Biking back to his house as fast as he could, Ben left his bike on the lawn and ran straight inside the house, greeting his parents in the same breath, then ran up to his room.

“He says he has the Omnitrix; I know it’s in here somewhere!” Ben said to himself as he began searching boxes in his room. Finding his Omnitrix, Ben remembered his grandpa's recorded message and tried to decipher the meaning behind it, since his grandpa isn’t your average everyday grandpa but a praised galactic plumber.

“What are you trying to tell me, Grandpa?” Ben asked himself, with a look of worry on his face, holding his Omnitrix in his left palm.

.

.

Meanwhile, Gwen was about to spar with one of the students at the makeshift dojo, which is the school’s basketball court. She was adorned in a white gi and a black belt tied around her waist as she took a stance against her opponent, a blonde boy wearing the same apparel as her.

“Hajime! Fight!” The instructor signaled the beginning of the spar. The blonde came at Gwen with his right fist swinging wide at her while leaving his entire body open. One would wonder if the boy actually earned the black belt to attack in such a careless way. Gwen, having fought her own share of alien threats already, had some amount of combat experience under her belt, which boosted her reaction time as well. Grabbing hold of the boy’s careless right swing was easy for her, and slamming his body down on the mat the next instant was just taking candy from a baby at that point. If that was all she did, maybe the blonde could recover and show her some moves, but he was not that lucky. As nimble as a cat, Gwen gracefully cartwheeled while holding his arm till she landed with precision on top of the boy, as if to tell him to look her in the eyes and accept defeat.

“Point! Victory!” The instructor called. Being the good sportswoman she is, she reached for the boy's hand with a smile to help him up, which the latter agreed to, and both made a short and quick bow to each other.

“Who’s my favourite cousin?” Ben's announcement got Gwen’s attention, who looked him up and down. Ben wore a black shirt with a green jacket that had a vertical line on the left side of the jacket with a black circle stitched along the line at the chest area that read 19. He also wore fitting denim trousers (pants) with matching white sneakers with black stripes.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Gwen rushed to him and hugged him gently. “For you to compliment me, it means you want something.”

“Yes, I need your advice on something,” Ben confessed immediately with a concerned tone.

“Okay, as soon as I change,” the redhead assured Ben as she walked to the locker room.

After waiting for so long, Ben decided to have a quick nap that left him snoring on the floor.

“Well, that’s attractive,” Gwen commented, looking at her cousin snore. Getting up and assuring his cousin he wasn’t sleeping, he showed her the Omnitrix that he held in his left hand and asked for her advice again. Ben then replayed his grandpa’s holographic message to her, hoping she could shed more light on the situation.

“Grandpa doesn’t have the Omnitrix; you do,” Gwen commented, but tried to find meaning. But before they could even rub minds together, someone walked into the court.

“That Omnitrix isn’t yours,” the person said as his back was illuminated by the lights behind the door he came through, thereby casting a silhouette on his figure that made him look unrecognizable.

“Give it up,” the person demanded.

“No way!” Ben answered and ran away with his cousin, and the person followed soon after. They reached the emergency exit quickly, and Ben tried to open it but failed in doing so. The unidentified person, now at their backs, removed his face and revealed a figure of a completely different species. The new appearance the stranger took was that of a fish-type humanoid alien that wore the suit of a plumber with a transparent space helmet and pointed an advanced-looking gun at the duo.

Upon seeing this, Gwen created pink-coloured steps that she used to walk on the air until she was well above Ben and ‘fish face’, a name given to the alien by Gwen upon its reveal.

The alien, wasting no time, fired multiple shots at Gwen who blocked them off with her shield of mana and tried to restrain the alien with her mana by manipulating her mana to form a long and wide restraining rope that caught the alien and held it in place. Her practice over the years was finally showing good results.

“You are getting good at that stuff,” Ben smiled, praising his cousin, and looked toward the alien.

“I want some answers right now, otherwise…” Ben demanded, trying to threaten the alien.

“Yeah?” The alien responded, as if unfazed that the situation had reversed itself in his target's favour in a matter of seconds.

“… I’ll never feed you!” Ben quickly tried to answer to catch the alien off guard.

“Do I look like somebody to joke with? I am a duly deputized agent of the plumbers and intergalactic law enforcement organization,” the alien criticised and stated his reputation proudly.

“I know what they are; my grandpa Max used to be a plumber,” Ben answered without joking this time and with pride in his grandpa's work experience.

“… Max Tennyson, he was helping me on a case when he went missing,” the alien answered and hoped his intuition was wrong about the connection between Max and the boy in front of him.

“We are looking for him,” Gwen said, confirming the alien’s intuition.

“Wait, he’s your grandfather?” The alien asked, while trying to put a hand to his chin that was inside his space helmet in thought.

“You’re the legendary Ben Tennyson?”