They had just watched Vilgax ship blown apart, presumably with him in it. Although Ben knew not to make any assumptions where that squid was concerned.
Now they were back on the road. Max had the Omnitrix, and he seamed to like it.
Gwen could see that Ben was upset. He was trying to hide it but she could always see through him. In the bowling ally he seamed so empty. It wasn't just sour grapes about the game. She'd seen that before but this went much deeper. She turned to him. "Ben, are you okay?"
He looked at her. There was no point denying it. He sighed, "Its just that, well with the omnitrix I..." he paused for a moment. Did he really want to bare his feelings. He looked between the two people there and made his choice."...I finally amounted to something. At first it was just cool to be the hero, to get the cheers...I do, or did, still like that, but it's more than that. I could help people. I made a difference to them."
Gwen was touched, Ben may be a doofus but she thought that deeper, there was more to him. It hit her then that his doofus behavior was just to hide the fact that he'd felt like he was nothing and didn't know how to change that.
"Ben, you did make a difference. You didn't leave me on that ship with Vilgax. By the way, I'm sorry I didn't believe you."
Ben smiled weekly, "It's okay, I guess it must have sounded pretty crazy."
"Yeah, a little I guess." She found it hard to believe that she was saying that to him, but somehow he was different; it must be what ever had happened to him In the weeks that he said he'd lived before.
Max spoke up. "Gwen's right, Ben being a hero isn't about having some kind of special power. It's about stepping in to help in what ever way you can. And it takes more bravery to do it without power. Remember what I said on the ship?'
Ben's smile broadened some. "Yeah, I do."
"Ben you while Gwen was fighting the drones you got people out of the way Gwen wouldn't have been able to fight that battle without innocent people getting hurt." Max paused, "By the way, what happened when you fought that battle?"
"Pretty much the same thing...and you guys got the people out of the way."
"So you see Ben, as long as we work together we are all making a difference, and we're all heroes."
Ben was feeling a little better about things. He realized that he was valued, most of all by the two people he was with now.
Max had one more thing to say. "Ben the next thing I need you're help with is learning about how to use these aliens, I probably know most of them but I've never been one of them."
"No problem Grandpa."
"Great, we'll start tomorrow.
The next day was set aside for some practice.
"Okay Ben show me some more about how this works."
Ben walked over to Max and took his wrist. He then moved the dial on the Omnitrix. "You use this to choose the alien you want. Sometimes though I didn't get the one I was trying for. Could be a flaw in the watch but I think it's an advanced AI that decided I needed something different. Then when the face pops up you push it down and In a second you're an alien."
Max looked at the device. "Alright, just so I'm ready, what does it feel like."
"Like a bolt of lightning shooting through you but it's not hurting you; and what I didn't know until Gwen got the watch, there's a flash of green light. It's not the most subtle weapon. Also you get only a few minutes before it times out."
"That's inconvenient, I guess you really need to learn how to use your alien effectively."
Ben smirked. "Yeah, I think there may be a way to change that but I haven't found it. But it did force me to learn like you said. So..." Ben chose one of the aliens. "let's start with.."Ben slammed down and called out "FOURARMS"
In a flash Max was a huge red alien. "Wow" Ben said. "That's a lot bigger than my version."
"Might be because of my age. Ben do I need to call out the name?"
Ben rubbed the back of his head, "Uh, no, not really. I just get carried away sometimes."
That got a snicker from Gwen but she admitted, "I know what you mean. I did to."
Max worked with all ten of the aliens. He found strengths and weaknesses that Ben hadn't discovered, at least not as quickly as Max had. After spending the first half of the day with Max's training they broke for lunch, a normal lunch the kids were happy to see. When they finished Max turned to them. "Okay, you two, now it's your turn." Ben and Gwen gave each other puzzled looks, Max answered the unspoken question. "I'm going to need your help. "You guys are going to get some plumber training."
They were both pretty excited about that, especially Ben but his enthusiasm was starting to effect her.
They got weapons training, small hand held weapons and larger ones like the one Ben had used to blast Vilgax the day before.
"You guys are naturals. I'm proud of you. tomorrow I'll take you to a place where we can do some hand to hand training."
Ben looked at the date on his watch, one that just gave you time and date, well that and a calculator, and said. "Uh, Grandpa how about a trip to Washington first."
"Ben," Gwen asked, "Since when did you get interested in history?"
"Since a few weeks ago...The first time I did this. I think we have things to do there."
After a questioning look from Max and Gwen, Ben added. "We need to meet a guy named Animo."
Gwen couldn't help but notice that Ben looked kind of ashamed when he said that.