A Certain Powerful Omnitrix 3: The Hate That Dwells In Shadows

The Inner Omniverse of Ben Tennyson

Ben opened his eyes. He got up rubbing his head awkwardly. "Ow......what happened?.........Where am I?"

Ben was sitting in the middle of a deserted street, surrounded by a familiar skyline. It was Academy City. Only as far as he could tell, it was completely deserted of anything human, and the entire area seemed to be covered by a dense whitish fog. Not to mention there was a slight slithering sound that could be heard in the distance. As if something was waiting......watching.

Ben got up and looked around him. "Mikoto!? Touma!? Tetrax!?"

No one answered him. Ben nervously put a hand to the Omnitrix and began fiddling with it. Okay, at least that was working. No use being in a creepy situation without some means to defend yourself.

Ben walked down the streets of Academy City. From the looks of it, he was somewhere near the Learning Garden area, which meant his dorm would be nearby. Figuring it would probably be good to go back to his dorm then figure things out, Ben activated the Omnitrix and searched for the hologram of JetRay.

But the moment he came to JetRay's hologram, a red alert icon appeared and the words "IN USE" appeared. The same icons seemed to be showing up for HeatBlast and Upchuck too.....odd.

Ben shrugged and went to Big Chill's hologram instead. In a flash of green light, the thin phantom-mothman like alien flew into the air in the direction of Ben's dorm.

Suddenly Big Chill grew aware of something following him, he looked back to find he was being pursued by a brown robed man with a skull painted face flying towards him. Ben knew that man, though he hadn't seen him in over 2 years. It was Hex Lord, a powerful sorcerer from a dimension known as Ledger Domain.

"Hex!?" Said Big Chill. "What the heck are you doing here!?"

Hex didn't respond, instead he raised his staff and fired off a beam of bright yellow energy at Big Chill who went transparent and phased through the magic attack like it was nothing.

"Really?" Said Big Chill going tangible again. "No arrogant 'we meet again Ben Tennyson', or long drawn out evil monologue about how you'll get your revenge?"

Hex just raised his staff again and caused a huge tornado to come hurling itself at Big Chill, who dodged it easily.

"Ooookay?" Said Big Chill. "I guess I'll just take you down then........"

Big Chill breathed out a whitish blue beam of cold air which Hex dodged. The ground below Hex instantly became coated in a thick layer of ice. Hex retaliated with a ginormous sphere of black energy which Big Chill phased through with his intangibility.

"Give it up Hex." Said Big Chill. "We both know how this is going to-" suddenly the sphere which Big Chill phased through earlier sharply changed course and hit Big Chill in the back, taking him by surprise.

Big Chill fell into the asphalt below and got up groaning. Hex Lord levitated to the ground and became enshrouded in a reddish sparking energy, that seemed to shake the very ground.

"Since when were you this powerful?" Said Big Chill pressing his Omnitrix badge.

Big Chill suddenly turned bright red and flame designs appeared at the edges of his eyes. His wings became flame like and the air around him seemed to drop around 50 degrees. Ultimate Big Chill flew up from the ground and blasted a wide stream of bright orange flames at Hex, too wide ranged to dodge. When the flames cleared, Hex Lord was frozen in a block of ice the size of a sky scraper.

"Ha! Take that!" Said Ultimate Big Chill with an expression of victory that quickly changed to an expression of confusion when he saw that Hex Lord had disappeared.

The block of ice was still there alright. But the sorcerer.........was just......gone.

"What the heck?" Said Ultimate Big Chill as he changed back into Ben.

Ben just stood there puzzling for a while before a small voice spoke up from behind him.

"Oh, that happens a lot here."

Ben turned around to find a small familiar looking sandy haired girl looking at him with a big grin on her face. "Everything here keeps disappearing here all the time, then new stuff comes around to take it's place."

Ben kneeled down to the girl's eye level, she couldn't be any more then around 10 years old.

"What do you mean this stuff happens all the time? Academy City isn't always sprouting up random sorcerers........usually."

"Oh, this isn't Academy City." Said the girl cheerfully. "At least it isn't Academy City all the time. Sometimes it looks like Bellwood, or that Plumbers base at Mt Rushmore. My favorite is when it looks like London though, cause we went there for a short time..."

"Okay!" Said Ben. "Who are you, and how do you know all the places I've been to !?"

The girl giggled playfully. "Why my name is Misaka Mikoto of course."

Ben stood back shocked. It had occurred to him why this girl looked so familiar. Mikoto had once shown Ben a photo of herself when she was around 9 or 10 . This girl was the exact spitting image of the young Mikoto.

"Wh-what!!?" Ben stuttered.

"Well that's one question answered." Said little Misaka cheerfully. "Now if you want the answer to the second question........then you'll have to catch me first!!"

Little Mikoto ran down the street giggling loudly. "Yay! Catch me, catch me!!"

"Hey!" Shouted Ben. "Get back here! It's not safe!"

"If you want to keep me safe then you'll have catch me first! Yay, catch me!"

Ben sighed and chased after the mini Mikoto.

Ben finally caught up to Mini Mikoto who danced around happily crying out. "Yay! Again, again!"

"Okay." Said Ben. "Now tell me, where am I and who are you really?"

"Well the only one who can really answer that question is in there." Said Mikoto cheerfully pointing at the restaurant they had stopped next to.

Ben looked at the restaurant. It was Mr. Smoothie.

"Whose in there?" Asked Ben.

"Oh,"said Mikoto. "You know him, he's my best friend in the whole world.....but.." Mikoto suddenly looked sad. "He hasn't been feeling well lately........he keeps seeing ghosts.."

Mikoto took Ben by the hand and led him into the empty dark store.

The inside looked the same as Ben always remembered it. The smoothie makers the tables, everything was the same. Except the lights were off, and the room temperature was chillier then Articguana in January. Mikoto led Ben over to the favorite spot of Ben and 14 yr old Mikoto. The spot they always chose to come when they hung out here. The spot was currently occupied by a small brown haired boy wearing a white shirt with a back stripe going down the front and a pair of greenish brown pants. The boy was huddling his knees and rocking back and forth on the booth.

"I-it's s-so cold." The boy whimpered.

"Hey, it's me." Said young Mikoto tenderly. "I brought someone who might be able to help."

The boy looked up and Ben nearly jumped out of his shoes. The boy was him, it was 10 year old Ben. Young Ben had tears in his eyes. He brought out his left wrist which held the old version of the Omnitrix, the black and white version before Azmuth had upgraded it. However instead of the usual green hourglass symbol on the face plate, there was a blinking evil purple eye blinking out of a crack in the face plate.

"Please...."said younger Ben clutching onto older Ben's sleeve. "The ghost......it keeps coming back."