Chapter 29: Settling In

I Don't Own Ben 10 or Any of the Respective Characters, The Rights Belong to Man of Action Studios and Cartoon Network

Author's Note:

* Hello and welcome to Chapter 29!

* So, now that we've gone through all of the material from CWN V.1.0., now we'll be getting into the main beef of V.2.0.

* With that said, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Ben

Monday, May 21st, 2018

The Iceberg Café, Los Angeles

"You're hired."

I smiled as I reached across the table and shook my new employer's hand.

"Great!" I replied enthusiastically. "Thank you so much, Mr. Simmons!"

"When can you start?"

"Tomorrow, if you need me that soon."

Mr. Simmons put his hand to his chin.

"Well, we don't need someone that soon on the schedule. Let me see when I can get on the schedule for you and I'll call you once I know when your first day here will be. From there, we can both discuss what kind of schedule you'd like to work here."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Fantastic. Well, that's all I need from you today. You can go ahead and get on your way. We'll see you back here real soon. Have a good rest of your day, young sir."

"You, as well."

I stood up from the booth where my final interview had taken place, before Desmond Simmons, the general manager of the café, gave me the tour and went over what my daily duties would entail, before returning to said booth to sign the code of conduct stuff and all that. On my way back to the front entrance, I passed the front counter, where the current acting cashier, a girl named Erica, with blonde hair, blue eyes and red lipstick stood.

"See you around, handsome." She said as she winked at me.

I just smiled back.

"I'm sure you will."

She had flirted with me essentially since I had set foot in the building. And I might admit that I flirted back a little. If only I would have been able to know what a nuisance Erica Thompson would be to me going forward. To bring you up to speed, it had been almost a week since I left home and I had landed myself in Los Angeles, California. Quite a ways away from home, but I wanted to put time as well as distance between me and my issues.

Upon getting into town, I found a really cheap, one room apartment inside an apartment complex in a decent part of town. It would cost me three hundred and fifty dollars a month to rent the space and I had used some of my graduation money as a down payment and to pay for my first month's rent. The space all and all was just about as big as my bedroom back home, including the bathroom and abysmally small kitchen area, but it's the best I could afford right now.

I had also done what I had told my parents, that I would search for an entry level job where I found myself to get started. My first day in the city, I came across the Iceberg Café, which was currently hiring servers for the day shift, so I went in to apply and here we are now. I had gotten the job, which was perfect for me, considering I could work during the day and go out on crime patrol for a few hours every night.

An Hour Later

Ben's Apartment

After leaving the café, I was ready to head back to my new place to start unloading the small amount of stuff that I had brought with me, but needed to stop for something first. I made a quick pitstop at a thrift store not too far from the complex, where I bought a pre-owned sewing machine. It was worn and had seen extensive use, but would still work for what I needed it for.

I had bought some cloth while on my way through Utah and some mechanical parts through Arizona, hoping that by doing that, none of these items would be traced back to me. Anyway, I got back to my apartment, which was on the third floor and got to work. Using the sewing machine I had just bought, I got to work in crafting my first costume.

The idea that I would need something to protect my identity should the Omnitrix time out at an inconvenient time never left me, so I came up with a concept for a costume that I would be able to easily bring to fruition. It was a lot like Spider-Man's costume, actually. Just take remove all the web lines and replace the red and blue with bright green and dark blue respectively. And after that, instead of spider emblems, a small green and black hourglass on the front chest and a bigger one on the back, meant to represent the Omnitrix.

Lastly, through a lot of studying and some trial runs, some of which were failures, I had managed to replicate Spider-Man's web formula and made my own real life web shooters. I may admit to using YouTube to find guides for putting together these things, because I know next to nothing about mechanical stuff.

But here we were now. I had my own place to put some time and distance between me and my issues with Gwen. I had a means to protect my identity should the Omnitrix fail me and now I had a way to get around without wasting the Omnitrix's limited energy. I knew that the webs would support my weight, but that's all I knew. I hadn't actually tried swinging with them yet. That would likely prove to be fun.

A Few Hours Later

After a few hours' worth of working, the costume was done. I picked up my mask from the desk in front of me and slipped it on my head. I looked through the transitionary lenses that would darken a bit when exposed to sunlight to reduce brightness, which were now a normal shade.

"Yeah, I think this will work nicely." I spoke, my voice being slightly muffled by the cloth.

I pulled the mask off and proceeded to hang it up in my closet, then shutting the sliding door once I was done. I finally proceeded to start unpacking my things. I set my backpack up on the bed and listened as the weight caused the springs underneath the mattress to shift up and down. I unzipped the bag and was going to pull out each item one by one. However, I was surprised when the first thing ended up being a book that I had never packed. And it wasn't just any book, I recognized it as the book I had picked out and spent money to have autographed for Gwen's Christmas present.

How did this get in here? If she slipped it in my bag while I wasn't looking, then why would she leave it with me?

That's when I opened the front cover and saw the message that she had written in black ink on the inside cover. The Gwen that I had known when we were kids would never have written on the inside of a book, but then again, this Gwen was different. She had grown up, just as I had. The message said:

Just in case you need something to remember me by.

Love always,

Gwen

Even though I didn't want to maintain a connection with her at this time, I couldn't help but smile in spite of myself. I walked back over to my desk with the book still in hand and sat down. I opened the desk drawer, where I pulled out a pad of sticky notes and tore one from the top. I then placed the sticky note underneath her message and began to write my own:

I don't need anything to help me remember you. You're totally unforgettable.

I ended up totally screwing up the first couple letters in "unforgettable". I've had really bad handwriting my whole life, so something like this was bound to happen on occasion. I did my best to erase it, try again and make it look not so smudged. I then sat it aside, telling myself that I would mail it back to her later.

Author's Note:

* And that's it for the chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it!

* I'm sure Ben landing in Los Angeles is a bit unexpected and downright unrealistic, as well. Afterall, what are the odds that in the year 2018, a fresh out of high school eighteen year old would find a one room apartment available to rent for $350 a month? Pretty much zero. But you know what? This is my story, I can do whatever I want, even if it's not realistic.

* Um, I'm sure that some of you may be worried about Ben's time in Los Angeles may prove to be a boring affair. But fear not! Not only will Gwen make some appearances instead of being sidelined for the rest of the year, but I promise that what I have in store for all of you will be very entertaining! And yes, you read that right, rest of the YEAR. I already know long Ben's run in Los Angeles will last and I can now confirm that we will wrap up Ben's time here with Chapter 45 in December of this year.

* Now that I have these messages out of the way, I have something more important that I need to talk about. Now, for the broad 99% of my readers, this message won't be directed at you. For the small handful that this message is being directed to, YOU know who you are. If you are trying to leave a review or message me about potentially collaborating to bring this story to life through illustrations, then DON'T BOTHER. I know your messages are just spams coming from scammers. If you do either of the two aforementioned, then I will delete your messages and/or report your reviews. I know what you're doing and I will not fall for it. You will get NOTHING from me. Please quit wasting your and my time and move on with your life.

* Anyway, with that having been said, if you actually have something relevant to the story that you'd like to express to me, then please go ahead and leave a review or send me a private message. I am genuinely curious about what you readers think about the story and will always take the time out of my day to respond to your messages or reviews. That'll do it for me today, though. So, have a fantastic rest of your day and bye.

Review Responses

adriandragonus (Chapter 28): This feels like your own version of Omniverse, Ben's navigating his life alone without his previous partners. He's not interested to be enrolled in college in the show as well, so kudos for keeping that in the story. I'm excited to see how he develops during his soul searching trip, and deals with his feeling. I hope he'll realize the feeling ain't gonna go away the harder he represses it,it's just going to be stronger. Perhaps he'll have some flings on his trip to make him forget about Gwen, but i beg youplease don't let him be!

Thanks, Adrian. Well, I've never seen Omniverse, so I wouldn't have known that little tidbit. I never got past the series finale of Ultimate Alien, I just couldn't put the time aside for it, as I was working my way through high school, among other things. I can promise you that Ben won't be having any flings during his time in L.A., I don't want either character to have any romantic relationships apart from each other. Thanks for the review, as always.

cherrypie990 (Chapter 28): Aww…Ben's leaving, so probably no Bwen for sometime. Somehow I saw this coming. And weirdly while reading the original before, I had a thought what if Ben did decide to run away. And well, that alternate future is in the play in this version. I also wonder if we will be seeing more of tetrax and Ben exploring his Hero life more in an attempt to forget his feelings. We dont really have any interactions apart from that one brief meeting. Really curious about Julie too. In the previous chapter she was exceptionally hostile towards him, it makes a person curious about what happened in their past.

Thanks, Cherry. Yeah, when I was doing the writing for this story's early roadmap, I was dead set on doing that alternate future, because I knew I had a few readers from the original story that were curious about that angle. I am considering adding another chapter with Tetrax, seeing as it won't be for another near seventy chapters until we'll see him again.

The only problem with this is he'd be divulging information vital to the endgame of this story, some of which I want to keep close to my chest. Right now, I'm thinking about what the best way would be to move forward with the concept of this hypothetical chapter. And about Julie, don't worry. There will be a time and a place for that reveal, but this isn't quite the time yet. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: After Ben finishes settling into Los Angeles, as well as gets through his first day at the café, he is caught off guard by a surprise attack.