Ben 10 : Unlimited

16

The Once and Future Thing, Part 1

Bellwood

Underneath the city of Bellwood was a sprawling base, home to hundreds of the most dedicated and skilled law-enforcement agents in the universe.

The Plumbers.

All of the Plumbers were good at their jobs, but the leaders of the Earth Precinct were some of the best, known for their skills, their accomplishments, and of course, their friendship with Ben Tennyson.

Helen Wheels, a Kineceleran, or XLR8, as Ben would call it.

Manny Armstrong, a Tetramand, or Fourarms.

Alan Albright, a Pyronite, or Heatblast.

Cooper Daniels, a technopath, able to control and manipulate machinery, as well as enhanced strength and a genius-level IQ.

Last was Jimmy Jones. While not an official Plumber, his information-gathering and organizational skills were beyond impressive; he practically ran every aspect of the day-to-day operations of the base.

Though these five were the youngest of the Plumbers, they had been trained by both Max and Ben Tennyson; they knew what they were doing, and had proven that they had the right stuff over and over again.

Now, they were overseeing the initiation of the four newest Plumbers; the Ultimen. After arriving in their universe, the four superheroes had quickly been brought up to speed about how things worked. After attending Plumber Academy, they'd been deployed to Earth and were being assigned their rooms and standard Plumber armor.

The former Helpers had been shocked when Verdona had shown up and announced that Ben was actually alive. They had been devastated when they heard about what happened to the Tennyson family, as well as Kevin and Julie. They had been deployed to an emergency several light-years away, and had been unable to help. To find out that Ben was still alive…

When the Ultimen showed up, and told them that they'd actually met Ben, they'd been bombarded with questions; unfortunately, they hadn't known Ben that well. In fact, they hadn't even known that he was human until they arrived at the Plumber base. All they could tell them was information on their own universe.

"Still can't believe that Ben's living in a world full of superheroes." Muttered Manny.

"Manny, you've been saying that for months," scolded Helen, "would you let it go?"

"He could have at least sent a message, or something," offered Alan, "anything to let us know that he was still alive."

"I can understand why," said Jimmy from behind them, "think about all the times he spent time with us; nearly every time, Gwen and Kevin were with him. Do you really think that he wanted to be reminded of them?"

The three aliens looked down at their feet. While they had initially been furious that Ben had left them to think he was dead, his reasons for staying in another universe made sense.

"I guess not," said Manny.

"Don't worry about Ben." The Plumbers turned to see Wind Dragon, the other Ultimen behind him. "From what I saw of him, he's been doing well."