Chapter 207: Ben, You're Going to Be a Mommy
Late at night, the rhythmic clicking of controller buttons echoed through Ben's bedroom.
Klein and Ben sat cross-legged on the floor, deeply engrossed in the latest Sumo Slammers video game. The glow of the television screen flickered across their faces, illuminating the intense digital wrestling match.
Without taking his eyes off the screen, Ben reached blindly into a large glass jar resting between his knees. He pulled out a dripping, oversized pickle and took a loud, crunchy bite. Chewing enthusiastically, he fished out another one and casually held it out toward his cousin.
"Cousin, you want one?" Ben mumbled around a mouthful of sour brine.
"I don't like sour things. Thank you." Klein didn't even blink, his thumbs moving with practiced precision over his controller. He shook his head slightly, rejecting the dripping green vegetable.
A moment later, Klein paused his game. He turned his head, his dark eyes narrowing slightly as he observed his younger cousin. "Ben, haven't you been eating an excessive amount of pickles lately?"
"Have I?" Ben blinked, looking down at the half-empty jar. To prove his point, he lifted the heavy glass container to his lips and took a long, deliberate gulp of the raw pickle juice. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "I don't really feel like it."
Klein stared at him. The sheer absurdity of drinking straight pickle juice hung in the air. Klein didn't say a word, his expression entirely unreadable, though his mind was already calculating a few troubling possibilities.
Before Klein could press the issue, Ben suddenly dropped his controller. His hand slammed down onto the faceplate of the Omnitrix.
"Big Chill!"
A blinding flash of emerald light flooded the bedroom. The temperature plummeted instantly, a layer of white frost creeping across the posters on the walls and the edges of the television screen. Where Ben had just been sitting, the moth-like, cloaked figure of Big Chill now hovered, his icy breath pluming in the freezing air.
Klein crossed his arms, looking up at the alien with mild confusion. "Ben, what exactly are you planning to do at this hour?"
"No need to do anything. I already have it." Big Chill's voice echoed with a raspy, chilling resonance.
Klein's eyes went flat. A dangerous, almost imperceptible aura began to leak from his posture. He slowly stood up, deciding that it might finally be time to personally eliminate this chaotic menace known as Ben Tennyson before he destroyed the house.
"Wait! Hold on a moment! I am not Ben. Well... I am not just Ben." Big Chill quickly waved his clawed hands, frantically trying to stop Klein's impending violence. The alien took a cautious step back, explaining rapidly, "We Necrofriggians enter a reproduction cycle every so often. We don't need a mate to do it."
"Oh?" Klein's dangerous aura vanished, instantly replaced by a look of deep, trollish realization. "I see. So you are Big Chill's consciousness, and you are currently hijacking Ben's body to lay your eggs."
Klein rubbed his chin. The corners of his mouth twitched, slowly curving upwards into a highly amused, wicked grin.
"Uh... yeah. That's pretty much exactly what it means," Big Chill admitted, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Alright then. Go right ahead." Klein casually waved him off, sitting back down on the floor. "Just remember to come back here before the transformation times out."
Klein had absolutely no intention of stopping the alien. After all, this was just a minor biological essential. It wouldn't endanger Ben's life in the slightest. Go ahead and have them, Klein thought, his grin widening. Have a whole swarm of them.
Seeing Klein's relaxed posture, Big Chill let out a massive, frosty sigh of relief. Having access to Ben's memories, the alien knew full well that if this terrifying cousin decided to intervene, his children would never see the light of day.
"Thank you," Big Chill rasped gratefully. He folded his wings tightly around himself, his body turning entirely intangible. With a quiet whoosh, he phased straight through the bedroom wall, leaving behind a trail of floating ice crystals.
Klein sat in the quiet, freezing room, staring at the frost-covered wall. He calmly reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, dialing a familiar number.
"Hello, Gwen?" Klein spoke smoothly into the receiver. "Do you happen to know what precautions need to be taken during a pregnancy?"
The next morning.
Sunlight streamed through the curtains as Ben groggily pushed himself out of bed. He dragged his feet across the carpet, yawning loudly as he stumbled into the bathroom to wash up.
He squeezed some toothpaste onto his brush and began scrubbing.
"(Brushing noises)... Hmm?"
Ben paused. He frowned at his reflection in the mirror, feeling something hard and distinctly unnatural scraping against his molars. Spitting into the sink, he reached two fingers into his mouth, digging around before pulling out a jagged, half-chewed piece of solid metal.
He stared at the scrap of iron resting in his palm.
"Have I really been that hungry lately?" Ben muttered to himself. He vigorously rubbed his eyes, leaning closer to the mirror to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
Just then, his mother's cheerful voice drifted up from the downstairs kitchen. "Ben! Your cousin and Gwen are here to see you!"
"Cousin and Gwen are here?" Ben blinked, tossing the metal scrap into the trash can.
Before he could even process the early visit, three sharp knocks rapped against his bedroom door.
Ben quickly wiped his mouth with a towel and pulled the door open. Klein and Gwen stood in the hallway. Gwen wore a bright, entirely too enthusiastic smile, while Klein stood beside her, casually holding a large, bulging shopping bag.
"Cousin? Gwen? What are you guys doing here so early?" Ben asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"Ben, we brought you some essentials." Gwen pushed past him into the room, immediately digging into the bag Klein had placed on the bed. She began pulling items out one by one, laying them out like a bizarre garage sale. "Let's see... we have maternity clothes, a few sets of baby clothes, a soothing night light... Oh! And I brought some interesting storybooks to read to you, just to keep your mood swings from getting too agitated."
Ben stared at the pile of pastel-colored fabrics and baby books. His brain completely short-circuited.
"You... why are you bringing me this stuff?" A deep, terrible sense of foreboding settled in the pit of Ben's stomach.
Hearing this, Gwen stopped sorting the baby socks and looked up at Klein, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Cousin, haven't you told him yet?"
"I am telling him right now." Klein stepped forward, his expression shifting into one of grave, absolute seriousness. He placed a heavy hand on Ben's shoulder. "Ben... you are going to be a mommy."
Ben stared blankly. "Is that some kind of weird foreign idiom?"
"It is authentic American English," Klein replied smoothly, his face a mask of solemn sympathy.
The metaphorical sky crashed down on Ben's head. Looking at Gwen's pitying smile and Klein's deadpan certainty, he knew with absolute dread that they weren't joking.
"This... how is this even possible?!" Ben shrieked, his voice cracking an octave higher. He backed away, waving his hands frantically. "I'm a guy! A man!... Oh, wait! I get it! You guys want me to adopt a kid, right? That's it!"
"No." Klein shattered his delusion instantly. "You are physically going to give birth to children."
All the strength vanished from Ben's legs. He collapsed to his knees, staring blankly at the carpet as his soul seemingly left his body.
Seeing the boy's utter despair, Klein and Gwen exchanged a brief, knowing glance. They decided it was best to rip the band-aid off quickly. Over the next five minutes, they carefully explained the biological quirks of the Necrofriggian reproduction cycle to the catatonic pre-teen.
Five minutes later...
Ben sat on the floor, cradling his left wrist. He stared down at the Omnitrix with a face full of mournful betrayal. "My stupid, broken little watch... I never expected you to stab me in the back a second time!"
"Don't worry too much, Ben. You will be completely unconscious when you actually give birth, so you won't feel any pain," Klein offered, patting Ben's trembling shoulder in a rare show of comfort.
Ben sniffled, looking up with a desperate glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Then... will the children born by Big Chill have no actual genetic relation to me? Like, they're just alien babies, right?" He prayed he could just hypnotize himself into believing this was a weird alien parasite situation.
"They will be one hundred percent your biological offspring," Klein stated, his single, ruthless sentence extinguishing the very last ember of Ben's hope.
"Wuwuwu..." Ben buried his face in his hands, kneeling on the floor and crying bitterly.
"Come on, hurry up and put these on. We can't let the babies suffer from a tight waistband." Gwen held up a pair of loose, stretchy maternity pants.
Under the combined, relentless pressure of Gwen and Klein, a completely broken Ben half-heartedly stripped off his cargo pants and slipped into the oversized maternity clothes.
"I need... I need to eat some pickles to calm my nerves," Ben whispered hollowly.
Looking like an emo zombie, Ben dragged his feet out of the room and listlessly descended the stairs.
In the kitchen, Sandra Tennyson was happily flipping pancakes. Hearing the heavy, shuffling footsteps, she turned around with a warm smile. "Morning Ben, you—"
Her voice died in her throat.
Under his mother's wide, incredulous gaze, Ben—wearing a baggy, floral-print maternity top and stretchy sweatpants—silently shuffled past her. He opened the refrigerator, pulled out a fresh, massive jar of pickles, popped the lid, and walked out of the kitchen without uttering a single word.
Sandra stared at the empty doorway for a long, silent moment. She slowly set her spatula down.
"It seems... it really is time to have a serious talk with Carl about Ben's special interests," she muttered to herself, rubbing her temples.
Back upstairs in Ben's room.
"Logically speaking, your children shouldn't suddenly disappear and reappear every time you transform back and forth," Klein muttered, adjusting a pair of sleek, silver-rimmed glasses he had manifested just for the occasion.
"So... they are currently inside your belly."
Klein hovered over Ben, who was lying flat on his bed. The older cousin was using a pile of tiny, highly advanced scanning instruments to poke and prod at Ben's stomach.
Ben stared blankly at the ceiling. He felt that nothing in the universe mattered anymore. He, Ben Tennyson, was going to give birth. Was there anything in existence more humiliating and difficult to accept than this?
It's just a few little alien bugs in my belly... Ben tried to rationalize. Nope. I still can't accept it.
Suddenly, Ben sat bolt upright, his eyes wild. He grabbed Klein's sleeve. "Do it! Go ahead, Cousin! Just cut me open and help me give birth to them right now!"
Ben had steeled his heart. He decided a C-section by his overpowered cousin was vastly preferable to suffering through this psychological torment for another second.
"Ben, calm down. You still have to actually be pregnant for them to develop..." Klein pushed Ben back down onto the mattress.
"It won't be ten months, will it?!" Ben shrieked, thrashing against the blankets. He made it very clear through his frantic flailing that he would genuinely rather die.
"No. It should only take a few days."
Hearing this, Ben finally stopped struggling. He slumped back against the pillows, letting out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. He stared at the ceiling, thinking to himself, Just a few days. I just have to endure this for a few days, and then my life can go back to normal.
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me!
Want to read ahead on our official home, or unlock 50 advanced chapters to feed your addiction? Help keep this shameless translator alive here:
🌐 Read on our site: Search for Elysian Reads on Google or Check the link in my Webnovel Profile bio!
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters & Ad-Free): Search AkarinTL on Patreon
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]