Gwen and Ben felt the ground tilt beneath their feet. It was strange, disconcerting and made bile rise up their throats. Ben made a desperate grab for the Omnitrix's inventor and watching with horror filled eyes as they began to fade from view as swirling, vaguely psychedelic colours over took his vision. The only solid thing in the cousin's view was each other so they grabbed desperately onto one another.
The various pieces of technology that Ben had been studying under the Galvan's watchful eye only a few scant moment ago, began to disintegrate under the pressures the vortex was creating. The bag that swung on Gwen's hip, did better though if she hadn't been so scared the 12 year old may have noticed the faint smell of smoke from some of the more delicate magical equipment amongst the various school books and magazines she had taken with her.
Then with a sudden pop the cousins were deposited on the ground, unceremoniously dumped. The cousins who were both on adrenaline highs were immediately on their feet no one around lost the strength of their legs and fell to the floor, Gwen even went as far as to throw the contents of her stomach up onto the earthy floor. If the cousins had been aware they might have noticed how alone they were.
Gwen having finished heaving had the prosperity to see her cousin go still and then…scream. It was a scream of agony that made her want to crawl into a small ball and drown the sound out with her pillow. But there was no pillow and the source was her annoying dweebish cousin who shared the rare and precious secret of her magic and the existence of Aliens. The cousin who had driven all across America in a lumpy, should-be-dead RV, fondly dubbed the Rust Bucket. The cousin who had suffered through their grandpa Max's vile interpretation of food. The cousin who had fought Squid alien, weird mother Kraken and messed up Clowns.
She crawled over to him, and flipped him onto his back and tried to find the source of his torture. She checked all over his body and it wasn't until she had grabbed his head did she find the source – the translator that he'd completed under Azimuth's tutoring was partially melted into his skull the wires fizzing with deadly malice. Heart in her throat Gwen did the only thing she could think of, She grabbed his wrist and twisted the dial until the upgrade icon appeared. Slamming it down she had failed to notice the damage had done to the Omnitrix itself. It was strange, the fragmented pieces split and cracked, the actual panelling to the highly dangerous device completely gone and the glowing green energy puncturing his wrists and sending the fluid directly into his blood.
Eventually the shift occurred and instead of Ben Tenyson, the Galvanic Mechamorp stood in its place, the tech imbedded in its head was immediately absorbed and altered the tech in his head after fixing the problem the Omnitrix timed out in flash of red light leaving back a now unconscious Ben. The shift had not reversed completely and Gwen after four fevered minutes Gwen realized what had happened, piecing together, Bens altered state with that of the mutated watch, which was no more glove like. Green laser colored lines spread out in a rectangular network across his body, over his chest and along his arms. Similar patterns were wrapped around his legs and feet, though majority of his face was unmarked, though he had two green scores just under his eyes. Her hand quaking in fear slightly, Gwen forced Ben's eyes open and was relieved to see the same, albeit unusual, Green eyes that she too possessed.
Gwen finally took a moment to see her surroundings and felt more fear settle in the empty pit of her stomach. Instead of the advanced but beautiful Galvan mark II laboratory. Around them stood Canadian reds, or some variant of Canadian Reds, whose trunks seemed to touch the sky, with the fading light of sun barely able to invade the trees knotted leaf canopy to the damp ground. They were in the middle of nowhere, without a single spark of human light pollution. An unearthly howl split the air and Gwen began to shake. Protection and shelter, her subconscious spat, interrupting her unresponsive state with commands. Said commands had her diving for her no longer smoking bag and pulling out a still undamaged spell book she had stolen from Charm Caster little over two years ago. With a level of concentration that beguiled her age Gwen began the well practed motions associated with the spells before her and set about creating a natural shelter in the forest clearing they were in, it wouldn't be sensible to make Ben move when she still didn't know all the implications those green markings. From the earth she called the roots of the trees to form a protecting dome around them, from the ground itself she called for the formation of a bed for the both of them. With a muted word a blazing flame formed in palm and hung in a small hole their impact had helped form. Now with shelter, warmth and protection, Gwen finally allowed her anxiety induced exhaustion to take hold and fell asleep on her mound of soft earth.
A pattern had begun to immerge by the third day. Ben would spend the morning rummaging the forest in his Wildmutt form, searching for the foods his sensitive nose deemed safe whilst Gwen spent the mornings searching through her notebook for any reference to portals. In the afternoons they would switch, Ben using his now highly advanced tech state (which needed no transformation for after upgrade had melded the advanced hardware into his mind) to search nearby data waves in an attempt to find and understand their surroundings. Gwen would go about collecting Mana and herbs her book specified as helpful. In the late evenings when the creatures of the forest seemed to wake up the cousins would fight volatile battles that seemed to give the right impression the fauna as none had come anywhere near the camp.
Gwen and Ben, who'd normally be at each other's throats (figuratively and literally) seemed to recognize the dire straits they were in a tried their best to keep one another's spirits up or just generally distract them. Ben had also recognized the need to avoid randomly storming off, in the general direction of the nearest civilization point due to the numerous amounts of data he had gathered. From he could and had discovered the world they were on was similar or parallel to earth, with portions of the earth identical to their own with a few stark differences. There was no alien or plumber activity for one, the planet had various other "supernatural" or "sci-fi" activity to replace it. There seemed to be two separate factions humans, or "Normies" who considered themselves as the original residents of earth; They were or had identical developments of their own earth on a technological level with IPhone and computers in high use. Theoretically speaking they were also equivalent though they seemed to have a much higher tolerance level for other variants of humans then a majority of earth – as to say that skin tone and sexuality or gender weren't that much of a divided topic.
The other group were the para-normal or "monsters. Numbers wise they were about a third of the human population but they had a much longer lifespan than their counter parts. They shared the same land as that of the Normies but lived in different sectors of said areas – for instance Paris had a completely different sector dubbed Scaris though still possessed all the trademark "Fashion, food and fame" that its equivalent had. They were also much more diverse in terms of appearance and used slang words that varied from Freaky Fabulous to Undead cool. However the monster community was pretty divided other than its mutual dislike of Normies. The werewolves hated the Vampires, the undead (spirit variety) hated the undead (immortal variety), salt water underwater creatures hated Fresh waters and there so many other "traditional divides".
It was terrifying to say the least, as both cousins knew they would never both be accepted by either community as Ben now looked too different and Gwen used her powers with too high a frequency (she had reached a stage in her practice where she could go days with food by feeding off the Mana and energy inherent in the forest). In the monster community they would resemble Normies too much to really be accepted and could face discrimination that neither wanted to endure. So as it stood neither of the 12 year olds wanted to venture out of the forest that they resided in and were unsure if they would ever leave