OUT OF THIS WORLD .. ben tennyson x reader

xxiv. fungal supervision

     [name] left to check on Max after Gilbert woke up out of his sleep with a start. She'd left to check on Max immediately after that, insisting that she'd be fine alone and that they should finish their game. The storm was still raging, so their phones still didn't work, leading the twins to insist she take one of their walkie-talkies so they could keep her up to date on who was winning and so she could tell them any updates on the camp.

     The kitchen is empty when she enters it.

     Recent signs of life and a struggle were visible. Cabinets that had been shut when she found Andy and Mandy were now open, and cans of peas and ravioli were open on the counter, while the flashlight Max had taken with him lay on the floor with a broken lens. That's not even mentioning the side door that had nearly been ripped off its hinges and fungus growing on it.

     "Hi, so sorry. I know I said you all can keep playing, but Ben, could you step outside, please?"

     The walkie-talkie clicks to life as soon as she closes the channel. The quality wasn't the best, which lets her hear the minor scuffle as Gwen hands the item off to Ben, him scrambling to get past her, out of the bed, and then his jog outside. She can tell he isn't even fully out the door when he coughs out a worried, "Why? What's up?"

     Shifting her weight from foot to foot, [name] looks back at the broken-down door. "I need you to turn into Wildmutt," she says, keeping as level a voice as she can. "I'll come back and look after Gwen and the kids, but you need to track Max. I'd go myself, but I'm not seeing anything you might be able to."

     Compared to his quickness in answering her first call, the wait now felt like a lifetime. Why wouldn't it? Wasn't this the fifth time Max had been either kidnapped or hurt since he got the Omnitrix? Why had either of them let him go alone when these were the circumstances they were in?

     Hindsight is twenty-twenty, she reasons with herself in an effort to stop spiraling. He hasn't been in his prime for twenty-something years. He wouldn't have as easy a time defending himself as when the Plumbers were still around.

     "I'll be there in a second. Did you see any of those things you saw back at the RV?"

     "Nothing."

     Between where she stood and the cabin, there was the unmistakable green light of Ben transforming. A sopping wet, orange blur rapidly approaches, to which she squats and holds her hand out for Ben — now Wildmutt, just as she requested — to drop his walkie-talkie into her hand. He starts sniffing the moment she pats his head to tell him she's done.

***

     Anthropomorphic mushrooms. The villains of the night were anthropomorphic mushrooms who were awakened when the camp dug in the area. Of course they were.

     Ben sprints back to [name] while she's in the middle of beating down a few of the mushrooms with a baseball bat she'd found near the sports shed. She'd stationed herself outside the only door leading into the cabin where Gwen and the three kids were hunkered down, a bow and quiver of arrows inside for Gwen in case one managed to sneak past her or break in through the window.

     "They've still got Grandpa," Ben pants, leaning his weight against the wall of the building with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. His clothes were soaked through and muddy, in a worse state than Gilbert was in when they first found him. "They — They took him deeper in a tunnel..! They chased me out!"

     She can't help the scowl that stitches itself on her face. "How long will it take you to transform again?"

     "Five? Six minutes?"