Prime

Ben wipes the sweat off his forehead. The green glow around his body fades from around his form so that all that's left is the impermeable fog and pine green forest around him. A triumphant smile dances across his face as he admires his work. 

The sun doesn't shine down on the clowns below him, the sky opting instead to drizzle, so lightly that Ben barely feels it. An easy take down, he would say. Like they weren’t even trying. Or maybe he was just that good? His smile widens. 

Yet, it doesn’t feel much like an achievement. His smile wanes.

He has no idea where he is. 

Zombozo groans in pain, eyes shut and fingers twitching. He didn't know where they were either, or at least if he did, he wouldn't tell Ben. 

Fair enough. There's a lot of villains in this no-name city, if the ones he had beaten up were anything to go by. Many villains to go around, not enough civilians to save. Seriously, where was everyone? He'd seen only a few walking around between when he'd first woken up and now. There were no cars in use. Everything looks desolate. The skyscrapers are cracked and some destroyed— and this time it definitely wasn't Ben's fault! 

Everyone seems to stay in their house. Why wouldn't they with Animo and Hex and Zombozo going around? All Ben knew was that he wasn't in Bellwood or any of the places he'd gone to with Gwen and Grandpa Max over this summer. That, and that he didn't know where either of those two were. He'd woken up in the backseat of a car with no idea how he'd gotten there. No one was inside, but it was filled with empty smoothie cups and paper nacho bowls. 

And it was remarkably green, so the person who owned it had good taste. 

Ben had raced around town as XLR8 looking for his family. He turned into Wildmutt and tried sniffing the two out. He did everything he could to find them but all he found was nothing but a bunch of clowns!

So they weren't in this area. Cool. 

Ben doesn't panic. He finds a phone among the unconscious bodies(his phone ran out of battery long ago) and calls the police. They don't answer. Again. He sighs, puts the phone down, and starts the Containing Process™, which consists of him turning into Upgrade and building a jail cell with whatever's around and then transporting the foes into it so they'll be ripe and ready for the police when they get there. 

He's miles away before it starts pouring down. He's cold, hungry, and friendless. None of the restaurants in town are open and look like they haven't been in awhile. There is only one place Ben has seen that's open, and the guy behind the register has the presence of a rock. He looked like a zombie, but Ben guessed all service workers do. He had skin as pale as concrete and the bags under his eyes were large and pink. He didn't even seem to notice Ben when he walked in. Ben tried talking to him while he looked through the aisles, since no one was there but them two. The cashier said nothing, eyes glazed over, barely blinking, chin tucked into his palm. Ben had no money, but he took a candy bar and ate it right there, in the aisle of the grocery store, looking into those dead eyes. The man said nothing. Ben immediately felt bad and got out of there, searching for stray coins on the street to pay for it. 

 He still hasn't got enough, and he's afraid he'll have to use what he does have to buy a jacket. A ten-year old’s gotta do what a ten-year old’s gotta do. He shivers as the wind grazes his skin and the rain wets his hair, turning it almost black. The ground is soft and mushy, outside of the sticks he keeps accidentally stepping on and scaring himself with. Truth is, he's afraid. He's afraid and alone. 

He doesn't feel anything under his feet as he steps forward, but still, he hears the breaking of a twig.

Or…maybe not alone. 

He stops abruptly and looks to his right, and then behind him. He swears he sees a shadow or something. He stays still, trying to listen past the sound of rain. 

A powerful swooshing sound, a blast of wind hits Ben in the face and he swears he sees something pass behind him for a split second. His breath catches and he stays still as two heavily clothed forms appear in front of him, hand in hand, struggling to overcome the other, fighting, and then disappearing to the right, into the trees, so fast that Ben can barely register it all. 

He visualizes the image in his head, stuck on it. One was purple and black with a mask like a motorcycle helmet or a video game character. The other wore all black and grey, a hoodie pulled over his head instead of something so epic, and what looked like joggers. 

Ben's vision is suddenly obstructed again by something pink. He stares at it for a second, eyes following up a muscular back to the ends of a black mullet and then to the back of the head it's attached to. The tall man in a reddish-pink muscle shirt lifts up his dark olive-skinned arm, and in his hand is a red and orange jacket. 

“Put this on.” His voice sounds young. Cool and modulated. Rain pours like sweat down his arm, and just like that Ben realizes they're surrounded.

Purple and black ninja-like forms in helmets flank them on all sides, all twins with no physical differences Ben could see in this storm. 

His first thought is: It's like something out of a movie!

Ben takes the jacket, and as he puts it on, already thinking of an alien to turn into, the man runs forward. Ben breathes in sharply, about to say he can handle it, when suddenly the man's arm transforms into something blue and metallic. 

Funchucks are always a good way to go. This, Rex was sure of. He was also sure that Eon’s ninjas were stronger than the last time they’d fought. He was completely sure that ten year old Ben couldn’t handle this on his own. He was completely sure he had made the right choice.

It’s Ben’s fault for building up doubts in his head.

Rex glares at the underling before him, two out of six already down, and Ben handling a seventh somewhere Ben couldn’t see. Rex wants to sigh. This was already getting annoying. Not only was a nineteen year old Ben already by his side, but now they’re adopting a ten year old Ben, as well as fighting against multiple Ben’s right now! He’d chosen this route, however, and there was no way he was gonna leave the little guy alone by himself. Especially not here. Not in this strange world.

Rex swung the ninja— Ben— into the ground with his funchucks. Turning around, he only had a split second to see the awe on young Ben’s face before he smacked another Ben— ninja—into a tree. A blast of wind soared by him as XLR8 grabbed one ninja from the group, so fast that he was nothing but a shadowy blur. Good. Ben only agreed to this because he didn’t want young Ben to know he was him. Not like he would recognize himself in the future, anyway. Ben looked completely different as a nineteen-year old, and his voice was way more masculine. There’s also the fact that he was able to take the omnitrix off whenever he wanted, so that wouldn’t be a problem either.

Still, Ben likes to be difficult.

Another gush of wind.

He also likes to fight.

The fight is over before Ben can even join. Surrounding him and the strange robot teenager(Ben realizes he has to be a teen. He looks too young) are incapacitated bodies. Just like the clowns from before, they’re unconscious and stupid. The new guy finished them all off. 

He's looking around at his work, counting bodies, searching for any sign of…life, maybe? Ben isn't sure. He doesn't look especially glad to have won the fight. 

“Hey, dude, who are you?” Ben had to talk over the storm, which had cooled down dramatically. “And how did you do that thing with your arm?“

They meet eyes. He can’t tell if they are red or brown, but what they are is calculating and observant. He looks Ben up and down. His strong square jaw dips into his long neck as he nods. His hairline is very specific, with an inverted triangle shape on his forehead and between his eyebrows. He has, now completely soaked, blue skinny jeans. All Ben has on is the guy's jacket, a black and green shirt with the number ten on the side, and green cargo shorts. 

 Ben watches as the boy lifts up his arm as if to place it on his neck but instead clenches it into a fist. It starts to make a strange shrill sound as lines of blue travel down his arm to his fist and starts to grow. His hand mutates. 

Ben's eyes go wide. 

The hand is now fridge-sized, orange replacing blue this time. 

“Dude,” Ben laughs, racing towards him. “That. Is. Awesome! How'd you do it? You're not a villain, are you?”

The guy turns his hand back to normal and smiles sheepishly. “Man, I hope not.” He takes one last look at the guys on the floor then holds out his hand. “I'm Rex, by the way.”

“Rex, huh?” Ben takes it. “I'm Ben.”

 “Aren't you a little too young to be trekking this deep into the forest during a storm like this?”

 “Yes. Yes I am.”

Rex pats his shoulder. “Let's get you some shelter.”

It’s only when Ben is being led toward the tree line that he realizes how suspicious this is. A strange group of ninjas suddenly attack him, then a mysterious older guy saves him and then leads him into the woods? Ben stops abruptly, rain still pattering on his head, but with way less force than a few minutes ago. He shivers, but pays no mind to the cold. 

Rex turns around, “What's—” then does a double take, looking back behind him to see something Ben hadn't noticed until now. Rex steps back, a hand over his heart. “Geez, you scared me!”

Standing against a tree with its arms crossed is the hooded figure from before. Instinctively, Ben places a hand over his watch. 

“Ben, this is my partner.” Rex smiles with his eyebrows furrowed up, a hand out towards the black clothes. His partner doesn’t move, face completely masked by a hood and what looks like a scarf. “He doesn't talk much.”

Ben moves back. 

“No, it's—” Rex starts before being interrupted. 

“Kid, where are your parents?” The hooded…teenager? (He sounds like a teenager, too, but Ben couldn't trust that) speaks up. 

 “I'm not gonna tell you,” Ben glares at the two, backing up again. No, this was too suspicious. 

 “Right,” the boy sighs. He and Rex seem to look at each other, Rex with a tight frown, the other with inky blackness. 

 “Look, we'll take you back to the city. It's dangerous for kids to be outside. How did you even get out?” Rex again.

Now this was getting somewhere. “Where are we? Why is it dangerous to stay outside?”

The two look at each other again. “You don't know?” Rex says it as a statement rather than a question. He sounds almost disappointed. 

 “I don't think he's from here,” the other guy says it like it's obvious. And yeah, Ben realizes, it is.  

 “Somebody better start talking or I'm going to start throwing arms!” With that, Ben twists the omnitrix on his wrist and slams down on it. He feels himself growing larger. Muscular. His skin turns red and two extra arms grow out of his sides. He stands tall, a few feet higher than them, with two arms folded and two hands on his hips. “Four arms!”

Out of all the reactions to get— screams, cowering, running away, or a foes own fighting stance— Ben wasn't expecting Rex's in the least:

“My jacket!” Rex falls to his knees, hands cupping his cheeks and absolute pain on his face. “My jacket! Not again…!”

Ben looks down at himself, his clothes replaced with a black and white shirt and tight black pants. Rex's jacket is nowhere to be found. 

Rex's partner looks down at him. “Dude…” he says in a judgemental tone.

Ben has no idea what to do now. He feels awkward, looking down at the two. He scratches the back of his head. “Uhh, is he gonna be ok?” His voice is deeper in this form. More rough. 

“He's fine.” He says as Rex seems to be sobbing on the ground, head hanging between his arms, on his hands and knees. “Look, you're like us. We're not going to hurt you so change back and we'll explain everything.”

“You know where Gwen and Grandpa Max are?”

The hooded boy looks at him silently for a few seconds. Ben really wishes he could see his face. “I have no idea who that is.”

After a few seconds of contemplation, he transforms back, jacket and all.

Rex was surprised to hear that Ben had infinite alternate dimension hims. Rex was still getting used to the fact that there were more dimensions than his own! Yet here he was, in the flesh. Rex and Ben had fought many of Ben's enemies throughout their time here, and they were just starting to relax when suddenly they started hearing about an onslaught of new but familiar looking bad guys in town. 

 Rex stared in shock from the shadows as a smaller version of the Ben Tennyson at his side turned back into human form after trapping a weird-looking Animo in a box. There were obvious differences, yes, but that was definitely Ben. The Ben beside him didn't look surprised at all. In fact, he looked more tired than anything. Ben later explained to him the Ben multiverse, filled with Ben 23 and Gwen with the Omnitrix and many different versions of himself. It would be unbelievable if Rex hadn't seen it face to half-a-yard-away face. 

But Ben didn't want to have anything to do with it. The only reason they had even decided to pick up young Ben was because he was causing irreparable damage to the city whenever he fought. One of the only citizens that felt comfortable, or worried, enough to talk to them was a elderly lady(that apparently looked like Ben's aunt) who had come up to them the day before, asking for help against a child. They immediately knew who she meant, and Ben was forced to comply. 

What they weren't expecting was to find him so fast, and so close to their cabin too. Ben was on patrol when it happened. Footsteps could be heard through the window in the hallway. Rex happened to be sitting on the counter beside it, and he thought maybe the sound was just Ben in one of his many-legged alien forms. But the front door didn't creak, and the sound of leaves crunching under feet got too far to hear. He called Ben. He answered after the first ring. 

Ben wasn't anywhere near the cabin. 

Ben was seeing something. 

Ben suddenly got very quiet. The sound of rain filled the line. 

Then a low voice, serious, barely above a whisper, “I need you here.”

Rex was out of the house and into the mass of wet forest around it. He'd meant to find Ben, and, well, he did, in a way. 

“They're with this guy named Eon.” Rex recalls from his Ben's earlier explanation. “He's some time-travelling, alt-dimension, B-rated villain that shows up sometimes to annoy everyone.”

He peeks back at the kid behind him. He looks like he's in his thoughts, his eyes on the ground as his hands fiddle with Rex's jacket.

Ben pulls on the leather of Rex's jacket over and over, absentmindedly wrapping himself away from the cold. It's too big on him, but it works to keep the breeze off his chest. The rain has stopped for the most part, but now the coolness has taken hold. It's eerie. No birds singing, no frogs croaking, no crickets chirping. It makes him uncomfortable. 

“B-rated?” He asks, looking around and up into the trees. The sky is still grey, same as it has been since he'd woken up. He wonders if the sun ever shines here. 

“This city is infested with bad guys. They've been terrorizing the place for I don't even know how long. The folks here don't even go outside most of the time because of how bad it is.” Rex explains, keeping his eyes forward. Ben could run away right now without him seeing, but he's not too sure about the other guy in front of him. 

The hooded guy hasn't said a word since they left the fight. He walks with his hands in his pockets and intent in his step. 

Ben lets out a yelp as he runs into Rex. He looks up at the back of Rex's head. “Why'd you stop?“

Rex faces him. “We're here.” He lifts his arms and smiles. Ben leans to his right. His vision fills with the sight of an old, small-looking white and wooden house. The non-too-steady patio is white and rusted with dark brown spots. The grass in the front lawn is mowed but the area surrounding it is bushy with forestry, like they gave up halfway through. The windows aren't boarded up but they might as well be, the curtains make it look like they're painted black. “This is our place. Mi casa.”

“You live in a cabin in the woods?” He backs up. There's no way two people live there. He doesn't even need to look inside. 

“It's not like we could stay with the people in town.” Rex furrows his eyebrows with a tilt of his lips. His hands glow blue for a second, as if to remind Ben. 

Ben nods slowly. He has a point, but Ben's suspicions aren't fully acquiesced. He asks another question. “So, how'd you get your powers?”

“A group of scientists had a idea that blew up in their face and gave me control over the nanites in my body so I can make machines out of myself.” He shrugs. “You?”

Ben tries to sort through all the things the boy before him just said, but the few seconds of silence it takes is enough to make Rex elaborate. 

“Nanites are germs, basically. But if germs were microscopic machines.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah.” Rex sets his hands on his hips. Ben notices the hooded man starting to walk off. 

He pulls up the sleeve of Rex's jacket and shows off the watch. “This fell from the sky when I went camping and I haven't been able to get it off since. It turns me into ten different aliens. In counting.” He glances to the side as a door closes. “Anyway, what's your partner's deal?”

Rex's brown eyes glide to the right as he brings a hand up to his mullet. “Ahhh,” he laughs then. “I shouldn't have called him my partner. It's kinda weird. He's my boyfriend, and, yeah, he gets like that sometimes.”

Ben's eyes widen. “Boyfriend?” He squeaks.

A voice rang through Ben's head that sounded just like his cousin Gwen, and it was saying, “Be respectful..!”

He missed her. He missed both Gwen and Grandpa Max. 

At this moment he'd even miss Rex if it meant he didn't have to stay in this room alone with Prime. Ben didn't believe that was the hooded guy's real name even for a minute, but what else was he to call him? Rex didn't seem like a real name either, when he thought about it. He had seemed real hesitant before saying Prime's name the day before, and Ben could have sworn Prime had given Rex a look under his hood. It was the stance he had. The tilt of his head. The squaring of his shoulders. 

But the voice in his head told him to be nice, and so he crosses his arms, sits back in his chair, and glares at the back of Prime's head as he makes them breakfast. 

Everything in this house is small. The bedrooms are small, the bathrooms are small, the stove is small and the kitchen is small. The kitchen table is smack dab in the middle of the room and takes up most of the space. It reminds him of the Rustbucket. 

He really misses Gwen and Grandpa Max. 

Rex is on patrol. He was gone before Ben had even woken up, which meant that he had the pleasure of being surprised awake by a black shirt and some shorts being thrown over his torso with the phrase “Shower is next door” coming from the front of the room. 

He's wearing the shirt now, but he'd be darned if he took some shorts from that guy. He's stuck with Prime for now, but once he figures out where his family is, he's getting the heck out of here. 

The sizzling of the stove causes a chain reaction in Ben's stomach, along with the savory scent of fresh bacon and sausages. His mouth is watering and the ache in the pit of his stomach only grows more tortuous as the seconds pass by. 

Finally, Prime sets a plate down in front of him and without even fully taking it in, Ben begins chowing down. Salty scrambled eggs melt in his mouth and he almost cries in joy. As he eats the rest of his breakfast, slowing down after a while to truly savor the flavor, the door into the kitchen from outside opens up. 

Rex walks in wearing the orange and red jacket he'd given Ben the day before, plastic bags in hand. He gives Ben a good morning and a wave and walks the few feet it takes to get over to Prime at the counter. Then he leans into Prime's space and kisses his cheek. Or Ben assumes that's what happens. With Prime's back turned and hood up(does he ever take that thing off?), Ben can't really see the skin contact. 

He looks away and gets back to his food. 

They whisper only four feet away from the ten year old.

“Everything was clear.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“...Mm.”

“Do you think he came alone? Or maybe they landed somewhere else?”

“There is nowhere else for them to go? If they're related to me somehow then they'd be here.”

“You don't know that...”

“Then why are all the surrounding cities completely devoid of people, Rex?”

“We could be in Wyoming?”

“You're joking, but that wouldn't explain completely vacant, wholly undamaged towns..!”

“Shh!”

Silence. 

“Look, Ben, we can't come to any conclusions yet, alright? Paradox or my brother or whoever will find us and we can go back home.”

“You really expect Caesar to travel infinite dimensions to find you?”

“... Paradox will find us and we can go back home.”

A sigh. 

“Or… We can find that thing you were talking about before.”

“The thing?”

“Yeah, the thing.”

“... You forgot what it was called, didn't you?”

“That's not important.”

Silence. 

“You forgot it too, didn't you?”

“Yeah.”

A kiss. “Real cute.”

A laugh. “Love you too.”

In unison. “But you're an idiot.”

“How did I know you were gonna say that?” Rex laughs and glances behind him, then stops laughing. “Uh.” He turns around. Ben follows his gaze. “Where'd he go..?”

Ben has to find Grandpa Max. He has to find Gwen. He can't stay in that raggedy old house anymore with that secretive hooded guy and that overly-affectionate jock. He wants his family. He wants the Rustbucket. He wants Sumo Slammers and bad food and dumb state attractions and Gwen's nagging. 

He wants to beat up some bad guys. 

Finding the city isn't too hard. He just has to follow the creek past where those Eon guys were, down to the edge of the trees leading into the main road. Easy. Easy easy easy. He walks and walks and walks until he gets there. 

He finds no one. The streets are silent, as he knows them to be here. The sky's grey. Ben swears he hears a tumbleweed going through the roads. No cars outside of the abandoned ones. The cashier is still in the grocery store, this time standing up straight but still zombie-like. 

He's alone again. 

No villains, no grandpa, no cousin. 

He screams. 

He turns into Four Arms and he throws a car, slams his fist and dents another one. Dents it again, and again, and again. He gets to his knees, breathing harshly, sobbing without tears. The watch times out and he slumps against the car, screaming still. It's empty, and no one comes to help him.

He starts running. He doesn't know where, but he moves forward, pumping his legs until they burn. The watch recharges and he turns into Stinkfly, moving farther and farther away from the cold, distant town and its wrecked buildings, from its silence and its wind. He never loses the grey sky. 

As soon as he finds the buildings starting to get farther and farther apart, opening up into what looks like farmland, he flies faster, as if there was something gaining on him, as if there was anything to stop him.

And yet he is. He's stopped. 

He hits something. A heavy boing sound follows the sensation of his face smashing into rubber. There's nothing in front of him but he can't move any farther past the threshold. He pushes at it, spits at it, calls it mean names. He turns into Overflow and spews water at it. Heatblast: fire. Wildmutt: smashes into it. 

He ignores the sound of an engine and the wind splitting behind him. It comes to an end soon enough, but then a hand is on his shoulder and a soft voice says, “Stop.”

He lets himself turn around and look Rex in the face. Rex says, “Let's go home.”

He stares past him and sees Prime. Then he glares. 

They're in the kitchen again, Ben in the chair closest to the door this time, Prime leaning against the counter, tapping his finger on his wrist. 

Rex walks in with a new set of clothes in his hand. “I got you these in town this morning.” He sets them on the table. 

Ben looks down at them. “Did you steal them?”

Rex frowns. “What?”

“I thought you said the townsfolk didn't talk to you.”

“No. I said they didn't want us around.” He looks at Prime. “Unless, of course, they need us.”

“And you're ok with that?”

“Well, no, but what can you do?”

“Convince them! Change their mind!” He gets to his feet. 

Prime stands up straighter, the wrist tapping coming to a stop. 

Ben turns toward him. “Are you okay with this? Is that why you hide your face? Because they think you're ugly?” He's shouting. 

“Whoa!” Rex's expression turns sour and he reaches for Ben's arm as he rushes towards Prime.

Ben dodges and presses a finger into Prime's chest. He looks up into Prime's hood, sees dark, cloudy eyes. He notices the pattern on Prime's bandana, a twisting and vining of dark green over black. “Who are you? What's your deal?” What powers do you have, he wants to ask. 

Silence. 

Prime slowly lifts a hand to his hood, and the other to his bandana. He pulls them both down. 

Ben moves back. 

Be respectful! Gwen's voice echoes. 

“What the heck! There's nothing wrong with you!” He was expecting a scar covering half of his face. Maybe an alien he's never seen before. Or even a promiscuous tattoo from one cheek to the other, like Hex's. But there was none of that!

Messy, bushy black hair tumbles out of the hood, curling at the ends. Fat rounded eyebrows raise under the patch of black locks, reaching above blue, thin-almond eyes. His skin was fair, not red or blue or green, nor was it ghost white. 

Prime shrugs.

Ben screams in aggravation. 

Rex follows young Ben with his eyes as he grabs his clothes and goes into the living room, then down the hall to his bedroom. After a few quiet seconds, he notes, “Your hair looks good for having just been dyed.”

Ben brings a finger to his lips, trying not to grin. “Shh.”

Rex is starting to notice that they're getting stronger. He heaves in his breaths, chest rising and falling, sweat pouring down his temple and blood racing. He's never felt beaten down when fighting these guys before. Yeah, they are unconcious now, but heck, barely. 

Rex stands to his full height, huffing and looking around at Eon's lackeys on the ground. He's afraid to have his back turned, fearing that there were more of them just out of sight.

Fear. 

Huh. He hasn't felt that in a long time. 

The thumping in his chest spikes painfully as his brown eyes catch a pinkish-white light enveloping the bodies on the ground. The light consumes their head, their chest, all the way down to their feet, and then they're gone. 

Rex stares, frozen, at where the bodies used to be. The first thought to come to mind after he finally regains his senses is I have to tell Ben. 

It's been two weeks already and no sign of 16's Gwen and Max. They, Ben and Rex, started calling ten year old Ben 16 after asking what year he got the Omnitrix: 2016. 16 didn't get suspicious at all about the question, and why would he? He had no idea who Ben was. Easier for them. 16 was still on his first summer of having the Omnitrix. Ben wouldn't want to mess with him in case something happened. If maybe 16 knowing about him would change his future somehow. 

Ha, as if this entire situation hasn't already messed everything up. 

Ben laughs and puts his blue contacts in. 

He can't let himself risk anything until the Professor gets here. 

“Prime! Food!” Comes a whiny yell from the front of the cabin. 

Gosh, Ben barely even knows how to cook! How is he nineteen and already taking care of a child? Even if the kid does happen to be himself. 

Still, he sighs and pulls his grey hoodie over his head, then wraps the bandana around his face. Yeah, it's hot, and yeah, he doesn't really need to do this anymore, but the less 16 sees him the less he'll recognize himself when he's older. 

Ben walks out of the bathroom and into the dimly lit, narrow, and short hallway. His bright blue and turquoise sneakers walk closer toward the tangerine light of the kitchen, the tired wood under his feet silent as he moves. He steps into the room, eyes rising from the floor, and screams. 

The multicolored feathers lower to reveal Rex's delighted face. He and 16 burst out into laughter. Ben stares, wide-eyed and heart pumping, then rolls his eyes and relaxes. “Real funny.“

“Your face!” Rex can barely breathe, tossing the peacock lawn decoration to the floor and bending over his knees. “It was priceless!”

“When you said he was afraid of peacocks, I thought you were joking!” 16 squeaks as he laughs, patting Rex on his blue arm sleeve. 

Oh, you just wait until you're older. 

“Ok, now go eat your Chocobuns.” Rex pats 16's head and pushes him towards the table to the grocery bags. 16 takes a chocolate covered bun in plastic wrap out of its seal and chomps down as Rex grabs Ben by the shoulder and leads him into the master bedroom. 

“Uh..?” Ben takes off his bandana as Rex closes the door behind them and starts towards the bedside table. Rex rummages through the drawer and Ben sighs as Rex throws bandages on the bed, then bandaids, then a cream, and then puts the bandages back inside the drawer. Ben feels an inch of relief seeing the more serious first aid go back where it belongs. 

Ben grabs the bandaids as Rex sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his jacket. Sitting beside him, Ben takes off his hood and twists off the cream's cap, watching as Rex peels off his arm sleeves and reveals the cuts and scratches on his arms. 

Ben's voice is quiet. “Is this it…?” He hopes. He hopes and hopes and hopes. 

The robot boy grins lazily at him. “If we don't count the bruise forming on my stomach, then yeah.” Rex lifts his muscle shirt and looks down at the darkening brown spot right under his chest. 

Ben's brows lower at the sight. He struggles to keep his mind blank as he applies the cream to Rex's shoulder. 

“They're getting stronger.” Rex mumbles. “A little lower and we'd have matching scars.“

Ben says nothing, keeps his gaze focused on the bandaids he places over Rex's arm.

Rex dips his head, trying to get Ben to look at him. “Hey,” he says, “I'm okay.”

Ben frowns. “I just don't know what they're after.”

“I don't know either,” Rex admits. “But from now on, it'd be best if we don't let 16 out by himself. I also think it'd be good if we went out on patrol in teams from time to time.”

He nods, eyes down.

It's the first sunny day in weeks. The sky is blue and the sun is high and bright. All the bad guys are in jail cells and fed, there are actually people roaming outside— though, not many. Ben does cartwheels in the grass of the front lawn, runs circles around the house's freshly-mowed backyard and surrounding area. Prime and Rex are painting the front of the house and deck a fresh pearl white. Rex’s got good reach with those monster arms of his.

It is summer, no matter how hard it is to believe. It's like they live in the rainforest or something. If there were a dam in this town, it would have overflowed by now. Ben, though, was glad to be out of the house. He still searched the forest and city every day, or every other day, for his relatives, but it was always a downer having it rain all the time and coming up with nothing. Rex said he was searching for them too, but Ben didn't really believe he was looking too hard. He had never seen them. Didn't know how dorkish Gwen was and how lame his gramps could be. Maybe every old guy in the city wore Hawaiian shirts, Ben didn’t know. 

Today, Ben spreads out his feet and arms and lays on the still wet and soggy grass. He sighs and watches the sky. 

Then he gets bored with that and goes back in the house, making sure to jump over the wet spots on the deck as Rex calls over to remind him. He grabs himself and the other two some popsicles from the freezer, then, at the last second, decides to go out of the kitchen door instead. It's warm enough outside, but it's the humidity that's relentless. It's usually humid, but the cross between the sun and the lack of wind today makes it overbearing. 

Ben hands the two their popsicles, one pink, one green, and they all relax against the only side of the house where paint can't get on their clothes. Prime lifts up the hem of his hoodie(why the heck is he still wearing that?) to his face and wipes the sweat off his forehead, revealing a New Jersey-shaped birthmark(scar, maybe?) on his lower flank. They silently lap at their sweets and look into the trees of the surrounding forest. It's as dark and foggy as usual. 

Some things never change. 

It hits Ben that when he's gone, he'll miss these two. 

“Agh! Come on!” Ben growls, slamming his hand down on his watch over and over again. “Stupid watch! Why. Won't. You. Work!” He hits it against one of the many trees around him, then continues fiddling with it. How can the watch stop working now? When he's lost in the middle of nowhere! He screams throatily, gritting his teeth and bending backwards. His second summer with the omnitrix and he's already broken it! Gwen will get a laugh out of this.

“But first I gotta get out of here,” Ben mumbles aloud to himself, once more turning the face of the watch, trying to get the green light to start glowing. The growing smog around him is making him antsy, like Vilgax could return from the dead and come out of it like a zombie or something. 

Instead, it's something infinitely worse. 

A voice, very familiar, like his— if it were recorded and played right back to him, “Whoa, is that my voice?”

It came from his left. No, his right. No—

“Ah!” He screams, jumping away from himself, hands up and beside his face, knee lifted as if to kick the intruder. 

Himself. As if to kick himself. But a smaller version of himself, he'd say. With bouncier hair, and bigger eyes with no pupils. Just large green irises. They wore the exact same clothes, down to the shoes. He was about an inch shorter. Two inches. 

He stares at him, and he stares back. 

In unison, they burst out into identical, high-pitched screams. 

The screams are followed by the sound of a completely different voice saying, “Ow, Ow, Kevin don't leave me behind!”

Their screams slow to a halt as a...porcupine? A humanoid porcupine-opossum hybrid? in an orange outfit runs up to them and stops suddenly, big eyes wide and mouth hidden behind his turtleneck jacket. 

He stares at it and it stares at him and he stares at him and it and they all start screaming. 

I’m getting way too old for this, Ben 10,000 thinks as he punches a lackey of Eon's right before turning into another alien. Ultimate Arctiguana freezes every ninja that comes near him, freezes the cement on which they stand, and jumps up and onto the nearest wall. He climbs a few feet up the building, glancing up at the sky that was only minutes ago shining brightly but now getting cloudier by the second. 

As the alt-universe Ben's start to take aim with their unrecognizable but dangerous-looking weapons, Ben 10,000 turns into Ultimate Big Chill and fazes through the building's wall. His feet touch the ground inside and he changes back into human form, quickly taking in his surroundings. 

The place is dusty and abandoned. An old office with papers strewn everywhere and chairs thrown back onto the floor. The darkness is breached by dim lights coming in from the windows, located only on the left side of the room. Dust bunnies float in the air like pixies in the thick stream of light. The plant beside his right foot is thin and wilted, drooping onto the floor from its pot. 

“Where is everyone?” Ben mumbles as he begins his walk towards the door on the other side of the room. He turns the light on, but they flicker on and off, only giving him a brief flash every few seconds. It's enough for him to see the jacket resting on one chair, and the empty shoe in one corner. There's dust on everything. 

They all left in a hurry. 

Not only that, but where the heck was he? Why weren't his calls going through to Plumber Headquarters? Why weren't his calls going through to Rex? 

Ben walks out into the hallway. The lights are on and blinking, as well. It's like something out of a cheesy horror movie. The hallway is narrow and green, the ground carpeted, all the plants on each side drooping one way or the other. Dust perks up at each step he takes. 

With a flash, XLR8 runs quickly through each room and out, but finds no one and nothing of use. He's at the end of the hall, where both the staircase and elevator are, when he feels a breath on his neck and moves out of the way of a fist going right for his head. He grabs the attacker from behind and smashes his face into the wall, moving onto his friend who reveals himself from the void. Ben punches him, but it has no effect, so he turns into Swampfire and throws him through the stairway door and down its first flight. 

He fights his way back outside, jumping out of a window and using his own arms as a rope. He reaches the ground and turns back into human form again, breathing harshly and looking back at the building behind him. He taps his communicator again, but to no alas. 

He gets an idea, and his heart starts racing even more. He hates it, but it would explain all this. He taps his wrist, taps it again, a blue screen presents itself in front of him and he sees all his recorded history. He goes through the checklist in his head as quickly as he can. Yes, Swampfire, yes XLR8, yes Big Chill… 

He scrolls down more and there, there it is. 

He sighs and curses. Yup, that's dimension travel. And of course I didn't set the watch to that! Of course it was an error!

He glares at the little red exclamation mark next to the record. Someone brought him through here without him knowing, and if it wasn't Professor Paradox, then there's only one person it could be. 

Ben 10,000 growls. Oh, Rex will get a load out of this. Or is it Kai, here? It could go either way, really. Heck, Ben's even seen dimensions where he’s ended up with Ester. There were dimensions where he and Kai had gotten divorced and he'd end up with Rex. Times where he wasn't with anyone. It's a guessing game to see if the Kenny in one universe is his and Kai's or his and Rex's. Sometimes Ken was biologically Rex's, sometimes Rex was his stepdad. Sometimes Kenny was adopted. His son had many different appearances, but his name would always be Ken. 

After Paradox tweaked the Ultimatrix, he'd given Ben 10,000— this one, at least— the ability to travel through dimensions. It was how he'd discovered all the other 10,000s lives, and how he'd met Rex again. He didn't have a Kenny in his universe, and wasn't sure whether he and Rex wanted one, but only time would tell. 

Well, he could figure that out when he got back home.

But the universal travel function isn't working now, and he has a feeling that something big is about to happen. 

---

Nineteen year old Ben feels the vein on his head straining as he, once again, stops himself from saying a joke. That's what 16 is for, he continues to remind himself. 

16 is currently in Stinkfly mode, and though Ben is not wearing his own Omnitrix, he is aching to slap his wrist and yell out Shocksquatch and fight. He wants to scream some puns. He hates being on the sidelines like this. But what was he to do? 

Rex had a style of swinging a sword that reminded Ben of Diamondhead. Flashes of pink and white signaled the destruction of multiple Ben's. Stinkfly's goo would hit a helmet and blind an opponent, giving Rex the advantage in swiping him down. Ben had no idea where Eon's servants were going, but if they were just healing and coming back, training and getting stronger, then this style of fighting would do no good. 

As for Ben, he didn't need to hold his sword to fight. Ascalon flew around the forest, hitting anyone in its way with an energy blast, leaving Ben to just..silently stand there..in the middle of a battlefield...doing nothing. 

“Are you just gonna stand there?” Stinkfly exclaims from the air, shooting at another servant. The kid couldn't see what he was doing because he didn't know what to look for.

Ben gulps, the vein straining again. “Yah.” He clears his throat, “Yeah.”

Holy crap, he wants to fight. Holy crap, he wants to say a joke every time his sword hits someone. Holy crap, he wants to be himself again, take out these irritating eye contacts, and fight alongside his boyfriend. 

And there. 

The sword was in his hand with just a thought. The force of the blast that blew from Ascalon was so sudden and so powerful from disuse that Rex barely had time to fly out of the way. The brightness of the blueish white that came from the sword's hilt was blinding. The effort moves him backwards. Ben's hood and cap flies off his head and his heels dig into the wet patch of dirt under him. He can't stop himself from letting out a long cheer. 

When it's all over, Ben is standing there with his arms stretched forward, sword pointed where trees used to be. Where many alt-universe Ben's used to be. They can see the sunset from here now, orange and just beyond the horizon, surrounded by a peach pink glow. Ben's currently blue eyes are wide and his shoulders lift and fall with his chest. He's exhilarated, and so are the ten year old Ben's and Rex looking at him. 

“Babe,” Rex lands on the ground a few feet from him, lips in a tight smile and brows knitted. “You ok? You need to talk about something?”

Ben can only shake his head, still astonished. He forgot what it felt like. He hasn't used the sword in years, and never like this. Couldn't trust its power, really. After the fight with Sir George, he hasn't felt the need for it. 

But he's older than he was then. Different. And without the Omnitrix, he didn't have any other choice. And yet...he felt like he could get used to it. He breathes out, “Just a little pent up…“

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Shh!”

Ben, Rex, and a recently turned-human 16 turn to their left. 

Peeking from behind a tree are two, no, three small children around 16's age. No, not around. Are. They are 16's age because they are 16, or slightly different versions of him. Well, two of them are. The two bouncy-haired brunets hide behind the tree again, a second too late, while a third smaller alien kid that looks suspiciously like Argit stands in the open with his eyes closed tightly. 

Argit yelps as a hand reaches out and pulls him behind the tree. The three on the opposite side of them stare in stunned silence, unmoving, except for Ben Prime's twitching eye.

Finally, Rex speaks up, “We're gonna need more groceries.”

The entire world is scared of Ben Tennyson. 

Images of his face and captions such as Ben Tennyson: A Vigilante, Will Harangue Was RIGHT?!?!, and Ben 0: The Cancellation Of Ben 10 popped up on screens all over New York in a matter of what seemed like hours. Social Media boomed for days. He'd gotten everything taken from him in a matter of a week. All his fame: flushed down the toilet. He couldn't go outside without getting something thrown at him. His enemies laughed in his face. Of course there were those that said he'd done nothing wrong. You'd think there was a war going on with the way The Bird App fought over his actions. Were you ProBen or NoBen? Were you celebrating? Wondering why this was a bad thing? Were you grieving? Arguing over the morality of a seventeen year old boy?

Rex and him had fought a few days earlier and Rex hadn't come over since. Rook was at Plumber HQ and hadn't visited him at home, but Ben made no effort to contact him either. Gwen, and surprisingly Julie, had called to give him support. Gwen would be there later that day. But for now, he stayed in his bed, bingeing all of his Sumo Slammers DVDs. 

It all happened like this:

---

The incursions attack the Plumber ship holding Vilgax and the small team selected to bring him in. Ben and Rex and Rook are a part of that team. They all get split up inside the Prison after being followed inside. Ben's with Vilgax. Vilgax tests Ben, Ben gets angry. Attea finds them and Vilgax escapes, Attea proposes something to Ben, Ben is thinking it over when Rex appears and fights her off. She escapes, Rex wants to know what she said, Ben tells him, and Rex freaks. He tells Ben not to do it, it's not him, he's not that kind of hero. He's not Rex. 

Ben nods, they split up again, and Ben finds Vilgax. Now, this is when things get...ugly. 

The octopus alien always had a specific way of getting on Ben's nerves, and it wasn't any better when he kept baiting him. He probably would've done it without Attea's proposal. It just took that one little push, and Rex's words went right out of his ears. 

“You're nothing, and you're going to die a nothing, and you're gonna die alone.”

Ben's blood turned to ice. Vilgax stopped behind him, his hands still cuffed together, his eyes still red with hatred. Ben didn't turn around. Oh, no, he lifted one hand from his side and slowly brought it to his wrist, turning the dial, searching. Vilgax said nothing, his height making it so that Ben's big, brown head of hair covered all movement of his hands. 

Seconds later, Vilgax was on the ground, his face being smashed in, defenseless as he was held down by Swampfire. 

“Well, you're gonna die alone, and slowly. And no one is going to miss you.” He'd never heard Ben's voice like that before, and it would be the last voice he'd hear. 

Ben went through almost every alien he had until his watch timed out, which was way after Vilgax's face had turned to mush. Teeth, and liquid a non-human color, was all that was left on top of what used to be Vilgax's torso. Ben stood up, the thick liquid all over his hands, and huffed.

When Attea found him, she cleaned him up and knocked him out, and later Rex, Rook, and Grandpa Max told him that Vilgax and Attea had gotten away. 

Months pass. Everything's normal. His partner and boyfriend Rex is by his side, a new Sumo Slammers movie is out, everyone's having a good time— and then Attea and Looma show up, fighting for his love. 

Of course he should have seen it coming. Attea broadcasting to the whole world their greatest accomplishment, killing the universe's most despicable villain, was the most outlandish, Princess-ey thing to do! Why would that possibly be a bad thing on his side? Why wouldn't that be the most viable example of them being a power couple? Attea and Ben Tennyson, ruling the world together! Sounds amazing right?

---

Ben isn't sure if he and Rex are broken up. He's too scared to call him. And honestly, at this point, he just wants to die. Vilgax was right. He is going to end up nothing and alone. He can't take back what he's done. Can't stop Attea from telling the whole world their secret. 

He hates himself, and he hates the world. 

---

            Rex's entire world is mad at him. 

'Entire world' equalling what he used to call Ben Tennyson. He's ignoring Rex's calls, won't meet up with him anywhere, walking away when Rex tries to talk to him at Plumbers HQ. 

Ben's world calls him a hero. Rex's world has been fine without him for a year now. Ben calls him an A-hole. Said he went too far. That it's not his job to choose who lives or dies. 

Rex said who cares? No one's gonna miss that guy!

Ben said that's not the point!

Rex asked then what is the point?

Ben said that bad guys go to jail, not get their heads chopped off!

Rex said if you had the chance, you would've done it, too. 

Ben left and hasn't talked to him since. 

It all happened like this:

----

Rex and Ben are transporting Vilgax via Plumber ship to a highly renowned prison in the middle of the galaxy. They'd taken every possible precaution: clearing out the prison before letting them in, keeping the transport under wraps, selecting only a few of the Plumber's most trustworthy crew. But that didn't prepare them for an Incursion attack. 

At first, they thought it was Vilgax's plan to escape, but it soon became apparent that Attea and her army wanted his head. And good riddance, right? Why not just let her? Except the morality of it was that they couldn't just do that. Just let him suffer behind bars for the rest of his very long, alien life. At least, that's what Rex's entire world tells him. 

Everyone got split up. Rex handled Attea, but she kept using that disgustingly long tongue of hers and it freaked him out. She got away. He met up with Ben some time later, but at that point he had lost Vilgax. 

They search for him, again finding Attea. But now, alongside her is Eight Eight. Ben said he'll hold them off, so Rex goes on. 

He should've fought with him. Would've made it easier on Ben, who would be found unconscious later. Would've made it easier on Rex, who would get in trouble with Plumbers headquarters for killing Vilgax. Would've made it easier on Vilgax, who wouldn't be dead right now. 

---

Rex is laying on his bed in Plumbers HQ, looking up at the slate, metal ceiling. He hasn't gotten up in awhile. The only time he does get up is to get food or use the bathroom, at this point. He's been sleeping all day for the past few days, and when he can't do that, he stares up and thinks. No one has called for him. Ben won't text him back, but it's been a few days since he's last tried. He can only lift his phone and stare at the last message he sent. He can't see whether he's been left on read or not. It hurts each time to look, so he puts his phone back down. 

He raises his right hand off the edge of the bed, squeezes it into a fist, tries to be angry(maybe punching something will make it better), but his hand only glows, doesn't change, makes a pathetic, whiny sound. He lets it drop back down and hit the side of the bed. 

His stomach is growling, but he doesn't have the energy to get up. He can't find a good reason for it. What's the point in eating? Why is it such a necessary thing? He's not even a full human! 

So he doesn't get up to get something to eat, but he imagines he does. He imagines he leaves his room, walks right out of this freaking facility, goes to Mr. Smoothies and finds Ben there. He imagines that he apologizes to him, says it wasn't worth it, says he wants them to figure this out, and he imagines that Ben forgives him. He imagines that Ben sits them at a table outside and they order chilli fries even though Mr. Smoothies doesn't make chilli fries, but this is his dream so it doesn't matter, and he imagines they eat together and laugh again. To take it one step further, he imagines Bobo is there, and Noah is there. He imagines Gwen and Kevin come through, and Circe and whoever else. He imagines they all talk and catch up, that they all have amazing stories to tell and no one is mad at him and he can eat food and not feel sick or look at Ben and not feel like he's the worst person on the planet. 

His stomach stops aching for a while. 

Then there's a flash of light. 

---

Ben's in his backyard with a can of black paint in hand and his jacket on the ground. He focuses on this moment and this moment only. 

He glares down at the jacket. That ten used to mean something. He layers some masking tape over it and all the green lines on the jacket. After that, he sprays the white on the front of the jacket black, then turns it around and does the back. While that dries, he goes inside and takes his mom's eyeliner into the bathroom. 

An hour later, he's back outside, black smudged under his eyes and hair brushed forward in a bang. He puts on his new and improved jacket, and pulls the hood over his head. 

Then he hears something. Air splitting apart and being sucked in at the same time. He turns around and faces the flashing light. A man steps out of the portal, and following behind him is Rex. 

“Four Ben's, haha,” Rex laughs, eyes wide, hands on his face and sitting on the backs of his legs. “Hahaha..”

Ben 05 looks at Ben 16, pointing his thumb at the robot boy having an existential crisis in the front yard of their now nicer-looking cabin. 

Ben 16 shrugs. 

Ben Prime has Ben 12 in the kitchen, having brought the loudmouth inside before he could start blabbing. 12 had recognized him instantly, on the cusp of calling him by his real name with all the other Ben's, and Argit, for some reason, all around them. Ben hadn't remembered meeting him until he'd seen him again. Another thing Professor Paradox had never explained. The same went for 12, it seems, because when they were alone he went over all he remembered from the brain switch months ago with Eon. 

“Yeah, you can't tell anyone about that,” Ben says. 

“Why not?” 12 asks, a little too loudly. 

Shhh!!” He glances at the door. “Look, stuff is happening— ah! I don't know what it is.” 12 closes his mouth. “But it's about to go down any day now. And when it goes down, we need as many people focused and just as normal as they were before. They can't return to their normality if they know about us.” He moves his finger between him and 12. 

“Yeah, okay, so, uh,” he doesn't look very convinced with his finger up his nose. “Where are we? And who's that guy with the mullet?”

“I'll explain it later.”

---

“So I'm guessing that you're all different universe versions of Ben.” Rex is standing in front of the ten-year olds with his hands on his hips and a smile on his face, having finally calmed down. “You guys could make a band or something.”

“A band—?” 12's enthusiasm is quickly interrupted. 

“You mean I've been in a different universe this whole time?” 16 exclaims, mind racing. “So that's why I haven't been able to find Gwen and Grandpa Max!”

“Alt universe me's,” 05 chuckles. “Awesome.”

“So how do we get back?” 12 asks, green eyes wide with no pupils. It's kinda freaking Rex out. Reminds him of someone. 

“Am I a Ben?” Argit's soft, high-pitched voice speaks up for the first time this evening. 

This sparks an ear-piercing cacophony of young Ben's talking over each other, with bits of an apologetic baby Argit mixed in. Rex eyes all of them and sighs. 

A pat on his shoulder turns his head to Ben Prime, who's bandana and hood is back up. The oldest Ben speaks up. “Hey, hey!”

They all quiet down, staring wide-eyed at the mysterious hooded man. 

A silence falls over them for a few seconds, until Argit disrupts with a quiet, “Are you two both Bens?”

Prime doesn't answer. Rex jumps in. “We're working on a way to get you back, okay? We have an idea.” Rex takes his jacket from Prime's raised arm. 

“Yeah? And that is?” 16 asks, still a little bitter about having just found this out. 

 Rex slides one arm through his jacket, and then the other. “There's an item,” he grunts. “I gotta go search for tonight. You all will be staying with-” he pauses. “Prime.” He nods at him. They all look at the hooded man. 

“What item?” 12 asks. 

“It's called a Chronosapien time bomb.” Prime says. The voice startles 05 and Argit. 12 feels like he's being stared at directly. “With any luck, it'll get you guys sent back to where you belong.”

Ben Prime hands Rex a backpack, which he quickly looks through and then puts on. “You'll spend the night here. I'll be back in the morning.”

05 crosses his arms. “And who are you, exactly?”

Rex grins, thick black eyebrows raised. “I'm Rex. Prime's partner in good and boyfriend.”

05 makes a face, 12's jaw drops, and Prime shakes his head, bringing a hand to his temple. 

Rex gives Prime a kiss on top of his hood and begins walking off. 

16 calls after him. “You didn't really answer the question!” He sighs and walks up beside Prime, turning to face the group. “I know they seem suspicious but they're cool. I promise.”

The Ben's nod as Argit takes hold of 12's hand. 12 drops it like a pancake, brows furrowed and lips tight. 

---

Hours pass. It's dark outside and Prime is in his room while all the Ben's are sitting in the living room, except one, whose pacing between it and the kitchen. Argit is asleep, cuddled up in the sofa chair. 

“How did he even get here?” 12 nods to the alien, mumbling to himself. He's sitting on the edge of the couch, 16 sitting beside him. 

05 is pacing through the entrance to the kitchen, eyes on the ground, hand on his chin. “We could just leave if we wanted too. They aren't here to stop us.”

“Why would we do that? There's nowhere to go! Believe me, I've tried.” 16 pats the couch arm absentmindedly. “They're nice people.”

05 points to him. “Gwen explained something like this to me before! It's called.. Sherlock disease?”

12 corrects him. “Stockholm syndrome.”

“That too.”

12 stops listening to himself, instead focusing on his thoughts. Boyfriend? But Prime's me, right? So does that mean I'm gonna be gay in the future?

05 is thinking to himself too. I know that guy's voice. I just can't put a finger on it. Who is he? A bad guy I fought once? A friend of Max's? An alien? No, he looked human. Maybe he's a Sludgepuppy. 

His thoughts are interrupted by a clicking sound. 16 is messing with his Omnitrix, twisting its face, looking at each alien. 05's hasn't been working at all since he got here. “How come yours works?”

16 looks up. “Huh?”

“Your Omnitrix!”

“Oh.” He looks down at it. “I dunno. Yours doesn't?”

12 sits up, now examining his own Omnitrix. “Mine's off, too.”

“Huh.” 16 said. “Think it's a universe thing?”

“No, cause mine worked the last time—”Wait. Realization hits 05 with a frying pan. 

The other Ben's go silent for a few seconds. 16 speaks up. “Last time?”

05 rushes for the back room. “I gotta go.” He knocks hard on Prime's door. “Gotta ask him something.”

---

“You're me!”

Crap. 

05 moves closer, getting in his face. Ben moves back, hands up in defense. “Remember? From the ship?”

The ship. Back when the team and him were looking for the Forge of Creation. Ben had completely forgotten about that. Had completely forgotten about a lot of things when he came here. He hadn't remembered the name of the Chronosapien time bomb until that morning, but he'd remembered its existence. 

“How did I forget that…?” 05 says under his breath. “Anyway,” he brings his attention back to Ben. “What's going on? What happened to you? You going goth or something?”

Ben takes off his hood and pulls the bandana down from over his face. “A disguise happened to me. And it's called grunge streetwear.”

05 furrowed his eyebrows and screwed up his face at him, walking further into the already small room. The bed had a white, flowery duvet and was set against the middle of the wall with a bedside table on its left and a lamp on it. There was a closet on the wall to the right of the bed, brown and closed with slits to look through. Most of the clothes inside were black, with orange, red, and some dark colors mixed in. 

Wait, so these two really were going out? Seriously? It wasn't a joke?

Not sure how to breach the subject, he changes it. “You've been hanging out with Kevin too much.” 05 says, sitting on the bed. 

“Not lately, no.”

“What, you break up or something? Traded him in for the mullet guy?” So not only is his direct future self in love with a guy, but he's in love with a guy with a mullet?! Had he no taste??

Ben rolls his eyes and glares down at him. “Was I always this stuck up?”

05 shrugs. 

“No, Kevin is only a good friend. Always has been. As far as I know, he's still with Gwen right now while she gets her degree.” He answers. “What else ya wanna know?”

05 looks him up and down. 

---

Rex spends the next three and a half weeks going out every other night to search for any clues he can find. A Gwen, a Max, a reality-destroying super weapon…

For some reason, villains don't come out at night. Rex didn't understand why. It was the perfect time to strike. There's no way any strays didn't know where they lived by now. All the ones they had locked up could be let out or escape at any time, and Rex was expecting new guys to come through along with 05, 12, and Argit. 

Argit. So weird. He'd only met the frenemy once, but Ben had told him all about him. He seemed to be a very minor presence in Ben's life, so it was a mystery why he was here with them. Maybe because he's technically a villain? But then why is he a child? And why wouldn't that bring Kevin with? They worked together, right?

The forest is quiet. No frogs, no crickets. No owls. Just the scent of dew burning his nose and the never-ending fog that was just light enough to see through. The air is cool, freezing his ears numb. Rex's hands are stuffed casually into his sewed-on bi flag pockets as his light-up, camouflage-patterned, white, grey, blue, and black shoes snap a twig under his feet about every two seconds. He doesn't have to worry about anyone attacking him at this time of night, so he's free to break as much forestry as he wants.  

He finds a cave he's never seen before in all of his time here. White smoke is streaming out of it like a fog machine. If that's not an invitation, Rex has no idea what is. 

The first step inside is a question. The second is an exclamation. The third, relief. It seems a lot warmer inside than it is out, and if it wasn't for that, Rex would have left. He was definitely getting somewhere here. He was out of options everywhere else. 

It's dank. Smells of rats and musk, like the Providence laundry room. He does not miss that smell. It's dark, so he puts on his trademark goggles. 

Bringing it back to the classics. 

There's stalactites on the ceiling, dripping water from who knows where the deeper he walks in. There's sounds, but he's not sure if those are regular cave sounds or something he should be afraid of. Were there bats? Do all caves have bats? 

It gets muddier too. He has to plant his feet in certain ways to make sure he doesn't slip. The fog leads him through narrow tunnels, ensuring he doesn't get lost. At one point he stops to take a snack break. It's been four hours since he's left the cabin and he's already starting to feel homesick. But he gets up anyway and continues spelunking. 

Until he sees a light, right there in the distance. He almost cries in joy, leaves a message on his communicator, knowing Ben would be asleep by now. He runs toward it, water splashing beneath his feet, and stops when he hears something. 

Footsteps. Stomping. It stops. He looks behind him. Nothing. Turns back around. He keeps walking, then the sound again, copying his footsteps. He stops. It stops. He changes the setting on his goggles by pressing a button on the side and sees them. Heat signatures. All around him. Three of them. 

Eon's groupies. Rex mentally sighs, takes them by surprise and knocks them out quietly, one by one. Slams one head into another, instantly KO-ing them. The last is a bit trickier, but a good punch to the temple with a smack hand gets it done. He continues on his way, quieter now. He really wishes his cloaked spy uniform had come with him to this world. Would really be useful about now. 

He reaches the end of the tunnel where the light is coming from and peeks around the entrance to a pit. If he had moved any farther, he would have fallen at least fifty feet. The cavern below is empty but for a strange, golden machine in the back, the light blue glow surrounding it, and the fog. The light illuminates the whole cavern. He seems to be alone, but he knows that can't be true.

He places his bag on the floor and turns to peek out of the tunnel for a closer look, but his hand and forehead knock against something. A blue wave travels up the tunnel exit as well as a boing sound. 

A barrier, he sighs, knocking his head against the invisible obstruction again. Of course. 

He'd need Ben. As always. 

There's no heat signature but for the Chronosapien time bomb in the cavern, but when he turns around, he finds a great many of them. Too many to count before he's attacked. 

More of Eon's servants, more alt-universe Ben's, swoop around him. Twelve, twenty. Rex is ambushed to the ground, struggling beneath their weight. An especially hard punch hits his ribs and for a second he can't breathe. Another hit, like a stab in his abdomen, shocks him into action. He builds his funchucks, gets them off, and then makes a whip and slashes them further away. One comes up behind him but Rex is too quick. The BlastCaster grabs the servant and slams him through the barrier, then turns and throws him at the group. Three fall down. 

He's being run at. He breathes harshly, changing the BlastCaster into large blue axes, one on each arm. Under him, he builds his Sky Slyder, now hovering above the ground, and races through the opening where the four are struggling to stand. He's panting, hair blown back by the air slapping his face. He swings at any enemy that crosses his path, knowing that he's being followed. Good. He can finish them off in a more open place. He just needs to get somewhere in this cave. All he fears is that he'll lose the fog leading him to the way out. 

He slides into an opening in the tunnel with two directions, one leading outside, the other somewhere unknown. He knows how long it'll take to reach the forest, but the other path beside the one he'd just come out of could lead to an open space quicker. He takes the latter option, making a smooth u-turn. 

Either he finds a battleground or he loses them, either is fine with Rex. 

But they're teleporters, so he's found rather quickly. They're in smaller packs like this, though, so Rex handles them swiftly. He has no idea how many more there are, but he's starting to think he can't fight them all himself. After finishing off another pack, he takes a break. It's only then that he realizes that he left his bag in the previous tunnel and it's probably been ransacked by now. 

He curses. He'll have to leave the cave as soon as possible then. He needs water, and bandages, this time. But he has to find the fog first. It's not too far from where he is now. The tunnel was a straight ride with no twists or turns. He turns his legs into the Rexcycle and heads back for the u-turn. 

There's a loud boom and the sound of a crash somewhere in the cave, and Rex's blood turns cold. The cave entrance..!

He rushes out of the tunnel right into the other foggy one leading out, and it takes a long ride till he finally gets to the widening part of the cave tunnels. He hasn't seen anyone in a while, but when he gets to the cave entrance, or lack thereof, he sees why. There's about, Rex scans heat signatures, about forty? Maybe? servants standing in the way of him and a bomb site. He can't see them clearly. All the red and yellow mix together with these goggles. He has no idea how many are in one place, if one punch landed on the same guy or another. 

He fights, and when that doesn't work, he plans. An idea is quick to pop into his brain and without really thinking, he creates a rocket launcher, snaps some boulders into its mouth, and shoots at the walls. The whole place shakes, and some stalactites fall and, Rex assumes (since he's definitely not looking), hits a few foes. He does it again, and again, and he hopes the whole place doesn't come down on him too. His block party shield saves him from being skewered and when he thinks it's safe for him to move, he punches the rocks blocking the cave exit until they fall. His fists give out and break into pieces, revealing his real olive-toned hands. 

He takes in very deep breaths as he climbs out, leaving Eon's servants to their own devices. They all seemed to have run away, but he couldn't have been sure. He falls to his knees once he reaches the end of the mound of rocks. The dirt and grass under his knees feels heavenly, and he's close to passing out. But he doesn't. He lifts his goggles onto his forehead, stands to his feet, and uses the last of his powers to build his hoverboard and head towards home. 

There's an ashy smell, like charcoal, Ben smells in his sleep. Someone's calling his name. Whispering. Yelling. Both. He cracks an eye open. It almost physically pains him to peel back his eyelid. His vision is blurry, but another call of his name has him turning around. 

His heart stops and he startles, cussing under his breath and turning back around in the bed. “Rex, oh my gosh…” He groans sleepily, closing his eyes while hearing the man laugh behind him and set the peacock decoration on the ground or against the closet or something. 

“Couldn't resist.” Rex slides in behind him. 

“Ew, no, you're sweaty and you stink.” 

“Wha— I never hesitate to kiss you when you're in your sweaty and stinky alien phases…!”

“Did you find anything?”

There's silence. Rex's tracing the New Jersey-shaped scar on his lower back. He says, voice soft, “Let's just..wait until the morning, ok?”

Ben nods, mind already dazing off. Rex cuddles closer, wrapping his arms around him, and a warmth presses against Ben's back. Both of their breaths even out, and soon the two heroes fall asleep. 

Chapter Text

Who am I?

The person(person?) breathes out a stream of white smoke into the cold air, lips as pale as his(his?) skin. He(he?) pulls down the hood from over his head, releasing purple(or maybe black? There's nothing but black) hair from its captivity and suffering his cheeks to the cool weather. 

Everything was pale. The cloudy sky, the ruined buildings, the street. There was nothing but him and the desaturated earth. White. Blue. 

It was a desert. A plain in the middle of a city. A memory of a catastrophe that struck many, many years before, now forgotten along with its people.

(Or was it? How did he know that? How could he ever be sure? He didn't even know who he was)

His feet(he's wearing shoes. Where did they come from? Whose are they?) crunch on the pavement. 

(Maybe he's dead. Maybe this is Hell. Maybe this is Heaven)

He doesn't feel anything. He can't feel anything. (He does not feel anything. He can not feel anything)

There's a feeling he can't quite describe as he walks(Walks but can't really see). It's in the back of his head. Or neck. Or feet. 

I can't feel anything. 

He can not feel anything. 

---

How long have I been walking?

He does not know how long he's been walking. 

---

There's no one around. The streets are empty, the architecture is rotten, and there are no street signs. Every road looks the same. There aren't any cars. The foundations are turning to dust. 

He's walked for hours(or maybe two minutes?) and found nothing. Nothing sticks out in the bright cloudy sky. He can't see the sun. But the clouds are blue and white. Slate. (Maybe he actually can't see?)

What do I do? There's nothing here..

He can't imagine what people look like. He can't imagine what a real place looks like. This couldn't be a real place(could it?). 

I should look for food. 

(He's not hungry. Maybe he'll never feel hungry. He's not a human, is he?)

He keeps walking. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. He can never find the edge of the ruin. It goes on for miles.

Crunch. 

Crunch. 

Crunch. 

He feels fine( Nothing's wrong. Why should he feel bad?). His life has always been like this. From when he was born hours(minutes?) ago to this very moment.  

It's not cold anymore, rather he feels the sun on his cheeks, despite the fact that the sky is filled with one long, continuous, bright cloud(yeah, he definitely can't see). There are no trees to shade him from the warmth he has. He wonders where it's coming from, and then doesn't. 

He keeps walking. 

Where to?

Nowhere. 

Why?

Why not?

Where's nowhere? Is it a place?

Yes. No. 

What will be there?

Nothing. 

Things that don't exist?

Space. Time. Aliens. Dogs. 

Dogs?

There aren't any dogs here. 

The earth underneath his feet seems more blue. Sky blue. Skier bluey. 

Is it sand?

It's concrete. 

Is it?

Maybe cement.

Is it?

Pavement?

Is it?

Is there a difference?

Is there?

He kicks the sand/dust/rocks/debris. 

I want a dog. 

I want a ship. To see the aliens. 

He laughs to himself. Then looks confused. He didn't know he could do that. 

What will I do with the aliens?

Take them as my pet. 

Like a dog?

But they'll be better! I can name them!

I can name a dog. 

I don't even know my own name. 

A name. A name. 

He looks around. Sees it. 

He decides his name is  .

    takes his first step with a name. He grins, energy coursing through his veins, his feet moving under him naturally. He begins dancing down the road. He’s never felt happier than with this name.

    quickly gets bored with that name after a while, so he changes it again. This time to Weather. He moves silently through the air, everywhere and nowhere at all. There’s twists and turns but inevitably he ends up in the same place he started. Then he changes his name to something more predictable: Time. He has no idea what it(he) is, no idea what it’s(he’s) for, but it’s(he’s) always around. Always a thought in the back of someone’s(Who? Who? Why?) head. (Isn’t he the only one to ever exist?)

And yet, utterly useless.

I’m getting closer… but that’s not it.

So he keeps searching. One name after the other. One ability to the next. But he can't quite find it. Time seems to feel the most fitting, but that's not it.

It’s something longer. Something specific. It lasts, and continues lasting. It’s an enemy and an ally.

He hates it, and all of a sudden he wants to cry.

Why?

Why why why?

He blanks.

Then blinks. 

A tear slips down his cheek. Oh…

I’m not the only one here.

The army of men surrounding him in this empty, sky blue desert(city) say nothing, their heads bowed, all on one knee, all dressed in black(or maybe purple?), a fist to their chest and the other on the dusty ground. (He can finally see)

Who am I?

He’s going to live forever.

Chapter Text

A cold but invigorating river of taste slides down a blueing tongue. A withering slurp sounds out to the person across the table. Green eyes look down, pondering at the goofy face on the side of the cup. 

It's been about a whole year since the whole Chronosapien Time Bomb Debacle™ (when Ben found out that he was the only Ben to not have an Omnitrix, and also that he wasn't the only Ben period) but nothing has really changed. He still goes to school everyday and soccer practice every afternoon. He pays his car insurance every month, makes sure to make time for his boyfriend at least three times a week. His one day of fame was so brief that even now, only a year later, he barely remembers how everything went down. His grampa doesn't talk about his work, but Ben knows. He knows. And he is not going to forget. He's eager to join the force after high school, especially after the talk he and Grampa Max had a few days prior. 

“You're gonna suck up the straw if you keep going on like that,” His boyfriend, Rex, points out.

He finally stops sucking on his straw; His smoothie is completely empty. He let's the stick fall from his lips and he mumbles, “Sorry..”

“What's got you all hazy-minded? I haven't seen you like this since North Park.” He sits back against the back of the booth. He has a naturally-placed smile on his face and a permanently warm set of brown eyes that usually made Ben swoon. Today, though, he feels unaffected by the casual display of affection, outside of feeling guilt for not feeling anything. This was his and Rex's time, but he was spending it worrying about something that he had no control over. Rex is homeschooled and lives kind of out of the way for Ben to meet with him regularly, but they still try to make it work. 

They met at a soccer game. Rex's friend Noah had brought him to see the game while Ben was on the field playing against his school. Rex didn't know what “normal” school life was like, so Noah was doing his friendly duties by helping him out. You'd think he'd take him to a basketball game or something, but that's not how he rolls, apparently. Rex congratulated him on a good game afterwards and they hit it off immediately. 

“It's nothing.” He smiles, moves some hair out of his face to temporarily cover his twitching eye. He couldn't tell Rex no matter how much he wanted to. This was not only his secret, but the government's, and if he told Rex, he'd have to tell Noah, and Noah would tell his girlfriend Claire, and Claire would tell Annie and Annie would tell everyone. 

            “Uh huh,” Rex nods, one thick black eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face. His teeth are white and perfectly straight. They've been doing long distance for three years now and yet here he is, still gazing in wonder at how handsome Rex Salazar is. Maybe he isn't as unaffected as he thought. “Tell me the truth. You're worried about prom, aren't you?”

That snaps Ben out of his trance for a second time. Crap, prom, crap crap crap. It was three weeks away and he still had nothing prepared. He isn't very worried about it, hadn't even known he was going until a month ago when he jokingly asked Rex to it(and was surprised to get an enthusiastic yes). But now that it is becoming a reality, he's forgotten to be excited. He smiles, genuinely this time, and sits up in his booth. “Yes, prom! That's coming up soon! We need to color coordinate!”

He high fives himself in his head for coming up with that so quickly. 

“Let me guess,” Rex leans his square chin on his palm. “Green.”

“Of course!” He pats the edge of the booth with his fingers and leaves them there.

“And what else? Blue? Red? Orange?”

“Whatever you want. It's your prom too.”

He grins wider at that, a feat he somehow manages to accomplish every time despite his smile always seeming at its widest. His golden cheeks stretch to accommodate his giddiness. Regular high school shenanigans always seemed to excite him. He was fascinated with it, as if TV wasn't enough to get the full coverage of it. Ben was careful to not say anything to ruin his boyfriend's rose-tinted idea of high school, despite knowing firsthand how awful it could be. 

Ben is only worried about graduating, and fast. The conversation he had with Grampa Max is clear in his mind:

           Grampa Max never talked about Plumber business with Ben, even after the Chronosapien Time Bomb Debacle. Every time Ben brought it up, he acted oblivious, like he had no idea what Ben was talking about. So Ben was surprised when Max brought him into an empty room and suddenly started talking about enrolling him into Plumber’s Academy.

           “Now that you’re about to graduate, I think it’s time we talk about your future,” He’d said. Ben was confused at first, but then excitement thrummed throughout his body so furiously that he was bouncing on his toes and grinning like an idiot. 

He slept that night feeling accomplished and ready for the future.

But as Rex continues talking, a thought creeps up on him and realization dawns on him, slowly turning his joy into something close to dread.

If Ben went off to Plumber’s Academy, then what would become of him and Rex?

He meets Rex’s eyes and smiles again, not realizing he had stopped, and lets Rex chat on as his own thoughts run rampant.

Outside of the Mr. Smoothies’ windows is a burst of dust as lasers hit the ground, the sounds of Plumbers fighting drowned out by the music inside the small fast food restaurant, Rex’s chatter, and Ben’s thoughts.

———

            There are more mouths to feed, so Rex went out to get more food again. It’s once again foggy and cloudy outside, but all the Ben’s, including Prime,(and Argit, still? For some reason?) are all outside on the porch. Miles away, Rex is currently feeding all the villains they have locked up in jail, and the city streets are as barren as usual. 05 and 12 have ancient handheld game systems that they always keep in their pockets, as apparently they came with them when they got transported here, and now they are fighting against each other in a mini Sumo Slammers game Prime felt absolute nostalgia for. He willed away the urge to cry so as to not give his Ben-ness away. 16 was messing with Argit, but Argit wasn’t crying this time, so Prime found no reason to interfere.

           It’s been a few weeks now since the new Ben’s appeared and three days since Rex's finding of the bomb, but these last few days have been filled with fighting new but old enemies and getting them into cells. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and it doesn’t sound easy in the first place. They still haven’t found Charmcaster, despite her Uncle hinting that she was around somewhere. With all that’s been going on, Prime hasn’t had the time to go check out the cave. He could do it now, if Rex were here, but he has to look after the kids. 

           The kids. Heh, like they're parents. Where’s Sandra and Carl when you need them? Holiday and Six?

           Crap, God, he misses his parents…

           He shakes his head, fixes his hood, pulls down his bandana to his neck.

           He wonders where the other Ben’s are. Ben 23, Gwen 10(if she counted), Ben—

           Prime stands up. A light flashes in the back of the lawn, in front of the treeline, oval sized and white. Something falls to the ground, covered in dirt and huffing—

           Ben 10,000, he finishes his thought.

            Prime runs up to him. Behind him he hears one of the Ben’s moan, “Oh geez, is that another Ben?”

           10,000 coughs harshly, his back rising and falling with his deep breaths. He looks up into the hood of Prime, who's kneeling in front of him, a hand rubbing his back for support. Prime quickly notices the red dot on the face of the Omnitrix that’s on 10000’s left wrist. 10000 is squinting up at him. “Ben, thank God I found you,” He coughs into the back of his hand, frowns, looking Prime up and down. “What are you wearing?”

           Another voice that sounds just like Rex exclaims, “Oh geez, is that another Ben?” 

Ben 10,000 is on the couch, freshly showered and bandaged up, by Rex, specifically, so that he's no longer bloodied. The way he stared at Rex was peculiar, like he was trying to calculate something. When he was done, his expression melted into nostalgia, and it kinda made Ben Prime uncomfortable. 

He was drinking hot chocolate(because neither Rex nor Ben drank coffee), sitting with his legs crossed and one arm over the back of the couch like he owned the place.

Ben, with his arms crossed and his hood down, revealing brown hair growing at the roots, which he was originally planning to dye black again that day, until 10,000 blew his secret, stood in front of his future self. His eyes were green again, having taken the irritating blue contacts out. 16 and Argit were the only ones surprised by the reveal, screaming, “Ben?” and “I knew there was another Ben!” before quickly turning to Rex, who held his hands up in surrender. 

16 was sitting on the armchair adjacent to the couch, pouting, while 05, 12, and Argit stood beside him, ready to listen to whatever 10,000 had to say.

“It’s Eon,” 10,000 sits his mug in his lap. “But I’m sure you already knew that.”

“Is he here?” Rex asks, walking up beside Ben and mirroring his pose. 

10,000 has lines under his eyes as he meets Rex's, his lips set in a tight line. “I thought you would know. You haven't seen him?”

Ben shakes his head. “What does your watch say?”

He looks down at his wrist and taps it a few times, then shakes his head. 

12 stands up abruptly. “Your Omnitrix works?”

“Yeah, yours doesn't?” 10,000 throws his head back in exasperation. “Ok, catch me up. Ben, Prime, Ben Prime, whatever, where's your Omnitrix?”

“I can't believe you didn't tell me you were me,” 16 mumbles under his breath as he sinks further into the armchair. 

Ben pretends he didn't hear him. “In a box in my room. Haven't worn it in weeks. Traded it for Ascalon.”

“The Sword of Ascalon? Why would you do that?”

Ben is opening his mouth to explain when he gets the feeling that it wouldn't matter anyway. He closes his mouth and shakes his head. “Doesn't matter. I'll go get it.”

When he comes back, Omnitrix in hand, he catches 10,000 up on everything that's happened the last few months. During the process, they both tell 12 and 05 all about his history with Eon. 

10,000 has a contemplative look on his face, frowning with a hand under his chin and nodding. “And you haven't seen Eon at all?”

“Only his lackeys,” Rex answers. 

With the watch now attached to his wrist. Ben pokes at it. “What makes you think he's the one doing this and not anyone else? Maltruant, or even Vilgax?” He spares a glance to Rex, who meets his eyes before returning back to 10,000. “We haven't seen any version of Vilgax at all here.”

“That's worrisome, but unlikely. He couldn't have done all this by himself.” Ben 10,000 hunches over his knees. 

“You think he's working with them?” Still tapping.

He sighs. “I don't know what to think. You got any leads on where Eon might be?”

Realization sparks on Rex's face. “There is one place.”

Ben sighs and drops his arm to his side. “My Omnitrix isn't working anymore, either.”

The forest is even more foggy this time around. The sky is darker, and the moss under their feet is so soft they sink in a bit with every step. It starts to sprinkle as they make their way in the direction of the cave. Whatever warmth is in the air seems to be sucked away the closer they get to their destination. 

“Can you remember anything from before you got here?” Ben asks 10,000. 

“Just bits and pieces. I remember it being night, and we were fighting someone.”

“We?” Ben interrupts.

“It was me, and some other people. I can't remember who they were, but I'm assuming it was other Bens.” He looks up at the sky as light specks of water hit his face. “I remembered the bomb as soon as you said it's name. I'm wondering what else I forgot.”

One of the Ben's speaks up, “I still remember what happened before I got here.”

Ben, 10,000, and Rex stop and turn to the four kids walking behind them. Argit, 05, and 16 are staring at 12. “I was in the Rustbucket with Grandpa Max and Gwen, when Kevin came out of nowhere and attacked us. It became really foggy and all of a sudden I was in these woods, staring myself in the face.”

He locks eyes with 05, and then with Argit, who tries to turn in on himself. 

“I'd gone to sleep in the Rustbucket that night after arguing with Gwen about the latest Sumo Slammers game,” 05 explains. “I woke up on the ground. Argit, wasn't the first thing you said to us something about Kevin?”

Argit seems to turn in on himself even more. He doesn't answer. Ben knows that Argit was one of Kevin's friends from the past, and he knows what happened to the both of them in the Null Void. Argit probably didn't want to talk about it, or furthermore, he was probably scared out of his mind to tell Ben, the Coming Storm, that he was working with the “bad guys”(though in his mind, they're the good guys). 12 was probably talking about Kevin's attempt to kill him after the Rooter's testing, in which Kevin got away but Argit got caught. But the catching hasn't happened yet. 

Ben eyes Rex in a change the subject kind of way. Rex nods and turns back around. “Come on, it's this way.”

---

“That's...weird,” Young Rex screws up his face at the sight. Ben 10,000 glares into the entrance of the cave, ignoring the glow's burn. 

Of course, he thinks.

The entrance of the cave has a bright white light streaming out of it, the fog crowding around it as if there were a barrier keeping it from coming forward. Its large mouth is almost perfectly round. Ben got the feeling it was inviting them in. 

His nineteen year old self takes a step closer. “Uh, so I'm guessing it didn't look like that before?”

“More like it had an extreme makeover!” Rex laughs awkwardly. He sounds exactly the same as his older self, Ben notices. And he's wearing pride flags on his pants. Ben stops himself from smiling a second too late.Typical. 

Ben is more confused about this Rex being here than Argit. Argit was near one of the (way) younger Ben's when he was transported here, but if that was all it was, then why wouldn't Gwen, who usually slept below Ben in the Rustbucket, be transported with the other Ben? Unless she wasn't near him when it happened, or he was kidnapped by Eon? Or maybe he lied… There are so many possibilities. 

If the second oldest Ben is 19, and he got transported at the same time as Ben 10,000, then where would Rex come into this? But who's to say he got transported at the same time? Who's to say this Ben is the real Ben Prime?

“Wait, where's 16?” Rex's sudden exclamation draws Ben out of his thoughts. 

They all turn around to face the one, two, three…

Prime inhales sharply as the youngest Ben's and Argit look around themselves, as if 16, Ben thinks that's the pouty one, is hiding behind them. Rex looks at Prime with wide eyes, before getting back to business. 

“Where'd he go?” One of the Ben's ask. 

“We have to find him,” Rex starts backward. 

Ben's eyes are on the cave. 

Prime notices him not moving back towards the treeline like everyone else. “You go on ahead. We'll catch up.”

“Only a Ben can go through anyway.” Rex run-hops hurriedly behind the young Ben's before fully turning around and running to go find 16. Prime follows soon after, giving him one last look. 

Ben 10,000 doesn't wait until they are out of sight to walk into the cave. There’s no barrier like he expected there to be, but the light dims considerably. It’s instead replaced with a yellow light like that of a lamp, but its source is coming from out of nowhere, on account of the fact that there aren’t any fires, nor light bulbs. The ground under him is smooth and not as dusty as he'd thought it’d be. There are no stalactites either, and the cave opens up into a tunnel that seems to go on for miles before ending in a white circle in the distance. 

He begins walking. 

And he walks. And he walks. And he walks. 

But he gets no closer. 

---

Ben is running through the forest, but this time he's not looking for Gwen or Grandpa Max. He draws his lower lip between his teeth as unnecessary tears start to gather in his eyes. He wipes them before they can spill, continuing to run as far as he can from the liars and traitors that he had reluctantly called his friends. 

He just felt sorry for the other Bens his age. They were stuck with them. 

 Of course they were lying to him the whole time. Of course they had no idea what they were doing. Prime was him for Pete’s sake! Ben didn’t even know what he was doing! Where was he going now, when this was the closest he had ever gotten to getting back home?

 But Prime and Rex lied to his face, without remorse, without reason. Why? Just for fun? Just to trick him? Just to see how long they could go for? And now they were up against someone they hadn’t even known until now was involved and the universe was at stake, probably. 

 Life sucks. 

Ben slows to a stop. He wipes his face one more time despite nothing being there, and sighs. It’s stupid, he knows that, and now he sorta just wants to go back. He hadn’t planned on going too far— just far enough away to think and be alone until he was found again. They always seemed to find him. It’s not like this place was ever big enough to hide from them for long anyway. But looking around, he has no idea where he is. What was it the eleven year old Ben said? Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe this was a sign. 

He keeps walking. 

And he walks. And he walks. And he walks. 

He's confused to find himself on the main road only minutes later. It would have taken him more than a few minutes to make it to the main road from where he was. And not only that, but he was sure the city wasn't even in the direction he had been going. So what was going on?

He took a step out of the field of trees and looked from left to right. Nothing, as always. A cold washes over his shoulders. But even more Nothing than usual. 

It seems...emptier, somehow. Less cars, maybe? The lack of the occasional breeze makes it more quiet than it was before, perhaps? 

No one's lights are on in their townhouses. Not that there were many lights on usually anyway, but today there aren't any at all. It's not drizzling here like it was in the forest. Ben finds the grocery store, but even the zombie man inside is gone. 

“Where is everyone?” He asks aloud. 

Deja vu. 

He's right where he started. 

Huh. 

The wind picks up around him, and Ben's heart thumps sharply in his chest as, for a second, he thinks a villain is somewhere close. He turns around in the direction of the burst of wind and his green eyes widen comically as a large white portal opens wider and wider in the air a few meters before him. The light is so bright it hurts his eyes, and his legs move before his brain can think. 

He hides in the alleyway beside the grocery store and peaks around the corner as something mechanical begins to lower out of the portal, held by cables. It's oval-shaped and golden, surrounded by a white light that slowly turns blue as it hits the ground. Instantly Ben knows what it is. 

People drop out of the portal and land smoothly on the ground. Eon's servants. They wave down the Chronosapien time bomb and help settle it down safely on the road. 

Not good. He looks down at his Omnitrix, then furrows his eyebrows. It's glowing green, just as it has been the entire time he's been here. His and 10,000 are the only ones that work out of all the Ben's, strangely enough. Just as he's about to slam down on the face of the watch, a hand covers his mouth. 

He screams, but it's muffled by the cold palm over his lips, and he's pulled back further into the alleyway, behind a dumpster. The hand moves away, rancid breath hits his face, and he gags. “Agh, dude, what the heck!”

The face before him is a familiar one, but looking at him now, almond-eyed and alert, he almost looks unrecognizable. One of his eyes is in a permanent squint while the other is wide and purple. The times that Ben had seen him, his eyes were so low he could be sleeping with the way they were barely open. 

Standing in front of him was the grocery store clerk. 

The store clerk shushes him and points behind him, past the dumpster and into the alleyway opening. The sound of someone talking echoes in the air and gets closer until Ben sees a hooded figure and a boy in robes pass by, heading towards the circle of light in the sky. They get closer and listen in. 

“See, everything's going to plan! We have the Chrono-whatzit in our grasps, no one is around to stop us, and finally we can get rid of that guy that's been terrorizing you this whole time!”

Ben notices immediately that the voice sounds exactly like Prime. Peaking around the corner, they see someone in all black talking enthusiastically with a boy in long black robes and bouncy dark purple, almost black, hair that curls up at the end in a mullet. They can only see the backs of the two boy's heads as they stop a few steps in front of the bomb. The one in all black, with some green mixed into his jacket, has his hood up so that they can't see his face from where they're standing. 

“Who is that?” Ben faces the store clerk. “Who are you?“

“That,” He points to the boy in the black and green hoodie. “Is Nega Ben. That,” he points to the one beside Nega Ben. “Is Eon.” 

Ben's eyes widen at the name, but the man isn't done. “I,” He points his thumb into his own chest. “am Benzarro. And we need to find the others as soon as possible.”

---

 Argit’s lost. Somehow he’d gotten separated from the very many Coming Storm’s when he’d turned his back, and now he was flinching at every crushed twig. He held his hands tightly to his chest, his tail standing up on edge behind him. His ears twitched at every little sound: too strong a breeze, leaves crushing under the weight of feet, branches shuffling with the wind. 

Seconds pass before he realizes it’s not his feet crushing leaves. He stops, black eyes wide and terrified, head turning side to side, looking for even a hint of someone. There weren’t any animals in these woods, so what was moving?

The Bens must’ve moved far from here already; one had thought he’d seen foot tracks and ran off in one direction, the one that called himself Prime followed him with Rex, and the other Ben that had been left with Argit, with wide blank green eyes, had disappeared behind a tree when Argit looked the other way. 

Maybe it was that one who he was sensing. His footsteps were pretty heavy. 

Argit froze, slowly turning his head to face his right, shrinking into himself but not rolling into a ball as the movement would create enough noise to give him even more away. He’s never been more scared in his life than he is right now, and that’s saying something—

And there’s nothing quite scary about the view before him, at first glance. Just a girl in purple dressings, stalking forward, suddenly appearing from a tree that had mistakenly hidden her. No. It is the look on her face, the darkness in her eyes, that makes Argit empty his bladder. 

---

Ben 10,000 has no idea how much time has passed. He could have run for thirty minutes or for an hour, even while in his XLR8 form. When he turns back into his human form, his hollow steps echo through the tunnel, bouncing back against the stoneslick walls. Despite the unnerving quiet and eerie atmosphere, he feels safe here. The white is getting closer, lighting his path like the stairway to Heaven. His breathing evens out, his shoulders drop as he relaxes. There is a heat warming his face as he gets closer and closer…

And he finds nothing. Nothing is here at all. 

There's a cliff that leads down into a vacant, brightly lit cavern with stalagmites circling the circumference. Again, there’s nothing to light up the room, no sunlight, no torches, nothing— and yet there’s a golden glow about the cave. 

Ben jumps down into the cavern. Walks around, looking for anything that seems out of place, but he doesn’t find anything.

He feels comparatively less safe here, now. It doesn’t make sense. What was the point of coming all this way? What was keeping him from reaching this place for so long if there was nothing to protect? Why let him in in the first place?

And it hits him. But at this point it's too late. 

It didn't need to keep him away anymore, because there was nothing left to protect. Someone set up a barrier that he couldn’t get through until everything was all done— and there was only one magician Rex mentioned they hadn’t caught that could do that. 

---

She notices him, pausing in her tracks for only a second, her purple eyes large and pupils small, before she smiles— young, despite her white hair— and a pink electrified marble appears out of thin air and in her hand. 

---

He wakes up to the sound of his name being called. He’s slow to wake, blinking his blurry eyes open to green and brown, with vanilla in the middle. As his vision clears, he realizes he’s on the ground, looking up at the trees and into the face of the young, pupiled Coming Storm. 

Argit screams, sitting upright and moving back, tears already slipping down his face in fear. How long had he been out? It’s all coming back to him, flashes of a golden-skinned woman and something pink flying towards him. 

“Hey, yo, calm down!” The Coming Storm is urging him, but he kicks at him, covering his face and sobbing. “Agh! Dude! Alright, that’s it!”

Argit peaks through his fingers and tears to see the child before him twist his Omnitrix and raise his hand. His heart beats loud and hard, but nothing comes. The boy stills. 

He sighs and lets his arms drop, pouting with his eyes lidded and his brows furrowed down. “Anndd I forgot it doesn’t work.” He stares at Argit. “You good now?”

He nods apprehensively. 

“Good. Now what attacked you out here?”

He brings his fingers down his face, slow, careful to not make too many moves. He grabs onto his collar, keeping part of his face covered. “Uh…a woman,” he answers quietly. “With….with white hair…”

The Coming Storm’s eyes go wide with surprise. “Charmcaster? She’s here?”

Argit stays quiet, not wanting to make him mad again. 

He stands up, dusting off his hands. “Well that’s no biggie. I’ve handled her plenty of times before,” he says, then scratches his cheek, looking out into the wilderness. “…but, we should probably find the other guys. You know, just in case.”

---

Nega Ben isn’t very fond of the fact that he’d been deemed “Nega Ben”. To himself, he is just “Ben”.  But Eon had collected a lot of them and he needed a way to be specified. Even though, out of all the others, he was the most normal looking. Mad Ben somehow had the most embarrassing look, and he was running up against a zombie and a albino child. Also, what was with the accent? Was he doing that on purpose? 

That being said, he was glad that now he could finally go back to being just Ben when he introduced himself to an amnesiac Eon. He found that albeit how much of a setback this was, Eon losing his memories was pretty sweet. He was the boss Ben now, which meant all Eon’s little D-grade Ben’s were under his control. After the mess that had been the Chronosapien time bomb debacle, he’d figured he’d try his hand at it, this time. He at least partly knew what he was doing, in comparison to Maltruant and Vilgax. 

And this time, he’d get it right. Even if that meant Vilgax had to live. 

He just had to keep ordering Eon to send his peons on little distracting missions and find wherever the heck Charmcaster had went, calm whatever doubts Rex had with his plan, and he’d be golden. 

Rex. Not his Rex, but a Rex nonetheless. They were very similar, in terms of personality and charm. You know, outside of the murder stuff. Ben wondered if it would be cheating if they became a thing, if he and his Rex were even still together. 

Ben and Rex were in very unique and similar situations. Both had been brought by Eon when this whole mess started, both had killed their universes(or in Rex’s case, his boyfriend’s universe’s) Vilgax, and both of their lives were ruined. 

Ben liked this version of Rex. He talked just like his, and he smiled just like him, laughed like him, and best of all, he wasn’t mad at him. And just like all the other Ben’s here, he couldn’t leave this reality to go back to his original one either. Not until he got the time bomb working again. Then, he’d be able to go back in time in his reality and stop himself from making the biggest mistake of his life. 

They were very alike. They both missed their real boyfriends. No matter how much Ben was like Rex’s, and Rex was like Ben’s, they weren’t them. They didn’t have the same memories, or experiences. They didn’t have the same inside jokes. 

But Ben found Rex sweet. He wouldn’t even fight the Ben’s during the fight for the Chronosapien time bomb before it blew up. He didn’t want to punch people who were essentially alternate versions of his boyfriend. “Sans the zombie guy and Albedo, you all kinda look exactly alike,” he said. “And I dunno, man… There's also a kid in there? That kinda makes me uncomfortable?” It annoyed the heck out of Eon when he heard about it, but it was too late to turn back at that point. It was kinda lame, but Ben could respect that. 

And Rex was all over the idea to go back in time. He’d only ever gone forward in it, and that hadn’t even been on purpose! They both could get back the lives they wanted, and all that needed to happen was for them to get the bomb working and, also, find out how it works!

Which they can’t do without Eon. Alas. 

Ben was very surprised to find Eon in the middle of the crumbled and deserted city, dissociating and amnesiatic. And young. He was a year or two older than Ben was now. His face was clear of maturity or facial hair. His skin was smooth, his height short. And his hair had turned purple, somehow. Couldn’t remember a thing. Even his own name. But it was clear that it was Eon. 

Rex took extra pity over him. 

Without Eon’s knowledge on the bomb, they were dead stuck in the middle of nowhere. He’d never explained how it worked, and Ben didn’t want to risk tampering with it once they'd found it and ending up messing up all his plans. So, in an effort to get Eon’s memories back in order, he prodded at him as much as he could without accidentally unleashing the unwanted memories. They still wanted him for the most part ignorant. Well, he did. Rex didn’t care. If Eon remembered everything that happened to him, it would be a huge problem for them.

So Ben lied. Said that the other Bens, and singular Rex, out there were all out to get them. That they put him here, took his memories, and were trying to hurt them. Why did he think all the people in this town cowered at just the sight of them?(Nevermind it being because they were the ones who terrorized them) Ben and Rex were only here to help. Look, he even put up a barrier around this part of the forest so that no one could get in! All they needed was for him to remember how the time bomb worked! Easy, right?

Wrong. Rex could tell him that. But what could they do? At that point, they didn't even have it, yet. 

And then, someone did get in. Multiple times. Over and over. She was hiding from the other Ben and Rex, but she was doing no harm, so Ben paid her no mind and kept Eon ignorant. That is, until she started getting real close (so close Eon could feel her) to their hideout. 

That is, until she found the very thing they were looking for. 

---

Ben is tired of following Ben’s around all the time. He felt like this was becoming a habit that he was really starting to hate. But this time, he actually had good reason to be walking with this weird zombie dude version of him. Two good reasons, actually. Their names were Eon and Nega Ben, and they were the reason all of this happened in the first place. 

“Is it okay for us to just leave them there?” He asks as he moves some foliage out of his path. He was getting real tired of walking through the forest too. He’s about tired of everything at this point. 

Benzarro doesn’t turn around. He has a limp, but it seems like he isn’t bothered by it in the least. The guy knows exactly where he’s going. “There’s nothing we can do right now. You really want to fight those guys right now? By yourself?”

“Uh, what, you can’t help? If you’re a Ben, where’s your Omnitrix?”

Benzarro lifts one arm while using the other to clear a path through the bushes. “Doesn’t work. It’s been off since I regained lucidity.” 

Ben screws up his face at that. Of course. How could he forget? 10,000 and him were the only ones whose Omnitrixs worked. “Ok, so, where have you been until now? Why were you working at a grocery store?”

“When I was transported here, I’d lost all my memories, including my name. Something happened on my way here that changed me. I.. I couldn’t think, or talk. I don’t even look the same as I did before. Before I knew it, I’d found myself taking on a role in this city.”

Ben raises an eyebrow at that. “Working at the cash register at a grocery store?”

“It wasn’t until a few days ago that I got my memories back and went into hiding.”

A few days ago? What happened a few days ago? 

“We’re almost there.” Benzarro says. 

“Almost where? Where are you taking me?”

“I have a hunch.”

---

Charmcaster hates Bens. She hates them so much. There was only one Ben that was sorta kinda cool somewhat and even he got on her nerves a lot. It got to the point with that particular Ben where they just decided to let bygones be bygones and agree to not even say hi if they saw each other on the street. But that little agreement didn’t slide with any of the others, oh no. They just couldn’t get enough of her recently. 

She lets out a grunt as her back hits the hard dirt ground. This was getting ridiculous. She’d just managed to get awayfrom one of the Ben’s, and now this old man was pummeling her to the ground! It would be funny if it weren’t so annoying. 

First off, she doesn’t even know what a Chromosome Cucumber time bomb whatever was. She just agreed to keep Ben’s barrier up so she could get her and Hex out of here. But she didn’t need to tell this guy that. Seriously, how many Ben’s are there? She’d done everything she could to stay out of these guys’s radar. She watched from the sidelines as Eon’s goons and Zombozo(and a childish looking Animo, and a robot guy, and some other guys) got taken out one by one by an obvious Ben with bad makeup and his ‘partner’ Rex. She was even there when a nine years younger Hex was found and imprisoned by Rex while she barely got away in time to not be seen. How this was all possible, she was sure it wasn’t all that complicated to understand. It had to do with Tennyson, so it couldn’t be all that difficult. 

Whenever they started to patrol, Charmcaster made sure to stay out of their way. She brought extra food to Hex, cause, even though she wasn’t very fond of how he was back then, they were still related, and she didn’t hate him. He was a jerk, but he would grow out of it. His reaction to seeing the sorceress she’d become made her heart defrost, just a tiny little bit, so she kept visiting him. She was gonna get him back to his timeline. He worked hard for his future being a professor, so he deserved it, at the very least. It would also be great if she got back to her ordinary life too. Which meant she needed Ben’s plan to either hurry the heck up, or she needed to take matters into her own hands. 

Guess which one she went with?

She hadn’t even seen Old Ben coming at her until she’d been thrown backwards at a speed too fast to stop midway. Her back hit a tree and knocked the breath right out of her. He was skilled. She couldn’t keep up with him. Over the last twenty or something years, Ben had really upped his game. He keeps asking about the bomb—

“The bomb! Where is it?” He’s yelling. 

Like she was gonna tell him. She cast a spell. The ground shook under them as golems rose from the dirt, instantly ready for a brawl. 

Old Ben doesn’t pay them any mind. He’s in Articguana mode. Any golem that comes at him is immediately stilled by a flurry of ice. “The. Bomb. I won’t ask again.”

She smiles. “Great.” Then she opens her mouth and casts a spell. 

She forgot to mention that she’s grown more powerful, too. 

It’s like a bomb goes off. And not the Cumberbatch homosexual bomb or whatever. Vines as varied as the wind burst up from the ground, some as thick as trees, others noodle-thin. It completely wraps the older Ben up in its grasps, or at the very least, shields him from her retreat. At first she runs, panting out the words to one last spell so she can get as far away as possible. The last one took everything out of her, and she’d soon need to find a place to rest for a while to get her strength back. Her back was in torture, and her knees ached. She could hear how quickly the man was fighting his way through her trap. A portal of her creation opens before her, and she quickly throws one last shot of magic at the grown Ben to delay his following before she goes through it and closes it behind her. The last thing she hears from the other side is a loud and disturbed grunt. 

With that, she drops to her knees. 

This must’ve been punishment for scaring that little alien kid so bad earlier that he peed his pants. Just thinking about it made her laugh. Was she really that terrifying?

Whatever. She needs to get up. What’s important right now is grabbing Hex and getting the crap out of here. Charmcaster rises back to her feet, slowly, before the hall before her. If she got out of here fast enough, she could probably completely miss the people coming after her and teleport straight home. But things were never that easy. She stays on guard, but quickly makes her way past the jail cells. She ignores the musings of the other prisoners, heading straight for her uncle. 

There’s never anyone physically there watching over them. The only guards they have are Ben Team #1, who only checks in a few times a day, and Ben Team #2, comprised of Trying-to-be-Evil Ben and Rex, along with Eon and his goons, who didn’t want the prisoners to get in the way of their plans any more than they wanted Ben Team #1 to. Charmcaster was an exception. She was more powerful now than her uncle had ever been, and so she was useful. But she could come see Hex at any time, as long as she was out before patrol started. 

He’s sitting there, meditating, just like he always is when she comes to visit. His legs are crossed and his eyes are closed. His mouth is in a permanent line, prominent thanks to the pale white tattoo all over his face. 

“It’s time for us to get out of here,” She says hurriedly, reaching into her bag and taking out a talisman she’d only finished completing that morning. The bars before her sparked blue the closer she got to them, revealing the electric barrier keeping him, and everyone else, inside their cells. 

Her uncle doesn’t say anything. At least, not using his mouth, and not with his voice. “Whoa! You’re supposed to be Charmcaster? You look so…” Charmcaster almost breaks her neck from the speed with which she looks to where the voice is coming from, “different.”

There’s two forms standing at the entrance where she just was. It’s a kid. And..a Ben? No, they’re both Ben. That’s the kid Ben she’s seen around before; with the huge head and annoying voice. She has no idea who the other Ben is, but he doesn’t look so good. He looks like he could bite the dust at any minute. Or like he already has. His skin is getting greyer by the second and his eye is sinking into his face, all lopsided and in a squint. “This was not what I had in mind—“ He says. Me and you too, buddy, she thought. 

“Oh, ho! I’ve been waiting for this!” The kid Ben says, not waiting for his partner to finish speaking, and raising his hand over his wrist. 

Lord almighty, she was going to have a stroke. 

And her worries only grow when a bright and cheerful voice comes from the man that suddenly appears behind the Bens. He walks in from out of thin air, leisurely, as if he were in a shop casually peeking around at all the items. “That won’t be necessary, no!”

For a second, she wonders if he’s another Ben, but, no, couldn’t be. He gives off a completely different aura. First off, he talks like he’s from a really old tv show. And second off, he scares the life out of the two Ben’s when he walks up to them, smiling at their confused faces as he puts a hand on their shoulders. “I don’t think we’ve formally met, yet.”

She was going to have a stroke. For real this time. 

She really hates Bens. And all his adjacent friends. 

---

Rex can’t find anyone. Not 16, not 05, not Argit. No one. He had no idea how they'd even managed to get split up, but now he was looking for all Bens and a plus one. Prime Ben could handle himself. So could 10,000. But the rest were just children, and all but 16 were completely powerless. 

He calls out their names while riding around the forest on his Sky Slider. He looks everywhere, but there’s no one for miles. Seriously, where’d they all go?

Oh. Wait. There’s one. 

Rex slows to a stop, zeroing in on a mop of brown hair a few yards away. A Ben’s back is turned to him, but it’s definitely one of the kids. He calls out to him, “Hey!”

12 is standing there, creepily silent, when his head jerks to the side and big blank green eyes meet his brown ones. Rex releases his build and drops to the ground, lifting himself up and trudging through the forestry all the way over to him. 

“What happened back there? Where’d you go?” He asks as he reaches him.

“I dunno. You guys just ran off without me!”

Okay… probably true. He puts on a sheepish smile. He keeps forgetting that without their powers, the Ben’s can’t really keep up. Especially when they’re prone to not paying attention. Now he felt bad. 

“Have you seen the others?” He takes a communicator from his pocket and puts it in his ear. 

“I thought they were with you!”

Rex nods and talks to the device. “Ben? You there?”

There’s some static. Then, “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Found one.” He points his thumb at him, as if the boy over the phone could see. “12.”

“Great. That’s news,” his boyfriend says tiredly. 

“I’m guessing no luck on the others?”

“I was always the best at Hide and Seek,” he jokes, a shrug in his voice. 

“I’ll tell you if I find anyone else.”

“Gotcha.”

“Bye.” He hangs up and turns back to 12. Or where 12 used to be. He groans, almost dropping to his knees and raising his arms in agitation. 

He calls for the boy, and walks around in a circle, and after thirty seconds—

“I’m here, I’m here!” 12 appears from behind a tree, messing with his belt as he walks around it. 

Rex screws up his face and puts his hands on his hips. “What were you doing?”

“I had to take a pee.”

“Wha— dude! So gross!” He backs up. 

12 rises to defend himself. “I had to go! We’re in the forest!”

“Right here? Did you have to do it right here?”

“That’s why I went behind the tree, stupid!” He points at his head and then lifts his finger upwards. “Ah-doi!”

“While I was standing right here!” He hadn’t even washed his hands! He couldn’t believe this was the same guy he was dating in the future. He rolls his eyes. “Come on, let’s go. We’ll find you a lake or something.” He starts to walk back in the direction he was going before. 

12 follows. “What for?”

“So you can wash your hands!” He yells back at him, voice drowned out by the foliage. 

They walk quietly for a few minutes. Rex has his goggles lowered over his face, searching left and right for a heat signature in the area. 12 behind him is messing around with his Omnitrix, twisting the face around over and over, as if it could start working at any minute. At some point, he snorts. 

“What?” Rex asks, keeping his body forward and his gaze wildly peering around. 

“Nothing. I was just thinking about why the heck my future self decided to go out with you.”

This makes him pause, but only for a second. “Wow, okay..”

“05 raised some good questions. Like, what’s so special about you, in the first place?” He asks impertinently, his voice a mumble and his eyes glued to his watch. A second later, a branch smacks him in the face and he yelps. “Hey! It wasn't me who said it! It was 05!”

Rex moves some branches out of his way as he stalks forward, turning to his left when he thinks he sees something, then being immediately disappointed that it was just his imagination. “I dunno… maybe because I can build machines out of my body?” He was humoring him, but it wasn't like he'd have a real answer. What did Ben like about him? Like, specifically? Besides his obvious good looks and incredibly funny jokes.

“Like that even means anything.” His voice is nasally as he rubs his nose, eyes watering. “I know at least one other guy that can do something like that.”

“Cooper can’t make machines, he can only control them and put them together.”

“You know Cooper?” He sounds surprised. 

Yes, he knows Cooper. And Helen and Pierce. And Alan. But 12 doesn’t know them yet. He’s still eleven. He wouldn’t meet them until he was 15. 

“You’re more surprised about that than about being bi.” Rex muses, before coming to an abrupt stop. 

Someone’s screaming. 

“That's— I—“

“Shh!” He lifts up a finger, standing completely still. 

12 does. Then he hears it, and turns to his right. It’s coming from far away, but it’s like someone’s being strangled. “It’s coming from this way!”

They both rush towards the sound. The closer they get, the more recognizable the grunts are, and the louder the beeping sound. They’re running at a wall of incredibly thick vines that definitely weren’t there yesterday, Rex notes. The sound is coming from behind the ropey threads. 

Rex quickly builds his arm into a long sword as they stop before it, then slices a large chunk of the lower half of vines out of the way. They hit the forest floor with a loud thunk, and 12 climbs over them with purpose. 

Inside is 10,000, all wrapped up in vines and struggling to get one arm loose. His watch is beeping incessantly and flashing red. Rex and Ben 16 make quick work of releasing him, and the oldest Ben falls to the ground, panting. Deja vu. 

“Who did this?” Rex couldn’t believe 10,000 had been beaten so thoroughly! He flinches, his focus being drawn for a second to a vine next to him that had practically just caressed his cheek. 

10,000 lifts himself up on one knee, tapping his Omnitrix and stopping the beep but not the red dot flashing on it. “Charmcaster.” He breathes. “We need to get out of here.”

Rex needs no more than that. He builds his Sky Slider underneath him, successfully cutting off a vine that had wrapped itself around his ankle, and pulls the kid and middle-aged man onto him, right before zooming right out of there. “Watch out, the kid hasn't washed his hands.”

The kid in question shoots him a dirty look before turning to 10,000. “What’s that on your watch?” 16 worries. 

10,000 pokes at his malfunctioning Omnitrix. “A homing beacon. Charmcaster did something to it.”

---

Benzarro and Ben look at each other, then back to the man holding them by their shoulders. He’s old, but younger than Grampa Max. His hair is slicked back and black, and his skin is as pale as the sky right now. And what’s with the lab coat?

“Ben 10,000 sent for me! Thanks to you, Hope.” He smiles right at the golden-skinned woman. 

She does not seem to like that. Not one bit. 

Ben still has no idea what’s going on. Was he supposed to fight this guy, too?

“Oh, right,” The man let’s them go and takes a pocketwatch out of his coat's chest pocket. “I’m Professor Paradox. You give me that name in the future,” he says quickly, glancing at his watch then smiling out of the side of his eye at Ben and putting it back where it came from. “Or, a version of you, at least.” He walks forward, his arms raised in a look at thismotion. Charmcaster, or Hope? Which is it? Well, she stiffens up and reaches one hand into her purse instinctively. “I’ve been searching for you everywhen!” He says into the air, then nods his head at her. “That won’t be necessary, either.”

She stops, then notices something to her left. She’s looking into Hex’s jail cell. Curious, Ben walks forward into the hall and sees that everyone’s frozen. One guy is in mid yell. Animo, there, is stuck with one fist about to touch the electrifying bar, mouth wide with complaint. 

There's not even a single wind. Time’s really stopped. 

“Who are you? And how do you know my name?” She takes a step back, eyes calculating. 

“I can see the temporal distortion has gotten to you, too.” He says, taking another step toward her, his voice as nonchalant and sure as if he owned the place. 

She glares at him. 

“It took all the dye from your hair. Ah, but your eyes are much more entrancing when they have pupils in them.”

Ben speaks up. “What do you want?”

Professor Paradox turns around to him, a different smile gracing his lips. “To stop your worlds from ending, of course.” He starts to walk back towards them. “Follow me.” He says, like he already knows they’re going to do it. He has complete confidence in himself. He doesn’t even care that he turned his back on Charmcaster. “You too!” He calls back at her, voice plummy and singsong. 

She stares at his back for a few seconds, then something in her seems to break. A defeated look enters her eyes and she slouches, then steps forward, following along. 

Ben and Benzarro once again share eye contact, then also trail behind Paradox’s back. 

He begins explaining, “It’s a good thing you’re so powerful, Hope, or else I never would have found my way into this time anomaly.”

“Ok, first off, thank you for that little compliment, I’m glad my magic prowess is finally getting the attention it deserves,” She puts a sweet little hand over her heart, then frowns and lets the facade drop. “And second off, if you’re as all-knowing as you seem to like to pretend to be, you should know that I don’t like just anybody calling me by my real name. To you, sir, it’s Charmcaster. Got it?”

“Of course.”

“Now what’s this thing about a time anomaly?” Ben asks before they can get sidetracked again, and before he could stop caring. 

“Yes, right, that old chestnut. Well, you see,” Paradox starts, his hands folded behind his back. “This all started when Vilgax tried to destroy every Ben in existence. Using the Chronosapien time bomb, of course. With it, he could destroy every reality where Ben received the Omnitrix. Including yours.” He nods back at Ben, then turns to face the path again. But once they were outside and walking through trees, there was no path. Again, Ben was trusting himself in the hands of adults he had no connection with, and knew for sure at least one was an enemy. And he was following them into the woods!

But at this point, he knew these woods like the back of his hand. If he needed to make a quick escape, he could. His Omnitrix still worked. He could fight. 

Paradox walked with purpose. Every step was confident, and it made Ben less confident that the man was also so well-accustomed to the forest. How could he know where he was going? He wasn’t looking at a GPS or anything. Didn’t he just get here?

It occurs to Ben that the man had probably lied to them. 

Ben was tired of lies. 

“The magnitude of the explosion led to the creation of the reality we’re striding through right now.” Paradox continues, completely ignorant of Ben’s distrusting thoughts. “Quite primitive, isn’t it?” He lightly touches a large leaf to his side, sliding a white gloved finger down to its tip as he passes. “It hasn’t fully formed yet.” He sighs. 

“But I don’t get it,” Benzarro says. “Why would the explosion of the bomb make all this happen? Wasn’t that what it was created for?”

Paradox shakes his head, making a clicking sound with his mouth. “It was the interception of the bomb’s explosion that created this anomaly. You see, this all happened because we tried to fix it!” 

He takes an abrupt left, but the others come to a stop in their confused shock. “What?” They all ask in unison, then look at each other. Charmcaster and Ben’s face screw up at each other, but they all keep their pace with the Professor as he explains more.

“We already stopped the bomb from going off, once. When we went back in time, and Ben used his Omnitrix to turn into a Chronosapien and reverse the explosion so that it never went off.”

Ben was getting annoyed. He assumed he was talking about a different Ben, because he sure as heck didn’t remember turning into whatever alien that was. “If that was the case, then why are we still here?”

“Because, since the bomb was already in its midpoint of going off instead of in its countdown when we went back in time, reversing the explosion only caused the reality to divulge into two different timelines. One being of which the bomb did go off.” He stops and turns around to face them. His smile was unending, perfectly calm and creepy. “But, because the split was so contrastive of its sister timeline, it caused a strange effect to happen between them. It created something of a,” he pauses, “Schrödinger’s cat sort of reality. One that is ancred between two prime realities, and nearly impossible to get into and out of.”

“And that’s where we are right now,” Charmcaster crosses her arms, looking obviously as annoyed as Ben felt. 

“Exactly!” He says, proudly. 

“And how’d you figure this all out?” Ben crosses his arms, too, just to get the same effect.

“Why, I went back in time to see it all happen as soon as the entryway opened up!” He says, grandiose, and winking at Charmcaster. 

“Wait, so when did you have time to do that? I just fought that other Ben less than five minutes ago!” Charmcaster glares at him, lifting her hands and letting them drop down to her side in emphasis. 

“I have nothing but time, my dear sorceress!” He puts a hand over his chest. “Although, it did take a toll. The time here is quite difficult to navigate. There aren’t very many open entrances to peek through. I was only able to see bits and pieces, unfortunately, but I got the gist.” He turns his back to them and keeps walking. “I could feel my memories being tampered with as soon as I made my way here. It looks like now is the only time I can come in with my memories being intact. Any earlier or any later and I would have been struck by the same anomaly that struck all of you.”

“Wha—, so you’re saying the reason we couldn’t remember anything before getting here is because of this time anomaly thing?” It was finally all coming together. 

“Yes. It’s why you suddenly regain more memories when you come in contact with something, or someone, from outside this reality.” All the other Ben’s, he realizes. “And it’s also the reason Nega Ben is about to make a huge mistake and get us all stuck here forever with no way out.”

“What?” Charmcaster exclaims and comes to a stop. 

They all stop to turn and look at her. Her eyes are filled with rage, in complete contrast to Professor Paradox’s wide smile. 

“Yes! Of course! You should know,” The smile, for the first time, slips off his lips, and he suddenly looks deathly serious. “Charmcaster, why don’t you tell our compatriots what you know of his goings on, and why exactly you were talked into helping him?”

“The only reason I agreed to help him is because he said he’d get me out of here!” She’s practically bursting at the seams. Her hands start to glow and her hair rises, cat-like. 

Charmcaster really hates Ben’s. But she lets herself calm down enough to tell her version of the story. She relaxed her fists, felt her energy calm down, and let out a deep breath. 

It all started when she ran into Hex whilst hiding from Rex’s daily patrol. It was like looking ten years into the past. Partly because, well, she kinda was. This wasn’t the Hex from her timeline, but from nine years in the past. Pre-college professor. He was as bitter and angry as he ever was, but he stood there while Charmcaster explained all she knew. She’d been there for weeks by then. She knew of all the old foes of Ben’s that were appearing out of nowhere every other day, then. She was smart enough to not have been caught even once. That, or they were ignoring her. Either way, she’d been doing fine on her own, but she figured she could give her uncle a chance to live a free life out here. That, and she was bored and tired of being by herself. 

But that didn’t work out. Rex was out fighting Eon’s little minion’s, and she’d been way too close for comfort. Hex got caught, and she’d run out into a part of the forest that was strangely more quiet than the rest of it. After a few days, she found this little cave in the middle of nowhere, and just before she was about to enter it, an awful feeling crawled up her spine. 

She turned to face the danger, and that’s when she met Nega Ben, as Professor Paradox called him. He was all hoodied up and emo-looking, with a horrible makeup job. She felt so bad for his eyeliner she almost asked if he needed help with it. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes, though. And something was scratching at the back of her mind. As seconds passed by, it was only getting itchier and itchier, and soon Nega Ben was noticing it too. 

They both made their way down the cave tunnel, too entranced by the amount of powerful energy bursting from somewhere down inside that they forgot to even be wary of each other, and when they got to a busted wall with a weirdly clean hole in it, they found it. 

“The Chronosapien time bomb,” Ben realizes in real time, eyes wide. 

Charmcaster nods at the ten year old. “Once he realized what it was, he suddenly got really interested in having me join his team. Said that if I could keep the barrier up on his side of the forest, and keep the area around the bomb masked until he could figure out how to work it, he’d get me and Hex out of here. And I believed him, the jerk.” She crosses her arms, blowing some hair out of her eyes. “Of course I was skeptical at first, but the price of getting out of here seemed worth the risk.”

“Then what happened? Why did you leave?”

“Why’d you think? I got tired of waiting. And his plan was mediocre at best.” She rolls her eyes. “All he wants is to see his boyfriend again. It’s so lame. So I started working on a spell, with the help of Hex, that would get us both out of here.”

Paradox looks surprised at that. They all did, really, but his face makes her feel a bit proud of herself. 

Ben moves forward. “You did? Did it work?”

“I haven’t cast it yet. Durr.” She rolls her eyes again. “I’m still here aren’t I? Why do you think I was going to get Hex just now?”

The kid scowls at her. 

She ignores him. “Apparently the barrier was too much for him to hold, but for a sorceress like me, it was nothing. I didn’t even feel the thing going through. He made the barrier around the bomb so only Ben’s could go through. I just needed some of his DNA and ouila! Needless to say, I was ready to backstab him from the start. Anyway, the spell took me three days nonstop to cast, and it took all my energy, which is why I needed to get away from Nega, or whatever his name is now. His barrier came down and he wasn’t happy about it. I don’t get what he’s so prissy about though. The time bomb barrier should still be up. It’s, like, a million times stronger than the other one. He made sure of that himself.” It was aggravating just thinking about it. “The spell out of here is practically impossible for a human to cast, which is why I didn’t wanna do it. I couldn’t eat for three days! You know how much that sucks?”

“Eh,” The zombie-looking Ben shrugs. 

She furrows her brow at him, the side of her lip quirked up uncomfortably. She was not feeling this one. 

“So you can get us out of here?” Ben asks. 

She laughs. “Heck no! I don’t care about you guys! Three days only keeps the portal open for three seconds. Why do you think it’s such a difficult spell to cast for humans? High risk, low reward. If anyone could do it then we’d all be out of here by now!” She crosses her arms again. “No, this one’s for me and Hex.”

Half-dead Ben speaks up before the ten year old can argue. “I’d like to hear more about what Nega Ben is planning on doing with the bomb?”

She looks him up and down. “Aren’t you with him or something? You look… evil.” She purses her lips, looking him up and down a second time for emphasis. 

“Right,” Ben suddenly turns to him. “Why aren’t you on his side?”

“I’m quite curious about that myself, actually.” Professor Paradox looks over at him, as well, a curious purse to his mouth. 

“Well,” he says, lifting a finger to his drooping mouth. “With my newfound freedom and will, packed with the fact that I can now think clearly and have self-awareness for the first time since the zombie apocalypse started in my world, I’ve found…” he pauses, seemingly for effect. “that I don’t want to die. Again. I don’t want to die again.” He smiles crookedly. 

They all stare at him for a long moment. Then Charmcaster says, “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

He shrugs. 

“And to answer your question: I don’t really remember a lot of it, I stopped listening about halfway through.” She picks at her ear to stop the sudden ringing from the silence from before. She screws up her face. “I don’t pay attention to the things that nerds say.” She checked her pinky then wiped it off on her clothes. “It was a bunch of oh, woe is me, I miss my boyfriend, I’m gonna go back in time and stop it all from happening so he’ll love me again kinda junk. I didn’t care so I zoned out, but that was pretty much it.”

“The time bomb doesn’t go back in time, it destroys time!” The confirmed zombie Ben exclaims, panicking. 

“Ah! And that, my friends, lies the problem!” The Professor, who’s probably not really a professor, points at the sky and the smile returns to his face. “He doesn’t know that! Because his memories have been tampered with, too, by the temporal distortion!”

“But why not use the Chronosapien alien or whatever?” Ben asks him.

“Because he’s stupid.” Charmcaster is surprised to hear those exact words voiced in unison with her own. Although the time lord’s sentence ends with a rather tame “not smart.”

“Which is why we need to stop him before he can figure out how the Chronosapien time bomb works and start the countdown! Time is of the essence!” And with that, Paradox continues leading us through the woods. 

---

Charmcaster being gone really made them have to move forward with their plans. They moved the bomb into the city, and Ben had to use one of his aliens to set up a new barrier that was convoluted enough to keep the other Ben’s and Rex busy. With the force field around the forest gone, the cave was practically useless for a hiding spot. They’d mined it out for no reason. The other Rex had snuck his way in just the other day, despite how far away it was from his usual patrolling grounds. They’d chosen that spot specifically because of how far away it was from all the villains and heroes that could mess with their plans, but it was all worthless now. And he still hadn’t figured out how to work the darn thing. 

He looks over at Eon. The man, now only about two years older than him, was looking over the Chronosapien time bomb with awe. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, even after his amnesia, but it was the first time Ben allowed him to touch it so thoroughly, afraid he’d accidentally push something and destroy them all. Or, worse yet, regain his memories behind his back and make plans right before his face without him even realizing. At least this way he could keep an eye on him for any change in demeanor. And anyway, they were running out of time. 

He hadn't wanted to ask Charmcaster for help. No. She’d just managed to find the one thing they were looking for for weeks, right in his own backyard! He’d sensed it, of course. The bomb radiated energy like a rat to a snake. When he found her at the cave entrance, he immediately felt its power. It had activated, somehow. Something had blown through the cave wall and hit it with enough energy to power it up. Only an Omnitrix had that kind of energy, and he’d been using his on the barrier. If the other Ben’s had used their Omnitrix on it, they’d have to have found it themselves and been in close range of it. No way they’d gotten through his barrier. No way. But it could only have been an Omnitrix. That, or a Sword of Ascalon. But who would have that?

Ben suspected Benzarro. He must have used his Omnitrix to get in somehow. Ben could have sworn he wasn’t cognizant. But something had changed. Maybe the same something that made Eon notice someone had come through their first threadbare barrier. Ben had known Charmcaster was walking around out there, but she’d never been a threat to him before. Not until she came so close to their hiding place. She teleported in at the same time as the other Ben and Rex, which means she was practically there since the beginning. How Eon noticed her, he’d never gotten the chance to look into. But it wouldn’t matter after they were done anyway. 

He had Eon’s peons looking all over for Charmcaster. If only they could use their watches. But it wasn’t worth the risk, if they ever became self-aware again. And Ben wasn’t even sure if they still had theirs. They all wore those dumb ninja outfits all the time. Charmcaster made fun of them relentlessly, and she had every right, but he’d be darned if he admitted that to her face. She’d broken their deal, and now he was paying the price with having to fast forward everything. 

Yeah, he lied about his side of the deal, but who cares? What did that have to do with anything? It’s the principle of the thing! He needed her to keep up his barriers, which she could do limitlessly, alright? And he couldn’t. He needed a break. It was tiring! It would take all his energy forever to keep up the barrier around the bomb and around his part of the forest at the same time. And he needed both! She was a useful asset! He hated to ask her, but he couldn’t risk his barrier breaking from just the pure force of being near the bomb. He couldn’t take that chance. She went through the barriers so easily. She was the help he needed. She couldn’t have waited one more extra week? At least give him the chance to betray her first! He hadn't even gotten the chance to do the evil reveal, the whole: “Yeah I'm not letting you take the bomb to get back home, what if I mess up again and need it?”

If only he knew exactly how it worked. He could have used it already! And how much more energy would he need for it? Would he need to risk the Omnitrix? Was it not enough to have it turned on? 

“Why don’t I try?”

That brings Ben right out of his thoughts. He quickly grabs Rex by the wrist before he can step any closer to the bomb. “No. I don’t want to risk it.”

What he’d wanted to say was risk you, but he kept that little bit in his inner thoughts. 

Rex doesn’t seem to get it. “We don’t have any more time left. If we’re gonna do this, we have to do it now, right?”

Ben doesn’t let go, but he can’t look into Rex’s eyes anymore. They’re too familiar. “Just wait a little bit longer. If..” If something happens to you… “If he can’t do it, then we’ll give it a shot. Alright? But he will do it.”

I’d rather sacrifice him than you, he doesn’t say. He has to do this. I can’t lose you again. 

Of course, internally, he knows this isn’t his Rex. Somewhere deep inside, he knows that this Rex doesn’t and can’t like him the same way his did. But they look so alike, act so alike, talk so alike… And although he’d made it abundantly clear that he was only doing this so he could be with his Ben again, as Ben was doing for his Rex, Ben couldn’t help but wonder if he reminded Rex of his Ben, too. Going back in time was for the both of them, he knew that; but still…

Rex searches his eyes for something, squeezing his lips into a line as he does so. When he seems to have found whatever he was looking for, he nods. “Fine. I won’t intervene. Yet.” He takes his arm back out of Ben’s grasp. “But if nothing’s changed in the next hour, then we’re doing it my way. Right?”

Ben begrudgingly agreed. “Right.”

Eon better hurry this up. 

---

The Coming Storm stops abruptly, and Argit’s terrible fear of running into him is the only thing that stops him from doing so. 

“Did you just feel that?”

“Wha…?” He’s afraid to talk still. If he got it wrong, would The Coming Storm hurt him?

“I… I’m,” The boy brings his hands up to his temples, tensing up. Argit moves back. “Those guys in the city…! Did you see them?”

He suddenly turns around, and Argit steps back instinctively, his hands raising to his chest. The Coming Storm glares at him, his mouth forming a line. “Argit! Come on! Did you see the city folk before?”

He’s mad at him. He knew it! Oh, he was in for it now! 

“I don’t know why I never noticed it!” He turns back around, voice amazed and shaking his head. “Those guys over there? They’re from my aunt’s neighborhood!”

Argit has been to the city before. He went just the other day with the one they call Rex, to buy some clothes for them all. It was strange. Rex was so nice, despite being friends with The Coming Storm. But when they got there, the store was empty! Even for the cashier! Rex said not to worry about it, but he seemed quite weirded out by it himself. He said that the cashier never took their money anyway, at least not when he was looking. He wasn’t even sure if the store was actually even open. The doors and lights were on twenty four/seven and the cashier never moved, which was probably why he was so unnerved by the guy not being there. 

The only time Argit had ever seen anyone there was when they were walking out and a old lady was closing the blinds to her window. Nobody seemed to want him there. Except Rex. Rex was nice. 

The Coming Storm continues. “How am I remembering this just now? And where,” he stomps his foot, groans. “is everyone?”

It didn’t seem like they were getting anywhere. They’d been aiming to go back to the house, but the ever green of the forest went on forever. 

He’s messing with his Omnitrix for the third time. “Come on you stupid thing, work! What if my aunt’s back there and in trouble?” 

He screams in irritation, and Argit pulls his collar farther up to hide his face. 

“Hello?” A far away disembodied voice calls out. 

The Coming Storm goes quiet and Argit peeks out into the woods. 

It calls out again: “Ben, is that you?”

It’s Rex. Argit let’s go of his collar and turns around in a circle, searching for the source of the voice. The Coming Storm cups his mouth and replies, “Yeah! I’m right here!”

There’s a weird sound of something flying towards them, and Argit turns right in time to see Rex and two other Coming Storm’s nearing them on a bright blue hoverboard.

---

“So, to recap,” Ben points at himself. “This all happened because an alternate dimension me wanted to blow up every version of himself so he could, I dunno, be the most powerful version of himself, and the explosion and.. not-explosion, collided and caused this dimension to form,” he points both forefingers at the ground, then moves them up and around in a circular motion, “then it brought all of us here and made us lose our memories, and now that evil Ben is being used by another evil Ben so that he can use the chromatic whatsamajiggy, that she,” he points to Charmcaster, who gives him a stank face, “helped hide from us using some super convoluted force field, to go back in time to when his boyfriend didn’t break up with him? And this could have all been resolved if he’d just used a chromo-master-something-or-other alien?”

Paradox lifts a finger to the sky, one arm held behind his back as he walks. “That, or the temporal distortion made him forget he has that particular alien or ability. Or maybe his Negatrix doesn’t have a Chronosapien in it. Although, I doubt it.”

Which means his Omnitrix still works. Crap. Just their luck. “How do we know for sure that his Negatrix or whatever is still active?”

“Oh, it’s still active.” Charmcaster speaks up, scowling down at the muck that her boots just stepped in. “He was using one of his aliens to keep the barrier around his hideout up before I got there. When I got tired of waiting for him to keep up his end of the bargain, I took matters into my own hands. The barrier went down when I was contacting the world of mana, and he never put it back up.”

“That must’ve been when Rex found the bomb!” He realizes. “How’d it even get there?”

Paradox answers, “It was always there, from the very beginning. It was here before anything else. It’s, to put it in Layman’s terms, the center of the universe, as of right now. Everything formed around it in the creation of this reality.”

“Oh great! And it’s in the hands of a Wannabe Bad Guy Ben Tennyson? Just a regular Ben is bad enough!” Charmcaster threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. For the first time, Ben was with her on this. This sucks. 

“You were the one helping him…” Benzarro mentions. 

“Shut up. I didn’t know what it was when I found it.” She purses her lips. “I just knew it was exhorting a whole lot of energy and that if I helped him hide it, he’d get me out of this dump.”

“If he was so close to it, then why didn’t he notice it before then?” Ben asks. 

“Well, he said it was because it wasn’t turned on before, but I think he was just lying because his detection skills are weak,” she says with an unimpressed wave of her hand and the baring of her teeth. “That part of the cave had to be mined out, but there was no way he was that close to it all this time and hadn’t felt it. Said something about it having must've been struck by an enormous amount of energy.” She puts a finger to her cheek. “Now that I think about it, there was a large hole that had been blown into the wall of the cave it was in.”

“An enormous amount of energy, you say?” Paradox is looking right at Ben from the corner of his eye as he guides them forward. He’s got a small, knowing smile on his face that both unnerves and intrigues him. 

He’s trying to tell him something. What was it? Ben looks down at his shoes as he walks. He thinks. An enormous amount of energy… right after Rex was on patrol, fighting Eon’s minions…

It hits him. The day that Hex was caught by Rex, it was the same day they found the other Ben’s, which was the same day Prime used that sword! That overpowered magical sword thing he was using! That deforested a line all the way into the horizon! 

Ben looks up and sees Paradox’s smile widen with recognition. 

“No way! So it was Prime’s fault?” He couldn’t believe it! Their lives were in danger and Prime’s little stunt from before had incidentally worked against them? “How is that even possible?”

Paradox looks up in thought. “Physics…trigonometry… coincidence.. Oh! And Azmuth!”

“What’s an Azmuth?”

He looks back, a strangely nostalgic look on his face. “Oh, you’re so young…”

He isn’t sure how to respond to that, but it makes him a bit irritated. He hates being played off as a dumb kid. “Ok. So if the sword can power it up, can it de-power it?”

“There’s no way to know but to try,” Paradox says, cryptically. 

Ben glares at the back of his head. 

“Why don’t you and your other selves just grab your Omnitrixs and beat him up? How many of you guys even are there?”

“Five. Six, if you count Rex.” Paradox answers matter-of-factly. 

“We can’t. Only mine and 10,000’s work.” Crap, why did he admit that? He should have kept that under wraps, shouldn’t he have? Stupid, stupid! Gwen would chastise him if she were here. He could already imagine her voice, saying, “You have to think more, Ben!”

With that in mind, he looks back up to Professor Paradox’s back. “By the way, how come not every Omnitrix works?”

“I assume because of the anomaly.” He tilts his head up. “It’s just speculation, but the temporal distortion probably caused the Omnitrix's to temporarily timeout while the others are active, as a defense mechanism implemented after what happened the first time so many of them were used all at once. Which would make sense, given that it’s bringing forth all Ben’s and their enemies into this world. It’s learned its lesson, and doesn’t want a repeat disaster. It’s clear that yours, Nega Ben’s, and Ben 10,000’s still work, but if no other one does, then it’s sensible to assume that only three can work at any given time.”

His jaw drops. “That explains why Prime’s stopped working after he took his off. It’s because 10,000 entered into our reality using his while Prime’s was inactive! So it wasn’t a coincidence!”

“It also means that Nega Ben has less standing in his way from starting the bomb.”

“What happens when he restarts the bomb?” Benzarro asks, desperately trying to keep the right side of his face from drooping downwards. He keeps poking at his eye, like it’s about to pop out or something. 

“Reality folds in on itself, trapping all of us inside and creating the rest of its universe to its completion. It won’t destroy any of the other realities, but it will be completely independent of them. Meaning, even though more and more people from Ben’s life will be coming in, we will never be able to go back to our own realities ever again and there will be no way out. Even for me.”

Ben feels his heart begin to race. If that happens, he’ll never see Grandpa Max and Gwen ever again…Or, if they do get here, they'd be stuck here for the rest of their lives, having no one else but each other. They'd have to start their whole lives over, never seeing any of their friends again, if Ben had never met them. And who knows how long it would take for them to be sucked into this world? It could be years, decades.. Ben has already been in this timeline for longer than a summer. 

“Coming into this reality was a gamble, but it’s one I was and am willing to take. I noticed the immediate lack of Bens going around the universe, and in my effort to study the strange happenstance, I discovered that he was not the only one going missing, as of late. Figuring that something would soon come up, I took this time to look back at the moments some Bens had disappeared. The first ones to go were a Ben and a Rex, along with a car they were sitting atop, and a few weeks ago, an eleven-year old Ben and one lonely little Argit, who’d gotten just a little too close to him, went missing.” Ben wonders if the car was the same one he'd woken up inside. And the second pair must have been 12 and the Argit that were staying with them now. It was all coming together now, but he was also starting to get a headache. “When I looked further into it, it became apparent that there was a reality I couldn’t gain entrance to. This one, in fact. Luckily, Charmcaster was here to get in a tussle with the older you, and this allowed me to gain access to this reality through his Omnitrix’s travel function.”

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” Charmcaster says sarcastically. She looks extremely peeved off, like she could explode any minute. “But none of that helps us get out of here. And I’m not staying here! So, any more bad news before I grab my uncle and go?”

He goes on like he hadn’t even heard her. “There are other Paradox’s out there, if need be, although I myself have to wonder how much help they'll be without a Tennyson to guide. The two realities anchoring this one, consisting of the reality the Ben you call Prime is originally from and the reality of the Ben with no Omnitrix, will come loose from here, dropping us into a metaphorical sea, to be lost to everyone forever, like the city of Atlantis.”

“Atlantis is real?”

“Yes, but not in the way you know it. But that’s besides the point. What we need to focus on is getting control of the Chronosapien time bomb before the Ben with no watch gets transferred here.”

“I’m gonna regret asking, but what happens when he gets here?”

“If he is brought here, then the hook attaching this reality to his will unlatch, and then there really will be no way to get back to our own realities. Prime Ben’s hook has already detached, on account that he was the first to be transported here. And as previously said, the city will continue to fill up with people coming in, but no one going out. The structure of this timeline will stabilize, and even as the rest of the universe comes into fruition, overpopulation will occur, which we don’t want, so we’ll need to wrap this up quickly.”

“Quickly? But you heard Charmcaster. It could take days or even weeks for him to figure out how to use the bomb.”

“Oh, no, my dear boy.” His face turns grave. “I’ve peeked ahead already, and we have but mere hours until Eon forms his memories back and figures out how to work the machine.”

Horror starts to settle in. It rushes through Ben’s veins like lava. They really don’t have a lot of time. If he messes this up, he’ll never see his family again. At least, not how he knows them. It’s frightening, it’s dangerous, it’s…thrilling. At the very moment the notion of responsibility turned up, the same amount of excitement began to rival it. He felt, with his entire being, that he could do this. That this was what he was meant to do. 

“How do you know all this?” Charmcaster asks. 

“I’ve been through way worse than this,” Paradox smiles gleefully at her. “These types of things usually end up working out, so don’t worry so much!”

“Usually?” She repeats unbelievingly, her brow rising up on her forehead and her jaw dropping as she places her tongue against the bottom of the inside of her mouth. 

Benzarro is still trying to fix his eye. “So, then, who are all those people in the town? Are they bad guys, too?”

“Ah,” he says appraisingly. “That, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” They echo in tandem. 

“They were also one of the first ones here, but I don’t recognize any of them.” He looks up at the sky. 

“Ok… and what about the barrier around the city? Who caused that?” Ben stumbles on a root of a tree.

“Haven’t you been listening?” Charmcaster points an annoyed face his way. “The reality hasn’t fully formed. There’s nothing else beyond there.”

“Precisely! That, my friends, is what they call the edge of the universe.” Paradox says, casually. “As was previously mentioned, the universe isn’t done creating itself yet. The area of reach around the Chronosapien time bomb can only go for so many miles. With the power it releases from going off, it’ll be able to finish what it started.”

“What, so all the land back there is… an unfinished level?” Ben’s voice was incredulous. “The devs haven’t updated it yet?”

“That sounds about right in your video game terms, yes.”

“Ok, so we beat Nega Ben. How does that get us out of here?” Benzarro asks, sighing and letting his arm drop, finally fed up with his deteriorating condition.

“That, I am still trying to figure out.”

This catches them all off guard “Huh!”

“What, only you are able to come up with plans on the fly?” He ducks under a leafy branch and comes out to a stop in a valley. “We’re here.”

A jolt of disbelief goes through Ben. It’s the cabin. They walked all this way… just to get to the cabin. 

He rubs the sudden exhaustion he feels out of his eyes. “Hey, if you can teleport, why didn’t you just bring us here that way?” Ben questions, feeling insane. 

“We were having a nice conversation, weren’t we?” That smug freaking smile..! “Now, do you know where your Prime Ben keeps his sword?” He takes out his pocket watch, turning around and heading for the front door. There’s something like a clicking sound. “He will be needing it about now.”

He’s barely able to finish his sentence before there’s a raucous sound of wood breaking and something long and silver flying out of the front wall of the house, diving somewhere deep into the woods.

They all stare in shocked silence in the direction the sword went, except for Professor Paradox, who smiles cheerily in its direction. “Or that works, too..”

He disappears into thin air. 

Ben blinks, feeling a light breeze brush his skin for the first time in a while, making him realize that time has started up again. 

Hearing a sharp intake of breath behind him, he turns around to Charmcaster facing their mysterious benefactor. “There’s no need for that.” He says, taking her by the shoulder. “I’ll make sure you and your uncle get exactly where you need to be.” Ben almost laughs. Charmcaster’s discreet attempt at sneaking off was instantly foiled by Paradox’s almost telepathic powers of clairvoyance. All joy leaves him, because now he realizes that getting away from this guy will be harder than he thought. “In the meantime, Ben, and Benzarro, I suppose,” he nods at them. “The phone you left is somewhere in that house, yes? You're gonna get a call in exactly eleven minutes and thirteen seconds. Good luck!”

Before Ben can search his pockets and wonder how the heck the Professor knew that, the old guy and Charmcaster disappear, and he's left with only the howling of the wind and the zombie beside him.

---

The Sword of Ascalon takes mere seconds to land in Ben's grip. His smirk is smug and his eyes are bright with enthusiasm. A rush of ebullience goes through him in waves, making his skin tingle and his hair stand up on the back of his nape. This was what he’s been waiting for. If there was one good thing that came out of not needing to pretend to be someone else anymore, it’s that he could go all out in battle. 

Nega Ben, on the other hand, was not as high spirited. His eyes, the same green as his, were dark with loathing. The miscreant’s face twists into an even deeper scowl, but he doesn’t touch his Omnitrix. 

Ben points at his head. “We’re really twinning now!”

Nega is not amused. Ben watches in minor disappointment as he lifts his black hood over his head. 

“Oh, come on!” He teases. “After all the effort of styling your hair, you don’t wanna show it off?”

Oh, yeah. He is gonna enjoy this. 

“You’re so lame,” Nega speaks up, finally. He tilts his head to the side, as if suddenly bored. “You couldn’t even beat us the first time without your little buddies backing you up. What’s with all the sudden bravado? Just because you have that sword? It’ll take a lot more than that to intimidate me.”

Ben furrows his brows at that, amused but curious. “First time? As far as I see it, we’re still in a stalemate.”

Nega looks at him strangely, and he wonders if maybe he somehow said something off. “Wait a minute… you don’t remember, do you?” Now he seems amused. He throws his head back and laughs. “Now that’s hilarious! You don’t even remember how we got here!”

Ben chews on the inside of his cheeks and tightens his grip on Ascalon. Was this some kind of joke? His eyes wander to the guy behind Nega who’s had his back turned to them throughout the entire confrontation. He kinda looks like another Ben, but his hair is purple and he’s wearing a long dark robe. He’s been tinkering with the Chronosapien time bomb for awhile now, but it doesn’t look like he’s getting anywhere. And on the other side of the bomb, sitting with his legs casually crossed and leaning back on his arms, is an introspective seventeen year old Rex Salazar. Ben is only vaguely interested in him. After everything that’s shown up these last couple of weeks, nothing could surprise him anymore. He could tell it wasn’t his Rex strictly by the fact that he still wore his old jacket, and that he wasn’t sporting a mullet. Their eyes met earlier, but neither said anything to the other. Ben could feel himself being watched, but as long as he didn’t move, Ben had no reason to fight him yet. He could only assume this was Nega’s version of Rex, and if that was the case, he’d need to be careful. 

“Oh? Why don’t you enlighten me?” He asks, wondering where his own Rex is right now. 

“No, I don’t think I will.” He smiles. “It’s funnier that way. And, anyway, don’t you think you should be a bit more worried about your friends out in the woods over there?” He lifted his watch, as if he could tell the time with it, and pursed his bottom lip. “They should have been here about now, don’t you think? I wonder what happened to them…”

Ben frowns. Don’t like the sound of that. “They can handle themselves.”

“Can they? With only two of their watches working?”

Definitely don’t like the sound of that. How could he possibly know that?

Now that he thought about it, it had taken him a heck of a lot more effort to get out of there than usual. Ben takes his phone out of his pocket. “Hey, can you wait just a minute?” He lowers his sword while using one hand to tap on his phone. 

“Seriously?” Nega stares at him deadpan. 

“Just wait a minute.” He taps on Rex’s contact. It doesn’t even get the chance to ring. “Hey, you guys alright?”

Wind is blowing through the speaker. “Yeah,” Rex exclaims. “I’ve got everyone here but 16, and now we’re on our way to the cabin. I got some really interesting information from 05, here.”

“Oh, well I bet my news is bigger than yours,” he jokes. 

“You found Eon?”

“Nope, I’m just stuck with small fry.” He glances at Nega, who looks insulted. Good. “Nega Ben is here with the juice. We’re in town, next to the grocery store.” He meets eyes with him, tapping his foot on the ground while the kid watches him in silence. “Oh, there’s also another you here!”

The Rex that Ben is now going to deem “Nega Rex”, perks up at that. 

The Rex on the phone puts on a feathery voice. “No way! What’s he look like? Does he have any evil tattoos on his face?”

“Evil tattoos?”

“Yeah, like in cartoons! Like that Hex guy!”

“No, no, he’s just you, but, like, two years younger. Hasn’t updated his wardrobe yet.”

“Aww, lame!”

“Yeah.. There's also this other guy? Wait,” Ben pauses. He looks between Nega Ben and the purple-haired guy, then leans his phone away from his ear. “Is that Eon? Hold on,” he’s asking Nega, but then he brings his phone back to his ear and says, “I think that’s Eon! Dude, what happened?” He lets out a jolly laugh. The guy kneeling in front of the bomb turns around at the sound of his name and yep, that’s Ben’s face, right there; ten years younger than usual and strangely unguarded. 

Nega glares at him. 

“What’s going on?” Rex asks on the other side of the line. 

“Eon’s a teen again! Tell 10,000! He’s gotta hear about this,” he’s shaking his head in amusement and disbelief. Wow, he really did forget a lot. “When did that happen?” He lifts his sword at the guy, then lets it drop back down at his side. 

Nega flinches, assumedly at the way he was handling the poor object. So even he knew about the sword Ascalon. Ben had gotten used to lugging it around, so the guy probably hated how casual he was being with the almighty sword. Ben wonders how Nega reacted to the whole Dagon thing, and if he even had to go through it. 

There’s some mumbling on the other side of the line, then Rex speaks up again. “Ok, I know you’re having fun, but you really need to hear this.” Rex says, voice getting urgent. “05 just found out that all the citizens here are apparently people from your aunt’s old neighborhood?”

The smile slips off Ben’s face. 

“And, also, Charmcaster’s here, and she attacked 10,000 and Argit. Did something to his watch. We think she brought someone here, somehow.”

“Charmcaster’s loose?” Oh, that’s not good. That’s not good at all. Wasn’t there enough to worry about?

Nega Rex stands up at the name, and Nega Ben doesn’t look very happy to hear it either. 

“That’s not all. I think there’s something wrong with these woods. I’m pretty sure I passed by this same stump five times by now!” Rex informs. “We’re not getting anywhere!”

Ben drops his act and glares at the two standing before him. “So that’s what he meant by that stuff he said earlier.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna have to call you back.” He hangs up. 

“Oh, so you’re done?” Nega Ben takes a step forward, brows raised and eyes tired. Behind him, Eon stares between them, eyes wide and naive whilst his mouth lies agape. Ben looks from him, to Nega Ben, to Nega Rex, who is stepping in front of his line of view to Eon. “Great, thanks for giving us some more time. It’s really appreciated.”

Nega Rex leans over and says something to Nega Ben that he doesn’t like, according to his expression. His eyes grow even more tired, but whatever he said, Nega motions for him to go on. 

“Hey! No fair! No flirting until we’re done here! Or,” he shrugs, glancing up and then back to them, “until my boyfriend also gets here. Whichever comes first.” Ben raises his sword, but is too late to dodge Nega Rex’s tackle. 

Before he knows it, his body is raised from the ground and getting further and further away from it at an alarming rate. 

He’s so fast! And in his position, there’s nothing he can do to get out of his grip without falling to his death. 

Ben recognizes the sound of Rex building his hands into a machine and the next thing he knows he’s grunting whilst being thrown forward as Nega Rex bursts through a wall. He lands hard on his back and slides on the floor as the sound of debris crashing down from where they made their entrance bounces off his eardrums. 

Ben feels a sharp pain in his shoulder. He struggles to open his eyes as he raises himself up on one arm, then spots the sword of Ascalon a few feet away from his hand, next to a pile of debris. He quickly lunges forward, ignoring the pain, and grabs it in his hand, rolling into a kneeling position. He scowls at the young Rex, who looks at him almost sadly as he approaches. 

“I hate to have to do this.”

“Then don’t.” Ben quickly drags himself off the floor and forward, pushing himself and his sword against Rex’s quickly-built long sword. 

They’re in an office building. Desks lay turned over and the only light is coming from the large hole they made in their entry through the wall. It leaves Nega Rex’s face in a silhouette, but Ben can still see the pain in his eyes. 

The Sword of Ascalon is quickly covering his entire body, from shoes all the way up to his neck. The armor ends before it can get to his helmet, just so Ben has the ability to actually see clearly. His pain quickly dissolves, and they soon begin to fight full force. 

Seconds later, Rex is forced backwards by a tornado-like wind right out of the hole he made himself. Ben runs forward and out of the room, into open air, with the sword in hand, following right after him. Rex lands on top of a much shorter building, and Ben uses the air unleashed from the sword to slow his fall. He lands hard on the roof, feet first, knees unbending due to the suit of armor. 

There’s a Rex shaped indent on the concrete ground, but Rex rises easily, and Ben stares in amazement as his hair turns into a fiery blue(a legitimate blue fire!), and the fight continues with Rex barging forward, hand forming into a three-bladed scythe. 

---

Charmcaster is back before the prison house. A sudden freeing feeling rushes over her, like she has jumped right out of a vat of boiling water without even realizing she was in one.

Paradox still has his hand on her shoulder. “Now that you know what is at stake, there is a task I need you to do, and only you can do it.”

She whips around and out of his hold. “And how do I know you won’t take advantage of me, too?”

“Because I’m not a Ben.” He says, then walks out of sight. 

She turns around, feeling someone behind her. She’s quickly met with the face of Hex and Paradox with his hand around his shoulder. 

The sincerity on his face speaks for itself. “And neither of us wants to be stuck in this timeline forever.”

Her uncle looks around, disoriented, then quickly moves away from the strange man. Charmcaster quickly grabs him and places him by her side, then glares at Paradox. “This better not be another trick.”

“I assure you, the time for tricks is over.” His posh voice says brightly. “Surely you’ve noticed the little maze Nega Ben would have us all wandering in if not for my expertise.”

Charmcaster gasps and stomps her foot. “So that’s what I was feeling this whole time! Of course! He used a drifting nexus spell!”

“If I needed you out of my way, I could have simply lost you during our trip.” He turns his back to her and walks a few feet away. “Though, I have no doubt you would have made your way out of it in no time. I have no grudge against you. But,” he pauses, looks back. “If you’d like to make up for your misgiving of helping the wrong Ben, how about you help all the good Ben’s instead?”

Her brows knit together. 

“Of course, you’re free to cast your spell and leave whenever you want.” He assures, holding his hands behind his back and looking down at the ground. “But, I’m not afraid to say.. that we need you, Charmcaster. And this is something only you can do.”

The sorceress looks between her uncle and the time lord, feeling strange and unsure. Her uncle looks like he wants to ask her what is going on, but she knows she doesn’t have time to explain. There is a pressure in her heart when she looks at Paradox’s broad back. It’s something she hasn’t quite felt in a long time. She wonders if it’s guilt… maybe a little, but not that entirely. It’s…more neutral. Maybe even positive. It’s…responsibility. It’s..

Hope. It’s hope. 

She regards the back of his head, sighs. She’s sure she’s gonna regret this. “…What is it you want me to do?”

He looks at her from the corner of his eye with a slight turn of his head, and he smiles. 

---

Five minutes pass between when Paradox leaves and when Ben gets tired of searching for his phone. It’s hard to believe that he’d gone so long without it, back when he first arrived, but after Rex and Prime found him, Red was able to use his ability to charge Ben’s phone back to 100 every time he drained it while trying to call Gwen. Benzarro moves mad slow, but his eyes move around so fast Ben just knows he’s looking thoroughly. He, on the other hand, hates being given low-level tasks, and he can’t find his phone anywhere. If he had a phone, he’d be able to call it, but Benzarro doesn’t have one and anyone he could ask is somewhere he can’t get to fast enough. The first place he looked was between the couch cushions, then the cabinet in the bathroom, and then the kitchen. Out of desperation, he’s even started trudging through Prime and Rex’s room. They don’t have a lot of stuff. The closet is filled with Rex’s jackets and Prime’s hoodies. The bedside table is filled only with gauze and first aid. He searches under the bed, but, again, nothing there. Somehow, that’s the last straw.

Ok, this is over. Ben twists the face on his Omnitrix and smacks on XLR8. Benzarro could work without him. He was incredibly suspicious, anyway. Ben reassures himself with this, and just as he’s rushing into the forest to look for the others, an immovable force blocks his way. 

Paradox steps right in front of him from seemingly out of nowhere. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

He stares at him, heart pounding in his chest at the fright of being basically jumpscared. “How did you do that?”

“Our friend Nega Ben left us a little gift in the forest. One that disorients and loops unendingly. If you walk willy nilly into it, there’s no guarantee you’ll make it back out.”

He has to be lying. He has to be! But the look he has in his eyes makes Ben hesitate. “I..I need to help my friends..!”

“And you will. But you have to be patient.” He puts a hand on his shoulder. “Your time will come, Ben.” He says, softly. “You need only remember.”

Ben pushes Paradox’s hand off of him, voice almost a mumble, yet desperate, as he turns back into a human. “Remember what?”

Paradox is unbothered by it. In fact, his eyes squint with a sympathetic and all-knowing smile.

A whooshing sound reaches Ben’s ears. Both he and Paradox look up to the top of the treeline. Paradox turns around, smile widening, and Ben watches, blood rushing, heart racing, as a long red stream of light bursts up into the air miles away from where they stand.

---

Rex and 10,000 see it. When his hoverboard stops moving, 12, 05, and Argit turn to see what the eldests are looking at. Just as 12 is reaching up to grab hold of 05 in front of him, Rex smacks his hand down without either of them turning to look away from the spectacle. “Not until you wash your hands.”

---

Ben, also known as Prime, and Nega Rex see it, stopping mid fight to look as the beam of light reaches into the grey sky and completely eviscerates every cloud until all that’s left is a bright and blue, sunny sky.

---

Only a few miles away from them, Eon is watching the red strands with wide, wondrous eyes. His hands on the device before him go still, and so does his entire body and heart. He feels something click and begin to change inside of him. 

---

Charmcaster and Hex take one more short look at it right before they exit through their portal to the mana world. The portal closes only a half-second after.

---

“You see that?” Ben turns to Nega Rex. “What do you think that is?”

He shrugs, eyes glowing white with the power of the Meta-Nanites. He keeps his feet planted square on the pavement, his arm in the form of a neon blue whip and aiming at Ben. “Probably me getting closer to going back home and seeing my Ben again.”

“You know that isn’t true! Rex, you’re smart!” He lowers his sword, incredulous. “You think your Ben would want you to do this? Destroy every other Ben in existence because of him?”

Nega Rex’s eyes fade back into color. “What..?” His voice instantly becomes quiet. His stance falters. “What did you just say?”

“The Chronosapien time bomb? It’s going to blow up every timeline, and everyone else in them, except this one!”

“No… no, that’s not what—“

“That’s what it was made for! What did you think it was..?” At the look on his face, Ben trails off. “…You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

“That can’t be right! Eon said…Ben said..!”

“What? What did they say?” Ben gives him a sympathetic look. “You don’t remember, right?”

Nega Rex’s hair is slowly turning back to normal. 

Ben is getting through to him. He gulps, continues. “No matter what they said to get you to join them, you know they’re bad guys, right? They lie! But you’re not, Rex!” He takes a step closer. 

“Eon, he,” His breathing turns harsh as realization sets in. His eyes are going wide and shiny, and he looks like memories are playing before him as if on a screen. “He brought me and Nega to fight you guys, before.. before the explosion,” He steps backwards, his builds breaking and falling to the pavement under him. He falls to his knees in the middle of the street. “He went to collect other Bens… But he looked different… He looked… off, the second time we saw him. He acted like he didn’t know us. I couldn’t fight you guys, you looked too much like my…”

Like his Ben. Ben nods sympathetically, walking to him and kneeling before him. 

His eyes were glossy, but he wasn’t crying. His eyes were in the midst of going white again. “He was a completely different person when we found him. After you guys fought us the second time, and we lost. We…”

“Second time?” He puts a hand on Rex’s shoulder, and something sparks. He gasps as the sudden rush of memories starts flooding into him. 

Rex keeps going, head low, sifting through his thoughts. “This Eon didn’t know anything. He couldn’t even remember his own name. And he was young. But it was him. And Nega Ben, he.. when we first got here, he said we could program the bomb to go back to when everything went bad for us. That we could take back what we’d done and get our own Ben and Rex back. We didn’t know… somehow we’d forgotten… what it really was.. being here, it, it did something to us!”

He looks back up at Ben, eyes glowing white again, but Ben is having his own epiphanies. He’s right, we did fight them a second time. We reversed the bomb before it could fully go off! And then… then we went home! Everyone went home! He’s putting it all together now! How could he have forgotten? Ben 23, Gwen with her Omnitrix, Ben 10,000… all of them! They all should have gone back home! So what happened?

He remembers now. He’d continued living his life. He fought alongside Rook and the rest of the plumbers. He’d met with Rex again and they started dating at some point during those two years, and then when Rex was fixing his car, he’d been transported here, along with Rex and the car! And with it, all knowledge of how they’d defeated Maltruant and Eon, gone, poof! How could he have forgotten that battle? What was going on here? Where is here?

“Eon, Nega Ben, and me… we were the first ones here. Some bad guys came along too, but we left them to their devices. How did we forget everything that mattered?” Rex is in disbelief, his hands on Ben’s shoulders, looking to him for answers. “So we can’t go back? Ever? So I’ll never get to be with my Ben again?”

Ben focuses back on him, feeling his heart reach out to this poor boy. “Rex, listen to me.”

He’s not crying, but he’s anguished. He’s heartbroken and guilt ridden and grieving. “I was just so tired of him getting hurt. I only wanted to help, I—“

“I know. I know.” He doesn’t. Not really. But he could sympathize. He could understand.

“He’ll never forgive me… he won’t even get the chance..!” His eyes search the ground, wide with disbelief. “The bomb is going to go off and it’ll be all my fault..! I’ll have killed him…so what’s the point?”

“What?” 

Nega Rex’s eyes go back to normal, and this time the whites of his eyes are red. “If we’re all gonna be stuck here, then what have we been doing all this for? In fact, we’ll be lucky if Eon hasn’t already gotten his memories back by now and is betraying us as we speak..! It’s too late…” His eyes widen as he looks down at the ground, then up in the direction of where they left the evil Bens, “Ben’s going to hate me all the way to the grave and I won’t even be able to apologize to him..!”

Ben grabs Nega Rex by his face and makes him look into his eyes. “Stop! Talking like that! We have time! It’s me we’re talking about!”

Rex sniffs. 

Ben gazes determinedly into his onyx brown eyes. “You’ll get your chance to apologize to him, you hear me? No one’s going to die. But we have to get back quickly to make absolutely sure that no one dies. Got it?”

He nods, face red and eyes puffy. 

Ben smiles awkwardly. “Great. Now let’s go.”

---

Rex can’t for the life of him get out of this freaking forest! He’s irritated, and the only one giving him any reprieve is Argit, who’s tightly holding onto his pant leg. The Bens, even 10,000, on the other hand, are talking over themselves giving him directions. 

“Turn right! Right!”

“No, we already went that way! Just keep going straight!”

Rex can’t tell who’s talking. They all sound alike. 

“We’ve already been past that vine section!” Ok, that was 10,000. 

“Ok! Ok! Everyone stop screaming at me, or I will turn this hoverboard right around!”

They all go silent, even 10,000. 

He sighs and taps the communicator in his ear. “Ben! Did you see that? Ok, first off, I love you, are you okay? But also, did you see that!”

“Yes, I saw it. No idea what it was, but I’m guessing it has something to do with our stray sorceress.”

“You think it was Charmcaster?”

“Of course, Charmcaster did it!” Everyone on his Sky Slider but Argit exclaims, as if he were dumb just for asking. 

“Okay!” Rex exclaims back, pouting. Seriously, what did they have to be so grumpy about? He was the one who had to lug them all around. “Do you know where it came from? Can you get to it? Also, what happened with Nega Ben and Eon?”

“And the other you.” 10,000 reminds. 

“And the other me?” Rex asks, dodging a tree that he has counted passing fifteen times now. 

“Working on that now. Nega Rex is on our side now and is going to hold Nega Ben and Eon off while I check it out.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” 

“Nope! Love you, bye!” He hangs up. 

Rex screws up his face. He hates when Ben does that. 

“How are you not embarrassed?” 05 asks. 

There’s a brief silence from Rex ignoring him and the others being too awkward to say anything. 

“Welp!” 10,000 blurts, before hopping off of Rex’s Sky Slider. Rex comes to a stop, looking at him curiously. “Now’s a good time for me to go my own way.”

“Huh?” They all sound. 

“You guys hurry up and get to the fight. I’ll deal with finding 16 and meet you there.”

“I don’t think splitting up is the best idea.” Rex tries. 

“Hey,” he shrugs. “I’m a Ben, you know?” And he turns into Fasttrack and is gone in seconds. 

A few moments pass. Then 05 says, “Welp!” And begins to hop off as well. 

“Nope!” Rex grabs him by the back of his collar and pulls him right back up. “Okay, that’s enough of this.” And he rises into the air, above the treeline and into the brightness of the sun. Here, they can see practically everything. It’s forest for miles, but in one direction there’s buildings, and a little to the left, he can see a bit of space where the cabin should be. Argit holds tighter to his pant leg, his eyes squeezed shut. “Now let’s see what’s going on.”

He moves forward towards the city, but after about thirty seconds, his vision blurs and suddenly the city is gone. He stops. “What the..?”

“It’s over there!” 12 is pointing behind them, and Rex turns to see that it is, in fact, in that direction. 

He glares into the distance. “Oh? So that’s how it’s going to be?”

This was going to be a long day. 

---

As all the memories finish hitting Ben like a bus, he looks up at Paradox with newfound realization. “I was— they were—“

“Yes, yes, you get it now?”

“I do! I really do!” He sounds like a child, but he can’t help it. He’s hopping on the tips of his toes. Energy is running through his veins like a generator! He wants to scream! “I know what to do! I have to tell Prime! I have to…” Then it hits him. “Oh… but..”

Paradox raises a brow.

Ben sighs. “Ben and Rex… I just left them.” His brows lower as he looks up to Paradox and his curious expression, then back at the ground. “They lied to me. They tricked me. And for what? For giggles?”

When Paradox doesn’t say anything, Ben peers at him. 

“… If I can't trust them to be honest about something that simple, then what can I trust them with? Man, were they..” he scoffs, “were they even looking for Gwen and Grampa Max?..I hate being lied to.” 

“Well I don’t know one person who does.” He replies, facing the area where the beam used to be. “But, I find that trying to figure out the reasons Bens do the things they do has become somewhat of a useless endeavor.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not right here!”

He laughs. Like, really laughs. “Surely the hidden identity debacle isn’t what’s really bothering you. Now, be honest.”

Ben doesn’t like how the professor can read him so well. He shuffles his feet, arms tingling. “…It’s just… we were becoming a team, you know? They were looking out for me,” he purses his lips, hesitant to finish his sentence. “Just like Grandpa and Gwen were…”

“Ah, so that’s the issue.” Paradox nods, thoughtfully. “You miss your family, and you saw them in Rex and Prime.”

“We never lie to each other. We promised to stop keeping stuff from one another.”

“But they’re not your Max nor your Gwen—“

“I know that!” He squirms. “You think I don’t know that? But still!” He didn’t know what came after. But still what? He knew he was being uncooperative, but he couldn’t just forget about it. He’s been by their side for just over two months. They treated him like just their own, and then to find out they’d been lying to his face the entire time? About something so important? How could he not be upset? He pulled pranks with Rex, played video games with Prime, ate dinner with them; he even wore their clothes, for Pete’s sake!

“Look, Young Ben. Things are not always as simple or as bad as they may seem. I’d know. I’ve lived to see it many times.” His smile is soft, and although his phrasing was creepy as heck, it does feel like it’s reaching something there. 

Maybe they were hiding it for a reason, but what could it have been, seriously? And why wait so long to admit it? Would they never have said anything if 10,000 hadn’t appeared? 

Would Grandpa Max have ever said anything of the Plumbers if he hadn't asked?

…Crap. So once again, he's just the little kid here. 

He feels a bit better, thinking now that there'd been a reason. Not much, since the reason still sucked, but a bit. 

Then Paradox adds, “Also, in the grand scheme of things, this is a nonissue.”

Ok, that’s something Ben can take to heart. He nods, focusing on their impending doom to keep his determination up, and starts to turn the dial on his Omnitrix.

“I thought I smelled something out of place!” 

Ben glances to the side of Paradox to see 10,000 walking out of the forest towards them, a large grin on his face. His clothes are all torn up with green stains on them, and he’s got scratches on his face. 

“Ben! How nice it is to see you! And right on time!” Paradox turns to him, expression brightening up. 

“I make it my business to always be punctual.” He winks, standing by the professor’s side and putting a hand on his shoulder. His gaze lands on Ben. “Nice to see you’re good, too, 16. You know we’ve been searching all over for you.”

He forgets himself, and quickly returns to his old arrogant persona, “Took you long enough!”

“Sorry! Had to deal with a little problem first..!” He gives a sheepish grin and points his thumb back behind him. “Did you notice the crap they were pulling on us back there? Took me forever to figure it out, but I finally remembered the right spell to dispel it.” He turns to Paradox. “So! What do you need me to do?”

“Well, if you could find Ben’s phone for us..?”

“That’s all?” He twists the face of his Omnitrix and turns into an alien Ben’s never seen before, but he moves so fast that it takes a second for him to realize that 10,000 had even gone anywhere. He returns with a phone in hand. A flash, and he’s back in human form again. “No problem.”

Ben stammers, “Wha— I searched everywhere for that! Where’d you find it?”

“It was...on the ground? Right there?” He points to a section of uncut grass at the edge of the patio by the front door.

“What the heck! How did it get there?!” He was shaking with anger and embarrassment. He’d looked all over for that, and it was literally a yard away from him?!

He leans in and whispers not so discreetly, “Cargo pants with deep pockets and a utility belt, that’s the way to go.” Huh. “Helps if they have hidden pockets” He taps his utility belt to emphasize their pure genius.

As if suddenly remembering, “You guys notice there was a zombie in there?” He purses his lips thoughtfully at the flippant motion of Ben’s hand and the awkward baring of his teeth. “Anything else?” He looks at Paradox. 

Paradox has an expression of amusement but is polite as he pulls something out of his pocket and says, “If it’s not too much trouble, could you make sure this finds its way to the Ben you call Prime? We’d do it, but we have some preparations to get to.”

“All these menial tasks..!” He complains, comedically slouching down but taking whatever it is from the professor's hand. When he’s done being dramatic, he stands up straight, feet pointed in the direction of the jail center. “Oh, any chance you’ve seen Charmcaster?”

“Why, she just went home! You missed her by mere minutes.”

10,000 clicks his teeth. “Just my luck. Thought I might get some payback.”

“Don’t stress yourself over that. She’s already paid her dues. I made sure of that.” Paradox wiggles his fingers. “Now shoo! We have a world to save.” 

Then Ben’s phone rings.

---

The beam was coming from here, but there’s nothing’s to look at. All the inmates are still in their cells—

 Ben sighs as he looks into one empty set of bars. Except Hex… Great. Of course Hope would try to bust out her uncle. 

He walks back outside and into the daylight. It’s just one thing after another. Should he look for them? Does he even have time for that? And where are they now?

“If you’re wondering where Charmcaster is, she’s already gone.” Ben 10,000’s voice remarks, coming from his left. He sees the older man just as he’s walking out of the forest. 

“Gone? Gone how?”

“She went back home. Like we should be doing soon.” He tosses something to him and Ben catches it instinctively. 

It’s a watch, but a regular one— except for the fact that each hand is going crazy like a compass by a magnet. “Thanks, but,” he curls his lip up at the corner. “You see this doesn’t work, right?”

“Yeah, well, Paradox told me to give it to you.”

His eyes almost pop out of their sockets. “Paradox is here?” He exclaims. This shouldn’t be the most surprising thing he’s heard all day, but it is. 

“Yep. And he’s got 16 and Benzarro with him. They’ve got a plan.”

Ben scoffs out of the corner of his mouth as he puts on the watch right above his Omnitrix. “Of course they do. Let me guess, they didn’t tell you?”

He looks up just in time to catch 10,000’s finger guns. 

“Right.” He messes with the Omnitrix, but it doesn’t turn on. “Where’s Rex? And the other guys?”

“As far as I know, still lost in there.” He points his thumb over his shoulder. “But they should be coming out soon.” He stretches his arms out and bends over backwards, grunting as he says, “Speaking of coming out, 05 has a real problem with you two, looks like.”

Ben scoffs again. “He’s a child. He’ll get over it.”

“He’s us. He’ll get over it.” 10,000 corrects, amused, placing his hands on his hips. 

He twists the face of the Omnitrix one more time before letting it drop to his side. “Actually, I’ve been wondering…”

“Hm?”

“While you’re here,” he is really unsure how to word this. “Are you and…Do you have a Rex? And are you two..? Together..?”

10,000 smiles, even more amused. He crosses his buff and hairy arms. “You really wanna know?”

Ben glances up at him and then back to the ground. “…Nevermind. You don’t have to tell me.” He feels like he’s chickening out, which is lame of him, but all of a sudden he’s somehow gotten, not insecure, he'd say, but…a word less weird, and he’s not sure why. It had to be because of what happened with Nega Rex and Nega Ben. Both of them had horrible break ups, which lead them to do all of this. It’s crazy, but, Ben was finding a pattern, and he didn’t like it. Not to mention that Ben 10,000 never spoke about his Rex, despite the fact that Ben always caught a sort of nostalgic look on his face whenever he looked at the two of them.

It was normal to take all these clues to mean that they’d also broken up, right? And Ben 10,000 was directly him from the future. He was the him in his timeline, same as 05 and maybe 12? Still wasn't really sure about that one. But if Ben 10,000 and his Rex weren’t together anymore…

His concerns are assuaged immediately. “Yes, we’re still together.” 10,000’s smile turns into a bit of a grin. “Not in the way you’d typically think it’d mean, but we are.”

“What does that mean?” He gives a curious look, finally meeting his stare. 

“All in good time,” 10,000 pats his shoulder.

He feels his face heat up and his stomach start to sour with irritation. “Can you and Paradox stop being cryptic for once?” He wasn’t in the mood for puzzles right now. He wanted— no, needed to know..!

But Ben 10,000 just laughs. “Listen to me, Ben.”

Ben listens up, mouth forming into a real pout. 

He squeezes his shoulder, sturdy and firm. “In all the timelines I’ve travelled through, in all the realities and worlds,” his eyes bore into his younger selves, “in every one of them— at some point or another— a Ben has his Rex.”

And it shouldn’t make him as happy as it does. It’s so vague, and cryptic, and yet it unlocks something in him that makes him feel so unfathomably happy that he could explode. 

In every universe, he falls for Rex— in some way or another, and vice versa. And although that’s not at all what the older him said, he chose to take it that way. In every reality, in a matter of different ways, they were meant for each other. They were destined to be in one another’s lives— so much so, that a version of them was willing to destroy entire universes to be with them. And this… this was something. He didn’t know what that something was, but it meant something to him. 

Rex meant everything to him. 

He needs to see him. Right now. 

---

“Hello?” 

“Oh, hallelujah, you picked up!” A yell. “¡Qué miedo! Never run off like that again, you hear me? I’m literally gonna have a heart attack! And it’ll be your fault! I know that’s an insane thing to say to a ten year old but I need you to know if I die, I’m haunting you forever— Where are you?” It’s Rex.

“I’m, um, at the house?” He replies noncommiseratingly.

There’s a moment of silence, at least on Rex’s part. The other Ben’s are screaming on the other side of the receiver to be heard, and of course there’s the sound of rushing air. “Tienes que estar bromeando joder..”

“What?”

“Nothing—” There’s the sudden sound of an inhale and movement, like the communicator has been snatched right out of Rex’s ear— and then Ben hears:

”16, please come back! I’m stuck here between a wuss and a homophobe and I’m the only normal person here now that 10k is gone!” Ben guesses that’s 12 talking, and now that he mentions it, it does sound like there’s crying in the background. Distinctly Argit-sounding crying. 

“Hey!” And that’s gotta be 05. There’s more sounds of arguing as Rex seems to be wrestling his earpiece back.

 “Just wa—” Rex’s voice comes back so loud that Ben has to pull his phone back from his ear arms length. “-it there, okay? We were so worried about you! I’m coming to get you! Ah! Argit! Ben, what did you—”

“It wasn’t me!” One of the Ben’s exclaimed.

Ben tries to get a word in before Rex’s attention is completely lost. “Don’t! We’re heading back to town to—”

“We?” And then it’s silent. All noise is cut off abruptly, and after a second, Ben looks at his phone to see that the screen is black. He taps it, but it won’t turn on. A red battery symbol appears and blinks on the screen for several seconds before going black again.

Ben stares at it for a quiet moment..then bursts out laughing. He laughs for a long while, Professor Paradox smiling beside him, and he realizes that this is what was missing from Paradox’s argument: Rex and the other Bens weren’t a family, no. 

No, they were friends. 

———-

Eon remembers everything. 

Rex is running up to the one he previously called Nega Ben. He grabs him by the shoulders, his face red and enlightened. Nega Ben seems concerned about him, asking did you get his sword? and what’s going on with you? as Rex pants and starts talking about memories and doing the wrong thing. 

He remembers falling. He remembers darkness surrounding him, momentarily interrupted by sparks of purple and blue, but he’s falling. For a very long time. Too long. He remembers the pit of his stomach rising and dropping. He remembers crashing into something, someone, and becoming one thing. He remembers remembering memories, and then forgetting them. He remembers overwriting everything he ever was. 

Bad Ben and the Eon they all knew would never again be seen. They were one person now.

Eon watches as Nega Ben gets more and more agitated, but also as his cheeks turn evermore pinker whenever Rex leans in a bit too close. 

When he gets bored of that, he turns back to the Chronosapien time bomb. He stares at it for a while, going over every touch, every sense memory he has of it(For so long he couldn’t feel anything but the wind pushing at his back. The total weightlessness he’d suffered for hours, days, months. The darkness. Looking up at nothing. How could he have even breathed?), and then, with all his memories now intact, and with two young teenagers arguing, quite literally, behind his back, he starts taking it apart.

And Rex spots him, at that moment. And then he attacks.

---

They walk outside of an alleyway. Ben’s not entirely sure how it happens. He blinks and he’s just there. With Professor Paradox holding onto his shoulder, he’s suddenly thrashed into the unabashed sunlight of the mostly vacant city street. 

Nega Ben spots them immediately, and all the complicated emotions clearly on his face wane into a scowl. Behind him, they can see Eon furiously working on the bomb. 

Ben’s first instinct is to run at them, his hand already hovering over his Omnitrix, but Paradox’s hand on his shoulder stops him dead in his tracks. He looks up to the smiling man as he steps forward, confident in his stance. His eyes are pointed past Nega Ben and right on Eon. His voice is cheerful as he says, “Hello, old friend.”

Eon’s hands come to a stop. 

Paradox continues. “Been a long time. Two years, precisely.”

His back stays turned, but they know he’s heard him. Eon’s hands slowly fall to his knee and the ground, and his head tilts down. His voice is quiet, but they can hear him, loud and clear. “…Two years… I was falling for two years, huh..”

Nega Ben looks surprised. His attention quickly focuses on Eon, his body twisting around to look at him. 

Eon’s head raises again. “I recognize that voice… how could I have forgotten?” He sounds just like Nega and Prime, Ben notices. More like Prime, with the distinct deepness and maturity in his voice. When he turns around, his eyes are sad and his mouth is tight. They’re Prime’s eyes. 12’s eyes. They have no pupils and are wide and mismatched blue and green. 

Nega looks between Paradox and Eon. “What.. What's going on here?” He’s obviously not liking what he’s seeing. Ben’s confused as to what’s going on, too. If Paradox has any reaction, he doesn’t show it. He keeps his poker face smiley and welcoming. 

“How did you find me?” Eon doesn’t sound accusatory. He doesn’t sound frightened or anxious. Ben’s kinda very really surprised about how chill this is going. 

“Oh, you know… the old tracking system I’ve become quite fond of. I’m very attuned with all the goings on with Ben’s prone to trouble.” He’s jovial, bouncing on the backs of his soles. 

“I know why you’re here, and you don’t have to worry.” He says, placing one hand atop the machine before him. “This will all be over soon.”

“I sure hope so,” Paradox stands still. “It would be a shame if—“

“Hey, hey, can we,” Nega Ben interrupts him, brows furrowed in utmost confusion as he points his thumb back at Eon. “Can we stop all this nonsense? What the heck are you guys talking about? Are we gonna fight or what, cause I’m tired of all the back and forth that’s been happening all day.”

Ben grins. “I was thinking just the same.” He shrugs Paradox’s hand off and raises his watch up to start sorting through aliens. 

Nega is mumbling to himself now, “I mean seriously! Does anyone here ever stop talking? First Rex and now—“

The name makes Ben falter. Rex was here? Where? He glances around but keeps most of his attention on the alien he’s trying to find. He’s stuck with only a limited amount of them, again, it seems. He needs master control. 

Nega’s going on and on, “..then I had to get rid of him, and now there’s you I have to deal with—“

This makes him pause completely. Get rid of him? He says it aloud, “Get rid of him?” His eyes are drawn to the ground between Nega Ben and Eon. Is that..blood? Is…all of that blood?

It’s a paint splatter looking amount. Thin but spread out and he can’t quite get a good look from this distance away but it still looks significant. 

“Yes, get rid of him! Like I’m gonna get rid of you!” Ben looks up and there’s a flash of light, and with it comes a flash of angry thoughts. Rid of me like he got rid of him? What does that mean? Where is he?

And in Nega’s place is a very creepy bear-type alien. It’s face is that of a skull with large blank, blue eyes and sharp tusks in place of its mouth. 

But Ben can’t focus on how scary he looks— it’s an alien, whatever— instead, he clenches his fist and glares at him. “Where’s Rex?”

“Gone!” His voice is deep and raspy at the same time, an echo of itself. “And he’s not coming back!” The creature sinks into the ground like slime, its body as black as a shadow as it begins to slither quickly forward. 

“Ben, wait!” Paradox is saying, but very suddenly all Ben can see is red—

Gone? Gone like how? Gone like he's dead? He's never coming back cause this doofus killed him? Impossible, Rex can't be beat! Gone? What does he mean by not coming back I just talked to him what happened after the call cut off what does he mean by get rid of him who was the Ben Rex was yelling at what does he mean I didn't even get to tell him I'm

—and all he can hear is his inner consciousness telling him to fight fight fight. 

He’s not even sure what creature he’s turning into when he begins transforming. He just knows his rage is taking over. It’s unending, unrestrained. He feels it grow along with his height, his width. His chest widens and his legs bend and hair sprouts out from everywhere on his body. 

He roars, and rushes at the darkness that forms in front of him. Its large silhouette-like body rises tall above him, but Rath’s not intimidated as he bares his teeth and jumps at it. The darkness encompasses him fully, but he doesn't stop tearing and ripping at it, shredding it to pieces as Nega Ben howls in pain. It quickly kicks him out of itself and into the air. He lands on his feet just as Nega Ben in his bear form reappears, the darkness sinking back into his skin like paint on a canvas. 

“I’ll tell ya something, creep-shadow-bear thing!” Rath points one angry finger at Nega Ben’s alien form. “If you don’t tell me what you did to Rex right now, I’mma hurt you real bad!”

“Oh ho ho, I’m so scared,” his deep raspy voice taunts in response. Ebony tendrils start to morph from The Darkness’s back. As quick as a snake, they lash at Rath. He moves just in time to miss them, but they keep coming at him. He snarls as one gets a lucky slash on his shoulder, leaving the spot red but not bleeding. 

“Alright! That’s it!” Rath yells, then rushes at him again. The tendrils nearly half him, but he makes it to Nega and reaches up, twisting around his neck and landing on his shoulders, slamming the sides of his fist down square on his dome over and over while he flails around. Finally, Nega’s many tendrils grab him from the waist and throw him down hard onto the street. 

The Darkness stomps down on him with his big clawed feet, taking the breath right out of him. “You’re weak. Nothing but a kid trying desperately to be like the adults.” He scoffs. “You’re lame, kid. Just give up!”

Rath struggles underneath his weight, grabbing onto the foot holding him down and trying to move it off him. “Not in this life, you rejected teddy bear!” His rage is only fueled by Nega’s arrogance, and with that anger comes his boost in strength. He’s slow, but he’s lifting Nega’s foot up, to the alien’s surprise, and finally he loses balance and falls over. Rath jumps up and on top of him, once more ripping the fur off Nega’s chest in an uncontrollable fit of rage. 

He’s seeing red. He’s landing punch after hard punch to The Darkness’s face, the loud thudding sound of him hitting his every mark silenced only by the harshness of his breathing. He’s suddenly lifted into the air, a tight grip over his waist, and slammed down onto the pavement next to Nega, then lifted back up and down on his other side. A thrumming pain from his face makes him dizzy. His eyes roll but he can’t see anything but a blur. He’s thrown down again, but somehow he feels like he’s rushing through the air, and suddenly he’s hit smack into the side of a building. Gravity takes over and he slides off the brick wall, landing hard on his back some feet down. His brain works enough to register the portal closing next to The Darkness as he stands up and walks toward him. 

---

Benzarro moves back behind the corner as Nega strolls over to Ben, who, although not looking very good, manages to stand back up. Far behind them, Eon is still working on the bomb, complete uninterested in the going’s on behind him. 

Should he stop him? But what could he do? Even like that, Eon would be a far better fighter than him. Oh, if only his Omnitrix worked!

Something catches his attention out of the side of his eye. A window. Someone closing their blinds. 

His eyes widen, at least, as much as they can, and his chest feels painful. There are still people here. He’d thought they’d all disappeared! They’d just been hiding in their apartments this whole time? 

Keeping a sharp eye out for Nega Ben’s watchful eyes, he backs up further into the alleyway Paradox transported them in, and moves sneakily around the building. He runs on the tips of his toes, trying to be quiet, for a few blocks until he reaches the far building at the end of the street. 

He maneuvers around the farthest building in front of the apartments and peaks over his shoulder down the road to the ongoing fight and Eon, who's completely wrapped up in his mission to destroy their chances of getting out of here. 

If there’s one thing that being a zombie did for Benzarro, it’s enhancing his hearing. Just the tiniest squeak of someone opening a door got his attention. The door to the apartments was only open enough for four of someone’s fingers to stick out and motion for him to come here. He takes one last peak at the battle, then runs over and up the three steps that lead to the red brick complex, and squeezes inside through the door. He’s quickly pulled through, his arm almost coming off, and he can barely get one word in as dozens of cityfolk move a bunch of furniture assumedly back into place over the door, blocking their way out and a non-Ben’s way in. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them that their barricade wouldn’t keep any of Ben’s aliens out like they wanted it to. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them he was a Ben. He’s just janked up enough to not look like a Ben. His eyes were a different color, and lopsided, and bulging out of his sockets. He has a hump in his back reminiscent of a elementary school teacher, and his hair is faded and thinning. He doesn’t look like a normal teenager with his cheeks all sunken in, but a nice, albeit intimidating woman gently takes his hand and guides him farther into the corridor, mumbling “poor child… you’re only a kid..”

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that those aliens out there were also only kids. 

She takes him into her home and sits him down in an old mahogany, vine-patterned sofa chair. She hastily walks into the open concept kitchen and starts making tea. “We were wondering what happened to you, poor boy..” She goes on as she puts on a kettle and gets out a set of cups. “Thought they’d gotten to ya. You’ve been out there all this time? Poor child..”

He wrings his hands together, pressing his lips into a firm line, feeling the skin on his fingers move too much to be human-like. He doesn’t like tea, but he likes her. This old woman was always very kind to him, he remembers, while he worked at the grocery store. Although she was quick in and out, she was always giving him a worried look. And why wouldn’t she? There was evil about. Nega Ben and Rex were scary. He still wasn’t sure what they’d done or said to them, but the townsfolk stayed inside all that they could. They were lucky there were no children. They were even more lucky that they didn’t remember this wasn’t their real lives. They were like him. They treated him like he was like them. 

A hot steaming cup was pressed into his hand. He hadn’t even realized he’d been thinking for that long. 

The woman sits down in a twin chair before him, crossing her chubby legs and moving her white curly hair out of her face with a shake of her head. 

He knew somehow that this was his aunt. She looks just like her, albeit he hadn’t seen her since he was young and before the Event. This was another universe’s Ben’s aunt, not his. 

“How’d you make it back?” She asks. 

He suddenly remembers her saying that they’d been worried about him, and now he wants to cry. How could that be? Was his heart still beating in his chest? He stays still for a moment, pausing his thoughts. 

…Yes. It’s very, very slow, but he has a beating heart. 

“I’m afraid…” he says, already forgetting her question. “That I’m losing myself. I think I’m…dying.”

He can feel his brain degrading as the seconds pass by. 

The woman sets her cup down in her lap, hands still tightly gripped on it, as her eyes bore into him. “Did they..do something to you? Probe you, or something?”

He can’t even laugh. The side of his mouth spasms. 

She leans forward. 

He hates to worry her. “After all this is over… I’m not gonna be me anymore?” He looks at her, desperately wanting her to understand. Desperately wanting to convey what he wants, needs to say. “If we’re trapped here forever, I’m still going to come apart, but if we leave..” he gulps. It’s slimy and gross. “I’ll just go back to being a brainless monster. I’ll..hurt people.”

He hates it he hates it he hates it

They can still hear the sounds of the fight outside. Or, maybe only he can. She doesn’t react to any of the sounds. The bashing, the breaking. The puns. The windows are boarded up, like always, and it occurs to him that this is the first time he’s seen the other side of them. 

He wants to cry. He misses his family so much. He misses being human. He hasn’t seen Grandpa Max or Gwen or his parents since he turned. 

A warm, gentle hand lands on top of his. He meets the woman’s stern eyes. “Young man,” she starts. “Whatever happened to you out there, it can’t hurt you here.” She says it so calmly and assuredly that he almost believes her. He wants to believe her. 

Then there’s a crashing sound coming from outside, and all his hopes are dashed. He puts his head in his hands, incapable of withstanding her graciousness. Her stubby arms encircle him, and it’s the first time in who knows how long that he’s been hugged. “You’re safe here. Everything’s going to be okay.” Her sweet nothings have no effect on him. “We’ll make it out of this.”

He begins to cry.

---

Paradox watches over his shoulder as he walks around the two Ben’s fight and stops at Eon’s kneeled frame. Nega Ben punches Rath into a portal and into a wall, which shakes at the impact. Rath, now used to it, hops down from the indentation he left in the building and growls. “Bad move!” The fight continues. 

Paradox now turns his attention to the heavily breathing and focused young Eon before him. He’s wounded. There’s a red bump on his head that looks scratched raw by what could only be concrete, and his clothes are ragged. But even more than that, there’s something about the attention to detail, the movements of his hands, that seems wrong. Paradox himself has lived many lives, many eons, so to speak, and not once in any of them had he taken the chance to actively study and learn how to work a Chronosapien time bomb. He knew what it did, the danger it caused, how much power it needed to turn on and how to turn it off, but he didn’t know how to assemble it and tweak it. It was just one of the many things he hadn’t got to. Yet, he could tell something was wrong with the way Eon was screwing parts out of it with his small, technical fingers. There were too many parts on the ground. The outer shell and some pieces of metal that outlined the inside. 

“You’ve certainly come back into your own, it seems.” Paradox grasps his hands behind his back. Whether Eon could get the bomb functioning or not, it wouldn’t go off until the Ben with no watch was transported here. There’s no way to tell when that would be. All transportations seem to be random. The future looks normal until it happens, and completely throws the timeline for a loop. Well, not an actual loop; those are completely different things. And Paradox fears that will be soon. The farthest into the future of this timeline he could peak at was just a few minutes from now, and it didn’t look good. Which is why he needs to talk some sense into Eon before things get anymore out of hand. 

“Paradox,” his voice sounds more like Albedo trapped in Ben’s form than it does Ben. It’s sophisticated. Mature. But he still has Ben Tennyson's voice. “I don’t have time for you.” His voice is devoid of any ferocity or mockery. He says it as fact, as just a state of being. No time for Paradox. No time for the time lord. 

Just as he’s about to stop time, just to prove his point, time stops him. He notices how stiff, how wound up the time has become in this instance. It’s too late. He’s lost his ability to control time now, before something bad can happen. They’re already in the last stretch. 

“I’m sure there’s always time for a bit of a chat,” he smiles, despite the young man’s back being turned to him as he peaks around the dangerous object, his hand continuing to twist a knob right in the middle of the many flashing lights around the circuit board. “I presume you know what’s happened to you.”

His hand reaches up instantly to touch his mullet of hair. It’s purple, but he realizes that already. Eon finally turns to him, his mouth parted as if to speak and his eyes filled with mystery. “Two years of searching for evil Ben’s and falling through reality does strange things to you.”

Paradox squints at him. “You don’t have to tell me that.” 

His hands have stopped. He’s watching the battle take place behind Paradox now, but Paradox’s eyes don’t stray. The longer he distracts him, the better. “The darkness… the falling… it was all very blinding. I couldn’t remember anything, couldn’t see anyone. I felt like I wasn’t even alive, at some point.” His dark, thick eyebrows lower down his forehead. 

“That happens.” Paradox didn’t even remember those first years when he’d been trapped in limbo. 140,000 years does that to you. 

“When I came back to my senses, I was here. I couldn’t see. Everything was too bright. I’d no one to talk to, still, but myself, and then my warriors came. And with them, him.” He nods to someone behind Paradox, and finally, he lets himself peak back over his shoulder at the fight. 

Nega Ben Tennyson, in the form of his alien, The Darkness, was holding up considerably against Rath’s unabashed anger. 

“I’d no one else, so I trusted what he’d said. We and Rex were the only ones left in the world that weren’t random foes of theirs. At first. When the other Ben and Rex appeared, he’d made me believe that they were the ones at fault. That they kept me here and took my memories from me. I believed him,” Paradox catches a glimpse at Eon’s glare, before it turns into a sad frown. “But now… I recognize the anger in him. It’s what I used to feel, everyday, for years on end.” He turns his attention back to the bomb. 

“Then why are you helping him?” Paradox steps one foot over so that he’s completely facing Eon. 

His face screws up as he focuses. “I’m not.”

“Then shall I ask what happened to Rex?”

“Nega Rex is fine.” He says as though he’s tired. A sweat falls down his bloody temple, and Paradox realizes his hands are bleeding with the effort of fixing the bomb. A spark shoots out, but Eon keeps going. “I was only humoring Nega Ben. Rex attacked me, not realizing we were on the same side, and in defense I sicked my soldiers on him. He did quite a lot of damage,” Eon nods to the blood stains on the ground. “but they were able to overpower him enough to lead him away into the forest somewhere so that he could no longer interfere, and now they’re keeping him busy while I work.”

Paradox is inclined to distrust him, but Ben’s aren’t very good liars, and Eon looks like he’s telling the truth. There’s something about the way that he’s moving the pieces in his hand…

It hits him like a semitruck. It’s right in front of him, right there, and the only reason Nega Ben hasn’t realized it is because he doesn’t know what to look for. He’s too caught up in his own mind, in his fight, to notice. 

A real smile appears on Paradox’s face. 

---

Fighting a dozen holographic Humongasours at once wasn’t really in Rex’s today plans. Luckily enough, he had the advantage. The dinosaur aliens were too big to fit in between the trees, and so they often trip, fall, or waste time thrusting them out of the way as they fight him. And even without that pulling them down, they were only made out of cheap glasslike material, similar to Gwen’s mana. Yes, Eon’s little men could surround themselves in it indefinitely, but that only worked for as long as they were conscious, and they still were no match for Rex and his fiery blue hair. 

His Mega Nanite enhanced smack hands punched them into oblivion. They may have had brute strength, but they were still mindless puppets. And, Rex wonders while he holds a Humongasour’s fists back from coming down on him, they don’t seem like they’re really fighting at max power. Were they going easy on him? Why? 

He smirks. Or maybe I’m just too powerful for them. 

He overpowers the minion in front of him, pushing him back and wrapping his hands around its thick wrists before swirling around, hitting it against every tree in a wide circle hard enough to tumble them over and break the guy’s glorified alien-shaped barrier, then let’s go so that he hits another henchman behind him. Two for the price of one!

But he doesn’t have time for these guys. He needs to get back to Ben. Tell him that he’s going about this all wrong. He has to convince him somehow. 

A fist hits him so hard he’s sent flying into another tree. He’s wheeling, his right cheek sore from the punch but already healing due to his nanites instant regeneration ability. 

“Oh ho, you are so gonna regret that.” He lands on the ground beneath the tree, kicking up dirt, and pounds his fist into his palm. 

---

“Oh, you are so gonna regret that!” Rath shouts, rising from a pile of debris he’d been hit into by Nega Ben’s powerful fist. 

“So you keep saying,” He retorts, an eye roll in his voice, although his muzzle stays blank. 

They run at each other, arms raised, and their fists meet with a hard crack. Pain flows through Rath’s arm, but he grits his teeth through it and raises his other fist to strike. Nega catches it in his other hand and squeezes it hard enough to break(if he were anyone else). 

They’re in a standstill. The other pushes into it, trying to over power his opponent, but all they can do is sneer and growl at each other. 

“Finally!” A voice that sounds just like Ben’s screams out in relief. 

They both turn to the voice. 

05, with his baggy dirt green pants and yellowish-green eyes runs out of the forest with his arms wide open as if to hug the air. He drops to his knees, leans over the ground with his hands apart as if to do a push-up, and kisses the ground. “Oh, sweet concrete, I’ll never take you for granted again!” 

He looks up, sees Ben and Nega Ben watching him, and looks confused, standing back up. “Ummm, which one is which? Is that you, 10,000?” He motions his hand in their general direction. “What, you can’t even take care of this guy? Whichever one you are?” He murmurs the last part. 

While Nega is distracted, Ben headbutts him, successfully knocking him down and freeing his hands. 

“Ooo,” 05 cringes. “That better be the bad guy.”

“I’m Ben!” Rath holds his arms out, like it’s obvious. “Don’t you know anything about colors? I’m bright and flashy, he’s dark and scary! Get it?”

Rath notices Nega start to get up as 05 says, “That means literally nothing to us.” Then, “Also, which Ben?”

“Sixteen!” He screams, then is tackled to the ground in his moment of weakness. Punches start landing from one cheek to the other, tossing his head this way and that. 

“Fight back!”

“What! Do! You! Think! I’m! Trying! To do!” He yells back, each time getting punched in the face by the alien bear. He grabs his wrist just in time to stop a hit from reaching its mark, and he uses his free hand to return one punch back. 

Nega’s head wretches up to his left, spit flying comically from his mouth. He switches their position, landing on top of him and throwing his own set of punches. He feels like they’ve been going back and forth forever. The guy just wouldn’t go down!  

“What crap! How come you get such a cool alien in your ten? I’m older than you!” 05 crosses his arms, obviously annoyed. 16 can hear him going on through the sound of his blood rushing in his ears and the hard bumping sound of him hitting Nega over and over. “You know how much I had to go through to get here? I’m the one who found out the people that live here are people we know! And that everything here is based on our memories! The least you can give me is the use of the Omnitrix!”

“Wait, go back!” He’d just heard something incredible. So it wasn’t just him who’d gotten some memories back recently? “The people are who now?”

“They’re my aunt’s neighbors or whatever! Now finish that guy off, already!”

They’d have to unpack that later. It isn’t like that really changes anything, anyway. Ben lifts Nega up by the scruff of his fur and punches him so hard that he flies back into the sky and slams into the apartment buildings on the far side of the road. Rath grins as the bear alien slides down from the brick wall and lands face down on the street, bits of brick coming down onto him from where he’d crashed. Payback felt good. 

“Really hope that was the bad guy!” 

Ben and 05 follow the voice to 10,000, who comes from the tree line and is running straight towards them. 

“It was.” They say in complete unison. Ben powers down, turning back into his normal ten year old self. 

He was glad to see 10,000. “Did you find Prime?”

The large man stops in front of them, his eyes quickly searching them for bruises and taking in their surroundings. “Yup. I went on ahead, but he’ll be here any second.” His eyes land on Paradox and Eon, and his expression goes from calm and collected to upset and serious. Ben had completely forgotten about the two in his rage, but right now, it looked like they were just talking. Paradox, to Ben’s disbelief, wasn’t even trying to stop Eon from fixing the bomb. Surely he had some kind of plan?

05 doesn’t seem to notice it. “Did you find Charmcaster?”

10,000's voice is low as he responds. “No, she escaped. And for the better!” He shrugs, his chill and relaxed demeanor returning, a smile appearing on his face. “Less to deal with!”

05 gives him an incredulous look. “You just let her go?”

10,000 holds up his hands in fake surrender. Ben steps in. “She’s gone, dude. As in, not in this dimension anymore.”

“Wait, she got out of here before we did? What the heck!”

10,000 is already walking off. The two young Ben’s look at each other before following him. Before Ben can even ask where he’s going, he stops in front of the entrance to the grocery store, leans forward to look around, then walks to the entrance of the alleyway beside it. “Where’s Benzarro?”

The question sparks up a whole new problem, one that Ben can’t worry about right now. But, it does make him remember something important. 

“Uh, who’s Benzarro?” When the name leaves his mouth, it’s like 05 remembers something. His face screws up and he crosses his arms. “Please tell me its not another Ben..!”

They take in a breath through clenched teeth, looking at him apologetically. 

05 raises his arms and lets them drop by his side dramatically, turning around in disbelief. 

Ben focuses back on 10,000. “Hey, I need you to unlock master control.”

His eyebrows furrow. “Okay…why?”

It’s like the memories are all flooding his brain at once all over again. The thought of it, what he was capable of, it made his hands tingle. He looks down at them, remembering. “I recognize this place. I fought someone here, and met a bunch of other aliens. It’s like what he said.” He looks at 05, who’s looking quite worriedly in the direction they’d just left Nega and Eon in. Ben doesn’t look behind him. He needs to get this out, quickly. He turns back to the older him, practically pleading. “This place is based on not just his, but every Ben’s memories! That’s why the barrier stops where it does. There’s nothing out there!” He doesn’t remember there being anything out there, because it was a red empty space. They were just in a floating city in the sky, last time he was in a version of here. “Those aliens taught me something. And when I met them, one of them gave me a very specific power.” He crooks his finger towards himself. 

Ben 10,000 leans down at ear level so that Ben can put a hand over his mouth and whisper into his ear. 

“Uh, you guys? That guy you beat down is getting up!” 05 is saying, but Ben doesn’t let himself get distracted from his explanation. He’s quick about it. He knows that if he can just get his Omnitrix working right, he can finish this whole thing once and for all. 

It’s only a second later, but he can tell 10,000 is into it by the widening open-mouthed grin on his face and the nod of his head. 

“Guys!” 05 yells again, urgency in his voice. 

10,000 stands up, and starts tapping on his Omnitrix. “Knock yourself out!” And the glow of his watch dissipates as he shuts it off. 

05 looks down at his own Omnitrix, taps on it, and grins ecstatically as it glows up, marking that it’s now fully functional. “YES!” He exclaims, twists its face, then slams down on the upturned wheel. 

The transformation sequence is intense. The skin on 05’s body, for a lack of a better term, pops out, and turns red as it slithers up his arm to his face and to even his eyeballs. His eyes go completely white, then burn with a hot yellow fury, so bright Ben has to look away. His height grows, his clothes disappear, and suddenly he’s standing there, arms wide, screaming, “Heatblast!”

He’s somewhat different from Ben’s version of Heatblast; mostly in that he’s taller, scrawnier, with larger fists. His Omnitrix symbol is also located on his chest instead of his neck. 

He seems like a perfect enemy to the darkness that attacks him. Nega and Heatblast’s fist punch each other, unleashing a wave of darkness and light that dissipates in the air. Nega’s alien launches a stream of darkness at Heatblast, but 05 is quick, and he retaliates with his own stream of fire. The forces of light and dark hit, and the light is getting the upper hand. It can’t even touch him. 

As Ben is watching the fight, 10,000 is working on unlocking master control on Ben’s own Omnitrix. 

A cut off scream rings out, between the balls of fire and night that the two Ben’s are throwing, but neither of them is where it comes from. Ben can see, just in time for the boy to duck underneath a ball of fire, covering his bouncy brown hair in the chaos, 12 running straight towards them from across the street.

“Great! The gang’s all here!” 10,000 grins absentmindedly as 12 comes up, his hands busy and his attention focused on, Ben assumes, figuring out his version of the Omnitrix.

“Where’s the last Ben?” He asks, looking around. 

“Ok, the gang’s not all here.”

Ben uses his free arm to hit him, both getting his attention back on him and exerting his rising anger out on 12. “Forget that! How’d you all get separated from Rex?”

12 rubs his arm, face screwing up. “It was all Argit’s fault! We got split up because of him!”

“It’s ‘cause you kept teasing him!” 05 exclaims behind them, still fighting off Nega, who had him bent over backwards trying to keep his claws from coming down on him. 

12 rolls his blank green eyes. “I was just joking! He’s the one who jumped off all scared and threw off our balance! I wasn’t really gonna do it!”

Ben is afraid to ask what it was, but also intrigued. And then suddenly he was mad, because if they hadn’t been separated, Rex would still be…

And then he wondered where Argit was, and if he was all alone out there somewhere. 

“Oh! No no no nonono!” Ben’s focus moves back to 05, who is suddenly surrounded in a green light and transformed back into human form. “Figures! Just because it works now doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be any less janked up than it was before!”

Nega’s large tentacles are aiming to strike. Before Ben can warn him, 12 notices it too and speaks up. “Quick! I don’t know how you got yours working again, but let me have a chance!”

With the speed of XLR8, despite being a human again, 05 turns his Omnitrix off and 12’s lights on as he taps on it. “Nice! My turn!” And he slams his hand down on it, turning into Wildvine. 

He switches places with 05, launching himself into the field and using his own vines to combat Nega’s tentacles. 

Ben 10,000 is speaking into the Omnitrix, quoting numbers or something like a passcode, and to his surprise, the Omnitrix responds back. After a little back and forth, 10,000 takes his hands off him and backs up, the face of the Omnitrix swirling on his wrist and popping up, lighting up brighter. “It’s done.” 

05, who's now standing in 12’s place, points at the watch. “What just happened?”

Ben tips his chin down at him. “I have a plan. Before I got off the call with you guys earlier, I got a call from someone else. Someone not from any of our dimensions—It’s gonna work, but it’ll take too long to explain.” Well, not too long, but he didn’t feel like going over it a second time. “I need you to trust me. You. Yourself. Us.”

05 waves his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. We’re the same person.” 

Ben grins, raising an mischievous eyebrow and finger gunning him. “You in?”

05 grins back. “Heck yeah, you know it.” He crosses his arms. “If I made it up, then it’s gotta be good..!”

---

Ben 10,000 has to stop himself from laughing at that. Instead, he watches as the youngest him starts turning the dial on his Omnitrix and stops at Echo Echo. 16 glances up at 12, who looks back at them both just in time to see 16 transform. 

“Echo Echo!” 16 exclaims. He looks down at himself, seeming surprised. 

05’s face screws up, unimpressed. 

And then, one Echo Echo turns into three, and then four. Just when the alleyway entrance can’t hold any more, the original Echo Echo looks at the rest of them, says “Boy, do I hope I get some good ones!”, and then hits the symbol on his chest. They all do, and Ben has seen this happen before. He did it when he was quite young. It didn’t work out very well in the end. Having a bunch of him’s with only one personality trait didn’t do him any good, socially, or in a fight. The four quadruplet 16’s in front of him look at each other for only a second before searching through their omnitrix and hitting them once again. Again, making a bunch of copies of himself tended to not work out. But now, looking at all the familiar faces appearing all at once, he thinks, maybe, just maybe, this kid was onto something. 

—-

Exactly eleven minutes and thirteen seconds after Professor Paradox and Charmcaster left, Ben got a phone call. The caller ID was blacked out, like the phone couldn’t handle even the idea of whoever it was calling. 

Ben picked it up hesitantly. “..Hello?”

“Is this Ben?” A familiar, feminine voice asked over the line. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s Garnet. Look, there’s no time to explain— there’s this man who calls himself Professor Paradox here,” Ben looked over at his own Professor Paradox as she said that, and he only smiled back. “And he gave me this phone number saying you’d probably need my help about now?”

Ben was too shocked to speak. He hadn’t been sure he’d ever hear her voice again, much less get to speak to someone outside of this reality through his plain old regular phone. Especially in these unique circumstances. But didn’t Professor Paradox say there were other Paradox’s out there? I guess they didn’t need a Tennyson after all. “I— How— How is this even possible? I thought outside communication was—?”

“Darling, there’s no time. I’m kinda in a bit of a situation myself actually.” There’s the sound of an explosion somewhere behind her. Then another familiar voice—

“Garnet, is that Ben?! Can I speak to him?” K.O.!

“What’s going on over there?” Were they having their own realitybending adventure without me?

“Don’t mind that, Ben. Just tell me: what is it you need to know?”

—

The first one to catch his, 12, and 05’s eyes was the one with flaming bright orange hair. It had been a while since any of them had seen the mean ginger, apparently. On Ben’s part, it was because they were always on different missions. He never called. In their case, they’d been in this world for maybe a month or so, Ben isn’t sure, but either way, they seem both pleasantly surprised to see Gwen 10 standing in front of them. Next up is a version of Ben he instantly recognizes just by the blue color scheme. Ben 23 looks around, confused, then, looking as if he just realized something, turns to look at the one in the middle. Ben doesn’t instantly recognize him. He quickly racks his brain trying to figure it out, when it suddenly hits him. It’s obvious, but too obvious? It looks like 16, no doubt, but his skin is various shades of green and yellow. His hair is still brown, but his eyes are crystal green and reflect weirdly in the light. Beside him, to Ben’s surprise, is a normal looking Ben with a watch not on his wrist like the others but on his chest. 

The Ben without a Omnitrix..! 

Oh, this would be interesting. 

“Gwen? Is that you?” 05 steps forward and puts a hand on her shoulder. 

Her face screws up at the touch as she turns to him. “No, you dweeb, I’m Captain Nemesis!”

Ben 10,000 could never get tired of that sassiness. That’s her, alright. 05 grins wide, amusement all over his face, and he slaps her shoulder lightly. “Dude! Ok, now I know that’s you.” His eyes land on the Omnitrix on her wrist, and his smile wanes a bit. “Or, at least, a very convincing version of you.” He turns to 16, lost in his own world, looking down at himself. “What’s that alien?”

“I dunno,” 16 admits. “I think it’s called a gem?” He twists his body to look at his butt. “It’s an alien from a woman named Garnet’s world. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it’s supposed to help.”

“You don’t even know how it works?” Ben 23 turns a disbelieving stare his way. “Wait, what am I going on about, I knew that.”

Ben isn’t sure how it all works either, but whatever it is, he needs to hurry it up. 12 wasn’t gonna be able to hold Nega off forever. 

“I just know that we need to merge again. Just, not in the Echo Echo way. I’m just not sure…how to do that.”

“Well you better figure it out quick.” No Omnitrix Ben says, pointing out into the street. “That guy’s getting his butt kicked.”

They all turn to watch 12 in his fight against Nega. He was holding steady, but he was obviously getting tired.

“Ok. Ok.” 16 is mumbling to himself, trying to calm himself down. He raises his forearms up and down as if he’s directing traffic. “I got this. I can do this.”

“Ben!” Gwen exclaims, and her voice is high and alerting. It even makes Ben 10,000 cringe. She stomps up to the Gem alien and slaps her hands on his big puffy cheeks. “Focus! You actually have a pretty decent plan for once! Follow! It!”

Her scarily motivating words make them all stand quietly still. 16’s face is like a pufferfish between her hands, and his lightning green eyes spark like he’s about to cry. But he doesn’t. He’s silent for a long time, just staring into her stern gaze like he was turned to stone by it. 

And then his shoulders relax, and the next thing he does shocks 05 so much that he steps back. 

16 hugs her. 

Gwen’s eyes go wide, her frown going limp as she looks to the side of his face, her arms raised in alarm. She looks at Ben, who smiles, and the teenaged Ben, who shrugs. 

“Thanks, Gwen.” 16 says, low and genuine, and Ben watches, all mushy, as Gwen’s uncomfortable expression melts, and she hugs him back. 

A glow surrounds them, and they all look on in even more shock when only one being stands there. 

Skin a now paler green, a head full of mixed brown and ginger locks face No Omnitrix Ben and Ben 10,000. The person before them is dressed in a mix of blue, green, black and white clothing, bell bottom jeans under a Henley, and a slightly taller stature.

Huh.

“I get it, now!” 16? Gwen? turn to Ben, showing a face with large cheeks, yellow and green eyes, a wide grin, and polka dots in the pattern of freckles layered over their nose. “I know what to do!”

He points at 23. “Your turn, doofus!”

“Ok, that was uncalled for.” 23 looks down at the hand. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Grab my hand!”

He does, and he yelps as he’s pulled forward, right into Gwen 16’s arms. 23’s eyes go big as something seems to be whispered into his ear, and he says, “Oh.” Before suddenly being absorbed, for lack of a better word, into a bright flash of white light. 

The being before them is even taller, and bluer, and reaches a careful hand out to the Ben without a watch. He grins, eyes wide, and grabs onto the hand, immediately also sinking into a new light. 

16 is looking more like Ben now, his hair only with a few streaks of ginger, and his height now at Ben’s level. His skin is a light neon green, his shirt mostly white, blue, and green, and his jeans camo with black, brown, and blue. With his hands on his hips and his chest puffed up, he asks 05, “You ready?”

05 stares up at him, jaw dropped, one brow furrowed down and the other up, like he doesn’t know how to react. Then he shakes his head, eyes wide, and reaches a hand out. “More than I’ll ever be, I guess.” His mouth forms an amazed smile, and 16 grins back as he grabs his hand in a hand shake. 

They fuse, and somehow the kid gets a bit shorter. 

“Ooo!” 16’s attention is grabbed by 12, who is standing over a beat up Nega Ben down the road, now in human form. Nega groans, splayed out on the steps of the apartment building, as 12 starts running over, eyes brimming with excitement. “Me next!” 

This is the quickest fusion of Ben’s out of all of them, with 12 actually jumping into 16, instantly creating a bright light around them. Nega is slow to rising, but the light, even from this far away, is enough to make him lay back down and cover his face. Paradox and Eon, Ben remembers to check up on, pay him no mind. Still, Paradox is doing nothing to stop Eon but standing over him patiently, shaking his head. 

“Hey.” The agglomeration of Ben’s and one Gwen is staring at him, and he realizes that now it's his turn. 

“You know how extremely weird this is, right?”

He gives him a confused look. “I’m going through my memories right now, and I feel like way crazier stuff has happened.”

“No, you’re right. This isn’t the strangest thing to ever happen to me in the past thirty something years.” Ben nods. Still, it was a bit weird, right? “Welp, I know you got this, bud. Let’s go.” He pulls out a fist, confident yet still unsure of what to do. 

“You’ve gotta tell me about all these stories one day.” The kid bumps his fist and holds it there.

“Not a chance, little guy.” Ben was eye level with him. 

“Hey, you can’t call me that anymore!” He’s smirking.

And Ben hears his own laugh resound out as a white light envelops him. 

---

Ben feels a tremble go up his leg as he once again steps from soft dirt to hard concrete. He slows to a stop as on the other side of the road a large alien and Ben 10,000 are caught in a flash of white light, and are replaced with something humanoid, something that strangely looks like him…

Something touches his shoulder and he quickly flings it off, turning around to meet a familiar old smile. He lets out a relieved breath. “You have got to stop doing that!”

Paradox looks nothing but amused. “Welcome back, dear Ben.”

“Paradox,” He faces him fully. “10,000 told me you were here.”

He nods, “You put on the watch, right?” He grabs Ben by the shoulder and stares him in the eye with a seriousness Ben has very rarely witnessed from him. 

“Yes? Yes, I did. You gonna tell me what it does? I doubt it’s meant to act as a real watch.”

Paradox moves back a bit with a smile, “No. but it does help us save time.” He says amusedly, then turns him to face the green but not sickly looking Ben across the way. “That’s Ben. A lot of them. No need to worry, this is all part of the plan, just go with it,” He says boredly behind him, taking his hands off him. 

Ben nods, but when he tries to turn to him to ask more questions, Paradox is already gone. Of course. He places his attention back on the being across from him. He’s huge. At least ten feet tall. His eyes are a sparkling green that even Ben can see from this far away. He’s staring back at him, hair a light brown and bushy all the way to the back of his neck. He looks young in the face, early twenties, maybe? His skin is pale green, with dots almost inscrutable, like freckles, all over his arms and face. The Omnitrix is on his left wrist, and something like an emerald crystal shines on his right. The skin around both is dark, as if he was having an allergic reaction to both. 

Ben, having seen worse, begins walking to him. The other Ben, also watching him, starts to meet him in the middle of the street, his face tightening up, to Ben’s surprise, into embarrassment. As he’s walking, his body glows and shrinks, and just as they reach each other, Ben 16, with all his short and self conscious glory, appears. 

“Looks like you did some growing in the few hours I was gone!” He jokes, looking the young kid over. 

“Heh heh,” 16 lets out a little laugh, obviously feeling awkward. His hands are behind his back as he kicks a rock, gaze on the ground to his side. After a second, he looks up, smiling sheepishly. “Look, I’m sorry for running away earlier. I’m a jerk.”

Ben shakes his head. “No, I’m a jerk for not telling you sooner.” Although, at the time, he had his reasons. “Just make sure you don’t do it again.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Until we all can go home. Then, yeah, I’m getting the heck out of here.”

Ben smiles, glad to see the kid still has some humor left. “Anyway, what is all,” he drags his finger up and down at 16, “this?”

“You’ll find out everything once we, uh,” he stumbles on the wording, screwing up his face and snapping his finger, “Actually, we haven’t come up with a name for it yet, But basically, we’re all gonna become one mind meld, like Echo Echo does. You know? But in reverse.”

Ben whistles. “Okay… well, if your friends jump off a cliff.” He holds out a hand. “So, how do I do this?”

“We gotta have a connection. A sentimental moment, if you will.” 16 raises his hands up in a shrug, clenching his teeth in a I dunno gesture. 

Ben gives him a questionable look, then shrugs, and hugs him. 

16 automatically hugs back, and he says, in a sincere tone, “Thanks. For everything.”

“Anytime, kid. Self care, and all that.” He smiles into 16’s shoulder. 

His arms tighten around him, and a strange feeling starts to overcome him. 

“Don’t mess this up, dweeb.”

“Wha—“ And then they’re one person. 

It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t have any physical sensation. It’s like… it’s like when you crush berries together, and they all mix together, but they’re all still berries? And if you look in the bowl, you can still see some individual berries despite them still counting as being successfully mixed in? It's like jumping into a pool with a bunch of other people still in it, except all the other people are different versions of you and the pool is really jello and now you’re stuck, although it would be really easy to get out of either way, and you don’t really want to get out. It’s talking to a dozen people all at once about different things and one person is talking about rocket science and another physics, and one just wants to show you his finished Lego set. 

And then it's feeling a sense of dread as one thing stands out against the rest. When Ben Prime’s mind had only been focused on something so specific, so completely and utterly, looking for any bit of information he could get, it automatically flowed into his mind from the others, their thoughts his and their memories one. It hits him instantly, and he can feel not only his sorrow, but everyone else’s. They hurt as he hurt. And it's painful. It leaves them stunned. 

The sadness numbs him almost instantly. The amount of different emotions rushing through all of them inevitably maxes each other out, and soon they feel nothing. 

Rex is…dead? The silent question mark doesn't even reach him. All he can do now is focus on what he now knows he’s supposed to do. Both Gwen 10, Ben 23, and the watchless Ben were unaffected by the temporal distortion, and therefore have all their memories of the fight from last time. They all know how they beat them the last time, but that won’t work a second time. And now that he knows how to use his gem powers to fight, he is gonna put an end to this for good. 

Nega Ben is standing again, his eyes dark and filled with anger. His voice is low, growling, laced with venom. “You done?”

Ben doesn’t even need to turn. His arms glow and grow long and large, the watches on their wrist wholly normal and separate from the transformation, but unlike Rex, his limbs are still humanoid despite their pale green color; Nega, on the other hand, turns into Ghost Freak.

The fight starts up once more. 

The thing about Ghost Freak is that he can take over someone’s body by overpowering their mind, so although Ben could only get a hit in ten percent of the time, Nega was at an equal disadvantage. He couldn’t fight against the minds of all of them at once. Every time he tried, he was promptly pushed out, each time getting displaced quicker and quicker until he couldn’t even enter anymore. Ben took pointers from Rex’s smack hands and swiped at him, but that only worked when Nega wasn’t focusing on going intangible. An idea comes from the 16 part of him, and he reaches into his gem and prays that it’ll somehow work. He focuses, and starts to feel something in his hand, he gasps, grabbing tightly onto it, and his gem starts to glow as he pulls a weapon out and onto his wrist. 

He stares at it, and laughs. It’s a bracer. A bracer. Unlike the Omnitrix, it’s rather plain looking. It shines green with a golden tint from the sunlight, reaching from his wrist to his mid forearm, and it’s tight almost like a second skin. If he hadn’t of watched himself pull it out, he wouldn’t have even noticed it was there. He flips his arm over, inspecting it. On the wrist end of the bracer are small openings going all around the edge. Curious, Ben straightens his arm out towards the ground, and gasps as five skinny bolts of green electricity shoot out and attach to the ground. 

He laughs again, this time out of delight. He pulls his arm back, the wire-like strings receding back into his bracer, then throws his arm forward, successfully shooting at and catching Ghost Freak, who hadn’t turned intangible in time to avoid it. 

There’s a certain satisfaction that comes from electrocuting Nega that Ben can’t quite describe, but it feels good. 

It feels really good. 

---

Eon’s heart stutters as the Chronosapien time bomb starts to light up underneath his hands.

Beside him, Professor Paradox takes notice and frowns as if confused, pulling out his pocket watch to look at the set of hands running at an interminable speed. “Looks like we’re on a schedule. The watch will only slow everything down for so long. I suggest we hurry this little shindig up, shall we?” He aims these words at the fusion of Ben’s and a singular Gwen. “Time is ticking!”

Nega Ben, who is currently lying on the ground in human form following his latest shock, only smirks, triumphant despite his impending doom. “You hear that, Bens? You better defeat me for good in the next five minutes or who knows where the bomb will send you?” Eon watches as Nega Ben struggles onto his side, then onto his feet. He shrugs. “Or don’t. It’s not like you’ll get very far, anyway.” He says as he turns his Negatrix and promptly slams down on its head. Or he would have, if another voice hadn’t interrupted him. 

“Ben!” 

Eon’s first thought will always be the Rex he spent these last few months with alongside Nega, but as he backs away from the shining machine of destruction, the flashing of brightness so reminiscent of those two years spent falling, it occurs to him that he's never seen the other Rex here. This Rex is the only one he's known.

Nega Ben, on the other hand, has been watching the other Ben and Rex masterfully since they got here. He'd sent Eon's own goons after them several times over a dozen to keep them away from their hideout, and as such, knew them well enough to know the difference between Rex’s in both looks and personality. 

But they still had the same voice. 

And all this Rex had said was Ben, yet Nega knew without looking which one it was. Which is why he paused right before pressing his alien. 

Rex, Nega Ben’s Rex, ran past Professor Paradox, ran past Eon himself, and completely paid no attention to the giant standing in the middle of the road, just to reach Nega. 

In Eon’s own observation, Rex wasn't as evil as Nega Ben. In fact, Eon would even go so far to say that Nega Ben isn't as evil as he pretends to be. But going back to Rex, he was often the kindest soul in the Evil Ben and Albedo group. He refused to fight the other Ben's when the time came, and while in this timeline, he often kept Eon and the villains company. He made devices from his own builds to give Eon something to do in his spare time, and he was the cook! 

If Nega Ben was the one in charge of food, they'd have had nothing but veggie smoothies and kale chips everyday. The average diet of a troubled teen. In fact, most days, Nega was just a lazy seventeen year old kid. While Rex could often be found lamenting his Ben in a corner somewhere, Nega would be laying back on any surface, looking up at nothing for hours on end with no sign of stopping except to suddenly say, “...okay, time to wreak havoc.” and get up with a “new” plan to have Eon send his ninjas to attack the other Ben and Rex.

The only times Nega Ben wasn't like that was when he was talking to Rex. Classic teenage love antics. 

Eon, and subsequently Bad Ben, did not remember being a teen anymore.

---

Seeing a Rex, even the obviously two years younger and non-dripped out one, calms the fusion down a bit. If there is more than one Rex, then their Rex was probably fine. Or, rather, Prime’s Rex. The Ben with no watch has his own Rex who was completely safe at home. Gwen 10 has no idea who Rex is. 12 and 05 have no idea how they so thoroughly lost him, and while 12 internally decided to place all blame on Argit, 05 was more surprised that 05 had been able to get himself so far so quickly, considering the man has a jetpack. But that, the fusion guessed, is what 05 and 16 had alike. 

Just because they both had beef with Rex didn’t mean they wanted him gone. They’d spent weeks under both his and Prime’s care, and although the living situation wasn’t the best, it sure beat sleeping outside and eating the grilled worms grandpa Max considered food. And, yeah, maybe 05 isn’t being very fair, especially now that he’s mind-melded with all the other Ben’s and can see hints of their memories from within them. Maybe the future is coming, whether he wants it to or not. Maybe he’ll one day be fine with being friends with Kevin again, and with dating outside of his normal pool of people, and with getting along with Gwen.

Ew, the Gwen in his head thought.

 And yeah, maybe 16 should have thought a bit more about why Prime wanted to keep his identity secret.

Maybe he should have just asked, the Gwen in his head thought. 

Definitely should have just asked, the others agreed.

In fact, 12 thought, I’m pretty sure you’re the only person who didn’t know. 

And 16 realized, as he searched his, their? his mind, that it was true. He’d been the only one left out of the loop! 

What the heck! He thought. If he weren’t so emotionally susceptible to all the other people sharing his brain right now, he’d be mad enough to punch something. But unfortunately, Nega Rex was still begging Nega Ben to change his mind, and Nega Ben was looking mighty susceptible himself. (Argit also didn’t know, the thought appeared from somewhere. About Prime. Just saying.) 

It was, to say kindly, embarrassing to look at, even for the older Ben’s in the group. Nega Rex seemed to be gently holding Nega Ben by the cheek, speaking calmly but with a worry and urgency in his eyes that reminded every Ben of every Rex they had ever known. On the outside, Ben was silently blushing, but on the inside there was a variety of reactions ranging from a consistent vomiting noise coming from the kids and a awww from the adults. Nega Ben, on the other hand, for all his own blushing and starry-eyed stare, was talking softly in what Ben could only decipher was protest, because Nega Rex did not seem to be getting anywhere with him.

Stubbornness runs in the Ben’s apparently. (Tennyson’s as a whole, more likely.) When a Ben had a plan, there was no stopping him. Not Vilgax, not Maltruant, and not even a Rex. It’s probably how Eon always got so far. He has that blood in him. And he doesn’t even have a Gwen or a Rex to cool him down or take him in the right direction.

But that begs the question, where is Rex Prime? And Argit, for that matter?

Prime had lost his phone in the fight with Nega Rex, and it’s been way too long since the Ben’s have heard from him. Had he gotten caught up in a fight like 10,000 and Prime had? Ben could tell that Nega Rex looked a little more roughed up than he had when Prime fought him. Even though he could heal his wounds, he couldn't mend his clothes. Had it been him? Maybe another secret villain had appeared? Had one gotten out—

(No, cause I used my Chronosapien and froze them all in time to stop them from making any moves while we finished this. Had you guys been keeping them locked up there by themselves with no one watching them all this time?)

(Errr…)

All the while, Nega Rex and Ben were beginning to argue louder. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Why are you listening to him? You’re just gonna take his word for it? He’s lying to you!” Nega Ben responded, throwing his hand in Ben’s direction. 

And this is when Paradox finally speaks up. “I assure you he’s not, Mr. Tennyson. The Chronosapien time bomb is just that, a bomb. It won’t send you back in time. In fact, it’ll send you out of time, as in right here. Forever.”

”He’s right.” Eon stands beside Paradox, one foot turned towards the teens and a bloody hand pointing to the bomb itself. “This machine wasn’t meant for time travel, it’s meant for time annihilation. You don’t remember because being here screws with your mind! This device is meant to erase history from existence, not save your relationship!”

“Well what would you know about saving relationships, old man?” Nega Ben yells back, completely ignoring the implications of what he’d just been told. “If that’s the case, then we can erase what we did to Vilgax from everyone’s mind! Heck, we could even erase Vilgax!”

Hard to argue with that, Ben thought, nodding his head in thought. Didn’t sound too bad. 

“You’re not getting it!” Eon yelled, his voice sounding mighty unBen-like. “That’s not how it works! Not anymore! I’m telling you, you won't be able to see your timeline if this thing goes off!”

Nega Ben looked at Eon like he was crazy. “You’re supposed to be on our side!”

”Yeah? Well, I changed my mind.” He glares back. “I’m done being your lapdog. If I’m gonna make up for getting us all into this mess and get everyone out of here, then yes, I’m gonna destroy this bomb.”

Nega Ben looked at him, and then the shining bomb surrounded by naked parts laying on the ground. “…You piece of—”

Eon turns to Ben, and he has to look up to look him in the face, even from this distance. “But I can't disarm it all the way without powering it off first. I’ve only gained us some time.”

Realization hits Ben. “And that means I have to unfuse and get the Ben without a watch out of here before it stabilizes.”

Nega’s face is red, but this time not with any kind of pleasantry. His plans are turning to naught right in front of his face, and now he has no one. His fists are balled tight, and Gwen remarks how baby-like he’s being. “Oh, you’re not going anywhere!” He growls, going redder at the sight of Ben’s giggling. “If we’re all going to die, I’m not going without a fight!”

“Um, I believe there’s been some kind of confusion.” Paradox steps up. ”The bomb won’t destroy any other Ben’s or their universes when it goes off.”

Nega Rex freezes. “What?” He glances at Ben, then back to the professor. “What did you just say?”

Confusion surfs across Ben’s face, and then sudden realization sets in. “Wait—!”

“The Chronosapien time bomb at this point is only designed to do one thing, and that’s keep all these Ben’s and the people they know here, in this world, forever, with no way out.”

Ben sighs, smacking his forehead, while Nega Rex takes a dangerous step forward, his eyes wide and beginning to glow. “You’re saying that only the people these Ben’s know will be stuck here? So if they’ve met my Ben, he’ll one day end up here?”

Oh, Ben is not liking this one bit. 

Paradox glances at Ben, confused as to what seems to be happening— an alarming thing for Ben to witness. “Well—”

“Eon, you’ve met my Ben, right?”

Eon flinches, not noticing Ben2 baring his teeth and moving a hand under his chin at him. “Uhh…yes..?”

Ben sighs.

Rex’s hair instantly turns into blue flames, as if sparked, and anger roils off of him like a phoenix. “So you were right, Ben..”

At first Ben believes he’s talking to the fusion, but it quickly becomes apparent, as Rex turns his flaming head to look at Nega with his glowing eyes, that he’s not. 

“They did lie.”

Nega Ben’s mouth forms into a malicious smirk, and he takes Meta-nanite Rex’s now outstretched hand. 

“Now wait a moment! Don’t you have friends?” Ben pleaded to the other Rex. “People you’ll miss back in your dimension? Do you truly believe your Ben will forgive you if you trap him here? You wanted to apologize, right?”

The two, hand in hand, turn to face Eon. Nega Rex spoke with his cheek to him. “But he won’t, will he? You don’t know my Ben, I mean, he didn’t even look for me.” He frowns. “I’d rather be stuck here with him forever than go back with nothing to go back to. You said it first, right? We’ll have time. All the time in the world, in fact. I mean, it is you we’re talking about.”

Ben sputtered. “Ok, but your friends!”

“What friends?”

Woof, toxic~! A distinctly 10,000 thought. 

Gwen and 12 had the same thought: There’s probably more than one reason those two broke up.

“Ditto.” Nega Ben agrees, having heard none of their thoughts. He licks his lips. “Let’s just get rid of these guys for good. And by get rid of,” Nega looks at Ben. “I mean kill.”

—-

Paradox finds himself frowning, both from the itchy familiar feeling he’s getting and from the dialogue he’s hearing between the two bad boy teens in front of him. He peeks down at his watch, confirming what he’d already suspected, and looks up at the two with an annoyed glare. “Alright, that’s enough of that.” And he disappears. 

—

Eon’s left defenseless now without Paradox by his side, and now both sets of eyes are on him. He looks at Nega Ben. “And why are you still trying to go through with this? It affects you too! You know he’ll leave you as soon as he gets his Ben back!”

Nega Ben shrugs, “Oh, it’s not about that. It sounds like I’ll get what I want regardless. I just don’t like any of you.”

And this is why past Eon chose him, darn it. He was always this capable of selfishness, and Eon helped him hone it.

For the love of— 

It’s a reflex he doesn’t even need to train, because even before he became one person with Bad Ben, he was never alone in his head. 

Around him, in front and behind, flashes of black fall in line to protect him; quiet, emotionless, husks that are shaped like a version of him he isn’t anymore and never will be again. His soldiers form a shield around him, blocking his view of the two teens before him, so many that he couldn’t even begin to count. 

And then he’s in the air. They’re all in the air, and everything is black and neon blue and again he’s stuck and he can’t see the bomb and he’s falling and he’s falling and he’s falling and he’s—

“Whoa! What’s going on!”

—

Argit is on his back as he runs out from the tree line. His mullet, cut uneven because he’s been in a alternate reality without a barber for two months, is greasy with sweat and probably Argit’s snot and to Prime, his boyfriend has never looked so good.

“Holy crap, guys! What is that? And what the heck, he absolutely does look cooler than me!” Rex yells, too distracted by the rising blue ball in the air filled with a hundred or so ninja from Eon’s calvary and the kid who looks just like him except for the equally blue flaming hair and glowing neon eyes to notice that Ben isn’t Ben right now. Or is more Ben than he’s ever been. With a side of Gwen in there, for spice. 

Then again, the Chronosapien time bomb is also showing off its disco ball skills by shining way too brightly and also beginning its own ascent upwards, slowly but surely, as if jealous that something else has everyone’s attention. And that includes Ben, who can’t keep his eyes off of Rex.

(To Ben 23 and Gwen’s dismay, as they only really want to look at the freaking bomb rising into the air.)

(Ah, there’s the kid.)

(Almost missed all the fun!)

(Oh look, he’s got the Pants-wetter)

(Ben, be nice!)

Ben is so glad to see him alive, it’s like the breath has been taken right out of him. 

(Finally…I can apologize to him)

Finally…

And it feels weird, being both Prime and 16. It feels weird, feeling this type of camaraderie for the first time, and for the hundredth time, and for one, the ten thousandth time. It’s personal, and specific, and strange and unorthodox and it’s private—

So suddenly, so instantly, they’re apart. It doesn’t take even a second. There’s no glow, no flash, no fanfare. One second, Prime is there, and the next, he isn’t. 

—

Rex slides Argit down just in time. Ben is in his arms before he can even say hello, and he feels like he’s going crazy with how happy he feels. 

“Whoa- ah! Geez, Ben, was I gone that long?”

“You were gone longer than the SumoSlammers Power Hour special,” Ben says quietly into his shoulder.

Rex holds him tighter, and does a quick once over of the scene. A evil Ben and Rex watching them with disgust and yearning? Check. A giant green creature that looks suspiciously like Tennyson? Not on the list, but check. A bomb, rising into the air like the dead?

Check check check. 

Boy, he could not wait to tell Bobo and Noah about this trip. 

He pulls back just enough to look Ben in the face “What’s the stitch? Andddd who is that?”

He’s all smiles. “The kids. That’s all of them. And 10,000. And Gwen…”

“A—“

“And Ben 23..”

“…O—“

“And No Watch Ben.”

“…”

“…That’s it.”

“Okay… and, uh, how?”

“…so, like, I knew for a second how he did it when I was in there but now that I’m out? No clue.”

“You were in there?!”

“I’ll explain it later.” And Ben grabs Rex by the face and kisses him. 

The kiss lasts long enough for the fusion to get uncomfortable and look away.

When the two pull back, Rex, starry-eyed, says, “Wow…You never kiss me first..”

All of Ben’s attention belongs to him in this moment. For a minute, Ben completely forgets where they are and what they’re doing. “I love you. Y’know? Like, actually.”

“I was silent for like an hour?”

“An hour is well beyond long enough for me to miss you.”

Lights swirl in Rex’s warm brown eyes. 

Ben’s heart is pounding. “Anyway I’m glad you’re alright and all that mushy stuff.” Ben says quickly and pulls back, giving Rex a slap to his forearm before, smiling harder than the fusions have ever seen him smile, leading him to the others. “Now we should—“

Ben doesn’t finish, because Rex pulls him back by his hand and kisses him again, longer and enthusiastically.

The whole world goes brighter. The sun is on their face, their skin basking in a pink glow, and somehow there are flowers and stars behind their eyes. They don’t notice the alien come up to them, don’t notice the shine that envelopes them, but they do notice their hearts becoming one. 

Suddenly they share the same hands. The same lips. They’re seeing the same things and feeling the same things and they feel powerful. More.

And suddenly they’re the same person. Or they’re two people, or three people, or neither. 

They look down at their one body. Tall, lean, but muscular. Their shadow is a threat to behold. The skin on their forearms and left hand are polka dot, but in natural olive skin tones. Their outfit is now a sleeveless yellow hoodie paired with Rex’s skinny jeans turned leggings (with the patches still on the pockets) and his blue arm warmers on both arms, the Omnitrix and Paradox’s watch on one arm, the bracer missing from the other. 

They’re also easily 50 feet taller than any of the neighborhood buildings. 

Oh, and of course Rex’s jacket is gone!

—

They’ve…The Coming Storm and Rex have merged into one! If he hadn’t peed himself already, it would have happened again, because the looks The Coming Storm and other Rex are giving them is more than Argit’s poor little heart can take. The alien is so big, he could kick the blue orb floating in the air like a soccer ball!

The fury in the eyes of the Kevin-like Coming Storm and Bad Rex is exactly what Argit had imagined it would look like to meet his worst enemy, the exact person he’d been warned about. As he’d feared, the Storm was definitely Coming. 

“Not…as weird as I thought it would be,” Ben..Rex? Bex? said, looking down at their shoes, and the very very small teens by them. “How’s the weather down there? Ha ha ha! Oh God, I sound like a suburban white dad.” The voice sends shocks through the ground, a strange amalgamation of low and high tones.

Argit himself feels his heart stop, and he freezes completely. He has nowhere to go, nowhere to hide! There’s no place he can get to where someone won’t see him, and Rex, his only savior, is gone! Every muscle in his body is tense, and just like that, he falls over and everything goes black.

His stomach drops a few seconds later, even before he opens his eyes and realizes what’s happening. He, too, is now in a neon blue bubble, steadily rising into the air. He quickly surpasses a device the size of himself, that's sparking so brightly he has to squint against it, before he reaches a height where he’s right next to what could possibly be a hundred black ninja fighting against their own captivity. 

And this brings him at eye level with a growing form. He’s not sure how to describe it as anything other than a monster. It’s unreal. A metallic beast. It’s as if a trash dump for cars became a person, or its interpretation of a person. And it’s huge, only rivaled in size by the shocked amalgamation of Bens and Rex.

Bex raises thick black eyebrows under his tousled set of bangs. Argit can see him much better from this height. Can see the funny face on his yellow headband, the shiny black eyes and V-shaped mouth awkwardly spaced around his head, only trapping tiny bits of his wild, curly dark brown hair. Splatter-shaped spots run up both arms, the brown-tones inverted on one arm from the other. The area around the Omnitrix and second watch is a bright, unhealthy looking pink, as if it’s not supposed to be there, like a rash infesting his arm. 

But he has one of Rex’s warm brown eyes, and one of the Coming Storm’s green ones. The grin on his face is much harder to separate from which. “Way to tell me to fight someone my own size! No prob. I was getting a bit tired of hearing the sound of my own voice.”

Both Argit and Bex seem to notice it only after it reaches the large mechanical creature’s knees. An inky black substance, moving upwards towards the head of its body, as if taking it over. 

Bex frowns. 

The creature doesn’t have the kind of face that can do that, but it does laugh. It laughs and laughs, its mouth only that of a naked jaw dropping, like a skeleton being puppeteered. And as the inky blackness takes over it completely, leaving nothing but flaming blue hair, the laugh is in stereo. 

“Well. Hmm.” Bex’s voice, although probably a thoughtful mumble for him, is booming for Argit, like he was standing right on the ledge of an airplane. “Upgraded Rex 2.0. I thought that was kinda a Normal Ben and Rex trademark thing. Hm.” He swishes around, as if looking for someone to talk to, and just the movement thrusts a heavy wind in Argit’s direction. “Can I sue for this?”

”Oh I can’t wait to destroy you, if only to get you to shut up!” The mechanical monster yells, and Argit watches in horror as it swings a large, obsidian, Rex-shaped fist at Bex.

The swing knocks both bubbles back, and Argit screams and crumbles up into a ball.

Bex somehow dodges, and, incredibly quick on his feet, stops himself from stepping on any apartment complexes behind him. “Too slow!” And his own fist expands into a new version of Rex’s Smackhands, the wrist growing wide around the Omnitrix, and punches it right back without missing. 

The machine roars, and Bex steps back, hopping on his feet with his fists, now normal-sized(well not normal-sized, but normal in comparison to his size), pulled to his chest like a boxer. And he’s grinning, teeth white and human. 

“I am still expecting a challenge, so don’t go too easy on me, hombre!” Bex aims some more jabs at the creature, but he is basically hitting metal, and it doesn’t seem to be having much effect with his, for all intents and purposes, human hands. 

Catching both fists in its grasps, the machine monster gets in close and headbutts Bex, “No more talking!”

“Gwah!” Bex falls back a few steps, face screwed up in pain. “Ok, I asked for that.” His right hand grows into a sword, long in length, teal blue in color, and with a lucky cat face on the hilt. He aims a slash for the things chest and misses as it swiftly dodges, then counterattacks with a punch of its own.

Argit watches, equal parts terrified and amazed, as Bex, faster than something that big should ever possibly be, slices off the truck monster’s hand at the wrist. 

The young possum hybrid can’t even gasp before already the disembodied hand is on the move, fire exploding from the inside of the wrist and guiding it around and straight into the back of Bex’s head. 

The bonk creates ripples in the sky.

“Again.” Bex shakes it off. “I asked for that. Can’t be mad about it, cause I did ask for it.” The alien’s shoulders roll back, and once more, he gets into a defensive position. “Was expecting that to hurt more, though. I know all your moves, dude. I’m you.”

“I’ll show you hurt!” With both hands back in their right place, the monster’s tar black hands turn spiky at the knuckles, and its eyes glow so bright that they blind everyone in its path. Argit can’t even look at them, it’s so flashy. It's like looking straight into the sun!

”Whoops! Almost forgot these!” And Bex pulls down what used to be goggles, and is now a headband, over his eyes. Argit has to squint to see what happens, has to squint harder to notice the movement of the eyes that he’d originally thought were decoration, but had begun to show consciousness in that they moved closer to the middle, directly where Bex’s eyes once were. 

Staring with full confidence in his eyesight, Bex moves out of the way of the punch, sliding down into a crouch and kicking a leg out between the monster’s, then tripping it onto its back in a controlled fall away from the populated and boarded up buildings.

Bex lifts the headband back up and the black eyes move back to their original places. “Ooh, you almost had it..! Gotta be quicker than that!” He’s bouncing around again, somehow not leaving any dents in the pavement below him, but the sound is astronomical, and Argit now feels lucky that he’s not on the ground. 

“You think this is a game?” The electronic voice hollers from the pavement, its chest opening up and revealing…missiles?!

Bex’s face screws up like he’s eaten a lemon, and a second later, he’s struck.

Argit closes his eyes at the scene, hearing Bex’s loud yelp and the force of him stumbling. Argit’s heart is ramming into his chest, as if trying to get out, and once again he feels his stomach drop as his bubble rolls over as a delayed reaction to the blast, knocking him against the hard walls.

When he finally opens his eyes again, it's to the same shock as the nightmare monster. Halted on one knee, eyes closed tight, is a Bex with a large yellow, Block Party Shield, completely unharmed.

As Bex opens his eyes, he looks pretty shocked too. Then, once again, he grins. “Oh, it is ON!”

Another growl leaves the monster truck— monster. The truck monster. And they both aim a punch at each other at the same time, one angry, the other ecstatic. 

“A part of me has been waiting for a fight like this for months! Bring it on, muchacho!” Bex’s fist is once again in Smackhand form. He’s not even phased by the sharp knuckles aiming for him, because his fists are aiming right back, and from Argit’s point of view, some bright pink barriers are appearing right in front of his own knuckles as protection from the spikes. They break into pieces and crumble into nothing with each strike, but they reappear instantly, and it’s like nothing Argit has seen any of the Bens or Rexes fight with before.

Bex uses his Smackhands to do just that, smack it. The vibration is enough to make Argit’s bubble spin, and he can tell without looking that the villain is getting mad.

“Why are you hitting yourself?” Bex’s voice sounds a bit younger, a bit more 12 and 05 like, as he keeps smacking the large truck monster. “Why are you hitting yourself?”

“Very mature!” The truck monster lifts up into the air, flying. Argit didn’t know it could do that. “But it’ll take more than that to defeat me!”

“What, are you running away? I thought we were having a good time! Come back down, don’t be a party pooper!” Bex waves a vitiligo-stricken hand towards himself in a friendly “cmon, get down here” motion.

“Whatever you say!” The truck monster agrees, and shoots both it’s fists at the teenager(? Was Bex still considered a teenager?). Bex quickly pulls up his shield, and the fist-missiles bounce off, only to fly back into the truck monsters wrist sockets and come back down with the force of its entire body behind it, landing atop Bex who lets out a large “oophmf!”

They struggle for a bit, but Bex’s legs turn into Punk Busters and kick the machine off of him, up into the air, practically bench pressing it, before jumping up from his back onto his sneaks and building a cannon with his arms, grabbing cement from below him, and aiming his shot right at the machine’s head, all while it’s still in midair. 

The hit lands, and Bex cheers, pumping his fists excitedly, childishly, like he can’t believe how cool he seems.

The entire time, Argit can’t believe it, Bex somehow stays completely aware of where the buildings around them are. His steps are measured, even while he fights wildly and unpredictably. Even his sneakers seem to hop off the ground rather than create potholes as he pats himself on the back and celebrates each spontaneous hit. The same can’t be said of the truck monster, whose every step and fall wreaks havoc.

Noticing this, Bex’s arms somehow become long, long ropes, turning yellower as they stretch, and wrap themselves around the creature, lifting it into the air, struggling as he does, and groaning roughly as he swings in a circle, then throws him in the direction opposite the city, past the apartment complex, past the grocery store, miles and miles through the air until it hits an already decrepit looking skyscraper in the distance, which, from their height, would only be about five feet.

A vest with wings on the back resembling Rex’s old build sprouts from Bex, and he quickly follows after it.

Even though they’re in the distance, Argit can still see them clearly, as if watching from the third row, in comparison to the first row, of a wrestling match. And Argit can say this: Bex is beating it down thoroughly. The sound is more muted from this far, and now he’s not getting knocked around by every blast of air, but when the giant falls and Bex goes down with it, either on purpose to punch it harder or because he’s been grabbed, Argit finds himself unable to follow the fight anymore. 

Instead, his eyes latch onto the shining air conditioner looking thing slowly rising even higher than himself, completely unfazed by the shocks of the earlier fight near it. That must be the device they were talking about earlier. The bomb! Argit thinks. Uhhh, is it supposed to be doing that?

Is he safe? He suddenly wonders. If it blows up, will this blue orb thing act as a barrier and absorb the explosion? Will it protect him?

Is that thing getting brighter?

Before he can think even harder on it, the two giants are back, and this time Bex looks different; His form is more alien like, with a red Mohawk the size of a tower and the Omnitrix symbol over his heart. Goggles like Rex’s are over his eyes, or are his eyes, and they’re green and brown still, but without pupils, and he’s even bigger than before. Way big. Red blades with yellow accents tear through arm warmers that look more mechanical than they had before. Machinery-patterned lines move along his arms and face, with two cut off antennae on both sides of his jawline. Bex is tall enough to block out the sun, if he wanted.

Even his voice is deeper as he says, “Maybe this is why your boyfriend broke up with you. You’re crap at working with your partner, even in a fight.” 

“SHUT UP!!!” The monster Argit now realizes is definitely Nega Ben and Bad Rex seems to be getting weaker. He’s panting, smoke steaming from his mouth, his voice cracking and his movements desperate.

“Oh, did I hit a sore spot?” Bex pouts, or at least that’s what Argit thinks is happening to his face, as he takes the villain‘s hits head on without even flinching. “Is the wittle baby gonna cry?”

“You know nothing!”

Bex pushes him over like he’s knocking over cardboard. The creature lands on his butt, hard. “‘You know nothing!’ What are we, in a cartoon?” Bex flashes green for a quick second and is back to normal, or his version of normal. He’s no longer a million feet tall, at least. Bex’s eyes seem to look directly at Argit when he says that, or, maybe, something or someone beyond his own perception of reality—

Argit flinches as his bubble veers to the left, the wind of something moving past him at speeds unknown to him knocking him down onto his side. When he looks up, he sees it, growing in Bex’s hand so as to fit its size.

—or the Sword of Ascalon..! Yeah, it was probably just that..

Nega curses as he gets up, the black ink or slime or whatever it is seems to almost be dripping off of him in one large dollop as he stands. “C’mon Ben, we got this…” he’s panting with an anger, an exhaustion, that seems more with himself than with Bex. “We can still do this..!”

Bex looks him up and down, then sighs. ”Ever heard the phrase ‘relationships take work’? Yeah, maybe you should get another job?”

And that takes the cake, it seems. “AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!” A guttural, electronic scream like that of a million car crashes rips through the air, hurting Argit’s already sensitive possum ears. He screams in retaliation to the sound, covering his ears and in turn, his head, and squeezing his eyes shut amongst the pain. Even doing all that, he can still hear the sounds of fighting. “WHY SHOULD I CARE, WHEN NO ONE CARES ABOUT ME!?”One, two, three booming cannon shots, and one, two, three embarrassing ting, ting, tink! sounds after, as if they’d been deflected easily, and a yawn that definitely comes from the direction of Bex.

”Why! Can’t! I! Beat! YOU!” The monster couple yells angrily as they continue to swing their large sword hand in the direction of a more human-like Coming Storm. 

Bex easily grabs hold of the blade with one big mechanical hand, leans into the robot alien’s muzzle, and says, “The power of love, I guess.” as the Sword of Ascalon stabs the Nega Ben and Bad Rex through the heart.

Needless to say, Bex wins.

The monster that was once the Bad Rex has disappeared and become Rex once more, as small as an ant from Argit’s point of view, but an ant with blue hair lying defeated on the ground with black slime all over it.

The slime starts to glow, and in its place is a Ben in a black hoodie, as small as an ant, and probably feeling like one, too.

—

Bex shortens their height. And they mean, really shortens their height. Like, going from Eiffel Tower size to maybe about ‘I can probably still fit into a normal person’s shower if I needed to’ size. But it’s tight, they can feel it. 

Nega Ben looks exhausted, sweat pouring down his forehead and his chest rising and falling quickly with his hands over each other atop his stomach. Which makes sense, Bex thinks, since he’s been fighting nonstop the longest and also doesn’t have the healing abilities Rex has. And while Nega Ben looks as weak as a kitten, Nega Rex is already sitting up beside him, shaking his shoulder and urging him to get up. “C’mon, it’s not over yet.. It’s okay, you just have to walk it off..”

And even Bex can tell that his worry is real.

But still.

They point the Sword of Ascalon at the two on the ground. “I think this is over.”

Nega Rex looks up at them, too worried to even glare. Nega Ben doesn’t even open his eyes.

”You guys obviously care about each other. Don’t you think it’s pretty darn telling that you two specific Ben and Rex found one another? After going through the exact same thing?”

Nega Ben finally opens his eyes, his gaze moving from Bex to the soft, worried look from the Rex gently holding his shoulder.

”You belong together. Or, maybe you don’t.” They shrug. “But you both are lovable. All this nonsense about not having anyone… you have each other. You can see it for yourselves…”

—

Ben could barely feel his own body at this point, so you’d have to excuse him for not having the energy to roll his eyes. He wasn’t annoyed so much as he was tired, in every sense of the word. He was tired of being beat down, of being the one in the wrong, of being the bad guy. He was just tired. He was tired of being tired. 

“But..” Rex frowns, his gaze moving down to the Negatrix on Ben’s wrist. “We’ll never be each other’s…” he sighs, and Ben can see everything the breath takes out of him: all his anger, all the desperation and revenge and hate…

…leaving only the defeat. His hand moves over Ben’s, his straight, black eyebrows furrowed down in consternation. “We’ll always be the shadow of the ones we were with before.”

And he is right. He can’t be the Rex Ben was looking for. He never would be. 

They can’t fix each other. They probably already know that. It's hard to tell if anyone can ever really fix another person. Do people need fixing? Or do they just need help? Rather than it being a question of can I fix him, it's more like a case of am I the one even capable of helping him? Did Ben ever really want help? Or did he just want to scream and cry? Is that the reason he couldn’t find it in himself to care about being stuck here forever?

That’s why, despite all this time, it still got to this point. That’s why every lingering gaze between the two had a twinge of guilt, why every thoughtless touch felt…weird. Wrong.

They weren’t each other’s. And they both knew that.

He doesn’t see where it comes from. It’s disembodied, for all he cares. A voice, speaking up from..somewhere. “Then how about the real deal?”

It’s a voice he knows, but doesn’t know well. 

Ben struggles to even lift his head up enough to see where it comes from. It's a man’s voice. 

Behind the alien hybrid that used to be him and a version of Rex he had also managed to piss off…

..stood a version of him and the real Rex he had originally pissed off. 

—

Ben, his Ben, steps forward, with an expression like concern and confusion and bemusement. “Rex..?”

Rex goes as still as an iceberg, his eyes wide, his jaw partly dropped. “Ben…?”

Exhaustion forgotten, they run to each other, completely undermining the ten foot giant between them and the tall older gentlemen in the lab coat, just as another Rex that looks just like him but with curlier hair runs to Nega Ben. 

His Ben Tennyson has a slitted scar on one of his eyebrows, caused from a freak accident involving a chainsaw and a tetela— and a lot of laughs afterwards. “What’s going on?” He's wearing his trademark white and green zip up hoodie, and it still has the same faded cheese stain on the hem.

Disbelief runs through him, then the most crushing shame he's ever felt in his life. The words are leaving Rex before he can even think. Words and apologies he’s practiced over and over since he came to this world. “Look, I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done. I should have listened to you—” He goes on and on, not even hearing his own voice over the complete cranial overload he’s getting just from taking his Ben in. He apologizes for the Event, he apologizes for leaving, he apologizes for holding him by the forearms so tightly right now, and as Ben expressions go from blank, to minor annoyance, to slight pain, and then to amusement— “..I love you.”    

This Ben stares at him for a few seconds, then grabs Rex’s forearms also and nods, squeezing tightly. “I know. And, yeah, you should have.” His face twists, looking mildly upset. Before Rex can even feel sad about the blatant ignoring of him pouring his heart out and maybe even the first time he’d told him he loves him out loud(it couldn’t be the first time? Could it? There’s no way… he had to have..? But had he?), Ben looks deeper into his sad eyes and moves his hands to his cheeks, laying flat as if to squish him like a pancake. “But I love you too. And…” He rolls his eyes. “Vilgax did suck.”

It’s the first time he’s ever said it. Not the Vilgax thing— he says that all the time. The L-word thing. And he knows this because it’s the most amazing thing Rex has ever heard, and he wants to hear it again.

Relief practically takes him out, his smile full of awe, and he basically falls into his kiss with his Ben.

The Ben on the ground watches absently as the blue shields in the sky shatter into nothing, releasing all their captives and Eon with them. He doesn’t move, still trying to catch his breath. He gave up on trying to calm his racing heart the second it started its bullcrap. It’s a dumb and ridiculous trope, but he genuinely feels like the Rex kneeling by him can hear his heart from there. He watches Eon racing to the bomb just so he can’t make eye contact with him. “Dude, what happened?”

He brings a hand up to move his dark bangs out of his face, and even that takes physical work. He realizes now that Rex probably hasn’t seen his new look until now. “So lame…” His disappointment is immeasurable. No one, let alone his Rex, should be seeing him like this. He’d use the bomb if only it would get him out of this situation. 

Rex purses his lips, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know what,” he motions to Ben, “this is, but I’ve been worried about you, you know? I’ve been looking for you for months!”

Ben looks at him with surprise. “You… were worried about me?” He groans as he starts to lift himself up into a sitting position. Rex helps him. “I thought you hated me..”

“What?” Rex breathes, incredulous. “No, Ben, I don’t hate you..! I just wish you would think more.” He pokes Ben on the side of the head. 

“Ow..!” He flinches. He’s got bruises everywhere, and a cut on his cheek that he’s only just now noticed.

“I love you. And I want you to trust me..” He gestures at himself. “Rely on me..! Ya know?” 

Ben meets his eyes, finally, for what feels like the first time in a lifetime. His Rex has two eye freckles, and instead of a reddish shade, they're a dark brown that's almost black. 

This. This was the difference. 

He nods, keeping his face carefully blank, and looks down at his lap. His version of expressing guilt. 

Rex sighs and pulls him into his chest, then leaves a kiss at his temple, and then the top of his head. 

---

 Bex is caught up in blatantly eavesdropping when Eon yells,  “We're running out of time! Get on with whatever you're gonna do!”

“Oh right!” Bex says hastily under their breath, looking down at themself as if to check if they had lost their keys. They start spinning, because they have no idea how this is supposed to work, but it takes and one by one people start leaving the fusion. Rex. 12. 05, Ben 10k, Gwen 10, Ben 23, watchless Ben, and lastly, Prime. They all leave 16, in all his emerald green glory, and find themselves staring at each other. 

16 raises his hand to the Omnitrix symbol on his chest and just as he's about to press down— he hesitates. He catches Gwen's eye and they frown at each other. He knows already that it's not his actual cousin, but still. It's a version of her. And she looks so similar, but not. Uncanny valley. 

But then she sticks out her tongue at him and blows a raspberry and he instantly realizes that everything will be fine. 

 He hits the watch, and they all disappear in a flash of green light. 

16 stands there in all his human glory, the watch now back on his wrist. Immediately, the Chronosapien time bomb starts to slowly drift back down to the earth, its glow receding, and Eon watches it with bated breath. As it reaches the ground, he sighs at the sight of it finally powering down. He kneels before it and continues fully taking it apart. 

“Uhhh, so you wanna tell me what just happened?” Nega Ben and Nega Rex’s partners ask in a weird kind of unison from where they stand, and kneel, beside their significant others. 16 can imagine this has gotta be very confusing for them, having only appeared in the last minute. 

“Did I miss another world-ending apocalypse type thing?” The Ben with the cut on his brow asks, as if annoyed that he didn’t get a chance to be in the fight. 

“Yeah, what’s going on, and who is that handsome man over there?” The curly-headed Rex next to Nega Ben points a thumb in Nega Rex’s direction.

Rex— Prime Rex looks around awkwardly. “Wow.. Am I not even here?” Nega Rex points at himself, and Rex Prime points in his direction also, just as Curly Rex points at Prime Rex, and then they all point at each other, this being the first time they’d ever actually seen another Rex in person, face to face or up close and personal. 

“One more Rex and we can form the largest K-pop group.” 16 folds his arms, finding a place standing next to the youngest Ben’s.

”Uughhh, why are there so many of them now? I could barely handle the one!” 05 throws his hands outwards to the circle of Rex’s. 

“I’m fine as long as we don’t get another Argit.” 12 says beside 16. “..Speaking of—?”

An orange blur slaps down in front of the three Bens, startling the heck out of all of them. Leaning over it from different angles, they inspect the possum who’d somehow face-planted on the pavement only just now. 

“…Is he dead?” 05 asks.

They gasp as Argit lifts up suddenly on his hands, his face flattened cartoonishly. 

“How did he survive that fall?” 12 furrows his brow in real confusion. 

“How did he just get down here?” 16 asks with one brow raised.

“What is this guy made of?” This, from 05, as Argit lifts himself up onto his feet, his big black eyes blinking as he dusts himself off and the three Bens slowly back away. 

As he’s moving farther from the possible ghost or immortal being that was the alien Argit, Ben notices something from the corner of his eye. Standing there with his arms crossed, focused like never before, is the oldest Ben. 

Ben 10,000 never lets his gaze slip from Eon’s movements, even as Ben Prime comes to stand beside him, or when 16 himself joins him. At some point, all had become quiet, and the entire group of Bens, Rexes, and others found themselves silently watching Eon work. 

For a bit, maybe twenty to thirty minutes, maybe an hour—who could really tell with a mind like Ben’s?— they listened to the wind move through the air and the metal hitting the ground, to the scuffs of someone kicking the rocks underneath their shoes. They stood and sat for so long that the sky had time to become cloudy again, just like on the day 16 had first arrived here. Nega Ben and Nega Rex admitted to their boyfriend’s what they’d done in silent voices that no one else paid attention to. Rex Prime stepped away to see to Argit’s possible wounds, both physical and emotional. And Prime moved 05 over to the side to have a talk with him. But all through this, 10,000 kept his eyes on the bomb, and 16 kept his eyes on everyone.

When Eon’s hands stop moving, 10,000 shushes everyone, and they all go silent. Eon turns his young eyes to the crowd behind him, his purple-black hair flowing in the wind, and he smiles. He lifts a thumbs up, and everybody cheers.

Or, almost everybody. The bad guys don’t seem as happy as everyone else, and by that, he means mostly Nega Ben. Nega Rex seems like he couldn’t care less with his Ben in his arms and a smile directed only at his lover. But Curly Rex looks ecstatic. 

Paradox, who 16 had forgotten was here, claps his hands. “Ok, everyone! That about wraps it all up!” Everyone looks at him, even Eon, who’s wrapping his bleeding hands in the folds of his robe with a sweat on his brow and an exhausted smile on his face. Paradox takes his watch out of his breast pocket and shows it off. It looks…just like a regular watch? It’s ticking normally, 16 sees. What was he supposed to be looking at? Paradox smiles at all of them, eyes meeting each individual group, his head turning from one to the other. “The passageways have opened up! Who wants to go home first?”

Nega Ben and Curly Rex are gone first (The quicker that guy is out of here, the better, 16 thinks) followed quickly by Nega Rex and his Ben. 

16’s ears seem to grow bigger as he catches onto the tail end of a chastising from 10,000 to 05. A, “You need to calm down” here and a “that’s not cool” there, and even a “I get it, I was like that when I was younger,” as if 10,000 wasn’t exactly like that when he was younger, given that 05 was literally him from 2005 and lastly, the oh so ominous, “And wash your hands!”. But then 16 catches sight of a Bigfoot-type figure slumping into the grocery store behind everyone, going unnoticed by all but him, and decides to turn his attention there. 

—-

“I’m gonna be you, huh?” Ben 05 says to 10,000, looking him up and down for what felt like the millionth time that day. He'd been inside his mind, but he still hadn’t seen everything. Hadn’t really had the chance to look. 

The older man laughs. “Not quite, bud.” 10,000 pats him on the head, to Ben’s annoyance. 10k looks around the street until he finds Prime Ben standing with Rex next to the pieces of the bomb. He shoots finger guns at Prime and smiles so wide it takes up half his face, his chin to his chest. “I’ll see you around, huh?”

And without waiting for an answer, he taps his Omnitrix and disappears in a flash. And Ben has to admit… “He’s so cool…” Even if he’s only known the man a few hours, he was in awe of the Ben he could one day become, and most likely would. Even if that meant… He looks at Rex.

—-

Having overheard 05’s sigh after 10k left, Ben Prime smiles, a sense of vindication rising in him. He puts a fist out and Rex promptly bumps it without even needing to look. 

Argit makes his way over, hobbling with his small legs, and looks up at Rex with wide eyes. “So what was it like to..to merge into one person like that?”

“Well,” Ben starts, moving around Rex to step in front of Argit. There’s no way he was gonna let this kid believe he’s evil all the way back home, even if he does forget this entire interaction when he goes back. “It was kinda like, we didn’t feel, hmm, whole, or anything, but more as if we were two different people,” he rolls his eyes back in thought, then turns to Rex in confirmation that he’d felt the exact same way. “It wasn’t like when I turned into Upgrade with you before, not at all. But, yeah, we were somehow saying everything at the same time.” Ben nods and Rex nods back. “It was even surprising to us in the moment, it was like wow we are actually finishing each other’s sentences but also, like, literally reading each other’s minds at the same time this is so weird, like that, you know?” Ben lifts the hand from one of his crossed arms in a one shoulder shrug, still looking up at Rex. “Like we were surprised even as we were talking, cause, it still felt like we were two separate beings, ya know?” He looks down at Argit and his wide open mouth. “Well, many separate beings. Like, ten. Anyway.”

”And that wasn’t…scary? Seeing into his mind like that?” Argit hesitates to ask, his hands in T-Rex form under his chin, his eyes big and black, moving from Ben over to Rex as he finishes his question. 

Ben looks at Rex, waiting for his answer. It’s a question he’s also had, after having talked with Ben 10,000 about their future together. And before that, when he’d talked to Nega Rex. Was he capable of evil like this? Like Bad Ben and Mad Ben and even Eon? Was handling Ascalon, in this world where everything was at its worst, the best choice? Was it scary, searching every Ben’s thoughts and seeing if he really loved Rex the way Rex wanted to be loved? Did he get the answers he was looking for? Had Rex even thought to look for them? Had he noticed how much it’d been swirling around in Ben Prime’s head?

And yet, Rex looks completely unperturbed by the question. His lip quirks up at the edge, and he lifts an eyebrow. “No, not at all. Why would it be?”

And that's that, Ben guesses. 

Paradox appears behind Argit, so suddenly as if he’s only just loaded into this plane of existence, smiling with his arms behind his back. “Time for you to go, little one.” 

Argit looks back, scared, then looks to Rex for guidance. 

He smiles encouragingly. “Go!” 

That’s all it takes. Argit lifts his collar over his muzzle, and takes Paradox’s outstretched hand. His other hand is occupied by 12’s shoulder, and 12 waves a quick goodbye before they all disappear without a flash. 

—-

Ben walks out of the grocery store only to spot 12 waving goodbye to Prime and Rex and leaving with the professor and Argit. A quick look around reveals that he’s the only tween Ben left in this reality(05 and 10k must’ve left while he was talking to Benzarro. He finally managed to pay his tab), and that leaves him a bit lonely, as well as a bit excited. Almost everyone he’s bonded with these last few weeks is gone, but at least that means he’s going home! 

As he walks up to Ben Prime and Rex, he realizes he’s back to where he started. Just these three, a grocery store, and a green car on the side of the road filled with trash from old food.

“And then there were three,” Rex says, just as Ben says, “So it’s just us three, huh?” 

They all laugh.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, me. Uh, nice meeting me. You?” Ben shakes hands with Prime.

 Ben, he guesses he should just be calling him Ben now, laughs. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.” 

—

Except they aren’t the only ones left. A bell rings out as the door to the grocery store opens. The boy, originally thought to be a man, is standing behind the counter again, as if nothing has changed, or as if everything has changed. His face is drooping slightly, but not much more than it was before the bomb was discovered. His hair has fallen out in most places, and he now has slightly green skin, but he’s still alive and that’s good. 

Eon steps up to the register. “I apologize.”

Benzarro does not reply. He does not blink. 

“You were just a kid, and I know there’s nothing I could have done to help your planet, but I manipulated you regardless. All you wanted was to get away.”

Benzarro shakes his head, but otherwise is blank-faced. “I didn’t want anything. I didn’t know how to want.”

Eon frowns, looking down at the pristine counter, the reflection as clear as glass. “And now? Now what do you want?”

At that, Benzarro blinks. His brows furrow, or where his brows would be if he had any. “Right now?…. I wish everyone would pay their tabs.”

Eon raises both brows. “..That…that’s it? That’s all you want?”

Benzarro doesn’t reply. 

Eon looks down at his bandaged hands. He reaches into one of the pockets of his robe and pulls out some loose change and some lint. He picks the lint out of his hand and puts the stray coins on the countertop. 

Benzarro stares at him pointedly, then motions with his eyes at the trash can to the side of the counter door. Eon stops himself from rolling his eyes, a habit he now recognizes from Bad Ben, and throws the lint away in the trash bin. Knowing that amount of change can’t possibly be nearly enough, Eon summons his squadron of mindless Ben’s and one by one, has each of them empty their wallets of whatever money they could possibly have after all these years. None of them have very much, most of them have none, but with there being so so so many of them, it all easily adds up right in front of them, and soon the countertop is overflowing. Certainly a night and a day pass during this exchange, but every time Eon looks out the grocery store door’s window, the clouds are exactly the same shade of gray as before. 

When Eon has run out of Ben’s, each disappearing after every “transaction”, Benzarro counts up all the money and places it in the register, expression unchanged. Eon moves to stand right in front of him again. 

“Now,” Benzarro says, to Eon’s surprise. He hadn’t spoken the entire time until now. Benzarro leans forward, his hands on the counter, his eyes, both eyes, wide and staring into Eon’s mismatched soul. “What happened, really happened, to you? To us?”

Ah, there it is. 

“The professor must have explained some of it to you already. The time deformancy. It’s why I look nineteen again and why Charmcaster now has different eyes and pure white hair. After Maltruant and I lost to the Ben’s, I went around to collect the evil Ben’s again for my army. I wanted to rebuild all I had lost, and it took two years of me going from timeline to timeline till I ended up here. Somewhere along the way, I began deforming slowly, losing my sanity, but I didn’t care. I was driven by rage, and at some point that was all I could feel. There’s a reason Paradox has time traveling down to a formula. It’s because otherwise, it mutates you, literally. You go too fast and you fall. Material beings aren’t meant to go through realities so much, so quickly.  You start to fall instead of jog, and then you’re falling forever. 

Eon was passing through realities five times a second, and somehow he hit Bad Ben’s reality right in the moment he was passing by, and he dragged him into it. The temporal distortion must’ve melted us into one form, somehow. I.. I don’t know how it works. I lost all my memories in the merge, from both of us. But it made me younger. Much younger. I was a husk by the time I reached this reality, and then I stopped falling. There was nowhere else to fall to. This was it. 

I’m pretty sure I was the first one here. For the longest, there was nothing. Just a ground to land on. And then there was a sky, and the idea of a sun, just brightness with no origin. Then there were buildings, and clouds, and things started to exist, and…I think I started it all. The chain reaction to other Ben’s started with me. This place was formed on my memories, and I’d seen almost every Ben there was in my search for soldiers. So it brought forth Nega Ben, and Nega Rex with him. Ha..I remember finding Rex when I was looking for Evil Ben’s, and what’s more evil than a hero killing a villain? But it turned out it hadn’t been Ben that did Vilgax in in that dimension, but Rex, and so I took him with me. Soon after I found Nega and, look, there you go, a matching set! They’d both been looking for me. They hadn’t remembered the last battle, and neither had I. But they remembered my plan. Bits of it, at least. Not how the bomb worked, but they remembered how it existed.

If this dimension had been anchored between watchless Ben and Ben Prime’s realities, then I was the chain connecting them. Prime joined afterwards along with his Rex, but he looked older, so I assumed the same thing happened to him that had happened to me but in reverse. He didn’t remember the way the fight between all of us ended. While I lost everything, he lost but only two years! And you, Benzarro, I didn’t even recognize you when you came. When the world started populating with people, I was all by myself. It seemed like the villains and the civilians arrived first after me. So I hadn’t any idea you were any different from the rest of the people in the city who were scared of Ben and Rex. Except for the fact that you were always here, in this grocery store…”

Benzarro nods. “I would have preferred it that way. For the longest, I was one of them.”

“Benzarro…You’re human form..You don’t look like Ben Tennyson.”

“Emaciation does that to you.”

Eon frowns and nods. 

“Also customer service.”

“Okay.” Eon looks up and continues his theories. “It has come to my attention that before all of this, I didn’t much look like a Ben myself. Regardless, purple hair is a first. It must be similar to how Albedo’s Omnitrix turned his hair white while in Ben form when it stuck to Prime Ben’s. I’m not sure about Charmcaster. She must’ve amalgamated with herself when she was transported here, too. As for you, you regained your humanity, although you lost all self awareness—”

“Until the bomb activated.” 

“Yes. Precisely.”

“But why do only three Omnitrix work at one time?” Benzarro presses. “That wasn’t the case for the last fight between all of us.”

Eon thinks for a moment. “There’s three Ben’s holding the world together, so only three Omnitrix should work at any given time? Ben Prime, the Bad Ben within me, and the Ben who only got his watch in the battle with us. Both Ben’s spent two years living their own lives, while I was in limbo, so it’s possible Bad Ben aged to nineteen in that time as well, within me. But that’s a hypothesis I’d really rather not test. For all I know, each Omnitrix that took part in that battle two years ago automatically evolved itself to not work when there are too many others around, but given its original purpose, I doubt that. Maybe the answer will never be known…”

Eon meets Benzarro’s eyes. “Whatever I say is just conjecture. I still haven’t fully recovered Eon’s memories. I don’t know if I ever will. But hopefully, these words will work as an answer.” He takes out his hand. “I understand that there is a way to cure..ahem, faulty dna through the use of the Omnitrix. If so, then—”

“I didn’t ask for your help.” Benzarro interrupts, glaring.

His apology hadn’t come through, or, if it had, Benzarro didn’t care. Eon supposes he’ll just have to live with that. 

But, although still on edge around him, Benzarro takes his hand and shakes it, “Your apology is undergoing review.” Benzarro’s face went blank again except for a frown. “But I’d rather never see you again for the rest of my life.” 

Eon nods, lips in a tight obligatory smile. “Duly noted.” 

Eon walks out of the store to see Ben and 16 shaking hands. Surprised, he looks to the side to see Professor Paradox standing a few feet away, his hands clasped behind his back and a sympathetic smile on his face. Ahh, so that explains it. Nodding to the professor in a silent thanks, Eon goes up to Prime. “Well, that’s that, I suppose.”

Ben gives him a suspicious look, letting go of 16’s hand and crossing his arms. “I can’t believe you’re really Eon. You sure you’re not some alt version of Eon that thinks he’s the real guy?”

Eon lets out a little laugh, eyes tracing the ground before rising up to meet his gaze.  “I understand why you’d think that. But no, I’m the real Eon.” He frowns. “And I should say I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t make up for it, and I have a lot of apologizing to do, for a lot of Bens, but I figured this is where I should start.” 

Ben nods slowly, tongue poking the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, it doesn’t…but it is a good place to start.” Then he smiles cooly, and grabs Eon by the hand, giving him a hard, tight handshake. “Good for you. Don’t do anything that’ll make me have to come after ya.”

Eon lets out another little laugh and nods a bit, a small smile on his face and a tilt to his head. “Yeah, I’ll do my best to keep that in mind.” 

“Have a nice life, Eon.” 

“You too, Prime.”

—

As Prime and Eon have a moment, Ben and Rex look at each other, then give each other matching smirks.

“So, uh.. When am I gonna get my own version of you?” The Ben, formally known as 16, puts a hand on his hip. 

Rex grins wide and pats his shoulder, looking out at the town as the sun peeks out behind the clouds on the horizon, not nearly sunset but getting there. “Who knows? But don't stress. I'm sure he will come through some time soon. Probably in no time at all.” He winks, and turns to Paradox as he walks up to the two. “I’m just glad that once we get back, everything will be back to normal.” 

Paradox frowns, “Remind me, what approximate date was it for you before you left again?” 

“January 2020? Why?”

Paradox bares his teeth, “Ooouuugh..” 

Rex startles at the incomprehensible sound that has just left the normally unfazeable man.“What does that mean?!” But Ben doesn’t get to hear the answer. Eon opens up a portal right in front of Rex just as he’s about to step up to Paradox, and he trips with one foot in and falls forward into the portal.

Prime, with his messy partly black-dyed hair and grey hoodie, smacks his forehead. “Man, I really hope that portal leads back to our timeline.” Prime Ben lends out a fist to Ben, a lazy smile on his face. Ben glances at it, then back at Prime, remembering all the fights they had and the clothes he let him borrow and the meals they shared, and he remembers that bright and sunny day on the porch with them all eating popsicles, and he pounds it. Prime sticks out his tongue. And he follows Rex right through. 

Eon nods at Paradox and twists his own device. The portal closes and reopens, presumably to whatever timeline Eon is going to, and he steps through and is gone. 

 For a few seconds, it’s just Ben and Paradox, and the empty green car on the side of the road. 

“What’s gonna happen to this reality?” Ben looks up at the taller gentleman.

”It will disappear. With no one with the memories to form from, it’ll just slowly start to dissipate from existence, effectively destroying itself so that no one can get to it again.”

“What about all the people here?”

“Oh, I already took them back while everyone was saying their goodbyes.”

Ben’s eyes go wide as realization hits him. “And the villains? What about them?”

“Back in their universes. I took care of them.”

Ben releases a sigh of relief. “Hah..! What about all our stuff?”

“Oh. You better get anything you want before you go; otherwise, you’re never seeing it again.”

Ben thinks back to all the ice cream he had in the fridge and all the new clothes he had in the closet back at the cabin. Ehh, they were all dollar store crap anyway. Whatever. But, hm, now that he has the chance..“Ok, so now that I got you here, I have sooo many questions!”

Paradox lifts his chin, an absurdist expression crossing his face. “Mhm?”

“Ok, so, why do the toilets work? And how does electricity work? There’s no one to run the lines! Oh, and how do we have a sun? It’s like a bajillion miles away, but I can’t even travel to Bellwood from here—” He starts and doesn’t finish, disappearing in thin air.

—-

When Paradox comes back, everyone’s gone, and so is the sun. It wasn’t real, anyway. Not yet. Just a projection of light somewhere in the sky to emulate the sun from one of the Ben’s memories. The world was smart but not fast. It could create copies in the meantime, but nothing real outside of the immediate vicinity. A version of Paradox had been through this once before, but unlike this one, he hadn’t made it out in time. 

So why was he here, you ask? Well, because he lied. There was one more left. One who’d been taking his time sulking in strange but oddly wonderful memories. At least, wonderful in comparison to his time in his own world.

“Mr. Paradox, sir?”

“Oh, don’t be so formal with me. You’re a Ben, after all.” He smiles kindly. 

“Right…” Benzarro looks at the ground, then back at him. “What happens when I get back to my universe? Will I… lose control, again?”

“Hmm,” He takes a moment to think, then snaps his fingers. Paradox walks forward and puts a hand on Benzarro’s shoulder, then turns him to face an opening portal, opting instead to allow him to see into this timeline rather than just taking him straight to it. “Don’t you worry about that. You leave that to me. I’m sure I can arrange something.” 

---

Ben and Rex are back in their timeline, and in Rex’s case, Ben’s universe, right from where they left off. Same day, same time, no one to miss them. Not the same place though. They’d ended up being transported to the side of the road on the route to Mr. Smoothies. Ben and Rex didn’t question it, as they were used to portal shenanigans at this point, and Ben had already gotten himself set on Mr. Smoothies. It’s been months!

As they’re walking, with Rex debating just using his Rexcycle to get them there faster, Ben suddenly falls to the ground. “My car!!!!!!!!!” He mourns in realization. He'd teleported with his car while Rex was fixing it! And he'd left it in that other reality! 

Soon, Rex follows after, landing on his knees on the cold, hard pavement and lifting his bare arms into the sky, shaking his fists. “My jacket!!!!!!!!!”

—-

Ben wipes the sweat off his forehead. The heat surrounding his body dissipates only just a little as he takes his jacket off and throws it down on the seat beside him, the warmth permeating every pore in his body even as he downs an ice cold smoothie. 

Rex, sitting across from him, laughs at him. “Dude, don’t choke. Please, don’t choke.”

Ben wipes his mouth, a triumphant smile dancing across his face as he admires his empty smoothie cup. “They really need to fix the AC in here.”

“I told you we should go somewhere else! Why are you so obsessed with this place?”

Ben looks down at his bare left wrist. “I dunno..” He shrugs. “Just feels like I’m meant to be here, I guess.”

Rex gives him an amused look. “Babe, what? You feel like you belong here. At a Mr. Smoothies.”

Ben shrugs again, “Yeah… anyway, since I won the bet, you owe me..” Ben looks up to the side, first in thought, and then at the familiar figure coming up to their table, “another smoothie…”

The man stops in front of their booth. 

“You!” Ben says in surprise. 

Paradox smiles.

Rex looks between the two, confused. “You know this guy?”

Ben glances at his boyfriend, who, for what he thinks he knows, is powerless in this universe. “Yes, he’s…uh… an old friend.”

 “Can I talk to you outside for just a minute?” Paradox asks.

Eyes still wide with shock and oncoming excitement about Paradox’s appearance, Ben nods up at the man. Still confused about what’s happening, Rex looks to Ben for guidance, trying to make sure this isn’t some weird new conman thrift. Ben assures him with a pat to his hand as he stands to his feet. “I’ll be right back.” Maybe, he thinks. 

He follows Paradox outside, and as soon as they’re out the door, asks with excitement, “Is the world in danger again?”

Delight shines in Paradox’s eye. “Haha…once a Ben, always a Ben.” He shakes his head, amused. His back is to the boy, his hands grasped behind him. “No, the fight has ended. Everything is alright.”

—-

Ben 05 wakes up in his bunk in the rustbucket. He rushes to sit up, everything around him dark and mostly quiet if not for his snoring grandpa in the front seat. It's the middle of the night, he realizes. Just as he begins to look around, he hears a door open. Gwen comes back inside from using the bathroom, and that's when this Ben realizes that she wasn't in range when he first teleported, which must be why she didn't end up with him in the other reality. 

She looks at him. “What, dweeb…?!” 

His gladness at seeing her turns quickly into annoyance, “Nothing!” he says before turning his back to her and going back under the covers. He closes his eyes. A smile appears on his face.

If he doesn't forget everything in the morning, he'll tell Azmuth all about what went down.

(He does forget.)

——

“Then…what are you here for?” He’s genuinely curious.

——

Ben 12 is back to being attacked by Kevin, and Argit is hiding behind the rustbucket, a little too close to Ben but still going unseen. 

Ben feels a little caught off guard, more than he feels is necessary for a random Kevin attack. It kind of feels like he's missing something.

Kevin notices this as he rushes to get closer to attack Ben. But whatever, Kevin thinks. It works to his advantage.

As long as Argit is safe.

—-

Ben walks past the man to get a clear look at his face. 

Paradox simply asks, “How old are you?” 

“Nineteen.” 

——

Eon points at the elixir Blarney T. Hokestar is holding in his hand, inquiring about it's efficacy as the four-armed green alien practically shoves it into his hand. 

Behind Professor Hokestar, Benzarro is promptly ignoring the interaction as he makes smoothies behind the counter.

Outside, Store 23 is nonchalantly floating through the ocean of space. 

--

 The same age as Prime and Eon at the moment, Paradox notes. “What do you remember of the time bomb incident?” 

Ben's expression turns grave. Voice low and breathy and nostalgic: “Everything.”

—

In another reality, Ben, formally known as 16, reunites with a very confused Gwen and Grandpa Max, who seem to have no idea how much time has passed for him, because seemingly no time has passed at all for them.

He does not forget.

—-

 “Good… Never forget.” 

And as Paradox looks up at the stars in the sky, Ben does too. They shine with a realism that can't be copied. What looks like a shooting star zooms across the inky blueness, and Paradox recognizes it as a speeding alien ship the Plumber's will have to look into later. “There is much to come for you, my dear boy…” The professor’s eyes glide down to the once Omnitrix-less Tennyson boy. “Are you ready?”

Not moving his gaze from the sky for even a second, Ben answers with a wide smile that gleams confidence.