NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1: New Arrival
August 27th 2024, New York City, Earth 5554 Prime Universe.
I opened the door to my apartment, dropped my keys and hard hat on the table, and sighed wearily from another frustrating day at work. Dealing with entitled, clueless kids made it even more grueling.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and drank it down in one go, feeling slightly relieved. As I looked around my shabby apartment, anxiety crept in. Inflation was soaring, and costs for food and rent kept rising. Though I could get by, I'd have to dip into my meager savings.
I'd only been working for 18 months, barely managing to save up. It felt like an accomplishment compared to my peers who were just starting university. The country was in a financial crisis, with a new, ineffective vice president. Recent chaos included vandalism and traffic disruptions, making everyday life a struggle. Sometimes, I felt an urge to punch those causing the disruptions. Even worse, politics and beliefs had infiltrated entertainment, adding to the frustration.
What pissed me even more was the fact that it was clear to everyone with common sense that this wasn't even a profitable endeavor. Yet all these entertainment companies on making flop after flop of trash entertainment.
Thinking about everything else happening these days gave me a headache. "Please, if anyone's out there listening, save me from this madness. Otherwise—"
"Otherwise, you're afraid you'll die from stress at a young age. Is that what you were going to say, Mr. Stewart?" a voice interrupted.
Startled, I grabbed a knife from the kitchen, holding it defensively as I assumed a fighting stance. I had trained rigorously in boxing and karate for eight years, far beyond the typical black belt level, dedicating myself to martial arts with unwavering commitment.
Keeping my eyes locked on the two figures in my line of sight, I wasn't an stupid enough to try anything. For one I was out number, and didn't know how many more people had broken into my house. Their was also the possibility that either of the two hand a concealed weapon on them.
Than even with my years of training getting mortally wounded wasn't out of the question. " Well than, It seems we've unduli frightened. You young Stewart, however I do have to apologize for what comes next I'm afraid. "
" Afraid of what, --" Before I could finish what I was about to say the Stan Lee lookalike, waved his hands in the air. My version going black before I could react to the situation. As my consciousness feed it into darkness the final words he spoke rang clearly in my ears.
" I'll gift you my something to help you in your future travels, I hope it can also be an apology to you." Is what I heard last before my, version went black for a moment.
I blinked my eyes in disbelief, my heart racing as I found myself now back on the streets of New York City, as I took in my surroundings. On the bustling streets of New York which seemed too vivid, too real to be a dream.
But none of this made sense. Was I drugged? Was this some sort of government experiment? For years I'd jokingly imagined that secret government agents always kept tabs on me, but was it actually happening now? Was I about to be recruited as a spy?
No, stop. Get a grip, I thought to myself, shaking my head. I couldn't afford to lose my mind right now. I'd been watching too much anime— that my imagination was now running wild. I forced himself to take a deep breath, grounding himself in reality. Or at least, whatever reality this was.
I first glanced down at my feet. The first thing I noticed is that, I was wearing shoes now, something he definitely hadn't been wearing before I blacked out. My pulse quickened again. I quickly took deep steady breath trying to remain calm, scanning my surroundings. The strange lookalikes—Stan Lee and other that guy who called himself Paradox—were nowhere in sight.
Trying to steady my thoughts, I raised his wrist, expecting to see my familiar silver Casio branded digital watch. Instead, my eyes jumped for a moment at what I was looking at.
The Omnitrix. Not a cheap knockoff, but a sleek, modern version of the alien tech from OG Ben 10 cartoon with a cool slimmer design. The black and grey band hugged to my wrist, and the green hourglass emblem glowed faintly, mocking me.
"Is this a joke?" I couldn't help muttered, my voice trembling as people around me shot curious glances. Juggling my confuse thoughts, I couldn't keep standing there gaping on the street like a madman. " Okay, let's go somewhere more convenient to think things through more thoroughly. " I spoke, to myself earning me another strange look from passers-by.
I ducked into a nearby library, seeking the comfort of a computer—something familiar, something that might give me answers. I'm not a big tech wize or anything but, I'd dabble my hands in software programming from an early age. I wasn't an expert in the field, but coud still land a decent desk job at any of the five big GAFAM.
Once inside, I noticed a poster of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man hanging on the wall. I frowned. "Was he cast as Iron Man?" I thought having heard nothing about this, also Robert Downey Jr was like 60, so it must just be fan. The thought flickered through my mind, but I brushed it off as some fan-made thing. After all, what did it matter right now?
Sitting down at the computer, a sense of unease crept over me. The machine in front of me was outdated—ancient, even—but I tried to shake off the feeling. It didn't matter. I moved the mouse, and the screen blinked to life, illuminating the room with a soft glow. My eyes darted to the corner of the screen. The date caught my attention immediately: Sunday, November 1st, 2009.
My pulse spiked. That can't be right. My hands trembled as I clutched the mouse, my heart racing with growing panic. I quickly opened the browser and frantically began searching the internet. The Google homepage loaded, but it was a relic, a blast from the past. Everywhere I looked, every site I visited—it all confirmed the same thing: 2009. No matter what I searched or where I clicked, nothing changed. I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. This couldn't be real.
I turned to the girl sitting next to me, her red hair catching the corner of my eye. Desperation gnawed at me, and I had to ask.
"Excuse me," I stammered, "could you tell me the date?"
She barely glanced up from her phone, giving me an annoyed look. "It's on your screen. Sunday, November 1st, 2009. You blind or something?"
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. My heart felt like it stopped. This wasn't just some glitch. This was real.
I wasn't just in another place, another situation. I was in another time. My mind scrambled to make sense of it, but the pieces were already falling into place. As I kept talking to the girl—Irina, she called herself—and searched more, something even crazier started to click. This wasn't just 2009. This wasn't just some random world.
This was the Marvel universe.
I stared at the screen, my thoughts racing as the truth became undeniable. The Captain America Hydra stories? Real. The Stark Expo? Happening soon. I was in that world now. A world of superheroes, villains, and chaos. A world where just about anything could tear me apart in an instant.
I exhaled slowly, my breath shaky. "Okay… what now?" I muttered to the empty space beside me. My mind was spinning. I had no family back home, no friends waiting for me. But staying here? Surviving in this universe? That was a whole new level of dangerous.
Then, I glanced down at my wrist, and my heart did a double take. The Omnitrix. The iconic, alien-powered device was right there, strapped to me. How did I not notice this before?
In this world, with this kind of power... I wasn't just some random guy anymore. Maybe—just maybe—this wasn't such a bad thing after all.
Looking around, I cautiously slipped into a nearby alley, heart pounding in my chest. I needed to think. This world—Marvel's world—was full of threats, and I couldn't just walk around clueless. But I had an edge: the Omnitrix. I crouched behind a rusty old dumpster, the metallic scent mixing with the damp air. My fingers hovered over the watch's dial, my pulse quickening.
"Alright, Ben. Keep calm, keep composed," I muttered into myself, my Texan accent slipping through, talking to myself is I picked up from my grandfather. It became even more prevalent when I became an orphan, at an early age.
"Just a simple transformation. I've done this a thousand times in my dreams."
I pressed the button, and a tower rose from the face of the Omnitrix, flickering with familiar black silhouette. Jetray's form danced across the display. I could feel it—the possibilities. The power at my fingertips. This is real. My grin widened as I scrolled through the aliens: "Jetray, Swampfire, Rath, Brainstorm…" My hand trembled slightly, not from fear but excitement. Ten aliens, all accessible, each one a different key to survival. I could thrive here.
"Now then, who's our first contestant, eh?" I muttered, scrolling until my finger stopped on Brainstorm.
A grin tugged at my lips. "Perfect. Smart, subtle, and most importantly—brilliant." I was going to need that brainpower. But first, I needed an identity, something that would let me navigate this world without raising suspicion.
I waited until the sun dipped below the skyline, shadows thickening. Then, finding a quiet, secluded spot, I pressed the dial down. In an instant, my body began to change. The familiar tingle spread through me as my limbs elongated, my skin hardened into a crab-like exoskeleton, and my head expanded to accommodate a mind far superior to any human's.
The sensation was... intoxicating. My thoughts—normally scattered—became laser-focused, precise. It was as though my brain had been set ablaze with new clarity, synapses firing faster than I could comprehend in my usual form. The calculations, the logic, the endless possibilities flooded in. I could see solutions to problems I hadn't even considered before. Bloody hell, I thought, marveling at my own genius. I actually feel my ego inflating with each passing second.
I turned to a large broken mirror, gaining a better view of my new form which wasn't as scary as imagined it to be in real life. Well that could be because of the transformation itself, changing my thinking on how I currently viewed myself.
Revealing a crab-like appearance with an orange, armored exoskeleton. My face has green glowing eyes and a menacing, frowning expression. My head is spiked with several sharp protrusions, featuring the Omnitrix emblem on to my forehead. Three pair legs, pincers claws are thin and spindly, resembling those of an insect or arachnid, my uniform is black with green accents, giving it a futuristic or cybernetic feel. The glowing eyes and sharp features enhance my intimidating look.
I had to shake myself, awake from my admiration of myself. " Right then, step one: new identity," I muttered, my voice taking on a new, mechanical hum with Brainstorm's thick British accent. "Step two: blend in."
Breaking into the library's locked office was nothing. My pincers snapped through the lock like it was made of paper. I slipped inside, the cool glow of the monitor casting long shadows in the room. A few keystrokes, and I was in the US identity database. Child's play for a mind like mine. Using the details from my wallet, I created a fresh identity for myself:
Benjamin Stewart Tennyson, born in Texas, 23/07/1991. Height 1,88 m, Weight 110, Eyes Green. After I finish creating a partially false ID/Driver license, along Birth Certificate into the database. I made a few more operations before step back, admiring my handiwork.
"There we go. A legal, living person," I said smugly. "I exist here now."
I slipped back into the night, reverting to my human form. As I walked through the dimly lit streets, my mind buzzed with ideas and plans, more than I could process in my regular state. With the Omnitrix on my wrist, I had everything I needed to not just survive here, but to dominate. I had future knowledge from my on ti, power, and now, a whole new life.
I wasn't going back to my old world. There was nothing for me there. Here, in this universe of gods and monsters, I had everything I ever wanted.
"And now," I whispered to myself, smiling as the night air hit my face, "let's see what I can really do with what I've been given here."
Being back in human form felt oddly... limiting. My body was sluggish, my mind clouded compared to the sharp precision I had as Brainstorm. It was like going from driving a sports car to riding a bicycle. I couldn't help but feel a pang of frustration, but at least I walked away with something useful—my understanding of hacking had improved. Not enough to pull off what I just did as Brainstorm, but I could now vaguely grasp some of the methods I used. That was something.
As I made my way out of the library, I thought more about the Omnitrix's time-out function. Azmuth, the genius behind this extraordinary device, had put it there for a reason. According to the fan Wiki I once read, there was speculation that staying in an alien form for too long could cause the DNA to permanently fuse with the user's own. But I always thought there was more to it than that. I remembered reading about Ben 10,000, the future version of the original Ben, who could spend days without switching back to human.
The real reason for the time-out made more sense to me now. The Omnitrix was capable of universe-ending power—if it could store up that much energy, why would it need a recharge period that felt as short as a phone's battery life? It wasn't just a limitation on energy. I now suspected it was more to keep users from getting addicted to alien transformations, from losing themselves in a form that wasn't their own.
Besides, the Omnitrix was bonded to my DNA. It had to be; that's how it worked. It captured and stored the DNA of the aliens in its database, but my own DNA was locked in there too, keeping me human no matter how long I stayed transformed. So, while I could see the dangers, I doubted I'd end up stuck as one of the aliens. Still, my little theory wasn't exactly comforting.
Speculation's all fine, but no need to test it out just yet, I reminded. There was a lot I needed to do in a short period of time.
After making sure no one saw me leaving the library, I stepped out into the cool evening air. The city buzzed with life around me—cars honking, people rushing by, the neon lights flickering over the sidewalks. One thing that made this world easier to navigate was that Marvel used real-life locations. Finding my way through New York wasn't too hard. I'd studied enough maps and seen enough movies set in the Big Apple to get a decent lay of the land.
I needed a place to stay. A cheap motel would do for now, something out of the way where I could lay low and plan my next move. With no money and no real connections, things were going to get tricky. Still, I had an advantage: I wasn't just anyone. I had the Omnitrix, future knowledge, and a whole universe's worth of opportunities at my feet.
But first, I needed to find a place to stay, until I got settled. I'd taken the liberty of taking a loan for my living expensive, nothing much just enough to tie me over for the next couple of months. Seeing as I'm currently fifteen years back in time relative to my previous universe.
It would be an absolute embarrassment if I couldn't make a more than decent living. As I moved along the familiar street of New York City at night, I couldn't help the feeling of unfamiliarity creepy in. It felt a little to clean which was saying something if I might add.
It took me a few hours to find a motel room I could rent for a few nights. I used my credit card to withdraw some cash and rent the room. The amount of money was close to what had originally been in my bank account before I was transmigrated here.
So, I didn't feel too guilty about using Brainstorm to help set up my bank account with my original savings inside.
By the time I entered the room, it was already 11:45 PM. Honestly, the room wasn't too bad, but I still felt a little uncomfortable. The motel was on the lower end of standards, and I couldn't help thinking about the kinds of things people usually did in places like this.
I glanced at the bed where I'd be sleeping, and a cold shiver ran down my spine. It was probably just from what I'd seen in movies, but still, it didn't help ease my nerves.
I didn't bother taking off all my clothes—just my shoes and jacket—before quickly falling into a deep sleep.
When I woke up at 10 the next day, I realized it wasn't a dream. I found myself in the same cheap motel room, with the Omnitrix still on my left wrist. This was going to take some time getting used to shaking my head, I got up from the bed and headed into the bathroom.
I didn't have a toothbrush or anything for that matter for the moment so, I could only wash my face with cold water. I didn't have a toothbrush or anything, I had about 25k in my bank card, which would be enough to get by for a couple of weeks.
Still, I knew I'd need a job if I wanted a more comfortable place to stay. I had no plans to be a broke crime fighting superheroes for that matter. I still wanted to enjoy my life with relative peace of mind whenever possible.
I also thought about stopping some crimes if I came across any, and taking what I needed for myself—as long as it wasn't something crucial to a police investigation.
But relying on that kind of thing wasn't a good idea, especially if I wanted to be a hero. Some people thought heroes like Batman or Spider-Man were foolish for not killing their villains, but I didn't see it that way. In the Marvel comics, most heroes didn't have a problem killing someone who was about to harm innocent people. Still, I knew it was important to set boundaries I should never cross for myself.
I don't want to turn into someone like the Punisher or Deadpool. Going around killing everyone in my sight, but I also wasn't so naive either as think.
At that moment, my stomach growled, pulling me out of my thoughts. I decided to leave the motel and head to a diner I'd passed last night. When I arrived, I quickly ordered a breakfast and immediately started devouring the pancakes.
A couple customers gave me curious glances, mostly focused on my left wrist. It would've been strange if they didn't notice. Even though this version of the Omnitrix was slimmer than the one in the original series, it was still bulky enough to stand out, especially with its bright green hourglass emblem.
After finishing my first plate, I ordered another before finally feeling satisfied.
I glanced at the time on the hanging clock and decided to leave the restaurant to buy some essentials.
BOOM--
A sudden, loud explosion caught my attention, along with everyone else's in the area. A huge cloud of smoke was rising into the sky in the distance.
"Damn, is this some sort of plot convenience?" I couldn't help but curse inwardly.
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Character Bio
NAME:
Benjamin Alexander Stewart (Formerly)
Benjamin Stewart Tennyson (Current)
HOME WORLD
Earth 5554 (Formerly)
Earth 2000089 (Current)
RESIDENTS:
New York Manhattan
AGE:
18 (As of Time of Story)
HEIGHT
6 foot 1(1,88 meters)
OCCUPATION
Superhero/ Vigilante
Mechanical Engineer/Civil engineering
Programmer (self-taught)
Entrepreneur
ABILITIES
Enhanced Eidetic Memory
Freestyle Hand-To-Hand Combatant
Advance Marksmanship
Spontaneous Learning/Understanding
EQUIPMENT
Omnimatrix/ Omnitrix (restored original prototype)
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TRANSFORMATION BRAINSTORM
A Cerebrocrustacean from the planet Encephalonus IV. Brainstorm is among Ben's smartest transformations. He can also generate electric shocks from his claws and exposed brain.
BRAINSTORM/SPECIES
Cerebrocrustacean
HOME WORLD
Encephalonus IV
DNA SOURCE
Unknown
BODY
Crablike
ABILITIES
Electrokinesis
Electromagnetic Levitation
Electric Telekinesis
Force-Field Generation
High Intellect
Mnemokinesis
Sharp Pincers
Underwater Breathing
Wall Scaling