Everyone had their own rituals for when Dad went on a business trip.
Luther and Diego snuck out to hang out with other members of the football team, Pogo chasing after them. Allison and Klaus had a sleepover, doing each other's nails and talking about boys as they blasted every song they could find with a dirty reference or word in it at full volume. Mom knitted while watching "Keeping up with the Kardashians." Vanya played her violin in one of Mom's dresses on the roof. Ben, preferably, would be reading right next to her.
Five liked dragging Ben to help him with whatever his newest stupid plan was. And once Five had his mind set on something, there was no talking him out of it.
So here they were, descending down the ridiculously long staircase to the basement, armed with nothing but two flashlights and some snacks. All because Five wanted to see what was in Dad's new lab.
Ben had only been in the lab once, to help move out all of Dad's old astronomy equipment four months ago. Dad was at crazy rich enough levels to be able to afford to just... change his lab whenever he discovered a new hobby. Before astronomy, it had been nuclear reactors. Before that was something to do with lasers. Or, at least, something that looked like lasers to five-years-old Ben as Pogo carried the equipment past him and into the moving truck.
Dad hadn't told any of them what the lab contained now. Which meant, of course, that Five was dying to find out what it did.
"I think we have a right to know what our father does in his spare time," Five declared as they walked down the stairs. "If he's going to install cameras in our fucking rooms then we should at least get to see his lab. "
"You figured out how to switch the cameras off months ago," Ben pointed out.
"It's the fact that it's even there in the first place that's the problem," Five retorted. "I appreciate my privacy. If he's going to take mine away, I'm taking away some of his. It's a fair trade."
"He won't see it that way."
"He's not going to find out."
Dad always found out. It was impossible to get anything past him, especially when it came to his rules. They both knew that. But that was a risk Five was willing to take, as did Ben by association; even though it was obviously a terrible idea.
(And okay, fine, maybe Ben did really want to see what was in that lab. Screw him and his lack of constraint).
Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs. They were greeted with a cramped, completely dark hallway that smelt vaguely of mold, a result of Mom's programming not permitting her to go down here. A quick flip of the light switch on Five's part proved that the electricity was turned off, probably from Dad wanting to make sure none of his machines ran while he was gone. At the end of the hallway was an unappealing metal door, covered in rust and looking like something you'd find on a vault. On its valve was some sort of lock that Ben couldn't tell the details of from this distance.
Five rushed to the door and started examining the lock immediately, while Ben walked, taking in the sight of the hallway as he did. Shrouded in darkness, it was ten times creepier than he remembered it being, though he didn't remember it too well to begin with; Dad had been making them work so fast he never got a good look at anything.
Once he got close enough to the lock, he could almost immediately tell it was a fingerprint scanner. Simple, but efficient; even Five didn't know how to pick one of those. Ben almost breathed a sigh of relief. He may have no self-control, but with the door stopping them, they really had no choice but to-
Five pushed on the valve, and the door swung open immediately, emitting a high-pitched noise similar to nails on chalkboard that made Ben cringe.
"The hell?" Ben asked.
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.
Five had been completely oblivious to the entire situation until that point, but that was enough to get his attention. He called out, "Ben?"
Ben was in far too much pain to hear him. The light was searing into him, stabbing him in a million places at once. It was all-consuming, tearing him apart piece by piece, molecule by molecule. Tears flowed from his eyes, but the intense heat made them evaporate before they even touched his cheeks. Every nerve he had was on fire. The pain rippled through him, leaving no part of him untouched, burning like lava had been injected into his veins.
The heat radiated from the machine; if Five went too close to it, his skin started to blister. He had no choice but to stare at the blinding green light in horror, listening to his brother's anguished screams. He rushed towards the control panel, desperately looking for some way, any way to stop it, to turn it off. But the buttons weren't labelled, and he didn't dare press any of them, in fear of making things worse.
"Ben!" Five screamed, panic rushing through him (a feeling he wasn't very well acquainted with). "BEN!"
Upstairs, Allison and Klaus had been too busy having a karaoke battle to "Anaconda," and Mom had been so engrossed in the drama between Khloe and Kourtney (who had the gall to show up to Khloe's masquerade ball in earrings that she'd worn on a red carpet, clearly identifying her), that none of them heard the sounds coming from the basement.
If the cold September winds hadn't started to pick up, Vanya would be just as oblivious as them. But she'd come inside to add a coat to her summer-dress outfit, and was quite understandably surprised to hear an orchestra of panicked and pained screams from her brothers while she walked down the stairs. It was enough to make even the most well-behaved child of Reginald Hargreeves completely disregard his rules and tear down the basement stairs like an Olympic sprinter at the gunshot.
Meanwhile, Ben was starting to wonder if he was going to die. His vision was starting to swim and blur, the incredible pain starting to chip away at his consciousness. The ground below him was starting to shake, and he wasn't even sure if it was just his subconsciousness doing so or if the ground was actually shaking.
Five, still screaming his brother's name, was getting desperate. He could feel the heat emanating from the machine getting hotter and hotter with each passing second; if not for Ben's wailing, he'd have thought he was dead. It was showing no sign of stopping. Five was going to have to try something.
Vanya burst through the door just as Five smacked one of the buttons. She had approximately one second to take in the scene in front of her before a wave of green light burst out from the machine, shaking the entire house and sending her and Five crashing into the machinery behind them.
She recovered first, and rushed towards the machine. The blast had thrown Ben out of it, and left him on the ground before it, jerking every few seconds. A copious amount of steam was coursing off his body, but when Vanya dropped next to him and rolled him over, his skin was icy cold to the touch.
"Ben?" she asked worriedly. Five, having recovered from his crash, dropped next to Ben and felt for a pulse, heart racing. He felt nothing.
"Fuck," he breathed, grabbing Ben's shoulders and lifting him up so he could shake him as rigorously as possible. "FUCK! BEN! TALK TO ME, MAN!"
For someone who prided themselves on being calm and logical in tense situations, Five was not being very calmly logical.
"Five! Five, let go of him! You're not helping!" she pushed Five off of her unconscious brother and attempted to find Ben's pulse herself, trying to stop herself from panicking. Desperately, she started to do CPR, trying to remember the safety lesson she'd been taught in freshman year. When she put her ear next to his mouth, no gust of breath met her.
She let out a choked sob and put her hands to her mouth. Five screamed and started shaking Ben again. As a last-ditch effort, he slapped Ben across the face as hard as he could.
That's what did it.
Ben's eyes snapped open. Vanya let out a cry of relief and swept him into her arms, ignoring the fact he was as cold as a corpse. In her and Five's defence, they'd been a little too occupied with the fact that their brother had both looked and acted like a corpse to notice his very obvious physical changes. But when she let go of him to look at him, they finally started to notice them.
The most obvious was his hair. Ben's normal coal-black colour had been replaced with a white as light as snow. His skin was several shades paler, and radiated a faint golden light. His signature leather jacket and hoodie had gone through the same treatment as his hair, along with his black jeans. It was almost painful to look at him.
And when Vanya looked into his eyes, she wasn't greeted with his warm, dark brown ones. She was greeted with glowing irises as green as emeralds.
"Holy shit," Five breathed out once he got a good look at his brother. Ben wasn't at complete mental capacity yet, still feeling woozy from his incredibly unenjoyable trip to Hell, and didn't process the reactions from his siblings completely.
"Wow guys, you look like you've seen a ghost," Ben joked, his voice raspy from his raw throat, chaffed from his screams. Then he devolved into an intense coughing fit.
Vanya and Five shared a worried look behind his back as he doubled over. The relief they'd felt from him not being dead was starting to wear off. He didn't just look different now. He looked like he wasn't human anymore, which was really enough to worry anyone, let alone your two closest siblings.
Slowly, Vanya turned to look back at Ben, worried at what she would see. A deep panic had started to set in her; what if he was stuck like this?
She was met with the sight of nothing.
Vanya jumped to her feet. "Ben? Ben! BEN!"
"What the fuck?" Five exclaimed. "Where the Hell did he go?"
"Five, what is going on?" Vanya was starting to cry again. This was too much, too fast, for her to take. "What the FUCK is going on?"
He didn't have an answer for her. Five was just as in the dark as her, and it terrified him. If there was one thing Five hated, it was not knowing something.
"We just wanted to have a look around, okay?" Five proclaimed. "We just wanted to see what Dad was doing down here. And it was all dark in here, and I guess Ben walked into that machine to take a look, right? And then when I turned the power on the machine turned on and he was in it. That's all I know."
He gestured at the culprit machine, and was met with yet another surprise. The machine wasn't empty anymore. Now, it was filled with a swirling green substance that throbbed with light.
"Why does that look like one of the portals from Rick and Morty?" Vanya asked.
"I have no idea."
While this conversation was going down, Ben had to grapple with the fact that he was very much invisible. During his coughing fit, he'd felt a sort of chill wash over him, and he hadn't realized what had happened until he waved his arm in front of Vanya's face when she started shouting his name, and realized it was translucent. All he could see was a rippling in the air in the vague shape of his arm. An attempt to touch her shoulder had revealed that he wasn't solid anymore either, as it went straight through her.
To make matters worse, he had noticed that there was something... off about his breathing. Air was still going in and out of his lungs, but it took effort on his part, instead of being an automatic function. The worst part was the fact that it felt useless; he didn't feel like he was getting anything out of it.
At this point, all three teenagers were on the edge of a full-blown panic attack. And who could blame them?
Ben closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on turning himself back solid. Unfortunately for him, he had no idea how to, and all attempts he made to bring any feeling back to his limbs was failing miserably. He only decided to give up when his siblings started to shout out his name again.
"Guys! I'm right here!" Ben tried calling out. Thank all the Gods, they seemed to hear him, as their heads snapped in his direction.
"Ben?" Vanya said weakly. "Where are you?"
"Right in front of you," he replied truthfully. "I think- I think I'm invisible."
"What?" Five exclaimed. " Invisible? How- what-"
Vanya stuck her hand out, right through an unseen Ben's chest, and felt icy cold air wrap around her exposed skin. "He's not lying. How is he not lying?"
She brought her hand back and brought it to her mouth. Ben reached out, trying to hug her instinctively, and walked straight through her.
Then he started to sink through the floor.
With a yelp, he jumped up. And then he kept going up, straight past his siblings and into the air, causing them to look up in the direction of his voice as he started to thrash and yell. He phased right through the ceiling of the basement, and straight through all of the floors on the mansion until he was out of the house entirely.
Thankfully, the cold air outside seemed to shock his system enough to stop his miraculous new flying abilities. Unthankfully, that made him fall a solid ten meters onto the concrete roof. He realized he had a physical form again right as his body made impact. Not that he had much time to process it, as he had the luck of being knocked unconscious almost immediately.
Normally, this would've killed him; but Ben didn't so much as get a bruise. Instead, two circles of light formed, one at his feet and one at his head, and instantly started travelling towards each other. When they met at his waist, they collapsed into his chest, leaving a completely normal-looking Ben behind, black hair and all.
Meanwhile, Vanya and Five were starting to get exhausted from how many times they were freaking out. Ben had disappeared (again), and now they couldn't hear him. Luckily for them, however, things were about to get worse.
Tonight had also been an unlucky one for Luther and Diego, who were being pulled back to the house by their ears, literally, by Pogo. They'd arrived back at the house just in time to see it shake from the energy blast, and the chimp had just finished locking the two boys in their rooms when he'd heard Ben screaming as he phased through the basement ceiling; or, from where Pogo was standing, the floor. That had been enough to convince the primate to investigate.
So while the two siblings were frantically shouting out their brother's name, they were met with the chimps loud proclamation "Whoever's in here, your father will be very disappointed to hear about this!" while he walked down the stairs. They barely had enough time to feel the colour drain from their faces before Pogo stormed into the lab.
"Master Five! Miss Vanya! What in the world are you two doing down here?"
Five, always one to be quick on his feet, answered. "Looking around?"
"Get out of here at once, children!" Pogo exclaimed. There was more worry in his voice than rage. "It's not safe in here for you! Do you have any idea how dangerous this equipment is?"
"We're sorry," Vanya replied, looking at her feet, feeling a little guilty for upsetting the chimp.
"We'd be very interested in learning how dangerous the equipment is, though," Five said, seeing an opportunity and taking it. " Or what it's used for.
Pogo frowned. "Go to your rooms at once, children. Now!"
Vanya rushed past him and into the hallway, a deeper frown from Pogo sending Five out right after her. The second Five's foot left the door, it was slammed shut behind him, and locked. Five took a quick look at the now-on fingerprint scanner, committing it into his memory, before following Vanya up the stairs.
On the roof, Ben started to come to his senses. Heart pumping, he got to his feet. For a few seconds, he was quite confused; how did he get here?
It didn't take long for everything to come back to him. Breathing quicking, he looked at his arms. To his absolute relief, they were completely visible again, and no longer glowed gold. He let out a sigh of relief before starting to laugh, feeling a little delirious. It was finally over. That nightmare was over!
The only thing that felt off to him was a... buzzing feeling in his chest, around his heart, not unpleasant but completely noticeable. Ben, chalking it up to adrenaline, elected to try and ignore it.
He grabbed Vanya's violin from where she'd left it and opened the trapdoor blocking off the stairs into the house. By the time he had made it to his room, Vanya and Five had just arrived at the top of the stairs.
"Ben!" Vanya rushed forwards and hugged him. "You're you again!"
"Thank God," Five said as he put his hand on Ben's shoulder, "now I won't have to feel guilty for you getting yourself mutilated for the rest of my life."
"Told you it was a stupid idea," Ben replied.
"Wasn't entirely my fault."
"Kind of was."
Vanya rolled her eyes and released Ben. "Doesn't matter now. It's over. We can argue over whose fault it was tomorrow, alright? And you guys can tell me exactly what happened before Dad locks me and Five in solitary confinement for the next month."
"Pogo caught us," Five explained when he saw the look of confusion on Ben's face. "Your whole disappearing act saved your ass."
That was almost more of a relief than getting his body back to Ben.
The two siblings said their goodnights before going to bed. While they tucked themselves in, the events of the night running through their mind, Pogo was busy downstairs, heart pounding.The children weren't the only ones who were going to get punished for this.
Every dial in the lab was going crazy, a result of the massive amount of energy in the air. Most of it, the chimp assumed, coming from the now-on portal; which, as far as he knew, should've been impossible. How had the children managed to turn it on? He'd been in such a hurry to rush them out he hadn't thought to question them.
What should've been his biggest worry, however, was the long, black tentacle that was crawling out of the portal behind his back.
• • •
The next morning, Ben woke up on the ceiling.
It took him a few groggy seconds to notice, and that shocked him enough to send him plummeting straight to the ground, the resulting crash summoning a worried Allison to his room. It took him a few minutes to convince her he was fine, mainly because he was on the verge of tears.
To make matters worse, the second Allison closed the door, Ben noticed that the buzzing in his heart hadn't gone anywhere. In fact, it felt more intense than it had last night, despite the fact there was a grand total of zero adrenaline running through his veins at the moment.
Couple that with the fact his strange powers from last night were back, and all the evidence pointed to there still being something wrong with him. The prospect of the permanence of what happened to him was the last thing Ben wanted to think about. He wanted everything to be back to normal. If only he was dumb enough to trick himself into thinking it was.
He tried to go through his regular morning routine without incident, only failing once, when his jacket fell through his suddenly massless hand. When Vanya asked him if anything strange had happened to him since last night while Luther and Diego wrestled for the bathroom, he couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth. Telling her would make it real, and Ben wasn't ready to face that fact yet. When Five tried to ask Ben the same question, he was saved by Klaus walking past them clad in nothing but a towel, whispering about how "the energy in the house was bad," and distracting Five enough for Ben to make his getaway.
Luckily, no one noticed when his foot went through a step as he walked down the stairs to breakfast.
Mom had made her specialty, pancakes with little faces on them, even though the youngest of them, Five, had turned fifteen months ago. Ben swore she'd make them those pancakes until they all died if she could.
Even without Father there, each Hargreeves child took the seat he had selected for them, as if he was arriving in ten minutes instead of three hours as scheduled.
Ben had barely started his pancake when Diego noticed the problem. "Mom? Where's Pogo?"
The chimp, who normally stood beside Mom against the wall, was nowhere to be found. Never in Ben's fourteen years here since being adopted had Pogo not showed up in that spot during a meal.
"I'm not sure," Mom replied, a smile still on her face. "He's probably in your Father's lab. With all the things they do down there, no wonder he lost track of time!"
There was a higher chance of Father telling one of them he loved them than Pogo losing track of time, and they all knew it. Worried glances were shared around the table.
"Do you know what kind of things they do down there, Mom?" Five asked. If Mom knew anything, he could exploit that.
A strange look flashed across Mom's face. "Oh, no, no I don't. Does anyone want more syrup?"
"Sure," Five replied, eyeing her suspiciously as she drowned his pancakes.
After breakfast, Five rounded Vanya and Ben up and practically forced them into the living room. His brain had almost all of breakfast to whirl, and whirl had it done.
"Pogo's disappearance has something to do with what we did last night," he stated once Vanya and Ben had been suitably pushed onto the couch.
"We don't have proof of that," Vanya retorted.
"Think about it, Vanya!" Five proclaimed. "The last place anyone saw Pogo was the lab. And when we were down there, we opened a portal. There is no way that has nothing to do with what happened to him."
"There's no proof anything happened to him," Vanya replied. "We shouldn't jump to conclusions."
"He missed. Breakfast," Five pointed out. "Which is more likely? That something terrible happened to Pogo or that he decided to deviate from Dad's schedule?"
There were a few seconds of silence. Then Vanya slumped back into the couch in defeat, making Five beam.
"Great! We're in agreement then," Five clapped his hands together. "We need to go into the lab."
"What?" Ben exclaimed. "Dad's going to be back in less than three hours! We can't be caught down there!"
"Pogo could be dead , Ben!" Five argued.
That was a pretty sound argument.
"How are we even going to get in?" Ben asked. "The powers on. The fingerprint lock will work."
Five looked at him like he was crazy. "Um.. you can turn intangible, remember?"
"Not anymore," Ben lied. "That's gone now."
"I saw your foot go through the stairs earlier," Five replied, calling his bluff.
"Wait, the powers are still here?" Vanya leapt to her feet. "You told me they went away!"
Ben really didn't like how they were both staring at him. "They will, okay? I just need to... give it time or something. Let it run its course."
"That's literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Five rolled his eyes. "Just accept it, Ben. You've got weird powers now. Might as well use them to your advantage."
Ben brought his knees up to his chest, feeling like he was going to start crying again. This was all happening far too fast. "I don't even know how to use them."
Vanya sat down beside him and tried to give him a reassuring shoulder pat. "Do you think you could try, though? We really don't have much time until Dad comes back."
"It's worth a shot," Five added hopefully.
In a testament to how bad Ben was at saying "no" to people, that was all it took to get him to descend the stairs into the basement that he'd be talking about with therapists for years to come once again. They didn't need flashlights now, a result of the power being on.
The further they descended the stairs, the colder the air became, until they could see their breaths at the bottom. Vanya and Five were shivering their asses off as the trio walked down the hallway to the lab door. Ben, however, barely felt the cold at all. The now ever-present tingling in his chest was starting to feel worse, however, the intensity of it almost becoming painful.
That changed when they reached the door.
Suddenly, a chill rushed through him, travelling up until it spilled out of his mouth in the form of blue smoke. He grabbed his throat in shock, staring at the smoke until it dissipated. Five and Vanya looked at him like he was crazy; to them, it had looked like a normal exhale.
Five looked down at the fingerprint scanner, before up at Ben. "Now's the time."
Trying to forget what had just happened, Ben closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. By concentrate, he meant telling himself "go invisible Ben, go invisible Ben" over and over. Unsurprisingly, that brilliant strategy didn't work, and it had been his only plan.
"I'm out of ideas," he stated truthfully.
Five huffed. "Great."
Vanya walked up to the door and, taking a gamble, decided to knock. "Pogo? Are you in there?"
She didn't get an answer.
"If he was in a good enough position to answer us, he would've gone to breakfast," Five argued. "We're going to have to find a way inside ourselves."
"It was worth a shot," Vanya replied weakly.
If Five responded, Ben didn't hear it. Instead, he was focused on what he was hearing from behind the door. Something was moving, and it sounded wet.
"Guys," Ben said slowly. "I think we need to go."
Before either of them could reply, the door flew open, flinging Vanya to the side from the force. She hit the wall and fell to the ground, hopefully unconscious. Five rushed to her side immediately, shouting her name, leaving Ben staring at the thing that had opened the door himself.
It closely resembled an octopus, except for the fact it was worse in every way. The smell of rotten eggs wafted off it, and a slick shining of goo covered its night black, rugged scales. Its eyes were red as blood, and each of its teeth were as large as Ben's hand and filed to a sharp point. A silver aura surrounded it. As it crawled its way out of the lab, it revealed its height; at least three Luthers.
In other words, it was completely fucking terrifying and honestly? Ben was too tired for this shit right now.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he asked as the creature stared down at him, growling. "Come on!"
With a roar, the creature stuck out on of its many tentacles and grabbed Ben, squeezing him so tight Ben could barely breathe. Judging from a scream he heard seconds afterwards, Five received the same treatment as the creature slithered back into the lab.
The creature carried them over to the corner, where it threw them into a large glass container, leaving them covered in its disgusting slick. To Ben's relief, Pogo was in there as well, his fur matted to his skin from dried goo and shivering like no one's business. He was, however, alive.
Five crawled over to him. "Pogo! What the Hell is that thing!"
"Master Five?" Pogo blinked. "Master Ben? Please tell me you aren't here right now!"
"Um-" Five cringed. "I've got some bad news for you."
"This was what I was trying to warn you about!" Pogo groaned. "It's dangerous in here!"
"Noted," Ben responded, eyeing the creature. It had seemed to have made a nest out of wires, right outside the portal's entrance.
"Is there a way out of this... cage?" Five asked Pogo. "Vanya's out there. We can't let that thing get to her."
Pogo shook his head. "Electricity runs through the walls. Trying to scale them for more than fifteen seconds will stop your heart."
"Electricity?" Ben asked. "Why? What is this thing designed to keep in?"
"I can't tell you that," Pogo replied. "I'm sorry."
"So what, we're just stuck here?" Five asked angrily.
"If there was a way out, I would've found it by now," Pogo replied. "I'm sorry, children, but your Father and I weren't prepared for this. We had assumed that it would take at least three months to get GP-M101 to work. When you and Vanya turned it on, you made it inclosable."
The chimp narrowed his eyes. "How did you turn it on, Master Five?"
Five shrugged. "No idea. Just turned on the power."
Pogo very obviously did not believe him, but he knew Five well enough to know further questioning would be futile. "And you roped your brother into looking at it again?"
"We were looking for you!"
As Pogo and Five started bickering, Ben turned his attention to the wall. Enough energy to stop his heart.
Ben had an idea.
"Hey, Pogo?" he asked.
"Yes?" the chimp replied, turning to face him.
"You have no idea how sorry I am," Ben cringed. Then he punched the primate in the face as hard as he could, knocking him out like a light.
"What the fuck, Ben?" Five asked, more shocked than angry.
"He can't see this," Ben replied, before closing his eyes, trying not to let guilt overcome him. He took a deep breath, concentrating on the buzzing in his heart, letting it consume him until he couldn't feel it at all.
When he opened his eyes, he was met with the sight of glowing, golden arms. The look of shock on Five's face confirmed it; he'd brought back the white-haired version of himself. The version of himself that terrified him.
First part of mission accomplished. Now time for the second part.
Taking a deep breath, he placed his right hand on his left forearm. He focused on the feeling of his hand, of the space it took up, and willed it to disappear. Seconds later, it slipped right through his forearm and fell to the side of his body.
He brought the invisible hand in front of him, and imagined the way it should feel. The hand popped back into existence within seconds.
"Well," he said to a shocked Five, "figured that out."
Five grinned.
Ben walked over to the wall and placed his hand on it. A sudden course of electricity flowing through him stopped him in his tracks, sending him flying backwards.
He hit the floor hard, groaning, his theory of being unaffected by electricity proven wrong. Plan failed. New plan needed.
Good thing turning invisible wasn't the only one of his new, annoying powers. Ben had hoped to figure out the whole "flying" thing later, but seeing as the creature hadn't bothered to close the roof of their glass prison, it seemed to be his only option.
Ben braced himself, before jumping into the air. That didn't work. Or the next attempt. Or the attempt after that. But then he tried focusing on the air around him, instead of his feet, letting himself feel weightless. The next thing he knew, he was levitating.
All he had to do to go up was focus on the ceiling, and then he was rising. Next thing he knew, he was safely landing on the ground outside the cage.
In his euphoria from this victory over his powers, he completely forgot about the octopus. The creature took the opportunity of him having his back to it to pick him up like a ragdoll and spin him around the room, leaving Ben with no option but to grab onto the tentacle holding him for dear life.
"Hey, Tentacles!" he yelled. "Calm down!"
The octopus, quite rudely, completely ignored him. Gritting his teeth, Ben went intangible, falling out of the tentacles grip and falling a few seconds before deciding to hit the floor solid.
Unfortunately, the octopus was only confused for a few seconds, before spotting Ben on the ground. A low growl emitted from its throat as it raised four of its tentacles. Ben turned intangible right as it slapped them down on him.
His eyes scanned the room, desperately looking for something to help him. Eventually, a rather large gun caught his eye, and Ben made a lunge for it.
The creature, however, had wisened to his trick, and a tentacle wrapped around his ankle. Ben turned, and saw that the octopus had turned itself intangible too, its glimmering outline the only thing remaining of it in his sight.
"Oh fuck," Ben murmured as it lifted him in the air.
As the creature carried him to its mouth, it seemed he was a complete goner. And he probably would've been, if not for Five, who helpfully shouted out, "Make yourself solid again, idiot!"
Ben did, and fell out of the creature's hold. This time, he made it to the gun, and pointed it at the creature, who had just made itself solid. Not sparing a second, Ben pulled the trigger.
A large net sprang out of the gun, completely engulfing the creature, which instantly started roaring and struggling against the glowing blue rope. It was no use, however, and the creature was dragged into the gun, disappearing into its barrel.
Nothing but a quick thinker, Ben tossed the gun into the portal, not waiting to see if the creature could escape. The second it touched the swirling green substance, the gun disappeared, leaving Ben panting in the middle of the goo-ridden lab.
"Nice job," a voice said from the door. Ben turned just in time to be greeted by a conscious Vanya, who swept him up in a gooey hug.
"Yes, spectacular!" Five yelled from the glass contraption. "Now, can you please let me out of this thing?"
That was not an easy task. Five wasn't heavy by any means, but Ben was arguably the weakest of the seven Hargreeves siblings. He almost dropped Five twice as he lifted him out of the cage, and broke his concentration once, narrowly avoiding having them plummet to the ground. But he did, eventually, get them both out safely. Pogo proved to be significantly harder.
Ben laid the chimp on the ground just as he started to regain consciousness. Quickly, Ben called on the buzzing sensation, pulling it back into his chest. His transformation finished just as Pogo came too.
"Master Ben? Master Five? Miss Vanya?" Pogo asked in a daze. "What happened? Did- did one of you punch me?"
Ben scratched his neck awkwardly. "Uhm-"
Before he was forced to explain, a bell rang upstairs, and Mom's voice drifted down. "Children! Your Father is home!"
• • •
"Breaking into my lab while I'm away, destroying countless of thousands of dollars in machinery, and punching Pogo in the face," their Father paced in front of them. "How dare you?"
If it was possible to sink any further into the couch, Ben would've.
"This is the kind of insolence I would've expected from you when you were three years old," their Father yelled. "I am shocked at your immaturity. Especially you, Six and Seven!"
Vanya hung her head in shame. Five rolled his eyes.
"For the next month, you will be going nowhere but school," their Father stated. "While in the house, you will stay in your rooms. Dinner will be the only meal you eat. I expect all electronics, books, and instruments to be on this table in the next ten minutes. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Father," the three children replied in unison.
"Good," their Father stopped in front of them. "Now go to your rooms as I think of more ways to teach you three the lesson you clearly failed to learn."
The three siblings stood up and rushed to the stairs before he could think of anything more to put on their punishment plate. Once they were up the stairs, Five spoke. "That went better than I expected."
"He'll think of more," Vanya replied. "He always does."
They retrieved the requested items and placed them downstairs, subjecting themselves to more yelling, before going back to their rooms. Without his books, Ben had nothing to do but lie on his bed, looking up at the ceiling. Exhaustion overtook him quickly, and he drifted to sleep.
He woke up at midnight. Thirty minutes later, he was bored out of his mind. He needed to get his books back. But how could he leave without getting caught?
Right. The invisible thing.
Ben turned into his white-hair mode and flew through the floor. His Father had moved their things from the table, most likely to his study. Which is where Ben would've gone, had he not heard the murmur of voices coming from the basement.
Curiosity overtaking him, he flew down. He found Pogo and his Father standing in front of the portal. Father sounded furious.
"Unclosable?" he roared. "What do you mean, its unclosable?"
"The door system was sucked into it, Master Reginald," Pogo replied. "And we didn't have any other closing system set up."
Father adjusted his monocle. "Then we'll need to make one. We already had one ghost come out. We don't need anymore."
Ben gasped. Ghost?
"Pogo?" Father asked, turning back, having heard Ben's gasp. "Did you hear that?"
"Yes," Pogo replied.
"We need to adjust those dials," Father instructed. "They need to be able to sense new ghost energy over the portal's. And turn on the ghost scanner."
Ben took that as his que to get the fuck out of there. He flew straight through the ceiling, landing on the living room floor, trying to process what he'd just heard.
If that octopus was a ghost... than Ben must be too. That idea made far too much sense to be comfortable. The flying, the turning invisible, the useless breathing... it all fit together perfectly.
That portal had killed him, after all. Just not all of him.
"Oh my god," Ben muttered, his invisible hands passing right through his head as he tried to grab his hair. How in the world was he supposed to deal with that information? With the fact that half of him was dead? His mind could barely even process it.
How was it possible to half-die? Why wasn't he a hundred percent dead? Completely corpse?
"Whoa man, what's up with the hair?"
Ben jumped five feet into the air from shock. It took him a few seconds to remember to float back to the ground as he turned to look at the owner of the voice.
Standing in the doorway, clad in a leopard-print robe with a glass of wine in his hand, was Klaus.
"And the whole getup?" Klaus asked. "I don't mean to be rude, but the whole goth thing fit you a lot better."
"Goth thing?" Ben asked.
"Yeah, you know, the whole I'm Benjamin Hargreeves, I'm so against colour I stack my black jackets thing?" Klaus took a sip of his wine. "I've wanted you to add some brightness to your wardrobe since forever but this isn't the way to do it Benny! Dad's going to kill you when he sees what you did to your hair. Wasn't worth it, I must say."
Ben looked down at his hands. Sure enough, he was still a hundred percent invisible. "You can see me?"
"Should I not be able to see you?" Klaus asked. "Though I suppose if I looked like that I wouldn't want to be seen either."
"How-" Ben stammered. "Five and Vanya- how can you see me?"
"With my eyes?"
Flabbergasted, Ben walked over to his brother and pushed him lightly on the shoulder, expecting his hand to go through him. Instead, it made contact, and Klaus stumbled back. "Hey! I'm sorry for insulting your outfit but is that really worth me almost spilling my wine over?"
"How is that possible?" Ben asked as his hand went through the nearest armchair. "Why are you immune?"
"Immune to what?"
"Have you been in Dad's lab?"
"No?"
"Interacted with a ghost?"
"A ghost? Ben, are you okay?"
Ben staggered backwards, shaking his head. This was too much to process at once. He couldn't take this.
As Klaus took a step towards him, Ben launched himself into the air and straight into his room. He collapsed onto his bed, grabbed his pillow, and started screaming into it.
• • •
A little girl and a little girl stood on the edge of a pond, wind blowing through their hair and ruffling the girls dress on her tricycle. They watched the image on the water intensely as the halfa flew onto his bed, before the girl threw a rock into the smooth surface of the pond. Once the ripples dissipated, the water was left blank.
"I will never understand your game," the little boy said.
"Good," the little girl replied. "You're not supposed to."
With that, she started riding up the dirt trail towards the looming castle behind them.