I do not own Ben 10.
CHAPTER ONE
"Bella"
"But Grandpa!"
Ben hadn't stopped complaining all morning. His whining voice said again, "Grandpa, do we HAVE to go?" Ben knew this was coming ever since Gwen, his red-head cousin, had mentioned it. They were going to the state park since it was Fall and Gwen had been wanting to go.
"Yes," Grandpa looked over his shoulder from cooking breakfast at the ten-year-old. "We HAVE to go."
Ben groaned and tangled his fingers in his mess of brown hair, rolling his green eyes to look at the ceiling in despair.
"Oh, Ben," Gwen said with a sly smile. "It won't be that bad. Besides, it's so pretty in the Fall!"
"I don't care!" Ben whined again. "I wanted to go to this year's video game festival! There's going to be hundreds -- no, THOUSANDS -- of video games on display AND for sale! Grandpa! Do we HAVE to go?!"
"YES!" Both Grandpa and Gwen shouted at the same time. Ben crossed his arms and muttered, "I don't see why we have to miss the festival for some dumb old scenery."
"Whining's not going to make anything better," said Gwen.
"You shut up."
"All right, you two, I think I've heard enough of your fighting." Grandpa turned around, cooking pan in hand. "Ben, you need to accept the fact that you'll have to just go to this festival next year, and Gwen, you need to stop teasing Ben."
The two cousins merely stuck their tongues out at each other in reply, as if they weren't listening.
"I'm going back to bed," Ben announced. "Tell me when breakfast's done."
With that, he stomped over to where his bed was folded into the wall, pulled it out, and flopped over it, pulling the covers over his eyes.
Darkness. There was nothing but complete and utter darkness. Was this a dream?
He was… floating. Floating where? No, wait, there wasn't complete darkness; there was a neon green light up ahead, growing closer, getting brighter. He recognized this light – it was the light of the Omnitrix.
But… what was it doing here?
Silhouettes, shapes, forms of aliens began to take shape before his eyes. He recognized them, too: there was Four Arms, Stinkfly, Grey Matter, Diamondhead, Ripjaw, Heatblast, and many others he could name. Last, there were two more silhouettes he knew: the shapes of Ditto and XLR8. Ditto seemed to be reaching out while XLR8 ran towards a shape he couldn't seem to place. It wasn't one of his aliens… so who was it?
The vision began to go fuzzy as a voice was heard calling his name.
"Ben!" the voice repeated for the millionth time.
Gwen stood hunched over her cousin, who was still asleep. He had been moving around a lot, now sprawled across the bed in every direction. That worried Gwen a bit. Ben only moved around when he was having a bad – or weird – dream.
"BEN!" she yelled as loud as she could.
"What?!" Ben shot up bolt straight in bed, looking around wildly with half-open eyes. "We're here," Gwen told him.
"Wha – aw man!" For a moment, Ben had forgotten all about the park. "Grandpa, do I HA -- "
"Yes," Grandpa said, already knowing what Ben was going to say. Ben rolled his eyes and got up, sparing an angry glance at his cousin before heading to the bathroom to comb his tangled mess of brown hair.
In the bathroom, Ben stared blankly down at the Omnitrix, the alien watch forever attached to his wrist. It sat there quietly, not making any lights or noise. Ben sighed. What could that dream have meant? Slowly, he raised his eyes and groaned. His hair was a mess and there were dark circles under his eyes. Rolling his eyes again, he grabbed the comb and quickly brushed through his hair. Once it wasn't quite the mess it had been, but still pretty much a mess, Ben was satisfied and walked back out.
"Okay," Gwen said, dressed and ready to go to the park. "Let's go!"
"I still say we should've gone to the video game festival."
"BEN!"
The state park was, indeed, a beautiful sight to see; the leaves were drifting lightly from the trees, and all the paths were covered with them. The scene was splashed with color, and even the sun seemed to be smiling. There were huge lakes with leaves lazily floating atop the water. There were small canyon-like places with waterfalls and the rivers seemed to go on forever.
Yes, it was indeed beautiful, if you had come here to enjoy it.
Ben muttered inaudible things under his breath, walking behind Grandpa and Gwen so they wouldn't see him. He didn't look at the scenery, but instead, ignored it.
"Stupid scenery," he said under his breath. His feet were tired from walking, as there was nothing like golf carts to carry people around in. Everywhere you went, you had to walk.
Then, something caught his eye. Turning, Ben's eyes widened as they fell upon an old fort made of logs. It had windows where fake guns pointed out of and an old log door.
"Grandpa!" Ben said.
"What is it now, Ben?" Grandpa said jokingly, turning and spotting the fort.
"Could we go to that?" Ben begged. "Please!"
"All right," Grandpa smiled. "You go, but remember, Gwen and I are still going to be looking at scenery."
"Cool!" Ben said, already running for the fort. He ran up the steps towards it, since the fort was perched on the side of one of the cliffs. The cliff side was steep, but Ben paid no mind to it as he dashed for the open door in the log cabin.
Inside the log fort, there were two floors; the bottom one seemed to be empty, but the top had rafters and the fake guns pointing out the window.
"Oh yeah!" Ben grinned as he ran up the creaking steps and to one of the guns. He spotted Gwen and Grandpa walking away from the fort, obviously checking out the scenery. With an evil look on his face, Ben pretended to be shooting at the "enemy" – in this case, Gwen.
It was then that he noticed the figure out of the corner of his eye.
Turning, Ben found a girl staring across the room at him, sitting out in the middle of one of the rafters. She raised an eyebrow, obviously disgusted at his childish behavior. She had long brown hair and blue eyes, wearing the latest fall fashion. Ben already didn't like her, and turned away to keep pretend-shooting at his cousin. However, in a matter of minutes, he was back to looking at her.
"Why are you staring at me?" He asked, crossing his arms and looking tough.
The girl lifted her other eyebrow. "Why are you acting like a two-year-old?" she retorted, a sly smile that vaguely reminded him of Gwen's on her face.
"I am not!" Ben snapped. He definitely didn't like this girl.
"Seems like it to me," said the girl. She looked around the fort before letting her eyes land back on him. She suddenly opened her mouth and said something Ben wouldn't have suspected, "I'm Bella. Who're you?"
Ben seemed a bit shocked at this. Since when did people just tell you their names in the middle of an argument?
"Um," Ben stuttered. "I'm… Ben. What's it to you?" He regained his "tough look".
Bella, instead of answering him, presented him with another odd question: "How old are you, Ben?"
"Ten."
"Same here."
Ben took a moment to glance out the window. He couldn't spot Gwen or Grandpa anymore, but merely assumed they were still looking at scenery.
When he turned back to Bella, he found her leaning dangerously far on the rafter, which was high above the ground of the first floor.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the alien watch stuck to Ben's wrist.
"Nothing!" Ben suddenly said, angry. Who was she to pry into his business?
"Fine, fine!" Bella pouted. "Don't tell me what it – AHH!"
Bella let out a horror-movie-like scream as she suddenly lost her balance, and began plummeting to the floor.
Ben's eyes widened, and as if it were a natural instinct, quickly turned the Omnitrix to XLR8, and without thinking, slammed down on the raised symbol.
It was all a blur; Ben, in XLR8's form, running down the stairs at full speed, and him catching the falling Bella before she hit the floor.
Ben looked down at Bella, who was gaping up at him. When he realized what had happened, he had the sudden urge to drop Bella. He didn't, however. Instead, he set her down on her feet, and pressed the symbol on his chest, returning to his usual form.
"Oh my God!" Bella shouted. Ben cringed at the high-pitched sound.
"Calm down, will you?" He said, although it was softer than before. "That's what that thing is."
"Holy – !" Bella suddenly seemed to have a thought before lunging at him.
"Woah!" Ben yelled as she tackled him.
"What ARE you?!" Bella began clawing at him with her sharp fingernails. "What IS that THING?!"
Then, something Ben would have never expected happened – Bella grabbed the Omnitrix and began turning it and pressing buttons.
"Hey!" Ben shouted. "Let go! Don't touch that!" Before Ben could wrench her away from the watch, it uttered a loud, groaning noise, one that made both of them stop; the Omnitrix suddenly shot a beam of bright, neon green light at Bella, blasting her off of Ben.
"AHH!" she screeched again. "You jerk!"
When the surprise and shock ebbed away, Ben realized that Bella wasn't hurt, but instead, just upset. She was sitting where she had fallen, and was obviously not in any pain.
Then he found it.
The Omnitrix.
On Bella's wrist.
To be continued.