Rewritten
Outside a warehouse, explosions were heard, and inside Kevin dodged some lasers, but one hit his arm, breaking the stone off it. "You okay?" Ben asks. "Been better." Kevin replies. The boys watch Gwen dodge the laser, but she also gets hit, and Aria catches her with her energy and brings her over to the boys. "We're in trouble." Gwen says. "You think?" Aria asks. "How long before you can change?" Gwen asks her cousin, ignoring Aria. "Then, I'll take over from here." Aria says, running at the robot. She freezes its feet in place with her icy gaze, then she uses platforms to run around the robot, freezing it with her frost breath. Once it was frozen she went back to the group. "That should buy us some time." She says, but to her dismay, the robot uses its lasers to melt the ice. "Oh boy." She sighs, snapping her fingers, and multiple fireballs manifest behind her. She snaps her fingers again, and the fireballs launch at the robot, knocking it back. Kevin uses this to his advantage and absorbs more stone into his arm and lunges at the robot, punching it in its face and knocking it back some more. He goes in for another attack, but the robot grabs him, lifts him up, and tries crushing him with its other hand. "Let him go!" Gwen shouts, slicing its hand with a mana wave, and Kevin falls, but the hand doesn't let go.
The robot stares at the place its hand used to be then looks at Gwen, and the metal piece on its head glows red. "Uh-oh." Gwen says, seeing this. "A few seconds have already passed Ben!" Aria tells the boy. "It's okay. I'm back in business." Ben tells her as his watch lights up. "You know who would be perfect for this?" He asks. "Julie Yamamoto?" Aria asks. "We talked about this." Ben glares at her. "I know!" Aria snickers, looking back at the robot. Ben transforms into a Polymorph he calls Goop, and the trio stares at him in disgust. "Ew!" They cringe. "You know this is cool." Goop says before liquidizing and flying to the robot. It punches him in half and they stare with wide eyes. Goop merges together again and becomes humanoid. "Hey." He whines. The metal piece on the robot's head glows red, and it slams its hand down on Goop, but he becomes one again so the robot takes a few steps back. It shoots lasers from its hand at Goop, but the Polymorph isn't fazed by it. The robot shoots a bigger laser, knocking them out of the warehouse, and the hand also releases Kevin.
The trio quickly recovers, and Goop splatters in front of them, but his projector puts him back together. The robot follows and knocks the projector away from Goop, leaving his body as a pile of goo. A tiny hand comes out from the sliced hand. "Uh, that's not gonna happen." Goop says, and his projector guides him to the empty hand, which he enters, filling the robot with goo and causing it to explode, and goo flies everywhere. Aria puts up a shield to block it, but Gwen and Kevin aren't so lucky as they get covered in goo. "Ben, get off of us." Gwen tells him. "Sorry." Goop apologizes, and his projector flies around collecting the goo. "You ought to be." Kevin tells him. Once it was all collected Goop detransforms. "That was pretty cool, though. Like the old days." Ben reminisces. "Whatever. As long as we took care of this thing for good." Kevin says, picking up the hand. He pops the trunk of his car and throws the hand inside before closing it. Unbeknownst to them the hand is still moving.
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They stop at Mr. Smoothy, and Kevin cleans his car while Gwen leans on it. "I swear there's still Tennyson goo on here." Kevin says. "No, there isn't." Gwen dismisses. Aria stood beside Ben as he waited for the smoothies. When he gets it Ben sniffs the air and smiles, "Nectarine smoothies for everybody." He says, and a hand comes out of nowhere, spilling the smoothies on Ben and in Aria's hair, causing the girl to let out a groan. "Ooh." Ben groans. "I should've said on everybody." He says, and two boys laugh from around the corner. "Whoops." The tall one says. "Hey, J.T., looks like somebody had an accident." He says, and Aria secretly waters down her hair to get rid of the smoothie. They round the corner, and the tall one leans on the wall, blocking Ben. "Yeah. Look at that mess, Cash. Need me to get you a sippy cup, Ben? Or maybe a diaper." J.T. says as he and Cash laugh. Meanwhile, everyone else glares at them. "Pathetic." Aria scowls at J.T. causing him to stop laughing and avoid her gaze. Kevin and Gwen see this and walk over, but Ben stops them. "Okay. You got me. Good one." Ben accepts defeat. "Well? What are you gonna do about it, huh?" Cash pushes Ben back into Aria and leaves a handprint on the boy's chest. Ben looks at his shirt and then back at Cash, who looks down at his hand, seeing the smoothie on it. "Egggh!" He groans, and everyone laughs. He tries to wipe his hand on his shirt, but that spreads it.
"Now look what you made me do!" Cahs accuses getting in Ben's face. "He didn't make you do anything." Aria steps out from behind Ben and pushes Cash away. "You did that on your own. You spilled his drink, and you thought it was funny?" She asks. "No one was laughing with you, you pathetic idiots. You're not funny so grow up because everyone else has you act like children. You're not worth anyone's time." Aria tells him in an annoyed tone. "Now leave before I--" Aria's cut off by Ben, who grabs her hand, pulling her away, and the crowd cheers.
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"I'm proud of you Ben." Gwen tells her cousin as they are now in Kevin's car driving through Bellwood. "You could've totally gone alien on that creep." She says. "I would've decked him." Kevin chimes in. "I'm proud of you too, Ari." Gwen tells the girl. "Thanks, mom." Aria chuckles. "Thanks for that Ari." Ben tells the girl holding her hand. "Yeah, yeah. He spilled some smoothie in my hair, so I wasn't gonna let it go so easily." Aria blushes, looking away. Kevin and Gwen look at the two then look at each other with a knowing look. "Get a room you two." Kevin teases, and Aria kicks the back of his seat.
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Later that night, J.T. and Cash were walking through the streets. "Man, she got you good, Cash. You should have seen your face when-- when she said--" "Nobody does that to me, J.T.-- ever! Tennyson and that girl are gonna pay. I'll get them back. Then everybody will be laughing at him!" Cash shouts in J.T.'s face. J.T. looks around and then smiles, spotting Kevin's car. "Hey. It's Kevin's car." He says. "Yeah? So?" Cash asks. "So, if it was me, I'd go trash it. Leave Ben and that girl for later. You mess up Kevin's car, and everybody will know you're bad-- the baddest in town." J.T. suggests watching the group talk and eating food inside a diner. "They'll be talking about it for years." He adds with a smirk, and Cash also smirks. J.T. and Cash push Kevin's car to the end of the road, then Cash kicks it down a ditch and watches it roll down before hitting a tree stump, forcing the trunk open and sending a few items flying out, including the hand. "Dud, that's hard-core." J.T. says as the car's alarm blares. "Come on." Cash beckons, going to the car.
He kicks the car and the alarm stops. "Look at all this weird stuff." J.T. says, running to the back. "You think we could sell it?" He asks, crouching in front of the hand. "Hey!" Kevin shouts, seeing the boys and his car in the ditch. "What did you do to my car?" He asks, running at them. "Grab something." Cash tells J.T. before making a run for it. J.T. grabs the hand, a cube, and a metal pole but the cube falls from his arms. By the time the group got there, the boys were gone. "Kevin." Gwen places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "They won't get far." Ben says, switching through the aliens on his watch before landing on Jetray, he's about to transform but Gwen stops him. "Don't, Ben." She tells him. "I can fly after them. I'll find them." Ben tries to reason with her. "And then what, show them that you can transform into different aliens?" Aria asks. "Like Aria said, they're not worth anyone's time. Besides, they can't hide forever." Gwen tells him and Aria pushes the car back onto the road using energy.
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The next day, Aria and Gwen were in Kevin's garage as the boy fixed his car, Gwen fell asleep on a chair, and Aria floated around, reading a spell book to learn some spells. "Can't believe those guys touched my car. Pushed it down a hill. Ohhh." Kevin mutters. "You've been here all night?" Ben asks, walking into the garage with two cups of juice. "And I'm not leaving until my ride is cherry." Kevin replies. "Want some help?" Ben offers. "You want to help me? Go away." Kevin shoos Ben away. "Fine by me." Ben says placing the juice onto the table before leaving. He turns back and grabs a cup. "No juice for you!" He tells Kevin before walking away and Aria laughs, waking up Gwen. Kevin stares at Ben shocked before grabbing the other juice. "I'm sorry about your car, Kevin, but you don't have to be such a jerk to Ben." Gwen defends her cousin. "Ugh. I got some kind of fruit bone in it." Kevin shares after slurping some juice.
Gwen stares at him and then grabs the cup from him. "Yeah. Okay, I'll go get him." Kevin says, leaving the garage defeated. "Learned anything new?" Gwen asks the girl who was floating about. "Duplication." She replies. "Show me." Gwen tells her. Aria lands on the ground and grabs the cup, ready to duplicate it, but J.T. runs in before she can Kevin can leave. "Where's Ben? I got to warn him. Something's wrong with Cash." He shares. "The guy who messed with my car? And weren't you with him?" Kevin asks, pointing at J.T. "I-I-it was his idea-- really." J.T. backs away. "Uh-huh." Gwen hums, glaring at him. "Cash is looking for Ben-- says he's gonna teach him a lesson." J.T. shares. "I wouldn't worry about Ben. I'd worry about your friend. Where is he?" Kevin asks. "At-- at the old mannequin factory downtown. We hang out there sometimes. Okay-- all the time." J.T. replies. "Got it." Kevin runs out of the garage. "Kevin don't do anything stupid." Gwen tells him as he brushes past J.T. "This is Kevin we're talking about. He always does something stupid." Aria tells Gwen. "True." Gwen agrees. Aria nudges Gwen before grabbing Kevin's cup and turning away from J.T.'s view. "Duplico formam, verbum, et rem similem." She whispers, and the cup duplicates. "You're a fast learner." Gwen tells the girl, who smiles and places Kevin's juice back and drinks hers.
"What happened to you, J.T.? Back in first grade you and Ben used to eat paste together. You were nice. Then you started hanging with Cash." Gwen leans on Kevin's car. "Cash isn't so bad. I make him laugh. And he always has my back." J.T. defends. "You both act like jerks." Aria chimes in. "Cash is Cash. What do you want from me?" J.T. asks. "Seems to me you have a lot of influence over him." Gwen points out. "Enough so I get to watch him beat people up instead of getting beat up myself." J.T. replies. "And you think that's okay?" Aria asks. "No, of course not." He denies. "Why are you still here? Why don't you go hang out with good guy Cash?" Aria leans beside Gwen. "Look, I just wanted to warn Ben." Cash tells her. "Don't. It's not like when we were little. Ben can take care of himself." Gwen dismisses, walking towards him, and Aria follows. "Well, what about me?" Cash points to himself. "What about you?" Aria asks. "Cash is seriously bent. I mean, something's wrong. And if he finds out I told--" "Nothing will happen to you J.T." Gwen cuts him off.
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While Kevin was getting beat up, Ben was at a Mr. Smoothy enjoying two smoothies. "There you are! We've been looking for--" Gwen pauses as she and Aria run up to Ben. "How many of those things did you have?" She asks, pointing to the smoothies. "Let me put it this way-- enough to know carrot and chocolate aren't two great tastes that taste great to-- oh." Ben sighs, seeing J.T. behind the girls. "Hey." J.T. greets awkwardly. "Why is he here?" Ben asks. "He came to warn you." Gwen replies. "It's Cash." J.T. says. "We weren't worried, but Kevin went to find him hours ago." Aria chimes in. "You're worried about Kevin? Kevin's going to destroy him.' Ben tells them. "Kevin's not like that Ben. He's changed. A little." Gwen defends. "Okay, maybe this is bad. We should go." Gwen suggests after giving it some thought. "I'll show you. We're not far." J.T. tells them, leading the way.
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Once they get to the factory they see it messed up. "It's all messed up like there was a fight." Gwen notes. "Isn't that how an abandoned building should look?" Aria asks. "These holes in the wall are new, but the garbage has been there forever. And there by the loading dock--" J.T. stops when he sees the trio walking ahead, so he follows. The cousins push the door open, seeing the empty place. "Kevin?" Ben calls. "Kevin!" Aria shouts, seeing the boy resting on the wall, and they run up to him. Kevin looks up and groans. "Bet you're loving this." He says. "Kevin, what happened? Are you hurt?" Gwen asks, concerned. "Mm. Not as bad as it looks." Kevin replies. "Hold on a minute. Cash did this to you?" Ben asks, when Kevin doesn't reply Ben starts laughing. "Shut it." Aria tells him. "Right. Stopping now." He says. "He must've got a hold of some alien tech. He kind of looks like that robot we fought yesterday." Kevin shares. "J.T., I think you left out some parts of the story." Aria turns to the boy with a glare.
"When we-- I mean, Cash trashed your car and all that stuff fell out, we grabbed something-- a big metal glove. It shoots a laser. I tried to get it back but he wouldn't give it up. It's like it possessed him. I'm telling you he's not himself." J.T. shares. "He called you out bro-- 3:00, the Mr. Smoothy." Kevin tells Ben. "Okay. This gonna end-- now." Ben says turning away from Kevin. "More like in 15 minutes." Kevin coughs. Ben looks down at his watch and sighs. "Doesn't tell him." He says. "Go. I'll be okay." Kevin assures them. "I'll come back for you after." Gwen tells him, and she, Ben, and Aria run out. J.T. stays back and looks at Kevin, who glares at him. "Wait up!" He tells the trio, running to catch up with them.
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At Mr. Smoothy, there was a loud explosion and Cash walked out looking just like the robot. Everyone gasps and runs away but two boys fall and Cash walks up to them. "You guys thought I was so funny. Who's laughing now?!" He asks. "Hey!" Ben calls to him. "What is your problem?" He asks walking up to Cash. "You're my problem, Tennyson. You and that girl. But now I've got power, and no one can stop me-- not even your friend Kevin." Cash claims. "That's right. I kicked Kevin Levin's butt. And you're next Tennyson, and after you is that girl." Cash boasts. "I'm not gonna fight you, Cash." Ben tells him. "Well then, this should be over pretty quick." Cash says, readying his laser. "Cash!" J.T. shouts as he, Gwen, and Aria catch up to them. "Look, this is messed up. We were supposed to be having fun. This ain't you, man." J.T. tries reasoning with Cash. "You ratted me out!" Cash accuses, shooting his laser at J.T., but Aria protects him with a force field. "Nice friend you got there." Gwen tells him. "So much for good guy Cash." Aria sighs. Cash lunges at them, but Ben, who has now transformed into Chromastone, tackles him, sending him flying. Cash recovers and looks at Chromastone who walks up to him with his hands on his waist. "Cash, listen to me. You don't want to do this." Chromastone tries to reason.
Cash doesn't listen and shoots a laser at him, but it goes through him and hits the Mr. Smoothy sign. He tries again but with both hands this time and Chromastone absorbs the laser and shoots Cash with it sending him flying back. Cash quickly recovers and sits up. "You can't beat me, Cash." Chromastone tells him. "You think just because you're some kind of freak, I'm gonna stop? I'm never gonna stop-- ever!" Cash lunges at Chromastone, punching him and knocking him back. Cash grabs Chromastone's leg and slams him against a car, then a pole then he uses a car as a boos,t jumping high in the air before slamming Chromastone into the ground. He then spins Chromastone around and throws him into a truck. Cash smirks and then looks surprised when Chromastone stands up unfazed. He wags his finger at Cash angering the boy who charges at him. They grab each other's hands trying to push each other back. "Why are you doing this? Why me?" Chromastone asks. "Why... not?" Cash asks back. "I'll show you why not." Chromastone says overpowering him and Cahs falls to his knees.
"It doesn't have to be this way, Cash. Neither of us wins anything by fighting. Just stop!" Chromastone advises. "I can't." Cash tells him. "Yeah, you can." J.T. chimes in, running up to him with Gwen and Aria. "No. The machine wants to fight. Look-- it's fixing itself already." Cash says as a helmet forms on his head. "The Cash I know isn't gonna let a pile of scrap metal tell him what to do. You're the toughest kid in school. Fight it!" J.T encourages. "How?" Cash asks. "That thing doesn't control you-- you control it." J.T. tells him. "Maybe." Cash says, and then a red aura surrounds him and Chromastone steps back. Cash grunts and little by little the robotic parts disappear. "Get...off...me!" Cash shouts and all that's left is the robot hand which J.T. swiftly takes off and throws. He then helps a panting Cash stand. After Chromastone detransformed, Ben walks up to them glaring at Cash. Aria and Gwen walk up to J.T. with Gwen smiling. "Thanks. You too." He thanks them. "We should get together sometime and eat paste." J.T. offers.
"Huh?" Ben hums confused. "Come on, Cash. Let's go." J.T. tells the boy, wrapping his arm around him and walking away. "I feel like I'm forgetting something." Gwen says, watching the boys walk away. "You did. We have to lock that robot glove up someplace where it can't take control of anyone else." Ben tells her. "True. But that's not it." Gwen replies, and Ben wraps his arm around Aria, walking away with her and Gwen. "You forgot to buy me another smoothy?" Ben asks. "No." Gwen denies.
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Later that day inside the old factory Kevin sat still waiting for someone. "Hello? Anybody? Hello?" He calls out.