Hello everyone, MiniTennyson here with a new chapter of this story! After three days of relentlessly working on this chapter and somethings I needed to adress, the chaoter is outat 6k words(you guys may think it's weird how I keep each chapter at 6k words bordering 8k with the A/Ns but this is how long I am comfortable with chapter lenghts, not too short nor too long, the perfect chapter lenght.) and the start of the Digitalis Arc, that will probably last 3 to 4 chapters. But before that...Xiaomei, if you will!
"Hello everyone, Xiaomei, the narrator of this story here, and I will tell you the story of Ben and Shiki thus far!" Xiaomei said with an all-knowing smile before continuing.
"Last time on their journey, Ben, Shiki and the rest had to fight their way through the Rogue Out HW and after a few delicio-I mean, exciting fights, the group managed to find Sister Ivry and escape from Guilst in the nick of time just as the Chronopage was about to eat Guilst's time.
Ben, Homura, Sister and Mosco had their introductions to the crew and Ben had a small talk with his cousing Gwen about his return home.
Eventually, the Crew of Edens were called on the ship's cockpit only to find Hermit floating through space..."
"By the way author...will there be anymore delicious fights in this chapter too?!" Xiaomei exclaimed with hearts in her eyes as she started salivating.
No, sorry Xiaomei but this chapter will be mostly characters talking with just a fight present throghout.
"Awww...! Too bad...but as I was saying, I must warn you all that the following unfolding story will be a sadistic and twisted one...Can't you make anything against those topics, author?"
I don't know if this arc would be less sadistic and twisted or more than the original Edens Zero story, but I will just put a small warning here, and if you read the arc you know what I mean, and this warning will be put on the story:
Warning, the following story is Rated T because of themes of discrimination, war themes and some pretty graphic things such as blood and violence along with the occassional swearing from Sister.
If you dislike any of the themes and contenr I just listed, do not read.
I do not own anything other than the original characters and story arcs, everything else is owned by their respective owners. Ben 10 is owned by Man of Action and Cartoon Network. Edens Zero is owned by Hiro Mashima, Weekly Shonen Magazine and J.C. Staff.
Without any further ago, I present to you all the first chapter of the Digitalis arc! Enjoy!
X???, 20.000 years into the future
In the very far away future on the planet of Norma, two astronauts were seen landing on the planet's surface before looking around.
"Hey...! I found something!! Come here!!" one of the astronauts said in horror.
"What in Celestialsapien's name..!?" the other astronaut exclaimed in equal horror at what they found.
In front of the astronauts three corpses, skeletons by this point, were laying on the ground and those corpses weren't mere unknown people.
T...they were presumably the corpses of Shiki, Rebecca and Ben. But seeing that one of the corpses had glasses, another had a B-Cube with a heart put on their neck and the last had the Omnitrix on their right hand...it was safe to assume it was their skeletons.
What happened to them and the rest of the Crew of Edens in the future?
As Ben walked out of his room with an slightly irritated Sister following him towards the cockpit, he remained speechless upon seeing what this all was about.
The Edens Zero ship was passing through the void of space where a giant construct with six statues was drifting through space.
"Woah." Ben muttered in awe. "What is that?"
"If my calculations are correct...it seems to be the spaceship that once belonged to an ancient group of knights known as The Heavenly Knights of the Dancing Sakura." E.M. Pino explained as everyone was looking at the impressive construct.
"Yes, that may indeed be a sight to behold, but that is not why I called everyone here. The reason I called you all here is because of that." Witch Regret stated, pointing to a humanoid figure floating through the spacenearby the Edens Zero ship.
Said figure was a petite female machine with a small and cute frame, long blue hair and glitched out light blue eyes.
"I...is that a person...?" Ben said in shock upon noticing the android drifting through space.
"...no. That is Hermit Mio. The Mind of Edens and one of the Demon King's Four Shining Stars."
"Yeah!!" Rebecca cheeres upon seeing they found Hermit so easily.
"I really want to be friends with Hermit! If we managed to find her so easily, then finding Valkyrie will be easy too!!" Shiki said with a grin.
A few moments later, the ship managed to catch Hermit's body and get her inside. Sister found out she is unresponsive and was at the time trying to find out what was wrong with her in the infirmary.
Sister tried everything. Giving her the medicine Sister Energy drink, electrocute her circuits to awaken her and even scanned her mind but...found nothing but glitches and errors.
Ben, Shiki and the others entered the infirmary with worried looks on their faces and wanting to know how Hermit's situation is.
"Anything, Sister?" Ben asked the nun android who shook her head with a grimace.
"Nothing. I tried everything I could to wake her up but...nothing." Sister Ivry said with her head laid low.
"Then is she...?" the omnitrix bearer asked in a calm yet gentle tone. Bad idea.
"NO SHE ISN'T DEAD!!" Sister suddenly snapped at Ben, causing the teenager to sweatdrop and back away slightly. "She is alive and well but her mind is gone. I tried to find it but no answer."
"Then, let me. I can make a small...UPGRADE!!" The omnitrix wielder said as he pushed the omnitrix's dial and in a flash of green light in his place stood the Galvanic Mecamorph known as Upgrade.
The slimy alien moved towards the operation table and jumped onto Hermit, covering her in the green circuits belonging to Upgrade.
The Galvanic Mecamorph stood there for moment, scanning for something, anything that could help the shut down android but after searching enough, he came out empty handed.
Upgrade pulled himself off of Hermit's body and back to being in front of everyone.
"Did you find anything Ben?" Rebecca asked the galvanic mecamorph hopefully but all hope was broken when Upgrade shook his head before transforming back into himself.
"Nothing. It's like all of her mind was wiped out clean. Upgrade couldn't find anything wrong with her, so I don't know what could be the cause for her being in this state." Ben said to the crew. He wished he could've done something more to help Hermit but...there was no way.
"If her mind is offline and her body doesn't have anything maybe it is because of her heart." Witch said, gaining confused looks from Sister and Ben who didn't found anything wrong with her heart so what was she talking about...? Meanwhile Happy and Homura thought what traumatic events did the petite android go through.
"Allright then! If the heart is at fault, why don't we just enter imside Hermit's body and fix her heart!" Shiki exclaimed as if
"THERE'S NO WAY WE CAN DO THAT!!" Rebecca and Weisz exclaimed, turning down Shiki's idea and causing him to tear uo an start crying.
"Then...We can't do anything to help Hermit!! Waah!! She'll remain like this forever!!!" Shiki said as his body started shaking as tears fell down his face.
However, Witch suddenly walks up to Shiki before giving him a hard slap across the face.
"Shiki-sama! Don't you dare talk like that again! You say you want friends...but you act so selfish! Are you really going to give up on Hermit so easily?!"
"S...s...sorry..." Shiki said in a shaky voice before cleaning the tears out off his eyes.
"What was that about? Do you know something we don't?" Sister asked her fellow android in curiosity.
"I think I know where Hermit would be. The Planet of Digitalis." Witch
"Cool, then why don't we just go there?" Ben said with excitement as he was already ready to find this Hermit.
"Well, Digitalis is the virtual planet. It is a planet and at the same time is virtual. This means you can't visit." Witch explained the nature of said planet but that only caused more confusion to those on the ship.
"Umm...yeah, I didn't understand anything you guys just said." Weisz said in more confusion than he ever was in his life.
"Well, that planet is an man-made place where an MMORPG game known as Space Fantasia was being held. However, after a few years of activity, the NPCs became sentient and the devs abandoned it." Rebecca explained to the others causing everyone to look at her in a questioning manner. "I browse a lot of sites, of course I would know some obscure things like that." she replied with an annoyed roll of her eyes.
"Then why do you think she could be there, Witch?" Ben asked the machine in anticipation.
"Well, last time I saw Hermit, she was enjoying that game. And I guess if anything would've happened to her she would've just logged in there." the voluptous machine explained to the omnitrix wielder.
"All right! Then just log us in there so we can save Hermit!" Shiki said as his smile returned to his face as Witch nodded.
"Luckily the ship does have a diving room. Put on those suits and follow me." Witch said as she pointed to some black leather fullbody suits located nearby some pods, the dive room.
After getting fully clothed and complaining slightly about how tight and uncomfortable the suits were, the main crew was ready to log onto Digitalis' servers.
"A few things before you all begin to dive in Digitalis there are some things you need to know. For example, no equipment can be dragged onto Digitalis, all you will have to rely on will be your psyhical abilities." Witch explained causing Rebecca to be dissappointed.
"Wait, if all someone can take with them inside the game are their natural abilities, does that mean I won't be able to use the Omnitrix once I get inside?" Ben asked upon hearing that, hoping that he won't be left in that game world without access to the watch.
"That...I do not know. Through if it is bonded to your DNA, I think that there is a small possibility to get to keep in Digitalis. But if not...well, I hope you know how to fight normally too." Witch Regret theorized as the crew entered the pods and prepared for full dive.
"Oh, by the way, if any of you die inside Digitalis, you'll die in the real world. So be careful out there." Witch said, causing everyone to look at her wide-eyed.
"WAIT WHAT?!!" the crew of Edena exclaimed in shock and horror.
"Wait, I think I changed my m-!" Rebecca and Ben said before being cut off by the pods closing and enduncing a gas that caused all of them to fall into a deep slumber.
"Good luck everyone. And bring Hermit back in one piece." Witch said as the scene faded to black.
When Ben's eyes finally opened, he found himself in a multi-colored space with a menu in front of him asking for his class, name, appearance and weapon.
Ben choosed carefully. For his class he chose Paladin and for his name, he just inserted his real life name.
For hair and eye color, he just put brown and green.
What he did change about his appearance, however, was to make his hair longer and put in a spiky ponytail along with making his eyes a darker shade of green.
For clothing, he chose a green samurai armor, black pants and a giant Final Fantasy VII-style katana sword(basically, think of his outfit from the Classic Series episode Game Over but with it being a teenage Ben and a green armor instead).
Afterwards, a loud beep was heard before Ben's vision once again faded before returning once again as he found himself in a beautiful fantasy forest near Rebecca and Happy.
He looked at the duo, and they basically looked the same. The only difference between Rebecca's real body and the avatar's was that the avatar had blue cat ears and tail.
The two waited around for Shiki and the others to arrive when suddenly a nysterious man riding a weird purple rabbit-headed creature.
"I am the prince of a lost kingdom and I alo
"WHO THE HECK ARE YOU!?" Rebecca exclaimed upon seeing the mysterious man appear, cutting him off mid-sentence.
"I'm feeling hurt, Rebecca. Don't you see it's me, Homura? I've been repeating that backstory in my mind but oh well." the man revealed to be Homura's avatar said, causing Ben and Rebecca to go bug-eyed.
"HOMURA?!" Ben and Rebecca exclaimed in surprise. What the heck got into the sword maiden to choose a male avatar for herself.
"Hmm, so that's the avatar you guys chose?" a female voice was heard, as a volputous woman with tan skin, white hair and amber eyes walked towards them.
"Wait...Weisz?!"
"Why the frick did you chose a female avatar, darn pervert!!" Rebecca yells at the female Weisz in irritation as the invertor was just admiring his new body.
"What's the matter Rebecca, jealous that I'm hotter than you now?" Weisz said, causing thick marks to appear on the B-Cuber's forehead.
"LIKE HECK I AM!!" Rebecca said in anger before kicking Weisz in the face, causing him to fall down in a comically over the top reaction, with his soul coming out of his mouth before getting back up.
"What about you, Ben? What do you think of my new body...?" Weisz said with a suggestive smirk as he approached Ben
"You're a sick pervert, you know that right?"
"Oooh, what's the matter, Benji~? Am I your type now?" Weisz said in a flirtateous manner as he hugged Ben's arm, his breasts touching the omnitrix wielder's arm, causing the omnitrix wielder blush slightly.
"Weisz, get off of me now or else." Ben said in an irritated tone as he pushed Weisz off of him.
"H...hello everyone...!" Pino's small voice was heard as everyone turned around to see rhat she chose a cute young girl with black hair and pink hair put in a bunny ears style as her avatar.
"Awww...! You look so cute, Pino!" Rebecca, Ben and Weisz exclaimed upon seeing how cute the little robot looked as a human but Homura didn't say anything.
"What about me guys?!" Shiki's loud stupid voice was heard as he appeared next to them. Shiki's head was the only thing how it was before, as the rest of Shiki's body was so humungous and muscular that it would put even Humungousaur to shame. And he was only wearing a silo. "How do I look?"
"SHIKI, WHAT THE HECK IS WITH THAT AVATAR! CHANGE IT RIGHT NOW!!" Everyone present yelled at the young man, causing him
"Aww...! Do I have to?" Shiki said in an dissapointed manner, causing everyone to glare at him in annoyance.
"CHANGE THE AVATAR NOW!!" Rebecca growls at the teen causing him to groan in frustration before he eventually changed his avatar to be his usual self but with long hair and caveman clothing.
However, the long hair made Shiki remmeber of his time in Granbell and how his robot family left him and he started crying. "Waah Michael...! I miss you and Granbell so much!!"
"Umm...what is Granbe-" the omnitrix bearer started to say but he was soon silenced by Rebecca who put her hand on his mouth and she started whisper explaining that to Ben.
Rebecca told Ben how she and Happy met Shiki, who was basically a human raised by robots who didn't even know how to properly communicate.
She told Ben how suddenly the robots of Granbell went berserk and tied up her and Happy in an attempt to kill them but Shiki arrived.
The robots didn't seem to become good again and Shiki was eventually forced to fight his way through his robot friends and family.
Eventually, after Shiki defeated the king known as Castellan, all of the robots went haywire, causing all them to break down and shut down, dying basically.
"Oh, that's so sad...sorry, I didn't know..." Ben said but Rebecca gave him a nod as if to say it's allright as Shiki eventually stopped crying.
The group eventually decided to travel through the nearest town of Drimille. After not even a few minutes of walking towards there, the crew eventually arrived to the gates of Drimille.
Suddenly, a man appeared on front of the gate to greet them, presumably one of those sentient NPCs.
"Hello there players! Welcome to our humble city of Drimille! Players activity seems to have increased over the few months, through this means we NPCs have more to do than usual. You know, us NPCs used to only be able to speak one line of dialogue but now we gone far beyond our initial programming and now we can talk and do what we want freely. Anyways, I hope y'all will have a good time here! Goodbye!" the NPC man said with a big smile before running away, leaving the group in the dust.
The crew blinked as the round man NPC walked away, causing them to question what the heck did they just witness.
"...man, those people who created the game really weren't kidding when they were saying the NPCs are sentient...I could've barely distinguish the guy from a real person!" Ben said in surprise, he did hear AI is sentient but this already pushed it.
"Yeah, we should really be careful here. We won't be able to distinguish ally from enemy here." Rebecca said as everyone came up with the plan to ask around if anyone knows where Hermit is.
They asked questions like "Do you know Hermit?", "Have you saw a bluette girl?" or "We're looking for our friend, she's a girl about this height, have you seen her?" or the like.
But after asking NPC after NPC and player after player, but all of them came out empty handed.
The only useful information they found was that if Hermit is not here, she would most likely be in the next town to Drimille, known as Crysta.
As our group started their journey towards Crysta, they didn't know that something sinister was going in said town at the same time.
Meanwhile, back on the Edens Zero, Witch was questioning why would Hermit ever want to lock away her heart like that before suddenly the ship's alarm were heard, announcing that someone has hacked into the ship's computer and changed course.
Witch Regret attempted to regain control of the ship but to no avail as all that her attempts did was to electrocute her.
"Crap...! Only if Hermit would've been here! Why aren't they back with her yet?!!" Sister exclaimed as the shio started rumbling and getting sent straight towards a belt of asteroids...!!
At Crysta's local inn, The Crystal Tavern, the doors were slammed open to the walls as a creepy, tall and lanky goblin man with spiky blue hair out in a mohawk entered inside the building.
Before long, the goblin man eventually reached the counter and glared at the innkeeper.
"Hello...s...sir...? H...how may I help you...?" the innkeeper said in a shaky voice as she fearfully looked at the mystery man.
"Have you seen a blue-haired girl around here?" the mystery man questioned the innkeeper in a cold manner.
"I don't know what you mean by that-aah!" the innkeeper said before the goblin man suddenly pulled out a scythe and stabbed it through the counter.
"I'm Jamilov the Great. I'm the chosen one who can kill both players and NPCs without getting banned. So I will ask you again..where is Hermit Mio?!" the goblin man now revealed to be Jamilov said in anger.
"I already told you!! I DON'T KN-" the NPC shrieked in horror before Jamilov grabbed his scythe and cut the NPC in half, killing her instantly.
While Jamilov was busy doing that, another musterious figure appeared behind him. The other figure was a tall man wearing a fucsia amor with red underlines.
"SixSix. What is it?" Jamilov asked the armored man in slight anoyance.
"redips ,noitamrofni tnatropmi su nevig ev'dluow ehs ? reh llik uoy did yhw" The other man that arrived shortly after Jamilov said in an unknown alien language.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, SixSix. I don't need to be berate by a Sotoraggian, especially a mutant one." Jamilov said mockingly, causing the man now known as SixSix to growl in anger at the insult.
"uoy eceip fo namuh mucs. uoy era ton yhtrow fo gnihtyna, peerc diarfa fo thgil!" SixSix cursed in his sotoraggian tongue, causing Jamilov to growl under his breath.
"Huh, what is going on?!" an alarmed voice was heard from behind them as an innocent NPC walked in on a scene he shouldn't've seen.
Jamilov's smirk widened before he suddenly turned around and cut the NPC's head off, killing them in a ruthless manner as his body transformed into pixels.
Meanwhile, at the same time with Ben and co., the crew of Edens were walking towrds the trek towarda Crysta when Shiki wished a monster would appear to attack them, which eventually did happen.
Shiki originally wanted to attack the beast, but soon enough the monster started talking, exllaining that he isn't a bad guy and can finally do what he wants to truly do now that he is free of his script.
He explains that he was oart of a quest to retrieve who knows what treasure that he was supposed to guard and that said quest will end in the players defeating him, bla, bla,bla-oops, he spoiled the entire quest's plot and had to say sorry, yada, yada, yada...
Eventually, the grouo asked about Crysta to which the monster answered in a scarrd voice that he heard that there is a player who kills NPCs and players alike eithout getting banned known as Jamilov who probably is in the town to kill all NPCs he comes across.
"So...do you know if there is a blue-haired girl in Crysta? We're kinda looking for her.
"You guys seem crazy if you're willing to go there! But...if you insist, yes, I believe I heard people say there's a girl with blue hair sitting on the hill there." The monster said to the group in surprise. "Also, may I ask why are you willing to risk getting killed only to find that girl?"
"Why...? Because Hermit is part of our crew. And a crew never leaves anyone behind." Shiki replied bluntly with determination in his voice as he and the rest walked towards Crysta.
However, once they arrived in Crysta, their eyes widened in horror. The whole city was filled with errors and many NPCs were running away in fear.
In front of them suddenly appeared a woman NPC with half of the head missing who started saying "Welcome to Crysta...crysta...welcome...to...to to Crysta...W...w..w...welcome...!" on repeat before suddenly a scythe went straight through the head, killing the NPC instantly and causing her body to dissipate into pixels while Jamilov walked through them.
"Geez...geez...killing NPCs is so boring! At least killing players results in some XP in compaartion to those junks of pixels!" the goblin man said boredly.
"Who are you...!?" Ben asked the goblin man as rage started to make its way to the hero's face as he frowned and glared at Jamilov threateningly.
"I'm Jamilov The Great!! I'm the chosen one who kills both players and NPCs that does not get banned! When I heard there were new players I have been extatic! Too bad I only found some veteran players to kill, and it wasn't even fun. Hyehyehye! I also impaled them there!" Jamilov said with a smirk on his face as he pointed the crew towards the nearby clock tower.
Shiki's and Ben's eyes widened in horror when they saw what the player killer meant by that, as three male Rogue Fantasia players were being impaled into a clock tower, they were screaming and calling for help.
"Don't worry!! I'll save you!!" Shiki exclaimed as he used Satan Gravity to float towards them, but until he got there...the men vanished in particles.
"Hyehyehye!!! Too late, hero!! Those players are dead already! Even if they managed to log out in time...they are dead. Hyehyehye!!"
"H...how could you do this...what do you gain from doing this?!"
"What do I gain? XP and rewards, what else?! Hyehye...I do this for fun!!!" Jamilov laughed,
"You son of a...!!" Shiki yelled in rage as he floated towards Jamilog at crazy speeds in an attempt to hit him.
The goblin man, however, clicked a button on his Maria scythe that caused the sword to grow bigger as eyes and a fang-fillee mouth appeared out of it.
"HYEHYEHYE!!! KILL THEM, MY DEAR MARIA!!!!" Jamilov shrieked in delight as Maria jumped to attack Shiki!!!
Meanwhile, nearby Crysta, a human-looking Hermit wearing a purple dress shirt and a white skirt is seen standing on the hill nearby the town, as she looked at how Jamilov ruthles
"You lied to me Ziggy...you told me that humans and machines alike have hearts and that they should get along but..." Hermit muttered under her breath as he looked at Jamilov's attack in hatred.
"...but now I see that only machines have hearts...all humans are heartless..."
Back to Crysta...Maria jumped to attack and eat Shiki but luckily all that did to the Satan Gravity user was to eat his avatar's hair, causing it to return to its spiky style.
"HYEHYEHYE!!! DEVOUR THEM, MARIA!!!" Jamilov exclaimed at the giant sword monster charged at the crew of Edens but luckily, they quickly managed to dodge the attack.
Through he also managed to easily evade the hits thanks to Ben's karate training with Gwen but he eventually did get thrown to the ground by Maria's attack.
"Oww..." the omnitrix wielder groaned in pain as he slowly got up to his legs before his eyes widened in horror upon seeing what was in front of him.
Hundreds of poor NPCs were gathered in one spot surrounded in light as their bodies were slowly and painfully dissipated into pixels.
"WHAT THE HECK DID YOU DO, JAMILOV?!!" Shiki roared in rage at the goblin man who only laughed in response.
Seeing that the nurderoua goblin man is seemingly insane, Shiki frowned before grabbing a building and launching it towards Jamilov but the killer just got up without any damage taken.
While that was happening, Ben attempted to run towards the tortured NPCs in an attempt to save them but auddenly an all too known bounty hunter made its appeared, pointing his gun towards the omnitrix bearer's head.
"SixSix!!" Ben exclaimed with a grimace as he glared at the sotoraggian bounty in anger.
"Neb Nosynnet. I lliw eb ruoy ymene. I now't wolla uoy yortsed ruo snalp! Dna siht emit...I'll osla llik uoy!" SixSix exclaimed in his native tongue as he prepared to push the trigger.
"Oh right! That sounded like an insult so...you are a llik uoy too! And this looks like the perfect job for XLR8!! I said XLR8...!" Ben 3xclaimed as he repeteadly touched the omnitrix only for it not to work properly. "C'mon Omnitrix, don't do that to me now!"
"dionamuh, eid!" SixSix yelled as he pointed the guns at Ben and started shooting.
Luckily enough, Ben now had a giant samurai sword in Digitalis...and he knows how to wield a sword kinda, as he did it against Dagon Vilgax and that time when he and Gwen were trapped in that game, so how different could this time be?
Ben luckily managed to swiftly dodge through all of the laser bullets and even reflected some of them back at SixSix but the Sotoraggian managed to dodge them all the same and climbed atop a building as he startedlaunching grenades at the omnitrix wielder.
"Aww man!" Ben exclaimed in surprise as the grenade was thrown towards him but as if on reflex, he managed to cut the grenade in half, causing it to explode mid-air.
SixSix cursed and continue to throw grenades at the teenage hero, to which he dodged two of them before climing up the wall with the help of the sword until he managed to get to the roof next to where the Sotoraggian Bounty Hunter was standing.
SixSix growled in irritation to the teenager before launching another grenade with his sticky other hand that came out of his shoulders at him.
"Oh yeah?! Take this!!" Ben exclaimed with a smirk on his face before he grabbed his katana sword and reflected the grenade back to the bounty hunter, causing SixSix to get blown up and thrown into the ground.
"SixSix, we need to go." Jamilov said as SixSix nodded as the two of them were logging out. "When we return you will pay!! We work for Drakken Joe! You shall be afraid!!"
And, like that, Jamilov and SixSix vanished, taking the torture device with them, freeing the NPCs and stopping their slow death.
"So who's Drakken Joe?" Ben asked the crew as suddenly Rebecca's face became pale and her eyes "What's the matter Rebecca?" the omnitrix bearer asked her in worry.
"Drakken Joe...the...space...loan shark..." Rebecca muttered in horror as suddenly two images flashed before her eyes...Shiki being shot in the head...Ben laying on the ground, unmoving...and herself crying over the deaths of
"Do you know him, Rebecca?" Ben asked the blonde in confusion, but she suddenly just decided to remain silent.
"It doesn't matter who that guy works for!! We have to find Hermit before they come back!" Shiki exclaimed with determination in his eyes.
Soon enough afterwards, the townspeople that Shiki and Ben saved by causing the two criminals to logout came running towards them, smiling and thanking them for saving the NPCs.
The crew asked the townsfolk if they know where the hill with Hermit is, as they explained to the group that the android is always standing on the hill nearby the town.
As that was happening, Ben looked around for anything that would seem interesting when he saw a green orb coming out of a broken barrel. And on that orb appeared the face of
"Could it be like that time when I and Gwen a
were trapped in Sumo Slammers...?" Ben mused as he walked towards the orb and put the omnitrix to scan.
"Sonorosian DNA sample re-scanned into the Omnitrix's database. Form can be seen on Playlist 3." The omnitrix announced its bearer, causing the teen to smirk.
"It really is like back then!" Ben thought to himself with a smirk before rejoining the others to hear that the townsfolk were warning them of a monster known as The Shinobi Troll who stole their city's treasure, probably reffering to the monster Ben and co. met earlier on their way to Crysta.
Anyways, following that conversation with townsfolk, The Crew had their goodbyes from the villagers before they started walking
"Hey! Homura, where are you going? Aren't you coming with us to find Hermit?" Ben asked the sword maiden turned prince who looked at him.
"Before we find Hermit, I want to be sure we didn't miss anything. You guys go ahead, I'll join you guys soon enough." Homura said as she started walking away, making Ben plently suspicious of what was up with the sword maiden but he decided to shrug it off and just go find Hermit with the others.
After not even a few moments of walking, the Crew of Edens finally found the blue-haired android sitting lonely on the hill just outside Crysta, causing Shiki to rush towards her.
"HERMIT!!! We finally found you!!" Shiki exclaimed as he ran towards Hermit, causing the android to look over to see the Crew of Edens running towards her.
"Who...who are you?" Hermit asked the crew blandly, through her voice did give a bit of a curious tone.
"I'm Shiki, Ziggy's grandson!! We found the Edens Zero and I and the others are going to find Mother!!" Shiki said in an excited manner, causing Hermit to blink in confusion.
"Huh?" the bluette said, slightly irritated by those random people bothering her. She was curious how this weird kid knew Ziggy.
"Shiki, you jumped over a lof of details, don't you think...?" Ben and Pino said, pointing out the random explanation the gravity user just said.
"What Shiki meant was that we found the Edens Zero and we are looking to bring the Four Shining Stars back together. Witch and Sister are already there." Rebecca explained in a more cohesive explanation thant the erratic one Shiki spurt out.
"What about Valkyrie? Is she there too?" Hermit asked, seemingly a bit curious through it wasn't like she was going to come either way but...it was just curiosity.
"Well, we didn't find her yet, we're still looking for her. But Homura knows ehere she xould be! Right Homura?!" Shiki sais excitedly before notixing the fact that Homura was nowhere to be found. "Huh? Where's Homura?"
"She left a while ago. She said she needs to inspect something back in Crysta." Weisz explained with Ben and the rest of the crew nodding.
However, what the Crew didn't knew through, was that Ben used the Omnitrix and used Echo Echo to split into two:
The original Ben remaining with the crew to talk with Hermit while the clone remained back in Crysta to look after Homura. It was just that Ben could not shake off the feeling that there was something weird with Homura.
The clone Ben was wandering the streets of Crysta and sneakily followed Homura with a few steps behind her until she eventuslly stopped and walked into an alleyway.
The omnitrix wielder quickly managed to hide behind a wall and saw Homura walking towards a young man with plain dark brown hair covering his eyes, grabbing the young man's attention.
"Ugh, you still haven't changed that ugly avatar?" the brunette man said with slight disgust in his voice.
"Leave your comments for when we're in free time. So what did you called me here for, Jesse." Homura asked the man now identified as Jesse.
"Oh yeah...I called you here because I am curious...How is your undercover mission going?" Jesse said as he boredly looked at the screen of his portable console.
"How couldn't it? It goes better than planned. Those adventurer's don't suspect a thing." Homura replied with a smirk as that caused Ben's eyes to widen in shock.
The omnitrix wielder was so shocked tghat he instinctuvely walked a step back, causing his shoe to touch a stick, breaking it and causing a loud CRACK! sound to be heard.
"Crap...!!" Ben cursed internally as Homura and Jesse looked towards the wall!
"C'mon Hermit, what do you say, come with us. Wanna be friends with me?"
"No. I'm doing fine here on my own. Just take my body back to Iron Hill and lesve me be." Hermit said with irritation in her voice, causing Shiki's heart to break and everyone else to look at her in confusion.
"But don't want to live? What kind of life is that when you live somewhere virtual?" Rebecca said in an attempt to reason with the android but that only caused Hermit to get more angry than before.
"It may seem virtual to you but those NPCs are alive! And I'm better off being here all alone!!" the bluette growled at the group with hateful eyes.
"Hey...I don't know what happened to make you feel this way but...please come with us, Hermit." Ben said as he grabbed the Mind of Edens's hands, causing her to look up at him with surprise, her blue eyes meeting with his emerald green ones.
The light in those emerald green orbs of this mysterious person seemed trustful and friendly enough but she wasn't that stupid to fall for that again...not after what happened with a certain doctor...
Hermit suddenly slapped Ben's hand aeay before looking at him and the rest of the Crew of Edens.
"ALL OF YOU, LEAVE ME ALONE!! I hate all of you humans!! You humans don't have hearts...humans are just heartless monsters!!" the female android snapped angrily as she glared at them wirh hateful eyes, and those seemed to be directed directly towards the omnitrix wielder in particular.
How could he dare to give her that fake friendly and trust-worthy expression to her?!
Meanwhile, back in the City of Crysta, Fake Homura's and Jesse's attentions were grabbed by a loud cracking sound.
Fake Homura's eyes turned into sliths as she glared at the wall only to see Ben's shoe coming out from behind the wall.
"Show yourself or I shoot." Fake Homurs threatened as she pulled out an arbalet and pointed it towards Ben's location.
"No. I'll come out only if you tell me who you are! Because you clearly aren't Homura!" Ben exclaimed from behind
"I'm not joking around. Come out or I'll shoot. I won't repeat that again." Fake Homura growled at the teenager, causing his to shrug and eventually come out of his hiding spot while glaring at his friend's copy-cat.
"There, I came out. Now tell me...who the heck are you and what did you do to Homura?" Ben asked the Fake Homura while their glares intersected.
"Well...seeing that you know I'm not the real Homura...I'll have to kill you." Fake Homura said as she pointed the arbalet towards Ben and prepared to pull the trigger.
EDENS TEN OPENING THEME-EDENS THROUGH THE ROUGH ENGLISH COVER BY WE.B
Shattered apart like stars, rearranged and twisted
Becoming something new to this world
(It must lead to something new)
Don't you feel your questiong mind...Sparking Bright?
Duty, like a newborn star, we must start at the beginning, to bring about the future we seek!
(Power of Cybernetics)
You'll build power to protect those you love,
Hold out your hand for the dreams you see,
Let the electric pulse push you forth, powering your heart
Seize the chance that lies before us, hold it 'till the time is right!
We will fly
Battle cries pushing us through the skies!
Across the axis we ride through the blue sky!
Should you try rob courage we will steal it back!
Our spirits roaring loud, as we blast through the crowd
Guarding the path to our goal!
If it hides within my heart there is where I'll start,
I'll believe in a every new star-- that shoots my way
Adventure awaits in the Heaven's Light!
We will find...EDEN THROUGH THE ROUGH!
The scene starts with showing the ether gear symbols located on Shiki's arm, Rebecca's tigh, Homura's hand and on Weisz arm before showing Ben's hand with the Omnitrix on it.
The scene then showed an amazed Shiki looking at the skies with the King, Ziggy and George behind him.
The scene then swaps to Shiki standing on a hill with a depressed and teary face before he smiled and floated upwards towards the Aqua Wing.
Eventually Rebecca, Happy and Ben would catch him before the scene focuses on Rebecca hugging Happy before showing a scene with a little Rebecca crying while holding a bloody happy in her hands.
The scene shows the Aqua Wing coming out of the water before showing Weisz shoving Rebecca out of the pilot's seat before an older version of Weisz is seen behind him.
The scene quickly swaps to the secretary, a nikora and Labilia making various poses before showing Witch coming out of her pod, then Justice and Elsie sitting above two fleeta of war ships before showing the Rogue Out trio and Fake Sister before showing the Real Sister and then a crying E.M. Pino looking upwards.
The Aqua Wing flies off into space before rhe scenes become action-filled. Shiki, Weisz, Happy and E.M. Pino fly offa bridge as a group of thugs follow them, then Rebecca making an angry face as she started shooting lasers at some people, Shiki and Jetray fighting against a weird guy with screws coming out of his head and then Homura and XLR8 fighting through a group of soldiers.
As the song ends, a scene shows the Chronopage eating a planet before finally showing Weisz, Homura, Witch, Ben, Rebecca, E.M. Pino, Happy and finally a close-up of Shiki's eye before the scene swaps.
The scene shows the space skies before finally the logo of "EDENS TEN" appears.
Welp, that was the third chapter of Edens Ten! Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and the fore-shadowing of the Bellial Gore Arc and the small hint towards Hermit having an a
Also, I don't know if some of you guys dislike this or not, but this chapter didn't do a lot to chsnge the events that unfolded, other than SixSix being around and Ben learning tha
Edens Zero fans may ask why I decided to shorten some scenes from the anime, well, that's simple...it is because I didn't want to just rehash things from the manga/anime and bore existing fans, so I just shortened them by getting rid of most of the dialogue and just simply explain them.
For those who may I ask why Ben can't use the Omnitrix properly in Digitalis, well that is because, as we saw in the Classic Series episode "Game Over" the omnitrix didn't work properly either and Ben had to find slien tokens to re-unlock his transformations, which I included as those green orbs. Also, another reason was just because I wanted you guys to see how capable this Ben is in combat without the omnitrix in comparison to Ben prime.
Now answering some reviews:
The Disquieting One: Thank you! Sorry about that, I should look up for an Beta-Reader to fix those issues.
Maximum Rhapsody's: Maybe or maybe not, I won't spoil it. Any Ben 10 character could appear with the exception of Xylene, Myaxx, Kai, Esther or any other character who won't have anything to do here. Rebecca filming Ben in action would be redundant, and that would probably also alert all of Ben's enemies of his current location, so I don't think that would logically happen.
darkslayer776768: Maltruant is still trapped in the timeloop, as it happened in canon. Through I am not writing off the posibility of him appearing eventually.
Phantom Thief of Hearts: Thank you, glad you enjoyed the chapter!
I agree with you, Rebecca or Ben will explain who Ben is and why he is well-known when Hermit joins the crew and name-drops Azmuth.
Yeah, I thought that this Ben would be very OP and will have much fire-power to spare, so that is why Ben will only use the omnitrix evolutionary/enhancement fuctions in dire situations or I will just give him workarounds. In fights, I will be sure that Ben's losses do make sense.
I am glad you agree with me on Hermit being a fan of Azmuth.
affiction: Thank you, glad you enjoy my story!
mataea123: Umm...how does that make Ben nerfed? XLR8 could always go so fast that it seemed like time stopped, if you don' believe me, watch the Ink Tank's video on Ben 10 Alien Power-Scaling or watch some of the XLR8 episodes from the Ben 10 franchise.
Anyways,I have been MiniTennyson, next chapter will be "Monster Assault", see ya and until next time...have a good day and it's hero time!