Interconnected Forms
By Norcinu

A/N: Sorry for yet another delay, internet problems that I couldn't fix, but I'm sure all of you had a good start to the new year. Some bad news with future chapters, will address at the end of the chapter. enjoy

Artwork: http:// i97. albums/ l223/ Norcinu/ My20Art/ IF-AzalyediaBanner6.jpg -- Copy past into URL, take out the spaces to make it work.

Ben woke to the crisp, quiet darkness of the room. He kept his eyes shut, trying to get back to sleep, yet something kept flashing into his face, keeping him awake. He groaned, slowly sitting up on his bed to check on the Omnitrix. It was flashing green, similar to a car indicator.

"…huh?" He tapped on it, thinking it might just be acting up but it kept flashing on and off, on and off, starting to give him a strange feeling in the guts. He slid out of bed and glanced at the time, just past 5am. He grumbled and rubbed his eyes, he felt so awake yet it was too early in the morning, "Man I knew I shouldn't have slept-in for that whole afternoon…" He muttered quietly, not intending to wake up the sleeping Gwen and Max.

CLANK!

A loud stumble was heard outside their room, as if a metal block dropped onto the hospital tiles in the hallway.

"Ben…?" Gwen stirred, half woken up from that noise. Ben walked up to the door to investigate and took hold of the doorknob.

He paused. A shiver going down his spine.

Not from the cold touch of the doorknob but from the strange noises he could hear from the other side of the door. It sounded like dinosaur grunts in those Jurassic park movies, but also sounding insect- like at the same time. So alien. It was too dark to see through the door window so Ben turned the handle and opened the door to investigate.

He tensed up in shock. "Oh my-" In front of him stood a small, completely strange creature barely a mater and a half tall. It could almost be describe as some bizarre looking mouse standing upright with extraordinary features, but simply words were too uncomplicated to describe it. Its alien appearance also made it daunting to look at, it's crossed pupil eyes and vertical slit mouth, nothing you'd want to cross paths with in the middle of a dark hallway in hospital at 5am in the morning, not like Ben was scared or anything.

It stood there awkwardly for a moment, as if studying Ben, but in a second it took an aggressive stance and leaped at him. Ben instantly slammed the door shut, locking the monster out. The creature scratched at the door and glared threateningly through the window at Ben. He kept a firm pull on the door to hold off the creature from coming in. But it then had no intention to, it turned and ran off, but after seeing something like that, Ben couldn't let it just run off wild.

"Ben, what's happening?!" Gwen asked, shaken and wide awake from the loud noises.

"Tell grandpa to bring the Null Void Generator, I'm goin' alien hunting!" Ben said, hitting the Omnitrix as he ran out the door, jumping onto his orange four paws as he landed in the middle of the hallway.

Wildmutt went to work and sniffed the air quietly, keeping all his keen sensors in check as he stalked slowly towards the direction the creature went. The hallway was long, dark and creepy, but of course Wildmutt couldn't be affected by those things. Light clanking and scratching noises echoed quietly, easily being heard out of the crisp silence and giving away the creature's position.

The door Wildmutt came out of, opened, "Err… Wildmutt?" It was Gwen.

Wildmutt made a canine sort of grin, showing he was excited about the creature appearing. He felt sound vibrations from down the hallway and turned, bolting off before Gwen could say anything else.

The echoing sound lead Wildmutt outside the hospital, but instead of seeing the creature, there was just the empty car park. A few cars but Wildmutt couldn't sense the alien's presence hiding behind any of them.

The area was just as quiet as it was inside the hospital, but darker as there were only the streetlights and moonlight to illuminate the place. He put his echolocation gills to full use and found out there was nothing in front of him so obviously the creature would try to attack from behind, from the balcony tops in front of the hospital. He stood still, waiting for the alien to make the first pitiful move on him.

Unfortunate for the brash Wildmutt, the move wasn't pitiful at all.

The alien jumped from off the rooftops just as Wildmutt expected but instead of landing on Wildmutt, it landing several meters beside him, and barely giving Wildmutt a second to react some unpredicted force suddenly hit Wildmutt sending him skidding back several meters on the hard cement. It felt like some heavy-arsed truck just slammed right into him, but it had more of a spinning force to it.

Whatever it was, Wildmutt was too overconfident and the attack hit him hard. It took a minute or so for the poor Vulpimancer to get back on his feet, only to find the creature's sprinted off somewhere.

"Wildmutt!" Gwen called out, running out of the hospital along with grandpa.
"Where's the alien?" Max asked, attaching one of his specialized alien guns to his belt; something of which that took a lot of plumber skill to be stealthily brought into Australia.
Wildmutt shook his self growled towards the path the creature left on, indicating to Gwen and Max that he still had a lock on the creature's scent.

-----

The three searched the empty streets but had little luck finding that creature. Soon 10 minutes was up and Wildmutt reverted back into Ben, making the search even more difficult and tricky. More endless minutes of seaching went by and the three decided to give up, well, until they heard a shop alarm go off.

"See, see?! I knew it!" Ben said, sprinting ahead of the other two, "The alien's definitely unfriendly and trying to cause trouble!"
Gwen caught up with him, "We've been looking for if for ages Ben, it's probably just some night time thugs…" She puffed out, always having to say something to bring Ben's hopes down so he wouldn't expect so much.

They saw two thugs run out of an alleyway into their sights, Gwen skidding to a stop, "See?! Told you Ben!" She tended to keep out of fights over the years, just acting as a supporter or back up. Besides, Ben would make short work of the thugs anyway.

Ben went hero, coming to a stop as Fourarms as he saw the three figures running right to him. "Alright! Some action comin' my way!" He said in glee and spread his arms out, slamming his palms together to produce a clap that boomed out in front of him, sending the three shapes crashing backwards into the ground.

Fourarms dusted his hand and turned to face Gwen and poor old Max who was just arriving at the scene, "Quick and easy, down and out. Tie 'em up grandpa!"

But Max saw something flying towards them and flinched, "BEHIND YOU!" He yelled, jumping out of the way along with Gwen. Fourarms looked back and took a defensive stance just in time as something big and heavy got flinged at him. He was thrown off balance but shook it off. He took a look on what hit him…

A slab of cement just got thrown at him! It crumbled at his feet from the impact on him. What could possibly rip out a piece of the footpath?! He looked at the thugs; two of them were out cold on the road but the third one… wait, it's that creature!

"You again?" Fourarms grinned, "I thought you already chickened off somewhere!"
The creature hissed with a shriek, a little offended by his words, yet it edged back a step from Fourarms.
"Not much of a talker, are you?" He asked, cracking each of his four knuckles and scaring the creature further.
The creature turned heel and started to run again.
"Quit running and fight!" Fourarms yelled out, picking up a piece of that broken cement from that last blow and chucking it at the creature.

Luckily for the creature it fell to the ground, dodging the projectile, and by the looks of it more like it tripped accidentally but either way, it got up and started running again. Fourarms leaped high on his mighty leg muscles and landed right in front of the creature, blocking its exit towards the alleyway, "Where are you running off to again? I still need to return the favor of that slab of cement you threw at me!" As the creature turned around to run the other direction in fear of Fourarms, he grabbed its long tail and started to swing the creature around in the air, letting go and sending it straight into a brick wall nearby.

It hit the wall hard, denting the bricks and causing dust to fall loose. The creature fell to the ground unresponsively, perhaps knocked out. But as Fourarms walked towards it, it began to move, checking if it was still in one piece and finding not a scratch anywhere. It glanced at Fourarms, its fear turned into anger fueled by agony.

The creature tried leaping at Fourarms, only to get punched to the side easily. The small creature hit the road, but got up again easily.
"So you've finally decided to fight…" Fourarms grinned, taking a fighting stance and grinning, "Bring it on short stuff!"

The creature took a quick analysis of the Tetramand. That incredibly-harder-than-human punch meant his muscles were a hell of a lot denser, and his bulk body shows that he was built solely for power and strength, not brains and speed.

The creature ran at Fourarms again, but as he tried to take a swing at it, the creature dodged out of the way and got behind Fourarms. He turned, trying to hit the creature again but it ran up the streetlight next to him, climbing to the top. The end of its tail was scythe-like and it quickly sawed off half the pole, making the top end drop onto Fourarms, who caught it in time. Fourarms saw what the creature was trying to do, "Ha! You think you can hide yourself in the dark then try to attack me? Foiled your plans!" He mocked, swinging the streetlight, along with the alien creature, away from the spot into another area lighted by other functional streetlights.

The pole crashed right into a car, making Fourarms cringe from his underestimate of his strength. Hopefully the owner's got insurance. The car alarm went off loudly as that pole and creature smashed into the roof of it. Fourarms didn't expect the alien to get up so quickly after another direct and hard hit.

But then it did something weird. In the broad light of the streetlight, it summoned some strange pinkish florescent force field that surrounded it like a sphere; it crushed everything within its small radius and decimated the majority of the car, stopping the alarm. It was quick but the strangest thing. Like some glowing purple liquid making a perfect globe, it almost looked like some magic special effects you'd see in cartoons, only in real life. The creature jumped onto the road, growling and its fists clenched in annoyance. Fourarms shook the sight off, definitely some sort of alien power he would investigate in some other time.

The creature made its move, its eyes gleaming as the purple force field washed over its figure again in a sphere, but as it did the trashed car began slowly lifting off the ground, along with other bits and pieces of gravel nearby levitating behind the creature. It brought its arms back and thrusted forward, sending all the debris rocketing at Fourarms, there was no time to evade so he braced himself, the torn car slamming into him as well as other bits and pieces.

The creature began charging at Fourarms, a little clumsy in its steps but Fourarms got his balance and punched at the approaching figure that tripped out of the way, rolling past the punch. Fourarms lifted his leg high and slammed down on the ground as the creature stood up, causing a crater within a few meter radiuses and tripping the creature over again. Fourarms attempted to punch it again as it was down but within a split second it got up again and with a swift movement with a little of its purple magic it took a cracked part of the crater along with some dirt and tossed it into Fourarm's eyes, blinding the hulk and giving the creature time to jump out of the way of him.

It jumped back and watched Fourarms too occupied with the nasty dirt in his eyes. The creature charged at Fourarms with careful steps and successfully delivered a punch in the Tetramand's stomach, followed with several more that sent Fourarms crashing to the ground a few meters away. It jumped back a few meters again to a safe distance to catch its breath.

He recovered quickly, getting up onto his feet and clutching his stomach. It's been years since Fourarms has ever found something that could challenge his strength for so long. He took a quick glance around, wondering for a moment what the hell Gwen and Max were doing. He could barely make out their shapes in the dark area of the street, probably tying up those two thugs from earlier. He locked eyes back with the creature seeing it was looking around in interest as well.

Fourarms took a deep breath, not admitting that he was getting just a little tired. The creature tucked its arms close to its shoulders and walked towards him again, but quite slowly. Fourarms quickly took these few seconds to focus his energy a bit more and concentrate harder on the fast little critter.

He charged at the small alien figure as it picked up speed as well. He clenched his two left fists in deliberation and thrusted it straight at the creature with as much force he could put into it…

…Only to have both his hands stopped in mid force.

"WHAT?!" He growled, trying to pull back his arms, only to feel such an intense grip on it, "YOU ANNOYING LITTLE AARRRGH!" He punched with his two other arms at the vulnerable spot the creature left open, but again those fists were caught as well in some small force field. That purple florescence appeared in front of him, showing that alien's using its powers again on him, whatever those powers were.

He tried to thrust forward with his strength but the force field budged only a little, he began attempting to thrash his arms around, trying to get it out of the force field, knowing that the creature was tiring fairly quickly as he noticed the field shaking quite a bit.

"Huh?" He gasped, feeling his weight suddenly diminish and seeing his feet being lifted off the ground. The alien was levitating him! It must be something like psychic powers! But the next thing he knew Fourarms got slammed straight into a nearby car, the alarm shrieking in his ears and the metal frame stabbing into his back. He yelled out in agony.

Now that… was unquestionably painful, Fourarms admitted.

The creature heard some fluttering, like the turning of pages of a book. The red hulk obviously looked like he'd take a while to get up so the creature took the moment to survey the area; there were definitely others in the area. Other than those two thugs it was following earlier.

It glanced back at Fourarms who was groaning as he slowly got himself out of the scrapped car. It took a lot of energy to fight him so the creature bolted off towards the sounds of fluttering, towards the darkened area where it first took out the streetlight.

Fourarms cracked his neck and looked around, seeing the creature's run off again, he sighed, "Geez, where are you going off to now…?" He then remembered that Gwen and Max were in that direction, and gasped.

End of Chapter 7.

Chapter 8 hasn't been written yet so no preview. A small problem with the author, well, I'm getting a little… unmotivated to write, especially with the family problems I've been going through, it's too much of a hassle for me and my birthday coming up (16, so old...). So, I'm going to take a long break, perhaps freshen out for more ideas or stuck up some more juice to write with and come back refreshened. How long? Maybe two weeks, maybe the month, maybe stop updating weekly, or put this down all together. You guys could probably other things to do for the meantime than read random fanfics like mine XP Studies/holidays what not.

But I'm not leaving you readers at a terrible cliffhanger, I'll get the chaper 8 up sometime later next week, then I'll probably call it an official writers block from then on.