Okay… so it's been a while since I posted to this archive and… there is no way to sugarcoat it, I was procrastinating for a while. Gonna keep it a buck 50 with you. in that timeframe, I have gotten messages asking if I did this simply to gain more viewers from Omnisaurus.
The answer to that is unequivocally no. I didn't have to do this, and Omni had already deleted the story before I requested permission to archive it to my page, and then I took it a step further, and wanted to create my own spin on it. I did this because I genuinely loved Omni's work, like most of you did, and I wanted to keep it alive.
I am sorry it took this long, but that is my own fault. But here we are, and I will be trying to post the rest of the old chapters much more frequently, then start working back on my own version of the madness.
The atmosphere was tense. Wait, no, tense wasn't the right word. That would imply that the atmosphere had been relaxed beforehand. Well, whatever the atmosphere was, it made almost everyone there uneasy.
As soon as Yasaka recovered from her shock, she apologized profusely to Ben for almost attacking him with her magic fire over the course of five minutes straight before introducing herself as the leader of the Yokai of Kyoto (not that Ben knew what Youkai were or where Kyoto was). Yasaka had then introduced the young girl that had entered the clearing with the kitsune medic as her daughter Kunou, princess of the Kyoto Yokai.
After the introductions had been taken care of, Kunou wasted no time in questioning Ben on how he had been able to change from a porcupine-man to a human boy. Seeing that this was going to take a long time to explain and deciding to trust the two with his secret since they probably couldn't risk telling anyone without sounding insane and possibly being sent to a mental ward, Ben told them to sit down with him on a log that had been laying on the other side of the clearing since explaining was going yo take some time.
Once they were sitting on the log, Ben told his story of how he had obtained the Omnitrix, what it was, how he had become a superhero over the course of his summer vacation while he traveled all over America (while conveniently skipping over his more embarrassing adventures like how he had released Megawatt in Sparksville and stopped Mycelium from releasing his spores into the atmosphere by dropping a bottle of Athlete's Foot Powder down it's mouth), his eventual stranding in the Null Void, his survival within said void while creating a way to return home and eventually the very one-sided fight with Phil.
As Yasaka and Kunou were marveling at his tales, the medic that Kunou had brought with her had decided to stand near the treeline watching the three from afar after she had checked both Ben and Phil (who was still unconscious and currently tied up to a tree by magical yellow ropes conjured up by Yasaka) for injuries. The medic would occasionally glance over at the shapeshifter warily before she would find some new way to distract herself; she wasn't sure if this boy was trustworthy, but he hadn't proven himself to be an enemy yet.
By the time Ben had finished explaining how he and Phil had ended up thousands of feet in the air, Kunou had been practically bouncing in her seat in excitement at his stories; not only was Ben a superhero, but he was a superhero her age that had just confirmed the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life! How could she not get excited?
"So...any questions?" Ben asked as he glanced over at the two nine-tailed foxes staring at him, the youngest wriggling in excitement and the oldest gazing at him with barely masked curiosity.
"Oh, me!" Kunou said excitedly, waving her hand up in the air rapidly as her fox ears stood on end and her tails wagged behind her like a dog's tail would. "Can I try on the Omnitrix?"
"No," Ben answered bluntly, causing Kunou to deflate a little. "It's not a matter of trust, it's the fact that the Omnitrix doesn't come off. The Omnitrix is literally fused to my body and unless my arm gets cut off, it's not going anywhere for a long time. Not even the alien tech Vilgax had on his ship was able to get it off of me."
"Is that so?" Yasaka asked as she stared at the watch with even more curiosity than before. She wondered if maybe magic would have better results than technology, although she slightly doubted it. She would have to ask Ben if she could test that out at a later date.
"Yep," Ben responded nonchalantly, popping the P at the end.
"I have another question!" Kunou said enthusiastically again, quickly getting over her bout of disappointment with her tails and ears standing up straight.
Ben shrugged. "Fire away."
"If you're from America, how come you're able to speak Japanese so fluently?"
"Oh, that's the Universal Translator function of my Omnitrix. It's one of the functions of the Omnitrix so that I can still talk to people when I'm transformed."
"You said that was one of the functions," Yasaka pointed out, leaning in closer to get a closer look at the alien device. "Apart from turning you into different alien species and acting as a translator, what else can it do?"
"Tonnes of things," Ben answered immediately. "It can prevent me from being possessed or mind controlled by others, repair genetic damage, provide a map of my nearby surroundings, access what's basically the intergalactic Internet, make sure I don't end up mutated by anything, act as a communication system, bring back extinct species, act as a homing signal..."
"Wait, did you just say it can bring back extinct species?" Yasaka interrupted Ben. If one looked closely at her face, they would be able to see a little flash hope glimmering in her eyes.
Centuries ago, the nine-tailed foxes had been hunted to near extinction by invading beings from other religions and human hunters for either control of their territories or to prove their strength to dissuade attacks from other supernatural pantheons. Yasaka and her mate had managed to survive that time period by not entering their giant fox forms or releasing their fox ears and tails anywhere but the inside of their home for several decades.
After about seventy years or so, it was deemed safe by the other Youkai of the region for them to enter their half-human/fox and giant fox forms. However, while the two of them had survived, it appeared as though they were the only ones of their kind that had escaped extinction. It that had been both sad and terrifying for Yasaka and her mate to be the last ones left of their kind, but they had managed to pull through together.
Zoom forwards a few centuries and, after many failed attempts, Yasaka and her mate finally succeeded in ensuring that they wouldn't be the last of their kind. For a while, it looked like the happy couple would be starting a family. Then a wandering group of Sacred Gear users known as the Hero Faction passed through the area and asked for refuge & resources. Despite her pleas for him to deny them because of their past experiences with Sacred Gear users, Yasaka's mate agreed to provide them with shelter at their castle home for the night.
Unfortunately for the nine-tailed foxes though, the so-called 'heroes' had been ordered to capture them in order to gain control over the Youkai of Kyoto to use as slaves for their endeavors. Upon accidentally hearing that piece of information from two members lost in the hallways that night, her mate had flown into a rage before he proceeded to burn all of the Hero Faction members to ash with his foxfire.
However, in the ensuing chaos, he failed to notice that he had missed one hero that had snuck up on him before putting their blue, gold and silver spear to very effective use.
The hero ended up dying shortly after the fight, sustaining too many injuries from the battle, but the damage was done: Yasaka was now a single parent and her daughter would have to live with being the last of her kind if anything ever fell upon Yasaka and vice versa. For the past decade, Yasaka had silently resigned herself to that fate and chosen to be content with making sure that both she and her daughter had the longest, happiest lives possible.
However, if the Omnitrix that the boy had could in fact bring back extinct species, then there was now a chance that the nine-tailed fox race could once more walk the lands of Japan. There was a chance that the Omnitrix could make it so that she and Kunou were no longer endlings.
"Yeah," Ben answered nonchalantly, not noticing the look of rapidly-growing look of hope on Yasaka's face, which confused Kunou. "It requires a lot of other machines, but essentially it copies the genetic sample inside of the Omnitrix and-"
"How does it gets genetic samples?"
"Stop interrupting me. Anyways, I've gotten three of my transformations from the genetic donor touching the Omnitrix interface, but there's also a scan mode so that I can capture DNA from a dista-yagh!"
Ben didn't have a chance to finish his sentence since Yasaka grabbed the poor boy by his wrist before pulling him closer. Once he was close enough, Yasaka draped her hand over the watchlike device, much to Ben's confusion. What confused Ben even more was when the Omnitrix turned yellow, signaling that it had just entered Capture Mode.
Ben blinked as the Omnitrix's dial popped out and sent a yellow beam over the older woman, scanning her to add her DNA to the Omnitrix before the beam surprisingly turned towards the kitsune medic watching over Phil in the background. Thankfully her back was turned towards them at the time so she didn't notice the beam scan over her and add her DNA to the alien device. Upon completing it's scans, the Omnitrix dial retreated back into it's usual position and returned back to it's original green color.
Ben looked at the Omnitrix, then Yasaka, then back at the Omnitrix. It took him a few moments to realize what had just occurred and what that entailed: his new magic friends weren't human. A moment of silence dominated the clearing before Ben finally broke it.
"So...you're not human?" Ben asked, confused at this development while wearing an expression that made it look like he had been slapped with a wet fish. Yasaka looked stunned that he didn't know before and almost tripped, but just Kunou giggled in humor at Ben's question.
"No silly," she said with a smile, pointing to her fox ears and multiple tails. "Humans don't have furry ears or tail. I thought that was pretty obvious."
The Omnitrix wielder blinked as though he was just noticing those traits for the first time.
"So those are real, huh? I thought that you had just..." Ben started mumbling something incoherent while lowering his voice and looking away from the nine-tailed foxes. Yasaka leaned forward in an attempt to hear what was being said but to no avail.
"What?" Yasaka asked, unable to make out his mumbling.
"Nothing!" Ben answered all too quickly. He would never say so out loud, but he had thought Yasaka & the other two were a group of magic users that had just came from a furry convention and were wearing fox cosplay.
It was entirely possible. When one fights alien ghosts trapped inside of watches, massive ticks that drain the life out of planets and warlord Cthulhu, the mind tends to start jumping to more outlandish conclusions.
But now that Ben knew that the furry ears and tails were indeed real body parts, there was no way in Hell that he was going to say any of that out loud. "So, what are you then?" Ben asked, trying to continue the conversation in an attempt to make them forget about his previous mumbling.
"The grumpy lady over there is a kitsune and me & my mom nine-tailed foxes!" Kunou answered excitedly. As soon as she finished saying that, Ben vaguely remembered some show that his cousin Kenneth had made Ben watch with him at one time about some loudmouth ninja in orange with an evil demon fox with nine tails sealed within his gut. If that show was accurate...
"Please tell me you guys don't go around destroying ninja villages," Ben said in a deadpan tone of voice, catching the two foxes off guard. Their eyes widened at the question in shock before said shock wore off and the two started laughing at Ben's 'joke'. The mother and daughter continued to do so for a few more seconds before Yasaka recomposed herself.
"That was funny," Yasaka said, wiping a tear out of her eye. When she looked back at Ben though and saw the look in his eyes, Yasaka realized that he was serious about his inquiry.
It took all that Yasaka had to not start laughing again.
...
Anyways, the author would like to create a timeskip for a few hours but doesn't want to just insert Several hours later since he has a page quota to fulfill. You may thank Omnisaurus for this additional content that was a pain in the ass to write later by either writing a review or pledging your allegiance to the creators of Hazbin Hotel. Anyways, moving on.
While Ben may have just appeared in Japan, his entrance into the world had been felt by almost every supernatural being of immense strength worldwide. The Four Great Satans, the Seraphs of Heaven, the leaders of Grigori, the gods of Asgard, the gods of Olympus, the Five Dragon Kings, Ophis the Infinite Dragon God and even the Two Heavenly Dragons sealed away in their Sacred Gears were just a few of the beings that felt a ripple of power wash over them.
This power, exerted by the Omnitrix and caused by it's sudden entry into the world, released a wave of pressure equivalent to combined might of all of it's over one million genetic samples. If a normal person were able to feel it, the best that they could describe the feeling was feeling as though an army of one million different creatures of varying shapes, sizes and abilities were compressed into a single being that gave off an immense wave of pressure.
Be they male, female or genderless, man, deity or beast, free or sealed, the most powerful beings in the supernatural pantheons were now aware that someone or something with the ability to forever change the world had entered their dimension.
Let's see some of the reactions of a few of these beings, shall we?
...
Deep in the Underworld within the devil-controlled territory, a meeting was taking place between the Four Great Satans, the leaders of the devil race. Earlier today, a wave of immense pressure had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, temporarily paralyzing the four of them by the sheer power it seemed to exert. However, just as soon as it appeared, the pressure vanished as well.
The sudden wave of pressure was similar to the signal that Great Red gave off whenever he left the Dimensional Gap and traveled into one of the physical worlds. However, this wave of power seemingly exceeded even that. No, not just exceeded it, completely and utterly dwarved it.
Just the thought of what kind of unimaginable power a being would have to hold in order to do that was unsettling, if not terrifying, for the four of them to even think about. As soon as the assembled group managed to organize their thoughts, they pushed aside everything that they had planned for that day and called forth a meeting on how to react or deal with this potential new threat.
At the north end of the table sat Sirzechs Lucifer, the Maou in charge of domestic affairs. He was a tall man with fair skin, long crimson hair and kind blue-green eyes. He wore a white suit that was barely noticeable due to the attention of most people being drawn to the ornate, armored shoulder pads and flowing black cape he wore. While the other Four Satans would never say so out loud, they all silently agreed that Sirzechs was pretty much the leader. He was the first to put out an idea: seek out the source of the power, observe it from a safe distance for a period of time to see whether it was benevolent or malevolent in nature and eventually see if it was possible to reason or bargain with. The plan also held the purpose of ensuring that this power couldn't fall into the hands of any other faction. The idea was a sound one and was supported by the leaders of the west and south ends of the table.
At the west end of the table was Serafall Leviathan, the Satan in charge of foreign affairs. She was slightly shorter than average and had pale skin, black hair and stunning blue eyes. Out of everyone there, she had the most...unique outfit, which was a pink and white magical girl outfit with a long magical wand. Another thing of note was that she was the most well-known of the Satans out of everyone inside of the room, partially due to her having her own TV show called Miracle Levia-tan. Her idea was that they should seek out the power source and attempt to befriend it or, at the very least, convince it not to join any other factions that would attempt to harm the devils if it proved to be capable of intelligent thought. If it were more bestial in nature, then she proposed that they attempt to tame it. The idea held merit and it looked as though everyone was going to support it...until she started talking about bringing the being onto her show Miracle Levia-tan as a guest star along with her younger sister Sona. That cost her the support of the man at the east end of the table.
At the south end of the table slumped Ajuka Beelzebub, the head of the Underworld Technological Department. Ajuka possessed skin slightly tanned, blue eyes and green hair. He wore a green outfit with gold outlines that covered his legs and exposed his midriff. In the past he had created the Evil Pieces system, something that had single handedly saved the devil race from extinction. If you thought that his past accomplishments and inhumanely large intelligence would result in him bringing forth the best idea out of the group then you were wrong. Ajuka had recommended that the try to capture and contain the being while studying it to see if they could somehow harness it's power for themselves. If that failed, he would then attempt to dissect it. When asked why, the man gained a gleam in his eye not too dissimilar from the mad fallen angel scientist/leader of Grigori Azazel, and enthusiastically exclaimed "For science!"
Regardless, nobody there voted for his idea.
I guess nobody cared about science.
At the east end of the table resided the last one of the Four Great Satans: Falbium Asmodeus, the leader of military affairs. Falbium was a man with white skin, a bald head, a goatee and drooping brown eyes that would make most people believe that he was about to fall asleep. Those people would be right because he was about to fall asleep. Accursed narcolepsy.
Anyways, Falbium had recommended that they put together an elite strike force and send that force out in an attempt to eliminate the possible threat before it could potentially amass any more power. It seemed like a possibly feasible plan, but then Ajuka brought about the question of what would happen if the attack failed. Nobody said anything, but judging from the power that they felt earlier...they were confident that if they failed, whatever caused the power surge could wipe out at least an entire city if it entered an enraged state.
Poor fools, not knowing that a pissed off Way Big or Atomix would probably be able to destroy an entire mountain range. A small planet if Way Big used his laser.
The debate would continue on for several hours, each Satan arguing for their idea to be used. At the end of the meeting, everyone put their ideas to a vote with the rules being that a Satan couldn't vote for their own idea. Sirzechs' idea ended up winning, having gained the support of both Serafall and Ajuka. Falbium was left sighing in his seat; he had known that Sirzechs' idea would win in the end. The man just oozed charisma that made people want to go along with him. Hell, even Falbium was tempted to vote for Sirzechs' option a few times. However, he had always reined himself in, repeating to himself that the threat was too dangerous to be kept alive.
Not that his vote mattered now though.
After their final vote, the Four Satans got up from their seats and started to leave in order to make the necessary preparations. Under normal circumstances, all of their respective peerages would be filled in on the situation to ensure that they weren't left in the dark about any important goings-on. However, time was more than likely of the essence which meant they couldn't waste any time with such pleasantries.
If they played their cards right, they could potentially have a very powerful ally or maybe even just a powerful being that agreed not to cause any harm onto the devils. But if they messed up...well, the options didn't look too bright. If they were able to, the Four Great Satans would be praying to God right now, hoping that they didn't fail.
Because if they were indeed right about whatever held this power being stronger than Great Red, than they had no doubt that it could easily bring about the end of the world.
...
Earlier that day in the human world, a young girl was walking across some grassy hills away from a camp of Sacred Gear users that called themselves the Hero Faction. The girl had black eyes, white skin and long black hair. She wore a black cloak that didn't cover her front top with purple ribbons and white triangular fringes at the bottom. A pink tie sat beneath her neck and X-shaped...ribbons covered her naughty bits at the front. The most curious feature about this girl was the fact that she had pointed ears very similar to an elf's ears. This person was the one considered by most supernatural beings to be the most powerful being in the world, Ophis the Infinite Dragon God.
The Infinity Dragon God Ophis was having a good day. She wouldn't say she was happy since she hadn't really ever felt happiness, but Ophis would say that she was satisfied with the successful recruitment of the Hero Faction. While they may have been very hostile towards her once she revealed her identity, they had nevertheless agreed to join her Khaos Brigade upon being given the temptations of power; just like so many other before them, both mortal and supernatural.
Just as she was preparing to make her way back to the main base of the Khaos Brigade, she felt a wave of power wash over her. The sheer unexpectedness of it caused the Infinity Dragon to stop in her tracks and just stand there for a few seconds as she processed what had happened. That alone proved how much power this surge contained.
Ophis had felt the power that exuded off of the Biblical God and Great Red and hadn't even been fazed. The Infinite Dragon God had witnessed the power of all the forces of the Three Factions armies WITH the Biblical God leading the Angels in the last Great War. She had even felt the power that rolled off the Trihexa (otherwise known as 666), the beast that had killed the Biblical God, before. However, all of those powers combined wouldn't even feel close to the amount of pressure being given off by whatever exuded the wave's power.
Turning her head towards the east, Ophis gazed out at the horizon as she contemplated on her next move. This power was immense, which had both benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, If Ophis managed to convince whatever held this power to join the Khaos Brigade, it was more than possible that she would be able to force Great Red outside of the Dimensional Gap almost immediately. On the other hand, this power sent an emotion she had never felt before flowing through her body: fear.
The power greatly exceeded her own and she had no doubt that the possessor of it could harm or even kill her it really wanted to, something only two beings in the world could ever even hope to achieve. Aside from that, Ophis didn't know what she could provide to something so strong: every group & faction that she had managed to recruit into the Khaos Brigade had been drawn in by her offers of power via her allowing them to use her snakes. With some beings that she planned to recruit in the future, she would offer them the chance to test their strength against other supernatural beings of immense power such as the Norse gods and the current Four Great Satans.
But what could she offer a being whose power puts her own to shame? Ophis had absolutely no idea.
For the first time in her existence, the Infinite Dragon God couldn't act on any impulses. Ophis had be delicate with this situation.
For the rest of the day Ophis would continue to contemplate on the pros and cons of finding the power source to herself, many times switching between opting to leave the power source alone while hoping to never come across it and doing everything in her power to bring it to her side while remaining on it's good side. It wouldn't be until the sun eventually set, long after the surge had ended, that the Infinite Dragon God made her decision and started walking eastward.
...
"Do you feel that?" asked the familiar voice of Albion in the head of Vali Lucifer, a white-skinned teenager with silver hair and hazel eyes that was currently wearing Albion's Divine Dividing Scale Mail. The human-devil hybrid had been flying back to the Grigori headquarters after had going out to see one of the few beings he had ever considered a friend of his, Bikou the monkey Yokai of the Mountain of Flower and Fruit.
Vali possessed the ability to teleport back to the headquarters but he never did. Years ago, Vali had decided to never teleport anywhere unless it was absolutely necessary, since teleporting to places meant that there was a chance that he could miss something interesting happen. And Vali considered this immense surge of power to be, in the weakest terms possible, very interesting.
"Yes," Vali mentally replied back to the dragon within his Sacred Gear, trying to suppress the overwhelming desire to find out what was releasing all of this power and challenge it to a duel. "What was that?"
"Something extremely strong entering this dimension. Probably stronger than the Biblical God was at his peak. Wait, no, it's even stronger! This power...i-if I had to guess, it's greater than even G-Great Red and t-the Infinite Dragon God?!" Albion's voice had started quivering as he released his last statement.
Vali's eyes widened at this new piece of information. A being stronger than God was already enough to make Vali wish to fight it. But hearing Albion, a legendary dragon who had been around for thousands of years and fought against the armies of the three supernatural forces of the Christian pantheon, assess a power to be stronger than the one True Dragon and the Dragon God while quivering in fear? Vali's emotions were torn between wanting to never come across the possessor of this strength and wanting to challenge it above all else.
Which led to Vali's next question.
"Do you think we could ever reach a level where we could defeat it?"
"..."
"..."
"...no," Albion answered in a grave tone. "Vali, whatever is releasing this power, whatever holds this strength, we could never even hope to grow strong enough to defeat it."
Vali stopped flying and hovered there for a moment. Vali had always been aware that there were beings in the world that he would have to train and work hard in order to surpass but, apart from Ophis, Albion had never said it would be impossible to defeat them. Albion had claimed that defeating beings like Zeus, Thor, Hades and even Great Red were within the realms of possibility.
But Albion had said that they could never defeat this being.
That meant that this being was far beyond the strength of gods and the one True Dragon.
Far beyond his strength.
A few more minutes passed before Vali started flying once more, this time towards the direction of the power surge. Albion said nothing as his host continued flying towards the horizon. He figured that, with his assessment, he had possibly just damaged a part of his Vali's psyche that he held above all other things: his pride.
Vali was proud that he possessed the Divine Dividing and he was proud to be able to be strong enough to hypothetically defeat gods. Vali was proud that he was possibly the strongest possessor of the Divine Dividing that would ever live. And above all, Vali was proud that he was amongst one of the strongest beings in the world because of the power of Albion that resided within him.
But now Albion, the source of Vali's power and pride, had basically said that it wasn't enough and would never be enough to be defeat this new source of power.
Albion knew that he should attempt to stop the young devil/human hybrid from attempting to find this source of strength, but he knew that his host wouldn't hear him. He was too lost in his own world of shattered pride and had zoned out ever since they had stopped hovering.
The Vanishing Dragon sighed. He could only hope that whatever being was releasing this strength wouldn't kill Vali upon first sight. He had grown rather fond of his host.
...
"And that's how I made an emotional vampire-clown explode," Ben finished as he recounted his tale of his encounter with Zombozo. After recovering from their laugh at Ben's 'joke', Kunou had asked (re: begged) Ben to show them some more of his aliens. Ben had happily obliged and had shown them Four Arms, Brainstorm, Jetray, Diamondhead and Crashhopper while explaining their abilities before he told them about some of his adventures. In his excitement to show off, Ben had almost transformed into Rath. Luckily for everyone there though, he managed to stop himself when he realized what he was about to do.
Ben was trying to make a good impression and Rath would probably do the exact opposite of that.
Over the course of the next few hours, Ben told them about his first run-in with Doctor Animo, the time he helped the Krakken rescue her eggs from Jonah Melville, his first encounter with Kevin Levin, his various other encounters with Kevin, the time he had teamed up with the Galactic Enforcers and the nightmare fuel that was his fiasco with Ghostfreak.
The telling of stories wasn't one-sided however. Kunou and Yasaka would also occasionally share stories with Ben. While none of them were nearly as action-packed as his own, they were still interesting enough like how Yasaka had to drive off some magicians who were trying to set up a base in Kyoto or the time Kunou ran away from home for a few days to try and live life as a normal kid her age for a few days.
(On a side note, Ben particularly liked it when it Kunou telling the stories.)
And speaking of Kunou, by the time Ben was done with his tales she looked like she was one small step away from worshipping the ground he walked on as she was crowding over him. That was something that slightly unnerved Ben. He did his best to ignore it but it still made him slightly uncomfortable; two years of practically zero social contact outside of the occasional fight to the death and shady dealing does that to people.
"Could you please back off a bit?" Ben asked nervously as a drop of sweat rolled down his neck. "I'm not if this is a normal thing for Nine-Tailed Foxes, but I would like a bit of personal space."
Kunou didn't appear to hear him as she was currently fangirling out about his stories. Yasaka was watching in the background, snickering in amusement at the boy's looks of discomfort. While she wasn't showing it visibly, Yasaka wanted to hear more of Ben's stories as well. She had been particularly interested by the form known as Ghostfreak that Ben had talked about. The idea of a nightmarish being becoming trapped inside of an object of immeasurable power was similar to the Sacred Gears of the supernatural world.
"You truly are an interesting person Ben," Yasaka said from the tree she was leaning against. Ben stiffened at being addressed but Yasaka paid no mind to that as she continued to speak. "Now that you're free from the Null Void, what are you going to do now?"
Ben thought about that for a moment, allowing himself to momentarily forget about the Nine-Tailed Fox princess crowding him as he pondered the question. What was he going to do now? His priority over the past two years had been surviving day-to-day life in the Null Void and eventually escaping it. But now that he was free, he had no clue on what to do. He hadn't really thought about what his priorities would be once he escaped that accursed dimension.
Taking a quick glance at the still-unconscious Phil, Ben figured that he should probably make sure that the ex-Plumber was properly locked away somewhere before he traveled back to Bellwood. It wouldn't be good news for anyone if he once again started releasing aliens from the Null Void to continuously exploit and profit from.
"Probably find a way to make sure Phil can't cause anymore problems for anyone," Ben replied to the queen of Kyoto, looking at Phil and ignoring his blonde fangirl (who was stillcrowding over him, now in an attempt to get him to pay attention to her). "You wouldn't happen to have a magic prison I can stick him in, would you? Or some way to teleport him into a normal prison and manipulate the files to make it look like he's supposed to be there? Maybe something that can turn him into a toad?"
Yasaka chuckled at the last question. Over the past few hours, Yasaka had laughed, giggled, snickered and chuckled more than she had over the course of the past decade. This kid honestly reminded her of her mate, with his witty humor, sarcasm and honest questions that sounded more like jokes. And speaking of mates, Kunou seemed to have taken a liking to this boy rather quickly. In fact, she currently sported a faint red tinge on her cheeks whenever she got really close to him...
Smirking, Yasaka remembered to take note of this to tease her daughter in the future; being a Nine-Tailed Fox meant that, despite her status and the example she had to set as queen of the Yokai, she still had a love for mischief. Not even her own daughter was safe from her teasing.
"Sadly, I don't have any way to turn your enemy into a toad," she said in an amused tone of voice. "Although I could probably contact a fallen angel to wipe out his memories of you and anything related to aliens. Does that works for you?"
Ben thought about that for a moment before nodding in agreement as he lightly pushed Kunou away to regain his personal space. Ignoring the fallen angel part (not that Ben knew what a fallen angel was), Ben was slightly disappointed about not being able to see the jerkwad who had tried to kill him and screwed up his portal generator be turned into a warty amphibian. However, he supposed that erasing Phil's memories would be the more logical and ethical thing to do. It's probably what his Grandpa Max would have wanted to do if he was here.
Yasaka nodded at his response and started to head towards the Kitsune medic watching over Phil. Ben began to follow the queen of Kyoto but Kunou ran to his side quickly, practically materializing from thin air. Now, most people would be surprised by the girl's sudden display of speed, but not Ben Tennyson. He was the kid who had done the impossible many times over.
Things like materializing cute girls that were leaning in really close to your face were nothing compared to...
"Please stop crowding me," Ben requested, squirming a little at the low proximity of a few inches between him and the cute fox girl. "It's making me uncomfortable."
"Oh, sorry!" Kunou said with a light blush, as if just now realizing how close they were. She quickly backed off a few feet, giving the Omnitrix wielder some of the breathing room he greatly needed. "You see, I was just...um, I was just...excited! Yeah, that's it! I was just excited by your stories and wanted to see some more of your alien forms!"
Ben scrutinized her suspiciously for a moment with slightly blushing cheeks of his own, obviously not buying her excuse at all. Kunou almost broke down into a nervous sweat before Ben decided to just play along with her.
There was no need to make this any more awkward than it already was with a nine-tailed fox girl pretty obviously crushing on him.
Ben shrugged and started scrolling through the Omnitrix, looking for the outline of an alien he thought that the energetic fox might like. He passed Pesky Dust (which he had resolved to never use in front of girls & women ever again due to almost being killed via hugging in the Null Void from female settlers), Atomix (which Ben didn't use for obvious reasons), Ripjaws (which Ben didn't use due to the fact that he liked breathing) and Stinkfly (which Ben decided against using since, although he wouldn't admit it, he was starting to like the attention from Kunou & didn't want Stinkfly's odor to repulse her). Finally, he came to the silhouette of a favorite of Ben's.
"Hey Kunou," Ben started, smiling since it had been a while since he had used this transformation. "I know you're a fox, but do you like dogs?"
"Yeah!" Kunou said, her nine tails wagging (like a dog's ironically enough) as she quickly deduced that Ben had a dog transformation. "Do you have a dog alien?"
"Nope!" Ben answered with a cheeky smile as he raised his hand over the Omnitrix, ignoring the deflated expression that Kunou made upon Ben destroying her hopes of Ben transforming into an alien dog. "But I do have a form that'll leave you howling for more!"
Upon finishing that (horrible) joke, Ben slammed down on the Omnitrix's dial. The green flash once again bathed Ben in it's familiar glow. When the glow died down, Kunou's eyes widened at the newest form that the shapeshifter decided to show off.
This alien greatly resembled a stereotypical werewolf. The being was lean yet muscular, clad in a black and white suit and covered in grey hair over most of it's body. The back of the neck, the tail, the back and the head were covered in thicker black hair, giving the creature a more intimidating appearance. Fleshy spikes protruded from the elbows and shoulders and the beast's claws were black like the night sky. The snout of the canine-like being was white and the green eyes of the alien seemed to glow eerily, even though it was the daytime. The Omnitrix symbol sat on the middle of his chest, proudly on display for all of the world to see.
The alien howled into the air just like wolf, giving Yasaka and the medic Kitsune across the clearing a startle before they glanced over to them saw who was the source. The two had very different reactions, with the medic standing on edge ready to fight; wolves were the natural enemies of foxes after all.
Yasaka, on the other hand, was more intrigued since Ben had mentioned that he had once been able to transform into a ghostlike form and could apparently transform turn into a mummy-like form. Now she was seeing a werewolf-like alien as well. Seriously, did this kid have any limits on what he could become?
Kunou, being the fangirl that she was, quietly squealed at seeing Ben's new transformation. Being the princess of Kyoto, she had grown up sheltered and kept away from any other potentially dangerous supernatural beings. That included werewolves.
So naturally, seeing an alien werewolf was like the greatest Christmas gift that she had never asked for (ignore the fact that it also wasn't even close to Christmas).
"Blitzwolfer!" Ben shouted after his howl before he stared down at Kunou and flexed his claws. "Pretty neat, huh? This alien was the first one I unlocked after I got stuck in the Null Void. He came in handy when I had to climb up this cliff after this Wigsilian Org Be-"
"A werewolf is attacking the princess!" a masculine voice shouted from somewhere amongst the trees, interrupting Ben. "Attack!"
"Wait, what?"
Blitzwolfer's instincts flared up, warning him to jump backwards. Wasting no time, the Loboan did just that and just barely managed to avoid being clobbered on the head by two sturdy-looking wooden staffs being wielded by...
"Are those freaking crowmen?" Blitzwolfer asked incredulously as what indeed looked like crowmen wearing the outfits of ancient Japanese hermits continued to attack him, forcing him to continuously dodge. "What the hell has Animo been up to these last few years? Were the zombie dinosaurs and giant flaming bats not enough for him?!"
Kunou attempted to tell the crowmen, which were actually a species of Youkai known as karasu-tengu, to leave Blitzwolfer alone but ended up being grabbed and taken away by two other karasu-tengu before she could convince them to stop. Meanwhile, Yasaka in the background was shouting at the crowmen, telling them to stop. It seemed as though it was starting to work until...
"Ouch!"
"I hit it! I hit it!" one of the more hot-blooded (or maybe more energetic, IDK) karasu-tengu shouted out excitedly. So caught up in the excitement of his small victory that he didn't notice his Loboan foe take a deep breath in before-
"HHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!"
That. Before that.
Screaming in pain, Ben's attackers all dropped to the ground, fell to their knees and clutched their ears in an attempt to block out the sound. Blitzwolfer's mouth had opened up in four directions as opposed to the average Earth canine's two directions and released one of the ultrasonic howls that made his species so formidable. Upon seeing that his foes would be down for awhile, the Loboan ceased his sonic attack.
Examining the looks of pain of the karasu-tengu and ignoring the annoyed eyes twitches of the approaching kitsune medic, Ben couldn't help but feel that this victory had been rather...easy.
'Of course, I've been in a prison world for two years were every day was a fight for survival against the galaxy's worst criminals and creatures that were too dangerous to be kept in my home dimension for whatever reason.' Ben reflected internally to himself. 'I suppose that my time in the Null Void just made me stronger. I should test out my new strength on the next supervillain I come across. Maybe turn into Way Big and send Vilgax into space like a baseball. Oh man, that'd be so funny!'
As Ben pondered on his current strength and whether to just throw Vilgax like a baseball or use something like a tree as a baseball bat, Yasaka was rushing over to Ben as fast as she could to examine him for injuries and apologize for the overprotective and, quite frankly (and literally) bird-brained (haha, bird jokes) actions of the karasu-tengu.
Or at least that was the plan before a red, black and brown blur tackled Blitzwolfer. Said blur managed to make the alien hero stumble enough for the one who had attacked him to grab his arm, pull it over him and toss the Loboan over it's shoulder and into a tree several yards away.
The attacker was a red-skinned man wearing a brown hermit outfit identical to the surrounding Karasu-Tengus. Another thing that he possessed that the crowmen had as well was a pair of black wings. His sclera were black and his pupils were gold. A small black hat sat atop his head. The man's thick eyebrows, mustache, long hair and beard were all white. This man was a human and Karasu-Tengu hybrid and the chieftain of the karasu-tengu flock that resided in Kyoto. And he was mad.
He and his flock of karasu-tengu had been searching for Yasaka to inform her about a pickpocketing kitsune man when they had heard a wolf howl echo through the forest. Suspiciously (and rightfully) curious as to why a wolf would be within a forest in the middle of bustling Kyoto, he and his flock arrived at this clearing. And, lo and behold, they arrived to see an imposing werewolf flexing it's claws as it towered over their princess Kunou.
Wasting no time, the chieftain had sent his flock down to drive off or defeat the beast before it could harm a hair on the princess' head. However, seeing as how a single howl had defeated almost all of his flock was the tipping point that sent the chieftain over the edge. Now here he was, standing at the ready while the canine beast got to it's four feet and shook the dust and debris out of it's pelt before turning to glare at the chieftain.
The chieftain knew that this was a dangerous beast that would show no mercy and would eagerly tear him apart if given even the slightest opportunit-
"Screw this, I'm out. See you later Yasaka! Tell Kunou that I said bye! I'll try visiting you guys sometime if I ever get the chance."
...wait, what?
A green flash enveloped the werewolf lookalike and replaced it with a plant-like being with a singular blue eye in the center of it's head. Flytrap-shaped coverings gave the impression of a hood of sorts and two rows of black seeds grew from the alien's back. The body was supported by five thin, vine-like legs and the alien's hands had four fingers of unusually long length. The Omnitrix logo sat on the center of this alien's chest, just like Blitzwolfer.
"Wildvine!" the plant alien announced in a gravelly voice before stretching his arms out to ridiculous lengths to start swinging through the trees like a monkey. "I would say it was nice meeting you Mr. Crowman...but that would be a lie. See you never!"
And with that, Ben Tennyson the human turned Florauna swung through the trees and left the area, leaving Yasaka, the medic kitsune, the chieftain and all of the still recovering flock of karasu-tengu confused as to what just happened.
...
...
...
"Hey, get back here and fight me!" the chieftain shouted to the trees, being the first of the assembled group of Youkai to recover from the strangeness that had overtaken the clearing just a moment ago. A moment of silence followed the chieftain's demand before a response was made.
"No! Screw you!" Ben's voice echoed from the distance.
"Don't make me chaser after you, you accursed plant!"
"You'll never take me alive copper!"
And thus began a day long chase through the city and eventually far outside of Kyoto between the Florauna hero and the karasu-tengu chieftain. During that time, Wildvine managed to scan the chieftain with the Omnitrix (which led to him gaining a karasu-tengu transformation), who mistook the beam as an attack and redoubled his efforts to capture & defeat Wildvine. The chase would eventually end when our favorite shapeshifter remembered that he could merge with plant life as Wildvine and used that to escape the annoying red-skinned man by merging with a tree.
When the chieftain eventually gave up his search for Ben, he was greeted to the worst chewing-out of his several centuries long lifetime, courtesy of Yasaka, for chasing away the one person who could have saved the nine-tailed fox race from extinction.
Ben, on the other hand, would continue to wander around lost in the forests and mountains of Japan for several days before coming across Kuoh Town.
Poor, poor Ben.
If he had known all the trouble that he would be pulled into in the future, he would probably have just let the chieftain catch him.
