Ben, Gwen, and Kevin were sitting in the parking lot at Mr. Smoothie's. The day had been surprisingly uneventful, and the teenage heroes were bored. Normally, they would've given anything to have a day off, but now, they saw it wasn't worth it.
"So," said Ben suddenly. He had drunk the last of his coconut, wheatgrass, and sausage smoothie, which had been his sixth refill. Gwen and Kevin were regarding him in surprise, wondering how in the world he could drink that many smoothies and not get sick. "What are we gonna do today? You know, since there are no aliens around, and the press has decided to take a day off."
It was true. It was nearly afternoon and they hadn't seen a single reporter.
"I know," Gwen agreed, sipping her own strawberry smoothie, "I was supposed to do a project for school, but since we're usually fighting monsters all weekend, I did it on Thursday."
"And when you say fighting monsters," said Kevin, putting down his can of soda, having said no to the 'gross mess of stuff that only the dumbest, most disgusting man alive could force down' again, and looking up to narrow his obsidian eyes at his girlfriend, "you mean extra-dimensional creatures that get in your way when you're off flirting with the Forever Knights' squire."
Gwen glared at him.
"Hey, I'm not the one who said he was cute," she reminded him.
Ben laughed as Kevin glared at his girlfriend and Gwen smirked.
"Touché," he said, narrowing his eyes and giving her a small smile that clearly said We're not done here. If it had been anyone else, he would've punched them in the face already, but not Gwen. Never Gwen. That was his one and only law. Of course, considering his best friend was her cousin, he might've made a similar rule concerning the brunette teen sitting across from him, but no. A whole day, let alone a lifetime, without torturing, humiliating and fighting Ben Tennyson? They might as well lock him back up. The teen shuddered at the mental image.
The red head gave him a confident and devilish smile back. One that read just as clearly Bring it on.
At that moment a large, yellow beam of light trapped them. It came down vertically, and literally from out of nowhere. They were transported through time and space, and landed in a heap on a cold, metal floor, the table and benches they had been sitting at just moments ago vanishing.
"Oof!" cried Gwen as she fell on top of Kevin who, thankfully, broke her fall. He wrapped his arm around her instinctively, pulling her closer. Her hands were caught between them. This was actually a position the two found themselves in routinely, whether it was in Gwen's bedroom when she had a nightmare and Kevin stayed over, or when he pushed her out of the way of an energy beam or something like that in the midst of a fight. The only difference was that he was usually the one on top. Ben landed beside them on his back.
"Ugh," he groaned as he got up, "Would it kill them to carpet the place?"
Kevin let go of Gwen and she got off him. A second later he was up beside her.
"Where are we anyway?" she asked, looking around. They were in some kind of lab where everything was huge and made of metal. They looked around, trying to find someone, or something, that could explain where they were, and why they were there.
A few feet away, unknown to them, two 10-year-old boys were crouched under a table, huddled close together, whispering.
"I told you not to mess with that," said one of them, pointing awkwardly at a remote in the other one's hand. There was very little space under the table. The boy had shoulder-length black hair which was tied back into a ponytail, dark, piercing blue eyes which, at the moment were narrowed at the kid across from him, pale skin, a grey hoodie on, and black jeans.
"Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know what would happen!" the other boy shot back. He had short brown hair, green eyes, slightly darker skin, a white T-shirt with a black stripe running down the middle on, and baggy, green pants.
"That's why I told you not to mess with it, Kenny!" the first one snapped.
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now, Dev," Kenny answered, knowing his friend was right, "And besides, they don't look that dangerous."
"Yeah," Devlin answered sarcastically, "Neither do I."
Kenny stayed silent as he watched the three new-comers. Again, Devlin had a point. The boy could turn into the hideous mutated form his father could when he had absorbed the Omnitrix several years ago. It was hard for him, but, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, if there was one thing his father had taught him, it was how to take care of your enemies, with your powers or without. You never knew what kind of stuff Ben's grandpa had invented.
Suddenly, the remote slipped from Kenny's fingertips and fell on the floor with a light, but clearly audible thud!
The three teens immediately turned to the general direction the sound had come from.
"What was that?" asked Ben, frowning as he and the other two made their way over to the table.
"It sounded like a remote or something dropping," Gwen answered.
By now they had reached the table. They all froze when they saw the two boys hiding under it. As usual, Kevin was the first to react.
He grabbed the edge of the table and pushed it back so that it fell over and the two kids were in full light.
"Oh no," said Kenny, as the three teens frowned down at them.
A/N: Okay, I know most of you are waiting for me to update my other stories, but I just couldn't resist! I've had this in my head ever since I saw the episode Ben 10,000 returns. Hope you liked it!