Chapter 1: The Second Roll

Ben Tennyson felt familiar.

And strange. He took comfort in that familiar strangeness and wriggled around in the confining fabric--cotton maybe?--and opened his eyes to the dark.

Bit anticlimactic, he thought, and pulled his arms up, feeling strangely weak and fragile. He wondered if he had become an alien in his sleep again.

His vision was normal-- human-like, and the darkness was a little stifling but he could make out a warm flickering light, moving across the thin walls, calling attention to a small finger-sized hole, the words 'Super Awesome Tent of Awesomeness' surrounding it in a clumsy scrawl.

Ben's eyes widened in haunting recognition and his gaze snapped to his hands to find the jagged X-shaped scar marking it absent. He checked for more recent ones and then he realized that his hands lacked callouses.

If Ben's eyes could have widened more than they were, he would have been a Pyrosapien, remarkable, since they didn't even have functional eyelids. His toxic-green eyes snapped to the watch that was--should have been on his wrist.

The Omnitrix was gone and unlike all the times before where he broke or lost it, it came with the feeling of dread that made his stomach turn in knots and flips and wiggles and the Sahara-dry throat made him feel like he couldn't speak, because the last time he had been in this tent, was when he had been eleven.

Then he spoke, "What the hell is going on?!" and his voice grated on him. It was high and pitchy and annoying.

He looked around the blue tent, his eyes and neck turning enough to make him feel some mild vertigo but he couldn't stop, he was twitchy and nervous and all he could do was look and see.

The fabric walls felt big, and the sleeping bag even bigger as he lay in its confines. His old backpack was there, Sumo Slammers themed, juvenile and childish but even with the anxiety and worry, he felt nostalgic.

He fumbled a bit in the fabric sleep prison, pitching forward as he found freedom and scratched at the bag, his uncoordinated limbs shaking like spaghetti.

He adjusted quickly, idly likening it to the feeling of becoming a new alien for the first time. He zipped open the bag and stared intensely as he could, concentrating on the little light he had.

Ben searched for anything that gave an accurate date. A PS Vita, a bag of marshmallows, a bag of candy, a small box of chocolates…

Ben would have insulted himself if his voice wasn't so grating.

He shuffled a few things around more, popping a bit of chocolate into his mouth as he looked for anything other than candy.

There! A small flip phone--probably for emergencies--was buried underneath the useless piles of candy. He popped another chocolate into his mouth.

Not-so-useless piles of candy.

He popped it open and stared at the pixelated display as it loaded up.

He so wished for Galvan Tech right now.

11:34 PM

Jun. 2, 20XX

Ben promptly face-planted into the sheets.

"Why can't the universe just give me a break?"

He rested a hand on his soft baby chin and huffed, a resigned look of defeat etched on his face. That was when he heard the rasps.

"Grandpa!" The voice was raspy and dry, but it was female-ish--and the voice was so familiar and he knew he had heard something like it before.

So he pushed himself out and rushed from the tent. Out to the small clearing, a campfire settled in the middle of a few logs, Grandpa Max--because he would always be Grandpa--standing up with a look.

It was haunted and cold and urgent. The man's gaze snapped to Ben's and his eyes widened. God, he looked so young!

Grandpa Max looked at him in a hurry, and his eyes flicked to the noise as "Grandpa!?" sounded out again. The raspy, dr--

Then it clicked. And he tensed.

His wrist felt cold.

He opened his mouth--it was so dry and he could barely breathe--and he tried for a shout.

"G--Gwen?!"

"Doofus?!"

Grandpa's eyes widened and he stumbled a bit, then stood up to full height. Ben stared at him, "we're here! Follow my voice, Dweeb!"

Silence.

Then, footsteps, and if he strained his ears he could hear hissing.

A fire walked out of the forest, and that was when the dread really did set in.

His eyes flashed to the glowing green hourglass, among the red-hot coal-like exoskeleton, the fire running between the gaps like arterioles that widened into hands and feet and a head.

Then the inferno turned its shell-like mask to him and Grandpa.

And the man tensed--they both did, but for different reasons--and Grandpa was about to say something--until Ben cut him off.

"Gw--Dweeb? Is--is that you?" And he felt the tightening of his throat because this was wrong. So, so wrong.

But he stamped the feeling of it down until he could still himself because he had been shaking and his wrist had never felt so cold.

"Doo--Doofus? Grandpa? Wha--what happened to me?"

X

Gwen timed out after a few minutes of quiet, hurried discussion between her and Grandpa Max. Ben couldn't bring himself to do anything but stare at that emblem. A green hourglass, bordered in black, and so very vibrant. It meant intergalactic peace and was a popular insignia for flags in planet-wide uprisings.

It also symbolized Galvan society--ironic, since they were markedly closed off from many sectors in the universe for a time.

But to Ben it meant--it meant that he was still in there, that no matter what form he took he was still Benjamin Kirby Tennyson. At least, the one from his universe.

It was his, even if it looked different.

He kept staring at the spot even as Gwen went inside.

"Ben?"

He looked up to Grandpa Max who looked at him with a comforting smile, and if he looked a little closer, a jaded one.

"You should go to sleep, I know it's been a long day and with this… development, well, you must be tired."

Did it say something about him that he found it so easy to lift the corners of his mouth in a smile? One that failed to reach his eyes? "You got it, Grandpa!"

So he crawled into his tent and collapsed. Grandpa was right, he was tired. And he would have gladly gone to sleep if there wasn't someone standing at the foot of his bed.

He jumped, clamping a hand down onto his mouth as he stared at the familiar man, who wore a sheepish grin on his face and a pair of goggles at his neck.

"Good evening, Benjamin!" Professor Paradox greeted, quieter and less jovial than usual.

Ben slumped, calming down, finally turning a grin at the man he tentatively called a friend. "So? Some singularity-causing, world-ending event? Multiverse trouble?" Ben paused consideringly. "Is this a lesson about humility or whatever? 'Cause I don't remember anything I've done wrong."

Professor Paradox paused, a worried look coming over his face.

Oh. So this was serious-serious then. The look on Ben's face shifted into something like it did on proper Plumber mission briefings. It usually looked sort of smolder-y and grave.

Though, it looked ridiculous on him as a ten-year-old. Like he was trying to look mature and failing.

But he didn't know that.

Professor Paradox paced, footsteps quiet, and the tent kept ever so pristine.

This went on for a while, and Ben started to get annoyed--which was strange because--well, frankly, he was used to Paradox being all wibbly-wobbly in the membrane. No offense to him of course, the man was a self-professed weirdo.

Most geniuses were.

Was the juvenile brain chemistry affecting his thought processes? Wouldn't be the first time. So it was like Rath...

"I'm sorry, Benjamin, I admit I've made a bungle of things…"

"Paradox, this is not inspiring my confidence whatsoever."

The Professor chuckled ruefully. "You're right about this being a Multiversal threat. Of sorts…"

Ben tilted his head, "so? What's wrong with that? I've saved the Multiverse a bunch of times!"

The man's face fell.

"Uh-oh."

"The Multiverse is in danger, and the branches are… dying. And I don't know any other way to solve it, Benjamin."

"Well then... tell me," Ben huffed, crossing his scrawny boy-arms.

Paradox sighed gravely and nodded. "I'm sorry, Ben." The man turned to him and looked close to tears. "You are not Ben Prime."

"What? Of course, I am!"

The man sighed, "Instead you are the Ben of this timeline, with the cumulative experience, and the memories of the original Ben."

"What?!--but this…" Ben looked down at his hands, shaking. "But…"

The boy looked up at the man, mouth twisted into a frown, face bunched up in confusion.

"I'm sorry, Benjamin. I needed someone… enlightened enough to monitor this Universe--to see exactly what is happening. But I have a feeling it'll be something you can't punch or blow up this time, Benjamin…"

"This is…" Ben finally seemed to lose some of that nervousness. "Paradox… why didn't you ask me? I--I would've done this in a heartbeat! Why--How?!"

"It would have known, Benjamin. I'm so…"

Ben just stared.

"Something watches me when I Walk into the Prime Universe, Benjamin. Something dark… something mad. I--I need to go, Benjamin, It's coming."

Professor Paradox's face shifted into a look of pure fear, haunting in the darkness, then with one last look, he left.

As soon as the man walked out, Ben looked at his knobbly knees shrouded by his ol' faithful camo green cargo pants and sighed.

This sucked. And so did having to go through fucking puberty again--or--he technically never went through it but--he had memories of it!

And! And! Now he had to deal with some sort of Cthulhu-Eldritch Monster?! Something… something even the Professor was scared of?

He looked at his hands, wondering. Apparently foreign memories swirling in his mind, he gritted his teeth. He wasn't Ben Prime and he had never had a watch and it was never part of his life. In this world, he had never been special. That belonged to Gwen now, after all, how could it be stolen from him if he never had it in the first place?

But he so very much felt like it did, and that hurt most of all.