Episode 2: A Blast From The Future

Chapter 2: Family Business

(Madison Elementary) (02:45 PM)

"Haaa…" That was the sound of Ben, yawning out loud during the last period of school. His last class before freedom was science and even he wouldn't deny that he found it boring. As the teacher continued his ongoing lectures, Ben decided to draw some mini doodle characters on his notebook to pass the time. He never liked science, heck he doesn't even like school! The only thing that kept him here were his parents and the gym teacher.

It was still was surprise to some why Ben was still in school though. But Ben knew why. Since he figured that the principle was an Ex-Plumber like his grandpa, they had a mutual understanding with each other. It was great having a principle for a friend though. Not only did it get him out of detention, it also provided him with a good excuse maker when he was out doing hero work.

But just when Ben finished off his drawing of Fourarms crushing a doodle Vilgax, he noticed a familiar tiny sized alien crawling through his window. It was Gray Matter. But how could that be? He was the one with the Omnitrix, so how could there be another Galvan here? (Galvan came from an old play which was refereed to as tiny) After the tiny little brain alien walked up to Ben's desk, he immediately knew who it was when he spoke up, "Hey there pops"

"Kenny?!" the boy whispered in an almost loud tone. Not wanting the other students to see him, the boy quickly held up his book and hid Kenny between the pages, "What are you doing here? Do you get yourself squashed?"

"What's wrong? I change form in school everyday to show off" his future son replied cheerfully.

"Hello, this is the 20th century! Humans and aliens aren't exactly in good terms here" he should know this, because most of the aliens that come to earth either want to destroy it or conquer it.

"Oh yeah… the first friendly alien contact was during the 22nd century. Anyway, what other opportunities do you think I'll have to see my own dad's school!?" the young newbie hero chuckled out before turning his eyes to the book that Ben hid him in.

"No!" Ben denied him, "You're going back to grandpa's RV. Does he even know you're here?"

"Relax, came his when I was XLR8" his son explained, "Besides, gramps went out to get some sauce from the shop, so there's no way I'm going back there just to drink his 'famous' herbal juice" Ben could totally relate to the boy's fears. Max wasn't exactly the best chef, but his homemade drinks were probably like poison to them. "So come on, what da ya say pops? Can I stay, just a little while longer? Oh can I can I can I?"

Ben groaned, "Oh… ok fine"

"Benjamin Tennyson" came the professor's voice as he noticed the boy talking during his lecture. "I hope you have a good excuse of interrupting my class"

"Uh… I was just uhh… reading" the boy stuttered which did not go unnoticed by the professor, "Reading… this uhh… book"

"Is that so?" the professor replied sarcastically, "Then I guess you wouldn't mind answering this problem then?" he flipped the chalkboard around, revealing some sort of strange formula that had both numbers and letters on it. "If you were reading the book, you shouldn't have any problems then"

"Oh um… uh… yeah… sure… no problem" Ben slowly made his way to the chalkboard trying to buy as much time as he could until the school bell rings for dismissal. When Kenny saw this, he quickly hid underneath Ben's sleeves so that he could get a better view of the question. As he analyzed the chalkboard at a closer perspective, Kenny immediately let out a groan, "What?! This, is what they were teaching back in the fifth grade? I don't even need to be Gray Matter to answer this question!" as Ben was about to write up, Kenny slipped in and began writing for him.

"Hey… what the?" Ben mumbled before noticing Kenny helping him out. With the teacher and other students busy watching the boy fail miserably upon himself, he had no worries in people seeing the tiny alien in his hand.

Once the chalk was put down, Ben quickly put Kenny in his pocket before the teacher then came up to see the results. "Well Mr. Tennyson, let's see what idiocy you have done this time… (silence) (silence) (more silence) Eh…?!" the professor quickly cleaned up his eyeglasses to make sure his eyes were being deceived. "Why… Benjamin… this… this is… correct!" several outworldly gasps could be heard from the students. For Ben to answer a question correctly was unheard of.

"Really?!" the boy said in disbelief, "Cool!" he then gave out a wink to his son who happily hid in his pockets.

"I must say, I have misjudged you Mr. Tennyson" the professor commented, "You really can be a smart one, if you put your heart into your studies. Excellent work" And by the time he finished his sentence with that, the school bell rung, signaling the end of school.

A few minutes later, Ben quickly got his things and went to a secluded spot so that Kenny can turn back into his normal human form. "Thanks for bailing me out back there" he appreciated it, "I probably would've humiliated in front of all my classmates again"

"No prob pops" Kenny replied as he finally changed back, "Besides, that question was easy. We're already learning trigonometry back in my time and man, it stinks"

"Tell me about it" Ben agreed wholeheartedly with his son. I guess that's one thing you won't be able to take out their lineage. Hating school altogether. "Hey come on, let me treat you out for a drink" Ben offered as they approach a vending machine. But the he soon realized that he didn't have enough green to buy him anything. "Ahh man… I'm all out of quarters. You got some coins on ya?"

Kenny shook his head slightly in response, "Nope. We don't use money anymore. In the future, we pay everything through an ID card and with password lock so no one can rob anyone ever again (pause) But… I think I can still help you there" with a press of a button, Kenny morphed into Upgrade, the techno robotic alien. "Stand back for a second pops" when the boy morphed with the vending machine, two soda cans sprung out instantly. "Oh yeah… two drinks, on the house" once he was done he quickly de-morphed and changed back to his human form.

"Hey! You can't do that!" Ben scolded, "That's stealing! Normally I would do this on my doofus cousin's laptop, but not on other machines. Heroes don't steal"

"Oh come on dad" Kenny reasoned clearly not understanding why he was so angry about such a trivial matter, "Don't super heroes deserve a reward once in awhile?"

"Not unless they're given" Ben lectured him in a very strict manner. "But how is it you're able to turn into aliens so fast?"

This was the time when Ken 10 smirked out his own pride, "It was easy! I used Grey Matter's brains to hack into the Omnitrix and remove the limiter. No limiter, no timing out! Instant hero switches at my command"

Ben would've knocked his head off if he could, "That's genius! AHH! Why didn't I think of that!?" he smacked his forehead with his hand, leaving a small red mark on top.

"If you want, I can do it for you" Ken offered to which Ben agreed almost instantly.

"Yes please! Do that, and we can forget about the soda!" immediately Kenneth changed back into Grey Matter and began tinkering with Ben's Omnitrix.

"Ok… let's see. This must be the power converter, this must be the changing system, and this must be the DNA modification unit" Ben could hear several chittering and chattering sounds as his son groaned through the deadly weapon. "Now that means that the limiter must be somewhere right about… eh?"

"What is it?" Ben asked when Kenny stopped his scientific explanation.

"That's odd… there's no limiter" he stated a little confused, "There was supposed to be a limiter right next to the power core, but there's none. The mainframe cortex isn't here either and the DNA modification unit isn't even upgraded. Maybe this original version of the Omnitrix was different from mine"

"Well, how about you activate the master code? At least that'll get me something"

"Right on it" and again, the boy quickly dove into the Omnitrix's shell, trying to decipher its every use. "Whoa… ok talk about strange. This thing doesn't look like my Omnitrix at all. The design cortex is way off the charts and schematics is totally messed up. It's like a whole new world of green or something"

"Uh hello… but you do remember you're speaking to a human guy… right?"

"Oh… sorry about that pops" Kenny quickly jumped off Ben's Omnitrix and changed back into his human form, "I guess the one you had before must've been an older model. I can't even tell half the things on it"

"Well, I guess it was worth the try" Ben said disappointed. But he knew that it was too good to be true to have his own son reactivate the master code, "Come on, grandpa Max will be here any minute now and I'm sure he's probably figured out a way to send you back to your time" but just as they walked through the school play ground, Ben couldn't help but feel a bit unease of the stares he was getting from his schoolmates. He was walking down the lane with someone who looked like him, talked like him, walked like him and even act like him. The only that separate them apart were their hair styles and skin color.

"Man, I can't believe this is how Bellwood used to look like thirty years ago" Kenny exclaimed, "All the buildings are short and not a single space station in sight. When you and I battle around the world, there would be this small camera that shows through the mega-screen on how we beat the bad guys"

"Usually I would love to find out more about the future" Ben interrupted, "But I think I'd rather be surprised" but just when they were about to head towards the parking lot, an explosion occurred just right across the street. Apparently there was a robbery progressing in a local grocery shop and the thieves just blew up the door to the safe with an explosive device.

"Robbery at twelve o'clock" Kenny started.

"Highly armed and extremely dangerous" Ben finished with a smirk. "For the cop…"

"Looks like its hero time!" the two Tennysons said together followed by a small chuckle. With a press of the Omnitrix device, Kenny turned into XLR8 while Ben turned into Stinkfly.

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While the heroes were on their way, the robbers quickly began taking the loot. "Hurry up and load the cash man! The cops will be here any minute!" said the boss of the gang to his two other partners in crime. While he was busy making sure that the cashier stayed put the other two quickly began loading money into their knapsacks.

"We're going as fast as we can boss!" said one, "Just make sure no one's following us when we're done"

"Don't worry!" the boss grinned, "By the time we drive out of here, we'll just cross the border to Mexico and it'll be smooth sailing from there on end"

"The only boat, you guys will taking is the express way to prison!" came Kenny's (XLR8) voice. When the crooks noticed the alien guy they immediately began firing at him.

"What is he supposed to be an alien freak?" said one of the crooks in disbelief.

"It must be one of those alien heroes going around the country" the boss added while shooting, "Well he an't gonna stop us! Just load the money and let's get out of here!" the crooks gladly complied and continued loading money into the bag. After the last of the green had been taken from the safe, they quickly made a break for it to their escape vehicle.

But Kenny already that they were going to do that, so with the speed of light, he grab the knapsack with the money and knock one of the crooks down to the ground. "One down, two to go!" he remarked triumphantly.

"Hey you freak! Give us back our money!"

"You want it?" Kenny replied before changing into Ditto, the multiplication alien, "Well then try and come and get it!" and with that last sentence he began duplicating himself into three pairs (that means there are six of them) and started running around trying to confuse and elude his enemies. "Bet you can't catch me!"

"Or me!"

"Or meee!" the Dittos chuckled as the two remaining crooks tried to catch them. With their small size and annoying repetitive laughter, they were indeed a group not to be reckoned with.

"Oh when I get my hands on all six of you, I'm gonna rip you apart in six different ways!" the boss of the gang shouted.

"Oh yeah? Well we can beat you up in more than fifty different ways!" Kenny shot back truthfully. With his fifty aliens locked up in his Omnitrix he had more than fifty ways to actually beat the guy up. "Let's start off with something simple" the Dittos quickly formed up and pitched in like an American Football team. "Twenty to left! Thirty to right! Two suckers up front… and… HUT!" immediately the Dittos up front tackled the crooks down to the ground, but the boss of the gang seemed a little more persistent than his colleagues.

"To heck with the money man! This an't worth facing off with some freaks! I'm outta here!" he quickly got into his getaway car and drove off. But he was barely even able to get a distance of a kilometer when Ben (Stinkfly) used his steel hard tail to cut open the hood. "AHH!!"

"Hey buddy, your car is missing a piece!" Ben mocked as he took out the engine, "It's got an empty hood hehehehehehe" with the engine gone, the car quickly came into a complete stop in a matter of seconds. But the goon still thought that he could outrun Ben on foot. "Man… I hate when they start running" the boy remarked before flying up and grabbing the man. "All aboard on Stinkfly airway! The smelliest and yet the fastest way to travel!"

"Ahh!! Let me go! Let me go you overgrown mosquito!" the gang leader demanded.

"As you wish…" Ben complied to his demands and dropped him right onto his goons which had been assembled by Kenny's Dittos. "Nice job Kenny!"

"All in the day's work for the two greatest superheroes of the world" his son replied.

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After Ben and Ken returned the stolen money to the owner of the shop, they were immediately rewarded with two ice cream cones for their heroic valor. When the local authorities finally arrived on scene, the two of them hid in a secluded spot in the school boy's locker room and turned back into their human forms so that they wouldn't suspects of the scene. The last thing Ben needs would be suspicion from the cops, and he didn't want the government coming at him from every corner.

"Now that was wicked!" Ben commented as he licked his ice cream. "Nothing beats the Friday blues with a little hero work to relieve the stress" he gestured by giving out a few air jabs.

"You got that right" Kenny agreed, "But the bad guys here are way easier to fight than the ones in the future. The only robberies I've seen is when the Forever Knights tried to steal the weapons complex from earth"

"Some villains just can't take a hint when they're beaten" Ben added which they both laughed. But their little happy mood was soon cut short when a large yet familiar old man appeared right in front of them with a frown that would've even make the Circus Freak Trio cower in her. Both Ben and Ken froze and smiled falsely at the new presence. "Oh uh… hey there grandpa ahehehehe" it was obvious now that they were both in trouble.

(Ten minutes later) (The Rust Bucket)

After Max picked Ben and Ken from school he immediately put the secretly high-tech RV into auto pilot so that he could have a little chat with his grandson and his son. There was still a long time before they reach Ben's house anyway so this might as well be a good time to talk. Besides… no one else, but Gwen would be able to listen on their conversation. Talking in the RV was good for many reasons. One, it kept them mobile so that they wouldn't be able to be traced and secondly, there was nothing much to do there anyway.

"You really did it now" said Max as he put a band aid on Ben's left cheek, "That stunt you pulled off at the grocery shop almost made you guys go public. If you hadn't left right at that moment, the media would've been all over you by now"

"Oww! Sorry gramps" Ben flinched, "But you got to admit that was kinda cool. Those guys didn't even know what him them"

"Ya! A large stinky bug and midget that can multiply into a hundred clone of itself" Gwen replied mockingly, "You need to be more careful with your powers. Who knows, you might set off the self destruct sequence again"

"Don't worry" he replied cheerfully, "I kicked their butt and got out, easy and simple. Besides, Azmuth already took out that self-destruct thingie from the Omnitrix. Now if only I could reactivate the master code just like I did back in the falls, I could kick bad guy butt 24/7"

"Usually I would lecture you on how silly it was to go alien" Max added after putting the med-kit away, "But since you two saved the old man and stopped three crooks… I'll let it slide. But I want you two to promise me never to go hero at the same time. I think having one alien hero at a time is probably more than enough than what this city can handle"

"Cool… then can dad and I go skateboarding this afternoon?" Kenny asked

"I really don't want to be a dweeb here, but I think it's better that you kept out of sight for a while" Gwen answered.

"Why's that?"

"Because… future nephew. You're from the future. Who knows what kind of time-space anomaly will happen when you come in contact with the past. Even as we speak we might even be changing the future as it is now. We need to find a way to bring you back to the future and fast before we permanently alter the time stream or something! I'm getting my spell book"

"Man… I take back what I said yesterday" Kenny stated as the girl left to get her backpack, "That is definitely aunt Gwendolyn. Never thought she would be such a spoil sport"

"Tell me about it" Ben added with a smirk. Gwen simply shot them a dirty look as she scanned through her spell book.

"And I think having one Ben Tennyson is all this world needs" she added annoyingly.

After a few minutes later, Max decided to stop by a gas station to get the Rust Bucket refueled from its empty tank. The RV might be able to travel up to 300 kilometers an hour, shoot lasers out of its hood and defend itself with an electric shield, but like all combustion vehicles, it still needed gas. While the old man was busy pumping the little girl up and Gwen busy looking into her spell book, Ben and Ken decided to check out the mini-mart to get themselves a couple of snacks to chew on for the road.

"Hmm… I'll take one of these and one of that" Ben didn't really have much green with his name on it, but he still had some loose change left to buy him a little treat. "Ok… I think I have enough" as he went to the cashier, he found Kenny already in line with a somewhat larger pack of snacks. "Whoa!"

"That'll be 35.60 young man" said that cashier. Kenny quickly pulled out a fifty dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to him.

"Hey, where did you get that fifty?" Ben asked a little surprised of all the things that boy was going to eat in a matter of minutes. "I thought you guys didn't have money anymore in the future"

"Oh that? That was a… souvenir from history class" Kenny replied with a little stutter through his words, "You see… before I went to stop Animo, I had history class and we were studying about the American Presidents. Grandpa had a bunch of these back in his RV and had plenty to spare. I don't think he'll miss them to much"

"O… k…"

"Hey, check this out! I bought some lickerish, gummy worms, chocolate milk bars, and Sumo Slammer Crackers! There's supposed to be a prize in each package" he tried to ruin Ben's focus with the many treats he had on his plastic bag.

But before Ben could pressure on with the topic, a fire truck suddenly drove pass through the glassed window with its siren warning the people on the street that there was an emergency going on. Since the two of them were a part of each other, it was no surprise that Ben and Ken went out to see what was going on.

Apparently there was a building caught on fire a few blocks away from where they were now. And from the looks of it, the fire fighters looked like they could use a hand extinguishing the flames. Once Ben and Ken saw this, they grinned out mischievously and turned to their Omnitrix. "It's hero time!!" with a great big green flash, Ben turned into Cannonbolt while his son Kenneth transformed into Heatblast.

"You go douse the fire, I'll get the people out of there" Ben commanded to which his son had no objections on.

By the time they were within the block, they soon realize that the building that was burning was a lot bigger than they thought it would be. It was an apartment complex with six floors to boot and only two entryways. The fire fighters were trying to get the people out of the higher floors one by one while the ones on the ground tried busting in through the main door.

"Captain!" came one of the rookies to the fire fighter veterans, "We got most of the people on the top floor secured, but there are still two people trapped on the fourth floor!"

"Well don't just stand there! Get one of them hoses in and douse it off!" the captain replied, "Get the ladder unit up there now and get the wounded into a safe location. If we can't put out this fire, the whole block might just go up in flames! And somebody call the ambulance!" while the fire fighters were busy getting themselves together, Ben (Cannonbolt) came by.

"Hey, mister" he called out to the fire fighter captain, "Which floor did he the trapped guys were?" when the captain turned back his eyes widened and his voice softened like a mouse squeak. I guess everyone was still surprised to see aliens around town.

"T… t… t… the fo… fourth… four…" he stuttered completely shocked.

"Fourth floor, got it!" Ben nodded and quickly got to work on getting those trapped inside out of there. "Alright, look out world, coming through! Cannonbolt coming in!" with one good roll the boy blasted his way into the fourth floor through one of the windows.

When he got in, it became as hot as the Sahara desert in there. As he looked around, he could tell that he must be close to where the fire originated from. It was hot, way too hot for comfort and a lot of smoke to make an old man cough up. "Ok… maybe that wasn't the smartest idea I came up with, but its way better than sitting around doing nothing. It wasn't long then till he found the first person trapped inside the room. "Hey… are you alright?"

It was girl probably in her early teens, "Oh… who are you?"

"The name's Cannonbolt" Ben replied heroically, "Don't worry lady. I'll get you out of here in no time"

She let out a cough as she must've breathed in a lot of smoke when she fell unconscious. "Wait…" she begged the young hero, "My brother… he's in the other room. You got to help him!"

"Not a problem. Just sit back, relax and watch me roll!" Ben quickly broke the wooden door towards the next room, but little did he know that it was a back draft door.

A/N: Back Draft door is when a room on the opposite side is starved of oxygen but still at high temperature. When oxygen is re-introduced again the fire will cause combustion start, often resulting in an explosion only to the door. When faced with this kind of danger, it is best to keep that door closed at all time until the temperature returns to normal.

As Ben struggled back up onto his two feet he quickly dusted the ashes away from his body and sigh, "Man… I wonder if my future self gets a holiday away from being a hero. This job is tougher than I thought" a few moments later, he soon found a little boy lying unconscious in the kitchen. There was no doubt that this was the originating point of the fire since the temperature was way too hot for his standards.

After getting both the girl and her brother in his arms, Ben quickly march towards the window that he broke down. "Alright, hold on. This could get rough" but before he could jump drop and roll, the support beam on the upper floor finally gave up and crashed down right on top of them. Luckily, Ben and the two siblings were able to get out of that room before any of them got hurt. But unfortunately, Ben seemed to have rolled the wrong way and was now trapped inside the hallway of the apartment.

"What are we going to do now?" asked the older sibling as she carried her brother on her arms.

"Hey pops!" came Kenny's (Heatblast) voice from the other side of the hallway, "Hurry up, this way!" with his fire ability, he drained the flames from the area and made the temperature back to its original state. But before Ben could get over there, the support beam on that area crumbled as well, making it impossible to go through.

"Oh no there's no way out!" the girl yelled in panic as the fire caught up to the.

Ben looked unsure as well, but as he saw Kenny flying out the window, he immediately got an idea. "No other way, but going up!" with one swift move, the boy grabbed the girl and became a living bouncing ball.

As the building continued to get torch, Ben shot right through the roof and landed several feet away from the fire truck. When his body made impact with the ground, he created a mini crater the size of Abraham Lincoln's statue.

"Thank you… thank you very much" the girl bowed down extremely happy to be alive from that death trap. "I don't know how to repay you"

"No sweat lady" Ben replied blushing as he still wasn't used to compliments and appreciations from people other than Grandpa Max and Gwen. "Just doing my job… or at least my future job that is"

After a couple of minutes later, the fire fighting team finally got the last of the civilians out and doused the fire that nearly burned half the block. Ben and Ken disappeared soon after, hiding behind a trash dumpster so that they could return back to their human forms.

"Another job well done for the Tennysons" Ben grinned as he was proud of the work that he had done. It's not everyday you actually get to save a damsel in distress from a burning building of certain doom.

"Yeah…" Kenny agreed, "Too bad we didn't get anything out of it"

"Oh don't worry Kenny. Like Grandpa always say: good deeds have their own rewards…………" an awkward pause came over as he said that, "I have no idea why I just said that" they laughed.

After that heroic effort down by the burning apartment, Ben and Ken returned to the Rust Bucket together without even letting Max know that they were gone for a minute.