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Ben wasn’t too terribly surprised when he found his body to be again his own, with no recollection of the time between touching the dial to the ‘now’.
Not surprised, but not terribly happy.
He frowned, body aching from a fight he wasn’t privy to. He felt rather than saw Gwen come over as he tried to piece together his surroundings. He wanted to ask what had happened. Instead, what came out of him was “What happens next?”
‘Ben 10’ was the name he had given to what ‘he’ was, and what he was was the middleman for a collective of extremely skilled, or extremely hardened individuals who he somewhat had the pleasure of knowing.
Gwen knew them, her body had always only ever stayed the same. He could watch back clips of what all she and whoever was holding the reigns were up to on news reporting and video footage.
Gwen said that her least favourite of his forms was a guy called ‘Ghost Freak’, so he shouldn’t let that one in the driver’s seat. ‘Ghost Freak’ had made Ben promise to never repeat his name aloud, which was funny because his actual name was a bit punny.
Regardless, ‘Ghost Freak’ was helpful. A bit mean spirited, true, but he liked to narrate and meander with things Ben usually could never verify the truthfulness of. ‘Ghost Freak’ was a wealth of knowledge for what Ben could verify, telling the child about a warlord with a faceful of tentacles long before he’d ever caught a glimpse of Vilgax’s visage.
Grey Matter was brilliant, but he refused to actually talk most times. G.M. thought it an indignation to have to lower to the level of a human, let alone one hardly grown. Most of what the guy did say was only ever stuff Ben could never fact check, like that G.M. had once been an engineer at some fancy frog city called ‘Galvan Prime’ but ooooh, can’t say anything more than that! Ben surely wouldn’t understand.
Four Arms and Diamond Head were the two who left him with the fewest problems, as D.H. was a walking rock and F.A. was both strong and fast enough to avoid injury.
(Zs’Skayr said that D.H. is the one who got them into trouble, and that he and Grey Matter were making plans behind the seams-)
Stinkfly would tell him silly nothings to pass the time when they were flying, the two playfully wrestling over who would get to control the body– up until something bad happened because they were a human sized insect straight from a cheap horror film, and then Ben would come to somewhere with no recollection of arriving.
XLR8 was like that too, but in a different way; X let Ben mess around, but whenever it was important, Ben was usually just a passenger. Or he was gone, which was what happened when the ‘important’ thing got bad. XLR8 sometimes explained what went down, usually didn’t, and he was fairly good at keeping them from new bumps and abrasion. He was also the only one who seemed to take the reigns when Ben wasn’t transformed, though that was rare. Probably.
It was rare, except for when XLR8 wanted to be XLR8, then Ben would find himself walking somewhere else to dial up the right body, and whatever X was up to didn’t last long enough to be much of a problem.
(‘Ghost Freak’ told him it was a problem, and G.H. said that because G.H. was a jealous nag. According to other sources.)
Wildmutt did not talk, but she did teach. She only ever butted him out of consciousness on rare occasions, the kinds that always left him needing to patch up odd injuries he had no explanation for. She did not talk, but she showed him that people view her and her vibrant coat as a prize to hang on their shelf.
She showed him odd things, fascinating things, taught him how to fish with nothing but his grabbies and teeth, how to find water, then follow it back to civilization, which rock sides were less safe to climb (whoops and ouch), how to draw sweet sap from the right kind of tree, how to spot a lie in the tremor of one’s heart. She also helped him learn how to walk on all four limbs, which hurt his wrists but made him astonishingly fast.
Wildmutt was the only one who could ‘supervise’ no matter the setting or circumstance, and somehow was able to swap transformations if the need arose (much to Grey Matter’s chagrin and Diamond Head’s fury). He wasn’t sure, but he thought she liked to keep watch when he was sleeping, which was a nice sentiment if true, or maybe his imagination was simply a bit excessive.
Someone caught him when Ripjaws had decided to take him out for dinner, salmon if R.J. could manage. R.J. had said she wanted Ben to have a meal actually worth eating, since Grandpa Max’s dinner was a literal bucket of bugs only Grey Matter could enjoy.
(Max said it was better to practice understanding those other forms and to live as they did, even if just in the little ways. Gwen was torn between teasing and gagging as she tried to hide the burger she’d mysteriously materialized. She got in trouble for letting him see.)
Wildmutt was a usual trophy to be sought, Ripjaws was a less common exploit.
They’d gotten caught in the net and cut by something Ben wasn’t sure about.. It wasn’t a hook, not a knife– Then he blinked and was on dry land again, box of bandages in hand and salt in some cuts he was half sure the origin of.
One time, he’d been caught and brought to some kind of caged fighter place. Kevin was there too, body all malformed from drawing from the watch, and Ben’s form was unchanging per the cuffs they had on him.
He’d needed to plan his way out of that mess. Thankfully, the guards were used only to protecting against larger, fiercer opponents, so it was easy enough to sneak past them when things got rowdy.
Upgrade took the rare opportunity to remove the cuff, walk him through the escape pod’s controls, and XLR8 helped him find his way back to Max.
Zs’skayr was gone, he didn’t know where or how. Ben found himself in some gymnasium, slightly lesser than he’d been before,
The circus people were in shambles around him. Ben didn’t know wh-
XLR8 took over, and he was gone.
Grey Matter was furious and wouldn’t stop talking. About how it wasn’t fair, about all the things G.M. could have done if given life again, about how it was an honor and duty to be a form, about how much G.M. hated what they’d all been reduced to.
Diamond Head wanted control to go hunt down Ghost Freak, and it was then that Ben realized none of them knew G.F.’s name..
Weren't they all knocking about the same head?
Years passed, the roster changed, but not before therehappened something clever,
Grey Matter was off-and-on about it being for the better, Diamond Head refused the change, and Wildmutt-
Wildmutt had a plan.
The roster changed,
(We’re still here.)
Some of them, a select few. Ben missed Four Arms.
(Four Arms was a fool.)
What remained with him were Wildmutt-
(You knew she would.)
Ripjaws-
(I don’t need my body to be needed here.)
XLR8-
(I’m not going to hurt you, but they will.)
Upgrade-
(I’ve given enough for their play war.)
And Stinkfly,
(This isn’t my final story.)