Permanent Retirement Part 1

As the sun set and the moon began to rise into the night sky, it was time for the five of them to go to bed. The rest of them went to their bed's in the Rust Bucket, while Nico set up his blankets and pillows on the floor of the RV.

On the first day when the girls were having their argument on sleeping arrangements, Nico decided that he'd just sleep on the floor to stop the bickering. Though, it's not like he was uncomfortable sleeping on the floor. After all, around the first couple of years in his new life he often slept on the floor because he was tired of beds after literally being bound to one for the entirety of his first life.

Though, unlike the girls and Max, Nico couldn't really fall asleep that easily, he did consider using his cold to lull him to sleep, but, he wanted to first figure out if he could get stronger than what he already planned.

'I can absorb electricity and DNA, I can also absorb matter to turn myself into other materials. But, is there anything that Ben 10 didn't explore with Osmosian abilities?' This is what has been on his mind for a while, but he mostly focused on making what he knew he could do stronger, before exploring further options.

'I mean, I do know that Kevin could absorb Gwen's mana, but can I absorb any other forms of energy?' It was shown that it wasn't just DNA or electricity that an Osmosian could absorb, so other forms of energy shouldn't be out of the question.

'Nuclear energy and Kinetic energy are absolutely out of the question. I don't know how radiation will affect me at all, and with Kinetic energy, I might be able to absorb the force and turn it into Potential energy, but it'll still most likely hurt me if I get hit with too much.' For all he knew, radiation could just kill him instantly, or have some unexpected side effect, and to train Kinetic energy he would have to absorb the force of something hitting him.

'So that leaves Solar, Thermal, and Sound energy. Though, I don't know how to train Sound energy properly, so those will take a while. That means I should focus on Solar and Thermal energy until I can figure out how to train the others.' Nico sat up from his make shift bed, his mind full of possible ways to train his two selected energy types.

'It's night right now, so I can't practice Solar till the morning, but with it being summer, I should be able to practice Thermal right now.' Even at night it was still pretty hot, so it should be relatively easy to at least try and practice under these conditions.

'Okay, I guess I should think of it like when I absorb DNA, but instead I should focus on the heat in the RV, rather than on a living creature.' He sat cross-legged on his make shift bed to try and be as physically relaxed as he could, as Nico didn't know if Thermal energy would make him go insane faster than electricity would have without his training.

He slowly breathed in one long breath, and as he began to slowly breathe out a minute later, he started to try to absorb the heat in the RV. At first, it went smoothly, he started to feel the Rust Bucket get a bit colder, while his insides started to feel warmer.

But, after a couple of minutes it started to feel like someone shoved hot coals down his throat, and they were quickly burning through his intestines, so he quickly tried to stop absorbing the heat, though that took a while to set in. By the time he did manage to stop it, it felt like he was about to start breathing out smoke at any moment, so he immediately made a mound of snow and started to shovel it down his throat as if his life depended on it, which it actually might.

It was surprising that he was actually able to absorb Thermal energy, but the true wonder was how he managed to go through this entire process without making a single cry from the pain of literally feeling as if he was being set on fire from the inside out.

After a couple of minutes of shoveling snow into his mouth without breathing, in fear that that would fuel what felt like an actual fire inside him, he finally let out a long sigh of relief from his insides not feeling so much pain now. Though, this did result in an absolutely massive amount of steam filling up the RV, which he had to air out by opening the windows.

When the steam was all out of the RV, and Nico made sure that the others were still sound asleep, he finally laid back down on his make shift bed.

'WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS THAT!?!' Now that he finally had a moment of peace, he finally questioned what that was in the first place that caused him so much pain.

'WHY DID I FEEL SO MUCH PAIN?! THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!' He thought that the most he would have to worry about is going insane from too much energy, not burning pain that felt like it was going to kill him.

'HOW THE FUCK IS THERMAL ENERGY SO PAINFUL AND DIFFICULT TO USE FOR ME!?' This genuinely baffled Nico, after all, when it came to absorbing electricity, or trying to absorb metal and wood, even at the beginning it wasn't that hard to cut off the absorption process or start it.

He laid there for what felt like hours before he finally managed to calm down and think more clearly about the entire situation that he was in earlier. And soon he managed to come to a singular conclusion.

'My body is used to low temperatures, meaning I can't really handle extreme heat that well. I'm literally weak to heat, and I just tried to absorb heat in its entirety, I'm a fucking idiot.' It seemed he would need to deal with this weakness if he ever wanted to try absorbing anything related to heat again.

After lamenting about his moment of stupidity, he decided to go to sleep at around four in the morning. He would only get a bit of sleep tonight, as he would have to wake up early in the morning to make breakfast for everyone.

____________

The next day, after Nico's heat incident last night, they were on their way to their next destination, which only Max and Nico knew was to Aunt Vera's home at the time. And at this moment they were stopped at an ice cream shop that had an ATM at outside, which Max was using while the rest of them were in the shop.

"Outta the way Grandpa! I got a major withdrawal to make!" A man with a chin bigger than his brain said before he threw Max away from the ATM towards his friend who looked like his hobby was watching new mothers breastfeed.

"What do you have that's nonfat with less than 3% sugar?" Gwen said inside the ice cream shop to the man at the counter.

"Gwen, the only thing that most likely has all that, is the napkins." Nico said to the red head that was standing next to him. "She'll have plain vanilla, and I'll have coffee ice cream if you have it, neapolitan ice cream if you don't."

Vanilla was probably the best choice for Gwen to have at this point, while coffee was surprisingly Nico's favorite flavor of ice cream to have, neapolitan being a close second.

Penn and Lucy were about to give their orders next, but the sound of metal and chains outside got Penn's attention, who looked out the shop's window to see the man with a huge ass chin going to the ATM with a hook and chain attached to a truck.

"I'm about to go rocky road!" She said while heading outside readying the Omnitrix for another fight.

The man pierced the hook into the ATM, while giving his partner in crime a thumbs up and saying "Hit it!" which was what his partner tried to by pressing the gas pedal all the way, but no matter what the truck wouldn't move, even though the engine was still running smoothly.

"It's crystal clear that this truck of yours isn't going anywhere!" Penn now transformed into her version of Diamondhead. This form did look similar to the original, except for her large breast, thicker thighs, and softer features.

What she had done was encase the tires of the truck in enough crystals to weigh down the vehicle so much that it wouldn't be able to move unless someone replaced the tires or chipped off every bit of crystal from the tires.

She tore off the driver door to the truck and pulled the man out of it, while putting handcuff shaped crystals on his legs and hands, before throwing him onto the ground.

The man with the large chin took the hook out of the ATM and began to swing it before he threw it at Penn, in an attempt to attack her. This did not end well for him at all, as the chain wrapped around her arm and she used to pull the man quickly towards, which ended up with him slamming into a telephone pole.

"Where do you think you're going?" Max said as stepped on the man's chest, keeping him on the ground.

It was at this point that Nico, Gwen, and Lucy came out from the ice cream shop with a cone in their hands, though Nico had one cone with coffee ice cream, and another with rocky road, which was for Penn.

"Good work, Penn." Max said not really caring about Penn's identity being known while in alien form for some reason.

"Oh yeah! I'm ready for anything! Bring it on! What's next?" She asked still hyped from the quick fight that transpired.

"We're heading off to your Aunt Vera for the weekend!" Max said with a smile on his face excited to see his older sister soon.

"Sweet! Aunt Vera's awesome!" While Penn was grumbling about going to Vera's house, Nico was excited, as he actually enjoyed his interactions with the woman.

"Okay, you four head back into the RV, while I call the police to get these thugs." Max instructed while he took out his phone. But, before they left for the Rust Bucket, Nico encased the big chinned man's lower body in ice as a safety precaution for Max.

"Can't be too cautious, Grandpa." The demigod said before following the girls back to the RV, walking next to Penn, who was still transformed as Diamondhead.

"Here's your cone, Penn." He gave the, at the time, Petrosapien, though he noticed something odd when her crystal hand brushed against his hand to get the ice cream cone.

'Why did she feel soft? Isn't she supposed to be made of rock hard crystals?' That was the odd thing, even though she was supposed to be made of literal crystals, she felt soft to the touch.

Without any further words, Nico grabbed Penn's hand that currently was holding an ice cream cone, and studied it as if it were the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. This flustered Penn as she didn't expect the guy that she's loved for years to suddenly hold her hand.

"N-Nico, what are you doing?" She tried to keep her calm while Nico was pressing on different parts of her hand to see if all of it was the same.

"Studying you, because your 'skin' is soft when it shouldn't be." He didn't even care how this currently looked as he was more concerned about one of the most durable aliens being soft to the touch instead of harder than steel.

"Wait, shouldn't her body be made of literal rocks?" Gwen asked when she heard what Nico had to say. She was curious about this new discovery too, to the point where she ignored the fact that Nico and Penn were technically holding hands.

"That's the thing though, she is essentially diamond-like, but she's as soft as a freshly dry cleaned blanket." He said as he studied the rest of her arm, which seemed to be just as soft as her hands.

It wasn't until he tried pinching her 'skin' and seeing her tense up that he finally realized what was going on with this version of a Petrosapien.

"Oh! She's soft when calm and relaxed, but under physical stress or pressure, she gets hard as diamonds." That was an odd sentence that he didn't expect to end up saying today, but it was still true, as her entire body became more durable and harder to hurt when he pinched her.

But, while he was musing on his findings, the Omnitrix began to flash red and soon she was back to her normal form. Which, caused her to blush up a storm as Nico was still holding her hand and arm.

"N-Nico, m-my arm...." She gestured to her arm which was still being lightly poked by Nico subconsciously.

"Ah! Right, sorry. I was just really curious about that aliens body and how it feels." That could have been phrased better man, now she's blushing more and running into the RV. How does he keep doing this shit without trying?

Oh, fuck, right I'm supposed to be an unbiased narrator! Uh... let's just get to the point where they are almost at Vera's, because after that it was mainly just a jealous Gwen and Lucy glaring at Penn. Even though they were literally all confessed to by the same guy yesterday and were still considering the idea of all three of them sharing him as none of them wanted to give him up.

___________

"This is going to be so boring... There probably won't be anything exciting happening the entire time we're here..." Penn said as she wasn't looking forward to sticking in a place filled entirely with elderly people.

At that moment she saw an elderly man do a flawless backflip onto the ground from his roof. "Woah! Did you see that?" Penn said while gesturing outside for the others to see.

"See what? All I see are senior citizens going about there day." Gwen said when she looked outside and didn't see anythign out of the ordinary.

Penn could only be confused at the fact that not even Nico saw that, or if they did, react to what should have been a regular old man perform a stunt that most people would have trouble doing half as good.

Soon Max pulled the Rust Bucket up to his older sister's house, where the four teenagers got out of the vehicle almost as soon as he parked the RV in front of the house.

"Seriously, why do old people have to live where it's so hot?" Penn said while she shielded her eyes from the bright rays of the sun.

"Here, this should cool you down." Nico said next to her as he handed her a cherry flavored snow cone, which he pulled out of his black messanger bag.

"Thanks, I- wait... how did you?...." Penn was confused as possible about an entire snow cone, that wasn't melted at all, coming out of a messanger bag, which shouldn't have the abilitiy to keep anything cool in it.

"Simple, I have everything I need in this bag." He said as he patted the messanger bag. Though, he wasn't lying in any sense, as he used his spatial manipulation ability on the bag to make the inside as big as a football stadium, so everything he needs is actually in that bag from materials to absorb, to all his clothes. He even put a freezer in there, which was where he stored snow cones and ice cream that he either bought or made himself.

"I... I'm not even going to question that..." No matter how much he tried to teach her, or help her study, she still couldn't understand some of the things he said at all, so she just silently ate the snow cone.

It was then that Nico was the one that saw the strange person that was Vera's neighbor, who essentially hissed and twisted his neck in a strange way before closing the blinds to his window.

'Hm, Limax DNA should be useful for training with heat abilities, if I recall they get stronger the more heat they're exposed to.' Nico had to hide his smirk as he planned to probably make the Limax an extinct species when he's done with them.

"Now, watch your cheeks kids, Vera's a pincher." Max said when he stepped out of the RV, his sister coming out of her house almost at the same time.

"Max!" "Vera!" Both the siblings said to eachother before hugging. They were both excited to finally see each other again, as the last time they saw each other was on one of the grouped birthdays of the Tennyson trio.

"I can't believe your finally here! And look at you four, so grown up!" Vera said as she hugged Gwen and proceeded to pinch the red heads cheeks, which Gwen didn't like much.

She repeated this with the rest of the girls, even Lucy, because as far as Vera was concerned the blonde was family. But that was until she got to Nico. "Aww, Nicholas, you got so big! You're no long the little Nic that I once knew." Vera said before hugging him and ruffling up his hair.

Vera her always liked messing with his hair everytime they met, at one point Nico did question this, and her only response was that his hair was just so soft she couldn't resist playing with it.

"Come on in, I can't wait to chew the fat with all of you!" The eldest of the Tennyson's here said, before she led the five into her home.

Nico made sure to look back towards the Limax pretending to be a human, who was look through the blinds, and made sure to gesture that he would kill the creature. This did result in the alien closing the blinds again, so he couldn't see the reaction of it, but it should have still gotten his message across.

Walking into Vera's home, Nico couldn't help but think about how cozy it felt to be here. He may not be able to hang around Vera much, but he did like the aura she always brought to a house, especially her own.

This entire day was going to be an amazing oppurtunity for Nico, he gets useful DNA to help him further train, he gets to steal a spaceship, and he gets to hang out with one of his favorite relatives that wasn't one of the girls. Though, he could still feel a bit of the pain from the night before, but that was just a reminder to him that he needed to get rid of this weakness of his quickly to protect the ones he loves.

___________

Okay, so it seemed that one of my hints from before was too easy, as someone immediately figured out the second world was going to be Teen Titans. But, it also seemed that my first hint of the first world was a bit difficult for everyone, so I'll give another hint for the first world.

Hint: "Do you believe in... Gravity?"

Hopefully this ones a bit easier to get, because someone literally guessed the show, Friends, last time. Though, that was on me for choosing a quote that wouldn't have been that easy to seperate from a fuck ton of other shows.

Anyways, Fae signing off!