Chapter Text
“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.