Chapter Text
Ben looked curiously at the charms of Bezel in one of his four hands.
What looked like nothing more than stones with strange symbols on them had proven, quite easily, that they had a great deal of power in them despite their plain appearance, Ben fought against them after all
Gwen had thrown a sizable shovel at him to destroy them, but a part of him had seen what enchantments could do, and... the look on Gwen's face as she saw the charms told him much, she had not formulated the courage to destroy them, so she chose to send the job to him.
He then tossed the leather with the spells back to his cousin, who blinked slightly.
"Hey, what gives?" she asked looking at the Tetramand who was looking away and used one of his lower arms to scratch his cheek. "You're supposed to break them."
"You uh... you sounded pretty excited about the whole throwing electricity and stuff thing, and you seemed to like this whole magic thing and...I..." was all Four Arms said as the look on his cousin's face made him feel regret only for not actually breaking them, it was rare for her to see him with bright eyes and a huge grin on her dork face. "I'd appreciate some magical help being a hero, okey?."
Ben watched her prance from where she stood, and ran to him, he was confused about what she wanted before he twitched when she gave him a hug with a huge smile, barely reaching near his knee.
"Thank youthankyouthankyou! I'm sure I would have regretted it if I let you break them."
From the difference in sizes and musculature, it was more like a father being hugged by his daughter, however the ten year old only grimaced looking away and one of his hands patted her head gently, slightly embarrassed as she giggled contentedly.
Unbeknownst to them, that was a small change that had completely changed their destiny.
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Ben had regretted it almost the next day.
If anyone ever told you that Gwendolyn Tennyson was a sweet, gentle girl, that person was fucking lying.
She was just as nasty as Ben was, sometimes worse, MOST times.
Giving her the Charms of Bezel and the Archamada book (that XLR8 stoled), i.e. access to magic, had only made everything that much worse.
Especially because of Gwen's favorite enchantment, the Luck Charm.
Apparently it altered the odds in her favor, affecting the luck of others around her.
Which meant that Ben had gone from sometimes having the right alien to the dial practically becoming useless when he was near her, or the timer had started to miss a lot more.
He'd almost been dissected for being stuck as Greymatter! Or where he'd caught a cold from eating ice cream, as if that is how that works in the slightest.
Not to mention that he...well, now had Lucky Girl for a partner...or rival.
To put it simply, even after what he'd told her, she was still kind of pissed off with all his "real hero" talk and the whole thing enough to want to compete with him.
Oh, and they'd been up against an octopus-faced guy who with one touch of the watch was able to turn him back to human, he'd destroyed an entire city, hundreds of people had been killed, Ben had watched and watched the news for days wondering if he hadn't been bugging Gwen with Upgrade he could have saved more people sooner.
And then there was the matter of blowing up the octopus face.
He was...
Kind of freaked out by that.
Ben had considered Vilgax dead, had shot him with a weapon made to harm him specifically, into the core of his ship after his gramps had rendered it unstable, and had seen the wreckage of said ship falling from the sky.
Grandpa had told him the next day how a nuclear bomb had exploded against Vilgax, and for the looks of it, he survived it.
And that had been before returning more machine than flesh against him.
Processing that had made him ask her something two weeks after Vilgax's attack, when they had encountered Hex and his niece, Charmcaster, and Gwen had added another thing to his arsenal of magical items.
"So, recapping" Ben mentioned as he lifted the two straps Gwen had made to make it easier to carry the amulets on him, three amulets one side, two on the other. "Telekinesis, controlling fire, electricity, resurrecting, and being super lucky is what they do."
"And the Keystone apparently increases the power of the amulets, as well as increasing my abilities tenfold" Gwen replied raising the red colored amulet in her hand, which still was attached bracelet surrounded by blue and yellow leather.
After the wizard had tried to take the Charms back, Gwen had surprised him with that they had taken Archamada's book with them, and had been studying the spells and incantations and rituals in it.
Charmcaster who had tried to act friendly with her until he discovered she had Bezel's charms and had lunged for them, and if it hadn't been for XLR8 being able to get them off his uncle's back, he probably would have succeeded.
Needless to say, discovering that the Keystone multiplied the power of the other amulets several times over had been like giving Gwen an overdose of sugar.
"I must admit, they're cooler than I thought," Ben commented before folding his arms with a sly grin. "Not as cool as the Omnitrix though."
"Say that when you get a face full of seafood, again" he told him mockingly, angering his cousin slightly.
"So Hex and that white haired cute girl…"
"Her name is Charmcaster" Gwen stated before raising an eyebrow. "Cute?"
"Yeah, she was kind of cute, even I can admit that. Though it might be out of villain charm talking" Ben stated with a shrug without any shame. "What did they want the charms for? I mean, so far they've only attacked super ancient but didn't they say WHY they wanted them for or something?" he asked as he pulled the telekinesis amulet from its strap and looked at it with mild interest. "Taking magic junk off them is fun but it would be... I don't know, what would they want them for, you know, beyond being evil and stuff."
"I don't know, they probably have other people on top of them so maybe they just want all the power they can get" Gwen shrugged slightly.
"...Hey."
"Hmmm?"
"Would you mind if I borrowed some?"
"Of course not!" Gwen almost snatched the charm out of his hand. "You already have the watch, this is mine!" she declared almost desperately, but the anger in her voice was more than palpable.
"Hey, don't forget who it was that gave them to you in the first place instead of breaking them!" shouted Ben back.
"What goes around doesn't come around!" yelled Gwen back at him.
"I'm not taking it you psycho, I just want to see if I can use it!" commented Ben, he didn't know whether or not he was thankful that Grandpa was changing the fuel in the Rust Bucket because he didn't know which side he would be on. "I just figured if I mixed my aliens with magic, I'd be invincible!"
"Uh-hu" commented Gwen holding the amulets closer. "And why should I just leave them with you just like that, huh? You don't appreciate magic at all, it would just be one more way you have to kick bad guys butt!"
"You say that like that's a bad thing" Ben refuted before the angry look she was giving him made him look away. "And that's not true, I didn't know magic existed until all of this, plus you, uh... you looked pretty cool"
"Hmm?"
"With the magic and all" Ben commented, crossing his arms, reluctantly. "My aliens can't do much against magical luck, and I suppose knowing how to do a few things when the watch is out of fuel would come in handy."
"Aha... say that again."
"What?"
"What did you think about me using magic, huh?"
"...You looked pretty cool" Ben reluctantly agreed, then asked slightly softer. "So...could you...please teach me magic or lend me the charms from time to time?"
She stared at him, a cocky smile plastered on her face, seeing him pleading like that almost made her feel bad.
Almost.
She flicked him on the nose with her finger having ten times her normal strenght before sticking her tongue out at him. "When the pigs fly, freak" she declared as she picked up the charms and turned away.
She actually felt completely fine for doing that.
Nog even when she got out of the RV and looked at the angry expression and eyes flashing into something that was much more pitiful did it change how she felt... not at all.
Not even a little bit.
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The day they had met Vilgax had been the day Gwen had felt completely useless and desperate like never before.
And that was saying a lot when her cousin had the ability to turn into aliens.
From the moment she had gotten the Charms of Bezel and a few weeks later they would find the Keystone, added that Ben had gotten her the Archamada Book of Spells and shortly after that she had gotten the book from Charmcaster it had been a mix that had made her feel like she was invincible ever since.
But that day she would never forget, and she wanted to change it.
Ben could transform into a single alien, yes, they were each strong in their own way, yes.
But she could use a lot more spells and had a lot more potential and abilities and!... she would admit it had gone to her head as he looked at her sometimes between jealous, angry or wanting to cry, she sometimes laughed at him for that and any sign of sadness on his face went away for complete anger.
That was better, she didn't need to feel bad for the Doofus.
Not when she was the one who knew all about magic, when she didn't need to transform to be a hero, she was the real deal.
And then they met Vilgax, and that very much proved her wrong.
Gwen had never thought before that she could be so suspicious or angry with her grandfather for not saying anything until she saw how every one of her spells and incantations and everything she knew wasn't something the Chimera Sui Generis had even noticed or cared about, Ben had done more as Heatblast than she had with the book or the Charms of Pyrokinesis.
And she had seen it hours later even worse.
The Omnitrix had been constantly exposed to her mana, once it had been exposed to more energy in Vilgax ship, Ben's transformations had gone haywire.
She had watched, concentrating on Ben's mana, as he constantly changed forms, seen Vilgax shatter the head of and XLR8 had been changed by Fourarms before Ben could escape the blow, and watched as not a single one of Ben's aliens could against Vilgax, and for the first time in so long she didn't even know he had done it before, felt Ben's absolute terror and worry the moment his mana grew weaker with every moment, had heard Wildmutt's plaintive whimpers as he sank his teeth into Vilgax's almost metallic muscles and it choked him in response before slamming him into the ground.
She had felt genuine terror the moment she had seen the monster smash the Rust Bucket and knock her out with ease.
And Ben had still tried to fight.
It was Ben, she had told herself, no matter how much of an idiot he was, he always found a way to get ahead, to beat the bad guy at the end of the day and show it off to her face.
Except when he didn't.
She'd made him feel like when he first fought Kevin, seeing Ben utterly down, regretful, and just…lost after everything.
He just turned himself in and even after leaving Vilgax on a ship about to be destroyed, he hadn't gotten around to showing off like before.
No, but she had expected it, in fact, she had even thought that "he's waiting for the best time to do it" and was was on edge around him.
But he didn't, not the next day, not two days later, not a week later.
It wasn't until one night when she hadn't been able to sleep that she looked at Ben lying on his bed, shaking as he breathed deeply and heavily.
She had seen him in the crater where he had landed, looking up at the sky, holding the arm that had been dislocated when he had switched to XLR8 and got smashed against a rock for Vilgax, completely silent as he had wondered how he had survived all this before.
And then he turned around to see them with the hint of a smile.
Reality hit her harder than she would like to admit.
Ben was…to her annoyance, the bravest person she would ever meet, and to her even worse annoyance he was also adept at using his alien abilities when she had to work and train to achieve the same effects with her magic, or that was how she looked at it.
But he was a kid.
They were children.
He had faced terrible and horrifying things that made her stomach quiver just to remember, Ben had actively stood up to all of it, as a human or as an alien even when any other kid his age would still be terrified of the change in their whole bodies.
But that had been the first time he had let it show how truly terrified he was of things, and how helpless he had felt.
She didn't relent until two weeks later for three things.
Kevin Returns
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Ben looked at the picture that Gwen was showing him, then at his cousin, and then back at the picture. "That's not me" he declared before returning to his video game without giving a second thought.
"Oh, so an alien looking like you just appeared out of nowhere?" she accused him with her arms crossed.
Ben inhaled deeply before holding up a finger. "First, about a week after I got the watch, we ran into Tetrax, who, in case you hadn't noticed, looks just like Diamondhead" then he held up another finger. "Second, I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't see that Four Arms-lite has the Omnitrix" he raised the third finger waving the watch. "And this thing looks pretty green to have just timed out, you know" he growled at her when she only frowned and leaned down to meet his eyes.
"Are excuses the only thing you can have to defend yourself?"
"Oh you can go to…"
"Ben!" Max exclaimed making his grandson bite his tongue, before he saw him cross his arms looking away. "I'm sure there's a credible explanation for this," he stated, placing a hand on Gwen shoulder.
"Grandpa, is Ben you're talking about" she responded, looking back at Ben who simply turned to see her grandpa. "There is no explanation that is enough for this"
And she'd swallowed her words twenty minutes later.
It had probably been to think that it was still him, to think that he was actually freaking out because he had so much power and because she might tease him from time to time because she could use magic, but to think that it was Ben, and that he wasn't going to hurt her, made her act without fear to what he would do..
It made her go towards Heatblast even if she didn't have the Charms on her.
"Gwen!"
"Not now Dweeb...!" She turned her head as soon as she had processed who she had spoken to.
And then, she had placed a blue barrier in front of her that had been completely undone at the touch of the flames of someone who had all of Ben's power and none of his control or care in using it, she had felt the fire about to bite her in the face and roast her alive before a wall of red muscle came between her and the flames.
"Stupid watch, just when I wanted Diamondhead!" Four Arms snarled as the torrent of fire slightly seared his thick red skin, before looking up to see how the Heatblast din't stopped his flames. "Go away now!"
"Ben..."
"GO!" He practically roared into her face, and lunged at the Pyronite with an enraged expression.
Grude Match
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She had left the Charms and the books in the RV.
She would have died if it hadn't been for him.
She had blamed him for stealing and hurting innocent people.
As if she didn't know him.
As if this whole trip hadn't shown her that Ben had done everything to prove that he would do just the opposite.
Gwen felt ashamed of herself, Ben hadn't even tried to hold it against her, more concerned about what Kevin would do to innocent people than anything else. And while she'd made the occasional sly comment in the meantime, seeing him get genuinely angry and her grandpa giving her that look she'd only given Ben a few times had made her swallow any other comments she had.
Ben let out a long hiss followed by a sigh as he let the cold water wash over the slight burn on one of his arms from transforming into an alien that was flesh and blood, extremely tough and powerful, but the type that his injuries passed to Ben often as a glitch of the Omnitrix.
It wasn't that harsh, but the considerably red mark on his forearm was making Gwen uncomfortable, especially watching him put on the bandages and take a pain pill at their Grandpa recommendation. "At least that's over" the brunette murmured with a glass of water on his hand before sitting opposite to her, and looking out the window, before seeing moving his head to her after several seconds. "What?"
"Say it once and get it over with, Doofus."
He even dared to frown at her and act confused "What?"
"You... you were right, okay?" She told him, sounding more vulnerable than she really wanted to sound. "I can't believe I thought you would actually do that kind of thing, blaming you for Kevin was…"
She didn't even know what to call it, stupid? Inconsiderate? Completely against everything she knew about Ben?
And the worst part was that he didn't even look angry at her, it was already morning, a whole day after what happened with the mutant kid and Ben kept giving her that look that…hurt.
That look of not caring for her, dismissing her completely, she had seen him look to where Kevin had been thrown and come back with a down look on his face afterward.
He still felt deeply bad for Kevin, and she hadn't helped the whole situation.
"Shove it Freakezoid" was what Ben answered resting his cheek on his unburned hand. "It's not like I care, I mean, surely one day I'm going to go crazy and instead of fighting the bad guys I'm going to become their leader. It's not like I've always been doing the opposite, but then again, you're always right and it doesn't matter what everyone else says, right?" Ben stated with…there wasn't even scorn, just sarcasm and a hollow feeling in her stomach hitting her for a second.
"Ben," she heard her grandfather say across from them, almost sounding like a growl of all things.
"What? Am I supposed to just accept that she thought I was going to be robbing and killing cops?" asked Ben, sounding genuinely angry with his grandfather, the man had been neutral while Gwen had jumped at the first opportunity to blame him. Hearing Ben snort, she felt her heart sink at the hollow look she gave him. "Well, is okey then, Gwen, you haven't even apologized, but of course, that would be asking too much, no?'
She wanted to tell him something.
But there was nothing she could answer or say that would make what she had done really change, it had been her bad judgment that had left her there.
She swallow dry-mouthed before speaking.
"I am so so–" She didn't even finish speaking when the same mutant that the argument had started over came through the wall, flipping the RV over and reaching Ben in a single instant.
The Rust Bucket was knocked over a second later, and a blue bubble surrounded her and Grandpa Max before she heard the roar of the mutant they had just faced against Diamondhead..
Ghostfreaked Out
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Ben had come back about fifty minutes later, tired, injured and looking like he'd been used to sweep the floor coming from an alien ship, he'd just walked up to them, given them a hug of all things and it didn't seem like he wanted to talk about what had happened with him and Kevin.
Gwen had swallowed her apology, it wasn't the best moment with the attitude that Ben had lately, and it was the Doofus, he didn't deserve an apology after the jokes and how rude he was all the time, she he didn't care that she had been the one been wrong and this time Ben looked genuinely affected by what had happened the last few days and it would have been so easy to give him some support, whatever it was.
But she didn't, not even when she saw him having nightmares, she hadn't apologized when she heard him swallow his waking cry and look at the Omnitrix with a scared expression.
It wasn't until she'd messed up again, hit by a second wave of guilt and shame for not believing in Ben and acting even worse when Ghostfreak emerged from the Omnitrix that she'd felt genuine terror, her mind shutting down, her consciousness sinking. in a darkness so deep she felt like she was drowning until she was released.
And the first thing she saw was the monster looming over her cousin at the same time that she felt herself staggering back.
She heard his screams of pain and her blood ran cold as she watched that abomination sink into his body.
She never before her felt so happy to see Gray Matter.
Later, she Gwen couldn't take it anymore, not after he said genuinely nice words to her that made her bite her lip before the words finally came out of her.
"I'm sorry"
"…what was that?"
"I… I'm sorry. I should have apologized earlier but I didn't, I'm sorry, you… you've done too many good things for me to think you would have done what Kevin did."
"….You still on that?" Ben asked raising an eyebrow, slightly surprised. "Meh… I guess I felt bad that you didn't believe me, but…, it's not like before all this we were close enough for you to trust me…and I guess there's a difference between saving your life and trusting me."
They were.
They had been, once.
When they were little, even if it was hard for him to remember, they…they didn't hate each other, they were inseparable, Ben was always the one who stupidly and bravely stood up for others.
And it had taken about four years for their parents who didn't get along with each other to start taking their toll, they went to different schools, they stopped talking to each other and when they got back together they just… they hadn't been the same after that.
"I...I trust you, I just...I guess I have a hard time thinking that my Doofus of a cousin's became a genuine hero."
Ben glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
He hadn't forgiven her, or just after hearing Ghostfreak's screams he hadn't been in the mood to respond with a hug of all things, but he gave her something that almost resembled a smile.
And she responded with her own.
Ben 10,000
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He was alone in the forest.
The Omnitrix was red right now, and it had been for the last hour, tomorrow was Grandpa Max's birthday, and for all that mattered, he hadn't forgotten, but he'd only had to stop three bank robberies, a mutant chick with passing skills and what ever the hell was Clancy.
He was tired and was sure that even if he found a cake, it would be hard for XLR8 to get him back in the middle of nowhere at mach five without the cake turning to mush.
So he wanted to take advantage now that Grandpa and Gwen were busy getting everything ready for camping at Mt. Rushmore that night, but the clock was taking much longer than usual to turn green again, so he was trying to accomplish something, anything, by turning the dial.
Because for nothing in the world was he going to let Gwen tell him that he hadn't prepared anything for Grandpa's birthday.
It didn't help that she actually made him feel worthless even now.
He had saved her from Zombozo, he had been genuinely enraged at the clown threatening her life, and by comparison, she had helped stopped Clancy while he had a cold and started to brag about it, after they dealt with Vilgax, Hex, Phil and unlocking Wildvine, she had been much calmer, but Ben had almost wanted to go with the Galactic Enforcers just because sometimes he felt like she didn't need him, or vice versa with how much they fought.
She always had magic with her, yeah she may get a bit tired from time to time from lack of mana, whereas he was very limited to one alien for ten minutes.
If only he had more time with the watch.
Ben's eyes widened as the Omnitrix began to glow green a moment before he felt a spark throughout his nervous system, causing him to feel energy ripple through his entire body as he watched the silhouettes of his aliens appear one after another, before opening his eyes the moment he saw silhouettes he didn't recognize. "Okay… unless I broke it I guess now at least I can go for grandpa's pie with XLR8"
And he just said that, a green flash washed over him, he hadn't even raised his hand to touch the dial, and in an instant later, he was his fastest alien. "What the…?" his scratchy voice blurted out as he looked down at himself. "But I din't even…wait…Diamondhead!"
In a flash, the massive crystal alien had taken his place as he rose from the log.
"Heatblast!"
Flames covered his body before in another flash, his size had become much smaller.
"It seems I discovered a special combination that allows me to change transformations by thought alone," Greymatter commented before he transformed back into a human before looking at the clock in surprise and a smile plastered on his face. "This is the coolest thing ever, and it doesn't even have to be recharged," he commented before giving the watch a kiss and then curiosity kicked in. "I wonder…"
He touched the dial and turned it.
He brushed past his aliens as fast as he could, before seeing the first silhouette of an alien he didn't recognize and his eyes flashed as he saw another and another, one followed by another that it didn't seem to end. "I don't recognize any of these, but all things considered. This one looks pretty good," he commented before digging his finger into a new silhouette.
His body became larger, reaching two meters easily, human skin was changed into a crystal-like purple colored rock, he could feel his nervous system go numb at the same time as he felt turquoise crystals protruding from his shoulders and head with a single white eye in the center, the Omnitrix symbol was on his waist.
Ben looked at his hands made of turquoise crystal, and then he noticed how he looked at everything around him, he noticed colors that weren't normally there, colors that he didn't know how to describe, and he extended his hand forward as soon as he felt how the energy swept through his surroundings and i could hold her.
"Ah…" Ben sighed as light and electromagnetic energy from the environment were absorbed by his body, and multi-colored energy formed in his fist. "This is amazing!" he declared before launching the energy into the air, and that in a green flash, his body had shrunk almost as much as Greymatter, only now, green colored electricity surrounded him, a mismatched-toothed grin on his face, naturally malicious. "Hahahahahahaha, I din't just take the limiter off this thing, I unlocked everything on it!" he yelled with a smile only a Megawatt would have as he flew through the air.
In a flash of green, his human body fell to the ground as his smile grew even more and he looked through the aliens on the Omnitrix, seeing so many new aliens he felt ecstatic. "Gwen can keep her stupid charms, I think I found the master control out of this thing," he declared before getting up. "I can't wait to see the look on that smug fa–"
He didn't even finished talking.
A purple portal formed on the side of where he was and grabbed his arm.
Ben felt like he was suddenly engulfed in tar, he couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything but the thick liquid moving around him, and he was going to drown at any moment before he suddenly fell backwards against a surface of rock.
He was on the ground, looking up at the ceiling, surrounded by white lights at different points.
He sat up suddenly.
He breathed to calm down before looking around.
Behind him only a dark path dimly lit by white lights, in front of him was a huge metal door, easily four times his size and he had no idea how thick it was.
"Yeah, even I'm not dumb enough to fall for that" declared the brunette before turning to XLR8 with a thought.
A moment later, he ran back…not moving an inch. "What the…?" he wondered suddenly before transforming into Stinkfly and trying to flap his wings as hard and fast as he could. "This has to be a joke," he muttered as soon as he realized he couldn't back down.
Then in a flash of green, Four Arma grabbed the metal door and pushed forward, shrinking slightly to enter a room that was just as dark as its surroundings. "Hello? Is there someone here?" he asked turning to see what was around him and noticing a man leaning against a table in a corner of the room.
"Time is infinite. Eternal, just like the countless variations of the same story are repeated over and over again" he heard someone speaking with a deep and dry voice, a man with a long black hair, with a suit of the same color that did not blend into the shadows by the lines black that passed all over his body and the purple glowing from his body.
"Okay, that doesn't explain anything, so you'd better tell me what I am doing here and explain it now…" Ben declared, putting himself on guard, getting all four of his arms ready before the man turned around.
"Then why... why I'm so short on time?'
Ben froze as soon as he saw him face to face.
In an instant, he had been several meters away from him, in the next, he had placed his hand on the Omnitrix on his shoulder, and a purple energy flowed through the device to the rest of his body, and in a flash of the same color, he was being held as a kid by the neck by the man in front of him.
"I don't care if I have to carve this into your skull. But I will not allow you to forget, to be made to forget, not this. We've been doing this for too long, killing each other countless times. Timeline after timeline, universe after universe" declared the man whose purple eyes were the same color as the Omnitrix was at that time.
He could feel it behind him, an agonizing pressure, the extortion of countless lives, and he could see the reflection of them in the face of that man who shared a face so much older than his.
"For eternity, you and only you are my key to this jail, and I will never let you forget your role"
And then he felt the man's hand close on the Omnitrix.
Ben woke up on the forest floor where he had been seconds before, before blinking and seeing Gwen in front of him. "Man... I think I had the weirdest dream of my life."
"The strange is part of you at this point, freak. But even a freak has responsibilities, like bringing grandpa's birthday cake. He's only 60 once you know?."
"What are you talking about? It was supposed to be tomorrow."
"Is today"
"But I was…"
"Is today!" Ben twitched at the yell she gave him before seeing her cover her face. "Ugh, I can't believe you're so inconsiderate. People at least expect you to do one thing right in your life Dweeb"
Ben fell silent at that before scowling at her, and then opening his eyes the moment a portal bearing the same symbol as the Charms appeared behind her.
He was sent flying by a current of air before he saw a blur of blue pass between them and grab Gwen.
He panicked.
In less than a second he had transformed into XLR8, and he ran towards the portal without hesitating twice, not even he understood why he had barely seen Gwen in danger and found himself in utter terror.
In his fear, he din't notice the Omnitrix glowing purple.
She sometimes had nightmares.
They weren't the type to jump out of bed with her hand about to jump towards the Omnitrix that the Doofus had. But they were more detailed, more specific, and hard to forget.
They started after they were taken to the future.
Her body was flying through a dark place, up and down looked the same, amorphous shapes made of rock similar to a nervous system passed as far as the eye could see, flashes of light of different colors and shapes that hurt to see for a long time.
She would then look at Stinkfly in front of her, then a lot of things would happen, bad things. Ben's cries of pain as the Omnitrix was ripped from his wrist gave her chills even after waking up to see that the loser was still sleeping with his stupid teddy bear.
Well, that way he didn't have to face him waking up crying and relieved and glad that he was still alive and safe. But it wasn't just those kinds of dreams that made her tremble, it was the ones that looked so much more real.
Ben became famous once people knew about the Omnitrix, but not a good fame at all, she didn't have the Charms, they drifted apart, she slowly but steadily tried to live a normal life, no aliens, no Ben, no magic , until he couldn't take it anymore and returned from a dimension with the Charms restored.
But it was too late.
She couldn't do anything more than watch from a distance how that mocking and arrogant child became someone dry and cold, that was what everyone wanted, for him to take things seriously, to stop acting immature and do things like everyone told him to do it.
And he did.
No one was really happy with him becoming a workaholic to the point of not returning to his human form in front of the public for more than a decade, there was none of his former happiness or joy in fighting, he just fought and fought and fought.
Alone.
She…was scared to see Ben become his future self.
A part of her, a part she would never admit to anyone, had processed everything and felt bad for him, for Gwendolyn, for her grandfather.
Twenty years later, they just seemed so... Broken.
She felt somewhat happy and... relaxed seeing what adulthood would do to her, she was going to be very beautiful, and strong, and intelligent.
But it was hard for her to believe that that skinny and dwarf cousin of hers would become… well… she wouldn't lie in saying that being that tall and muscular –and maybe just a tiny, tiny, bit of handsome– hadn't impressed her slightly.
Such a future couldn't be possible if Ben of all people had a beard like that.
But she didn't want Ben to end up like that, something she could see even through his aliens.
How miserable, lonely and sad it was to see a man who had gone through so many tragedies, so many fights and had saved so many people, trying to carry the world on his shoulders alone, bitter and obsessed with work.
It just…. It wasn't right.
Ben had helped and saved so many people in just a couple of days in the summer, he had saved the world with Cannonbolt a week ago, he should at least be as happy as the people he helped.
But it wasn't, he preferred everything alone or maybe didn't want any help, something that had happened or… she didn't even know.
How many years had passed until Gwendolyn brought them to change things?
Enjoy the Doofus while she could, sure.
"So..." she started in the middle of the night, Grandpa Max was busy working on the RV engine, the two of them were alone, in the dark and silence, and yet neither could sleep after seeing their versions of the future a day ago. "When were you going to tell us about how you can change aliens just like that now?"
"Why should I tell you? You never tell me anything about magic."
She bit her lip internally at the way he said it.
He didn't even sound angry, just fed up, as if talking to her was something he wouldn't put up with anymore, and she would admit that she had been a little...too nasty for her own liking about agreeing when Ben had asked her for something and she had harshly refused.
"Well, I want to change that, how about it? You tell me what you did to the watch, and I'll tell you some magic stuff."
"..." Ben stared at her as he was silent for the longest ten seconds of Gwen's life before he began to speak. "Yesterday I found a combination of some kind of Master Control in the watch" Ben explained. "All the aliens got unlocked and I can transform into all of them, no time limit. I figured out what to do to...not having to go back to being me" he stated looking at the watch, remembering Ben 10,000 words.
"And why didn't you say anything? Knowing you I'm surprised you hadn't tried to abuse it."
Ben grimaced as he put a hand to his head. "I...I don't know. I feel like after that something weird happened. Weird as in, I woke up the next day and the next thing I knew your future you was taking you."
Gwen process those words before blinking and cocking her head to the side. "Okay, yeah...it's weird. I'm sure Grandpa and I would notice if you were gone for a whole day" she then swallowed lightly. "Anything else?"
"I took a Hoverboard and a couple of things from the future" Ben commented with a small, arrogant smile.
"You what!?" she didn't shout, but she did say it in a very low, very alarmed voice.
"What?" asked Ben. "It was after Grandpa's party, and I'm sure he saw me but didn't say anything."
"That's not the... What if you cause a paradox by bringing something that's not from this time?"
"I think you should have thought of that yourself before you time traveled" he told her with derision as she looked slightly red, whether from anger or shame that Ben had left her completely defenseless against something she wouldn't even do yet. "It's your turn to hold up your end of the bargain."
"...Why do you want to know about magic anyway? If you don't have to be you anymore, what do you need it for?"
She...
She felt bad for asking.
If not because she was going back on her word again, because of the... hurt look he gave her before looking away.
"When Vilgax could... you know, transform me back into me just by touching the Omnitrix, I... I felt really scared" Ben admitted, he didn't want to say it, he wouldn't have told anyone except that he wanted Gwen to keep her word.
"By that time, if he had wanted to kill me, he would have, that he couldn't just rip the Omnitrix off me was a matter of… luck" he inhaled deeply before looking down at the watch on his wrist.
"I know you don't know how it feels, but when everyone expects less than nothing from you... it just makes me feel more useless than I already am, when the watch makes me go back… to me I feel... useless again. You're the one who knows about magic and martial arts and all that stupidly smart stuff, you said it, I'm the one who got lucky and just got this thing" Ben lowered his shoulders looking at the Omnitrix. "I... wanted to be a bit like you, I guess? To be able to... not be so me."
She didn't feel bad for him.
She really, really didn't feel bad for him.
She wasn't thinking about the kind of things Ben must have gone through often that she couldn't possibly find out that would have made him feel like that.
"Magic isn't like the watch Doofus. You have to know what the spell does by heart and you have to have the right image on your head and you're going to get tired fast if you don't have enough mana and...and..." and she was making so many excuses, even as he looked at her with anger and determination.
"I don't care. I want to be better than I was before, what's wrong with that?"
...
No.
Nope, noup, nah, niet, nein.
She didn't think her cousin's Doofus looked pretty cool with that look.
She just snorted, crossing her arms as she watched him with a raised eyebrow. "Fine, I'll show you, but what exactly did you steal from the future?"
And she REALLY didn't think that mischievous grin with that twinkle in his eye was cute…
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It had been two things really, the first being a Hoverboard quite similar to the one he already had, the only difference being that the hard light was blue in color, almost transparent, with only the fact that it got freaking cannons that fired at command if activated correctly, and the second was... Some sort of cannon?
Gwen had been checking it out at the same time Ben was reading Charmcaster's spellbook, he had lent her his X321 while he used the new one. And she was a little annoyed by the fact that she needed to make it as large as possible, and that she had to ride it on all fours or she'd lose her balance.
He didn't.
He could read the book while riding around on the Hoverboard like it was a skate without even getting the slightest bit dizzy.
Skilled little freak.
She looked at the orange, black and white colored weapon in his hands, before taking it in her hands and opening it slightly. She was surprised the moment it went from a firearm to a bow, then blinked slightly as, bringing the two ends together in a different position, an orange energy sword appeared in front of her.
"Woah" she muttered as he returned it to an energy arc and looked at it curiously. "What did you say its name was?"
"Proto-Tool" commented the chestnut reading the spell book over and over again as he circled around her. "The name was in the data system it has, I read it with Upgrade."
"Seems like some pretty useful stuff" Gwen commented with an extremely curious expression before clearing her throat. "So, did you reach your reading limit for this year?"
"Almost" declared Ben closing the book before extending his hand out in front of him. "Turbo!"
And just as he said that, there was a green spark, she saw the turquoise, slightly greenish energy form in Ben's hands before her eyes snapped open as the spark came a second later, shaking his body violently before seeing him fall backwards onto the Hoverboard.
Gwen would have laughed.
She felt like she should laugh.
Why wasn't she laughing!?
Then she didn't understand why seeing that made her cringe in alarm and she felt a pit in her stomach as she leaned into him, her face bent in worry.
"...Uggggh..." Ben grunted a second later before holding a hand to his head. "What the hell was that?
"I...I think it has to do with the watch. Magic and technology have to fit together for one to work with the other, the Omnitrix is technology. And it's fused with you, remember?" she told him as Ben looked at Charmcaster's book with anger on his face.
"Couldn't you have told me that before the spark?" he growled before pointing both hands forward again. "Agni Imperia!"
Gwen closed her eyes as this time it was more akin to an explosion that sent Ben backwards, before turning to look at him and crossing her arms as she watched him get up again. "I would have if you weren't too stubborn to listen to reason" she should have said stupid but didn't dare...
"Agh... great. I can't use magic without using the watch and I can't use the watch without using magic" Ben declared looking at the Omnitrix angrily before throwing the book at her.
"Just be thankful you didn't try the Archamada's book, that's the one with really complex spells" she stated with some derision, watching Ben cross his arms and look away with an angry grimace. "Hey..."
"What, are you going to throw it in my face that you can...?" he shut his mouth suddenly as she throw the Pyrokinesis spell on him..
"I can barely even use the incantations in that book myself, I can't even read a full page of the Archamada one, in case you forget, I need to use these most of the time. So... I don't mind lending them to you, once in a while, for practice. That one should be easy, after all, fire was the first thing you became" she reminded him with a light smile.
God...she wouldn't lie that that look of his was...nice, that twinkle in his eye, that small but sincere smile, it felt...better than making him go crazy.
Being the Dweeb's teacher of magic didn't sound so bad..
Midnight Crisis
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"Now you are a Dinosaur!" The moment Sublimino said that, Gwen stopped laughing and felt her blood run cold.
A second later, Ben had glowed green before a gigantic reptile appeared in his place, hunched almost on all fours, with hard orange scales and completely yellow eyes, almost the size of Four Arms.
The people around him let out sounds of surprise before beginning to clap and cheer in surprise, with the hypnotist looking at his watch in surprise.
They had been grateful that Ben had the more subconscious idea of herbivores than a bloody T-Rex.
Ben's brow twitched as he watched as Gwen was putting on a girdle of money and showing the video about how he kept Humungosaur as a servant until he became human again.
"You know, your idea about giving trips like Wildmutt is actually good business," she declared with a huge smile.
Ben then jumped on top of her to get the camera off of her.
And then came revenge for Gwen when they found out that Ben attacked in his sleep and he wasn't allowed to sleep.
If she was someone mature, and she was, she wouldn't be enjoying tormenting Ben. But she wasn't mature with Ben, and she needed to take revenge after he tried to took revenge on her and…
Oh…
She felt guilty shortly after seeing him just so tired.
After Ben saved her and Grandpa from Sublimino, she had realized two things.
Ben was scary.
Or well, he controlled himself a lot.
She had seen how Heatblast had nearly roasted cops alive, roast them alive, how Diamondhead literally walked through the gunfire and attacks, and she had seen how much destruction Upgrade could with any tech.
Also….
A part of her was beginning to admit that she cared for him, they had just sorted all that out, Ben had been sleeping for quite a while, and…she…felt a little curious why her grandpa didn't act a little more worried about it.
A part of her might have been tempted to throw some ice cream on him to wake him up but…
Ugh…
That part that liked to make Ben suffer was disappearing..
Big Fat Alien Wedding
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"Pfftttttt, hehehe." Ben had his face against the table at the same time he heard Lucy's laughter with a sligh snort after tripping him in the middle of the dance, for a second, Ben had thought he had stepped on her toes and that was why he had filled the floor with her mud, but no, she was just a natural prankster.
Which, he would admit would have been funny except that he had tried his best not to make a fool of himself that day.
He had taken tap dancing lessons because his mom had asked him to, but compared to classical dancing it was confusing by quite a bit.
And he'd be lying if he said they'd been quite grateful to Gwen for teaching him to dance, even if being so close to her had embarrassed him instead of grossed him out as it should, he'd sink into the dirt like Wildvine before admitting he'd felt weird having her so close and looking at her smiling like that at him was nice, and it hadn't helped that she'd taken pictures of his embarrassment.
They were currently standing outside the building where the wedding had taken place, and Lucy had approached him with a huge grin and looking at the huge statues that were currently Camilla's parents. "So, you did that?"
"Mmhmm..."
"With that watch?"
"Yeah..."
"...how does it work?"
"...Normally I press this button and the dial activates, letting me choose from the aliens it has, and I have ten minutes as one of them" explained Ben, before leaning back with a confident smile. "But I discovered a way to make it last as long as I want it to, and I can transform into everything the watch has no problem."
"Woaaaah...can I see?" she asked with her eyes sparkling with stars...a little literally.
Ben lowered his shoulders as he swallowed a small chuckle, he hadn't known she was a Sludgepuppy before, so while somewhat annoyed, a part of him would understand that seeing someone who also shape shifted might be curious to her, only for him it was the real thing.
He raised an eyebrow as he smiled looking at the watch, thinking about what to transform into, before he transformed into a flash of green light.
He felt the instantaneous change, his body ceasing to be anything solid, his bones ceasing to be firm and his skin disappearing completely, all becoming a completely uniform mass as something similar to limbs grew out of him.
The Lenopan's eyes widened slightly as Ben looked at her with purple eyes.
She needed to look up because of his size, not as large as his cousin Camilla's parents, but of considerable size for his age, bigger than her actually, watching as he suddenly jerked and changed shape to see him take on a green-eyed humanoid form. "Taa-daa!" he exclaimed sounding similar to his voice but sounding like he was speaking through water.
Lucy let out a rather high pitched squeal as she looked excitedly at the Omnitrix user, whose symbol was on one of his forearms, and she stood up to look at him from everywhere. "You're a little short on practice to keep your form, but for your first time changing it's pretty good! I can teach you if you want"
"Well, at least one first thing I've done today went well" he commented with some derision as Lucy gave him a cheeky grin, before in a flash of green he was human again. "And now that I can change aliens just thinking about it, it's a life saver."
"Hmm?"
"There's these two guys, Kevin Eleven. He absorbed the energy from the watch and got all the powers of my first ten aliens, even if they're only a tenth of mine he can mix them, and he's good with them, and there's this other guy named Vilgax who knows enough about the watch to transform me back with the touch of a finger" Ben stated running a hand down his arm as he remembered how he'd gotten off the intergalactic battle cruiser. "If it wasn't for the watch instantly recharging, and I was able to transform into one of the aliens Kevin didn't have...I'd be Kebab, he would have killed me and probably kept the watch after"
"..."
"...What, why are you looking at me like that?"
"That sounds...really scary, man."
"It is really scary, Mann" Ben admitted with a huge grin. "But it's a hero's job, I've saved a lot of people since I got the watch, saved the planet once."
"No way!"
"Ask Grandpa or Gwen!"
"Hmmm, no, I don't think I will" she declared sticking her tongue out at him much to Ben's annoyance… and a slightly bit of fun too.
A while later, Gwen was watching them as they had started playing of all things in the middle of a party, one hand on her cheek as she watched Cannonbolt spin in the grip of a giant mass of mud, laughing. "Are you okay pumpkin?" asked Max as he watched her see that with annoyed eyes..
"I'm fine, it's just that now Ben found someone that is just like him" she declared with a dramatic grimace. "It's the apocalypse."
She was lying.
She probably didn't even realize it herself, or if she did realize it, she didn't want to admit it, because Max did noticed that look, that small but faint sad glow as he watched Ben interact with Lucy, and a part of him, a part that didn't want to admit what he saw... recognized jealousy and sadness when he saw her.
Be afraid of the Dark
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For the first time since that summer began, Gwen was thinking deeply about her relationship with Ben after they saved the world.
Yes, both of them, as in, Ghostfreak or Zs'Skayr as he called himself, had returned, being aided by an alien Frankenstein named Viktor, an alien wolf and an alien mummy, they had saved the entire planet, and humanity from being turned into zombie monsters.
And... she didn't know how to feel about things that had happened before that.
Ben had been up against a wolf that had bitten him and was turning him into a werewolf, the master control for some reason not working.
And he had got a crush.
She'd never thought Ben would ever have a girlfriend, and she'd promised herself that the day he had a girl he liked, Gwen was going to tease and embarrass him with everything she could.
And... she had, but it hadn't felt as good as she would have thought when he didn't seem to back down from admitting he liked Kai. She'd watched him slowly transform into a huge humanoid wolf and when they'd discovered he wasn't a werewolf but an alien, Ben had been able to transform smoothly again.
And... She had been bothered by Kai.
He didn't even transform to save her and he looked rather cool doing it, she enjoyed teasing him when Ben showed that he thought Kai was cute, but not as much as thought she was going to, and when she saw that Ben actually didn't go back on that and showed actual concern for Kai... she...
Ultimately it was because the Doofus was being considerate for once in his life and because he seemed at odds with her and Kai not coming with them, facing Rojo after she hurted Grandpa and having her for a companion had surely nailed some woman respect into that hard skull of his.
And then he transformed into an alien wolf, and Kai said she'd only been interested in him because she thought she could keep it as a pet.
She...
She didn't know why she had gotten so angry as to defend him.
Especially when the Doofus looked much less offended and was staring at her after she defended him.
Hell, Ben had shrugged and asked where they'd gotten the cactus of the Árbol del Matrimonio from, and she'd seen him start guffawing as she'd turned red.
She had actually stared at him for quite a while expecting him to start crying or complaining.
Instead he had looked back at her and given her that stupid confident smile.
Ugh, it really didn't make sense.
She hadn't even been able to call Kai weird, she'd be lying if she said she didn't have something akin to a small crush on each of Ben's aliens.
The moment she processed that, her brain froze cold in its tracks..
No, nononono.
She definitely didn't think that, not at all.
Sure, Four Arms could be an impressive fifteen foot mountain of massive muscle even with his reddish skin, spikes and the fact that he had no nose, lips or ears.
Sure, she could understand Wildmutt even when Ben was unable to speak, and riding him like a horse felt so exciting!
Similar to XLR8 only much faster and more adrenaline pumping.
And Diamondhead had been the first alien to save her life and she had felt her heart flutter at the sight of the glass giant saving her from that falling tree.
But at the end of the day, all those transformations were Ben, her stupid cousin, her stupid, stupid cousin who had saved her life so many times that she wasn't afraid of anything because she knew he had her back, that he had jumped in to save lives like aliens and that…of all things had made her discover that magic was real and that it was something that felt so natural to her and made her feel so…complete.
She…
She had a little trouble just…accepting that she was so…God damn influenced by Ben, and how much she enjoyed that and…
Just how long had it been since the beginning of summer? One month? Two?
How long had it took to feel disgusted and annoyed by Ben to trust her life to him without question? How long had it been before being rejected by Kai, instead of crying, he turned to see her with a smile that made her feel things in her stomach?
It was the Dweeb, it was Ben, the nastiest, dumbest, reckless kid she'd ever met, and he was ceasing to be that!
Bothering the other was ceasing to be... what had once been.
Not anymore... there was no longer any malice in what they did, simply making the other angry was fun but being cruel and insensitive did nothing more than make her feel guilty for remembering having been like that, and she knew for a fact that it was for him the same.
She...she hadn't realized when she had learned to value and appreciate Ben so much, it just...it happened so gradually and steadily that there was no way to doubt it in the slightest.
And a part of her loved those smiles.
Not just the arrogant or overbearing smiles, just mischievous, he had stopped smiling on ways that anger her so long ago… and now they were confident but warm, and he looked… so genuinely content.
She just…couldn't help but smile back at how that stupid childish face gave her such a sincere smile, with his eyes seeing her, appreciating her and understanding that…so confused and strange were her emotions for Ben, he felt the same way and accepted it. .
And explaining something to someone her age without them trying to fall asleep was a new experience.
Having Ben give her his undivided attention was something she…liked that they had together.
More or less there she understood that Ben was not as stupid as she thought, but between the lack of interest or motivation to study, and the fact that four days before the Ghostfreak thing she had entered his mind in that weird Forever Knight machine and had seen how horrible Cash was and J.T. from Ben's perspective.
She supposed no one really motivated him, and with the threat of being called a nerd on top of a loser as well, had caused him to simply give up at school.
And the Ben Tennyson she knew never gave up.
And that day, it was just the two of them.
There were countless lights in the border cities because of what had happened, the worldwide din of an apparent eclipse that had blotted out the sun, and the literal recordings of the entire planet being mutated by Corrodium had made such a din that Gwen had got forty calls from her parents in the first two hours.
That was a bit different from the time Ben dealt with the parasitic fungus or The Tick (she feel a little bit guilty of not helping him with the Tick goo looking back), this time, there was no way for anyone not to know what they had been through, even if they didn't fully understand what it was or who had saved them.
Which brought them to the next point.
Ben had stolen a helmet from Rojo the last time they'd seen the redhead who'd developed a strange ability for technopathy, and he'd spent eight hours non-stop on it using some of his aliens, the now blue and black helmet with orange runes that marked it was given to her made her snort because they were in an ancient magic language for "Partner", it was just Ben's showing off that he had remembered all that alphabet in a short time by doing a cute detail.
That and because Dweeb and Dork couldn't be written into that tongue.
So she could hardly groan as she climbed onto XLR8's back, feeling the helmet adjust before seeing the blur of speed that went next, she had hugged him tightly, leaving the city lights being left behind and looking at the night sky several kilometers from any civilization.
She liked to see the stars.
If you ever wondered if there was life out there in the stars, you already had the answer.
There was life everywhere, big enough to fill the entire Omnitrix City with humans and aliens twenty years later.
But then, at that moment, there was only the two of them.
Hundreds of kilometers from any form of civilization, sitting on a rock in the middle of a desert, Gwen had brought a blanket in her backpack for just that night, and she gently stroked Ben's back, which had a somewhat noticeable burn after Cannonbolt fell from atmosphere
It didn't bother her in the slightest that Ben snuggled up to her, and they looked at the stars, there was nothing like a purple glow to cover the light from it, and they both just enjoyed the silence at the same time.
"Hey"
"Hmm?"
"Have you ever wondered what the world of the aliens you transform into is like?"
"...All the time," Ben admitted without even turning to look at her, looking at the stars and raising a hand to them. "I heard my parents once, talking about how Grandpa Max could have been an astronaut, and I didn't believe it until now, just…thinking about it makes me wonder what it would be like"
"Go up there?"
"Just…know more about them, meeting those Galactic Enforcers guys was actually really cool" Ben admitted, looking at the Omnitrix on his wrist glowing. "I… I don't know. Learn more about them. They're a bunch of cool, fun aliens and it feels amazing to be them, to know the kind of things they do. And think of all the things we've done this summer just on earth. Think of all the things we would do in the rest of the universe," he said before swallowing a lump in his throat and turning to face her, those wide, sparkling eyes that were a shade more hazel than hers. "Well, that's if you want to come with me"
Yeup, that cemented it definitely, permanently and utterly.
She hated him.
Ben Tennyson was the person she hated the most in the world, she would never stop hating him.
Because there was, absolutely, no reason why hearing that made her heart skip a beat from how intensely he said that..
"Do you want…me to go with you?" and the tremor in her voice was only due to the disbelief that he somehow thought that she would do something like that with him, nothing more.
God damn it, she really shouldn't have asked him that question, making him talk more had been a mistake.
"I'm not sure if Grandpa Max wanted to go because he's gone to all kinds of places as a Plumber, but we haven't. It doesn't have to be today or tomorrow, but one day. One day I want us to go see the universe together… after seeing 10,000 I don't want to do things alone… we are partners, right?"
She huffed, trying to hide her smile and her blush and her happiness. "…I'll think about it, maybe, maybe. After all, you would be lost without me."
How dare he smile in that sincere, big smile that made her stomach flip? How dare he look at her with that glint in his eye that made her want to pull her hair out?
"Yes" she told him softly. "Yes I would be"
After something like that she had no choice but to give him a hug, because she couldn't think of anything else to do to make him stop being like that, to make her go back to being the Dweeb she knew and hated and loved to piss off.
"…." She felt the words catch in her throat, but she forced herself, defiantly at him, to tell them. "Hey"
"hmmm?"
"You make it hard sometimes, but I love you, you know it, don't you, Dork?" she didn't mean it genuinely, she really, really was lying and she didn't say that in a whisper with one breath just… happy that he din't hated her.
He was supposed to push her in disgust, was supposed to say or do something stupid or mean or…or anything, except hug her back and see him with a huge smile that made her feel like her heart was going to jump out of her chest.
He wasn't supposed to say it, because she knew.
With that look in his eyes, he never lied, not to her, not to himself, and he meant it genuinely.
"I love you too, Cootie Queen"
She bit her lip as she watched him turn around, look up at the starry sky, that stupid smile on her stupid face, that blush on their cheeks they both shared, and the fact that neither would let go of the other's hand.
Gwen inhaled deeply.
She really hated herself above all things, she hadn't lasted a summer near the Doofus without going crazy.
This fic is based on:
Little Moments & Breaking Point AU.
Parentheses: AntiFluff Drabbles.
Ben 10: Time Bond
Another/Ultimate Anodite.
Rewind.
Most of this are Bwen so you can get an idea of where is this fic going for lol.
Though, there is a sprinkle of other ships though, if I do anything more about it that's my b.
Anyway, I really don't like a lot of UAF changes did to the franchise, so I'm going to rewrite most of it, since I'm not a fan of copypasting chapters, I'm making my own version of it, with most of things from the other canon being OS and OV.
Ben having the actual Master Control from the start of the fic and Gwen having the charms of Bezel since they're 10 is actually a sign that they're ironically closer to Ben 10,000 and Gwendolyn than their UAF contraparts lel.
Because of the Master Control thing, and by another bites of change of the lore, Kevin and Vilgax attack happened almost at the end of summer, that means that most of the OS happened but like at half of season 2 & 3, Ben got access to Master Control, also the Negatives 10 haven't happened.
Adding to that, the last one is really important, since here, Ben does have the Magic Spark (with some changes on it), but the problem for that is that, again, Magic and Tech don't mix well, normally at least.
That made this Ben Omnitrix glitching a lot more than in canon.
Also, since Gwen was waaay more into magic, the first time she meet Charmcaster, she got both the Keystone, and her book of spells, since they also went to get the Archamada Book of Spells, but it was waaay too advanced at the start of the summer.
Next episode is the setup for Back with a Vengance.