A/N: This is just some weird AU fic I came up with. Pretty much, it's about what would happen if Ben never got the Omnitrix... but all the other crazy stuff still happened. Needless to say, things get deranged. I'm also trying to make things a little more realistic than the original series in terms of collateral damage and such.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own Ben 10, or any of its characters.

6/26/05

Dear Diary,

Remember everything I said about how this summer was going to reek because I was going to be stuck on this boring roadtrip with Grandpa Max? Turns out I was beyond right. Why?

Because, apparently, Ben's coming too.

I swear, that kid is not going to make it to the end of this trip if he keeps up what he's been doing. I've lost count of how many times he's managed to get on my nerves in the past three hours. (Which were, by the way, three of the worst hours of my life.) I can't stand a day around that dweeb, let alone a whole summer!

I can't believe I'm missing that beach trip with Emily for this. That's it, the second I get somewhere with cell phone reception (Grandpa decided to park us in the middle of some national park to go camping), I'm calling my mom and talking her out of this.

"Come on guys," Grandpa called, far to enthusiastic for my tastes, "let's go roast some marshmallows!"

Both Ben and I buried our faces into our private electronic screens, trying to block out our Grandpa and each other.

"Okay then… how about some campfire songs?"

No response.

"So are you two just going to mope around all day, or are we going to have some fun?"

"Moping sounds good," Ben grumbled.

"I vote moping," I added immediately after. I glanced up from my laptop, only to see that Grandpa's face had practically fallen through the floor. My stomach twitched as a load of guilt was dumped into it. Disappointing Grandpa wasn't on my to-do list, but I couldn't risk doing anything that involved interacting with dorkface.

Well, except making fun of him. That was totally worth interaction.

"What 'cha doing, Gwen?" Grandpa asked in an attempt to start conversation.

I opened a new Firefox window, and Google search popped up on the screen. "Just looking up cures for extreme doofusness," I snarked, glancing over at Ben. He looked up, confused. "Not results yet Ben, but let's not give up hope!"

He snarled at me and looked back down at his handheld game. "I'm gonna go for a walk." He dropped his game on the chair and stomped off, hands in pockets, refusing to make eye contact with either of us.

If I had known doofus was coming, I would have done a whole lot more prep. You know, thought up new insults, practiced my Jujitsu, planned pranks, that sort of thing. At least then I could have a little fun here.

Anyway, on the bright side, we're going to Washington D.C. tomorrow. I'm so excited. I've always wanted to climb the Washington Monument. Except Ben's going to be there, and he'll probably ruin everything. This stinks. Majorly. Things can't get much worse. Well, I need to do some research.

~Gwen

"Ben's been gone for a while," Grandpa remarked.

I smirked. "Maybe he wound up bearfood?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I can dream, can't I?" I asked, raising one back.

Suddenly, an annoyingly high-pitched shout shot through the camp. "GUYS!"

I turned my head in the direction of the noise. And, lo and behold, out from the forest tumbled a rather excited looking Ben.

"Hey Grandpa!" he called, ignoring me entirely as he ran up. "Check out what I found!"

Smiling proudly, his hand shot out of his pocket stretched out in front of him so we could both see. Dangling from his fingers was a deformed, dirt coated, green and black wristwatch.

"That's great, Ben," Grandpa said, a bit unsure of how he was supposed to react.

"Yeah, a watch, very exciting!" I added with words coated in sarcasm.

Ben wrapped the watch's strap around his scrawny left wrist and secured it. "Best of all, it still works!" he chirped. "At least one thing went right today." As he spoke, he glared at me out of the corner of his eye.

Having nothing more to add, I sighed and looked back at my computer. This was going to be a long summer. A long, agonizing summer.

I clicked on the search box and typed: CURES FOR EXTREME DOOFUSNESS. I felt sort of silly, but it was worth a shot. I hit enter.

We just sat there.

We didn't move. We didn't speak. We barely breathed.

The only sounds came from outside, muffled footsteps and hurried talking and panicked shouting and sirens.

The three of us sat alone, sheltered from the world by the RV's rusty walls. We sat and mulled over the past hour. Trying to acknowledge what happened.

I closed my eyes, running it through my head once again. Claws and teeth and feathers flashed in my minds eyes. Falling shelves and crumbling walls. That man, laughing throughout the whole ordeal. Just laughing.

Did… did that really just happen?

I lightly touched my nose. I felt no flesh, only bandages and sharp pain. I had tripped, fallen on my face. They couldn't take me to the hospital, all of the ambulances were occupied by those who had been severely wounded, so they had to fixed up my nose on site and send me with Grandpa. I looked over at Ben, examining the white and red wrap stretching all the way up his left arm. They had done the same for him.

This couldn't be happening. It was impossible. It wasn't the fact that we were involved in a disaster like this, but what the disaster was. It didn't make any sense.

My head pounded with pain and confusion. I needed to get this all out. Slowly I reached under the table, pulling out and started up my laptop. I couldn't see how Grandpa was responding, but the sudden noise had no effect on Ben. It didn't even seem to reach him. I opened up Microsoft Word and began to type.

6/28/05

Dear Diary,

I said that things couldn't get much worse. I was wrong.

I don't really know what happened. We were in M-Mart, looking for dinner. I had stopped in the pet section to play with some of the hamsters. I was looking at one of them in its cage, but suddenly it… changed. Turned into some sort of giant monster. Same with a bird nearby. They tried to attack me, I ran. The whole store was in a panic, it was insane.

Eventually I found Ben. He was cornered by the bird. It tried to claw him and it got his arm. He ran for it and I ran after him. We found Grandpa and made it out right before the building caved in. I broke my nose, Ben got a huge cut on his arm. Compared to a lot of people, we got off easy. The EMTs fixed all of us up, and now we're waiting for the traffic to clear so we can get the heck out of this stupid city. Looks like we won't be climbing the Washington Monument after all.