Metropolis
July 5th, 20:03 EDT
A blur of red, blue, and yellow arrived less than 30 seconds after I called for his name. Superman stood- no floated in front of me in all of his glory. His sheer presence was both intimidating and awe-inspiring.
"Did you need something?" Superman questioned. His voice snapped me out of the sheer amount of fanboying I was doing mentally. Realizing I was still transformed into Echo-Echo I slammed down on the Omnitrix symbol to release the transformation. In a flash of yellow I was back to my normal human self.
"Uh-h Yeah? Sorry you're just so co- uh. Sorry I'm just kinda freaking out right now." I took in a deep breath. I saw a small amount of shock leaking from Superman's face seeing my transformation. You're freaking him out! Chillax a bit! "I kinda woke up? Got teleported or something. Either way I was in bed one moment, then the next I was in the restroom of a Big Belly Burger in Gotham. I couldn't remember my name, and now that I'm thinking about it a lot of details about my life either. After that this watch-" I gestured to it "The Omnitrix is now stuck on my wrist, and I then used it to run over here, and then get your attention. Uhh… sorry for rambling Superman sir."
Superman stood silent for a few moments, as if contemplating what he was about to say next.
"You say you can't remember what happened, or your name?" he asked me.
"No, not really. One moment I'm in bed, the next I'm in a gross bathroom, and along with that went a lot of my memories." I gave him an honest answer.
"And that," he pointed at my wrist. "the Omnitrix you called it? That allowed you to transform into that creature?"
"Echo-Echo, an alien" I corrected absentmindedly. And I just fucked up. What am I supposed to say? "I'm from a different universe, one where both the Omnitrix, and you are fictional no less. Oh! I also know a hefty amount about most of the heroes in this universe including but not limited to, all of your secret identities." If they were in the main comic continuity maybe, but as far as I can remember they haven't dealt with anything close to alternate realities.
"And how would you know that?" Superman gave a suspicious look in my direction.
Come on, you idiot. You've lied your way through worse than this! I mean I haven't but it's nice to pretend. "I don't know?" I questioned myself. "It kinda came along with the memory loss. Lost something, I gained something I guess. The Omnitrix lets me transform into different aliens from what I can tell. 10 of them right now, each one of them with different abilities. Echo-Echo a Sonorosian has some form of audiokinesis, and can copy himself I think"
"I see," Superman let out a chuckle."This is quite the pickle you've gotten yourself in. Don't worry I - and the League too I'm sure- will be here to help you out."
"Really?" I was filled with a mix of gratefulness, and excitement. "Thank you! But uhm, I'm kinda homeless right now."
"Yes, I assumed so," he answered kindly. "just give me a moment to discuss the situation with a few friends of mine."
A few minutes later after Superman finished speaking to whoever he was speaking to, he told me where I was going to be staying temporarily until they figured something out more permanent, or who I was entirely. Which probably wasn't going to happen, but I decided to keep that to myself.
"The League and I have found a place for you to stay temporarily. The S.T.A.R Labs research center in Central City is designed for newly awakened metahumans to research their powers. While not exactly your situation, they are equipped to properly handle your case." Superman informed me. "They won't do anything that'll make you uncomfortable, I can assure you of that."
"Alrighty, that sounds good." I assured him. "It'd be cool to test out more of what I could do! How am I going to get there though?"
"Well I could always fly you myself… However, you said you were able to use the watch to get here from Gotham?" He questioned me.
"Oh, I totally forgot!" I dialed XLR8 and slammed down on the Omnitrix. "XLR8!" I cried out as the yellow flash died down. Did I just call out XLR8 in front of Superman?! If I were still in my human form, I could guarantee I'd be flushed in embarrassment. "I think I could make it to Central City in this form. I'm not sure where it is though."
"That's fine," he assured me. "in fact, I'll lead you there, follow me!" He shouted as he flew off before stopping.
I just prayed I could get off the building. I faltered a bit as I ran down the side of the building, but I guess handling the speed gets easier the more I use it, because it was a mostly smooth ride down. I could still see Superman floating in the distance as he waited.
I followed him, and the running soon became fun as I tracked him across the states. Again I could oddly perceive everything as a blur, yet moving slowly. I guess it was a kineceleran's brain's way of keeping the species sane during long periods of travel.
In fact, everything was going perfectly fine until I heard an ominous beep as I was passing the Illinois state border. I saw a red flash, and tumbled onto the dirt of where I was running. The Omnitrix had timed out an hour into my run.
"Are you alright?" Superman asked.
"Yeah," I said as I brushed off a little dirt."I'm fine."
During the last stretch of distance between Metropolis and Central City, I had to be carried by Superman, and my face burned in embarrassment.
S.T.A.R Labs, Central City
July 6th, 8:00 CDT
The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed. The previous night I was dropped off by Superman at the S.T.A.R Labs research center in Central City. In less than an hour I found myself drifting off to sleep in an empty room they kept for newly found metahumans.
I checked my phone immediately after I woke up for clues about my name, or maybe something about the memories I seemed to have forgotten, but any information that could've given me a clue to who I was, was completely gone. Besides certain knowledge about DC and Ben 10, and my feelings about them I remembered some vague facts, like I was from Texas, I had a loving family, and I was good in school, but the specifics were blank. I ignored the pang of sadness that accompanied realizing this as best as I could, and moved on.
I then found myself in the bathroom facilities of S.T.A.R Labs, and I was provided a set of bathroom supplies, and an extra set of clothes they had lying around the facility. I stared at myself in the mirror for a while after I rinsed my mouth with water. For the first time since the craziness of last night did I finally have a chance to look at myself.
I stood at 6'0 and 220 pounds, as a baby faced 16 year old guy. I was wearing a black t-shirt, and a pair of blue jeans that were provided, and the red, blue, and yellow watch that had since attached itself to me last night. My brown eyes matched to my brown flowing hair, which rested on my shoulders since I've been growing it out for over a year. Underneath the dark circles which placed themselves below my eyes, you could clearly see my hispanic heritage. After giving myself a once over, I couldn't deny it. I looked like shit.
I need to start exercising or something. The Omnitrix may give me the peak specimen of the aliens it has, but sadly for my flabby body, I'll have to do the work. I headed towards the main testing lab where they told me to meet the researchers today, and greeted them.
"Hi!" I waved to the two of them as I entered the room. It was divided into two sections. One smaller section behind a thick glass window, where there seemed to be a bunch of monitors and computers displaying things I could barely comprehend, and the other much larger side which seemed to be a mix of an infirmary and a laboratory. "I think I'm supposed to be here for some testing?"
The male researcher approached with his right hand held out. I went in to give him a handshake, however he ignored it in favor of gently twisting my wrist, and observing the Omnitrix. "So you're the guy with the watch! Dude that's so cool! How did it feel like when you transformed? Wait how would you even get that much energy to-" His hands were smacked away from the Omnitrix by the female researcher.
"Sorry about him, he just gets a little excited. I'm Dr. Caitlin Snow, and this is my partner Dr. Cisco Ramon. But please, call me Caitlin." she apologized to me.
"It's fine," I assured her. "I'd be excited out too if I was him, hell I am excited. So, what's on the agenda?"
"First we need to get some energy readings off the device," she answered. "and after that? We'll take a few blood samples to see what it's doing to your DNA."
A few minutes later I was standing in the middle of the lab. Caitlin stared at a monitor intensely on the other side of the glass, and Cisco readied a scanner that looked a little more Si-Fi than I was used to.
"Alright," Cisco called out, pointing the scanner directly at me. "do your thing Alien Dude!"
I pulled my wrist adjacent to me and tapped on the Omnitrix. The yellow hologram popped up once again, and showed me an alien with four arms. "My name's not Alien Dude." I directed at him. I slammed my palm against the top of the Omnitrix. "It's Four-" The flash of yellow died down, and I stared at my crystalline body. "-head?" I felt an imaginary heat rise up in my cheeks? Crystals?
"Dude your name's Forehead?" Cisco started to laugh uncontrollably. I could even hear a giggle in the background from Caitlin.
"No I-," I grumbled before I got cut off.
"- Forehead, that's perfect." Cisco said as he tried catching his breath.
"-haven't gotten my name figured out yet." I finished. "However, I do have names for the aliens I transform into. This is Diamondhead." I gestured broadly to myself. "I meant to turn into another guy I call Four Arms."
Cisco was about to say something before Caitlin interrupted.
"Cisco!" She called. "Come and check the reading I got out!"
Cisco hurried over to Caitlin, and huddled over the monitor. His face made a few distinct changes before settling on a grin.
"Dude!" He rushed over to me. "What is in that thing? It's got some mad energy output! We're talking about like the amount of energy the Sun outputs in a year big."
I understood his curiosity. As far as I could remember, what powered the Omnitrix was never revealed, although I knew it could charge up enough juice to destroy the universe.
I let out a chuckle before responding. "Don't know, it kinda just attached itself to my arm out of nowhere. Along with it went a lot of my memories." I seriously needed to figure out where my memories went. Besides the vague details I could recall, and the few recollections I had about the Young Justice show, and Ben 10 I had nothing to work with. "Don't think you could help me with that could you?
"Nah dude," He said in a sympathetic manner. "I'm more of a tech and toy kinda guy. Could probably help you come up with a name, but Cait's the one you're gonna want to ask for help with your memories." He pointed to her. "She's the biologist not me."
Caitlin walked up to us in the main portion of the lab. "I'm going to have to give you an MRI to check for any abnormalities within your brain. But aside from that, there's nothing much I, or you can do except wait. The memory is a fickle thing."
I frowned a little at that statement. There's gotta be something I can do.
Caitlin noticed my crystalline frown. "Hey," She commented. "lighten up a bit! The watch hasn't appeared to be harming you, so at least you might've gotten free superpowers out of the deal." She said with a soft smile. "Now I don't believe that alien has any blood. So I'm going to have to ask you to detransform."
I complied, and with a yellow flash returned to my human body. I took a seat, and proceeded with the blood tests. The needles pierced my skin, and I saw the blood going directly into the vial. It freaked me out a bit, I hated the sight of blood, but I tried my best not to squirm.
I waited in silence for the next few minutes. Cisco was fiddling around with who knows what, and Caitlin was waiting for the results of the blood test. I wasn't particularly worried, the Omnitrix should've been completely safe. The worst thing she'd probably find is a case of high cholesterol.
As soon as the results were in, Caitlin came back. "Well, I don't see anything particularly worrying in here besides a case of high cholesterol, but that's nothing a little diet and exercise can't fix." Called it. "Aside from that your DNA isn't damaged or out of place, so I can reasonably conclude that it's safe to use the watch."
The moment Caitlin stopped speaking Cisco appeared right beside her with something that I could reasonably guess was a ray gun.
"Alright!" Cisco exclaimed! "Now let's get the fun part started, and see what your alien guys can do!" I saw an almost sinister amount of glee in his eyes, and it caused a bead of sweat to drip down my forehead. But I wanted to know what I could do almost as much as he did, so I relented, and nodded yes.
"Cisco!' Caitlin reprimanded. "Don't you dare hurt the kid!"
Cisco only scoffed. "I won't! That Diamond dude looks pretty sturdy to me."
I moved to the center of the lab, and gently this time, tapped on the Omnitrix to transform. A yellow light flashed and Diamondhead appeared. Caitlin went behind the thick glass in the other part of the room. It worried me that that was her automatic reaction, but I didn't have time to think about it before Cisco yelled.
"Testing durability in 3!" I stiffened. "2!" I shut my eyes. "1!" I reopened my eyes out of curiosity. A thin beam of pure red energy hit me dead center in the chest, causing me to fly back and crash into the wall. Christ that hurt! I thought to myself. Surprisingly it didn't hurt as much as that time I crashed into the wall as XLR8, and I could only guess that was because Diamondhead was more bulky.
I fell back down to the floor, and coughed out. "Warn… me… next… time." I stayed there groaning for a few moments before picking myself up and giving a death glare to Cisco.
"I swear to god Cisco!" I heard Caitlin yell behind the glass.
Cisco ignored it and spoke to me.
"I knew you could handle it!" Cisco smiled.
"And if I couldn't?" I questioned in a shocked manner.
"Well then I'd be facing another lawsuit." He quietly muttered. "But think about it like this! You just took 3,000 joules of energy in the area of about a bullet! This Diamondhead dude is mad durable."
"I think you're mad." I muttered.
Cisco either didn't hear me, or just outright ignored the comment.
"Alright what should we test next? We were told you got like 9 more of these guys right? Including a fast one and a loud one!" He nearly shouted. "Wait! We should see how fast you can go. No! First let's see how loud you scream!" He kept spitting out idea after idea while grinning like a madman. I'm starting to think he's a mad scientist.
That was how the rest of the day went. Him spitting out ideas of what to test, and me transforming to be a guinea pig. I went through each of my aliens, and was tested multiple times each depending on the alien. How hard I could punch, how fast I could run, how loud I could scream, and duplicate, among other things.
By the end of the day I was so sore and exhausted that I nearly crapped myself when I saw the Bat standing inside of the room I was staying in.