Chapter 2
"1-A, 1-A, 1-A, Where is 1-A?" Ben mutters to himself while wandering through the halls of UA. "There's 1-B, so 1-A should be right-. Oh, Damn. That's a big ass door." The door in question was the door leading into Class 1-A. The door was easily fifteen feet tall and at least five feet wide. Making his way into the classroom, the American Boy calls out, "Aizawa?! Are you there?!"
An annoyed groan could be heard from behind the teacher's desk before, in a grumpy, tired voice, whoever was behind said, "Zashi! Not now, you know this is when I nap!"
Walking behind the desk, Ben could see a giant yellow cocoon of sorts. It suddenly rolled over, revealing the face of a scruffy man who clearly hadn't slept enough.
The man's bloodshot eyes stared into Ben's emerald orbs. "You're not Hizashi. Who are you?"
"I'm Ben, Ben Tennyson, and Principal Nezu needs you," Ben tells the tired man while jabbing his thumb at the door.
"Ugh," the older man groaned while rolling his eyes and crawling out of his sleeping bag, "What is he needing this time?"
"It's a long story, and I believe he will be able to explain it better than I can."
"I see," Aizawa then made his way to the door, allowing Ben to get a good look at him. The tired man had pitch-black hair that matched his clothing beside a tangled-up gray scarf around his neck. He suddenly stopped in the doorway to look back into the classroom. "You coming?"
…
Luckily, the walk back to Nezu's office didn't take very long. Aizawa's tired mood gave off an intense aura that Ben only got from Magisters back home during a prisoner transfer.
The duo entered the office. The first words that left Aizawa's mouth were, "My nap was interrupted."
"Well, considering you expelled your entire homeroom this year, I figured an hour or two out of your oh-so-busy schedule should be okay," Nezu retorts. "Ben here needs a place to stay while I create a new identity for him."
"Villain attack or favor?"
"Favor, this young man here is a hero from a different dimension who is a little down on his luck."
Aizawa hesitated momentarily, "If anyone else told me that, I would tell them to screw off, right?"
"Of course, but considering I let you expel your entire class this year, you can trust me," Nezu said cheerily.
"Very true. Since young Tennyson here is from another dimension, I need to know what happened to him. I don't really care who the explanation comes from." Glancing to his right, Aizawa could make out Ben's shaken form. "Not only do I need an explanation, but I'm going to need the rest of the week off to get this young man situated."
"Sounds perfect, Aizawa; before you go, I'd suggest you get the boy a decent meal. I'm guessing he hasn't eaten in the last," The principal paused to guess, "two days?"
"H-How could you have known I haven't eaten in the last two days?" The teen was shocked at the correct guess."
"Simple, an incredible sense of hearing plus the highest intelligence in Japan equals pretty good people reading skills," Nezu says with a smirk.
"Before we go and get young Tennyson here some food, I would like an email and everything you have on the boy." Aizawa chimes in, getting the conversation back on track.
"I sent it the moment Ben left this room to collect you."
"I would expect nothing less." Aizawa's gruff stance softened when he turned to Ben. "Come on, let's get going."
…
A little down the hall, Aizawa asks Ben, "So, a second dimension? What is that place like?"
"It's quite different from here, from the," Ben looks down to the Omnitrix where a small holographic display of a digital watch appeared, "hour I've been in this world, things are drastically different."
"Okay, what's the first thing that's different from back home for you?"
"Aliens don't exist here."
Aizawa pauses midstep only momentarily before walking back in sync with the dimensional traveler. "Considering you're from another dimension, aliens existing won't surprise me."
"Honestly, this isn't even the first dimension I've been to. First, one to have superhero schools, though," Ben comments offhandily.
An inquisitive look came over Aizawa's face for a second, "With Nezu calling you a hero and with no hero schools back home, you're more of a vigilante then?"
"I was before I went to the Plumber's Academy. There, I became trained to be a Plumber, but I act freelance, so I'm 'technically' not a Plumber. Comes in handy when officially the Plumbers aren't allowed to do anything." Suddenly, a stray thought came to Ben's mind. A particular green-skinned Plumber was getting into Ben's face "Larbel Depteroid," was all the memory said before the teen brushed it away.
"Plumbers? Like pipes and water plumbers?" Aizawa was confused by the name.
"That's actually a common mistake. Plumbers are the intergalactic peacekeeping core in my universe. My Grandpa Max was actually one of the best plumbers out there, making his way all the way up to Magister, and that was before… enough about him." Ben's tone suddenly went somber at the mention of his Grandfather.
"So you're essentially a space cop?" Aizawa clarified.
"Officially, no, but yes, yes, I am."
"If that's the case, I bet you have some interesting stories." Aizawa was trying to get some more information out of the child. "What was the first villain you put behind bars?"
"I would have to say, Dr. Animo," Ben remembered that first summer. "Right when I started, I was in Washington D.C. with my cousin and Grandpa at a grocery store doing your normal thing. Things go crazy when a man riding a giant mutated frog comes bursting out of a wall of TVs. He starts grabbing some tech from an aisle and shoving it into a bag. Being a dumb kid, I yell at the guy. Not wanting a ten-year-old in his way, he sicks the frog on me. I get away, luckily, but by the time I get back, he has mutated half the pet aisle, and a giant carnivorous hamster is trying to eat my cousin and Grandpa."
"Wait, so his quirk was to mutate animals?"
"No, he built a device that allowed him to mutate and control animals." Ben paused briefly; I think "I left the prototype in my-. Sorry, I got sidetracked." Aizawa noticed the same dip in Ben's mood that he had when talking about his grandfather earlier. "Where was I? Right, giant hamster. With some awesome parkour and a scooter, I was able to trap the hamster until the mutation faded because Animo got away."
"I thought you stopped him?"
"I'm getting there." They just reached the parking lot to get into Aizawa's car. "So it turns out the stuff he stole from that store he upgraded his trasmodulator, dumb name. Now, instead of just mutating animals, he could now 'reanimate dormant cells,' essentially reanimating extinct animals."
"Wait, so at ten years old, you stopped a genius-level intellect that just reanimated; what a dinosaur?" Aizawa was dumbfounded by how casual Ben was about all that.
"Yes, and the T-Rex was after the mammoth I had to fight. While I was fighting the mammoth, my cousin was kidnapped by a mutated cockatiel while Animo rode the T-rex to steal an award from an old colleague of his."
"How come there weren't any Plumbers there to help stop him?"
"The Earth's space was allocated to a single Magister after Grandpa handled Vil… a villain that was causing a lot of trouble and retired shortly after. To bring this long story to an end, Grandpa and I track down the bird and Gwen. I transform and fly after the two of them, saving her before finding Animo and damaging his transmodulator, turning the T-Rex back into a pile of bones. The police came by not too long later and arrested the guy." After mentioning the villain that his grandfather handled, Ben wanted to get through the rest of the story as quickly as he could.
"Wow, talk about a small world, or dimensions? You said he had a mutant frog, right?"
"A frog? Yeah, when I was a kid, last year though, he attacked the city with about a dozen of them and almost gotten eaten by some of them."
"My first major villain was also a giant frog-like villain. It looked like something you would see in those old Kaiju movies."
"Dude, those villains suck!" Ben called out, remembering the handful of giant villains.
"You fought more than one of these guys?" Aizawa asks in confusion.
Causally, Ben waves it off. "Yeah, I've fought my fair share of them. My Earth actually got invaded by a race of frog people that used giant aliens as slaves to conquer the planet."
"Please tell me you're exaggerating."
"Sadly, no, I was exiled from the planet for a month, and Earth was under Incursean control for that whole time."
"How did you beat them?"
"After a little help from the creator of the Omnitrix, I transformed into an Incursean and snuck back onto Earth. While undercover, I saved my team from being arrested, and we made our way into Plumber Base. As soon as they gained control, they locked all the plumbers up and in our holding cells after banishing me. While we were down there, I was able to help out Grandpa Max and reveal to my team that I was Undercover. The frogs are still unaware that I was back on Earth, so to get the heat off my team, I put on a show while stopping one of those giant aliens I was telling you about."
"What did you do to stop something that big? I barely survived my fight with Garvey."
"I fought it on equal footing. I transformed into one of those giant aliens getting the attention of the Incureans and fought one of the Way Bada, only for two more to show up. Lucky for me, my partner was able to strap a Null Void projector to his ship and send them away."
"A Null what now?"
"Oh, it's a thing that makes a portal to a pocket dimension we use as a prison." Before Ben could say another word, his stomach suddenly began rumbling.
"Nezu wasn't kidding; your gut sounds like a chainsaw." Aizawa jokes with the kid. "What do you want to eat? We can get you some new clothes too, 'cause I'm betting you only have the ones on your back."
"You're not wrong," Ben says with a hollow chuckle. "Know of a good smoothie place?"
-Chapter 3: Not in Bellwood Anymore Part 3-
As Ben and Aizawa left Mr. Twisters, a smoothie joint with a rainbow spiral for a logo, The tired man was eyeing Ben for his odd choice of smoothie flavor. The duo walked further into the Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall window shopping to find a clothing store that fits Ben's preferences.
"Please tell me they didn't put actual grasshoppers in that smoothie." Aizawa questions.
"Don't worry about it," Ben says with a slight grin. Due to his grandfather's "unique" flavor palette, Ben picked up some strange tastes, at least when it comes to smoothies.
As the two of them were walking through the mall, Ben was surprised at how normal it looked besides a store or two being designed for people whose powers made shopping for clothes more difficult.
"Something has been bugging me," Ben started, "Even though you asked me questions about my home, you never questioned whether or not I'm telling the truth. Why is that?"
"I've known Principal Nezu for years now." Aizawa took a deep breath to think. "He's many things crazy, smart, and annoying, but he's not a liar. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a hundred percent the truth because he did the research to make sure it was." Taking a sip of his own smoothie, Aizawa asked his question. "So, how did you make it to this dimension?"
Looking away from the teacher, Ben didn't quite know what to say. "I'm not internally sure. Of what I do know, I'm not ready to talk about everything. To make a long story short, I'm getting out of the hero business, and I wanted to destroy my souvenirs from over the years. Before I could destroy them, I was suddenly in Nezu's office."
"I see. It must have been jarring suddenly being thrown across dimensions. If you don't mind me asking you about your powers, what are they? You mentioned transforming into things back at UA."
"Oh yeah, I was talking about my powers like we were in my universe," Ben said, tapping his forehead due to his blunder. The otherworldly teen raised his left arm, revealing a slim white wristwatch with green accents and a black faceplate with an hourglass-shaped symbol. "This is the source of my powers. The Omnitrix allows me to transform into any alien from my dimension. When I'm transformed, I gain access to the basic instincts and abilities of the species along with whatever weakness they may have."
"I see; how long have you had the Omnitrix?"
"I've had this model for almost a year now, but I got the prototype when I was ten," Ben said nonchalantly, sipping his smoothie.
"Why so young? Shouldn't there have been Plumbers around?"
"Besides Grandpa and a few other retired Plumbers, Earth space was pretty barren until the Highbreed War when I was fifteen. After Grandpa took care of a warlord, they weren't needed in the sector."
"Still, I don't know why you got the Omnitrix." Aizawa was confused as to how Ben got such a powerful device.
"It was an accident, really. The watch was being transported across the universe to be given to Grandpa, but the transport ship was attacked by that same warlord I mentioned; he wanted the watch to make an army of Omnitrix users. To ensure he didn't get it, the ship launched the Omnitrix to the Earth's surface, where it was supposed to be given to Grandpa. When the pod got close to us, it locked onto my DNA signature instead."
"That's a lot to take in." Aizawa commented, "How many transformations do you have?"
"I think I have access to about sixty aliens, but I lost count a while back. When fully unlocked, there are over a million aliens in the watch." Ben's off-handily comments.
"A million forms? No wonder that warlord wanted the Omnitrix." Aizawa thinks to himself before composing himself. "What can these forms do? You commented they had powers."
"Honestly, I lost count of all my powers," Ben started to count on his hand. "I have super strength, super speed, and super durability. I have a ton of elemental abilities: fire, ice, electricity, you name it, I have it. At this point, it's easier to list the powers I don't have."
"Holy crap, I knew he was going to be powerful with all those forms, but that many powers. He has to be the most powerful person on the planet." Aizawa couldn't hide his dumbfounded expression. "So-so this comes all from your watch? So if someone were to take it from you, you would be powerless?"
Giving an unsure gesture, Ben explains the limits of the watch. "Yeah, whenever the Omnitrix is recharging or if it gets removed from me, I'm just a regular human. Considering the watch is fused to my DNA, and it is all but impossible to remove it from me, I don't have to worry about it. The one time someone did steal the watch, they had a specially designed device to splice DNA." Ben's eyes narrowed when he mentioned how the watch was stolen.
"What happened to the person who stole the watch from you?" Aizawa was trying to gauge how Ben was feeling.
"I don't want to go into detail about it, but after all these years, he is a nonissue for the foreseeable future." Ben's tone was much darker than Aizawa had expected.
"Soo, did you have a team back home?" Aizawa asked, hoping to cheer Ben up.
"I did, my cousin, two of my best friends, and my…" Ben trailed off momentarily, not finishing the sentence. "My cousin Gwen was one of the best sorceresses on Earth. While her boyfriend and my-"
"Wait, wait, wait, you said sorceress. Magic is a thing on your Earth?" Aizawa cut off Ben.
"Yeah, there aren't many magic users back home, but it's common enough across the universe for planets to have some mystical connection. Gwen got lucky getting the spark of the Anodites."
"The what?"
"Our grandmother is an Andodite, an energy being that can manipulate Mana or life energy. Andodites don't have DNA in the traditional sense, so getting alien powers from them is the luck of the draw."
"So you are.."
"A quarter alien, yes."
"This is a lot to take in. Let's finish shopping, and we can set you up at my place. How does that sound?" Aziawa was so thrown off by all the information that was being thrown at him.
"Sounds perfect."
…
After another hour of shopping at the mall, Ben and Aizawa made it to the teacher's apartment. The place was pretty standard, being a two bed and two bath. It was reasonably obvious Aizawa didn't spend too much time here. There were the bare essentials for decor: couch, tv, coffee table, no pictures or nit naks around the place. The Omnitrix wielder couldn't say much about Aizawa's design style because he knew being a hero consumes a lot of free time.
"I'm going back to the car to grab the last couple of bags; your room is the one on the left." Aizawa pointed to said room.
"Ok, thanks," while holding three overstuffed bags, Ben opens the door to his new room. He was shocked to see that the room was already set up with a bunk bed desk combo when the desk was underneath. On the desk was a slim, green and black laptop.
Throwing the bags of clothes into the foot of his closet, Ben goes to check out the new computer. The screen saver was that of the classic green alien head. Turning to look around the small room, he noticed how a previous student couldn't have left behind some decorations that the teacher could have taken in. On the dresser was a six-inch sumo figure and a note in surprisingly good English; besides, the e's were all sideways, almost making them look like a u. "I couldn't find anything Sumo Slammers, but I did find this little guy and thought it looked cool."
…
Waiting for Aizawa to return inside, Ben starts setting up his room how he likes it. Not having to wait too long, the gruff man brings the last of their shopping haul into Ben's room.
"Hey, Aizawa, does anyone else live here?" Ben asked, curious as to how his room was already set up.
"No, but one of my friends has a spare key. When we were at the mall, I texted him to get some things ready for us when we got back." Aizawa explained. "Whenever you mentioned something from back home you liked, I also had him pick up something close to it for you."
"That would explain why there was the note about Sumo Slammers," Ben says, connecting the dots.
"You said you wanted to destroy your souvenir from when you were a hero, right?" Aizawa asked, opening an email on his phone.
"Yeah," Ben answered, unsure about where this was going. "What about it?"
"Nezu thinks he found them. There was a security breach just after you arrived," Aizawa shows the teen what was on the screen. It was a picture of a black sports car with green accents crossing over the hood to create an X; on the hubcaps was the same hourglass design that was on the Omnitrix. "We are assuming this is your car."
"That's mine for sure," Ben said despondently. "Where did you guys find it?"
"It was in the parking lot on the opposite side of campus from where we were." Aizawa closed the picture to message Nezu back. "If you'd like, we can have the car delivered here so you can decide what to do with it."
"Thank you," Ben stated, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him. "That car just has so many memories. I-I can't…" Sadly, Ben was losing that fight with himself and collapsed onto his new desk chair.
"Hey, you don't need to say anything else. I'm assuming you lost someone close to you?" Aizawa kneels next to Ben so they are at eye level. "I know that feeling. Remember that kaiju villain I was telling you about earlier?"
"Yeah, the frog guy," Ben says, wiping away a tear.
"During that fight, one of my best friends passed away. His name was Oboro. We were around your age when he died." Despite Oboro's death being a little over a decade ago, it was still hard for Aizawa to think about. "He was energetic and a loud mouth, but he and Hizashi did their best to pull me out of my shell. Sadly, despite having all the energy in the world, it couldn't stop all the rubble."
"An old villain of mine decided it was time to get personal." Ben started, "He was tired of me always one-upping him and foiling his plans. I always knew he was a monster but never thought he would go that far." The Omnitrix wielder put his face into his hands, mumbling something to himself.
"What was that?" Aizawa couldn't make out what Ben was saying.
"IT'S MY FAULT!" Ben suddenly yelled. "It's my fault they are gone!" He then quickly activates the Omnitrix, bringing up a holowheel with a series of head icons. Selecting an icon, the faceplate slides back, and the core rises from the watch. Ben quickly slammed the dial back down. The American teen disappeared in a flash of green light, and a six-foot blue mothlike humanoid took his place. The alien's large wings were folded around his body like a cloak.
"Big Chill," the newly transformed Necrofriggian called in an eerie voice. His breath could be seen due to the temperature around him dropping significantly due to his presence. "I appreciate the hospitality, Aizawa, but there is something I need to do."
Big Chill became translucent as he began to phase through the ground. "Ben, wait!" Aizawa's hair began to float as his eyes began to glow red. Reaching out, the tired teacher's hand went right through the alien's head. Big Chill then disappeared through the floor. "Shit!"
Dashing out of the room, Aizawa pulled up the first number on his speed dial. "Hey Sho. How's the kid?" the voice from the other side of the phone casually asked.
"Zashi, He's gone!" Aizawa yells into his phone as he dashes out of the apartment. "He phased through the floor!"
"How did he get away from you, of all people? You didn't stop his quirk?"
"Look, it's a long story, but we need to search for him. I think I know where he went, but just in case, get Nemuri on the horn and have her go to the Kiyashi Mall."
…
Soaring over the city, Big Chill was invisible as he backtracked his steps through the day. He just passed the mall and Mr. Twisters. The Necrofriggian noticed a familiar red and blue light flash in the corner of his vision.
As long as Ben has been in the hero game, he gained some muscle memory that he can't go against. Banking the right, Big Chill phased through the corner of the building, leaving behind a bit of frost. Catching up to the police, Ben noticed they were chasing down a car driving like a maniac.
"Alrighty, big guy, what did you do?" Big Chill comments to himself just as the car's sunroof opens and loose bills fly out. "Ah, got to love robbers." Ben was reminiscing about the good memories of his team taking down petty thieves.
A masked man rose from the sunroof with loose bills flying around him. He points a finger gun at the police car chasing him. The thief's shoulder ignites in flames before crawling down his arm to his hand. The fire went to the back of his hand, going in between his pointer and middle finger, shooting out a baseball-sized fireball at law enforcement.
"Oh shit, these guys are not playing around." Picking up speed, Big Chill dropped down, phasing through the road while invisible, dodging a second fireball. Flying through the ground, he got ahead of the racing car. Rising halfway through the pavement, Big Chill dropped his body temp to freeze the engine block as the car drove through him.
"Piece of junk!" The driver of the thief's car called out, not realizing what happened to his vehicle. As he looked up out of his windshield, he noticed a distorted outline of a person that quickly turned into the blue and black form of Big Chill. "Son of a… Hey, Big Guy hero, twelve o'clock!"
Hearing his buddy from inside the car, the fire user turned around. He pointed dual-finger guns at the otherworldly teen. "If you know what's good for ya, move it, Bug Boy."
Big Chill didn't say a word, only crossing his arms as he folded his wings to become his cloak.
"I warned ya!" The villain called out a dozen fireballs at Big Chill. "Prepare to be incinerated!"
The flames were instantly diminished when the first fireball hit the sub-zero body of the Necrofriggian. Before the wayward fireballs could wiz by the alien and possibly hurt a civilian, Big Chill extended his wings to create a miniature shield of sorts.
Taking flight, Big Chill was in the thrive's face before the man could react. Grabbing both of his wrists, the surprisingly strong alien forces the crook to spread his arms apart as his body is coated in a block of ice courtesy of Big Chill's ice breath.
"I think it's time for you to Chill out." The cold alien quips, seeing the driver attempting to make a break for it to escape. Sadly, the scared man had no chance of escaping. One ice loogie later, the man's feet were frozen to the road.
…
Floating above the frozen criminals, Big Chill watched the shivering crooks be handcuffed. "Now that's what a hero is meant to do," Ben comments to himself with a small smile. A thought crossed his mind before turning invisible, unable to be seen by a soul.
…
"How did you already lose him!" Hizashi Yamada, the pro hero: Present Mic, shouted at Aizawa while he paced through the UA parking lot. The blonde hero almost activated his quirk, Voice, allowing him to create devastating sound waves.
Aizawa leaned against his car, not breaking eye contact with Ben's car. "You try stopping someone with intangibility and tell me how that goes. I'm just hoping I'm right about where he is going."
"Well, I mean, you're not wrong." An eerie voice came from next to the black-haired teacher. When the two looked over to the empty space, they were blinded by a sudden flash of green light. The human form of Ben Tennyson sat next to Aizawa. "Remember when I told you this car is full of memories?"
Aizawa, not wanting to scare off the unstable teen, the black-haired teacher hesitantly responded. "Yeah, you said you wanted to destroy those memories."
The American teen sulked to the back end of the car. "I was being more literal than you might imagine." The Omnitrix flashed for a moment, unlocking the car's truck. Reaching in, Ben pulled out a green leather jacket with a white stripe on the left side, where a white ten sat in the middle of a black circle. "This car is full of souvenirs and pictures of my past adventures." The broken boy sounded melancholic but had a nostalgic smile on his lips. That slight grin disappeared as he remembered what he needed to do. "I was planning on torching everything in here."
Hizashi, being curious, peaked into the truck. He noticed a photo album that was propped open. One picture is of a young Ben next to his cousin on that summer vacation that started everything. Grabbing the photo album, Hizashi could not help himself from asking. "Why would you want to destroy all of this? Some of this stuff looks really cool."
"Because it's just a constant reminder of my failure, but I think I should probably keep this stuff," Ben said with a nod to himself.
"What changed your mind? Asked Aizawa.
"My flight over here was more eventful than you would imagine. It also helped me clear my head. If I threw this part of my life away, I would be spitting on what my family fought for. I know I want to do good, but I don't know if I can still be a hero."
Aizawa put a steady hand on the teen's shoulder. "The fact you still want to do good in this world means you still have the heart of a hero despite everything. The next school year doesn't start for another ten months. You have plenty of time to decide what you want to do, but I would be honored to fight crime alongside a hero with your spirit, Ben."
Hizashi was too energetic for his own good, quickly throwing an arm around Ben. "Plus, I want to see those crazy transformations Sho told me about."
Even though Ben still had a lot on his mind, he couldn't help but smile at Hizashi's enthusiasm. Wrapping his arm around the blonde's shoulder, they looked like old friends reuniting. "I'll show you a few of my aliens back at the apartment, but first, let's get my stuff home."