Chapter Text
?: Where shall we start?... How about the only beginning that matters, around the planet Jupiter where the fate of the universe, and perhaps more, will be decided.
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Over the planet of Jupiter a battle for the ultimate weapon was happening, where a small teal and green star-ship was being attacked by a much bigger red one. As both ships were passing by Jupiter the larger ship managed to land a few blows on the smaller one. The ship managed to weather the blows and respond in tune, firing a barrage of lasers at the imposing ship managing to give it some damage to its hull.
One of the red ships robotic lieutenants spoke to the ship's captain,"Hull damage: 20 percent, weapon system's still operational."
The captain responded, "I have come too far to be denied," he responded while his ship continued to give chase.
"The Omnitrix shall be mine, and there is not a being in the galaxy that dares stand in my way!"
*Meanwhile, on a planet nearby*
On an insignificant planet, in an even more insignificant city, while going to an even greater insignificant school there was a young boy who appeared to be folding a piece of paper into a paper airplane. Once he finished it, he threw it into the air, not having any particular target in mind. Although if he was aiming at his teachers head then his future marksmanship could be quite impressive, although considering he threw a paper airplane at his teachers head there's a chance he won't make it out of the school alive. After the teacher was hit she looked behind her to see who the culprit was, and while this boy took notice of her reaction he decided to play the fool, quickly looking into his textbook in order to avoid eye contact with her.
*Meanwhile, directly behind the red star-ship*
"Status report," an unknown being asked no one in particular.
"We are directly behind the pursuing star-ship, I estimate ten minutes until we reach our shared target," the pilot informed.
"Good, how are the cloaking devices holding up? If we're spotted, it will ruin my plans, and I don't feel like using any time warping today," the unknown being said.
"All ten versions are fully operational, no one, not even the four possible threats can see what is coming," the pilot responded.
"Excellent, soon, my grand plan will come into motion, and no one should be able to stop me!" The unknown being yelled aloud.
"Should be able to, my Lord?" the only crew member talking to this being asked.
"Well, I know two of the four are none the wiser, but there could be a chance with the other two, but by the time they figure things out it will be too late, and the best part is they won't know who to blame, which will drive one of them insane just trying to figure it out, HAHAHAHAHAHA!" the being yelled out to the couple crew members on the bridge of the invisible ship.
Good thing said ship was invisible, for it was a massive ship, almost in the shape of a triangle, but with a gap on the tip where two hangar bays resided. The color of the ship was similar in color to a darkened steel-like material, while small orbs of yellow light orbited around the ship, almost as if the ship was an atom where the main ship was the nucleus while the orbs were the electrons. While the dark steel star-ship shadowed the red one, the unknown being remembered something happening outside the bridge windows.
"Pilot, may I ask you a few questions?" The being asked.
"Of course my Lord, I am here to serve and answer," the pilot replied.
"You're currently the only one piloting this vessel, correct?"
"An astute observation, my Lord,"
"And this vessel can follow the others before us easily undetected, yes?"
"Considering you and many others helped design this ship to be a perfect stealth-ship for your plans... I don't know, probably,"
"And we should be able to move forward towards my goal in a straight path?"
"Well, of course my Lord, we could go in a less straight path if you'd like, but that would add a few more minutes to our arrival at the side of our target,"
"No no, keep on target, but either way don't you think we should be facing the target more so than not?"
"More so? What do you mean?"
"What I mean is this ship is currently spinning around wildly,"
While the dark steel ship was on track to be by the side of its targeted ship, it wasn't always pointing towards the ship, in fact it rarely ever did, considering the ship was spinning seemingly out of control, wildly spinning in any and every direction, simulating an out of control star-ship.
"... I have no idea what you're talking about,"
"You liar! I have eyes, I can see outside the bridge windows, we're currently spiraling towards our target in a comically slow fashion! Relative to the speed all three ships are currently going,"
"You are clearly mistaken my Lord, if we were spiraling out of control we'd be going in a wildly different direction than our target's going, and as you can see we are still on target,"
"I know, I'm still wondering why that is, even though we one-hundred percent are spiraling out of control! How'd you even do this?! Are you high?"
"Of course not my Lord, I always consume all of my drugs right before take off so that I wouldn't be on the influence while I'm on duty,"
"...... *sigh*, Just, go on break, let, uh, that guy pilot for now,"
"I obey, my Lord," the now off-duty pilot said before rapidly spinning around similar to the ship while "walking" towards the crew quarters.
".... Anyway, back to the matter at hand,"
*Meanwhile, back at the back water world*
The boy spoken about before sat at his desk, staring at the clock above the classroom door waiting for it to go faster in order for him to leave the school as soon as possible.
"Come on... come on..." he somewhat whispered under his breath.
"And I just want to remind you all that I will be teaching summer school this year, and it's not too late to sign up!" The teacher informed the class.
"Yeah right," he replied, under his breath so the teacher wouldn't hear him. Then the school bell rang allowing the students to leave for the summer.
"Yes! Outta Here!" He said aloud.
"Everyone, have a good vacation, and I hope to see you all again in the fall," she said as her students walked out of the classroom. But before the boy could leave, his teacher called out his name.
"Benjamin, could I have a word with you before you go?" She says as she holds up a familiar paper airplane. Ben huffs and walks over to her desk, looking rather grumpy.
Some time later, another boy is being bullied by two other boys, one who's somewhat tall, slim with black hair, while the other was a little shorter than him, chubby with brown hair and glasses.
"Normally, we'd take your money and beat you up. But since it's the last day of school, we're going to give you a break. Now fork over the cash, so we can get out of here," Cash, the black haired boy told his victim.
"Leave him alone!" Ben said behind them.
"Get lost, shrimp" J.T. the brown haired boy replied.
"I said back off," Ben reiterated.
"Oh, looks like we got us a hero. Suppose we don't wanna back off?" Cash questioned.
"What are ya gonna do about it, Tennyson?" J.T. asked him.
The three stare at each other for a short bit, with the stare being broken off by Ben running at the two, yelling...
Some time after that, both Ben and the bullied kid are hung up on a tree branch by their underwear.
"Thanks a lot," Jamie, the bullied boy, said sarcastically.
"I was just trying to help," Ben replied.
"Next time you wanna play hero, make sure you can back it up," Jamie told him.
Before either of them could say anything else, an RV pulls up with an old man driving it.
"Come on, Ben, let's go! We're burning daylight. I wanna make it to the campsite by nightfall," the old man informed him.
"Uh, Grandpa? A little help here?" Ben asks as he still hangs on the tree branch from his underwear.
After he helps his grandson off of the tree they both enter his RV.
"I have -so- been looking forward to this!" Ben exclaims. Before he says anything else he notices a red headed girl sitting down at the table inside the RV.
"What are, YOU doing here? What is SHE doing here?!" Ben asks both the girl then his grandpa.
"Take it easy, dweeb. This wasn't my idea. Somebody convinced my mom that 'going camping for the summer would be a good experience for me'," she said.
"Grandpa, please, tell me you didn't..." Ben says
"I thought it would be fun if your cousin came along with us this summer. Is... that a problem?" their grandpa asks.
Not long after their conversation the RV heads off on their trip.
"Aw, I can't believe it. I waited all school year to go on this trip, and now the queen of cooties is along for the ride," Ben says aloud.
"Hey! I had my own vacation already all planned out too, you know?" She says before pulling out her former vacation schedule.
"Each activity is color-coded, so I never do the same thing two days in a row," she says, as she shows a surprised Ben.
"Now, I'm stuck with my geekazoid cousin going camping for three months," she told him.
"Geek," he replies.
"Jerk," she responded in kind.
"Something tells me it's gonna be a long summer..." the grandfather said to himself as he drove out of their city.
Some time later they arrived at a campground, where the grandfather made some food for the night.
"Chow time!" He says as he puts down a bowl of wriggling worms, much to both cousins' disgust.
"Okay, I give up. What- is that?" Ben asks his grandpa.
"Marinated meal-worms, hard to find them fresh in the States. You know, they're considered a delicacy in some countries?" He informs them.
"... And totally gross in others?" the girl asks before one of the worms plops off the bowl onto the table in a loud manner.
"If these don't sound good, I've got some smoked sheep's tongue in the fridge?" He informs them.
"Urgh. Couldn't we just have a burger or something?" He asks as the two cousins smile at their grandpa, possibly in hopes their cuteness would convince him.
"Nonsense. This summer's gonna be an adventure for your taste buds. -I'll grab the tongue," he tells them before walking back into the RV.
After he went inside Ben went up to his cousin and asked, "Okay, I got a half-eaten bag of corn chips and a candy bar in my backpack. What'd you got?"
She replied, "Some rice cakes and hard candy."
"Think we can make them last the whole summer?" He then asks as they both start sulking together.
*Meanwhile, somewhere nearby, but in space*
The red ship continues its chase of the small teal ship, always firing at it until it gets one lucky shot causing severe damage to the ship.
"Their propulsion systems have been destroyed," the lieutenant informed the captain.
"Prepare to board! I want the Omnitrix, now!" The captain orders his crew.
Not too long after he gave his orders, the damaged ship fires one last, desperate, but devastating blow the the red ships bridge, nearly killing the captain. The red ship responds by firing a devastating laser at the ship, destroying every part of it excluding the section with the bridge, making it permanently adrift. After the final shot the teal ship sent out a pod towards the planet closest to them. After this, unbeknownst to both the teal and red ships, a hidden third ship locked onto the pod and sent a star-fighter-like ship along with it.
"The Invis-Fighter Drone has been sent and is currently by its side," the new pilot informed the captain.
"Good, now have it fire the micro hacker at the sphere," the unknown being ordered.
A transmission was sent to the drone which then locked onto the sphere that came out of the pod. It then fired a small device that was able to phase into the sphere, directly hitting the item inside.
"We have made contact, sending new programming over," one of the crew members said.
"... Download complete, adding necessary additions to the Omnitrix... memory core expanded... advanced replicators added... blessed machine parts added, machine spirit capabilities are now possible... additional entity roster expanded, non-DNA based beings and lifeforms are now viable targets... magic based safe-locks added... additional mechanical safe-locks added... anomalous based safe-locks added... Mekhanite tech added... Rotom Dex added, don't know why that's necessary... bio-mechanical downloading capabilities added... and finally anti-virus software added, we're done, we are done!" Another crew member informed the captain.
"Excellent! Now order the device to phase out of the sphere so the Invis-Fighter Drone can catch it!" The captain quickly ordered.
After receiving its final orders the device phased out of the sphere where the drone was able to catch it.
"... Status report," the being asked.
"... Sphere on course to interact with the main biological target, all programming and additions have been added successfully, mission is a success, I repeat, mission is a success!" Another crew member informed the being aloud.
"Ahhh, and now we wait to see if this is either a failure requiring some time warping, or a complete success requiring a time lock... Hover near the drop site," the captain ordered.
*Meanwhile, close to where the drop site will be*
Ben is currently sitting on the ground playing a handheld gaming device with his back facing his cousin while she does the same but with her laptop. While they're sitting on the ground their grandpa comes out of the RV holding a bag of marshmallows.
He looks at the two of them and then asks, "Who wants to roast marshmallows?" But gets no reply.
"Okay, um... How 'bout we tell scary stories?" He then asks.
"Scarier than having to spend a summer with your freak of a cousin?" Ben asked, laughing to himself.
"I'd like to, Grandpa, but I'm busy doing a web search on cures for 'extreme doofus-ness'. Nothing yet, Ben, but let's not give up hope!" She replied to grandpa.
"Aww, come on you two. We're all in this together. You can mope around like this all summer, or we can have some fun. Now whadd'ya say?" He asks them.
"I vote for moping," she replied.
"I'm gonna take a walk. Smell ya around, Gwen," he told the two of them before he set down his device and then walked into the woods.
"I, uh, think they're starting to grow on each other," the grandpa said to himself.
Some time later, Ben is walking through the forest with his hands in his pockets, moping about.
"Aw, man. This is gonna be the worst vacation ever. I might as well have gone to summer school," Ben says to himself. After he said this, Ben could hear something shooting across the sky, and after looking up believes it to be a shooting star.
"Whoa, a shooting star!" Ben said aloud.
But as if the shooting star was alive, it too seemed to take notice of Ben, considering it immediately turned towards where he was standing on a direct collision course towards him.
*Gasp* Ben gasps and then starts to yell as this "shooting star" crashes on the ground, causing a shock wave sending Ben a fair distance from its crash site. After the dirt and smoke clears, Ben sees the crater around ten feet in front of where he was laying. After he gets up he walks towards the crater and is soon standing at its edge looking down at what appears to be some sort of glowing sphere.
"Looks like a - satellite or something," he said before the sphere stopped glowing. Due to where he was standing the ground broke away causing him to yell and fall into the crater. He gets up and is given a better view of the metal sphere which then begins to open, revealing a small glowing green device inside.
"... A watch? What's a watch doing in outer space?" He asks himself. After he said this, he smiled and started to reach inside the sphere. Before his hand could make it inside the sphere, the "watch" rips itself open and jumps at his left wrist, nearly instantly attaching itself to Ben’s wrist.
"Ahh! Get off me! Get off, get off!" He yells as he tries to shake off the device. No matter how hard he tries to shake it off it simply sticks on, and as he tries to rip it off all he succeeds in doing is falling down to the ground a third time. After his few attempts fail he climbs out of the crater running towards the campsite.
"Grandpa!" He yells, while at the same time, if one had super duper hearing, you'd might be able to hear someone say something along the lines of "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him", while back at the campsite his grandpa starts to worry a little about him.
"Hm. Ben's been gone a while. Well, I guess he can't get into too much trouble out here," he says.
"Unless he wound up bear food," Gwen responded, which caused her grandpa to turn around to her.
"Hey I can dream, can't I?" She then asks.
Meanwhile in the woods, Ben tries to pry the Omnitrix apart from his wrist with a stick, but the stick breaks making him somewhat angry. He falls to his knees in defeat, and starts fumbling with the device. He accidentally hits a button on it and its face-plate springs up.
"Woah."
He glances around the woods and then sees the face-plate's hourglass morph into a diamond encasing a black silhouette.
"Cool!"
Ben looks down at the face-plate, and his eyebrows raise before pressing it back down. Ben suddenly finds himself in a void, crimson rocks spreading across his skin, transforming him into something else. He emerges from the void, now a burning rock monster, a slim one at that.
"Ahhh!" He screams, in a slightly higher pitched voice than you’d expect.
"Ahhh! I'm on fire! I'm on fire!" He yells again as he runs around a little.
"Hey... I'm on fire --and, I'm okay!... Check it out. I'm totally hot! He-hehehe" He jokes and then laughs to himself. He then looks behind him at a tree that has done nothing wrong.
"Oh yeah," he says as he takes a stance, "Uh huh, here goes!" He continues as he then fires a fire bolt at one of the tree branches, blowing one off.
"That's what I'm talking about," he says as he creates a larger fireball using both his hands.
"Liking it!" he then says before throwing the larger fireball at even more trees. But only after he threw the fire ball did he then realize his mistake, shooting fire at multiple dry trees during the summer, which then caused a forest fire.
"Wait! Stop!... Uh oh," he then tries to stomp out some of the fire on the ground with his foot, which happens to be made out of fire, giving the expected results of only making a small patch even bigger.
"Oh man, I am gonna get so busted for this,"
Meanwhile back at the camp, as Gwen is walking out of the RV, she notices smoke off in the distance. "What's that?" She asks her grandpa.
He stands up from his seat and answers, "Looks like the start of a forest fire. We better let the Rangers' Station know. Probably some darn fool camper out there, messing around with something he shouldn't." He then pauses before he and Gwen both come to a realization.
"Ben!" He realizes. He quickly opens a camping-kit and grabs two fire-extinguishers, passing one to Gwen. "Better take this," he tells her. They both then run into the forest towards the smoke overhead.
Back to Ben, he's still trying to stomp out fire with a fiery foot.
"This would be so cool, if it weren't so-- not cool!"
A couple feet away from him Gwen is putting out as many fires as she can, and eventually sprays a patch of fire that shrieks out in pain causing her to notice a slim, if not feminine looking fire monster, who also turned around to see her.
"... AHHAHH!" Gwen yells out loud.
"Look, I know I look weird, but there's no reason to be scared-" he says before Gwen hits him in the head with her fire extinguisher knocking him to the ground, then starts spraying his head as he tries to get up, temporarily putting out his flamed head.
"Hey! *cough* *cough* *cough*,"
"I don't know what you are- but you'll stay down there if you know what's good for you!" She told the creature.
While staying down, Ben motions to her shoe, setting a small flame on it with a chuckle.
"Ow!" She says as she hops around on one foot eventually putting out the flame.
"Don't even think about it, freak."
After that comment, Gwen came to a realization, "...Ben? Is that you? What happened?" She asked him.
"Well, when I was walking, this meteor fell from the sky and almost smudged me, except that wasn't a meteor or a satellite, but this cool watch thing that jumped up onto my wrist, and when I tried to get it off, I suddenly was on fire, only it didn't hurt when I was accidentally starting this mega forest fire," he answered.
After his explanation, their grandpa came running towards Gwen.
"Gwen, are you alri- What in blazes?" He said, sounding both alarmed and confused.
"Hey, grandpa, guess who?" She said as the fiery creature started to wave at him.
"It's me, Grandpa!"
"Ben?! What happened to you?"
"Well, when I was walking, this meteor-,"
"Erm, excuse me? Major forest fire burning out of control, remember?" Gwen reminded everyone.
"What do we do?" Ben asked.
"... Backfire. Start a new fire and let it burn into the old fire. They'll snuff each other out. Think you can do it, Ben?" Grandpa asked him.
"Shooting flames? I can definitely do,"
Both Gwen and grandpa run back towards their campsite while Ben runs the opposite way finding more trees some distance away, then shoots them with a blast of fire, causing a new blaze. Some time later a Yosemite park ranger comes to find the forest fire, but only being greeted with a burnt out forest.
*Meanwhile, around where the space battle ended*
Above the Earth, the red ship stayed around the remains of the teal ship, with its bridge badly damaged, and its captain incredibly mutilated, slowly recovering within a stasis tank, but still alive.
"What do you mean it's not there? This battle nearly cost me my life! --And you say the Omnitrix is no longer on board the transport?" The alien captain asked his robotic lieutenant between pained breaths.
"Sensors indicate a probe was jettisoned from the ship, just before boarding. It landed on the planet below," his lieutenant responded.
"Go! Bring it to me," the wounded captain ordered a shadowy robotic figure to do, which then started to walk off.
*Back at the campsite*
The trio are sat around a campfire eating marshmallows, where Ben had just explained how he became a flame monster.
"And you say that this watch "just jumped up and clamped onto your wrist"?" Their grandpa asked as Gwen threw a marshmallow for Ben to catch, with said marshmallow catching on fire in his fiery hand.
"Hey, this time it wasn't my fault," he said before he threw the marshmallow into his mouth, "I swear!" He then added, with a marshmallow stuck to his molten mouth.
"I believe you, Ben," he responded.
"Think he's gonna stay a monster forever?" Gwen asked.
"He's not a monster, he's an alien," he said, while then getting some inquisitive looks from his grandchildren. "I-I mean, look at him. What else could he be?" He then added.
"Yeah, I don't wanna be 'fire guy' forever. How am I supposed to play Little League this fall if I charcoal the ball every time I catch a pop fly?" Ben asked.
"Don't worry, Ben. We'll figure this thing out," his grandpa responded. But before anything else could be said the symbol and his chest started to beep and flash red. After the fifth beep his body lets out a blinding light towards Gwen and grandpa. When they open their eyes, Ben is standing in front of them, human and all... But, there were a few things, off, about him. Looking at his hands, he only felt elated to be back to being human again.
"Hah! I'm me again!" He said in an unusually higher pitched voice than usual.
"Uh, Ben, was your hair always that long?" Gwen asked.
"Huh? What do you mean? I'm pretty sure my hair is shor-," Ben began to say but then noticed that his hair was a fair bit longer than it should have been.
"Oookay, this is weird, and, hey, my voice sounds a bit off too. Oh no, am I still some sort of alien? Do I have any scales, am I still on fire somewhere, do I have fur all over my body?" He asked them as he frantically looked around his own body.
"Ben! Calm down, there's nothing else abnormal about your body, maybe this device accidentally changed your appearance a little. The hair can be cut, and your voice will probably go back to normal, after all you just changed back from that fire alien form," his grandpa reassured him.
"Y-You're probably right, although it would suck if I had this kind of voice for a long while, heh, it kinda makes me sound like a girl..." Ben said, having a bad feeling forming in his gut.
Before his grandpa or cousin could respond, Ben suddenly spoke up again, "Uh, excuse me for one second, I have to go to the bathroom," he said as he ran back to the RV.
"Ben, wait!" his grandpa asked, but Ben was already inside.
"... Uh, grandpa, is Ben a-,"
"AHHH!" Ben yelled in a very high pitched voice, interrupting Gwen, worrying both her and their grandpa.
Both Gwen and her grandpa got up and ran towards the RV, but before Gwen could get in her grandpa stopped her and then told her," Gwen, stay out here for now it's probably best I make sure he's alright, especially if what happened is what I think it is."
To this, she simply stood outside the door worried for Ben, waiting to see if he has changed in the way she thinks he changed into.
*Ten minutes later*
All three now were outside by the campfire, with Gwen eating marshmallows while Ben sat across from her with slightly teary eyes. Their grandpa was pacing around the fire while pondering what to do with the situation at hand.
He then came to a conclusion for the moment and said to them," Ben, I know you're going through a hard time right now, but if we're going to try to fix this then you're going to have to try to not mess around with that thing anymore until we know exactly what we're dealing with. I'll go check out that crash site, you two stay here until I get back."
After he left towards the direction of the crash site both Ben and Gwen sat there in silence until Gwen spoke up," Sooo, how are you feeling?" She asked Ben.
"Like a scared little girl," he replied.
"Oh, well, I guess that makes sense considering you're-"
"Please don't remind me that I'm a girl now, in fact, please don't talk to me for the rest of the trip,"
"What? I'm just saying that you're a girl now, it's not like that's a bad thing,"
"Well, to me it's the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life, with the second worst thing being you joining us on our road trip,"
"Hey! Being a girl is anything but bad, I would know since I've always been one! Maybe if you stay as a girl for a long while you'd see what being a girl would be like."
"Ugh, I hope that won't happen, I can barely stand being a girl right now, but for any minute longer is just, just, I don't even want to think about it!"
"Don't you think you're overreacting a bit too much Ben?"
"How would you react if some weird watch that fell from the sky suddenly turned you into a boy, huh?"
Gwen thought for a few seconds, probably imagining herself in her cousin's shoes, then answered," I'd behave exactly how you're acting right now."
Meanwhile back at the red star ship a pod shoots out of it, crashing down into the Earth landing deep into the woods, next to the pod that held the watch. The pod opens quickly revealing it to be a giant droid sent to retrieve the contents of the other pod. After scanning the pod, finding that the pod is empty, it fires a laser beam at it destroying it. It then ejects two probes from its shoulders so it could cover more ground in its search for its masters prize.
Some time later, Ben went behind the RV away from Gwen as he tried to fiddle with the watch.
"Come on, there has to be a "boy" setting on this thing somewhere," he said to himself as he continued to fiddle with the watch.
"Caught ya!" Gwen said as she spooked Ben from his side, laughing.
"Hehehe, very funny. Like your face," He said after mocking her laugh. He then continued fiddling with the watch.
"Grandpa said not to mess with that thing," she reminded him.
"Yeah? So, what's your point?"
"Did your parents drop you when you were a baby?" She asked as Ben was biting the face-plate of the watch, for some reason.
"Oh, like you wouldn't try to turn yourself back to your normal self if this happened to you."
"Well, yeah, but randomly messing with it could probably turn you into something worse than your normal self, or another alien thing."
"Better to be a cool fire dude rather than a lame, dweeb-like girl."
"You mean fire girl? When I first saw you as that thing, that alien was clearly a female one."
"Whatever..."
*Meanwhile, at the crash site*
Max arrived at the crash site, he saw another smaller crater next to the bigger one but thought it was just another part of the original impact. He climbed into the main crater and found the sphere that Ben informed him about had been blown to bits. He leaned down and picked up one of the fragments so he could inspect it more closely.
"I don't like this one bit," he said to himself.
*Back at base camp*
Both of them had gone back to the campfire and were still talking to one another about the watch.
"Look, even if I don't turn back into a boy right now, I could probably use this thing to help people. I mean, really help them. Not just, you know, make things worse," he told Gwen as he fiddled with the watch.
"So, what did it feel like going all alien like that?" She asked him.
"It freaked me out at first. It was like I was me, but it was also like I was somebody else-" he replied just as he got the face-plate to pop up.
"Finally, now we're getting somewhere!" He exclaimed as he started to turn the dial, checking out every one to see if any looked like him as he should be.
"Ben, you probably shouldn't try anything new with that thing. If I were you, I would do anything to turn back to me, but even so I still wouldn't go so far as to turn into something different again," she told him.
"No duh, you wouldn't," he said before he slammed his hand onto the device activating it.
He starts to morph into a new creature, growing orange fur and claws with gills at the sides of its neck, and after his transformation is finished he lets out a tenacious roar.
"Ew! This thing's even uglier than you were normally! Pow, wow, put a flea collar on this mutt!" She told the now mutt Ben, who just roared in response.
"And no eyes? What good is this one? It can't see!" She says, as she comes to a realization, looking at her perfectly swing-able marshmallow stick in her hand, giving her an idea that causes her to smile.
She silently moves behind Ben, blows into each of her hands and starts to wind up for a blow to the beasts behind. But before she swings, Ben's gills open up, warning him about her similar to how radar works. He then dodges her attack by jumping up into the air and then on top of the RV, where he managed to smile smugly at her.
"Okay, so maybe this one isn't a total loser, and I can't really tell if this form is a boy or a girl," she says before Ben flips off the RV landing in front of her, slobbering.
"Ew! Two words: 'breath', 'mints'," she informs him, to which he responds by turning around, kicking dirt at her, and then runs/slings away into the forest.
"Get back here! Ben! I'm gonna tell Grandpa that you turned into some freaky-animal-monster-thing and went swinging around the forest when he told you not to!... -Oh, this is a majorly weird day," she says to herself.
Ben continues to swing around the forest, swinging and jumping from one tree branch to another, he suddenly stops in a tree to have a quick look around him. He senses something nearby start to shoot at him. He then jumps from tree to tree dodging the lasers being shot at him. He eventually gets out of its sight, causing the drone to try to search for him again, but then he jumps from behind it where it tries to react to him but it's too late when he lands on top of it, biting off its laser arm. It tries to shake him off and crash him into trees but to little effect, where Ben then rips off the drones head leading it to blindly fly into a straight line towards the side of a cliff. As it gets closer to the cliff the symbol on Ben's left shoulder starts to beep and blink red, signifying he's about to turn back to a human. Before it crashes into the cliff side he jumps into some bushes, almost immediately turning back as the drone crashes into the cliff. He gets up and looks at the side of the cliff where the drone crashed.
"Yes!" He exclaimed victoriously, but then looked at his body.
"Aw man!" He said finding out that he's still a girl, but before he could do anything else a second drone arrived looking down at him with its laser arm.
"Oh, not good..."
Before the drone could do anything to Ben Gwen hits it with a shovel knocking it to the ground.
"Ugh! Back off Sparky! No flying tree-trimmer is going to hurt my cousin!" She says before she whacks it in its head a few more times.
"Never thought I'd say this, but am I glad to see you," Ben told her.
After Ben spoke the drone began to spark and then caught fire, the two then ran away from it before it exploded running back to the RV. Some time later their grandpa comes back after he inspected the crash site and was informed by Ben and Gwen what they had just gone through, and by doing so Ben essentially admitted to disobeying his orders about not using the watch, which of course would lead to a scolding session.
"I was worried that you might get popular with that thing on your wrist. That's why I asked you not to fool around with it until we know what the heck it is. It could have made your current situation worse, maybe by aging you up, or de-aging you, or even making your condition permanent," he scolded.
"Sorry, Grandpa... I just really want to return to normal, I'd rather stay as an alien rather than a girl, I just had to try and fix this. But at the same time at least I figured out how to make it work. All you do is press this button. Then, when the ring pops up, just twist it until you see the guy you wanna be. Slam it down, and bammo! You're one of ten super-cool alien dudes!" he informed him.
"You mean "super-cool alien girls"? That fire one seemed rather feminine to me, who's to say the rest aren't girly?" Gwen teased.
"Hey, that one wasn't THAT girly, and even you said you couldn't tell if the hairy one was girly or not, so maybe the rest aren't girly too, and could probably turn me back into a guy, unlike the last two I turned into," he explained.
"Okay, since you'd prefer to be one of those aliens than a girl then what about staying a "super-cool alien dude" and not transforming back into a girly girl, or worse, your usual plain old pizza-face?" She asked.
"I- kinda haven't figured those parts out yet," Ben said glumly.
With that all said and done, their grandpa started thinking and came to a conclusion, "With a device as powerful as that watch clamped on you, my guess is we better help you learn, fast, especially if there's a way to turn you back to normal."
"Alright!" Ben exclaimed.
Right after their conversation the radio in the RV picked up a call from a panicked man,"*Mayday! Mayday! Somebody help us! We're under attack by some sort of - I know you're not going to believe me, but… robot!*"
"Sounds just like those things that attacked me. Must be looking for the watch. Those people are in trouble because of me! I think I can help them," he said.
"Er, you? What are you gonna do about it, Ms Tennyson?" Gwen asked.
Ben looked down at the watch, checking it over, then looked back at Gwen with a smirk on his face.
Not too long later the three are running towards the main campgrounds of the park where a robot is attacking the campers. They stop in the woods while Ben goes to activate his watch. Before he does so he looks to his grandpa, who nods in approval allowing him to try another transformation.
"Yeah," he said after activating the watch.
"Eenie, meenie, miney... Here goes!" He says as he presses the dial transforming into another alien. Crystals then envelope his entire body, leading to some sort of humanoid crystal like being.
"So what can this gal do?" Gwen asked.
"I don't know, but I bet it's going to be cool. Also, this one isn't-" he begins to say but then gets a better look at his transformation, checking out how slim the body is and the noticeable chest he now has.
"*sigh* Okay, yeah, this one's girly too," he admitted glumly.
At the main campsite people are running around trying to avoid the giant robots rampage as it blows up another RV. The three run up to the campsite where they see the robot destroying another RV.
"Looks like papa-robot this time," Ben said, then continued talking,"I'll get Gearhead's attention, you guys get the campers to safety."
Grandpa nods in agreement, motioning Gwen to follow him so they could evacuate the other campers. Ben's eyes glow, and he runs towards the giant robot as it grabs the Park Ranger, as he's helping one of the campers left behind, with the others running off screaming.
"Leave him alone! You want somebody to pick on? Try me," Ben tells the robot.
As he was talking the robot scanned Ben, identifying the target it's been looking for on his chest... The watch, not the chest. The robot drops the Park Ranger and blasts Ben away. He lands in an RV, which the robot also immediately blows up. Ben is underneath it, but manages to cut himself out with his arm which he turned into a blade. He examines his arm and form spikes all over it.
"Cool," he says to himself.
The robot starts walking towards him. Ben's eyes glow and he decides to test out his new blade arm and attack with it. The robot jumps in the air to avoid it, spinning its three legs and falling down on to Ben, trapping him underneath itself.
"Uh-oh. 'Think I'm in trouble."
Meanwhile both Gwen and their grandpa help the Park Ranger off the top of his totaled car while civilians run around with fires everywhere caused by the robot.
"What is going on here?" The Ranger asks the two.
"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you. Now come on," Gwen told the Ranger.
The ranger hesitates as Gwen and her grandpa run off, but runs once the giant robot throws Ben into his car, just barely missing him. As Ben is dodging various laser blasts a stray one hits a tree, causing it to fall down exactly where Gwen is standing. The tree is about to crush a wide eyed Gwen but is suddenly split in two by Ben who formed a crystal spike on his back, which was able to split the tree. Ben then retracts the spikes into himself.
"So, we even?" He asks, referring to the moment she helped him with the second drone from before.
She nods and says,"Even."
The robot then suddenly grabs his entire body with one hand.
"Uh-oh," he says as it lifts him up into the air.
It grabs his left arm and tries to pull his arm off, but he responds by turning his left arm into a spiky bladed arm, which destroys the robot's left hand. The robot then raises Ben further up and then fires him away into a small building using the laser gun on its palm. Elsewhere his grandpa helps Gwen on top of a fallen tree so they could get a better view of the fight. They see a destroyed building that Ben crashed into while the robot walks towards it to continue their fight.
"Ben!" He yells out worried.
Ben gets up from the ruble and forms two blade arms, which he then uses to block the next laser blast from the robot. As he does so, the laser blast at first spreads everywhere, being redirected by his reflective crystal body. Ben notices this as he's knocked down by the force of the laser. He then gets back up and gets up in front of the robot.
"C'mon! Burn one in here!" He taunts the robot, motioning it to fire at his chest.
"Get out of there. Run!" His grandpa yells.
The next shot fires and Ben holds his palms up to it. He is still pushed back by it a little, but he forms spikes on the bottoms of his feet helping him stay in place, allowing him to get the hang of reflecting the robots lasers.
""What comes around, goes around." Let's see how you like it, ya techno freak!" He yells.
Ben cuts the giant robot in half with the reflected laser blast, causing the upper half to explode while the lower half falls to the ground, then explodes too.
"All right!" Both Gwen and their grandpa yell out in excitement.
"Way to go Be-...um -- Diamond-headed gal!" Grandpa yells, stopping himself from saying Ben's name aloud so the other campers who were still nearby wouldn't figure out who the Diamond-headed gal was.
"Oh yeah! Who's bad?!" Ben said excitedly as he jumped up and down. "Yeah!"
Both Gwen and her grandpa silently motion to Ben that there's still a group of campers nearby. After he notices them, they both facepalm themselves while his grandpa shakes his head in embarrassment.
"Well, I... think my work here is done," he says, then jaunts away from the group into the forest.
"Who was that chick?" One of the campers asked aloud.
Both Gwen and her grandpa tiptoed away to avoid giving any info about who she was or what was going on. The rest of the campers noticed their disappearance and simply shrugged their shoulders.
*Meanwhile, up in space at the red star ship*
The ship's captain still floats in his healing tank as his ship undergoes repairs after the battle he was just in. Unfortunately for him he just discovered that his droids have failed in their mission.
"Failure?! Unbelievable! The puny Earth being that is keeping the Omnitrix from me- will soon hang on my trophy wall!" He said through pained breaths.
*Back at Earth, in the morning*
Both Gwen and her grandpa are packing up the camping supplies while a certain someone doesn't seem to be nearby.
"Where's Ben?" He asks, looking around.
"I Haven't seen him since breakfast," Gwen replies.
He then hears a distant sonic boom, before its source immediately appears in front of him in the form of a blue and black dinosaur looking alien.
"Ben?" He asks the thing.
"Yep. -Hey, check this out!" He says as he then packages up the remaining camping supplies back into the RV in less than four seconds.
"Pretty fast, huh?" Ben asks, but before he could get an answer, he turns back into his human self, but still female.
"Aw man, I'm beginning to think turning into these aliens won't turn me back to normal any time soon," he laments to himself.
"Don't worry Ben, we'll just have to keep testing this thing out, at least until something or someone comes up to help us out with this thing. We'll also need to train you in your alien forms just in case we get more unwelcome visitors," he informed his grandson, now granddaughter.
While Ben was still peeved about being a girl, he still had hope that this was only a minor setback in his summer road trip.
"Yeah, well anyway, despite my current "problem", I think this is gonna be the best summer ever," he said.
"Absolutely," his grandpa replied.
"It's definitely going to be interesting. So, where'd you go anyway?" Gwen asked him.
"Just had to take care of a couple of things before our vacation really got rolling," he informed her.
*Meanwhile, back at his hometown*
Two boys were dangling from a tree by their underwear, giving them an atomic wedgie, something they'd given to many other kids around the school.
"Dude. How'd we get up here?" Cash asked J.T.
"Uh, I'm not sure. It all happened so fast," he replied
"Hey, somebody? Anybody? Little help up here, please!" Cash asked anyone who could hear him.
*Meanwhile, in the darksteel star-ship*
"HA! Based, they deserved that, really all bullies should be bullied, or something. I don't know how to end bullying, I just know that bullies deserve to be trampled by a stampede of bulls, if only for the irony," the captain of the darksteel vessel said aloud.
"Anyway, anything new to report? Anyone aware of our presence, or are there any glitches with the Omnitrix?"
"Everything is as you desired my lord, there are no glitches, and the beings you've mentioned haven't shown up, neither now, then, or later," a crew member answered.
"Excellent, now activate the time lock from the beginning of the battle to now."
As a few crew members were working on a time lock, a beeping noise was being made by a computer being operated by a crew member.
"Incoming transmission my lord."
"Answer it, it shouldn't be a spam or scam caller, I've brutally murdered those rats, along with their families, some time ago... In a video game."
The crew member answered the call, and on the front bridge window the skies of Earth were replaced by a cold, metal room with one lone metallic being sitting on a throne.
"Ah Anon, I'm glad you could answer, I've just received the notification that you've told me about and I was wondering when I can make use of it?" The metallic being asked the captain.
"Wait about a year, she rarely kills her targets so you shouldn't have to worry about losing anything for your collection, and once there are fewer eyes on her, you'll be able to do whatever you wish to do, as long as it doesn't interfere with my plans," Anon informed him.
"But of course, why would I inconvenience my greatest benefactor? There is no reason to worry, I'm quite busy right now anyways, so I'll contact you again either when the time comes or sometime after."
"Good, now if that's all, I have a few other tests I need to get to as soon as possible."
"But of course, I wish you a good day, Mindslaver."
With that conversation over, the metallic being ended his transmission, leaving the bridge silent once again. Not long after one of the crew members working on the time lock spoke up.
"Time lock complete, my lord, we are ready for your further orders."
"Good, let's head to the other few realms, we must start my other plans immediately."
"We obey," all crew members on the bridge said aloud as they prepared the star-ship to leave the dimension.
Before they took off, the captain Anon stood up from his throne and walked out to the bridge windows. He looked below his star-ship at the RV below, the same one that Ben and her grandpa and cousin were in.
"Farewell Ben, see you in maybe eight years or so. I don't know, just don't die, that wouldn't be very cash money of you now would it be?... Why haven't we left yet, we're short on time!"
Just as he said that, the star-ship immediately jumped out of existence, into God knows where, leaving Ben to her own machinations in this corrupted timeline.