"Ben! Wake up!" Roller Brawl yells, standing over his bed and shaking the sleeping teen awake.
"Huh? Yeah I'm up." He grumbles, sitting up in his bed and slinging his feet over the side.
"We're heading over, so hurry up and get your ass over to Spyro's as well." She tells him and rolls out of his room and to the party.
"Ugh, why did I have to agree?" Ben sighs but gets up, stretching himself as well as testing out his foot which is still sore but not as painful as earlier that day.
He puts on his normal clothes and heads for the party as well. When he arrives in front of the house he sees lights flashing brightly in multiple colors with music playing and people can be seen dancing in the living room, amongst them Hex with a rare smile seen on her face.
"Why are all these people here at our house? Elf are we being robbed?" Eruptor asks his green friend.
"Aren't you guys throwing the party?" Ben asks them, arriving behind the two, standing slightly taller than the green-skinned girl.
"party? Tomorrow is the final exam." Elf says protesting.
"Yeah, guess this is your dragon friends' doing huh?" Ben asks them as the three make their way to the door.
"Spyro, yeah this smells like his idea." Eruptor agrees.
"I'm sorry, I know I've seen you around but who are you again?" Stealth Elf asks Ben.
"I'm Ben Tennyson. The newest recruit, also one of the people taking the test with you tomorrow, despite me disagreeing." He introduces himself, offering her a handshake and Eruptor a fist bump with the other hand. Both academy students return the handshake and fist bump before they arrive in the entry way of their home.
"Why don't you want to take the test?" Elf asks curious.
"My ability usage is time restricted for now, until I find someone with Tech abilities to fix this I don't intend to become a Skylander." He tells her.
"You should ask Sprucket. Hey, that's her over there." Stealth Elf suggests, pointing at the Redhead, who's dancing with Wind Up at the moment.
"Thanks, see you around." Ben thanks her, giving her a wide smile before he heads over to the Redheaded woman.
"Hey Ben, what took you so long?" Roller Brawl asks, taking his hand and pulling him to the dancefloor, where she begins to dance to the music in front of him.
"RB, can you give me a minute? I just heard that Sprocket might be able to help me with my problem." He asks her, pointing at his Omnitrix.
"Sure." She agrees disappointed and rolls over to the sides, joining Hex who's taking a break from dancing by herself.
"What's got you so glum?" The mage asks her vampiric friend.
"Ben's busy with Sprocket." Roller Brawl replies with a frown.
"So? You can have fun without Ben, come on." Hex tells her and drags the girl to the dancefloor with her, where they start dancing.
Across the dancefloor Ben arrives at Sprockets location and asks his housemate "Hey Wind Up, can I tag in for a bit?"
"Sure." The mechanical creature agrees, hopping away joining someone else on the dancefloor.
"Should I know you?" Sprocket asks Ben.
"No, I'm Ben Tennyson. I'm a new recruit here and I heard you might be able to help me out with a problem I'm having." He shouts over the music.
"Ben Tennyson, yeah Eon mentioned you. Nice to meet you. What do you need help with?" She asks intrigued.
"This, I have designed a plan with changes, but I can't apply them by myself and I was pointed to you since you're an accomplished techy." Ben tells her, showing her his Omnitix.
"Woah, I've never seen anything like this. Where did you get it?" She asks inspecting the device with awe.
"I'm from another Dimension, one of the smartest beings there created this as a tool to keep peace and form bonds regardless of races." Ben tells her.
"Cool, well if you want, I'm willing to give it a shot the day after the Skylanders Games tomorrow." Sprocket offers.
"Yeah, that'd be great." Ben says happily and waves goodbye to the girl before he starts his search for his roller blading housemate. He spots Hex over the crowd since she's one of the tallest people at the party and sees red hair dancing next to her so he makes his way over to Hex and finds that his assumption is correct when he sees Hex and Roller Brawl dancing together.
"Mind if I join you?" He asks.
"Sure, what did Sprocket say?" Roller Brawl says, taking one of his hands and pulling him over to her and Hex.
"She said she'll give fixing the Omnitrix a shot two days from now." He explains.
"That's great." Roller Brawl says happy for her best friend.
"Yes, that is indeed good news." Hex agrees.
"So, care to dance pretty ladies?" Ben asks them, offering each a hand and the three enjoy the rest of the party together, dancing and talking amongst themselves until it's late in the night and they head home to get some sleep before the final test tomorrow.
|Next day - Arena|
"Welcome to your final test, your opportunity to join our protectors of the universe. By making it here you've displayed great dedication to the Skylands and everyone here. Those of you who pass will join a team of Skylanders and with your colleagues you will maintain the balance of harmony in our world by fighting against the threat of darkness and disorder. Without further ado let the games begin, first up Eruptor." Eon announces, flying into the Arena on his flying podium and landing in front of the 5 contestants with one platform being empty because Spyro hasn't shown up yet.
The five contestants then start their trial, which consists of a combat portion and a supercharger portion. Eruptor and Stealth Elf blaze through their test with ease. But when it's Roller Brawl's turn she flunks the supercharger portion, almost crashing into the crowd. Hex doesn't fare much better when she struggles to hold her own against the training bots and is close to collapsing at the end of her turn. Ben is the last to go, he starts with the supercharger test and jumps into the one most similar to a car (Jet-Vac's vehicle) and starts to race through the course with ease, getting a sense of nostalgia since the vehicle reminds him of Kevin in a way.
When the battle portion starts, he starts off fighting the bots as a human, holding them off at least, but not doing any battle ending damage to them. He then uses his Omnitrix and turns into Lodestar, an alien which controls magnetic waves and simply sends the metal bots flying out of the arena.
After he's done Spyro shows up just before Eon ends the games and takes the test himself.
"Candidates, I will now call out the names of all those who've passed and will join me as the newest members of the Skylanders. Eruptor: passed, Stealth Elf: passed, Hex: failed, Roller Brawl: failed, Ben: passed and Spyro: failed.
"Eon says what now?" Spyro asks shocked.
"I warned you that your barely passing will not be good enough to become a Skylander so you've failed." Eon tells him.
"I'm sorry Spyro, but you will not enter the book of Skylanders this time." Eon tells him and flies away with his podium while the dragon sulks to himself, ignoring Stealth Elf and Eruptors attempt to get him to cheer up and come with them.
"I can't believe we passed. Too bad Spyro didn't thought." Stealth Elf says happily, before getting a sour mood.
"Elfie, he knew that Eon wasn't contend with his performance." Eruptor tells her.
"Come on girls, You both know I didn't want to pass and I'm not gonna show tomorrow so don't worry guys, you won't get rid of me that easy." Ben tells his two female housemates.
"Easy for you to say. You passed the tests and you were a hero already in your own dimension." Hex says disappointed.
"Yeah, what she said. Couldn't you just have flunked? You knew we weren't going to make it after our performances." Roller Brawl asks her friend also disappointed and the two girls speed up, leaving him alone.
Stealth Elf and Eruptor overheard this since the three were passing by them and looks back to Ben who's looking after his two friends saddened.
"Hey E, go on ahead without me I'll join you in a bit." Stealth Elf tells her lava-spitting friend and disappears in a poof of green smoke.
"What's up with her? Doesn't matter. I can't wait to tell mom that I'm joining the Skylanders." Eruptor says happily and runs to his house.
Stealth Elf, took another turn with her super speed and appears next to Roller Brawl and Hex who are walking to their own dorm.
"Hey, why were you so mean to Ben? I thought you were his friends." Stealth Elf asks the two, who continue on their way only giving her a glance.
"He showed us up and he doesn't even want to be a Skylander." Roller Brawl says glumly.
"Maybe he wanted to see if he could do it as his normal self, without that gizmo thingy, whatever it is? Either way, I don't think it's right that you're raining on his parade just because you didn't succeed." Stealth Elf tells them and poofs away again, heading to her own house.
"Do you think she's right?" Hex asks her vampiric friend.
"She has a point. Ben would never do anything to make us feel bad intentionally. I mean he let me drink his blood yesterday, so I won't be hungry when I was taking the test." Roller Brawl says, feeling guilty.
"Hey, didn't he give you a vitamin drink this morning?" Hex's familiar asks.
"Yeah, he did. Now I feel bad." The sorceress says.
"Hey, if he's a man he's already forgotten all about it." The skull says.
"Gee, you're not making this any better." Roller Brawl tells her friends familiar, stopping with Hex.
"Come on, let's apologize and bring him home." Roller Brawl says, heading back towards the stadium with the mage.
When they get to the stadium, they see Ben talking to Sprocket and handing her a couple papers before he turns into Astrodactyl and flies away.
"Hey Sprocket, what did Ben want from you?" Roller Brawl asks, rolling up to her with Hex running after her.
"Oh, uhm he gave me his designs for that wrist device and told me to take my time, seems like he doesn't intend to join the Skylanders yet for some reason." Sprocket tells them, knowing they are his housemates.
"Scratch that OK? Help him out tomorrow please. He's only not joining the Skylanders because we were disappointed that we didn't make the cut." Hex requests from the redhead.
"Yeah sure, I mean it seems like it's simple enough since I only have to do a little bit of tweaking." Sprocket agrees, looking through the papers quickly.
"Thank you. Now come on Hex, we have to apologize to Ben." Roller Brawl says, hugging the tech woman and rolls away with Hex, who gives Sprocket a thankful nod following her.
|Ben's dorm|
When the two arrive at their dorm they see that Ben isn't home yet and are trying to think of a surprise for him.
"Hey, why don't we try making him that drink he keeps going on about. And I know just who can help us with it." Roller Brawl says, getting the idea to make Ben a smoothie.
A couple hours later Ben arrives at their dorm and as soon as he's through the entrance door four of his five roommates yell "Surprise!" with Food Fight having fallen asleep until the loud yell.
"Hey, what's up with this? You know I won't join the Skylanders tomorrow." Ben tells them, making his way into the kitchen, being led there by his friends.
"Oh no you are. We were being petty and selfish. You've more than earned your place as a Skylander in our books and we're not letting you back out just to wait for us with it not even being guaranteed that we'll pass the next time." Hex tells him.
"Yeah, we're sorry Ben. Here, we made this for you. Also, Sprocket will help you with your Omnitix tomorrow like you had planned.
"Roller Brawl apologizes to him, walking over to her best friend with a cold smoothie.
"A smoothie? I thought they didn't have that in this dimension?" Ben asks stunned and takes a sip.
"They do now, Food Fight got us the ingredients, Chill supplied the ice and Wind Up actually made it." Roller Brawl tells him with everyone showing off their traits.
"Thanks guys. I don't know what to say." Ben thanks them happily.
"Just say you'll join the Skylanders." Chill says.
"Alright, I'll do it." Ben agrees, giving his group of friends a hug.
"Also, I'll train you two and you three as well if you want that is." Ben offers to his house mates, pointing at Hex and Roller Brawl at first.
"Yeah!" Everyone shouts in agreement.
The six of them then have a small smoothie party during which everyone but Roller Brawl develops a liking for the beverage.
That evening Ben gets a smoothie out of the fridge, having asked his friends to make a spare one and empties half the beverage into another cup. He then gets a needle and a tube and sticks the needle into a vein on the inside of his elbow, letting some blood flow through the tube and into one of the two smoothies.
Once he's mixed up the smoothie with his blood about half each he takes out the needle and puts a band aid on the entry point before putting a few more ice cubes in the drink meant for his vampiric friend and takes the two beverages to her room where he waits at her door, knocking on it.
Moments later Roller Brawl opens the door and Ben enters the girls' room.
"What are you doing here this late? Shouldn't you be getting some sleep for your ceremony tomorrow?" She asks him, jumping back on her bed, where she puts away the book she was reading.
"Yeah maybe but first. Here have a drink." Ben tells her, offering her his special beverage.
"Ben you know normal food will make me vomit, why are you doing this?" She asks annoyed.
"Just try it OK? Don't you trust me?" He asks.
"Ugh and here you have to play the trust card." She grumbles, accepting the beverage and taking a weary sip of it, enjoying the taste of it much to her surprise.
"Huh? How's that possible?" She asks taking a bigger sip and feeling no nausea coming, which usually hits her instantly.
She then spots the band aid on his arm and says, "As much as I enjoy the gesture, that's just a waste of good delicious blood." She says.
"Hey, I've made you feel left out once today, I'm not letting you down this time." He tells her, sitting down on the chair in her room.
"You never left me down dummy. I was just sad that we won't get to hang out so much anymore and I didn't want you to forget about me, uh us." She says shyly.
"As if I'd ever forget about you. You and Hex are my best friends." He tells her, joining her, sitting at the edge of her bed and brushing the bang hanging over her left eye out of her face.
"Ben… I, I think we should call it a night. Don't want you to sleep in and get booted like Spyro." She says, embarrassedly, having almost told him that she likes him.
"Yeah, I guess we'd better get some sleep. Hey, I just got a great idea how to make you train harder." Ben says, going to her room's door.
"What is it?" She asks still flustered by their moment just now.
"When you make progress, you get a fresh bite out of Ben." He tells her with a smirk and leaves, heading to bed.
"Phew that was close, I almost confessed to him, I have to say though getting some more of that delicious blood I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind at all." She says slurping at her drink and imagining herself biting his neck and making out with the brunette teen staying across the hall from her.
AN: first pairing will probably still be Ben x Stealth Elf with others joining afterwards.
