Chapter 1: Quiet Skies, Fractured Stars
The first thing Ben noticed was the quiet.
Not silence—the kind that echoed in burned-out ship corridors or during the cold pause before plasma fire—but true quiet. Honest, domestic, unfamiliar. A stillness that wasn't trying to hide anything. It unnerved him.
Golden light filtered through slatted blinds and warm bedsheets, casting soft lines across a room that felt like someone's memory of home. Clean corners. No blinking lights. No emergency warnings. Just… comfort.
Ben blinked slowly. For the first time in six years, he hadn't been force to wake up..
His body remained still, trained by years of muscle memory to assess first, move later. Then he felt her.
A gentle weight against his side. Soft breathing at his shoulder. A hand—warm, relaxed—resting on his chest.
He turned his head.
Gwen.
Curled beneath the same covers, facing him, red hair spilling across the pillow like molten threads. In the golden light, she looked untouched by time or war. Her breathing was steady, her face soft in a way that battlefield Gwen never allowed. Her features—normally sharp, always alert—were at peace.
Ben studied her in silence. It was definitely lust or maybe something deeper. Something sacred. A rare moment of stillness carved out of years of motion.
They had shared sleep before, sure. On ships. In bunkers. Behind energy shields while fires burned in the distance. Back-to-back, armed, armored, half-conscious. But this… this was real sleep. Human sleep. It had been years since either of them had felt it.
"I forgot what quiet feels like," he whispered.
She didn't stir.
He lay there a moment longer, watching her chest rise and fall, hand still on his chest like she belonged there. And maybe—just maybe—she did.
Then, carefully, he slid out from under her touch.
The floor beneath his feet was warm. Too warm. Artificial. Programmed.
He grabbed a soft gray shirt off the nearby chair—civilian wear, real cotton—and pulled it on as he stepped quietly out of the room. His eyes lingered for a breath longer on Gwen.
What could he say? She even looked beautiful when sleeping.
Of course, after six years without seeing another human girl, his standards were probably suffering—especially considering most of the ones he had seen lately had antennae, bioluminescent eyes, or hairstyles that looked like they lost a fight with a wormhole.
After taking a one last glance Ben moved down the stairs without a sound, each step perfectly balanced. Not out of caution, but habit. It had been trained into him—no creaks, no tells, no mistakes. In combat, footsteps cost lives.
But here… this wasn't combat. This was suburbia.
That made it worse.
Ben descended the stairs, expecting an empty house.
Instead, he found two very real, very out-of-place figures sitting in the living room.
One dressed like a Victorian watchmaker, sipping tea as if this were a normal morning.
The other floated inches above the carpet, silver-skinned and surrounded by a rotating halo of hard-light data interfaces.
Ben stopped cold.
Professor Paradox.
Azmuth.
He didn't react right away. Just stared.
Then, with a calm edge in his voice, he said, "You two are either way too early… or very late."
Paradox looked over his teacup. "And yet, here we are."
Azmuth's eyes narrowed. "You recognize us."
Ben took another step forward, measured and steady. "I remember things that don't fit. People, places, timelines... They don't line up."
He paused, eyes flicking to the floor, then back.
"My grandfather's running a moon with second grandma . I've got fragments in my head of someone named Kevin—but there's no sign of him anywhere. And the Omnitrix? I should've taken it off when I was eleven."
He turned his wrist. The Omnitrix shimmered. Alien silhouettes cycled through—some familiar, others glitching between forms.
"I've lived in this world," he said quietly. "But it feels… stitched together. Like pieces from somewhere else."
Paradox set down his teacup with a quiet clink. "You've held onto a memory thread. Even after the fusion."
Azmuth floated closer, his scanners flickering red. "That shouldn't be possible."
Ben crossed his arms. "And yet, here we are."
Paradox stood, pacing slowly. "You're not like the others. Most people adapted. Their memories realigned with the new continuity."
Azmuth muttered, " His perception baseline is misaligned with the fusion's cognitive matrix. Like he's operating on a different system entirely."
Footsteps echoed on the stairs.
Gwen appeared in the hallway, wearing Ben's oversized jacket and sleep shorts. Her hair was still tousled from sleep, but her eyes sharpened the moment she saw their guests.
"We're doing the crisis meeting this early?" she asked dryly.
Paradox smiled lightly. "Miss Tennyson. You look quite different from the last time I saw you."
Azmuth's scanner blinked again. "Fusion variant. Native to this strand."
Gwen raised an eyebrow. "Translation?"
Ben offered a slight smile. "Nothing serious. Just the usual timeline problems."
She gave him a long look but didn't press.
Paradox finally stopped pacing.
"We came to give you a warning," he said. "Some of your old acquaintances seem to be evolving—getting power boosts. According to Plumber records, Doctor Animo's been heavily involved with Hydra. Vilgax too—he's been seen coordinating with off-world warlords."
Azmuth added, more direct, "But we didn't come for them. We came for you."
Ben's voice was quiet. "You think I caused this?"
Paradox shook his head. "No. But you may be the one thing keeping the chemistry from exploding."
Ben stepped closer to the window. The street outside was peaceful. Sunlight. A bike rolling past. A newspaper on a porch.
Then, for the briefest second, it shimmered. Buildings flickered—alien towers, mutant beacons, overlays from other worlds. Gone in a blink.
He didn't turn around.
"I don't know what's real anymore, what should I supposed to do should I just become alien X which haven't even been unlock because omitrix didn't recoleberated and try to recreate the universe.."
Gwen stepped beside him, her voice low but steady. "I really don't like the idea of new univers so can we think about something else."
Paradox looked out past them, into the rising sun.
"This world is built on fractured foundations," he said. "And you, Ben Tennyson… you might be standing at the fault line."
Ben didn't answer.
But deep down, he knew Paradox was right.
Something had cracked.
And whether he liked it or not—he was part of it.
I am still not sure if I should write this story and I am even thinking about the part about ban × Gwen to make at this into a normal FanFiction with normal fetish since I can't decide the direction I hope you guys could give me some suggestion