Little Chill(s)

Chapter 2

(Sorry if I overdid the sort of country-like accent the Vreedles have. Doubly sorry if I offended anyone with it)

After a while, Ben was pacing in the back of Ship. Gwen, Kevin and Julie were at the front staring at him.

Kevin makes a surprised remark. "He's really embraced the mom thing huh?"
Gwen nods. "Yeah. He looks like he's ready to go toe to toe with Vilgax without even touching the Ultimatrix."
Julie shows concern. "How long has he been like this?"
Kevin shrugs. "Couple weeks, give or take. He didn't even talk about mr smoothie the whole time. It was freaking me out."
Julie stares at Ben. "I can see why. He's kinda freaking me out right now. Should we talk to him?"
Gwen steps forward. "I'll do it." She walks towards Ben and grabs his shoulder. He turns to her. "Hm?"
Gwen deadpans at him. "You need to sleep."
Ben shakes his head. "I'm fine."
"Ben, you look like death. You need to relax or you'll burn out."
"I said no."
Gwen sighs, closing her eyes. "Fine." She suddenly opens then and they glow pink. She summons magic tendrils that push Ben into a chair. She utters words Ben can't understand and he loses consciousness.

He dreams. In his dream, small blue butterflies. They're so beautiful. The land on his arms and he smiles. But then there's fire everywhere. And he sees bones. So small, so frail. He holds them and cries out in pain.

"Ben, Ben wake up!"
He's shaken awake and he jolts up. He angrily, and sleepily points at Gwen. "You put me to sleep."
She smirks at him. "And how do you feel?"
Ben hesitated at that. He did feel a bit better. But that nightmare. "Better, I guess." He shakes his head, "but why did you wake me up exactly?"
Gwen walks to the front of Ship. "See for yourself." Ben follows her. "At first we were gonna look all over the place until we reached Klymyss. Then we realised that they're your kids and were not going to follow the rules at all."
Ben deadpanned at her and looked at the screen. They were apparently somewhere close to the sun. And there they were. All fourteen of them. He was breathless. They were too cute. Dear god, Kevin would never let him hear the end of it if he ever said that out loud. He reached out and touched the screen. They were playing together.

A part of Ben ached seeing it. Seeing that they were ok without him. That part feared they would never need him, or even never want to see him.

He was broken out of his spiral of pride and depression when he noticed a larger presence at the edge of the screen. "What is that?" Gwen leans closer and gets Kevin's attention.
His eyes widen. "Uh oh."
Ben turns to Kevin. "Uh oh? What's uh oh?"
Kevin takes a few steps back from Ben. "Well you know how you came here cause you were worried about poachers?" He looks back to the screen to his children now in a glowing net being pulled into the other ship. Ben's expression goes blank, and before they can say or do anything he's turned into Big Chill and has fazed out of Ship, heading for his children.

Ben uses his intangibility to faze through the walls and into the poachers' vessel. He keeps his Necrofriggian form and keeps going through walls, occasionally hearing voices. He hears something above him and fazes his head through the ceiling (floor?). He pokes his head out through the floor and sees two goons, one skinny and one... decidedly not.
The larger one speaks first. "Hey Octagon, didya hear, we got a bunch of them baby Necrofriggians."
"I know Rhomboid, I was there, remember?"
Rhomboid rubs the back of his head. "Hehe. Right. Imagine the money we'll get out of them though! Ma's gonna be so happy."
"Mhm. Bit odd though. Them moth fellers usually don't stick together, or stick around for that matter."
Rhomboid scratches his head. "Yeah, you're right. Oh well." He shrugs. "At least we're rich."
The way these goons were talking about his children, as if they were mere objects to be sold and bought...it made him angry. He comes up through the floor completely with a cry of rage and knocks Octagon into a wall and froze him there. He sees movement in his peripheral and he instinctively becomes intangible, a blaster shot going through him. Rage engulfs him and he freezes the gun and shatters it in his clawed grip. He grabs Rhomboid and slams him into the wall. Despite looking so frail, Big Chill was quite strong.
"Where are my kids!"
Rhomboid goes pale. "T-those are yours? I had no idea your kind had that relationship with yer kids."
Ben glares. "I'm a special case. Now you're going to tell me what I want to know."
Rhomboid notices the Omnitrix, thinking it was just a plumber badge, and in a moment of bravery-or in this case stupidity- he decides to hold his ground. "And what if I don't?"
Ben's grip tightens and he lets his desperate mom show. "...if I froze your insides, how would you die? Would you get frostbite, or would your blood crystallise and shred your veins? How long would you die for? You have to the count of three before I find out. "One." Rhomboid starts going a bit pale again. "Two." Ben begins to slowly inhale, with frost forming in the air. "Thr-"
Rhomboid finally breaks. "Ok I'll talk! Ma likes to keep an eye on prisoners so they're on the bridge. Straight shot up, can't miss it!"
Ben releases him onto the floor and encases his body in ice. "Good decision." He begins going through each ceiling, the only thought in his head being protecting his children.

When he reaches the bridge he sees Ma Vreedle standing next to an electrified cage with his kids in it. "You have something that belongs to me." Ben goes to step forward but she raises a gun.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The gun let's out a small burst of flame. "Last I checked, you critters don't like fire. You're out of luck plumber."
Ben let's out a dark chuckle. "I'm not just a plumber. You wanna heat things up? Fine by me." He slams the Ultimatrix and he transforms into his evolved form. In her surprise, Ma Vreedle unleashes the flamethrower on Ben. Unfortunately for her, he was unfazed and charged through the flames and melted the weapon in her hands. He knocks her into the wall. She looks up at him and he stares back down at her, cold rage in his bug like eyes. He surrounds her with fire, which terrifies her before it solidifies into ice. Ben gets in her face. "You're lucky my kids are safe now." He walks over to the console at the front of the ship. He didn't understand any of what he was looking at. He sighed. 'Guess I'll have to switch.' He presses the Ultimatrix and becomes human again before immediately changing into Greymatter. "Alright, let's see what we have here." He crawls inside the console and messes with some wires in a really smart way (that I can't be bothered describing) and walks back out, dusts off his hands before turning back into himself. The cage with his kids opened and they all swarmed him in a pile of black, blue and green. He could get used to this. Kevin burst in through the door along with Gwen and Julie in her battlesuit yelling battle cries. They suddenly stopped in confusion when they saw Ben with his children next to a partially frozen Ma Vreedle.
Kevin lowered his metal fists. "Did we miss the party?"
Ben let out a laugh as one of his kids nuzzles him. "You're a little late."