"Do you think anyone saw us?"
Ben took a breath, stretching his arms as the green flash of him transforming back from Jetray into his human self faded away. It hadn't taken long, with the speed he'd been going at as the Aerophibian, for him and Gwen to make their way to some kind of civilisation. Just several minutes of flying in one direction with his cousin on his back, and they'd made their way to what seemed like a bustling city, the sounds of which they'd been able to pick up even from the sky. From there, it had been a simple matter of Gwen spotting a relatively quiet and secluded-looking alleyway, and Ben landing as quietly and softly as he could.
"I doubt it." Gwen replied, stretching herself a bit and quickly fixing her hair, as being a passenger of Jetray had messed it up a fair bit. "We should move, though, in case someone did."
"Yeah." Ben nodded, rolling his left sleeve down a bit so the Omnitrix wasn't visible, and making his way out of the alleyway. Gwen followed right behind him, and within a couple of minutes, the cousins had found their way onto what seemed like a main street, full of the sight of people- so many people- going about their daily routines, the noise of hundreds of conversations and traffic filling both the air and Ben and Gwen's ears.
Though none of that was anything close to the first thing Ben noticed about this place, this different universe if Gwen's initial hypothesis was accurate. That semi-honour went to the people themselves, or more specifically some of their strange and unique appearances. Some had brightly-coloured hair- ranging from white to red to blue and beyond, others sported peculiar outfits (A burly-looking square-jawed guy with thick wrist-guards, what looked like disembodied cyan-coloured sleeves held to his chest by metal nuts and dark-blue pants in particular caught his eye for a couple of seconds), and a few even displayed unusual physical traits. As Ben glanced through the window of a store that he and Gwen walked past, he watched a man with MUCH longer arms than normal- three times longer than his or Gwen's, at least- reaching for something high up on a shelf inside a store.
When he and Gwen passed the store, Ben looked over at his cousin, who looked like she was concentrating intently on something, while a couple walked past them on the other side of the pavement that they were on. When they were fully past, Gwen looked over at her cousin.
"That was definitely Japanese." she remarked. "Now that I think about it, those guys we fought and that cat-lady were speaking Japanese, too… are we on another alternate version of Earth, in a different Japan?"
"Guess so." Ben replied, looking up at a billboard that was written in Japanese characters that he couldn't understand. "Couldn't we have landed in an alternate... I dunno, Canada?"
Gwen lightly scoffed, scratching an itch on the back of her neck as she glanced up at the same billboard, before looking over at Ben as he continued.
"Speaking of, how did you recognize that it's Japanese that everyone's speaking so quickly?" Ben asked, shoving his hands in his jeans-pockets as he and Gwen crossed the road, and turned onto a different street.
"Online courses." Gwen replied. "Found some good ones that helped me learn Japanese about a year ago, been at it with them ever since. You know I've always wanted to go to Japan… or at least our Japan, right?"
"Oh yeah, you did." Ben nodded. "Think I remember you mentioning that once or twice. Was thinking of asking if I could tag along whenever you decided to go. Always wanted to see an actual sumo-wrestling match in person."
"You would." Gwen remarked, lightly shaking her head. "And yeah, going to Japan together sounds pretty fun. Maybe we could have brought…"
Gwen stopped in her verbal tracks, trailing off as she tightly shut her mouth, having stopped just short of mentioning a certain someone. An awkward silence strung out between her and Ben for a few seconds before the latter broke it, electing to change the subject.
"You know, I didn't hear any of those guys you mentioned talking in Japanese." He remarked. "Just English, like normal. I mean, I'm hearing people in English right now."
Gwen let out a small snort from her nose, glancing down at Ben's left wrist, where the Omnitrix was still hidden under his sleeve.
"I suppose there isn't a prize for guessing how that's happening?" She remarked, dryly.
"Nope." Ben replied, chuckling for a moment before raising his left wrist, pulling back his sleeve and looking down at the Omnitrix. "Makes a lot of sense, now that you think about it, for this thing to have that kind of translator-feature built in. Guess I never really thought about how much that's come in handy, until now."
"Yeah." Gwen nodded. "I doubt every single alien we've met, since you put that thing on the first time, has exclusively been speaking English."
"True that." Ben remarked, stretching before taking another breath. He made to open his mouth and ask Gwen something else, about her thoughts on the use of the word 'Quirk' by one of the guys back in the forest that had tried to take them hostage, but the eruption of a commotion in front of the two cousins attracted his attention before he could get the words out.
The front window of what looked like a clothing shop smashed, with two people holding bags that bulged with- Ben and Gwen presumed- the contents of the store that they'd just robbed, jumping out and landing on the pavement, before breaking out into a sprint across the road towards a car parked on the opposite side from the store.
"Out of the way, mutie!" one of the shoplifters yelled, pulling a knife out of his pocket with his free hand and opening it up, brandishing it at someone with the appearance of what looked like a mantis shrimp, who happened to just be walking close by the car that said shoplifters were dashing towards.
Ben had seen more than enough. With a well-practiced flick of his left wrist to quickly roll up his sleeve and expose the Omnitrix, his right hand was well on its way to activating it and transforming in order to stop the criminals in front of him. Though before he could slam down on the watch and stop the two shoplifters before they could get in the car, or the one with the knife could do anything to the mantis shrimp-person, something else happened: what looked like a thick tree-branch descended from above, wrapping itself around the car and lifting it into the air before the shoplifters could open its doors.
Ben blinked, lowering his hand from the Omnitrix as the vehicle was deposited about twenty feet down the road, at which point the branch unwrapped itself from around it. Before either of the shoplifters could make a break for it, another wooden tendril descended and wrapped itself around the one with the knife, immediately ensnaring him and wrapping him up tightly.
"I think it's the pair of you that should be out of our way." Another voice called from above. "With your capacity for villainy, and such distain towards your fellow man!"
Ben and Gwen looked up, and immediately spotted the person who had spoken, the source of the wooden tendrils. A young man- judging by the voice- with dark-brown skin that looked like wood and a helmet that covered all of his face apart from his brown eyes. He wore a dark-blue bodysuit that included a wooden belt, wooden knee pads and wooden shoes. A small bundle of roses hung from the left side of his belt.
One of his arms was extended out, having morphed into the wooden tendril that he was currently using to wrap the knife-wielding shoplifter up with. The other criminal, his eyes wide, immediately dropped his bag of stolen clothes and attempted to make a run for it, but after descending to the ground from above, the brown-skinned man extended his other arm out, converting it into similar tendrils that wrapped around the fleeing man.
Ben and Gwen looked at each other, eyes slightly widened in shock at what they'd just witnessed, though almost immediately after the wooden hero's successful apprehension, he was surrounded by the other onlookers on and around the street that applauded his act. Within the yells of praise, Ben and Gwen could just barely discern the hero being referred to as Kamui Woods.
Within moments, police and press were on the scene, with cameras flashing and microphones being thrust forward as the two criminals were taken into custody.
"That's… definitely not something you see every day." Gwen remarked, an eyebrow raised as, after looking like he was done answering some of the press' questions (they had no hope of hearing what was going on, over the cacophony of the crowd), Kamui Woods extended an arm out and wrapped more of his wooden tendrils around a nearby lamppost, using it to pull himself away from the crowd and swing away across the city.
"Probably something these guys see every day, though." Ben replied. "That is NOT how things would have gone in our world."
"You got that right." Gwen remarked, her eyes following Kamui Woods swinging away across the city until he left her line of sight, at which point the crowd that had gathered in the aftermath of his heroism began to disperse. With the excitement of the moment slowly fading as everyone seemed to go back to their everyday routines, Ben and Gwen continued their walk down the street. "Anyway, moving on from… that, I say our first course of action should probably be to get some information about this alternate Earth."
Shifting his sleeve back down so the Omnitrix was hidden again, Ben fell into step with his cousin.
"You suggesting we try and find a library, or something?"
"That's exactly what I'm suggesting." Gwen replied. "Though considering it's a version of Japan we're in, an internet café would probably be easier to find… though I don't think we have any money to gain access, so…
"Library it is?" Ben proposed, resisting the urge to smirk. Gwen noticed the expression on his face, resisting the urge to roll her eyes in turn.
"Library it is." She replied. "Shouldn't be too hard to find… but if so, I hope my Japanese isn't too rusty."
Line Break
It didn't take Ben and Gwen long to find a decently-sized library. And as it turned out, Gwen wasn't rusty enough in her use of the Japanese language to not be able to explain to one of the workers there that they were students that needed to use it for research. That had been more than enough for said worker to guide them to a quiet corner close to the library's history section, complete with a couple of chairs, a table and lamps on said table.
With the sunny afternoon light streaming through the windows, the lamps were off, with the rest of the table occupied by damn near every book on modern history Gwen and Ben could carry between them back to the table, with the book closest to Gwen propped up against the pile of most of the other books while she sat and read from it, while a second book rested open in her lap. Ben was in the other chair, glancing left and right to make sure there wasn't anyone watching the pair of them. When he was sure that no-one was, he lowered the Omnitrix to the Japanese text in the book in his lap, scanning the pages for a couple of seconds before lifting it up to his eyes, reading the text as it translated into English before his very eyes.
Good thing it could, he thought, considering he'd just be dead weight otherwise. Relying on Gwen to do all the work… yeah, that didn't sound fun.
"So 'Quirks' are what everyone in this world calls the powers that 80% of its population seem to have?" Ben remarked. "That explains the context that Prowl used that term in. One of the teammates of the cat-lady we ran away from probably has a Quirk that can sense people, somehow."
"Yeah." Gwen nodded. She turned a page of the book in her lap, adjusting its position on her lap as she leant back in her chair. "And these Quirks, they've been around in this world for a while, too: at least a couple of centuries. More than long enough for them to just become a normal part of life here, I suppose."
"Makes sense." Ben replied. "I mean just look at how common batteries are, and they were invented around that length of time ago back home."
Ben switched out the book for another one as Gwen turned another page of her own, quickly scanning it.
"And they've been growing more and more complex over time, too." Gwen continued, her eyes scanning the page she was focused on. "First recorded Quirk in history was a kid in China that emitted light from their body when they were born… on…"
"What?" Ben looked up before he could open the book he'd just grabbed. "What's up?"
"December 27th… 1994." Gwen remarked, leaning over and holding the book open so Ben could see, tapping the writing of the date in question. "First recorded Quirk in history, someone born on that day. OUR-"
"Our birthdate." Ben remarked, blinking a couple of times. "Same day, same year… who knew, huh?"
Gwen let out a small giggle before clearing her throat and refocusing on the book, turning the page again.
"Okay, back to it." She remarked. "So as Quirks began popping up more and more all over this Earth, it was a real struggle for society at large to adapt. Without any laws or systems in place to manage the advent of those abilities… sounds like anarchy."
"Sounds like a real mess." Ben replied, quickly glancing up again to make sure no-one was watching either him or Gwen before scanning another pair of pages of text with the Omnitrix… only to find out that the text in question that he'd just translated wasn't anything relevant to the kind of information he and Gwen were looking for. Letting out a short breath from his nose, he flicked to a point further in the book and tried again.
"Certainly didn't help either, that some people ended up using their powers with intent to commit crimes." Gwen remarked, looking up from her book. "That had to have been fuel on the fire."
"I bet that's putting it mildly." Ben replied. "So many people with powers running around… and things are already crazy enough back on our Earth." He took a breath, leaning against one of the arms on the chair and setting the book he was reading back on the desk. "I hope Kevin's doing okay. God knows what he's thinking."
Gwen took a breath of her own, shifting the book slightly in her lap as she looked over at Ben. She looked down at the floor for a couple of moments herself, not saying anything at first but Ben had known his cousin long enough to know EXACTLY what he was thinking… and he was thinking it too.
Kevin was no stranger to the Null Void, not after Ben and Gwen had left him and Vilgax in there in the aftermath of one of their biggest and hardest battles during the first time Ben had put the Omnitrix on. And for all he knew, the last he'd seen of them was flying straight in… potentially forever. Of course, they weren't in the Null Void (or whatever that place the broken projector had sent them through was, before they got spat out in this universe, though the specifics of that were the FURTHEST thing from Ben's mind right now), but Kevin had no way of knowing that, didn't he?
"He'll be fine, Ben." Gwen replied, looking up after a couple of seconds. "Kevin's strong, he can handle himself. And besides, he isn't the only one back home who'd be ready to defend our world from anyone who'd try their luck there. Alan and Cooper are around, and he could still get in touch with Manny and Helen if he really needed to. Not to mention I don't doubt Julie would help in any way she could, if he asked."
"I know…" Ben sighed, shifting to the other arm of the chair. "I just hope we can get back soon and help too."
Gwen nodded.
"Anyway, in this world, around the same time those that used their Quirks for evil emerged, civilians that wished to use their powers to bring order to society also emerged." She continued reading from the book. "As if to counteract the Villains, they became the first Heroes."
"Wait, Heroes and Villains?" Ben blinked. "They're actually called that?"
"Yup." Gwen nodded. "Sounds like something out of the comics you read, doesn't it? Though I guess by modern standards, the first Heroes would probably be considered Vigilantes, since they weren't using their powers in accordance with the law. Just taking it into their own hands."
"I guess it'd be kind of hard to use a Quirk in accordance with the law when there ARE no laws regarding Quirks, to be fair." Ben remarked. "Or I guess, weren't."
"Yeah, there weren't." Gwen corrected. "As society adapted to the new status quo, of superpowers in humans just being another part of it, there were various laws put in place regarding the use of Quirks around the world, and heroism became a legalized and regulated profession."
"Guessing that Kamui Woods guy we saw earlier was one of them." Ben remarked. "Now that I think about it, that cat-lady we ran off from after we beat up those other guys might have been one, too…"
"We couldn't have known that at the time." Gwen replied. "But speaking of, around the same time that they got legally established, academies started popping up all over the world to train anyone who wants to become a Pro Hero… or at least anyone who gets accepted, if we're talking about the more prestigious places like Shiketsu and U.A… hmm."
"What?" Ben asked, looking over. "You're thinking about something, aren't you?"
Gwen stayed silent for another few seconds, her brow furrowed slightly and eyes at the floor. She looked like she hadn't even heard Ben's reply, prompting Ben to speak up again.
"Gwen? What're you thinking?"
"About our situation and how to move forward from it, Ben." Gwen replied, shutting the book in her lap before putting it back on the table. She rubbed at her nose with one hand, before refocusing her attention on her cousin. "Because let's face it… we don't have an immediate way back home."
Ben sighed, his face falling slightly.
"We don't have a Null Void projector, so there's no way to try and immediately reverse what happened with the Highbreed to send us here in the first place." Gwen continued. "And hell, even if we did, who's to say we wouldn't make things worse than they already are?"
"Mmhmm." Ben hummed, nodding again. "Besides, something tells me something was up with that projector the Highbreed was using in the first place. What we went through earlier DEFINITELY wasn't like the other times we've been to the Null Void." Leaning back in the chair as Gwen let out a hum of agreement. "Plus, none of the aliens in this thing-" he raised his left wrist and shook it a couple of times before resting it back on the arm of his chair. "Are exactly capable of travelling through dimensions."
"I mean, maybe one of them could." Gwen replied. "What about Ali-"
"Not worth the risk." Ben cut across Gwen, immediately. "Don't even finish that."
Gwen raised her hands up in faux-surrender.
"Okay, fine." She replied. "But still, we can't just sit on our butts about this, we've got to have SOME of plan for our next steps in mind. Of how to survive and blend into this world while we search for another way home."
It took a lot for Gwen to not add 'if one even exists', at the end of that sentence. The possibility of there really being no way home for them, the pair of them being stuck in this different universe- on this alternate Earth forever- wasn't a prospect she wanted to entertain in the slightest.
"Agreed." Ben remarked, with a nod as stretched within his chair. "You got anything more specific than 'blend in' in mind then?"
"I do, actually." Gwen replied. "It's just a thought, but what if we were to enrol at one of the hero academies in this country, work towards becoming Pro Heroes?"
Ben blinked a couple of times, looking at Gwen with an expression similar to what one would probably give another if they'd suddenly grown a second head.
"A high school, Gwen?" he asked. "Didn't you just say we're trying to get home? I don't think sitting in class is really gonna help us with that."
"Just hear me out, okay?" Gwen replied, adjusting her own position in her chair. "Firstly but less importantly, we're the age that we could enrol as first-years in a high school in Japan. You know they start high school a year later than in the US?"
"I'm gonna pretend I did before you just told me." Ben replied, shrugging. "Your point?"
"My point," Gwen continued. "Is that we could quite easily get into a Japanese high school without arousing too much suspicion. It's not like we look way older than we really are… or younger."
Ben hummed, nodding along with her logic.
"Secondly, and more importantly." Gwen continued. "Just think about it for a second. What we can do- my mana, your transformations with the watch-" she gestured again to Ben's left wrist "In a universe that- let's presume- doesn't have the same kind of crazy stuff going down as back home, how do you think people over here would view them?"
"As Quirks, right?" Ben replied, looking down at the Omnitrix under his sleeve, before back at Gwen. "Pretty damn powerful Quirks at that, but still Quirks. I get that."
"Exactly." Gwen nodded. "And how hard to you think it'd be to find help with getting help going home, or getting anywhere in general, for two kids that just went around using their Quirks all willy-nilly?"
"Hey, that's not-" Ben tried to answer. "We don't… oh, yeah." His eyes widened slightly when his mind caught up with what Gwen was implying.
"Yeah, we can't think like back home." Gwen remarked. "Quirks, or just powers in general, really-" she gestured to herself and Ben "Seem pretty regulated in this universe, but licenced heroes are allowed to use their Quirks in public… you see where I'm going with this?"
"I do." Ben replied, sitting up a bit. "But when you say it like that, all that actually sounds kind of fun. Just like you said, we could end up being superheroes like in the comics. Just as much as we are back home, maybe even more so."
Gwen let out a small giggle, shaking her head slightly at Ben's remark.
"Hold your horses, Captain Dweeb." She chided her cousin. "If you're on board with this plan, then you should also probably know how intense high schools in Japan can be. If what I've heard about them is true, then even MY school back home in our universe will seem like a walk in the park by comparison, never mind yours."
Ben seemed to visibly deflate in his chair as he looked over at Gwen for a couple of seconds, before looking back at the floor.
"Aw, man…" he muttered, under his breath, before letting out a sigh and looking back at Gwen. "Alright, fine. If that's our best way forward, Gwen, then I'm all in."
Gwen nodded, smiling slightly as Ben straightened up again.
"You got an idea of which hero school we should aim for, though?" Ben asked. "There's probably quite a lot to pick one."
"There are." Gwen replied. "Though I think I've got an idea of which one we should try and shoot for in mind."
Reaching over to grab one of the books on the table, she flipped through it for a couple of seconds before landing on a picture of a large-looking school building, with a simple caption underneath it that Gwen read out, while pointing to it.
"…U.A. High."
Line Break
Suppressing a yawn, Ben twisted the cloth he was holding in one hand slightly to get a bit further into the grinder he was currently occupied with washing up. He glanced at the clock on the wall above the door, quickly acknowledging the fact that it was only a couple of minutes until the end of his and Gwen's shift at the café that he and his cousin had managed to find a job at, before rebusying himself with cleaning the last bits of crushed beans out of the grinder.
It had been surprisingly easy, with Gwen coming up with a relatively convincing story while talking with the café's owner, Mrs. Mekakohi, about them being two students from the countryside that their parents had sent to the city to prepare them for life in it, before they enrolled in a hero academy. Mrs. Mekakohi and her husband had sympathised with the story in question, with the husband offering them jobs on the spot: apparently they'd been understaffed a couple of months ago, when that conversation had taken place.
As luck would also have it, the wife and husband-pair also happened to know someone with a spare apartment, and they'd managed to hook Ben and Gwen up with a place to stay while they were employed there. "Anything to help out a pair of future heroes!", had been Mr. Mekakohi's exact words when he'd made the offer to the cousins.
Ben let out a breath as he finished cleaning the grinder (it and the last few jobs he'd had to do, with next to no-one left in the café, would be a lot easier if he could go XLR8 to complete them all in an instant, but… Quirk laws), and set it down by the sink to dry out, before turning to see Gwen putting some of the containers of different kinds of beans back on the wall. It made Ben's head spin at times, learning during the first couple of weeks just HOW many different kinds of coffee there were… but he supposed that was nothing, compared to how many aliens there potentially were stored up in the Omnitrix. Even with the decent number he recalled himself making use of both times he'd had it on, Ben felt like he'd barely scratched the surface of the watch's potential.
"I think we're done." Gwen remarked to Ben, waving to one of the café's regulars, a thin middle-aged man with wavy blond hair and wearing baggy clothing as he left the store, leaving the front empty apart from the pair of them.
"Yeah." Ben replied, looking at the clock above the door again, and seeing that it had just ticked over to one minute after the end of his and Gwen's shift. "Come on, let's get out of here."
Gwen nodded, pushing one of the doors behind the counter open, and stepping through it to the small office where Mrs. Mekakohi sat at a PC, looking at something on the screen before letting out a breath and beginning to type, before she noticed Ben and Gwen standing in the doorway, and looked at the corner of the monitor.
"Oh, is it that time already?" she asked, spinning around in her chair before reaching over to a drawer and pulling it open. Reaching in and rummaging around in it for a couple of seconds as Ben and Gwen undid their aprons and hung them on a couple of pegs by the door, she pulled out a couple of envelopes and tossed them onto the desk in front of Ben and Gwen. "There's your day's pay, you two. Thanks for the hard work, I'll see you on Tuesday. Mechi'll be in on Monday."
"Got it." Gwen replied, inclining her head to Mrs. Mekakohi as she slipped one of the envelopes into her bag that she picked up from the hook she'd put her apron on, before walking out of the office. "Thanks."
"See you then!" Ben added, doing the same while slipping the envelope into one of the pockets of his green jacket before slinging it on, and following Gwen out of the café while flipping the sign on the door to from 'Open' to 'Closed' as he walked out, since it was that time. Mercifully, it wasn't raining like it had been at the start of their shift: the sun had come out in the late afternoon, and more people were out and about than there were this morning, when Ben and Gwen had headed in.
A crowd of mostly girls on the other side of the street, that seemed to be swarming a curvy blonde woman in a dress that looked like it was made out of snake's scales, with a trio of snakes atop her head (it said a lot about this universe that that wouldn't have even cracked the top twenty weirdest things Ben had seen today), caught Ben's eye. He vaguely recognised the woman in the dress as Uwabami, a Pro Hero that specialised in rescues… and shilling stuff on TV.
Ben tore his eyes away from the crowd that had surrounded Uwabami for a moment and looked back over at Gwen, letting out a smirk.
"Wish I got attention like that sometimes, with some of the stuff we managed to pull back home." He remarked.
"No, you don't." Gwen replied, too focused on what she was reading on her phone (which she'd bought with some of her first paycheck soon after she and Ben got that job at the café) to notice. "You want to get swarmed by crowds all the time, everyday?"
"…Okay, not EVERY day, and definitely not all the time." Ben remarked, rolling his eyes and transferring the envelope to one of his jean pockets, as he took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. "Making sure everyone's okay is the important thing, obviously, but you know… once in a while, wouldn't hurt to get a thanks for saving the world, the universe even."
"A world, A universe." Gwen remarked, idly. "I'm sure you'll get plenty of thanks if we end up saving this world and/or universe. Which, hopefully, we won't be around long enough to have to."
Ben let out a chuckle as he and Gwen turned down a street, towards the building in which their apartment was in.
"You do know how bad what you said sounds out of context. Right, cousin?" he asked, turning around and walking backwards for the first few steps up the stairs to their floor, sending a prime shit-eating grin Gwen's way (which she returned with her best roll of the eyes) before turning around and walking normally.
"You know what I mean." Gwen replied, following Ben up the stairs until they reached their floor, reaching into her bag and tossing the keys towards him when she saw him getting close to their apartment door. Ben caught the keys neatly, unlocked the door and entered, holding the door open for Gwen as she entered behind him and let her shut the door behind him.
Immediately to the right of the genkan that Ben and Gwen had stepped into was a shoe-rack, which Gwen neatly put her shoes onto immediately, while Ben… kicked off his shoes in the rack's vague direction, but still somehow managed to make said shoes land on there in a somewhat presentable way. At least he had the decency to arrange them to make them look orderly on the other side of the rack. On the opposite side of the entryway from the shoe rack was the washing machine, which was currently empty.
With their shoes off, Ben and Gwen made their way further into their apartment, where on the same side as the shoe-rack was the kitchen area, with stove, sink, fridge and a microwave that Ben had… found in a dumpster outside the city and repaired via Grey Matter. Her mother would probably throw a fit if she learned that she'd been eating stuff out of a microwave that her cousin had found in a DUMP, Gwen thought, but to his credit, Ben HAD cleaned it surprisingly thoroughly upon mending it, and hey, a free microwave was a free microwave.
Directly opposite the kitchen-area was a door that led to the bathroom and toilet, which Ben immediately made for. After passing the side of the closet, which was just past the toilet on the same side, Gwen put her bag down on one of the two chairs that were situated close to a table, upon which there was a TV remote and a few books: mostly books she'd taken out of the library regarding various aspects of heroism in this universe, though one of them was a book from their world that was rather precious to Gwen: the spellbook that she'd stolen from Charmcaster, about five years ago.
It was a VERY long shot, Gwen knew, but soon after getting the job and apartment and after realising she still (somehow) had the sorceress' spellbook on her, she figured it was worth trying to figure out a spell that would warp herself and Ben back to their home universe. And better yet, maybe one that would send her and Ben back in time to the point that they'd disappeared in the first place, essentially making it like they'd never left at all… or even better still, layer the pair of them on top of each other so both could be done at the same time?
There were already notes on a potential time-travel spell in the book, presumably from Charmcaster herself, so Gwen at least had something to start off with on that front. Though powerful as she was already, warping herself and Ben across universes was a bit too tall an order, even for her, at her current capabilities, so doing both that AND finalising the time-travel spell, and layering the pair of them onto each other on top of all that?
Yeah, VERY long shot… that was probably underselling it. ASTRONOMICALLY long shot, more like, but they still didn't have anything in the way of other options.
There wasn't much else in the room, sans a TV hooked up to the wall, and a small laptop lying on the floor, plugged into the outlet. Through a pair of sliding-doors on the other side of the room was a Japanese-style room, complete with tatami mats. It was definitely… different, sleeping on those kinds of mats rather than a full-on bed, but they were way more comfortable than they looked, Gwen thought.
Past that room was the balcony. Ben and Gwen didn't use that area of their place very much, sans hanging out washing when it was nice out. Which one of them probably would end up doing this weekend, if the weather forecast they'd seen this morning proved accurate. It was a pretty small, rather bare apartment, and positively barren by the standards of Ben and Gwen's homes in their home universe… but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Gwen placed the spellbook that she'd picked up back on the table, and looked up as Ben emerged from the bathroom, wiping his wet hands on his jeans and immediately making for the kitchen area.
"Was thinking of just making some sandwiches for us with what we've got left." He remarked, looking over at Gwen. "Then we can go food-shopping tomorrow morning."
"Works for me." Gwen replied, stretching as she reached over the table and picked up one of the other books, flipping it open to a certain page somewhere in the middle before sitting down. "You mind if I hit you with a few past exam questions while you're busy with that?"
"Go for it." Ben, who had his back turned to Gwen and had opened the door to the fridge, replied, giving a thumbs up. "I'm listening."
Gwen cleared her throat as she scanned the page for a good question to ask her cousin, before settling on one.
"Alright, describe an example of an ethical dilemma that a Pro Hero might face, and how they should resolve it?"
"Uh…" Ben paused for a second as he pulled out a loaf of bread from the fridge, along with some mayonnaise and a knife from a drawer. "Hostages." He replied, after some thought. "When a villain takes hostages, the dilemma is between the safety of any hostages a villain takes, and capturing the villain. Prioritizing the lives of the hostages would be the more ethical resolution, even if that means allowing the villain to temporarily escape the situation."
"Good enough for me." Gwen replied, turning a page as Ben pulled some bread out of the packet, and began spreading mayonnaise on it. "Okay, next: What is the term used to describe a villain's rationalization of their harmful deeds? Empathy, rational emotive behaviour, cognitive dissonance or moral disengagement?"
Ben let out a small chuckle as he wiped the mayo-covered knife on a cloth and, after pulling out some cheese from the fridge, began slicing some of it onto Gwen's sandwich.
"Who the hell would answer 'empathy' for that?" he asked. "Anyway, moral disengagement?"
"Yup." Gwen nodded. "Explain the concept of 'moral disengagement' and how it might manifest in a villain?"
Ben took an intake of breath as he pulled out a packet of chicken slices, and put some of them on both his and Gwen's sandwiches.
"It's what lets villains justify their actions." He replied, immediately. "Could show up as them thinking their actions are for the greater good, or something?"
"I'd give that answer a bit of expansion if that question comes up for us in the exam proper." Gwen replied. "That's a multiple-mark question. But the bones of a good answer are there, we'll work on that later. Anyway…" she flipped to another different page. "Primary factor that determines the nature of an individual's Quirk: Diet, genetics, environment or fitness?"
"Genetics." Ben replied, immediately.
"Mmhmm." Gwen nodded. "One difference between an Emitter-type Quirk and a Transformation-type?"
"Emitter-types usually produce or manipulate something external to the user's body." Ben replied. "Transformation-types change the user's body itself, usually while the Quirk is active."
"Nice." Gwen replied, shutting the book as she noticed Ben having finished making the sandwiches for the pair of them. "We'll keep going after we've eaten."
Ben nodded, depositing the sandwiches he'd made onto a pair of plates from a cupboard, and moved over to the table that Gwen was sat at before depositing said plates onto it. Grabbing the remote from the table, he switched on the TV with it and sat down himself, watching the news broadcast that the TV immediately switched to a news-broadcast of the Number One Hero, All Might, jumping up to the top of a really tall building and catching someone that had just jumped off themselves, before landing effortlessly on the ground and letting the jumper down gently.
Tearing his eyes away from the TV for a second and listening to the broadcaster explaining what had happened in the background of him eating his sandwich, Ben let out a muffled sigh as something else crossed his mind, something slightly related to the questions Gwen had just asked him.
"What's up?" Gwen asked, looking over after swallowing her mouthful of sandwich.
"Nuffung…" Ben replied, his mouth full before swallowing. "Eh, nothing. Just thinking. Still haven't come up with a way to explain away this thing as my Quirk." He raised his Omnitrix-covered left wrist, waving it around a couple of times before leaning back in his chair. "Must be nice, having your mana be so easy to explain. Could just be an energy-manipulation Quirk that runs on your own life-energy, or something, but nothing I can come up with for the watch works when I think about it for more than a couple of seconds!"
"Must be really bad potential explanations, then." Gwen remarked, smiling after swallowing another bite. "If YOU can find holes in them that quickly."
"Hey…!" Ben began to protest, but didn't say anything else. Instead, he elected to tear away another chunk of chicken-sandwich with his teeth, as his eyes slid over to the TV for a second or two. "I mean, it's not like I can just go up to All Might and say 'hey, I'm from another universe and this thing on my wrist lets me transform into a bunch of alien species from said universe, think you can help me out?', can I"
"Yeah, he'd probably just laugh it off." Gwen remarked, turning around and looking at the image of the super-muscly blond hero on the TV for a second or two, before looking back at Ben. "Although… maybe it doesn't have to be."
"Huh?"
"Maybe the Omnitrix doesn't have to be your Quirk." Gwen remarked. "Something you need to wear because of your Quirk, sure, but the Quirk itself? I don't think so."
Ben blinked, his face and mind blank as he wasn't quite following what his cousin was saying. Said cousin noticed the look on Ben's face, and let out a small sigh.
"What I'm saying is that the watch itself," she explained, pointing to the Omnitrix with her free hand as she laid down her half-eaten cheese and chicken-sandwich with the other. "Doesn't have to BE your Quirk. Maybe your alien transformations, THEY could be your 'Quirk', and the Omnitrix… could be something that automatically regulates them?"
"Huh…" Ben replied, looking down at the watch for a couple of seconds before back at Gwen. "How'd you arrive at that idea?"
Picking her sandwich back up, Gwen took a couple of bites, waiting until she swallowed before replying.
"You know those sunglasses Mr. Mekakohi wears all the time?"
Ben nodded.
"Well, Mrs. Mekakohi told me why he does, a couple of days ago." Gwen replied. "Apparently his scanning Quirk goes haywire and overwhelms his mind with too much information if he doesn't have something covering his eyes, hence the sunglasses. They had to get them custom-made by Detnerat, but I'm sure it's worth it for him… were you not there when she said that?"
"Must have been on my break." Ben replied, shrugging as he took another bite out of his sandwich. "You think the watch is like those sunglasses?"
"I'm saying you could SAY it's like them." Gwen corrected. "Maybe it automatically shifts you back to human form when you've transformed for long enough, so you don't permanently lose your human form or something like that. It'd certainly explain the whole 'timing-out' thing."
"Hm…" Ben hummed, leaning back in his chair again for a bit as he finished off the last of his sandwich, and glanced down at the Omnitrix again. "Gotta admit, I hadn't thought about this thing from THAT angle. I guess I was just inspired by that hero I saw with literal engines in his arms, remember him?"
"Ingenium, right?" Gwen replied. "Yeah, I remember him. He's cool."
"Yeah." Ben remarked. "Quirks that feature technology as part of them are just another part of this world, I guess I was just-"
"Subconsciously set on the Omnitrix falling under that umbrella?" Gwen cut across her cousin, finishing his thought for him. "Yeah, I don't think that would be the most plausible explanation. Engines in limbs and earphone jacks in ears-" she remarked, recalling a punk-looking girl that they'd seen across the street while walking home from work sometime a few weeks ago. "to, well…" she gestured to the watch "THAT thing, seems like a pretty big leap, even for us."
"I guess you're right." Ben nodded, sighing as he got back to his feet, picking up his now-empty plate from the table and moving over to the kitchen-area, depositing the plate in the sink. Gwen joined him a moment or two later, after finishing her own sandwich, dropping her own plate into the sink and leaning against the counter as Ben made his way back to the dining area, sitting down at the table.
"Look, it was just something I threw out there as a potential idea." Gwen remarked, following Ben with her eyes. "But if you think it's a good one… well, we've got a while between now and the day of the exams to workshop it, make an explanation that's a bit more airtight."
"Yeah." Ben nodded, perking up slightly as his hands shifted across the table, over Gwen's spellbook and towards the exam-prep book his cousin had been using to test him earlier. "Let's do it."
Gwen grinned, shifting off the counter and back towards the dining area, sitting back down across from Ben as he opened the book, ready to test her.
Line Break
Ben and Gwen will surely become more accustomed to their new home in time, they've got a fair ways to go yet. Especially with what's coming for them after this is all over… or for all of us back in their home universe. And they really don't have anything to worry about regarding Kevin, this version of him will be absolutely fine.
I'll make sure of it.