Paradox
I don't own Digimon or Ben 10
"You sure this thing is going to work? You're time machine has cost the US Government a pretty penny doctor," a general said to a scientist wearing a lab coat standing in front of a large hole made out of quartz crystal.
"This device is hardly a time machine in the sense of a vehicle. But a sub-atomic drill designed to bore a tunnel in the fabric of space time, as for cost. I think the alleviation oh untold human suffering throughout history is ample justification, general," the scientist said.
"It will also give our red buddies overseas something to think about," the general said.
"And to answer your first question. There is only one way to know," the scientist said as he pulled a lever and the machine whirred and a swirling vortex of energy appeared.
"Are you sure we're safe doctor?" his assistant asked.
"I'm not certain of anything Hugo, but the chrono magnetic field should protect us," the doctor answered.
"Doctor. I'm frightened!" his assistant told him.
"Have a gumball, it'll calm your nerves," the scientist told him holding up a bag as his assistant backed up and the machines started to go haywire and objects began to be sucked inside and the scientist was next and a giant shadow appeared and roared. Fifty years later Daisuke was driving's Kevin's car down an old road.
"You didn't need to come. Gwen and I could have handled it," Kevin told her. "It's nothing really,"
"Doesn't sound like nothing. Weird noises, strange lights, rumours of weird creatures out here," Daisuke told him as she stopped driving and turned the car off and everyone climbed out.
"Yeah the guys I heard it from are not totally reliable," Kevin said.
"Isn't that the bad boy thing to do? Come out here and drag race?" Gwen asked him.
"How should I know? I just know these guys from auto shop," Kevin answered and everyone gave him a blank look as they saw some writing that said Kevin Rules.
"Grandpa Max said that Los Soledad use to be an old military base back in the fifties," Ben said. "Some kind of research facility,"
"Must be some secret research. Look at these walls, fifty years later and still standing, there is no way in," Kevin said.
"Then explain the holes in the wall," Daisuke told him pointing at holes in the wall.
"No way. Those weren't here," Kevin said as everyone climbed back into the car and drove into the base before stopping.
"Did anyone notice those tracks were vaguely human shaped?" Gwen asked.
"Weird. I don't know, maybe something burned through the wall?" Daisuke suggested.
"Oh yeah like what?" Kevin asked her.
"I don't know. The same things that burned these tracks in the ground," she answered looking at burn marks into the ground all over the ground.
"Look at this," Ben said kneeling down. "It's a bird," he said pointing at bones of a bird. "And these are lizard bones, they are fossilized," he said picking up a lizard fossil.
"And they're not the only thing," Gwen said pointing to a phone box where the bottom had be turned into sand. "Something turned the slate into sand just by standing here,"
"He was probably on hold," Kevin said as Daisuke looked at the trails.
"The trails lead towards the police station….and then to that set of apartment I guess," she said.
"Just to review someone stood here a million years ago and then walked into those buildings that were here fifty years ago?" Kevin asked.
"Don't joke about this Kevin. It could be DNAliens…" Daisuke started.
"DNAliens did not cause this. I mean does that look like a DNAlien?" Gwen asked pointing to some sort of blue and black creature that was heading towards them.
"Finally something worth the gas," Kevin said absorbing the stone floor and Daisuke turned into Chromastone while Ben took out his blaster and Gwen held her hands up and they glowed with mana and the creature moved past them and passed by a building and it aged and collapsed.
"Watch it!" Chromastone shouted as the building collapsed on top of everyone but Kevin and Chromastone covered Ben and Gwen and when Chromastone looked up she saw the creature was gone. "He's gone," she said turning back to Daisuke in a golden flash of light.
"At least the building it destroyed wasn't the library," Gwen said.
"You really love your books," Kevin told her.
"She meant we need to research. Whatever that thing is it is looking for something on the base," Ben said and soon everyone was inside the old library.
"These films are really corroded," Gwen said sitting at an old computer. "But it looks like this base was built for something called Project Paradox,"
"Who wouldn't pick the desert outside Bellwood for this kind of top secret research?" Kevin asked.
"It's because of the quarts deposits around here," Ben told him.
"Quarts? Time? Sounds like someone is building the world's biggest wristwatch," Kevin joked and everyone looked at him blankly and he shrugged, Daisuke then looked at a picture of a scientist.
"His name is censored, whoever he was his paradox theory was the basis of some kind of experimental tunnel through time," she read and everyone then headed to the building where they saw the machines half sucked into the portal.
"Looks like my house after the party I three last weekend," Kevin said.
"That thing's been here too," Gwen said looking at the trail in the ground.
"Only a single trail….either it came here and vanished or it was born here," Ben said before a noise startled everyone.
"It's back," Daisuke said as she was enveloped in a golden light and she transformed into a familiar alien. "Heatblast!" she shouted and now Daisuke had miniature volcanos on her shoulders with the Omnitrix symbol on her chest which was larger and the flames on her head were now brighter and larger. Heatblast jumped over through a shattered window and made a fireball in her hand as she looked at a man who looked like the scientist but he hadn't aged a day.
"Heatblast. That takes me back, or is it forward?" he asked himself. "It's so hard to tell Daisuke, have we met?"
"How do you know my name?" Heatblast asked him.
"Have we met yet I suppose the question was," the man said.
"It's that scientist from the photo the paradox guy," Ben said.
"He hasn't change at all in fifty years," Gwen said.
"Oh it's been much longer than that. Gumball?" the man asked.
"No thanks," Heatblast told him. "Who are you?"
"You just read my file. I was hoping you could tell me, it slipped my mind several hundred years ago," the man said.
"Did he just say several hundred years?" Kevin asked.
"Did you just say…?" Heatblast turned to see the man had vanished.
"By the way you wouldn't have happened to have seen a space time anomaly anywhere have you? About yay big, incredibly destructive and virtually unstoppable? No. I must have been thinking of another moment, ta ta," the man said walking off and Kevin chased him only to find he vanished.
"Were did he go?" he asked.
"He's outside," Gwen said.
"He's obviously connected to that creature. We need to talk to him," Ben said.
"Oh we'll talk," Kevin aid smashing through the wall. "Right after the pounding," Kevin said as the man walked behind a lamp post and vanished confusing Kevin and then the man was seen in a doorway and he shut the door and Kevin kicked the door down and ran through the houses chasing the man.
"Was I in there?" the man asked before running off and he turned a corner when Heatblast blasted a hole in the wall and chased him. "That was public property you know," the man told her from behind.
"How does he move that fast?" Heatblast asked.
"You mean how I move so quickly? It is called walking," the man answered walking off and he appeared behind Kevin. "Strolling actually,"
"That's better," Kevin said grabbing the man.
"Easy on the jacket it's twelve hundred years old," the man said and Kevin let him go. "Thanks,"
"For what?" Heatblast asked him.
"I figured if we made enough racket he would show up," the man said.
"Finally something to hit!" Kevin exclaimed as the creature approached them.
"I wouldn't do that," the man warned Kevin.
"Those tracks, they aren't burn marks, they're age. The creature accelerates time," Gwen said.
"Very good," the man said as Kevin ran up to the creature and punched it before he groaned and he aged rapidly before he fell to the ground.
"Kevin," Heatblast said turning back into Daisuke and she, Ben and Gwen ran up to him. "Touching that thing aged him sixty or eighty years. We need to get him to hospital," Daisuke said pulling Kevin to his feet.
"What're you doing get your hands off me," Kevin told her.
"Come on Kevin, we're gonna get you some help," Gwen told him.
"What do you mean help? I'm gonna kick that things backside," Kevin said kicking a pebble and a pop was heard and Kevin grunted.
"Are you okay?" Gwen asked him.
"My back's killing me, my legs ache and what's up with these shoes? Is it too much to get a little support?" he asked.
"He's like a real irritable, short tempered, crotchety old man," Gwen said.
"Why are you whispering!?" Kevin asked loudly.
"So apart from the male pattern baldness he's the same," Daisuke said. "Come on old man," she told Kevin taking his car keys and soon the foursome were inside Kevin's car.
"You should have gone out with me when I was young and pretty," Kevin told Gwen as they sat in the backseat.
"You were too immature," she told him.
"What about now?" he asked.
"Too old," she answered as Daisuke revved the car's engine as the creature appeared in front of them.
"Back up!" Ben shouted and Daisuke reversed. The creature then smashed through a building. "On the right!" he shouted and Daisuke turned the wheel and the car turned around and she turned the car to the right. "Go faster!" Ben shouted.
"I'm giving her all she's got cap'n!" Daisuke replied.
"Star Trek quote? Really!?" Ben asked her and Daisuke shrugged as the creature touched the car and it turned into a rusted old wreck.
"No the car. Not the car!" Kevin shouted as Daisuke drove up a ramp and the car landed on the roof of a building. "You are not driving my car again," Kevin told her as the wheels of the car fell off.
"True," Daisuke replied.
"Where have you been? You were supposed to get her six seconds ago. Or is this thing running fast?" the man asked looking at a pocket watch as he stood in front of the ruined car.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Ben asked as everyone climbed out of the car.
"What is that creature?" Gwen asked him.
"Can you fix my car?" Kevin asked.
"There is something different about you. Is it your hair?" the man asked Kevin.
"Yeah. I'm parting it down the middle and I also got real old!" Kevin shouted.
"Don't lecture me about old. I walk in eternity," the man said ominously.
"Well better start running in eternity smart guy," Kevin threatened the man.
"You might slow us down. I'll have to fix that. We'll come back right over there," the man said and the others looked to see the man and Kevin now back to his normal age appeared.
"Kevin. I can't believe it, you're as good as new," Gwen said running up to Kevin and she hugged him.
"Well my back still aches," he told her. "If I could just lean on you," he said and Gwen rolled her eyes. "Alright Professor, if you don't mind fixing my car,"
"How exactly do you expect me to do that? I am a time traveller. Not a body shop," the man said. "Regressing a car would break all the laws of space time and…."
"Alright enough! I want answers now," Daisuke told him.
"Same old Daisuke Motomiya, you're more like yourself now than you are in the future which for obvious reasons I can't tell you about," the man said.
"Can I hurt him?" Kevin asked cracking his knuckles.
"What can you tell us Mr…..Paradox?" Gwen asked him.
"Paradox, yes that will do, that will do nicely," Paradox said. "I'll tell you my story in a way you can understand with a beginning, middle and an end, let us begin in the middle," he told them as his pocket watch glowed. "Los Soledad was built entirely because of my ingenious theory. A time tunnel made of quartz crystal allowing us to visit past and future events," Paradox explained.
"For a genius. Looks like you blew it," Kevin said.
"You don't know the half of it. Some tiny miscalculation on my behalf caused a rip to be created in the fabric of reality. I was hurled into the event horizon. I must have spent one hundred thousand years there. I didn't age or eat or sleep. I just existed," Paradox said.
"That sounds boring," Kevin said.
"At first I went mad of course. But then after a few millennia I grew bored and became sane very sane. I began to learn. I now have total understanding of the space time continuum. Allowing me to travel anywhere and anywhen I want," Paradox said closing his pocket watch.
"So where's your time machine?" Kevin asked him.
"He doesn't have one. He has a map of all the shortcuts through time in his head," Daisuke said.
"Precisely. I've spent several lifetimes crisscrossing the time stream making it a better place," Paradox said.
"And how's that pay?" Kevin asked him.
"At the moment not even in job satisfaction," Paradox answered as he walked toward a chalkboard and the others found themselves in a room. "You see I recently discovered that some kind of extra dimensional creature is going to wreak havoc across the universe," he said.
"So? The way you talk you take on monsters all the time. Why is this one so different?" Ben asked him.
"This foe unlike the thousands I have fought before came into existence the moment my experiment went array," Paradox said drawing on the chalkboard.
"So to be clear. It's your fault," Kevin said and Daisuke elbowed him.
"This creature hasn't been here for fifty years. We'd know about it," Gwen said.
"Time is a river. It flows and bends, fifty years ago I set of a depth charge in this river accidently. The creature I released was sent through time to your present doing this to your future," Paradox said as he drew lines over the river he had drawn on the board.
"But all it's doing is messing up an old military base. Why not leave alone?" Daisuke asked him.
"That's a question for the man on the moon," Paradox answered.
"Who is that?" Ben asked.
"I am," Paradox answered and his voice echoed as everyone now stood on the moon.
"We're on the moon," Ben said.
"The moon in your future to be precise," Paradox told him.
"How are we not suffocating?" Kevin asked.
"Good question, hardly the point though," Paradox told him and Kevin frowned. "Imagine what the earth would look like in two hundred years' time with that creature running around all over turning anything it touches to dust. For those with no imagination look up," he said and everyone looked up to see the earth aged severally and it looked dead.
"You brought us to the worst future imaginable," Daisuke said.
"No. If I fail to stop that monster, this is your only future," Paradox told her. "Not a pretty sight is it. What are you doing here?" Paradox asked another Paradox in front of the others.
"I'm allowing myself to witness the full extent of my failure," the other Paradox answered.
"Okay, who's he?" Kevin asked.
"A parallel paradox," Daisuke answered.
"Young Daisuke has a terrific understanding of trans-temporal meta-physics which will serve her well in the past," the other Paradox said.
"And I'm a good driver," Daisuke said.
"We can breathe on the moon but you can't fix my car?" Kevin asked.
"What should I do?" Paradox asked.
"Not what I did. Obviously, but you must hurry. Time is running out," the other Paradox said as his pocket watch glowed and the group appeared back at Los Soledad.
"Why come back here? Why don't we travel back in time to stop the time experiment from happening?" Ben asked.
"Just like one who has unlocked his Anodite form to think outside the temporal convention," Paradox said and Ben scratched his head slightly. "The event that creates the creature also unsticks me from time and that must happen,"
"Because you've saved the world dozens of times," Daisuke said.
"Hundreds actually. On one such occasion you and I unite to save the univer—never mind," Paradox told her. "It should be here any minutes," Paradox said as the time creature appeared and Daisuke turned into Jetray and fired energy blasts but they did not affect the creature, Paradox then threw gumballs at the creature and it stopped.
"They hit it?" Ben asked as Jetray landed.
"Doesn't it turn everything to dust?" she asked.
"Gumballs last a long time, look under your desk at school. Now watch out!" Paradox shouted and Jetray flew off and Paradox jumped and grabbed the creature.
"Let go! He'll age you to dust!" Gwen told him.
"I exist outside of time. But I can still feel the eons passing by," Paradox replied as Jetray turned back into Daisuke.
"Paradox send us back to the accident, now!" she told Paradox and everyone was transported fifty years into the past. "The lab hurry," she told the others. "And you keep that occupied,"
"Keep it occupied!? I'm a time traveling hero! I don't keep things occupied!" Paradox told her as she ran off to the lab with the others where they saw the experiment about to begin.
"Why would it use a phone? Then it goes to a police station then the dorms, that time monster didn't act like some unfathomable monster, it acted like any normal person would do," Daisuke said.
"If they found themselves in an abandoned military base," Gwen said as the time machine turned on and Daisuke saw the assistant Hugo elbow a console by mistake.
"The assistant," Daisuke said as Paradox was sucked into the time vortex and Hugo clung onto a console for dear life and Daisuke was enveloped in a golden light and she became Humungousaur and she grabbed Hugo. "Trust me. This beats the alternative," she told Hugo pulling him back as Ben and Gwen blasted the portal with mana blasts destroying it and back with Paradox the time creature turned into Hugo.
"Hugo! Of course, were it a snake it would have bit me," he said as the others walked back. "Don't look so smug, I would have figured it out eventually," he told them.
"You had a hundred thousand years," Daisuke said as they all returned to their time leaving Hugo alone.
"I have to admit it, I am impressed. All the time I spent in the event horizon and it never occurred to me the accident was not my fault, you're a lot smarter than you think," Paradox told Daisuke.
"Thanks," she replied.
"What happened to your assistant?" Gwen asked.
"I lived my life," everyone turned to see Hugo fifty years older.
"Hugo! How are you?" Paradox asked shaking his old friend's hand.
"You look the same, and I haven't seen you in fifty years," Hugo said.
"Well I haven't seen you in a hundred thousand years," Paradox told him. "But you don't look all that bad. How was your life?"
"A good life. I am sorry about the experiment, it got ruined because of me, I never got to time travel," Hugo said.
"Would you still like to?" Paradox asked him.
"Yes. I'm not afraid anymore," Hugo said.
"Marvellous. What say I give you a behind the scenes look at eternity," Paradox said opening his pocket watch and a portal opened up and both walked into it.
"At least he has company," Gwen said.
"Thanks for leaving out here standard!" Kevin shouted.
"Come on, a long walk awaits us," Daisuke said walking off before she saw Kevin's car looking brand new.
"Oh stoked!" Kevin cheered running up to it.
"It's like new," Ben said.
"It is new. It's factory new from thirty years ago. Paradox I take back everything I said about you," Kevin said as Daisuke found a note on the car.
"Kevin, try to keep in mind that if this car comes into contact with anything else from 1976 it will explode like anti-matter. Enjoy-Paradox," she read jumping into the passenger's seat.
"He's kidding right? Some kind of time travel joke right?" Kevin asked as the car drove off. "Isn't it? Guys?" he asked again but the others stayed silent.
The end of the chapter
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