"Ben!"

…

No answer.

"Beeeeen!"

"Mom, it's the summer holidays! The school is out!"

"Not for you, young man. You landed yourself in summer school, remember?"

Oh.

Ben had totally forgotten.

"Alright, I'm up, I'm up!" – Ben yelled at his mom to get her to stop yelling.

As he opened his eyes and observed the empty ceiling of his room, it all came back to him. Mrs. Seagal. Summer school. Jamie. The run-in with Cash and J.T.. and…

For a moment, Ben didn't dare take a look at his wrist. What if it all had been a dream? After all, when has it ever happened that an alien watch fell from the sky and allowed the wearer to transform into various super-powered aliens? First of all, this sounded like elevated sci-fi, and the odds of this happening, if possible at all, were a trillion to one. Especially to him. But more importantly, it was just too good to be true.

When things were too good to be true, like when the power went out at the ice-cream store and the owner promised to let him eat as much as he could, since it was going to melt anyway, or when he was kicking Cash and J.T.'s butts while they stood there and didn't resist… Ben would immediately wake up afterwards, and surprise, surprise! He was back in his bed and it was time to go to school, where the real Cash and J.T. were waiting.

So, Ben's skepticism was justified. Those wonderful dreams always ended before Ben got to get the full enjoyment out of them. But he couldn't just sit in bed like that forever, or never look at his wrist again. That wouldn't bring the dream back. All he good do is enjoy the lingering memory and just move on with his life. So, he tugged his left hand out from under the blanket…

It was still there.

Ben stared at it. So, it was true, after all… the watch that turned him into a walking fish with a horribly strong jaw, a speedy creature with roller balls instead of feet, and a living battery that took down a rampaging giant robot was casually still sitting on his wrist, staring back at him. It was as if it was mocking him for ever doubting its existence in the first place.

Ben held his wrist close to his face, so much so that the watch's green light shone into his eyes and lit his skin up green. On its dial, instead of the numbers and arrows a regular watch would have, there were two angled lines, like the "more than" and "less than" math symbols next to each other ( ), somewhat resembling an hourglass figure. Ben wondered if that was intentional or not. This watch didn't tell the time, so was the hourglass symbol even appropriate? Was it symbolic? Did the aliens that make this even have human hourglasses on their planet? In fact, this watch was functionally not a watch at all, Ben just called it that because of the similar shape, details and placement on the body.

Into the dial's outer circle were embedded four green dots, glowing, just like the dial. Each of them was equally distanced at 90 degrees from each other. At the base of the dial were two buttons – the bigger one, facing Ben, was for activating the dial. The other one on its other side was to deactivate it without transforming.

Ben pressed the big button.

Pwing!

The watch gave an activation signal. The and signs started moving and slid into each other until they ended up facing away from each other, swapping sides ( ). It now formed a rhombus shape. With a click!, the space between them showed the creature that he would transform into. A humanoid figure, though it looked like its head was… on fire? As it went into select mode, the watch sent out a consistent high-frequency beeping to remind the user that it was still active.

Ben put his right hand on his watch's dial – thumb at the bottom green dot, and index finger on the one opposite it, and turned it to the right until it clicked and stopped. The dial rotated exactly 90 degrees. The figure on it flashed and now showed the living battery alien Ben had turned into last night. Man, when he got powered up by the electricity around him, that was a total rush. As Ben turned again, another silhouette would replace its predecessor. The speedster again, then another buff guy just like the four-armed one, but this one had two arms and spikes sticking out of his back instead, the fish-man, a big, fat, wide one…

"Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, you wake up right this instant!" – Sandra yelled from downstairs again. While Ben was examining the watch, he had forgotten that he was supposed to be getting up. Could you blame him? This little thing on his wrist had opened up a whole universe of adventure.

"I'M COMING, MA!" – Ben yelled to get her off his back. He went back to the watch, but instead of the alien selection, he looked at the other components, like the cylindrical side of the dial that popped out whenever Ben activated the select mode. had lines across its height – some straight, some broke into an angle then went straight again. They kinda looked like circuits. Ben ran his fingers through them. He could feel the borders between the circuits and the black parts.

The watch's strap wasn't very regular either – it was wider than a normal, human-made watch, completely slick black, but with four thick green lines coming out of around the dial. They came out at angled sides, then straightened out to be parallel to each other. They were three-dimensional, too, rather than flat, and Ben percussed them with his fingers. They seemed to glow, just like the dial and the buttons. They went into the back of the watch, so Ben turned his wrist over to see that there, they turned to an angle again, then just stopped. Or rather, seemed to go into the watch's inside. The back of the watch didn't really have any other interesting details.

Okay, enough gawking. Time to really get up now. Ben really wanted to turn into something, right now, but with his parents home… now was really not the time.

Instead, he had to figure out his wardrobe. His mom had taken his white tee that had the thick black stripe down the middle. She was probably going to wash it. Admittedly, it did get dirty during their bicycle mountain adventure. Though, Ben had tons of identical white shirts with thick black stripes down the middle, so he walked up to his dresser and pulled out the drawer and…

Gone. Most of his clothes were somehow gone. All that remained were his… baseball tee?

Ben had wondered what could have happened. Sandra wouldn't have taken the clean clothes. And nobody would steal the clothes either. In fact, he had these ready for the trip…

"Oh, right." – it came back to Ben. Another reminder of what could have been – most of his clothes were all packed and taken onto Grandpa Max's RV when he visited the Tennyson house before picking up Ben from school. But as it turned out, he couldn't pick up Ben for the trip, and both him and Max seemed to have forgotten to leave Ben's packed clothes. Well, at least his belongings would tour the country, if he couldn't.

Even though Ben had found something no other person on the planet could even fathom, he still felt lonely. He would have liked to go on that trip with Grandpa. Even if Gwen had to come along. Heck, he even missed Gwen…

Well, there was no time to fret on things like these, he supposed. So he simply put on the baseball jersey. It was black, with thin green lines coming down vertically all across the shirt. Two thicker stripes were lining the row of buttons on either side. On the left part of the chest, there was Ben's name – Tennyson, written in a stylized way, and his number – 10 below it.

"I guess this'll have to do." – Ben thought. For a second, he hesitated, then decided it was whatever and put on the baseball cap that went with it – black, green line following along the brim, and another number 10 right on the forehead. The pants part of his baseball uniform, though, Ben disregarded. That was probably too much. He found another pair of green cargo pants. This particular one had a chain attached to one of the belt straps on his side, and connecting to the one next to it. Ben had even forgotten one of his pants had that.

Well, now he was finally ready to go out.

"Finally up, are we?" – Sandra asked in a… somewhat strict tone while washing the dishes. Guess it carried over from last night "Your toast is cold."

"I was up a while ago." – Ben said, for the record, as he sat down at the kitchen table and started eating. Though, he held himself from saying anything else in case he got Sandra angry again.

"Well, what were you doing up there, then?" – his mom asked him.

"Uhh… showering?" – a completely dry Ben said with a straight face. He noticed Carl in the living room on the sofa with his back turned to him, reading the newspaper. He hadn't said "hi" or "good morning" to his son.

"You guys still mad?" – Ben asked his parents in a defeated voice.

"Not in the slightest." – Sandra said, though, that was hardly believable, as she still had the stern tone about her.

"Okay, so, how punished am I?" – Ben sheepishly asked. His parents had told him that they would decide on that in the morning.

"Punishment? Come on, Ben. You know that we believe in positive reinforcement." – Sandra told him.

"That, and the summer school is punishment enough." – Carl added.

"But that doesn't mean you can come and go anytime you please, young man." – Sandra told him. "There was some sort of…" – she paused to force herself to even acknowledge the insane event – "giant robot tearing up the neighborhood last night." – she said as she shook her palms in the air. "Can you imagine how we would feel if you got in its way? Or how about that kid that went missing last month, Arnold Benjamin?"

Arnold was one of the kids from Ben's school. One day, he simply didn't show up to class. Ben knew him by name, and knew that his mom was going insane over it, but because of lack of any trace, it was accepted that he ran away from home.

"We hate to stifle your autonomy, Ben, but before the authorities figure out what the heck is going on out there, it's not safe for you to be out after dark." – Carl added.

"So, like, 8?" – Ben unsurely asked.

"Exactly at 8."

"Okay, then." – Ben said, taken aback. This was surprisingly lenient on their part. Maybe they didn't really have it in them to give out a punishment that's really bad.

After he was done with his breakfast, he headed for school.

"Do you think we're not harsh enough on him, Carl?" – Sandra asked after Ben left.

"I don't know… I thought we were doing a fine job until he came back home with these news. Frankly, for his age, he should have known better."

"I hope this will be a wake-up call for him." – Sandra said while watching Ben depart on his bike.

"It certainly was for us." – Carl said as he turned the newspaper page. The newspaper's headline was "UNIDENTIFIED GIANT ROBOT STORMS BELLWOOD SUBURBS; ORIGIN UNKNOWN".

Ben wondered how Carl and Sandra would react if they knew exactly how involved Ben was with the giant robot from last night. The fact that he had effectively saved the suburbs would probably mean nothing in the face of the danger he had put himself into. They always said they were progressive parents and didn't want to "stifle his autonomy" as they always said, whatever that meant, but it also meant that sometimes they were a bit… suffocating. Maybe that was the reason Ben loved hanging out with the always-loose Grandpa Max.

For what it was worth, Ben was very, very grateful that one, the transformations in the watch didn't resemble him in the slightest, making it impossible for people to recognize him, and two, that he managed to defeat the giant robot before the newscast had arrived. Otherwise, that would have been the end of his secret identity right then and there. Wait, a secret identity…

Ben was a real-life superhero. He had just processed that. That was… cool.

And now that he was finally out of the house, he could finally do the thing he had been itching to do all morning. So, as soon as he made a turn, he headed for a spot that he was sure he could safely transform at. Near old Mr. Baumann's house was a corner that was obstructed by tall fences from two sides, and a massive tree from the third. So, Ben could easily make sure nobody was watching, and transform there.

He was going to become an alien again.

He rode the bike practically at breakneck speed, unable to contain his excitement or wait even a second longer than he has to. When he got to the corner, he carefully looked around and behind him to make sure there was no one on the street, or no one from the houses was looking at him. And no one was there. No one saw him.

He was giddy with excitement. Just like earlier in the morning, he put his finger on the big green button and applied pressure.

Pwing.

The dial rose up, just as it did before. Ben was practically holding his breath. The first selection that showed up was the walking fish that it had turned Ben into originally.

"No, thanks. Not turning into that one unless there's a body of water nearby." – Ben thought to himself as he turned the dial.

Next popped up a figure that seemed big and fat. Ben kinda hesitated with that one, too. It seemed clumsy. He wanted something cool and exciting, like running at lightning speed or becoming a living jolt of electricity. He turned the dial again.

This next one seemed alright. It was the one that was on fire. Obviously, that would be normal for this specific alien, and it wouldn't hurt him. Probably. He put his finger on the dial and pressed it in, feeling the satisfying click.

It really never was a dream.

Not that it needed any more confirmation, but after last night it was like Ben's mind had forgotten the feeling he got when he transformed because it was simply too awesome to process.

He felt his entire body change, his molecules get all… jumbled up. His skin was getting rough, coarse, hard. Like covered in rocks and stone. No. Made of them. And as his flesh hardened, cracks formed in it, running all over the body. Cracks that were there not because he was fragile or thin, but because he was brimming with blazing power, ready to unleashed upon the world. The energy enveloped him head to toe, and that was when he visualized himself.

He was on fire.

Ben freaked out at first, but immediately collected himself, and leaned upon the fence for balanced as he processed the situation.

"Okay, I had a fish guy, an electricity guy… I guess this is a fire guy." – he rationalized while looking at his free hand, which seemed to be made from… Lava? Magma? The palm and fingers looked like they were made of solid fire, but it was just coated with some constantly burning substance. "This must be what this alien is all about. I'm on fire… but it doesn't hurt. Heh. I'm totally hot!" – he said happily. "Wait, is something burning besides myself?" – he felt as he looked to the side. The fence that he had been leaning on had contacted his fire, and was now ablaze as well.

"Oh… oh, crap!" – Ben thought. "I didn't mean for that to happen! Okay, uh… fire, go back in!" – he said while expanding his palms and fingers. Nothing happened. He tried swatting the fire out, but unsurprisingly, that had no effect. If anything, it made things worse. Distressed, Ben looked around for anything that could help. There was a water hose on the lawn across the street. The 6 feet tall magma man ran across the quaint neighborhood, leaving burn marks on grass with every step, and grabbed the hose… but it melted in his hands.

"Hope the neighbors don't mind." – he said as he desperately looked around for something else to put the fire out.

"Oh, Ben, you're an idiot." – he muttered. There was a fire hydrant right at the spot where he had caused the fire to begin with. He ran over to that.

"How do these things open again…?" – he thought. Whenever firemen used them, they'd connect a hose and start cranking on the thing with a special wrench… Well, Ben had no hose, but maybe this alien was strong enough to crank it without any special tools. He grabbed it… but to no avail. He couldn't grab onto it properly. Heck, it actually melted in his hand.

"Okay, what if I…" – Ben muttered as he channeled fiery energy into his palm. It burst out, like Ben was holding a flame in his hand. So, he could intensify the fire that came from his body and channel it out. "Cool." – he muttered. "Or, wait, not cool. Hot. I've got some hot moves." – he quipped to himself, even if he had already used the "hot" joke once.

Next, he put his hand forward, towards the fire hydrant. He intensified the fire further… and it actually burst out of his hand and hit the fire hydrant, melting it. Water erupted upwards from it, with drops of it dripping down onto Ben, evaporating in his flaming head. Though, that did give him a somewhat unpleasant tingling sensation.

At this point, the fire had spread from the fence to the tree it was under, so whatever Ben did, he had to be quicker about it. He had to somehow divert the current towards the fire for it to get extinguished. He puts his hands into the water to change its direction, but that only ended with the water spraying all over him and extinguishing his flames. And it felt extremely uncomfortable. With no other choice possible, he ripped off the piece of the fence that was on fire and put it into the water instead.

Problem solved.

"If you can't bring a horse to water…" – he said, thinking that was very clever. And the water also got sprayed onto the tree, so that got put out as well. So, crisis averted.

"WHAT IN THE BLUE BLAZES IS GOING ON?!" – he heard someone yell. He turned around and saw Mr. Baumann standing in his doorway, mouth agape, hands clutching his hair, as from his perspective a flaming creature had just broken his fence apart.

"Uhh…" – Ben froze for a second. Then, his feet got a kick and he just hightailed it out of there as if he was running for his life.

He had to leave his bike behind, and he was still in his alien form as he ran through the neighborhood. He had no idea if anyone could see him or not, and frankly, it didn't matter. He just ran and ran, and suddenly, realized that he had energy built up inside of him, energy that he wanted to release!

In a burst of flames coming from his legs, he got propelled forward, and he didn't even need to move his legs anymore – he was flying. Just like a rocket with a combustion engine, his energy output was so intense that it was strong enough to lift him up into the air. It was like his legs were covered by a swirling tornado of flames.

He was flying.

He was actually flying.

The wind was beating against his face, trying to extinguish his flaming head like a candle, but it could never be strong enough to do that as Ben cut through the air.

"Okay, now this is something else!" – Ben said, very much enjoying the moment. He even tried steering the direction – if he released jets of flames towards one direction or another, he could make a hard turn, and if he bent his knees in a specific way, his body position would change. He rose up higher, now flying over the neighborhood. Ahead of him were the taller buildings of downtown Bellwood.

He veered to the left, then to the right to have fun with it. Then he did a daring trick by doing a barrel roll. He made a sharp turn around a tall building, flying as close to its windows as possible to freak out the employees.

"Wait, I still got school to go to." – Ben remembered. "Okay, okay. I will make a U-turn around Nemesis Tower." – he promised himself.

But before he got to that, he could still do one last trick, and so he twirled around himself several times, each faster than the last, and let out jets of fire out of his hands that spun around with him, just to show off.

"I'm on fire!" – Ben yelled out, satisfied with his own puns. He spun faster and faster just to see how fast he could go, but pretty soon he couldn't even tell which way was up and stopped, and as he did, he saw that he was heading right for the ocean!

Wait, the ocean?

SLAM!

Ben crashed right into the billboard that had a picture of the ocean, with "Visit Beach City!" written right next to it. Well, that was better than getting extinguished by the water, but it still hurt quite a bit.

"Owwwcshhh…" – Ben groaned from the pain.

Bweep bwap bwoop bop bwooooooup.

That was the watch's detransformation signal that Ben had gotten used to by now, and after a big red flash, he went from fire guy back to ordinary little kid.

"Oh, crap, now I'm going to be late for summer school!" – Ben yelled as he got up and climbed down the ladder, then started running again.

"I'm here, I'm here!" – Ben yelled as he rushed into the classroom. He was exactly 14 minutes late, and he had a feeling Mrs. Seagal would assume he bailed on the class, so he was pretty desperate to convince her he didn't.

"We can see that you're here, dweeb, what did you expect, a red carpet reception?"

"Ohh, snap!"

It seems like Ben needn't have bothered to hurry. Mrs. Seagal wasn't in the class at all. Instead, he was met with insults coming from Cash and J.T., who were in the process of hi-fiving each other over Cash's dumb joke. That could only mean one thing.

"You two are also taking summer school?" – Ben disappointedly said. This summer so far had been a rollercoaster of emotions starting with the road trip then summer school then the alien watch and hanging out with Jamie to now having to endure Cash and J.T. all summer. This could even outweigh the watch and put the whole summer into negative, so far. And speaking of Jamie, he was already sitting at one of the desks, saving the seat next to him for Ben.

"Nice outfit, by the way." – Cash sneered at Ben's baseball jersey and cap. "You know you're not in the Cannons anymore, right? You're not even supposed to be wearing that."

"Well, why are YOU still in Bellwood instead of playing for the Little League World Series?" – Ben retorted. "Cause you guys have a match, like, tomorrow."

Cash glared at him.

"Cash's parents made him take summer school instead." – J.T. pointed out.

"Did yours make you do it, too?" – Jamie asked him.

"No. It was Cash. He didn't want to go alone." – J.T. sighed. "Man, we could have gone to the finals. Even played in front of the President."

"CAN IT, J.T.!" – Cash yelled and punched him on the shoulder. "As for you, Tennyson…" – he turned to Ben. "You won't be able to run away from what's coming to you all summer." – Cash menacingly told him. It seemed like he had forgotten the sense of camaraderie the four of them shared when fighting alien robots in the woods, if there indeed was one to begin with.

"Oh, whatever." – Ben shrugged it off as he drew back the chair next to Jamie's and sat down. After last night, as well as the first flight he had taken just now, Cash was a lot less scary to him. Even if Cash and J.T. dared to pick a fight here and now, in class and in front of all the other kids, he couldn't care less. He had faced actual danger now, and they were just cockroaches. Plus, he was sure that now, Jamie would back him up.

Cash, seeing as Ben had basically ignored him, was taken aback somewhat. He just went back to sit next to J.T. and throw daggers at Ben with his gaze.

"You used it again?" – Jamie whispered over to Ben.

"Yeah. How did you know?" – Ben asked, somewhat surprised.

"It's red." – Jamie pointed out. "It gets red when you use it."

"Oh, right." – Ben nodded. "So, where's Mrs. S? Aren't we supposed to start today?" – Ben then asked.

"We were, but she hasn't showed up yet." – Jamie shrugged.

"Do you guys know?" – Ben asked the other kids in class. Adam, sitting in the front row, shook his head, and Lena, sitting to the left, did the same.

"Okay, screw this." – Cash suddenly said and stood up. Ben and Jamie turned their heads towards him in case he made any movement towards them. "I didn't want to put up with this crap all summer anyway. Come on, J.T.." – he beckoned his friend, or rather, lackey, to go with him. "If anybody asks we were never here, got it?" – he tried to intimidate the class.

"Sure, whatever, just go already!" – Ben irritably said. His left arm had an itch to it whenever he looked at Cash's face now, an itch that only activating a certain device would scratch… A device that had already turned green by now, too…

Though, while Cash left, J.T. hesitated. He was looking at Ben and Jamie. Then, quickly, he got something out of his backpack and handed it to them.

"I know the game broke so it's worthless, but it's something, at least." – he said.

"J.T.!" – Cash yelled from the hallway, and J.T. quickly followed after, leaving the thing on Jamie's desk.

It was actually the instruction manual that came with Sumo Slammers Smackdown. It had a slight variation of the disc's cover art on it, one where Ishiyama's punch connected with Kenko's face instead of being stuck mid-swing, and Kenko was wincing in pain. It seemed pretty thick, too.

"Wow! This has all the character bios for every fighter with the entire movelists and everything!" – Jamie said in amazement as he scrolled through it. Not only that, but each bio had detailed character art on the page that looked super cool. Ben thought that you could scroll and look at the pictures and not get bored. "That was pretty cool of J.T. to do that."

"Well, he was one of the two reasons why the game broke, though." – Ben said. "But, at least it's probably gonna help you catch up with the story."

"Yeah, I'm definitely reading this to prepare for when we actually get to buy the game!" – Jamie gladly said.

"Speaking of that, do you wanna go downtown today? There's gotta be another store that carries it." – Ben suggested. A birds-eye view of downtown Bellwood from earlier had reminded him of it.

"Sorry, no-can-do. My parents got really mad when I got home late last night." – Jamie admitted.

"Yeah, mine too."

"Did you get grounded?" – Jamie worriedly asked.

"Uh… I don't think so…?" – Ben said, still not sure how exactly his parents were. They seemed serious, but the only actual "punishment" they gave Ben was to be home at 8, and that wasn't really anything.

"Well, I gotta head straight home after the class and ask permission to go out for the next couple days. And… it's probably not a good idea to ask if you can come over, either." – Jamie admitted.

Damn. That was a shame. Neither of them said it out loud, but it was obvious that Jamie wanted to hang out with Ben to see the watch work just as much as Ben did.

"Sorry, kids! I'm here!" – Mrs. Seagal ran into the classroom.

Ben was a bit disappointed. He was hoping that she wouldn't show up at all and the class would be cancelled.

"I don't know what was going on, but my street was a warzone last night!" – Mrs. Seagal continued as she put her handbag down under her desk and sat down. "I'm not sure if you've seen it on the news, but some sort of giant robot was tearing up the neighborhood. I couldn't get my car out, or anything."

So, Mrs. Seagal was there when Ben fought the robot. Did that mean that Ben had just saved her life?

"And I don't know how, but all of my electronics were expelled out of my house onto the street. Maybe there was some sort of magnetism, but that doesn't explain why it was just my house that this had happened to. I couldn't even have a proper breakfast because my toaster was in pieces out on the driveway." – she went on.

Oh. So that was her toaster that Ben had thrown at the robot, too. Now, Ben felt a bit guilty about it. He had pretty much destroyed it for no real reason.

"Better than my car blowing up, or my house being set on fire, at least…" – Mrs. Seagal said. "I guess I was luckier than some of my neighbors. So, kids, how have you all been doing? Staying out of trouble? No giant robot fights?"

"Absolutely." – Ben said.

"N-no, ma'am." – Jamie shook his head.

"I see Adam, Ben, Jamie, Lena. We're missing two. Where are Cash and J.T.?"

Nobody responded to that. None of them exactly were keen on giving those two away, but they didn't want to lie to Mrs. Seagal's face, either.

"I'll have to call their houses and remind them that summer school's already started. Okay, why don't you guys just take these and start reading?" – she got four copies of Thomas Dickie: a Pioneer's Tale out of her bag and handed them to Adam, who passed the rest of them back to Ben and Jamie, and Ben handed one to Lena.

"Now, I know that some of you weren't exactly excited for summer school and would rather be doing something else, but if you just give it a chance, I can promise you'll have a lot of fun here, too."

Ben rolled his eyes at that.

"She's right, it is pretty fun." – Jamie told him.

"Oh, shut up."

After two hours, which felt more like two centuries, of quiet reading that Ben would rather spend writhing around the woods in his fish form, the class was already over. That was it. All they did was sit and read quietly. It was quite dull, but at least there were no questions or essays or grammar or anything like that. Honestly, Ben wasn't sure what to make of that. It was like it wasn't even worth wasting the summer over. Oh, well.

He headed to Bellwood Mall and check out the videogame store there, even if Jamie couldn't come with. After picking up his bike from the street where Mr. Baumann's house was (for which he still felt guilty), he headed towards downtown. Strictly grounded, this time, and with no jet of fire following him.

"Wait, which way was the mall, again?" – he asked himself as he got confused. He had been there before, but by bus, not by bike. Right now, he was near Bellwood Bank, at the large open space in front of it that led to the steps towards the entrance. Though, Ben didn't remember where to go from there. He tried to recall the view of the city he had witnessed from high up, but all the buildings looked pretty much the same from up there.

Ben considered transforming again just to get a better look once again to track down the mall, but before he got the chance, something happened.

A large explosion nearly knocked him off his feet. It was coming from the bank. Ben quickly turned around. Two figures wearing masks and biker jackets emerged from the bank, carrying bags full of what was obviously cash, and armed with guns.

Okay, if this wasn't the perfect time for Ben to use his powers, nothing was. He quickly ducked for cover behind a bench and hit the watch without even looking at it. Would have been better if he had picked someone he knew, sure, but there was no time to wait and pick. He had to go now.

And just like that, a 6-foot-tall crystalline golem emerged from the bench Ben had hidden behind. Ben felt hard and powerful. Each step gave out a loud thud.

"Hey, stop!" – Ben yelled over to the bank robbers, who were running to their getaway vehicle. Though, it's not like they would listen to him. Ben wasn't sure if they had even noticed him – one of them was wearing a motorcycle helmet with spray painted decals all over, the other – a gorilla mask.

"'I said, stop!" – Ben repeated as he stomped his leg on the ground, hard. Something happened then – crystals, just like the ones Ben seemed to be made of, rose up from the ground and trapped one of the bank robber's legs in it. He couldn't move. The other one stopped, though, looking back to see what happened to his friend.

"Drop the bags!" – Ben commanded as he ran up to them.

"Wh-what are you?" – one of the bank robbers said in fear. The voice sounded… female? Was the bank robber a woman?

"Stay the hell away from us!" – the one that Ben had trapped yelled at him.

"Just drop the money and I won't hurt y-" – Ben was saying, but before he got the chance to finish the sentence, the trapped robber shot her pistol right towards Ben's head.

For a second, Ben stood there, shocked – not every day that you stare down the barrel of a pistol, with a bullet coming your way. Even the robbers were standing still, anxiously awaiting what would happen.

Ptooh.

Ben spat out the bullet, which he had caught in-between his mouth with his lips. (Did this crystal alien have lips?). The bullet fell on the ground with a tiny clang and rolled away. All three of them looked down and followed its trajectory, suspended by disbelief of it all, then Ben looked at the robbers, and the robbers looked up at him.

"Forget it, I'm out of here!" – the other one yelled. She grabbed the bag of money that the first one dropped, and started running away with both towards the getaway vehicle.

"Are you serious? You're leaving me and taking the money?! HELP ME! ROJO!" – the one Ben had trapped yelled after her, but to no avail.

"S-stay back, you freak!" – she desperately said as she frantically unloaded her gun on the crystalline creature coming at her, but Ben just casually walked forward, unphased by any of them no matter where she shot him. After 5 more shots, the chamber was empty, and she scrambled to reload, but by then, Ben had already reached her.

"You shouldn't play with that thing. Someone could get hurt, you know." – he said as he grabbed it out of her hand, crumpled it up in his fist like it was made of paper and casually tossed it aside.

While this confrontation went on, the people on the street, instead of running away (as you would when you saw gun-toting bank robbers), were watching this crazy diamond-headed guy tank six bullets like it was nothing. Who could miss such a show?

Meanwhile, Ben, now that one of the robbers was disarmed and captured, Ben turned his attention to the one that was running away. He stomped his leg again, for the crystals to rise up around her leg to try and root her to the ground, but couldn't catch her completely. He did, however, manage to trip her and make her fall down, and used the moment before she got up to close the gap between them.

"Don't you dare come closer!" – the criminal yelled as she ran over towards one of the bystanders, grabbing him. "Don't, or I'll blow his brains out!" – she yelled as she stood behind him with her gun to his head.

"Holy crap, lady, stop, don't do it!" – Ben immediately stopped, dead in his tracks, with hands raised in front of him to signify that he wouldn't do anything.

"Whatever you are, walk away, you got it?!" – she yelled.

"Okay, okay, just… don't shoot the guy!" – Ben pleaded as he stepped back. Wow, great superheroing already. This was his, what, third? Second? outing as a hero and he was already blowing it. If he trapped her legs with the crystals, that wouldn't stop her from shooting the hostage.

"Idiot, why didn't you do it when she was on the ground?" – he scolded himself for lack of judgement.

So, the best thing in this case would be to… let her get away and admit that he lost? He watched helplessly as the bank robber slowly backed towards the getaway car, taking her hostage with her. When she finally got to it, she pushed him away and quickly got in, and the car immediately drove off.

This was his chance. If the bank robbers made one mistake, it was underestimating him. And if they made two, the second one was definitely letting that hostage go. Ben chased after the getaway car. Almost instinctively, he reached his hand forward, and small shards of crystals, just like the material he was made of, left his fingertips and launched themselves towards the car. Though, they only hit the trunk.

Aware of this new ability, this time, Ben really aimed for it and flicked his index finger as hard as he could. The shard left his hand at full force as it launched itself forward, and hit exactly where Ben had aimed – the car's rear tire. It popped like a balloon, causing the car to lose control and skid off the road and crash. In the meantime, police were already arriving to pick them up.

He went back to the bank to see the police there, too. They had apprehended the one bank robber Ben had caught with a crystal, unmasked her, and were in the process of trying to free her leg from the crystal. The sledgehammer had already shattered, and someone was bringing in a buzzsaw.

When they saw Ben approaching, they got alarmed, even drawing their weapons.

"Even if you unload your whole magazines on him, that's not gonna work." – the robber warned them.

"Don't worry, boys, I got it." – Ben casually assured them, paying no mind to the guns as with another stomp of his leg, the crystals around the bank robber disappeared. The bank robber was visibly relieved, though the guy bringing the buzzsaw was extremely disappointed.

"Wh-who the hell are you?" – one of the cops asked him.

"Who do you think? I'M A FLIPPIN' SUPERHERO!" – Ben jovially yelled. "So, uh… do you guys know which way is to the mall?"

The cops looked at each other in bewilderment as one of them scratched his head.

"You got a visitor, Rojo."

Rojo looked up. She had been expecting this. Anxiously. She knew exactly who it was gonna be, the only question was when. She was so damn close from breaking free of them. The plan went off without a hitch. Would have, if not for some bulletproof crystalline monolith appearing out of thin air to stop her. That was ridiculous, who does that even happen to? And why did it have to be her?

"You coming or not?" – the cop asked her.

"Yeah, yeah." – she annoyedly stood up and walked out of her holding cell. "Pig." – she added under her breath.

"So." – she said as she sat down in front of the separating glass and got the phone.

"So." – the man in front of her did the same.

"Listen, it's not what you…"

"Oh, isn't it? It's not what I think? You, stealing my idea, trying to beat me to my heist with your two-bit crew? That was not what happened? You really thought you could get away with it?" – the man immediately blew up at her.

"I would have. The only thing that stopped me was a walking chandelier. You heard about that part, didn't you?" – Rojo retorted.

"Yeah, well, goes to show. Maybe you weren't meant to get that money."

"Hmph. That thing would have folded your guys like paper." – Rojo smirked.

"Well then, it's awfully lucky we dodged that, didn't we? You, however. You should pray you don't see the inside of a prison. And with that hostage charge you racked up, I don't find that very likely. And when you do, my friends on the inside will be waiting for you… bro." – he said, smirked, and left.

"I'm not your fucking bro." – Rojo said in contempt and sighed.

So, Ben's outfit, his main design for the story, will be a baseball tee with a cap. The Omnitrix also looks slightly different to match the design. If you want to visualize it better, it's in the cover art of this story (duh).