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The Island Misadventures of Ben and Charmcaster	By : GrayNeko Category: +1 through F > Ben 10 Views: 59435 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Ben slowly awoke to find himself shivering, the sun had risen but was still kept hidden by the jungle behind them, leaving the morning chill like a blanket on the beach. As he prepared to get up he froze as an arm wrapped itself around his stomach and he felt a breath on the back of his neck. Charmcaster had rolled over in her sleep and actually snuggled up against him. Ben would have never thought her the snuggling type and then things took a turn for the weird.
Charmcaster squeezed him tight, pulling him into the curve of her body and he could feel her breasts pressed against his back, making his cheeks red and his pants tight. As she continued to hold him to her the hand she had on his stomach began to shift up and down his abdomen like she was looking for something before suddenly diving into his pants.
Ben wasn’t sure if she was awake or not but he didn’t so much as breath as her hand continued to inch towards his crotch. His heart beat like a marathoner’s as his sense of touch became almost painfully acute, sending jolts up his spine with every slide of her hand and tap of her fingers. His dick was excruciatingly stiff as her hand finally made it to the base. He was as apprehensive as he was excited at what she would do next when Charmcaster grumbled in her sleep and rolled away, pulling her hand out of his pants as easily as she had slipped it in.
Ben shot to his feet as soon as she was off of him and stripped off all his clothes before dashing to the water. The freezing waves were agonizingly brisk but it was the better alternative than being caught beating off to get rid of an erection, not that explaining how he had gotten an erection would have been of any help.
He limped out of the water on numb legs and used his socks to dry off what he could before putting his underwear and pants back on. After that he simply sat there and watched Charmcaster, wondering what the hell had just happened.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat watching Charmcaster but as soon as she began stirring he jumped up and tried to look busy with gathering more wood for another fire. Charmcaster made no indication that anything had happened or was wrong as she got up and stretched.
“Sleep well?” Ben asked, not sure what to say to her exactly.
“Can we do without the small talk please?” she asked groggily.
“Fine, then can you please go find a hole to crawl into?”
Charmcaster started up and looked like she was about to start throwing punches when she saw Ben looking at her with his brows furrowed. The seriousness of his expression kept her from lashing out at him.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to try and use the Omnitrix again and if I can’t control myself I don’t want you around. So go hide somewhere until the watch has timed out.”
Charmcaster looked apprehensive, biting her lip as she glanced around.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try and build us some shelter if this works. Now I’m going to turn my back and hum really loud so you should really be gone in the next few seconds.”
Ben did as he said, counting to a full minute in his head while making a tuneless noise and adjusting the Omnitrix. He checked and double checked that the silhouette on the face of the device was the alien he wanted and with a deep breath to reassure himself that everything would be fine, pushed the plunger down.
Green light poured from the device as shards of crystal sprouted from the face of the watch and began to spread across his body, the process happening so quickly that it was dizzying as the world seemed to shrink around him as he grew bigger.
Changing into Diamondhead was always weird for Ben, along with the crazy cool powers of being made of living crystal came being almost entirely numb. Aside from the most jarring of impacts he didn’t feel anything which made moving weird if he gave it too much thought.
He looked down at his hands and then up to the sky, he didn’t feel any different from the other times he’d transformed into Diamondhead, there was nothing driving him crazy or making him do anything he wouldn’t normally do. Then he had to remind himself that he only lost control as Wildmutt when that plant gunk had gotten into his system. So as long he didn’t eat anything or breathe in any weird fumes he supposed he would be all right, he hoped.
He pushed those thoughts out of his head as he focused on the task at hand and turned to the woods. As he marched his way up the beach he realized he had to put some real effort into moving through the loose sand, his heavy form tended to sink pretty deeply with each step. He stopped a little ways into the woods and looked around, trying to figure out which trees would be good for building with; his hands morphing into long blades at the slightest thought of cutting.
He performed a few unnecessary stretches and rolling of the shoulders as he finally decided on a spot full of bigger trees.
“Timber!” He yelled with a mighty swing of his arm, slicing through the first tree trunk like a hot knife through butter. He caught the tree in both arms before it could come crashing down, his enhanced strength making it easy to set the tall piece of lumber down gently.
The process went quickly for the others as well and soon he had a pile of logs with their trimmed branches forming another pile for fires. Ben was feeling pretty proud of himself when it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea how to actually build a shelter of any kind. He thought it would have been obvious once he had the wood to work with.
Ben wanted to punch himself he felt so stupid and to top it all he was really angry that he had done that all by himself, usually it took Gwen or Grandpa Max to make him realize what a dumbass he could be. In his frustration he flung his arms out and instinctively shot out razor sharp shards of crystal, peppering the area with them and even causing some to grow until they covered the trunk in which they were embedded.
Seeing that gave Ben an idea, he often forgot all the powers his aliens had until he used them while reacting to something. Ben put his hands on the ground and focused, picturing a flat sheet of crystal, covering the ground.
He watched as the floor of crystal grew out of his hands and spread out around him, even around the stumps of the trees he had just cut down. He made sure it was nice and thick so they wouldn’t crack it just from walking on it. Then he thought of walls, four of them that were as heavy duty as possible to keep out anything nasty they had yet to run into. And to top it all off he managed to get a little creative and created a peaked roof with four sides. He let out a deep breath of relief as he stood up, he wasn’t used to concentrating like that and found it exhausting. He turned to go get Charmcaster to show her and found that he had forgotten to make a hole for a door.
He shrugged and walked up to one of the walls, deciding it would be a good idea to see how strong he made the whole structure, besides if he did too much damage he could just fix it as Diamondhead.
Ben impressed himself as it took several strong punches to crack the wall and several more to make a door big enough for him to get through. All in all he was very pleased with the hut he had made and if Charmcaster wasn’t at least satisfied with it then he swore then and there that he would give her a swift kick to the shins.
As Ben walked away from the hut he was oblivious to the strange bit of fruit with one of his crystal shards piercing it or how that fruit began to wriggle and shake until it fell from its branch, landing with a particularly heavy ‘thud’ as more of it began to crystallize.
***
Charmcaster found herself pleasantly surprised by the state of the hut Ben had made. It was actually rather big, with walls over ten feet high and covering an area that had to be 30 feet to a side with tree stumps dotting the floor like little chairs or tables. They would have plenty of room and shelter from the elements if they didn’t find a way home anytime soon and it looked like it could take a beating. He had done a good job though she’d never actually tell him so. In fact Ben looked rather annoyed at the unimpressed expression she wore, her eyes half open and her lips just a little pouty.
“This will have to do,” she said, sighing just a little as she stepped outside back into the midday light.
Ben followed, frowning with his arms crossed.
“Would a ‘Thank you’ kill you?” Ben asked before stopping and muttering under his breath, “My god, I’m turning into Gwen.”
“These would make great spear heads.”
Ben blinked and looked up at Charmcaster as she held a shard of Diamondhead crystal in her hand.
“It would make hunting easier and we could defend ourselves with them. Help me gather these up, we’ll work on them later.”
Charmcaster turned and began picking up more shards, pausing when she realized Ben hadn’t moved to help. She looked over her shoulder with a venomous curse on her tongue but it died as she found Ben staring at her, or more accurately, at her ass, making her realize that she wasn’t wearing her normal full body suit. Ben could clearly see her ass through the shredded remains of her coat she wore around her waist and the way she was bending over had her panties hugging her mound, teasingly showcasing the shape of her lips.
With a great deal of effort Ben tore his eyes from her pussy but found himself drawn to Charmcaster’s burning gaze like a magnet. It felt like an eternity as they stared at each other, the feeling finally breaking as Ben lurched to the side, ducking under a shard aimed at his head while Charmcaster began to scream curses at him.
“Fucking pervert! I’ll kill you! Arghhh!”
Charmcaster’s scream turned into a wordless growl as Ben disappeared into the woods under a barrage of shards. She sank to her knees and sat there breathing heavily as her rage shook her to her very core, her knuckles turning white from her fists clenching so hard. Then the strength drained out of her and her shoulders sagged as she slumped even further to the ground.
She didn’t have the strength to be angry, she hadn’t eaten since last night and the stress of her predicament further drained what little reserves of energy she had left. And worst of all was having to rely on that little son of a bitch Ben Tennyson for everything!
As she sat there with her smoldering anger a smile crept across her face as an idea came to her. Tennyson would eventually come back to the hut, full of guilt and apologies and she would hold that over him, make him feel so bad that he would do whatever she told him to do. Of course she’d make her orders sound like requests and she’d smile a little bit and give him a look that would keep him from realizing he’d practically become her slave.
Charmcaster picked herself back up and began gathering up the crystal shards she had thrown all over the place. She had meant what she said about using them and as soon as she had an arm full she took them into the hut and began laying them out along the length of one of the walls.
She paused as she thought she heard something, turning towards the door and grabbing up one of the shards she had set down not a second ago. She crept towards the door as the sound came closer, growing loud enough for Charmcaster to tell that the sound was in fact footsteps. But they weren’t Tennyson’s, far too loud and heavy sounding, meaning it was big which wasn’t good for her. Charmcaster tore a bit of her leather skirt from around her waist and wrapped it around the shard in her hand, allowing her to wield the piece of crystal like a dagger without worrying about cutting her own hand.
She pressed herself against the wall the door was on as the footsteps came towards the opening, holding her makeshift weapon above her head so she could make a powerful downward stab at whatever was about to be unfortunate enough to come poking its nose around here.
Her breath caught in her throat as a shadow fell over the doorway and just as she tensed in preparation to strike she caught sight of a hand made of green crystal and she nearly sagged to the floor once more as she realized it was Tennyson in his Diamondhead form.
“For fuck’s sake, could you at least say something when you come back to camp? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Ben didn’t say anything as he stepped inside, merely looked at her with his unreadable crystal face. Charmcaster stepped away from the wall and stood in front of him, staring up into his yellow eyes as she put one hand on her hip and used the crystal to poke him in the chest.
“What? Couldn’t face me as a person so you decide to come back as one of your aliens and intimidate me into forgiving you? Well good luck you little asshole, you’re going to have to make it up to me somehow and then, maybe, maybe I’ll forgive you.”
Charmcaster waited for him answer but it was like he had become a statue, his silence began to give her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She tried to step around him to get outside but found one of her feet stuck and nearly fell over from being unbalanced. She looked down and saw that crystals had grown out of the floor to encase her foot and before she could react it happened to her other foot; cold, smooth crystal engulfed her leg almost to her knee.
“Tennyson, what’s wrong with you? Let me go right now or I swear when that watch times out I’ll beat you unconscious and leave you buried in the sand up to your neck.”
There was no response from Tennyson except that he grabbed one of her arms despite her stabbing at him with her impromptu dagger. The crystal, much to her surprise, sank into his arm like it was made of paper but he didn’t so much as flinch at the wound. She was helpless but to watch as he held her arm out and crystal began to grow around it, growing out to meet a column that extended down from the ceiling. He did the same to her other arm under a battery of curses and then she was left in a spread eagle position in the center of the room.
Charmcaster still had hope this was some sick joke of Tennyson’s but that hope was quickly fading as he walked around her until she couldn’t see him out of the corner of her eye. She jumped as his hand grabbed the back of her shirt and began lifting it up, pulling it up over her head. She thought he was going to leave it there, blinding her with it but instead her arms moved as the crystals that held them shifted. She watched as he pulled the garment free, it slid through the crystal like it was made of water. He dropped the shirt on the floor and then snapped the hooks to her bra before doing the same with it.
Charmcaster squirmed and screamed as she struggled to cover herself up, which just made her pert young breasts bounce all the more. She would not let him do this to her, she wouldn’t!
As her mind raced to come up with a plan Ben grabbed hold of the knot holding her coat around her waist and tore it off with ease. Now she was just in her purple panties and he quickly hooked a finger around those and began sliding them down, grabbing her roughly at the hip as she began thrashing frantically. He removed them using the same method as her shirt and bra and then repositioned her limbs so she was spread eagle once more.
“Happy now?” Charmcaster’s voice dripped with venomous hate as she glared at Ben from under her silver locks, her eyes shimmering as she fought back tears. She was going to kill him, slowly and in the most agonizing way she could come up with. This wasn’t the animalistic loss of control of yesterday, this was calm, calculated, and intentional.
If Tennyson was enjoying himself he didn’t show it as he continued his silent act and raised another column of crystal between her legs. She could hardly see it due to the position she was in but when she felt a probing piece of crystal touch her pussy she nearly tore her limbs out of their sockets from thrashing. She screamed at Ben but it was cut short as the flat top pushed forward, entering her with the steady pace of a plumber’s snake being fed into a pipe.
It filled her up, just to the brink where it would have caused her physical harm had it been any wider. As it was she groaned at the pain in her loins as it stretched her out. And it continued to push up into her, filling her with fear and more than a little pain as it went farther and farther. Again though it stopped just on the brink of being unbearably painful though she was racked with terrified gasping from thinking it had been going to impale her in some sick fashion.
Charmcaster looked at Tennyson with wet eyes as tears fell freely down her face, begging him with them as she lacked the breath to voice her pleas. Then her eyes went wide as something cool slid between her ass cheeks.
“N-n-nn-no, pl-puh-please,” she managed to get out before another shaft pushed its way up into her ass. It started off slim, more uncomfortable than painful but it grew and Charmcaster nearly bit her tongue as the pain made her virgin asshole feel like it was it being torn apart. It hurt so much all she could do was sob as her body went rigid and when it too finally reached the point where it could go no further inside her she sagged in her restraints, her head slumping forward.
She just wanted to black out and have this nightmare over, she could feel the two shafts inside her pressing up against each other, stirring up her insides and filling her with the urge to vomit.
Grunts and shallow gasps were all she could manage as Ben reached out and lifted her face up, his hand cupping her chin. Charmcaster tried to pull her head out of his hand but he held her like a vice, slowly raising her face until she was looking at the ceiling. She swallowed as she watched the crystals grow and take shape, a cylindrical tube descending towards her. It had a rounded tip that stopped at her bared teeth as she snarled at it, she didn’t care if he killed her she would fight him on this last indignation to her last breath.
Or so she thought to herself, overestimating her resolve as Tennyson slowly began to squeeze her face, making her jaw creak as she screamed through her teeth. Finally, just as it felt like he was going to unhinge her jaw through brute force her mouth sprang open and a sob half escaped her before being cut off by the crystal shaft.
With her head tilted back it was like she was a sword swallower. The column slid down into her throat, making her choke and gag reflexively at first, nearly suffocating her. As it finally stopped moving she found she could take shallow breaths if she kept calm and didn’t struggle, which was almost impossible to do as new kinds of pain wracked her body.
She was completely helpless now, she couldn’t even scream about the futility of her situation and that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst was that Ben didn’t even seem to care about what he was doing, he had definitely put a lot of thought into doing this to her but it was like he took no joy from it and that she didn’t understand. She reveled in dishing out pain and suffering on her enemies, even found herself a little turned on by it on occasion, but to be humiliated and tortured in this way, without any jeering or sense of satisfaction on her captor’s part made her feel insignificant in a way she hadn’t thought possible, like she wasn’t even an item of value, just junk.
As she sat there, retreated into the safety of her own mind, Charmcaster became aware of a commotion around her. She couldn’t see anything directly with her head stuck as it was but out of the corner of her eye she was able to make out something. It looked like a creature was attacking Ben, something smaller than his Diamondhead form was swinging a club at him. As Ben went on the offensive, swinging his blade shaped arms around, Charmcaster got a better look at what was attacking him. It was Ben, human Ben, armed with a tree branch with a hefty knot on the end, dodging the attacks of his alien form with a look of almost wild rage.
Deep within Charmcaster’s chest a laugh gurgled forth, sounding like a whimper around the crystal shaft in her throat. She had gone crazy, being tortured by Tennyson had driven her mad, it was the only explanation. The combatants disappeared from her limited line of sight as human Ben drove his attack forward with an animosity she had never seen the likes of. Then the room was filled with the clattering of glass on glass, like the shattering of a thousand mirrors all at once and human Ben was back in view, sporting a few cuts on his face and chest. He looked torn between ogling Charmcaster’s nude state and blushing furiously and staring at his feet.
He stepped closer, whispers under his breath becoming audible as he looked at the two shafts rising up out of the floor.
“I hope this works, please god let this work, please be okay, don’t be hurt, just have to be quick…”
She had no idea what he was talking about until a sudden impact at the base of one the columns sent tremors up into her body, a reflexive scream fighting its way out of her. She sagged in her restraints once more, though this time out of relief as the crystal in her pussy began to slide out of her, pulled downward by its own weight. As it finally clattered to the ground with an audible ‘pop’ Charmcaster wasn’t sure which was worse, the torture she had suffered or Ben (she had decided she wasn’t crazy after all) seeing her in such a humiliating and undignified manner with her hole agape and dripping.
“Sorry, here comes the next one,” was whispered into her ear as she sat there trembling. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the impact she knew was coming, only uttering a small grunt of shock as the base shattered. She sagged once more but quickly realized the shaft in her ass wasn’t sliding free, her asshole was squeezing it in a reflexive death grip. Charmcaster was beyond indignity as she wiggled her hips back and forth, trying to shake the column free.
“Hold still,” Ben said, touching her shoulder as tenderly as he could, quickly pulling his hand back as she flinched and then setting it back in place, waiting for her to stop struggling. Once she had settled down he grasped the far end of the column and slowly pulled it free.
Charmcaster tried to fight back the moan that shuddered forth from deep within her lest Ben go any more slowly or stop entirely. Every tug made her whole body quiver and to her horror her pussy began dripping anew as heat flared from between her legs. Finally Ben worked the shaft free and Charmcaster felt him step away and heard the clattering of something heavy in the dirt outside the hut.
Then Ben was back and after several more careful swings of his club he had freed both her legs, which trembled and refused to support her, her feet lying at odd angles against the floor. He then instructed her to close her eyes as he began working on her arms. Her first arm came free and it dropped to her side, hanging there uselessly, which left her other arm supporting all her weight as she slumped towards the ground.
At first all she could do was cough and gasp as she came free from the shaft that had held her head in place. As she lay there the wrenching pain in her arm had tears springing anew down her face and sobs wracking her body. Both arms ached from having to hold her up but the burning agony that ran up her hanging arm and her shoulder had her nearly blind in pain.
Charmcaster jumped again as Ben suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist and hoisted her up, taking the strain off her aching limb. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye but his gaze was focused on the last restraint. Tightening his grip on her waist he gave a mighty, one-handed, over-head swing with his club at the last column, smashing clean through the area above her hand. As he did Charmcaster began to fall once more, her exhausted and aching limbs still unable to support her, but Ben held her tight and quickly let go of his club so he could use his other arm as well, scooping up her legs so he was holding her completely off the ground.
Charmcaster lay limp in his arms as she was finally freed from everything, great gulps of relief making her chest rise and fall rapidly as her tears continued to fall freely. Ben’s face was red with strained effort as he carried Charmcaster outside, stumbling every few steps under her weight.
She thought he was just trying to get her clear of the shattered bits of crystal that were all over the floor but Ben kept going, moving towards the path they had made from the beach. Charmcaster momentarily forgot about her ordeal as the veins in Ben’s neck began to stand out against his skin and his breath became truly labored.
“This is far enough,” She choked out, her throat still recovering from the ordeal. “Hey, you can put me down. Tennyson? Hello? Hey hero, knock it off all ready!” She yelled the last part as she began squirming in his arms, trying to get him to stop.
It worked, sort of, as Ben lost his balance and tipped back, his hard landing made even harder as Charmcaster wound up on his lap. She looked to Ben but he was stubbornly refusing to look at her, his head turned towards the side as he frowned and gulped air. Charmcaster pushed herself off him, throwing her arms out to steady herself as she stood on wobbly legs that still felt more like wet noodles than proper limbs.
Once she was sure she could make it more than a few steps she looked down at Ben who was still looking away from her naked form.
“I’m going to the bay to wash, please bring my clothes to the beach.”
With that she turned away and moved down the path, being very careful to walk properly until she was sure Ben was out of sight. Then she couldn’t help but stiffly limp as her ass began to hurt, making tears once more well in her eyes. She hurried as fast she could to the beach and plowed into an oncoming wave, letting the cold water shock her senses and numb her body.
She sat in the shallows, curling her knees to her chest as she let the water pull and push at her, matting her hair to her shoulders. She cupped water in her hands and splashed it on her face several times before taking a deep breath and submerging herself.
She kept her eyes closed as she held herself under water, wanting to feel like she was floating in blackness. Thinking of herself in a void helped her feel like she could escape what had happened to her. But try as she might the images kept appearing in her head and she felt the sensations all over her body again and again, forcing her to relive the attack. Finally it got too much and Charmcaster screamed, giving voice to all her anger and pain and humiliation. The water bubbled and frothed around her until there was no breath left in her and then she rose to the surface, gasping once her head broke through the water.
She sat with her knees in the sand, her shoulders just above the surface, looking out of the little bay to the blue horizon beyond and letting the gentle sound of the waves wash over her.
As she finally managed to attain some sense of calm she heard a loud cough. Charmcaster looked over her shoulder to find Ben standing on the beach with his back to her and her clothes gripped in either hand. She stood and made her way to where Ben was waiting.
“Thank you… for everything.”
Ben stiffened, surprised to find her so close to him and even more shocked by those words. He caught himself as he began to turn to look at her and coughed before he could get any words out.
“Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not. You can turn around if you want, you’ve earned that at the very least.”
She wasn’t sure if it was possible for Ben to get any stiffer but it seemed like he did and she swore that his blush had crept all the way down his neck.
“Why… why don’t you get dressed Charmcaster… and then we can talk.”
“Hand me my clothes then.”
Ben tried to blindly pass on the clothes he was holding, swallowing greatly as he tried not to tremble so much. Charmcaster reached out and grabbed hold of Ben’s left forearm, giving it a strong tug that spun Ben around unexpectedly. In his surprise he lost his balance and fell to one knee, which put Charmcaster’s crotch at his eye level.
Ben dropped his gaze but the image was already burned into memory. Charmcaster’s mound had a small tuft of silver hairs that looked almost as silky as the hair on her head. The lips of her pussy were a flushed pink and parted enough to see the lighter pink walls of flesh past them and her clit was still swollen, protruding just slightly from its hood of skin.
Ben felt like his heart was beating in his head as he slowly stood, using every ounce of willpower he had to keep his wide open eyes trained on his feet. He held out his hand that contained Charmcaster’s panties and her coat that she was wearing as a skirt. Charmcaster took them and made no attempt to hide anything from Ben as she stepped into her panties and slid them on before wrapping the coat around her waist. Her bra and his shirt came next but Charmcaster quickly discarded the bra after seeing the hooks had been mangled by the faux-Diamondhead, leaving her in Ben’s shirt which had become transparent from the dampness of her body.
“Why did you say that?” Ben asked as he found his voice again, trying his hardest to look her in the eyes.
“What?” Charmcaster said, tilting her head at Ben, more than a little surprised at how serious he was trying to look.
“‘Thank you for everything.’ What does that mean?”
Charmcaster dropped her eyes, suddenly uncomfortable and nervous.
“For saving me… when you had no reason to risk yourself.”
“What’re you talking about? You’re my best bet home so-”
“Knock it off! Quit acting like that’s true. We both know I can’t get us out of here.”
Ben stared at Charmcaster, his brow furrowed in confusion, “What do you mean?”
“I mean my magic isn’t working!” Charmcaster shouted, her hands clenching into fists as she trembled, saying it out loud like that scared her more than she cared to admit.
“You don’t have any magic?”
Charmcaster thought that an absurd question and would have called Ben an idiot but for the edge to his voice that she heard. She wasn’t surprised he was angry, after all she had deceived him, however indirectly. If Ben didn’t have his uses she was sure she wouldn’t have tolerated his presence any longer than she had to so why wouldn’t he do the same to her.
“You’re an idiot!”
Charmcaster flinched despite herself as Ben yelled, she wanted to be angry for his insult but she felt her gut turn and flop and she couldn’t summon the emotion to the forefront.
“I can’t believe you’ve been defenseless this entire time!”
“What?” Charmcaster looked up with eyes gone wide. “That’s what you’re angry about?! Not that I can’t get us home but that I can’t defend myself!”
“Yeah, because look at what’s happened already!” Ben snapped back before taking a deep breath and continuing in a softer voice. “Besides if you can’t get us out of here then that just means we’ll have to wait for Gwen or Grandpa Max to figure out how to bring us back.”
“How can you be so sure that they will? That we won’t be stuck here forever?”
“Because I have faith in them!” Ben shouted, with more force than he intended to. He frowned and sighed as he turned away, he didn’t want to be angry with Charmcaster, not after what she had just been through but the way she questioned his family, it incensed him. “Because if it were them in this position I know I wouldn’t stop trying, no matter what.
“We should try and get some food now, before we’re both too weak to do much else,” Ben said, hoping that with a change of topics and something else to focus on their high running emotions might settle down a bit.
Charmcaster was agreeable to that plan and together they gathered the sticks they had used to eat with yesterday and marched in silence down to the tip of the bay. Ben was surprised to find how many of the strange fish were gathered in the shallow water, feeding on some kind of seaweed.
Charmcaster’s hunting from the previous night gave her a clear advantage as she speared fish after fish and Ben struggled to nab even one. Watching him have trouble seemed to improve her mood so Ben wisely shut his mouth rather than uttering his usual childish retort or complaint.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier your magic wasn’t working?” Ben sprung the question on Charmcaster as he was taking aim at a particularly fat tentacled fish and nearly fell into water as he missed.
As if to prove that Ben’s question hadn’t put her off balance in the slightest Charmcaster impaled the fish he’d been trying for with ease. She scanned the water for her next target as she answered him.
“I was afraid you had figured that out already when I couldn’t get the fire lit.”
“I thought you were just having trouble with it. If I had known I wouldn’t have left you alone at all… no matter what.”
Charmcaster paused mid-stab as Ben tacked on the last part quietly and stared at the young hero for a moment before turning her attention back to catching more fish.
“Did you know you like to cuddle in your sleep?”
That question did catch Charmcaster off balance as she lost her grip on her stick and it went flying out of reach.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Ben said, quickly stepping back at the glare that was being directed at him. “It was cold this morning and you pulled me close… it was nice.”
Charmcaster’s face softened, the frown that had been pulling at the corners of her mouth disappeared as she raised a silver arching eyebrow.
“Do you think we have enough?” Ben asked after he lost his stick when it flew out of his strength starved grasp on a bad stab.
“It will have to do,” Charmcaster replied as she began gathering up the sticks the fish had been impaled on after they had been speared.
They made their way back to the beach but Charmcaster froze as Ben began to take the trail back to the hut. Ben stopped after he glanced over his shoulder and caught the uneasy expression on Charmcaster’s face.
“We don’t have to go inside the hut but all the stuff we need to make a fire is there too.”
Charmcaster nodded slowly and tried to put on a brave face as she followed, hoping she didn’t betray herself by trembling.
Outside the hut Ben and Charmcaster rolled a couple of small logs to make seats around a ring of large crystal chunks that had come from punching the door out of the hut. Then they set about putting branches and bits of brush inside the ring. Ben, already exhausted to the point of collapsing, didn’t know where he was going to get the strength to begin the arduous process of lighting it all.
His eyes slid down to the Omnitrix on his left wrist, he could go Heatblast and have the fire started in an instant. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t lose control or end up with a doppelganger but his gaze was drawn to Charmcaster who was still filling the ring with branches. As he watched her he saw how she purposefully kept her back to the entrance of the hut no matter what and how she started shaking any time she stood still for more than a second. He groaned as he realized she couldn’t handle him transforming right now.
Resigning himself to being even more exhausted he took the chunk of crystal he had been holding and threw it at a partially exposed boulder that jutted up between the roots of a nearby tree. Charmcaster jumped at the sound of it bouncing off the rock but Ben jumped at the shower of sparks that it created upon impact. Charmcaster looked at Ben with a frown but by the time he showed her the sparks the crystal made they were both smiling like kids who had found their Christmas presents in the linen closet.
They sat side by side as the fire quickly came to life, which Ben thought was odd at first but figured that Charmcaster didn’t really feel like being so alone at the moment. As they sat there roasting their fish the silence was almost oppressive and Ben felt like he had to find something to say so it wasn’t just the roar of the flames.
“How do you think they’ll find a way to bring us back?” Charmcaster suddenly asked, catching Ben so off guard he didn’t know who she was talking about at first.
“I dunno but they’ll think of something. Grandpa Max has all kinds of high tech gear that could do the job and Gwen has really been practicing her magic so maybe she’ll come up with a spell to bring us back.”
“Is she still holding on to my spellbook?” There was a slight edge to Charmcaster’s question that Ben was oblivious to.
“Yeah, she keeps rubbing it in my face and trying to outdo me by trying new spells all the time, it’s actually pretty funny because a lot of them don’t work the way she wants them to.”
That seemed to improve Charmcaster’s mood a little bit, the barest smile flickering at the corners of her mouth.
“I don’t suppose there’d be a chance anyone you know would look for you?”
That wiped any trace of a smile off her face and she even slid away from him on the log they shared.
“No, and I don’t think it be a very good thing if they did come looking for me.”
“Why?” Ben couldn’t help himself from asking even as he saw her withdraw a little more.
“Because the only person I know who could find me is Uncle Hex and he would only do that if there was something he wanted me to do for him, which is never a good thing and…”
Charmcaster trailed off, biting her lip as she stared into the fire and twirled the stick her fish were skewered on.
“And?” Ben asked as he slid closer, he could see Charmcaster’s mouth moving but she was so quiet he couldn’t hear anything.
“And if he came here to find me, he would find you and he’d kill you,” she whispered, dropping her gaze to the ground, unable to stand the heat of the flames on her face.
“Yeah, that would be bad,” Ben said softly as he turned back to watching their fish cook.
Charmcaster was silent again, seeming to be lost in thought as she stared off at nothing in particular; Ben had to nudge her to keep her from burning her fish beyond recognition. Ben began to feel better with a full stomach and Charmcaster’s mood seemed to improve as well though she was still quiet.
As the fire began to die down both of the young people began to feel the day’s troubles weigh on them, making them yawn with exhaustion as their eyelids drooped.
“We should sleep in the hut,” Ben said as he gave himself a shake, earning a glare from Charmcaster that demanded his reasoning.
“It’s the best shelter we’ve got at the moment and we shouldn’t risk sleeping out in the open again.”
Charmcaster looked from Ben to the dark opening of the hut, the flicking shadows of what was left of the fire making it look like the gnashing maw of some giant monster. She tried to swallow back her fear and nodded shakily as she stood, trying to keep her whole body from trembling and failing. Then she found her quivering hand grasped firmly by Ben who held his hefty club in his other hand and nodded to her encouragingly before leading the way.
It made it easier for her to step through the portal, though she still squeezed her eyes shut tightly and held her breath a little as she went through the door. When she finally opened her eyes details jumped out at her as her sight adjusted.
Her eyes automatically went to the spot where she had been violated but instead of the mounds of crystals she expected to find there were chunks missing out of the floor and ceiling. It looked like someone had hammered at the whole area until everything that had been there had been chipped out and thrown away. Charmcaster hoped Ben couldn’t see the tears that were forming at the corner of her eyes as she brushed them away and tried not to sob in relief.
She looked to the young hero as he led her to the far corner of the room, where he began laying giant leafs down on a pile of brush to make a very primitive form of mattress. Charmcaster slipped her hand free of his and helped where she could, kneeling so she could push down the brush to see how the leafs would move and shift before putting more down to keep the brush covered.
“Can… can we cuddle?” she asked hesitantly as she placed the last leaf on the bed. She didn’t look up at Ben, she didn’t think she could as her face burned as if she were staring at the fire all over again.
“Wha- I mean, uhm, if you want to, if-if it would make you m-more comfortable,” Ben stammered, his heart suddenly pounding like thunder.
At first neither moved and then Ben knelt beside Charmcaster and crawled onto the bed, placing himself almost against the wall. He was lying awkwardly and stiff as he waited, unsure what to expect. He started as Charmcaster lay down beside him and spooned his body with her own, hugging him with her right arm and placing her hand on his chest. Slowly Ben began to relax into the curve her body and placed a hand on top of hers as his eyelids got heavier and heavier. Within moments both of them had fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep.
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Notes
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The Island Misadventures of Ben and Charmcaster