Diving deeper into the lake, Shaw held his harpoon closely, prepared to shoot at the first sight of the Krakken. Years of experience trained him for this moment, he steadied his breathing, sharpened his sight and prepared himself for the worse.
He eventually found a small ship wreckage and in the center of that nest-like area were two orange spheres with some veins. Now, Shaw isn't a marine biologist but he's deducing that these things are eggs.
Now, call it a huge guess but Shaw believes that these are the Krakken's eggs. Of course, being the seasoned hunter he is, Shaw only wants to hunt the Krakken herself or at least the eggs once they hatch, he's no monster after all.
Suddenly, Shaw looked back.
He felt that there was something off and decided to check back on Ben.
(Back with Ben)
"There's a Star-man~
Waiting in the sky~
He'd like to come and meet us~
But he thinks he'd blow our minds~
There's a Star-man~
Waiting in the sky~
He's told us not to blow it~
'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile~"
Yes, he was singing David Bowie's Starman song while he looked at the clear skies of the forest.
Cringe if you want but singing that song in a world where Superman, the Starman himself, lives make the song even better. Specially if you've seen those humanity-restoring Youtube shorts with a smiling superman on the top, or bottom depending on the short.
Unfortunately, the good singing had to end due to Ben hearing a boat approaching. He looked at the extra diving suit that was conveniently his size, and the Omnitrix dialed for Ripjaws.
1+1=2 and Ripjaws beats dumbass convenient ass suit.
With a flash of green, Ben transformed...… into Grey Matter.
"Not gonna let you get to me watch. Not this time." Grey Matter said as he hid on top of the boat's ceiling.
As per script, Jonah and his gang of A-holes arrived at the scene, searching through Shaw's stuff.
"Time to cut loose ends." Jonah spoke in a dark tone as he sat near the edge of the boat.
The moment Shaw rose from the lake Jonah's men punched him and dragged him in front of him.
"What did you see?" Jonah.
"Same old, some algae, moss, fishes." Shaw.
Jonah nodded but then immediately punched Shaw in the gut.
"Alright, let's try that again. What. Did. You. See?" Jonah asked even more menacingly.
"Why don't ya suck my-" Shaw was punched once again by Jonah.
"Okay, it seems that you're not that fond of me and I get that, don't worry, we'll have plenty of time to chat." Jonah signals his grunts and they nod.
After tying Shaw, they take out explosives, ready to blow up the boat.
(At the same time)
Aqualad and Tula were inspecting the bottom of the lake, searching for the Krakken.
"Shouldn't we be investigating Jonah right now?" Tula asked.
"We don't have access to the web right now, nor can we contact the League. The best we can do is finding what's causing this "Krakken" to rampage and see if we can stop it" Aqualad.
As they kept swimming deeper and deeper into the lake, they eventually arrived at the shipwreck nest, where the eggs reside.
"Well, these surely aren't registered by the official documents." Tula.
"No, what kind of eggs are these?" Aqualad.
The Atlantean couldn't wonder further since a roar caught his attention. The Krakken swam ferociously towards the two intruders and opened her maws.
With swift precision, both Aqualad and Tula evaded the maws and backed a few meters from the eggs.
"Seems like we have to deal with this now." Aqualad.
"Great, another thing out of my bucket list." Tula.
Aqualad powered up his bioelectric weapons and Tula focused her hydrokinetic abilities on the water around the Krakken.
The Krakken, however, proved to be stronger and freed itself from Tula's grasp. It then tried to munch on Aqualad but the experienced teen blocked with his weapons, electrifying the Krakken in the process.
Retaking its distance from the heroes, the Krakken circled them waiting for an opportunity. Swinging its large tentacles the Krakken started to push back the duo. Aqualad and Tula tried to withstand the force from the attack but the Krakken was attacking from all directions, leaving them no time to rest.
"Tula, let's fall back!" Aqualad ordered.
Tula nodded and the two of them started to drift away from the nest, the Krakken let out a roar but instead of pursuing them she just went back to the nest and held her eggs with utmost care and awe.
As they were near the surface, they finally managed to catch their breaths from the encounter.
"Weird, she didn't finished us up." Tula.
"Because her intentions were to push us away from her nest, her eggs." Aqualad.
"Yeah, figured as much. So, all we have to do is ensure that no one bothers her and that's that." Tula.
"If only I'd be that easy. Call me skeptical but I'm starting to believe that Jonah has a hand in this." Aqualad.
*BOOM*
Before they could elaborate the entire lake rumbles as an explosion was heard.
They saw two boats, if you've been paying attention then I don't have to explain the situation. The two heroes surfaced and saw Jonah's group leaving the destroyed boat, but they didn't know it was Jonah due to the different clothes.
Without missing a beat, they closed in Jonah's boat.
Jonah saw them and frowned "Time to leave! Aquaman's shrimp has followed us."
Without objecting, the grunts immediately sailed away, leaving the heroes to follow them. Where's Ben you're asking? Let's look for him:
Is he in the water?
Is he in the shore?
Is he in the destroyed boat?
[He's in the water]
Zooming in to the water near the boat we see Grey Matter watching the others leave the scene. Moments before the explosion, Grey Matter jumped from the boat in slow motion to try to mimic that scene from Die Hard but was almost caught by the explosion (not really).
So, he took some time to calm his stupidity impulse for a moment.
'Right, right, help Shaw, God forbid they put a bullet on him.' Ben thought as he tried to reach for his Omnitrix on his back.
"Come on… almost… yeah, yeah… there we go!" Grey Matter changed in a flash of green into Ripjaws.
"Could've given him to me from the start Omnitrix." Ripjaws complained before following the heroes.
Persecution time!
Jonah and his men started to shoot at the underwater heroes. They can't risk their hideout to be discovered so they need to "neutralize" them as fast as they can.
Unfortunately for them, Aqualad and Tula have experience evading dangerous projectiles.
Aqualad changed his bioelectric weapon into a whip, to try and either knock the grunts out or destroy the turret.
Too bad they're at a high-speed chase, because Aqualad's aim is heavily nerfed in this situation and they can't land a hit on the grunts, worse yet, since this is the DC universe Jonah's crew has these state-of-the-art turrets that can handle a lot of punishment.
Meaning that they ain't coming off.
Tula also tried to restraint the boat with her Hydrokinetic abilities but every time she pinpoints the boat it moves away from the area. She's having what I like to call "The Ki Blast syndrome" (Patent pending).
It's a horrible disease in which anyone with a nice long-range attack can't land a hit on a fast target due to them only aiming and shooting at where they are instead of where they'll be.
To give her some credit he IS using water to protect herself and Aqualad so at least she's the tank in this situation.
Jonah's grunts were eventually getting tired of the chase and decided to use their best weapon: Explosives.
They set charges and threw them at the lake, explosion after explosion the due evaded as much as they could but in this scenarios grunts seem to never be out of ammo or dynamite, which eventually led to one of them pushing Tula back.
Aqualad immediately went after his companion, knowing that he would let them get away. In that moment, he saw a silhouette under the water swimming as fast, if not faster, as them rushing at Jonah's boat.
"Yeah! Two Atlantis down!" Grunt 1.
"Atlanteans." Grunt 2.
"Wut?" Grunt 1.
"Their race is named Atlanteans not Atlantis. Atlantis is the underwater citadel in which they live." Grunt 2.
"Man shut up." Grunt 1.
"Why for? For educating your poor ass?" Grunt 2.
"Ok, first: I'm not poor. Second: I'm dyslexic you asshole." Grunt 1.
"And that's carp because last week you managed to say 3 tongue twisters back-to-back on Jeremias' dare party." Grunt 2.
"Aha! You said carp instead of crap. Who's the dyslexic now?" Grunt 1.
"You, I just wanted to make a funny wordplay with us being fishers and all but now you've ruined it." Grunt 2.
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN YOU SHUT THE HELL UP?" Shaw yelled as he was tired of their BS.
"Boss, why can't we just give this guy a bullet and send him his merry way to the bottom of the lake?" Grunt 1.
"Because this idiot knows things we may not know, until then he's useful to us. Now, stop playing and make sure those amphibian freaks don't follow us." Jonah.
"They're more aquatic mammals than amphibians." Grunt 2.
"And I'm pretty sure the charges just blow them away." Grunt 1.
"But not dead, keep a lookout." Jonah.
"Relax a little boss, what could possibly go wrong." Grunt 1.
"Wow, so that's what it feels to be the wrong in these situations."
The three of them look back and see Ripjaws swimming effortlessly as he catched up to them.
"Say, you DO know those words are cursed, right? SCP something I think." Ripjaws.
"FIRE!" Jonah.
The two grunts immediately took position and shot at Ripjaws but he was already gone. The grunts kept shooting around, trying to luck a shot out but it was all futile, Ripjaws emerged from the front of the boat and tackled Jonah, like Foxy from FNAF.
"Hey, wanna count how many teeth I have?!" Ripjaws said before opening his maw as if he was going to devour Jonah's whole head.
Jonah in return took the pin out of a smoke grenade and shoved it at Ripjaws' mouth. The grenade exploded and Ripjaws coughed as he stumbled back, giving Jonah an opening to leave.
Since the turrets can't do 360° the grunts took out their knives and attacked Ripjaws.
The aquatic alien, amidst his coughs, grabbed their arms and slammed them down before exhaling the rest of the smoke in their faces, making them pass out.
"Sorry, smoke breath. Never smoke." Ripjaws.
He went to look for Jonah but he was gone, suddenly, the boat started to separate itself just like a train. Ripjaws pushed the two grunts overboard and grabbed Shaw before he jumped from the end of the boat.
After some time, the lower half of the boat exploded and Ripjaws remained afloat with Shaw struggling from his grasp.
The other two grunts tried to swim away but were apprehended by Aqualad and Tula who just catched up.
"I'm going to assume you are with the watch wearer?" Aqualad.
"What makes you say that?" Ripjaws.
"The symbol on your chest." Aqualad.
"Oh." Ripjaws.
"Can we catch up at the shore? This lake isn't as clean as they portray it." Tula said in disgust as she removed a can from her head.
The group, now with Shaw saved mothed towards Shaw's camp gathering their thoughts. Ripjaws reverted back to Ben (He didn't hid his face this time) as they talked about the events transpired.
"So, what are you doing here?" Aqualad.
"Nothing much, was planning to have a nice fishing trip when things went south. I blame the plot." Ben.
"What about these guys, know anything?" Aqualad.
"Nah, I was hanging around with the old Shaw here when they decided to blow his boat up. I transformed, I bit, I'm pretty sure they've shit their pants, overall a nice day." Ben.
"I knew you were trouble when I saw ya kid." Shaw.
"Please, I was behaving. Blame those guys." Ben.
"Speaking of which, they aren't waking up." Tula.
"They're not dead, only unconscious, although I have no idea as to why." Aqualad.
"Probably a sleeping drug to slow down your progress in stopping them." Ben.
"Plausible, if only I could contact the league." Aqualad took his communicator but the signal was still null.
"You know, I may have a way to send a message through and even look out for this Jonah fellow." Ben.
"How are you going to do that?" Tula.
*BEEP*
Omnitrix recharged.
"Watch and learn." Ben dialed Upgrade.
With a flash of green he lunged at the communicator and started to enhance it.
He wrote a long text to Aquaman about what's happened on the lake before searching up everything about Jonah. The list was quite extensive and Ben whistled at all the charges.
"He's wanted in 3 small countries for overfishing and crimes alike to the marine life. How the hell did he blend so easily in the US?" Upgrade spoke as he showed Aqualad and Tula Jonah's crime's list.
"That I don't know, but know that we know who the bad guy is, shouldn't we catch him and his crew?" Tula.
"There's also the Krakken issue." Aqualad.
"Why's that an issue? Just let the rampaging animal live with her eggs and everything's fine. We just have to take Jonah out of the equation." Upgrade left the communicator.
"Mother or not, I'm hunting that beast." Shaw said as he left to his other, but less nice, boat.
"And there he goes. You know that counts as suicide right?" Ben asked Aqualad.
"What's your take in here?" Aqualad.
"Well, I'm currently bored. I guess I'll travel around and see where the road takes me. If it takes me to save some folks then so be it." Ben spoke in half-truths.
"Can I assume I can count with your aid against Jonah?" Aqualad.
"Sure, I go by Prime so don't yell out my name." Ben.
"Aqualad."
"Aqua girl."
"Should we go take them down?" Ben asked.
"We don't know where they are." Tula.
"Remember that quick search on the web I did? There's an abandoned process plant in this very lake; I bet you guys that's were Jonah is hiding." Ben.
"Sounds as good as any place." Aqualad.
With that, the trio went onwards for their battle against Jonah.
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Prepared to be Blue balled!
Yep, I ran out of Ben 10 fuel for however long it takes for me to recharge.
As a final note I'd like to make something clear: I need reviews/comments, not Power Stones.
I know all of you send stones hoping I can write a chapter sooner but the truth is that I want and need some constructive feedback. For example: I felt that the chase scene could've been more dynamic or longer but I didn't know how to make it like that.
I'm no perfectionist but I don't want to write a bad story or a story that lacks consistency.
Taky my MHA X KIMETSU NO YAIBA story, it started fine but then I write my OC differently each chapter, made things up that didn't made sense and even added more OC's to the story that in the end amounted to nothing. Reason as to why I'm planning on rewriting it.
My point is that I'd love to hear your sincere thoughts about the story so fat and tell me which of these inconsistencies are becoming frequent.
With all that out of the way I want to thank you all and bless you.
See ya next chapter I'm NOT canceling this story.