(Brain storage unit here.
I used to only write romance novels, so this is my first time mixing action and romance.)
(The pure sweetness starts around Chapter 40, but just a heads up, this is a slow-burn story.)
“Wake up!
Do you know what time it is?!”
A woman in her early thirties threw open the bedroom door and yelled inside.
It was a routine someone in the room was thoroughly used to.
“Mom…
it’s only six in the morning,” a young voice groaned.
Rubbing his eyes, the boy on the bed immediately tried to dive back under the covers.
This boy was, of course, our protagonist.
“Blake!”
“Ow, ow, ow!
Stop pulling my ear, Mom!”
In the end, Blake was dragged out of bed by his mother to eat breakfast.
As he chewed, his mind drifted back to how he had ended up here.
Twelve years ago, back on Earth, Blake had been an ordinary student.
He had been walking while watching Ben 10 on his phone and accidentally got transmigrated straight into this world.
When he first reincarnated, he couldn’t make heads or tails of his situation.
He had no idea what kind of world this was.
Was it magic?
Cultivation?
Or just…
completely ordinary?
After twelve years of living here, Blake had grown up into a healthy twelve-year-old boy.
Time had showed him that this world didn’t seem much different from his original one.
“I’m off to school!”
“Watch where you’re walking!”
After a brief goodbye, Blake ran all the way to school.
His athletic ability had been terrible in his past life, so he was glad he could actually enjoy exercising in this one.
“Whew…
six minutes and seventeen seconds.” Blake checked his time as he arrived.
“One second faster than last time.”
He walked into his classroom and took his seat.
Blake spent most of his class time spacing out.
With the retained memories of a college graduate from his previous life, elementary school material was mind-numbingly boring.
Fortunately, today was the last day of class before summer vacation.
Because Blake had always been a quiet, well-behaved kid, nothing particularly exciting ever happened to him at school.
After all, combining his nineteen years from his past life with his twelve years in this one, he was technically a thirty-one-year-old soul.
“Alright, everyone, that wraps up the semester!
Have a wonderful summer vacation, and I’ll see you all in the fall!”
As the final bell rang, Blake began packing his things at a leisurely pace, ready to head home and completely vegetate.
“Blake, could you help me carry some things to my office?”
“Sure.”
He ended up being roped into helping his teacher.
Blake possessed a maturity and physical stamina far beyond his years, and he was widely recognized around school as someone who was outwardly aloof but inwardly kind-hearted.
“Thanks for the help!
Let me buy you a drink.”
“No thank you, Teacher…
I have some errands to run.”
After declining, Blake strolled out to the school gates, only to notice two bullies cornering a chubby kid in the schoolyard.
(This scene looks incredibly familiar.)
Though a strange sense of déjà vu washed over him, Blake wasn’t the type to just stand by and watch someone suffer.
He absolutely despised school bullying.
“Stop it.”
Blake quickly stepped in, shielding the chubby kid and giving the two bullies a stern glare.
“Looks like we’ve got a hero here.”
“Wait, aren’t you…
Blake?”
The two bullies immediately recognized him.
Blake got perfect scores in every subject, and his athletic records had shattered school history.
“Problem?” Blake raised an eyebrow.
“Tch, lucky break for you.” Realizing Blake was dead set on protecting the kid, the bullies knew they couldn’t do anything without making a massive scene, so they grumbled and walked away.
“Thank you,” the chubby kid mumbled gratefully once the bullies were gone.
Blake simply waved a hand dismissively and kept walking.
“Wow, that was so cool!”
Blake didn’t notice that a young girl had been secretly watching the whole encounter from a distance.
Her eyes were practically sparkling.
She had always wanted to be a big hero who saved the world.
Luckily for her, she was about to get her wish very soon.
“Come on, Ben, let’s go!
Time waits for no man!”
“I want to make it to the campsite before dark.”
A robust elderly man drove up and parked a rusty old RV right next to Ben.
“I am so excited for this!” Ben cheered, hopping inside.
But the moment she stepped into the RV, her eyes locked onto his cousin, Gwen.
“W-We?
What are you doing here?”
“Don’t lose your mind, dweeb,” Gwen said, looking up from her laptop.
“I was forced into this too.”
“Someone convinced my mom that a summer camping trip would be a ‘wonderful experience’ for me.”
(Since this is a canon scene, I won’t drag it out.)
Outside, the RV drove past Blake.
His eyes were immediately drawn to the old vehicle.
(Why does that thing look so familiar?
Weird.)
Inside the RV, Ben, who had been staring out the window, spotted Blake walking home.
“Hey, isn’t that Blake?”
Ben practically glued her face to the glass, staring intently at Blake, who was also looking right back at the RV.
“He’s totally staring at us!”
“Dweeb, he’s staring at the prehistoric rust bucket, not you,” Gwen retorted.
The old RV wasn’t moving slowly, and it quickly zipped past him.
“Hey!
Grandpa, why are you driving so fast?!”
Eventually, the group arrived safely in the forest.
Grandpa Max placed a bowl filled with wriggling insects in front of the two kids.
“Dinner’s served!”
Ben and Gwen stared at the bowl of bugs in absolute horror.
“Okay, I’ll bite.
What…
what is that?” Ben asked, pointing a finger at a bug that was actively crawling.
“Marinated mealworms,” Grandpa Max said cheerfully.
“A rare delicacy in some countries!”
Ben’s face contorted in disgust.
“Ugh…
can’t we just get burgers or something?”
“No way.”
To this day, nobody knows if Ben and Gwen actually managed to swallow any of it.
After dinner, the two cousins sat quite a distance apart.
Ben was playing a handheld video game, while Gwen was researching on her laptop.
“I’m going for a walk.
See ya later, Gwen.”
With that, Ben headed off into the deep woods to wander around alone.
Meanwhile, Blake was wandering around outside his own home out of sheer boredom.
“Boring, boring, so boring…”
Just as he was reaching peak levels of restlessness, a shooting star streaked rapidly across the sky right above him.
(A shooting star?
Looking at the trajectory, it feels like it’s going to crash.)
He glanced back at his house to make sure his parents didn’t need anything, then hopped onto his bicycle.
He figured he’d chase the meteor for fun and get some cycling practice in.
As Blake pedaled after it, he noticed the streak of light in the sky suddenly split into two.
Fortunately, both objects were falling very close to each other.
After about ten minutes, Blake entered the exact same forest where Ben was.
The two shooting stars, as if sensing something, began to plummet at extreme speeds.
One of them was heading straight for Blake.
His eyes widened in terror, and he slammed his feet onto the pedals, reversing frantically.
“Holy crap, holy crap!
I haven’t done anything wrong, why is a meteor chasing me?!”
BOOM!
One of the meteors slammed into the ground right near him.
The massive shockwave completely knocked Blake off his bike.
“Ow, that hurts…”
Blake rubbed his bruised knee as he stood up, looking into the crater with deep curiosity.
(Huh?
Just a rock?)
He looked around and noticed that the second meteor had landed not too far away from the first.
While Blake was debating whether to climb down and take a closer look, the ground beneath his feet gave way.
He tumbled straight down into the crater, rolling like a log.
“Ow, ow, ow…
why am I so unlucky today?”
What Blake failed to notice was two figures standing a short distance away, watching him intently.
It was as if they were fulfilling a specific mission.
Satisfied, they vanished into thin air, leaving behind a single sentence:
“We’ll leave the rest to you.”
Once the dust settled, Blake approached the object.
He quickly realized it wasn’t a normal rock , it was an alien pod designed to store something.
Before he could even take another step, the pod hissed open, revealing a red-and-white wristwatch.
“The Omnitrix?!”
Blake was underwater dumbfounded.
It looked almost exactly like the watch from the anime he used to watch, except the color scheme was different.
Driven by pure curiosity, he reached his hand out.
The watch instantly sprang to life, clamping itself firmly onto his left wrist.
Blake stared at his wrist in disbelief.
(The lore details will be fleshed out later.
The functions are identical to the original, but Ben’s forms are gender-flipped.)
Before Blake could fully process his excitement, a piercing scream echoed from the distance.
(Whose voice is that?)
He didn’t have time to overthink it.
Billowing black smoke was already rising from that direction.
According to the plot, Ben must have accidentally started a fire.
“Time to go meet a childhood hero.”
Blake scrambled out of the crater and ran full sprint toward the smoke.
Over at the fire site, an alien family reunion was underway.
“Ben?
Is that you?
What happened?”
Standing in front of Gwen was a flaming creature.
It was composed entirely of magma, but its silhouette was surprisingly slender and petite.
Ben was frantically trying to explain the situation to Gwen when Blake suddenly burst through the bushes.
“Uh…
looks like you guys need some help?
Right?” Blake said awkwardly, looking at the slender Heatblast and Gwen, who was wielding a fire extinguisher.
Hearing his voice, Heatblast turned around in confusion.
When she recognized him, she happily jogged over.
“Blake!
I’m a huge fan of yours!
Um, do you think I could get an autograph or a picture…
or something?”
Seeing a flaming monster approaching Blake, Gwen panicked and yelled, “Hey, dweeb!
If you don’t want to burn him to a crisp, keep a safe distance!”
Realizing what she was doing, Ben quickly took a few steps back, looking embarrassed.
“I didn’t mean to!
It’s all because of this stupid watch!”
While they were talking, Grandpa Max finally caught up, panting.
“Gwen, are you alright?
what in the world is burning?”
“Hey, Grandpa, guess who this is!” Gwen pointed.
“It’s me, Grandpa!” Heatblast waved.
Grandpa Max blinked in shock.
“What happened to you?”
Before Ben could launch into her story, Gwen cut in frantically, “Uh, excuse me!
The fire is completely out of control, or are you guys just blind?
What are we going to do?!”
Grandpa Max opened his mouth to deliver a solution, but Blake spoke up at the exact same time, their voices overlapping:
“Fight fire with fire.
Start a new fire and direct it toward the old one.”
“Basically, burn away the fuel so the main fire has nowhere left to spread,” Blake finished smoothly.
Finding someone who thought exactly like him, Grandpa Max looked at Blake with a flash of admiration.
“And who might you be, young man?”
“Blake.
I saw the smoke and came to help.” Blake turned his gaze to the alien.
“But now’s not the time for introductions, Ben.”
Seeing that Blake was looking right at her and knew her name, Ben was both thrilled and confused.
“Hey, how did you recognize me?
I thought I looked pretty freaky right now.”
Blake didn’t explain.
He simply placed an index finger over his lips and winked.
“It’s a secret.
Now go do what your grandpa said, hero.”
“Your friend is right, Ben!
Go!” Grandpa Max urged.
With both of them cheering her on, Ben didn’t waste any time.
She sprinted out to create a firebreak, successfully containing the wildfire.
Afterward, Blake followed the Tennyson trio back to their campsite.
High above the Earth, a sinister force had already locked its sights on the Omnitrix attached to Ben’s wrist.
Back at the Rust Bucket, the group gathered around the picnic table.
“So you’re saying this watch just jumped up and clamped onto your wrist?” Gwen asked skeptically.
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault this time, I swear!” Ben protested.
“I believe you, Ben,” Grandpa Max said soothingly.
Gwen looked worriedly at her cousin.
“Do you think she’s going to be a monster forever?”
“She’s not a monster, she’s an alien,” Grandpa Max corrected automatically.
Sensing the kids’ surprised stares, he quickly amended, “Uh…
I mean, just look at her.
What else could she be?”
Blake, who had been quiet for a while, chimed in.
“Your grandpa is right.
It’s definitely an alien.”
Ben slumped over the table.
“Well, I don’t want to be a fire-monster forever.
How am I supposed to play baseball this fall if I burn the ball every time I catch a pop fly?”
Seeing her distress, Blake comforted her in a relaxed tone, “Don’t worry, Ben.
You’ll change back.”
Before Ben could reply, the Omnitrix symbol on her chest began to flash a rapid crimson red.
Finally, a blinding flash of light erupted.
Blake had been perfectly calm, fully expecting the familiar ten-year-old boy from his childhood memories to appear.
He was dead wrong.
As the red light faded, Blake stared at the person sitting across from him and fell into a profound existential crisis.
The person had long hair tied back into a high ponytail.
Her eyes looked like brilliant green emeralds, and she wore a familiar black-and-white shirt with pants.
(???
Since when did Ben have long hair??)
Blake didn’t say the words out loud, staring blankly at the long-haired Ben.
He looked at the iconic clothing—nothing seemed out of place there.
Then, Ben spoke.
“Ha!
I’m back to normal!”
A young girl’s crisp, sweet voice rang clear as a bell, striking Blake’s ears like a beautifully played instrument.
(??????)
Blake’s entire worldview shattered into microscopic pieces.
He had absolutely no idea what was going on.
He remembered clear as day that in the cartoon he watched as a kid, Ben Tennyson was a boy!
After Gwen threw in a quick, sarcastic remark, Ben began frantically tugging at the Omnitrix, trying to wrench it off her wrist, but it wouldn’t budge.
Seeing this, Grandpa Max firmly instructed Ben not to mess with the watch while he went back to investigate the meteor crater.
“Blake, I’m leaving these two in your hands to look after.
I’ve already spoken with your parents, and they said it’s fine for you to sleep over with us tonight.”
Hearing that Blake was staying the night, Ben jumped up and raised her hands in celebration.
“Awesome!
Finally, I don’t have to be stuck one-on-one with my boring cousin!”
“Hmph, as if I want to look at your face all day anyway, dweeb,” Gwen snapped back.
With that, Grandpa Max confidently left his granddaughters in Blake’s care.
He knew Blake’s parents personally, and the boy had been notoriously mature and responsible since he was a toddler.
Grandpa Max didn’t have a single worry in the world.