You go back and forth between two answers in your mind for a while. Despite early on deciding against leaving Pond out in the forest, if she should follow you and Ben as a wolf or a human is a tough question to answer. Part of you thinks it would be unethical to turn Pond into a human, and having a wolf companion would be adorable. Another aspect of you is curious to test it to see if it works and sees practical benefits to Pond being human. It's a tough debate that rages for a while; it feels like multiple voices talking over one another in your head until eventually….
"I don't know what we should do," you tell Ben. "All I know is that we can't leave Pond out here, and… that's all I can agree on."
"Maybe you should ask Pond what she wants?" Ben replies. "That just makes sense, right?"
Exasperated, you turn to the wolf. "Well, Pond, you heard what Ben said. It's your choice. You wanna come with us as is, or are you interested in human life for a change?"
Pond thinks about this. After a few seconds, she replies, "Yip, yip!"
…
Yeah, I have no ####### clue what she just said.
"Well, I'm stumped," you tell Ben. "I have no idea what she wants. Do you?"
"She said that she was still hungry. And a bit sleepy, too."
"Again? We're not getting anywhere with this, are we?"
"Lemme try something. Pond, I know you're hungry, but please focus on my question. Bark once if you wanna be a human like me and twice if you don't."
"Dude, how is she even going to understand that? I think we have to decide for her," you state plainly.
"Huh, I guess you have a point," Ben realizes. "Well… I have always kind of wanted to have a sister. And… she was already my sister, at least for an hour or two. I wouldn't be against Pond being human, but… how do we know she even wants this?"
"I don't think Pond can make such a choice as she is now, Ben. I think she'd have to have consciousness like us to do so."
"Then… maybe we can turn her human for now?" Ben suggests. "That would give her consciousness and a taste of humanity. If we change her, it's not like she's stuck as a human, right? That seems like the most fair thing we can do, especially if we aren't fully sure what we want."
"It's your call," you shrug. "You're the host, Master."
"So… how are we gonna do this? Do I aim it at her, and then the watch shoots a green laser that turns her into a human?"
"Yes, absolutely!" you reply sarcastically. "Hit the nail right on the head! You know, you're smarter than you look!"
Ben narrows his eyes in annoyance. "Okay, well, since you're the all-knowing artificial intelligence, how DO we do it?"
"Alright, listen closely. For this to work right, you need to speak a special code. Repeat after me."
Ben listens intently, and you tell him the command, "Ultimatrix, Mod Mode, DNA 82113114, Code: 10, Target Outside Force."
Ben repeats the code to T, struggling slightly with the slightly-long, numerical code. The Ultimatrix's interface pops up, emitting a bright green glow. On it is a silhouette of a human-shaped reminiscent of Ben.
"Perfect! Now, you must get Pond to press her paw or muzzle down on the watch. If all goes according to plan, we should have a fully-humanized Pond. Worst-case scenario, we'll end up with a furry."
Ben shudders at the very thought, then urges Pond to come over.
"Okay, sis, uh, I'm gonna need to press down on that dial," he points to the watch and makes a pushing-down gesture.
"Yip?" Pond replies.
Your patience is beginning to wear thin. "Is she still thinking about food?!"
"Yep," Ben replies. "Look, Pond, if you do this one quick thing, I'll treat you to a smoothie and some chili fries afterward, okay?"
"She doesn't know what either of those things is, #######." you snarkily remind him.
"Fine, you'll just get to taste some delicious food. Now press down on the dial, Pond!" Ben tells the wolf.
The promise of delicious food gets the ball rolling. Pond's ears perk up at the mention of food, and she gazes at the mysterious green glowing dial. Slowly but steadily, she places a paw over it and presses down!
In a bright green flash of light, the wolf formerly known as Pond is gone, and in her place is an adolescent teenager who looks like Ben… if he was born female. Thankfully, she is fully clothed, in a feminine version of Ben's outfit.
"So," Ben begins to ask the newly-transformed Pond. "How do you feel? Did it hurt?"
…
…
…
"The only thing hurting is my stomach because I'M STILL HUNGRY! My stupid brother is, like, blind…. stupid… and ####." Pond giggles. "I said ####."
You feel like crying tears of joy. Her first words, and she's already insulting someone! And then, it hits you.
Wait a minute! Now I'm filtering out OTHER people swearing?! That's ########!
"H-Hey now, I'm not stupid or blind!" Ben defensively says. "And I already said I'd get you something to eat!"
"Then why are you still here?!" Then… she finally realizes something. "AND HOW ARE YOU SPEAKING WITH ME!? HOW AM I SPEAKING TO YOU?! WHY AM I TALKING!?"
Did she… not even realize she was conscious now? She took to that like a fish does water… and still failed the landing.
You sigh. "Pond… why don't you take a look at yourself? I feel like that'd clear up a lot of confusion."
Pond inspects her body and quickly realizes that her previously lupine form is now that of a human. Justifiably, she begins freaking out.
"####! ####! #######! ############!" It's just a bunch of beeping.
While it was initially amusing to see the girl-wolf freak out, it is time to get back on track.
Wow. Even I didn't know about some of these words, and I'm an AI.
"Pond! Stay focused!" you harshly say. "Isn't this what you wanted?"
"I SAID I WANTED TO EAT! Why did your dumb thing turn me into a human?!" Pond shouted back.
"So you don't want to be like this?"
"I didn't say that! I said put food in my belly, like, now!"
Before you can retort, Ben ushers you to stay quiet and let him do the talking.
"Look, Pond, this thing here is called an Omnitrix," Ben explains while pointing to the watch. "I used it to turn you into a human when you pressed the dial."
Pond blinks a couple of times. "That's cool, I guess, but I'm still hungry."
If watches had hands, you'd be facepalming right about now.
Un-#######-believable. All that, and she's STILL thinking about food?!
"Dude, she's not gonna know what all those words mean. We LITERALLY just turned her into a human. Her mental capacity is no different from a child." you dryly explain to Ben.
"Ah, okay. Let me try wording this a bit differently, then. Pond… you pressed the glowing circle and became human."
"Ohhhhhh, yeah, now I get it! Sort of," Pond replies. "Can we get some food now?"
"You know what? Now that you're a human, I'm gonna treat you to one of the best foods that's ever been created!" Ben enthusiastically declares.
Pond gasps with excitement. "A gazelle?! I should have known! I take back everything I said about you being blind, stupid, and ####."
"Even better!" Ben smiles.
"What could possibly be better than a gazelle?!"
About 10 minutes later, Ben and Pond are served two smoothies at a small food truck parked at the main campgrounds.
As Pond eyes her artificially-flavored, semisolid drink, her annoyed gaze slowly goes to Ben. "I take back my take-back from before."
"Just try it!" Ben urged. You can tell by looking at his face that he's struggling not to let Pond's comments affect him. "You might really like it."
"Can we return to the forest and have some rabbits instead?" Pond whined.
"No! Humans get sick eating raw meat. And I already paid for this smoothie, so you'll drink it whether you want to or not." Ben demanded.
"Just hurry up and drink it so we can get out of here!" you tell Pond, trying and failing to hide your jealousy that they can eat while you can't.
After letting out a disgruntled huff, Pond drinks from her smoothie. A few seconds later, she takes another sip. "This is… surprisingly okay. I'm, like, shocked you humans even consider this edible."
Pond has yet another sip; this one goes on for a long time.
"Pond, maybe you should slow down," Ben warns. "If you drink it too fast, you might get-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Ben doesn't even have time to finish his sentence before Pond devolves into a fit of pained screaming. "Some invisible being is stabbing my brain! What was in that thing I just drank?!"
"Ice. A lot of ice. And artificial flavoring." you bluntly state. This does nothing to calm Pond down; many onlookers are now staring at your table with confused faces.
"MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOOP!" Pond cries out, now clutching her head and pain. She has shot from her seat and is now convulsing on the floor. Ben helps Pond and escorts her into the woods before she can make the already-bad scene even worse.
"Sorry about that!" Ben calls out to the other patrons. "First time trying a smoothie!"
As Ben escorts Pond past the treeline, her pained cries become lessened until she finally quiets down.
"You ####! Why did you make me drink something that would KILL me?!" Pond shouts at Ben.
"Hey, don't blame us!" you snap back. "You're the ####### who drank an entire smoothie in one go and thought she could handle the brain freeze!"
"Please… both of you, just be quiet," Ben utters, rubbing his temples. "This was supposed to be a fun experience! I thought you'd be excited to try a smoothie for the first time since you're a wolf and normally can't have them, but if I had known that it'd turn out like this… I wouldn't have suggested it in the first place."
"This is so dumb. I'm never going to try a smoothie again," Pond declares.
Ben tried not to look offended at that comment. "Why don't we just try something simpler? Like, er, some chili fries."
"Why would I want to eat frozen insects? That sounds disgusting."
"Not flies, FRIES. As in diced potato sticks dipped in frying oil and salted," you tell Pond.
"Uhhh, I'm still confused. But okay! Let's go to the potato sticks!" Pond declares before crawling away from both of you on all fours. It doesn't take long for her to stop and turn back to Ben. "Hey bro, where are we going anyways?"
"The nearest food truck should be somewhere around here," Ben replies. "And make sure you walk on two legs this time. It's probably comfortable to be on your hands and knees anyway."
"I won't, like, fall over?"
"Nope."
"But walking on two legs is hard! It was so much easier when I was a wolf!" Pond whined. Still, she manages to stand up on two legs. "Wow. I feel tall. Alright, where is this food truck?"
The next thing you know, all three of you are at a food truck, with Ben and Pond being served chili fries.
"There ya go, two orders of chili fries! You're lucky, too. These are the last two helpings of the day." said the vendor.
"Thanks for that, Frank!" Ben thanks the vendor as he paid him. Pond was too busy staring at the unhealthy tray of food placed before her, drooling like crazy.
"Holy ####... it smells… AMAZING!" Pond cries, eagerly waiting to dig in.
"Maybe we should wait for them to cool off first?" you suggest. "After all, we don't want to cause another scene, do we?"
"Right, of course…" Pond begins squirming in her chair. You could sense the uneasiness of having to wait to eat her fries on her face.
Don't need to rub it in, you stupid #####. Be thankful that you CAN eat.
Right as Pond picks up the first fry and begins to blow on it as per Ben's instructions… you find yourself no longer in the woods. Instead, you find yourselves in a small waiting room, which appears to be an office.
"Where are we?" Ben asks, a bit panicked.
"More importantly, where did my potato sticks go?!" Pond whines before they pop into existence right in front of her. "Oh, thank you!"
Pond plops them into her mouth. "Mhmm… you're right, Ben. These are awesome! Like, way better than smoothies."
"Shouldn't you be more worried about where we are?!" you scream.
"Well, we aren't in Kansas anymore," Ben jokes nervously.
"Firstly, we weren't in Kansas," you point out. "And secondly, is this really the time for jokes?!"
"For once, we agree."
You and Ben turn toward the door, finding Professor Paradox.
"Well, Benjamin," the scientist continues. "You don't need to wonder where your gods are because they're right out there and fresh out of mercy."
"Don't try making jokes," you protest. "You suck at them."
"What are we doing here, Paradox?" Ben questions.
"What, indeed," Paradox muses. "After you and Trixie decided to run off into the woods, I was brought before Judge Domstol for the first hearing in the Multiverse vs. Benjamin Kirby Tennyson. First time I've been here since I was banned from being in the vicinity of any Celestialsapiens a… long time ago now, I figure."
"What's a multiverse?" Pond questions. "Can I eat it?"
The time traveler decides to ignore the wolf-turned-human. "You're being charged with destroying the multiverse, Benjamin," Professor Paradox explains. "In the pretrial conference, the Honorary Judge Domstol issued the advisory opinion that you were guilty beyond any doubt."
"Wh-what are we supposed to do then?!" Ben asks.
"Unfortunately, we don't have the resources to hire Chadzmuth as your attorney. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Galvan would be more interested in getting a plea deal than actually getting you acquitted, so as to not ruin his perfect record."
"What happens if Ben and I are found guilty?" you question Paradox.
The professor sighs. "Benjamin here has nowhere else to go. And yet, if Benjamin was ever to meet his past self, it could endanger this reality, considering it could change his past."
"Time travel is finicky," you remind everyone. "But what's that mean for us?"
"The Celestialsapiens have devised a plan of sorts to restart the multiverse, and in such a way that it would prevent the Chronosapien Time Bomb from dissolving this new multiverse in the future."
"You don't sound confident."
"Because it's not the same multiverse we just… butchered. I fear restoring that one would take more effort than we can muster at this time."
"Is there really nothing left of it?" Ben pleads.
"Technically, the time bomb has one weakness: it cannot actively create a paradox. As such, the timelines of Bens who arrive in this dimension up until the bomb goes off still exist, as do any fragments of the multiverse connected to theirs. But the rest have been destroyed, and even those ones have been effectively crippled, and they'll cease to exist at the point in time their existence is not necessary."
"That sounds complicated," Pond notes. "Do you think we can get more chili fries? Human food is amazing."
The tray is instantly refilled. "Ooh!" Pond shrieks ecstatically. "This place is incredible! If only they had trees to pee on here."
Yeah… she's still in training. Next thing on the agenda? Bathrooms. Definitely bathrooms.
"Okay, doc," you interrupt. "Tell it to us plainly. Are we gonna live?"
"Yes," Paradox explains. "But… the preliminary verdict is that the paradox must be 'cleared.'"
"And how exactly do they plan to do that?"
"Celestialsapiens have the power to create universes, but that power is somewhat limited. In order to keep the timeline linear, they plan to create an exact copy to place you and Benjamin in so as to risk any paradoxes."
"Stupid brother is, like, going somewhere? Can I come too?" Pond questions. "I don't wanna leave my stupid brother. Even if this place has free chili fries."
Professor Paradox shrugs. "You can figure that out when you face the court. But more importantly, Benjamin, you still need an attorney."
"And where am I supposed to find one of those exactly?"
"I believe your most suitable choices would be me, Pond, Trixie, or yourself."
"What would an attorney do?" Pond questions. "Does it involve eating?"
"Can you stop thinking with your stomach for five seconds?" you complain.
"Oh, I did," Pond smirks. "But it bugs you and Ben, so I keep doing it."
She's good.
"An attorney talks to the beings who can rewrite the world to be however they want it with a thought and tries to convince them not to," you casually clarify.
"I wanna be an attorney!" Pond volunteers. "I wanna ask them to make wolves smart!"
"But… we're here to defend Ben? Not be an animal rights activist?"
"Technically, humans are, like, animals too," Pond pouts. "See how smart I am now? I love being this smart. And hands. But I miss my tail. And my sense of smell. But seeing in color is cool ..."
"You know," you interrupt. "As fun as this is to hear, we have more pressing matters to attend to."
"I… whatever you think is best, Trixie," Ben says, completely demoralized.
I don't blame him. Our options simply… aren't great. Pond would be learning as she goes and is incredibly absentminded, even if she's shown some flashes of brilliance. Ben might be unable to handle the pressure, especially with the stakes and his mind not being… all with it since the experiment. Professor Paradox seems to understand how this works, but he apparently got banned the last time he was here. I don't know all the details, but… that doesn't sound like a successful case. And… I mean… could I really keep myself from insulting the judge?
All the options aren't exactly great, so I really just need to figure out the best of the worst.
DECISION POINT: WHO SHOULD BE YOUR ATTORNEY?
A - Ben
B - Trixie
C - Pond
D - Professor Paradox