*Beep…Beep….Beep….*
Eyes flickered open as the sounds of an alarm clock entered into the mind of a brown haired teen as he clumsily reached over to turn off the incessant machine. He pressed the button and sat up in his bed rubbing his eyes as he tried to rub away the sleep. He let out a huge yawn and stretched out his body before hopping out of bed and taking off his sleepwear. He turned his head and looked in the full-length mirror in the corner of his room. He was a lean teen, brown hair, emerald eyes. His body was devoid of any body fat leaving a layer of lean muscle on his body. His eyes flickered across the large scar that was found just above the boy's heart. Which he received during his last encounter against his mortal nemesis and the one who nearly murdered him multiple times, Vilgax
Grunting slightly , the bearer of omnitrix looked up at the sky. "Five months" He thought as he remembered past events. The events which led to him being expelled from Mcduffie middle school and getting enrolled to a boarding school of sorts called Yancy academy, which was located in New York.
It had been almost Five months since he defended the planet from the invading Highbreed armies, and healed the genetic damage caused by their inbreeding by fusing them with random alien DNA from the Omnitrix, greatly improving their immunity from various diseases and curing their sterility by rewriting their DNA. And saved his planet from being annexed under Vilgax's rule by the Galactic code of conduct through a battle of life of death
But, saving the world from the invasion of a xenophobic alien race and the Intergalactic alien war lord who just wouldn't stop obsessing over his watch, constantly dealing with the likes Zombozo and his bunch of cronies, the power hungry psychopath Darkstar, meant his studies had to take a backseat for a while. And just as he thought now he could go back to his normal regular life again, he got into a nasty fight with Cash and JT who wanted revenge the school premises. Usually Ben wasn't the one to pick fight with the likes of them. But he was clearly affected by his grandfather's sudden and unfortunate demise. Ben's fingers angrily clenched into fists every time the memory of that day flashed through his mind. It hadn't been some alien or megalomaniac, or catastrophe, or one of the many deadly enemies he'd acquired since becoming joining the Intergalactic law enforcement organization only referred by their code name "Plumbers" . No, life had a much more cruel sense of irony than that. It had been a damn drunk behind the wheel of a pickup truck.
Run down in a car crash by some dumbass drunk who - surprise surprise - had miraculously walked away from the wreck without so much as a scratch.
He remembered just standing there, struck dumb in shock as Kevin held his sobbing cousin trying to comfort her while enforcing every ounce of will power not to go alien and hunt down the drunk bastard like the wretched dog he was. And it had been sorely SORELY tempting, but in spite of how angry he had been Ben knew that Maxwell Tennyson wouldn't have wanted him to use the Omnitrix for revenge.
So once Cash taunted him about being so helpless to save his beloved grandfather despite having all these powerful abilities, he finally lost it and utterly demolished them alongside all the thugs they brought with them. Immediately afterwards, he was called to the office of Principal White who expelled him on the spot. It was a tough decision to make as Mister White , who knew about what he was going through, being a fellow plumber himself but seeing the condition Cash and JT were in once the brawl ended, he didn't have much choice in that regards.
Thankfully, Plumbers did arrange for him to attend a boarding school in New York , the only catch being he had to start learning Latin from the middle school level according to the academy's rules. And he clearly wasn't enthusiastic at the prospect of dealing with a new subject. Suffering from ADHD and Dyslexia made it harder for him to study , with words just jumbling around every time he tried to read something. It was only thanks to his father's encouragement and some much needed tutoring from his cousin, he usually managed to get fairly moderate grades for the most part.
Yancy academy was your typical private boarding school for rebellious kids from rich well off families. Though that wasn't the case for all the students. It was also well constructed with lush pine trees surrounding the whole premises. It also had a very nice looking building compared to the Mcduffie High School but that was quite understandable given how Bellwood was relatively just a small town compared a place like New York. Jocks ruled it, teachers taught it. It was that simple to understand. Talk about sucking it big time. Oh well, at least it was a decent school and thanks to plumbers having a pull with several of the board members , he was not only given a single room with a kitchen and a full bathroom for his use but he was also allowed to visit his home every weekend, which was kind of a plus.
Besides from the looks of things, room, board , and tuition would all be covered by the school, which seemed like a good thing for his parents at least.
It seemed things were finally starting to look up for him and last thing he wanted was to dishonor Maxwell Tennyson's memories by wallowing in Grief and Misery forever. Like Granny Verdona told him at Max's funeral, he always wanted his children to live their life to the fullest.
The young hero stretched out his arms with a yawn as he made his way to the bathroom to get cleaned up for the day, ready to start his day with a grin, today was going to be a good day , he could feel it.
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Today was going to suck, he just knew it.
He was a lot of things. An excellent athlete. An avid collector of video games. A complete papa's boy . As he never really got to know his birth mother. But one thing he would never claim to be was an intellectual. He was an adventurer, a superhero, kicking ass was his calling card. So when he learned that he had to attend a field trip to museum with the middle schoolers rather than busting the Incursean ops with the rest of his team.
He usually got along with Sandra pretty well. Despite appearing to be a drill sergeant at times, she was really caring and friendly. And Ben always felt sorry for the fact that she was unable to have a child of her on her own. There was an accident at the chemical factory she used to work. No one knew what exactly happened back then, and things just happened so fast she didn't have time to fully process what was going on but she had lost her fertility ever since then. They had tried everything known in modern medicine , but nothing worked so far. Ben suggested going to Galvans for help since they owed him their lives for stopping Highbreeds carnage, however he decided not to pursue this matter any further as his parents seemed pretty content with him being their sole child.
"Come on, it can't be that bad." a voice called beside him. The brown haired youth turned to see a boy with dark hair and sea green eyes, who also happened to be a few years younger than him walking towards him.
"You have no idea kid!" Ben shook his head with a sigh, "I just wish Mr Brunner would cut me some slack. It's not end of the world if I don't attend some extended history lesson.
"I know..." Percy said , "But at least are much better all this stuff! It's all greek to me. Oh man, mom is going to be so disappointed if I fail again."
Ben's lips twitched upwards at the pun of the class. He knew the kid too had dyslexia and ADHD, just like him, Grampa Max and his cousin Gwen . Ben wished he could help teach a thing or two, Unfortunately he had his own studies, his other life's duties alongside a very passionate and demanding soccer coach, Mr Jacobs , who also happened to be his former instructor from the Plumber's academy (Part of the reason he was extra hard on him) to deal with.
"at least it's better than sitting in the classroom." another person seated behind both of them. That happened to be none other than Grover Underwood. Another middle schooler Ben befriended while attending Mr Brunner's Latin classes. Though Ben had his own suspicions that the young boy was most likely around his own age. Cause for being a twelve year old he had a lot of facial hair and even a couple of acnes. And he walked with a pair of crutches due to his disability. It didn't stop the young boy to run on enchilada day though, to everyone's surprise.
Despite knowing his tendency to get involved with unusual all the time, he couldn't help but think his two new friends were just a bit stranger than what was warranted.
Ben wasn't usually sensitive to such things like his cousin used to be. But after an unfortunate trip to Ledgerdomain where the psychopath Charmcaster decided to sacrifice their lives, alongside all the living beings in the magical realm in order to revive her dead father, where he was forced to disassemble her massive soul sucking machine using his new transformation, his fulmini alter ego, whom he liked to call, Shock Rock , he started to develop a "sense" for these things. Leading him to start practising a little bit of magic on his own, something which also helped with keeping himself busy while he was still reeling from his grand father's death.
Percy appeared to have a rather strange, yet remarkably powerful aura around him, rivaling that of his own cousin, smelling like fresh ocean breeze all the time. Even when he was covered in wet paint.
Grover on the other hand was a bit harder to place, but the aura around him felt much closer to nature , at the same time far weaker compared to Percy.
Ben wished the strange thing would end at those...two, unfortunately that didn't turn out to be the case. Two of his teacher also made him weird out a bit. Mr Brunner was a middle aged man in a wheelchair. The aura he radiated seemed like something ancient. Like he had been around since centuries or perhaps much more. He could also recognize the hardened instinct of a warrior behind his gentle countenance. However, the one who made him really worried was his Ms Dodds. Whose aura always seemed so dark...and foul. As if she were some sort of demon. Part of the reason why he had been considering asking Plumbers to run a thorough background check on her.
Ben finally acknowledged the elbow jabbing into his side and turned his attention to the painting that Mr Brunner was gesturing to, "That is the Titan, Kronos eating the gods. As his children were born, he swallowed them whole, except for the youngest, Zeus."
"Correct. Kronos , the titan king did that cause a prophecy was foretold that one day his kids would someday take his rule so he was afraid of being overthrown. Now Mister Jackson, what happened to Zeus?" He suddenly turned to Percy.
Percy adopted the look of a goldfish before the answer came to him, "Ahh...his wife, she fed him a rock instead of Zeus, then hid him away."
"Yes and?" Mr Brunner didn't seem much satisfied with his answer. Thankfully, Percy remembered the basic gist of what he had learned in the classroom.
"When Zeus grew up he tricked his father into barfing up their siblings..."
"Ew!" The girls complained while Ben and Mr Brunner rolled their eyes in response.
"Then there was a huge fight between the Gods and Titans. The Gods won and the world came to be ruled by Zeus and his twelve siblings. The strongest of them being Zeus, lord of the sky . Poseidon, ruler of Atlantis , lord of the sea and lastly Hades, God of riches and quite ironically the underworld as well." Percy concluded leaving his teacher rather impressed, seeing him in a new light while other students looked on bored.
"Thank you Mister Jackson. Class, you should all possess Jackson's initiative. When the Gods ruled they had children with mortals. Demigods. Part human, part God. I will be giving you all a quiz tomorrow on well known demigods. Believe me it's going to be part of your grade."
The whole class groaned and moaned all at once, especially the young Tennyson who couldn't help but let out a miserable sigh. Percy and Grover sent apologetic looks towards their older friend. Percy knew Ben was one of their academy's rising athletes and a mvp of their soccer team. Also he could tell that their soccer coach was being super harsh on him during their practise sessions. So it was pretty obvious he didn't like doing extra school work more than he already had to. But unbeknownst to them, that wasn't the only thing the omnitrix bearer was currently stressed about.
"Now on that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?" Mr Brunner said as he beckoned everyone to follow their maths teacher.
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.
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As everyone gathered at the steps of the museum , Ben couldn't help but stare at the sky. Overhead, the storm clouds were brewing , while everyone thought it was just global warming or something. He wasn't so sure about such radical change in weather being natural. And from what he saw in the TV news, floods, hurricanes and big storms were forming all around the world, and everyone seemed to be baffled at the strange weather patterns.
Ben wondered if this was work of some aspiring super villain, like the weather manipulating AI called S.A.M he fought when he was a kid but he since the local Plumbers HQ hadn't come up with anything worthwhile regarding that issue yet, he couldn't be too sure about anything.
After hearing the footsteps coming behind him, the omnitrix bearer turned around, only to see the redhead menace known as Nancy Bobofit walking towards Grover and "accidentally" dropping her lunch on him.
"Oops." She grinned and everyone could see bits of cheetos stuck in her crooked teeth as the others laughed at him. Ben often tried to see the good in people, even his enemies, that's why he helped even the likes of Cash and JT in the first place but this girl was unbearable for someone around her age. She constantly made fun of Percy's dyslexia and Grover's disability. She also seemed to be a kleptomaniac , if the way she was enthusiastically pick pocketing something out of a lady's purse was any indication. To be honest, Ben felt she was in dire need of some good old fashioned counselling but there wasn't much he could do with a certain Math teacher turning a blind eye to everything she did.
Percy growled and tried to stand up but the young Tennyson immediately pulled him. Realizing he was about to make the same mistake which got Ben expelled from his own high school.
"Don't sink down to her level. You will only get yourself into more trouble. Trust me. There are other ways to deal with her."
Percy didn't look very convinced but sat back down upon the older teen's insistence. That was when something very unexpected happened.
In plain view of everyone, a tantactle of water wrapped around Nancy's waist and literally yanked her into the fountain with a loud splash. Gaining attention from everyone around them including their teachers, Mrs Dodds her favourite math teacher was quick to her rescue and immediately pulled her out from the water.
"Mrs Dodds! Percy pushed me. Just because I wanted to sit with them" She cried out. Ben raised an eyebrow. That girl nearly got drowned by some supernatural force but she still wanted to get someone in trouble. Just how devious she could be.
Mr Dodds turned to Percy and the moment she did that, Ben could see a pair of black bat like wings folded behind her back and her eyes glowing yellow-ish, as if she was some sort of predator, however no one seemed to pay any attention to that.
"Now honey-"
"I know." He said, "A month erasing workbooks."
"Come with me!" Mrs Dodds said.
The bearer of Omnitrix frowned. His instincts honed by years of combating baddies of all sorts quickly started acting up, telling him that she wasn't someone he wanted to be around a twelve year old kid.
"It was a simple misunderstanding Mrs Dodds. Actually I was the one who pushed her. That wasn't intentional on my part though." He spoke up in a casual tone.
Percy was stunned that Ben was willing to take the punishment for him. However Mrs Dodds wasn't buying it.
"No. You. Stay. Here." She nearly snarled, leading Percy inside the museum. Ben narrowed down his eyes as he noticed the air distorting around her , her fingernails extending into dangerous claws and her skin starting hidden. However it seemed no one else around him had noticed such changes in their maths teacher like he did.
"Yo Grover, I am going to go to the bathroom." He said, rushing back inside the museum.
"No wait!" Grover attempted to stop him but Ben was already inside the building.
"Dammit!" Grover gulped nervously, a panicked look on his face, he needed to get to Mr Brunner, as fast as he possibly could.
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"It's hero time!" The words Ben had relied on his entire life, completely unnecessary at this point, but this was sort of like his own little ritual which set him at ease. Once the rest of the class were out of sight, Ben pulled up his sleeve and slammed the dial of the omnitrix. A bright surge of electricity ran through his body as he quickly transformed into his Loboan alter ego , referred by him as Blitzwolfer. Tracking Percy's location through his scent. he bounded across the museum on all fours, like all of his feet were on fire, taking several stairs at the same time. A horrifying screech reached his ears and he entered the grand hall only to a bat like creature leap off the side of the wall and swoop down with claws like kitchen knives.
Percy ducked down on the marble floor, Mrs Dodds missing him by a few inches.
"Give it to me!" The otherworldly creature hissed, her veiny skin pulsing in rage. She tucked her wings in , diving towards her target, however before she could do so a pair of abnormally strong clawed hands grabbed into one of her wings and pinned her to the wall. Growling she attempted to get out of the monstrously strong grip, but quickly found herself being slammed to the ground, causing her to yelp in pain as he glared at her new target.
"Feh...I never had to fight someone ugly like you before but I guess there is a first time for everything." Ben smirked looking directly at the otherworldly creature who once posed as their math teacher. Percy just looked on at the fight, his fear forgotten and overlapped at seeing the one of the famous superhero alien buddies fighting against this vicious creature.
Mrs Dodds stood up shakily, anger clearly seen on her face as she charged towards both of them. Without wasting a moment, the werewolf like aliens quad hinged muzzle opened, emitting a powerful green ultrasonic howl which hit the monster teacher directly, sending her flying straight back into the same wall she hit before. Not wanting to give her another chance to recover, he quickly swapped to his pyronite alter ego Heatblast, bringing forth both of his hands together, he shot a huge beam of fire, melting the very floor the monstrous teacher once stood on and burying her beneath it . The fury attempted to get out of her confinement , but found herself unable to move due to immense pain and severe burns.
"You ...will... pay for this!" The Fury growled , writhing in agony on the ground before she was reduced to scattered golden dust.
"Man! It seems a normal school life is beyond my capabilities." Ben muttered with a sigh as he de-transformed back to his human form, turning around he faced his awe stricken and shocked friend, "Yo Percy, it seems I owe you an explanation. You ought to have a lot of questions."
"So do I."
Ben whipped his hand to look at the new arrival. A bit surprised upon seeing the snow white horse legs that were protruding from where the legs of his latin teacher should have been.
"This isn't what I had hoped when the late Maxwell Tennyson told me once that his grandchildren were full of surprises."
"I don't know, Mr Brunner. I guess you learn something new everyday." Ben shrugged nonchalantly, he then looked at Mr Brunner , sharply narrowed down his eyes, "What kind of monster was that? I have never fought something like that before in my entire hero career? And why the hell do you have these horse legs?"
"Knowledge is power, Mr Tennyson . This world is dangerous and confusing, even for someone like you. " Mr Brunner cut in, "If both of you truly wish to know, then I promise I can tell you everything and answer any questions you might have, but only after summer vacation begins. That's when we can get Mr Jackson to safety."
"That makes zero sense. If it's dangerous, shouldn't we know everything we can."
"Okay, all of you. What in the hell just happened? And will you please not talk like I am not here? Somebody start explaining or I am going to start having a psychotic break." Ben could hear the growing distress in Percy's voice. A stark reminder to everyone in the room that he was just an average twelve year old. Not a hardened warrior or an intergalactic police officer. He knew quite well that this needed to handled gently but at the same time, firmly as well.
"Look Percy I may have my own secrets, but I know about this as much as you do." He turned to the distressed demigod, whose confusion was only growing, he then patted the young demigod's shoulders with a reassuring smile, "Rest assured, whatever happens, I will have your back."
Son of Poseidon couldn't help but let out a huge sigh in response. Ben looked over to where Mr Brunner was, hoping he would get some sort of explanation about why that monster lady attacked Percy and what did she want from him in the first place, but their mysterious wheelchair bound teacher had already vanished by that point. Leaving the young heroes with more questions than answers.
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