Benny Phantom

Chapter One: Never Listen to Five

Five grinned. "The powers turned off. That includes locks. Dad probably expected Pogo to keep us out."

"I guess he wouldn't be worried about us screwing up his stuff then," Ben added. "Nothing will work if the power's off. Might be why he turned it off in the first place."

Five shrugged and pushed the door open completely. "Who gives a shit? We're in!"

He practically skipped inside, Ben trailing slowly behind him. A quick scan of the lab with their flashlights revealed its grand size. The ceiling was at least 30 feet tall (or, as Klaus would put it, around four Luthers stacked), and the flashlight didn't provide enough light to reach the far wall. Almost every squared inch of the place was covered in some form of machinery; about three seconds after entering, Ben almost tripped on one of the hundreds of wires running across the floor. Ben couldn't even begin how this place would look if the lights were on.

The sigh was even enough to elicit a slight "wow" from Five.

They split up almost immediately, following their flashlights across the room. There were guns that looked like nothing Ben had ever seen before, along with metal containers that looked far too minuscule to hold anything. He even found some machines that looked like they were built to imprison someone, especially a large glass container in the corner.

"What is all this for? " Five asked from across the room, seeming to be as baffled as Ben was. He had no answer for him.

What really drew his attention, however, was the contraption built into the far wall. It looked like a hole from the distance, but closer inspection revealed it to be a machine, made almost entirely of wires apart from its metal floor. Ben walked inside gingerly, examining.

It wasn't very deep, but it was complex. The wires ranged in thickness, but all were black. They crisscrossed around metal circuits built into the walls, each one with a unique pattern. Ben had only started taking computer science this year, and seeing as he didn't know anything more than simple logic gates at this point, he had no idea what to make of them.

Across the room, Five was examining a very large gun that looked like it could kill the shark from Jaws in one hit. Right as he was about to touch it, he noticed a button on the wall beside the rack carrying it. It was labelled "Power," so, naturally, he pressed it.

The lab came alive with electricity. Inside the mechanical hole, the floor lit up with circular lights, and the circuit boards started to glow. Ben could see electricity flow through the wires in the form of little balls of white light. It was a mesmerizing sight.

Five, entranced by all the other machines in the room, wasn't paying much attention to where he was going. In his defence, he used the Old Man's absence as an opportunity to sneak a few glasses of wine from his Dad's office an hour earlier, so he wasn't completely in the right state of mind. That's his excuse for why he wasn't paying attention to his elbow when it bumped into that metal canister. Which rolled into a gun. Which nudged a coffee cup. Which spilt on a control panel. Which caused it to short circuit. Which turned on the machine it was connected to. Which had a completely oblivious teenage boy in it.

Ben's hair spiked up the second the power started to surge. The wires turned completely white from the newfound energy, and the metal circuits started to glow red from the heat. Ever the observant boy, Ben could tell something was wrong, and took a staggering step back. But he didn't have enough time to run out before rays of green light struck out of the circuit boards and engulfed him.

He clenched his eyes shut to avoid the blinding light, and hit the floor, curling up like it was an earthquake drill in some weird survival instinct. Heat started to overwhelm him. At first, it was uncomfortable. In seconds, he was sweating profusely. Then it started to burn, and a guttural scream emitted from his throat.