materializes as an aged Galvan, with liver spots on the right side of his face, and miniature tendrils mimicking hair growing out of the sides of his head, the area above his upper-lip, and jaw, wearing an outfit consisting of a black-and-green Galvan tunic with metallic plating.

“As expected.” Azmuth exclaims upon fully manifesting. “I’m surprised my personal teleporter still works after all these years… as for you two, you’re not needed anymore. Your technician skills are questionable, but they’re better than interrogation skills. Leave me alone with Mr. Livingston.”

Blukic and Driba hop down from the table, the former mumbling, “...I’m taking that as a compliment...” as they both exit from the interrogation room through its mechanical doors, leaving just Mr. Livingston and the newly-arrived creator of the Omnitrix, Azmuth.

“Surprised to see you.” Lyric mumbles, to which Azmuth turns to face him, commenting, “I am not. Your actions approximately 48 hours ago have caused a cascade of problems, and you are in grave trouble for it... a Plumbers investigation regarding what has happened has started, and you are its lead suspect… Mr. Livingston, what have you done?”

“I-I was continuing my research on Albedo. I was allowed access to the damaged Ultimatrix stabilizer by Dr. Glenda Bluramaki herself.” Lyric responds.

“I am aware of that… and what I’m also aware of is that you directly confronted and aggravated Albedo himself with said stabilizer.” Azmuth responds. “Mr. Livingston, are you aware of the Earthly phrase ‘don't poke a sleeping bear’? Benjamin Tennyson uses it from time to time.”

Lyric attempts to respond, but before he can even from the beginning of a word, he is cut off by Azmuth, poking at him and angrily exclaiming, “...BECAUSE that’s exactly what you’ve done, you FOOL! Albedo may have been secured with a collar keeping his mutated powers suppressed, but not entirely his anatomical ones! He spread his pent-up aggression to the nearby patients of the rehabilitation facility through the mind control capabilities of his artificially-evolved Galvan features! The eyeball on his forehead!”

“W-What do you mean?! He shouldn’t have any sort of power with the collar on!” Lyric exclaims. “It’s specially-made technology meant to counteract any possible combination of abilities he would attempt to use!”

“Specially-made technology that was GROTESQUELY out of date! The collar itself is not meant to fully suppress his powers! Doing so would eventually result in him working around said limitations through continued evolution of his ever-changing, augmented biology!” Azmuth responds, putting his hands behind his back. “Were you so blind by his attempts to get a reaction out of him that you didn’t notice Albedo damaging the ground around him and destroying your recorder with artificially-evolved Galilean gravitational powers?! It was what you had done that has caused Albedo to release solar cycles of built-up emotions against the facility’s patients, and was the catalyst that resulted in his freedom!”

“He’s… he’s FREE?!” Lyric yells, shocked, to which Azmuth responds, “Once his emotions were set free by the maniacal patients of the facility, it was easy for him to overpower the worn-out piece of technology around his neck, and rip it off of him! Mr. Livingston, I expected much better from some of your FORMER intellect!”

“This… this ISN’T MY FAULT!” Lyric shouts, struggling against his restraints. “IT WAS THOSE HIGHER-UPS, THOSE PROCRASTINATING BASTARDS THAT WATCHED OVER ALBEDO, AND TREATED HIM LIKE A WILD ANIMAL, A WILD CARD THEY MARVEL AT! DR. BLURAMAKI AND I CARED MORE ABOUT HIM THAN THE ACTUAL GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS THAT WERE SPECIFICALLY SELECTED BY MINDS GREATER THAN ME TO WATCH OVER HIM!”

“Mr. Livingston, please! You’re overwhelmed!” Azmuth exclaims, mildly shocked by Lyric’s sudden outburst, to which he continues, “YES, I AM OVERWHELMED, FIRST-THINKER AZMUTH! I CAN’T STAND THIS ANYMORE! HOW COULD THEY BLAME ME WHEN THEY TREATED NOT JUST ALBEDO, BUT ALL THOSE PATIENTS SO IRRESPONSIBLY?! THEY WERE MEANT TO REHABILITATE THEM, TO HELP THEM! DIDN’T THEIR LIVES MEAN ANYTHING TO THEM?! NO, NOT TO THE ACTUAL INDIVIDUALS IN CHARGE! IT WASN’T JUST THE PATIENTS THEY MISJUDGE AND DON’T CARE FOR… IT’S ME TOO!”

Eventually, Lyric’s face eventually contorts into an expression of sorrow and he breaks down in tears, folding his arms and tucking his face into them, as Azmuth walks over and confronts him, commenting, “This so-called ‘interrogation’ can be done at a later date, if you feel unwell at this time, Mr. Livingston.”

“Is…” Lyric speaks, his voice shaky, as he lifts his head back up and uses the hand of his slinged arm to messily wipe tears from his face. “...Dr. Glenda Bluramaki well…?”

“She has been busy these past 48 hours, but I have been told she was mostly unharmed in Albedo’s escape.” Azmuth responds, as he stares directly at Lyric. “I’m sorry you’ve been negatively affected by these recent efforts. You’ve made a mistake, and I will assure whatever may happen to you as a result will be proper and far from a misjudgement. If the reckless actions of the facility’s Higher-Ups you have described are true, I promise, Mr. Livingston, that they will not be ignored.”

“Thank you, Azmuth.” Lyric responds. “...I’d… I’d like to make my departure now.”

With Azmuth nodding in response, he hops down off the table, unlocks the restraints to Lyric’s legs and tail, deactivates and removes the energy cuffs restraining Lyric’s right arm, and guides him toward the mechanical doors, slowly leading out of the interrogation room and down the Plumbers headquarters hallway.

As Lyric slowly walks down the hallways behind Azmuth, ghoulish flashback, of what seems to be nothing but dark, red-tinted blurs, flicker within his mind, eventually forming to shape the image of Albedo’s mutated face, contorting into an expression of horrific rage and anger, back during the events of Chapter 3, as he violently strangles Lyric against one of the walls and blasts off Dr. Bluramaki when she attempts to stop him. Obviously traumatized, Lyric only snaps back into reality from realizing Azmuth’s attempts at small-talk.

“H-Huh?” Lyric asks, confused, to which Azmuth repeats, “I am… aware of the lasting impact Albedo’s escape has left on you… you were not the only one hurt by the riot… I am certain you only wanted to help him, not treat him as a being of information you can exploit for research… I am right, correct?”

“Mostly… regarding your second point… as for your first… my injuries show… I have aching bruises, atop a compound fracture that will take weeks to heal.” Lyric slowly mumbles in response, as Azmuth asks, “Mr. Livingston, you are the most intelligent Conductoid I have ever known, and I believe you should be granted so much more respect than you currently deserve... you’ve done the impossible by Conductoid standards… you changed how the societies of Teslavorr function… you’ve created life...”

“...and now I’ve taken it away…” Lyric responds, having brief glimpses of Aster’s horrific death by vaporization by a beam of nuclear energy at the hands of Albedo within his mind, as Azmuth comments, “I do not believe any of these events were directly your fault, and I will be absolutely sure of it. As for now, I request you get well and spend time to heal.”

“Do you… where he’s gone? Albedo?” Lyric asks, referring to Albedo, to which Azmuth responds with a bleak, uncertain statement of “Unaffirmative. His artificially-evolved Necrofriggian powers could have led him anywhere. All we could do now is wait until we track his location.”

“How… how did he end up like that?” Lyric asks his final question, to which Azmuth responds, “He was an assistant of mine. He helped me create the first-ever Omnitrix prototype that Benjamin Tennyson wore at the age of 10 years old, almost 2 decades ago, but he had severe misjudgement. He did not believe Benjamin was in any way worthy to wield what he had put his dedication and time into… so he sought out to make a difference by making a fragile, but functional replica of my prototype upon making contact with the original, it released a blast of bio-energy feedback that distorted his DNA, leaving nothing more than a discolored copy of Benjamin Tennyson… and a disgraced scientist that I punished myself.”

“I didn’t want him to be cast aside until the end of time… I still saw the spirit, the intellect within him… he was evil, but he was just like me… a Galvan... so I had him be integrated into the rehabilitation facility... I had this undying hope he’d finally see the error of his ways, finally look me in the eyes again and tell me he was wrong this whole time…” Azmuth slowly continues, thinking and monologuing.

Lyric looks on, listening to Azmuth speak, while having flashbacks of Albedo’s various forms atop white backgrounds, starting with his green-eyed Galvan form, his discolored human form, Negative versions of various red-eyed alien forms, including Negative Diamondhead, Negative Swampfire, Negative Spidermonkey, Negative Rath, and Negative Humungousaur, all with discolored, slightly-desaturated and darker color palettes, his corrupted, red-eyed Galvan form, his artificially-evolved “Ultimate Albedo” form, and finally, his warped ‘Amalgabedo’ form.

“...but he’s further gone than I could have ever imagined… he’s hardly even human nor Galvan anymore, just this… horrific conglomeration of unnatural, distorted DNA… and everyday I see him within those ways, I feel as if the Albedo I knew all those years ago… is gone forever.” Azmuth finishes, as Lyric nods in response, merely saying, “I feel the same way, Azmuth.”

As the scene changes, showing the central area of the Plumbers Headquarters, Azmuth having made his departure off-screen, leaving the battered Lyric, his expression tired and sorrowful, to be guided toward the elevator by a trio of Plumbers guards, led directly by an aged Pisciss Volann Plumber, Magister Patelliday.

All surrounding Plumbers, human, alien, and in-between, grow eerily and awkwardly silent at the former brilliant mind that was Lyric, but hold their tongues, as Magister Patelliday and the Plumber guards guide Lyric to the elevator system, stepping downwards the stairs and approaching the still-closed doors.

Meanwhile, deeper in the Plumbers Headquarters, a ominous, hooded figure enters a dark storage room, followed by the silhouette of a silently-growling, quadrupedal animal of sorts. Approaching a specific location of one of its walls, it presses a clawed fingertip against it, opening up its interface to reveal several hidden compartments, albeit locked by an energy barrier. Pulling out a small electronic, the figure places it on the energy barrier, and within moments, fries it, allowing him access to one of the compartments that inside…

...contains a bizarre Omnitrix-like symbol, albeit hexagon-shaped and colored bright-red, with its red interface having a pair of jagged, silver-gray patterns, one on top and one on bottom, causing it to resemble a pair of sharply-fanged jaws, that the hooded figure removes and takes, as he stares it with glowing-red pupils, only to look up, hearing distant alarms, and behind himself, seeing a human Plumber guard, armed with a blaster, confronting the hooded figure.

Back within the central area of the Plumbers Headquarters, now with a bright-red overlay, warning alarms of bizarre intrusions are sounding throughout the headquarters, as plumbers eagerly attempt to locate their sources on the several monitor interfaces throughout the headquarters. Guarded by a pair of human Plumber guards, Lyric looks on in shock.

“W-What’s going on?!” Lyric desperately asks, startled and confused, as one of the human guards contacts another guard throughout an earpiece, asking, “Elliot, what’s going on over there?” but only gets a response in muffled bursts of static, with bits and pieces of semi-coherent words, including “-INTR-”, “-BER-”, “-HAS TH-”, and “-TRIX!” before it concludes with the sounds of an animalistic roar.

“THIS IS MAGISTER AMUX! THERE IS AN INTRUDER WITHIN THE HEADQUARTERS’ STORAGE ROOMS! ALL ARMED PLUMBERS LOCK OFF AND SECURE ALL ENTRANCES AND EXITS! NOTHING GETS IN OR OUT UNTIL THE ENTIRE PREMISE IS CLEARED! I REPEAT, NOTHING GETS IN OUT UNTIL THE ENTIRE PREMISE IS CLEARED!” A voice exclaims over an intercom system.

As mild pandemonium ensues, Lyric is suddenly grabbed and pulled away from the nearby elevator by a female Revonnahgander Plumber, with periwinkle-blue-and-white-colored fur, black markings above and below her eyes, orange eyes, purple lips, and long dark-blue hair down to her lower-back.

“W-What’s happening?! How did someone get into the headquarters?!” Lyric exclaims, shaken and frightened, as the Revonnahgander Plumber attempts to calm him down, exclaiming, “Calm down, Mr. Lyric Livingston. Your current safety is a high priority. Plumbers are currently sweeping through the storage rooms as we speak.”

“Okay…” Lyric responds, nervous, as suddenly, the shouts of Plumbers are heard as Lyric looks over, seeing Plumbers facing the elevator door, seeing how a section of it was in the process of bizarrely dissolving before their very presence, literal-liquid metal starting to pool on the ground around it, as it continues to molecularly break into a shiny, reflective liquidy substance, gradually melting a hole through the elevator doors.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!” One of the guards exclaims, as a humanoid shape is slowly revealed to be within the elevator, as the doors continue to molecularly liquify before them, to which the humanoid entity, massive in stature and standing 7 feet, reveals itself as a bizarre anthropomorphic rabbit, with a small black nose, whiskers, long, droopy ears, a cotton-ball-shaped tail, and long, digitigrade legs, its body composed of a white sludge-like substance akin to dripping molten sugar, with several points of his body, specifically his chest, upper-back, outer-shoulders, the middle of his forearms and skins, thighs, palms, fingertips, heels, and toes, are designed with glossy, sunburnt-brown stripes.

Now obviously an alien, it had bright-orange, circular eyes, a previously-mentioned, overall-sunburnt coloration to mainly its stripes, metallic bracelet-like shackles around its wrists and ankles, and a spiked left shoulder-pad. Atop its right wristband was a bright-orange Omnitrix symbol, revealing it to be yet another Omnitrix wielder, in the form of his alien: White Chocolate.

“Hop… hop… hop…” The unknown user’s White Chocolate form utters in a low, menacing voice, as he emerges through the now-melted doorways. “...hop… hop… hop…”

“W-What is that thing?! Is that Benjamin Tennyson?!” One of the Plumber Guards exclaims out of shock, before Lyric suddenly notices the differently-colored Omnitrix symbol on its right arm, and attempts to call out to the guard in shock, “W-WAIT! THAT’S BENJAMIN, BUT NOT OUR BENJAMIN!”

Alarmed and seemingly instantly believe Lyric, pandemonium ensues as the guards open fire on the unknown user’s White Chocolate form, riddling him with energy blasts, as he suddenly demonstrates great jumping strength, bouncing upwards into the air, off a nearby wall, and pouncing at the guards, grappling their blasters and causing them to begin rapidly melting to the touch, rendering them useless, as he effortlessly throws them aside, liquefying parts of their armored uniforms on contact.

“HOP! HOP! HOP!” The unknown user’s White Chocolate form maniacally exclaims, before turning to eye Lyric, cowering in terror, as the female Revonnahgander opens fire on him, blasting holes through his body, to which he merely regenerates them, jumps into the air, and slams back, liquefying a large section of the ground before them and causing the female Revonnahgander to collapse from a loss of balance, entangling her into the now-adhesive ground. “Mr. Lyric Livingston… so nice to finally meet you face to FACE.”

“You’re… you’re one of them, aren’t you?! You’re one of the evil alternate Ben’s from the ‘Assault on Prime’ war, right?!” Lyric exclaims, to which the unknown Omnitrix wielder responds, “Indeed… and I come for you… the miraculous Conductoid who created life…”

Suddenly, the unknown user’s White Chocolate form extends his arms out with elastic proportions, attempting to suddenly grab Lyric, only to suddenly stop, realizing the presence of a blinking spherical device stuck out of the side of his head, that before he can react to remove it, it violently detonates, splattering his body apart and against the ground. As the view shifts to reveal who dramatically threw the explosive, it was simply Driba, with Blukic nearby.

“Nice throw.” Blukic comments, as the female Revonnahgander Plumber is helped up by another Plumber guard.

Meanwhile, the unknown, hooded figure wanders down a hallway deep into the Plumbers base, his glowing-red pupils visible and his hood riddled with minor energy burns, as the mechanical doorway opposite to him opens up to reveal a small group of Plumbers, all armed with blasters, as they demand the intruder to freeze.

Shifting his hood slightly, the hooded figure reveals the quadrupedal animal shown before as a silhouette, unveiling it to be a tamed Panuncian, a sabertooth-like alien with feline-like characteristics, large saber-teeth, a small bony hair atop its nose, bony barbs of varying size on the tip of its tail, and crimson-red fur, with added black fur covering the top of its head and tail, backside, and the back of its limbs, as it snarls upon facing the Plumbers, revealing a bright-red, metallic, spiked collar around its neck, the front of it possessing the bootleg Omnitrix symbol.

As the hooded figure lets out a shrill, piercing whistle, the Plumbers are horrified at the sight of the Omnitrix symbol glowing bright-red and violently transforming the Panuncian into Crabdozer, a massive, rock-armored, six-legged crab-like creature, the rock covering its body dark-purple and dark-gray, with a long rhino-like horn, spikes adorning its legs and backside, and sunken, bright-red eyes, adorning an enlarged version of its collar and bootleg Omnitrix symbol around its neck, as it tears through the hallway’s walls and roars at the Plumbers.

Meanwhile, the unknown, although obviously-evil Omnitrix wielder continues to violently brawl with several Plumbers, now having taken the form of a sunburnt-colored Dinosword, wielding a small helmet over the top of his head, metallic arm guards over his forearms, spiked knee-pads, and bandages around his right biceps and shins, as he uses his arms’ metallic blades to rip and slash the weaponry of the Plumbers, evading their attacks with great agility. Upon easily defeating several armed Plumbers, he strikes the Omnitrix symbol on his left shoulder, suddenly transforming into his heavily-armored, partially-bandaged Four Arms, that takes out a remaining group of Plumbers with a sonic clap that sends them flying back.

In the background, Lyric attempts to flee, rushing toward the entrance of a nearby hallway, only for the unknown user’s Four Arms form to lunge upwards into the air with great jumping strength and land just a few feet in-front of Lyric, cutting off his attempts to escape, as he asks, “Where are you going?”, revealing his noticeably Australian accent.

“W-What do you want from me?!” Lyric exclaims, stopping back in terror, to which the unknown user’s Four Arms form responds, “The boys are back in town, Mr. Livingston. You’re useful to not just me, but my allies, and to us, you’re a high priority too… you can fight back, but I can tell you’re not in any fighting mood to do so, huh?” before cracking his knuckles, beginning to approach Lyric, and bluntly commenting, “If you’re going willingly, it better not be kicking and screaming.”

“T-This is about the riot, isn’t it?! I-” Lyric stutters out, as the unknown user’s Four Arms form cuts him off, exclaiming, “Shut your trap already! I don’t know anything about no riot, you out-of-touch short-circuit!” before suddenly punching Lyric down, knocking the air out of his lungs, as he gasps for air and is unable to resist being grabbed by the lung and pulled toward the broken, but still-functional elevator.

“I don’t think so, Tetramand.” Blukic exclaims, getting the attention of the unknown Omnitrix wielder, causing him to release Lyric and face the two Galvans, who were using their combined, albeit minimal strength to lift up a single blaster, albeit greatly struggling, to which after a brief moment of hesitation, causes the unknown Omnitrix wielder to break out in a brief chortle at the sight.

“I wouldn’t laugh just yet.” Driba comments, as Blukic continues, “This is not just one another of the blasters you dispatched earlier. It’s a Mark 12 Techadorian Multiblaster, a weapon with a maximum energy of three petawatts, and while I’m not the smartest Galvan, I don’t think Tetramands are built to withstand that much energy.”

As Driba pulls the weapon’s trigger, the blaster fires with a massive amount of recoil, sending the two Galvans flying back, creating an energy blast that sends the unknown user’s Four Arms form flying back and smashing into the side of the elevator shaft, damaging it beyond use, as he struggles back to his feet and notices the loss of his only escape routine, exclaiming, “Shit.” under his breath.

“Well, that did something.” Blukic states, to which Driba responds with an annoyed tone, “Yeah, it broke the elevator... guess which two technicians have to fix that later?”

“Well… you were the one who had the idea of hitting him with such a powerful blaster, and that WAS your idea.” Blukic responds, as Driba yells, “I had no intent of blaming you!” to which Blukic snaps back, “Yes, you did.” and the two regress back in an argumentative back-and-forth state, all while the unknown user’s Four Arms form stands up, facing them, and smacks the Omnitrix symbol on its chest, transforming into his version of Shocksquatch, with a sunburnt coloration, a metallic right shoulder-pad, bandages around his forearms, and spiked gauntlets, to which he proceeds to launch an electrokinetic blast at the two Galvans, electrocuting them mid-sentence and easily knocking them unconscious.

“Idiot frogs.” The unknown user’s Shocksquatch form exclaims, approaching them, as he raises his foot in an attempt to crush them, only for something to suddenly wrap around his other leg, suddenly causing him to be pulled back and collapse. “H-HUH?!”

“I may be in a weak state right now…” Lyric exclaims, raising back up to his feet and retracting one of his head’s tendrils. “...but my fighting spirit’s FULLY CHARGED!”

“You can fight me… but you’ll only end up getting hurt even more…” The unknown user’s Shocksquatch form states. “...Mr. Livingston, this is your final moment to reconsider acting like a ‘hero’ before I pummel into a fine, staticy pulp.”

“Make my day, hot shot.” Lyric bluntly responds, as he shoots his head tendrils and tail at a nearby control panel, plugging into its interface and beginning to rapidly absorb its energy. The unknown user’s Shocksquatch form charging up static electricity through his fur, he launched a powerful electrokinetic blast from his mouth in the direction of Lyric, the latter of which using his good arm’s plugs to rapidly absorb said blast, and upon releasing it out in the form of several electrified energy blasts.

Rapidly transforming to dodge the blasts, the unknown Omnitrix wielder became White Chocolate again, pouncing into the air, before suddenly switching to yet another alien form, this one an unfamiliar, quadrupedal alien composed of a mass of flowing, bright-orange-red sand, with simplistic extremities in the form of three-fingered hands and three-toed feet, large, bright-orange eyes, and a metallic plating on his forehead, surrounded by bright-orange spikes and containing the Omnitrix symbol.

Bending and warping, revealing his shapeshifting capabilities, the unknown user’s Sandbox form splattered against Lyric’s body, sending him crashing to the ground as he rapidly sprouted several limbs that engulfed and wrapped around his body, restraining his limbs and tendrils, and visibly beginning to choke the life out of him as an attempt to make his lose consciousness. Meanwhile, Blukic and Driba, having become conscious again, struggle to reload and aim their blaster, but were unable to fire, due to Sandbox’s spread-out physiology.

“I can’t get a clear shot! We gotta lure him off of Mr. Livingston!” Blukic exclaims, responding to Driba’s pleas to fire, to which Driba, slightly annoyed and believing, proceeds to begin wrestling for control of the blaster, only to be unexpectedly picked up by the female Revonnahgander, as she stares down the unknown version of Ben Tennyson.

“Shar… you’re familiar with the capabilities of the Techadorian Multiblaster?!” Driba exclaims out of shock, to which the female Revonnahgander, named “Shar”, responds, “I was one of the top 3 in Magister Hulka’s class. To say I am familiar how to wield a Mark 12 Techadorian Multiblaster is an underestimate. I ‘ruled’ this weapon.”

As Shar begins to approach the unknown Omnitrix wielder, she makes her presence known, prompting him to face her, her sandy appendages partially wrapped around Lyric and holding himself upwards to use him as a shield in case she fired, to which Shar exclaims, “Let him go!”

“Lookie here… a rookie trying to be a hero… awww, it’s so cute…” The unknown user’s Sandbox form refuses, asking, “What are you going to do? Shoot me? Go ahead. Blow a hole straight through the two of us. Hell, if someone here with energy-absorbing powers is lucky enough, he can prevent it from killing the both of us in time, am I right?”

“Just let him go! He is already hurt!” Shar yells in defiance, to which the unknown user’s Sandbox form extends his head outwards, glaring at the facial features of Shar, before thinking for a moment and remarking, “...heyyy… I know you… ‘Rook Shar’, is it? Well, what do you know… it’s a real small, mad world, isn’t it?”

“Well, of course… you are a Benjamin Tennyson from a different world, correct? I figure you would have a version of me from where I am from.” Rook Shar responds, keeping her blaster affixed to him.

“Oh no, no, no, noooo…” The unknown user’s Sandbox form responds, extending his head outwards in a cartoonishly-long, winding neck. “...I didn’t know you, I knew your brother… Rook Blonko… did you know he used to work for me? Imagine that silly idea… well, silly for you at least...”

As the unknown user’s Sandbox form continues to wind around Rook Shar’s body, causing her to repeatedly back away from him, keeping aim, she briefly glances over at the still-restrained Lyric, as he mouths the words, “Shoot him.” with an expression of desperate terror, as the unknown user’s Sandbox form continues, “...let’s just say I didn’t get along with your brother, well, my version of your brother… imagine this, he was a loyal, stone-hearted servant, willingly to obey to do anything I’d say… and then, BAM!”

“HE TURNS ON ME! I REMEMBER THAT DAY, 10 YEARS AGO! HIS WORLD WAS COMPLETELY CHANGED BY TWO VERSIONS OF MYSELF, AND BEFORE I KNEW IT, EVERYTHING I HAD WORKED FOR WAS STRIPPED AWAY! MY THRONE WAS TAKEN FROM ME, MY ‘POWER WATCH’ WAS LOCKED AWAY, MY SERVANTS WERE THE ONES TO PUNISH AND TORTURE ME…” The unknown user’s Sandbox form continues. “...AND I WAS TRAPPED WITH… THIS STUPID ALIEN CRAB WITH A CATCHPHRASE!”

“What are you trying to pull right now? STOP MOVING!” Rook Shar exclaims, to which the unknown user’s Sandbox form suddenly hushes her, pressing a sandy fingertip against her lips, as he slowly responds, “...I don’t stop moving, Shar… I’m like a shark… if I stop moving, I die… it’ll be a death wish to stay still… that’s how I survived after my downfall… I ran… I ran until everything after me was in the tracks of dust… I ran until nothing could follow me… and I ran...”

Within an instance, the unknown user’s Sandbox form suddenly snaps his body, his elongated neck suddenly snapping tightly around Rook Shar’s body during her repeated attempts to avoid being too close to him. Trapped, the unknown user’s Sandbox form stares in her eyes with a menacing look and finishes with a bone-chilling, “...*until I couldn’t breathe anymore*…”

As the unknown user’s Sandbox form throws Rook Shar aside, slamming her into a control panel, the force smashing its controls, the unknown Omnitrix wielder transformed into his version of Drillataur, his drills tipped with metallic drill bits, as he wore metallic armor on his chest arms, and bright-orange bandages around his waist and shins. Manifesting a bony drill from the underside of his left foot, he stomped on the dropped Multiblaster until it smashed apart into a heap of broken metal and electronics.

“Time to go. Next time I have to restrain you, I’ll break a few bones in the process… don’t mess with me…” The unknown user’s Drillataur form uttered toward the recovering Lyric, who attempts to slowly approach the unknown Omnitrix wielder, only to suddenly be overwhelmed by a massive amount of exhaustion, as he limply collapses to one of his knees, holding himself up with his good hand, as he looks up to the unknown Omnitrix wielder, understanding, “I’ll never give you what you want…”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Livingston. YOU are what I want, and I made that clear earlier, and if you didn’t understand it… perhaps you are the so-called ‘Conductoid genius’ you used to be anymore.” The unknown user’s Drillataur form chuckles, as Lyric eventually collapses against the ground, not before suddenly transforming in a flash of bright-orange light, becoming a horrifically-appearing human form that stares into the semi-conscious eye of Lyric.

Shirtless and wearing baggy cargo pants, the ends of the pant-legs ripped with the right one partially covered by a rusty metal leg guard around his shin, the alternate version of Ben Tennyson’s sunburnt chest and arms were riddled with deep scars and cauterized wounds in the form of what appeared to be slash marks, but not from the claws of a wild animal, but from a whip. His left arm heavily bandaged and near the wrist, contained the orange-and-dark-gray “Power Watch”, its bracelet lined with spikes, while his left hand below had crude metallic prosthetics in replacement of the missing fingertips on his middle, ring, and pinkie fingers. He possessed a rusty, spiked shoulder-pad, a similarly-rusty arm guard on his right arm, metallic boots, and bizarrely, a grotesquely-molded, rigid, metallic respirator covering everything but his jaw and chin, the front of the mask baring the silhouette of a rusted skull, devoid of eye-sockets and possessing metallic spikes running down its scalp and backside, in the shape of a mohawk.

“I need a nickname, correct? I can’t just believe ‘Ben Tennyson’. There’s already a Ben Tennyson in this hell of a dimension…” The unknown Omnitrix wielder states, slowly approaching Lyric’s greatly-weakened form and leaning to “look” at him, despite his helmet having no visible line of sight. “...call me what they dubbed me back where I’m from… ***Mad Ben***...”

As Lyric stares in terror, unable to regain his energy and get up, the revealed Mad Ben activates his Power Watch and scans through his aliens icons… Mad Eye Guy... Mad Heatblast… Mad Big Chill… Mad Bloxx… Mad Snare-Oh… Mad Perk Upchuck, a slightly-altered version of Murk Upchuck, instead possessing darkly-surrounded, circular eyes, larger upper-teeth, and a lighter coloration with the lack of his dark splotches… Mad Shocksquatch… and finally, Mad Ghostfreak, to which he selects and slams his palm down on the Power Watch’s core, transforming into the partially-armored Mad Ghostfreak, his hands and the end of his ghostly tail bandaged, shackles and chains made from rusty metal, and the wisp-like tip of his head slightly shaped into more of a spike, vaguely resembling the shape of a mohawk.

“Fully charged, huh?” Mad Ghostfreak asks, as Lyric cowers in fear at the sight of Mad Ben. “You look pretty DRAINED to me! HAHAHAHA!”

Cackling, Mad Ghostfreak’s tendrils burst from his chest and wrap around the forearm of Lyric’s good arm when he attempts to try and use them to defend himself. Lyric screams in terror, as Ghostfreak takes flight and is suddenly alerted to the attempts of a recovered Rook Shar opening fire on him with a recovered blaster.

“Save your OWN energy, Shar… you’re about to have your hands full…” Mad Ghostfreak cackles as he ascends upwards toward the ceiling of the Plumbers Headquarters, dragging the dangling Lyric along with him, as he activates his intangibility, phasing out of the headquarters and applying his intangible effects to Lyric through physical contact, allowing him to not only not fall out of his grip upon turning intangible, but phase out of the headquarters with it, leaving only a trail of Lyric’s desperate cries for help growing more and more distant.

As Rook Shar stares in shock, she is startled by the sounds of the loud, prolonged, muffled roar of Crabdozer deeper in the headquarters, but seeming to be growing slightly closer. Seeing Blukic, Driba, and several other guards recovering, Rook Shar looks toward Blukic and Driba, who are in the process of programming several defense systems, gains a confident expression, and arms herself with a second blaster, reactivating it, as she turns to face the direction of where Crabdozer’s roars were emitting from.

“He’s right… I will…” Rook Shar confidently exclaims, as several recovered, rearmed Plumber guards join her side in facing off against the oncoming alien predator, the sounds of another, slightly-more-distant roar audible, as the screen freezes, cutting to black as a logo fills the screen, before a single message fades in beneath it.

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***MULTIVERSE VS. TENNYSON***

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***TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 8***

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## Noteworthy Events

#### ***Major Events***

* Lyric Livingston returns, now visibly injured with a broken left arm from the events of Chapter 3, and having been taken in by a Plumbers Headquarters, after the Higher-Ups of the Galvan Rehabilitation facility pinned his actions and Albedo's escape on him and issued a warrant for his arrest.
* Lyric's former career of being a Conductoid scientist is revealed, apparently being so intelligent he changed the way his home planet's societies function, and even created life, but he is moderately frowned upon due to retiring said career in favor of his podcasting career.
* Lyric is directly confronted for his actions against Albedo during the events of Chapter 1, and it's revealed that his power-suppressing collar was not capable of suppressing his anatomical powers, which allowed Albedo to utilize the Evolved Galvan eyeball on his forehead to activate his mind control, aggravating the nearby patients with blind rage and acting as the catalyst of the riot.
* Lyric discovers that Albedo had indeed escaped after his life was spared during the events of Chapter 3, and he has been traveling the cosmos, and unbeknownst to him and Azmuth, he was specifically heading toward Earth.
* Lyric has a outburst due to his frustration of being blamed for the riot by irresponsible individuals who mistreated their patients, and specifically treated Albedo more as an animal kept in a wild cage, resulting in him bursting into tears and agreeing to delay his interrogation regarding the riot at a later date.
	+ Albedo additionally agrees to make sure that if the Higher-Ups are at a fault and what Lyric has said about them is true, they will pay, and he agrees that Lyric's efforts were not intentionally malicious, and that he just went too far.
* Lyric is mildly traumatized by his near-death experience in Chapter 3.
* Albedo reveals to Lyric the backstory of Albedo, how he went from a trusted ally, to a disgraced villain, to a horrifically-malformed beast of warped alien DNA, and that Albedo blames himself for not choosing to help Albedo and make him see the error of his ways, feeling that the true Albedo is gone forever.
* Khyber, although his identity kept secret, but obvious, returns, having sneaked into the Plumber Headquarters to steal back the Nemetrix and grant it to his Panuncian pet.
* Soon, Mad Ben also returns as well, having been revealed to have escaped his confinement, after his defeat at the hands of Ben Prime and Ben 23, after years of torture so bad it kept his torso and arms permanently scarred, with a bizarre helmet absolutely absent of a line of sight over his head, and has come to the headquarters to abduct Lyric for his vague personal usages, labeling him useful, and eventually succeeds in kidnapping him.
	+ However, escaped, Chapter 7 ends with Rook Shar, Blukic, Driba, and the remaining Plumbers readying themselves to take on Crabdozer.

#### ***Minor Events***

* Dr. Bluramaki is briefly mentioned, as during the events of Chapter 7, she was constructing her makeshift teleporter to head to Earth to personally warn Ben Prime about Albedo's oncoming arrival.
* As of the time-skip, Rook Shar, Rook Blonko's sister, is revealed to have passed Plumber's Academy and become an official Plumber.
* Lyric reveals the name of the war of alternate Ben's, in Ben Prime's timeline, that was almost 4 years ago, to be simply labeled the "Assault on Prime".
* Ghostfreak is revealed to have the power to make objects he is holding with his chest tendrils similarly intangible too, which Mad Ghostfreak uses to allow Lyric to also phase through the roof of the headquarters.

## Characters

#### ***Protagonists***

* Lyric Livingston
* Blukic (first reappearance)
* Driba (first reappearance)
* Azmuth (first reappearance)
* Ben Prime (mentioned)
* Dr. Glenda Bluramaki (mentioned)
* Magister Patelliday (first reappearance)
* Magister Axum (first reappearance; voice-only cameo)
* Rook Shar (first reappearance)
* Mad Rook Blonko (mentioned)
* Rook Prime (alluded)
* Ben 23 (alluded)

#### ***Neutral***

* Albedo (mentioned; imagined by Lyric; flashback from Chapter 3)
* The Higher-Ups (mentioned)

#### ***Antagonists***

* Aster (cameo; flashback from Chapter 3)
* Mad Ben (first reappearance)
* Khyber (first reappearance; silhouetted)
* Khyber's Panuncian (first reappearance)
* Dr. Psychobos (alluded)

## Aliens Used

#### ***By Albedo (Daydream)***

* Negative Diamondhead (cameo; imagined by Lyric)
* Negative Swampfire (cameo; imagined by Lyric)
* Negative Spidermonkey (cameo; imagined by Lyric)
* Negative Rath (cameo; imagined by Lyric)
* Negative Humungousaur (cameo; imagined by Lyric)
* Albedo's True Form (first reappearance; cameo; imagined by Lyric)
	+ Ultimate Albedo (first reappearance; cameo; imagined by Lyric)

#### ***By Mad Ben***

* Mad White Chocolate (x2; first appearance of White Chocolate; first time off-screen transformation; second time cameo)
* Mad Dinosword (off-screen transformation; cameo)
* Mad Four Arms
* Mad Shocksquatch
* Mad Sandbox (first appearance of Sandbox)
* Mad Drillataur
* Mad Ghostfreak

## Trivia

* Originally, in a much earlier version of the chapter's script, Lyric was intended to escape from his restraints within the interrogation room himself, through absorbing the energy chain of his cuff to free his arm and throw him back to smash the chair he's stuck to, freeing his lower-body.
	+ The reason why was because Mad Ben was originally meant to first attack within the interrogation room inside, chasing Lyric down the headquarters' hallways as Mad XLR8, but after revising, the idea no longer stuck and was instead changed into what became the final product.
	+ In addition, a brief scene, showing Mad Ben, having knocked out several guards with an off-screen usage of Mad Four Arms, approaching the interrogation room with a stealthy alien, either Mad Ghostfreak with his invisibility to keep him invisible on the security cameras, or Mad Reverbatim to keep him entirely silent to prevent trigger any sound-based alarm systems.
* Azmuth's personal teleporter, first depicted in the *Ben 10: Alien Force* episode, *Good Copy, Bad Copy*, returns, even mentioned by Azmuth that he's surprised it still works after all these years.
* The Negative aliens Lyric imagines, specifically Negative Diamondhead, Negative Swampfire, Negative Spidermonkey, Negative Rath, and Negative Humungousaur, are all aliens Albedo used in that specific order from the *Ben 10: Alien Force* episode, *The Final Battle: Part 1*.
	+ Negative Ultimate Humungousaur is the only exclusion, and in his place, are both Albedo's red-eyed Galvan form, and his artificially-evolved "Ultimate Albedo" form.
* The energy field protecting the compartment that contains the Nemetrix was added after the events of the *Ben 10: Omniverse* episode, *Stuck on You*, and the electronic Khyber used to get through it was a device he salvaged from Dr. Psychobos' abandoned ladoratory.
* The distorted voice of one of the Plumbers, Elliot, speaks in broken-up words, that all together, are intended to be "THE INTRUDER IS KHYBER! HE HAS THE NEMETRIX!".
	+ In additions, the sounds of animalistic growling are meant to allude that Khyber's Panuncian was the one to attack and defeat Elliot.
* Rook Shar was an unexpected addition, and she was originally not only going to not be meant to be named, but have much less screen-time, but it was decided she should have a higher purpose in the chapter, trying to protect Lyric from Mad Ben.
* Mad White Chocolate's addition in the chapter marks the first usage of a fan-made, free-to-use alien created by series creator, WTB.
* Mad White Chocolate's line of "so nice to finally meet you face to FACE!" references Zs'Skayr line from the original series episode, *Ghostfreaked Out*, after he had escaped the Omnitrix and confronted Ben.
* The one who threw the explosive that briefly stunned Mad White Chocolate, was originally meant to be Grandpa Max, who had unexpectedly arrive and would have assisted Rook Shar in fending off Mad Ben, but his reappearance didn't feel necessary for the chapter, and as a result, he was scrapped for a later debut, and the one to throw the explosive was merely Driba.
* The Mark 12 Techadorian Multiblaster, being primarily introduced in the *Ben 10: Ultimate Alien* episode, *Basic Training*, returns, used by Blukic, Driba, and Rook Shar.
* The debut of Mad Ben's present-day human form was meant to be much earlier in the chapter, but writing it out resulted in it being saved after he had defeated Rook Shar.
* Mad Ben and Rook Shar was intended to have a short fight sequence, eventually defeating her with a combination of Mad Drillataur, Mad Terraspin, and Mad Perk Upchuck, but due to the already-long length of the chapter already, it didn't feel necessary, and the two latter aliens were saved for a later debut.
	+ However, Mad Perk Upchuck briefly did reappear moments later as a holographic icon on the Power Watch.
* The brief cameos of alien holographic icons on the Power Watch reveal that Mad Ben has access to the Mad versions of Eye Guy, Heatblast, Big Chill, Bloxx, Snare-Oh, Perk Upchuck, stated above, and Ghostfreak, the latter-most he selects and uses. Mad Shocksquatch's holographic icon also appears, although he was used earlier.