And Then There Were 10: part 1; a hero beginning

14 year old boy1, Benjamin Kirby Tennyson or simply Ben as he prefers was incredibly, boooooored as staring at the clock, counting down the seconds until the final class before summer vacation begins. He isn't the only one doing so, in fact most of the class have their eyes ready to leave.

Miss Evans meanwhile was still talking about teaching summer school herself. With plenty of time to participate, he can never start thinking about good grades and higher years earlier, as if. Summer was a time of fun, not learning!

Then the final bell rang, giving salvation to all students tired from a long year. A crowd of students ran out the door to enjoy a vacation of sun and fun. He follows right behind them, already visualizing the summer trip he had planned with his grandpa Max, touring the country.

However he was brought out of his thoughts as someone slapped him on the back, causing Ben to nearly jump out of his skin turning around in a fighting stance only to drop it after seeing who it was.

"What the hell, Doofus!" He muttered as his cousin stood in front of him with a smug expression. Gwendolyn "Gwen" Tennyson was someone that Ben had known all of his live since they were both born in the same hospital, on the same day. The two acted like siblings then cousins, which means that they fight and annoy each other quite often whenever they see each other. Ben had even gone so far as to describe Gwen as his 'enemy sister' on more than one occasion

"Hey Gwen, ready for the summer vacation yet? or are you going to cram school for your college?" He asked mockly, making a snide remark.

"Of course, unlike you I'll be participating in actual activities that reward me for studying all year, such as getting better grades," Gwen swiftly replied, her green eyes looking at him from under her bangs with intense annoyance as Ben roll his eyes.

"Whatever, Dweeb," He said, rolling his eyes. "Can't a guy enjoy his summer vacation without getting crap from his annoying cousin?"

"Ha ha," Gwen replied, bumping him with her shoulder as the two began walking the hallway past one of the Windows when he spot JT and Cash shaking down a kinda chubby kid a few years younger than them all.

'Huh, seems like they're broke enough to try and shake down some random kid.'

Ben decide to intervene as weren't just going to sit back and let the two bullies pick on some slightly chubby freshman. That wasn't the type of person he was. Besides, it's what Grandpa Max would do, and he was the young man's role model for most of in life. Manage to sneak up on the two clueless bullies, Ben then pulling the two of them away from the younger kid and getting between them, putting up his fists and getting ready for a fight.

"HEY CASH! EAT THIS!" He yelled before punching the lanky guy in the ribs, knocking him back into the wall in pain. Wasting no time Ben then landed a series of lefts and rights on the face of the shorter bully causing him to drop to the ground, grabbing at his bloody nose and screaming in pain. As he did this Cash quickly run off and hitting Ben in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground with a resounding thud as the two bullies kicking him hard in the ribs. However Ben wasn't finish as he quickly rolled out from under the kid's legs and landing a vicious kick to his face, breaking the Crash's nose with a satisfying 'CRACK.'

The boy dropped to the ground and clutching his broken nose as he screamed in pain. JT was taken aback by the sudden turn of events and backed away in shock as Ben suddenly punched the shorter bully causing him to fall in pain and land on his back.

When it was clearly that Ben had won, he raised his arms up into the air and yelled out.

"VICTORY!!"

So hyped with Ben noticed adrenaline that he ran over Gwen, who had been watch the whole thing.

"That was so cool did you see that!" He yelled before slapping him in the face.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"That was for being an idiot and picking a fight with those jerks."

"I was just protecting-" Another slap. "Ow! What for?!"

"Now that was just because your idiot in general." Ben's face flushes pink from embarrassment by Gwen patronizing look. However he did have time to tell her off as Rust bucket suddenly pulled up in front of them and Grandpa Max appears out of it.

"Hey, I came as quickly as I…oh my god what happened?!" He asks when he sees the black eye developing on Ben's face.

"JT and Cash were picking one a kid younger than them, I tried to stop them, ." Ben admitted, being to nurse his eye. "I won obviously in fact, I got more hurt from Gwen's slapping me than from those jerks."

Gwen give him a mad look as Grandpa Max shook his head, his eyes fix on Ben.

"While I'm glad you stepped in to help someone, you need to learn that not every problem can, or even needs to be, fixed with violence." He says with that grandfatherly tone that always made Ben feel guilty when he did some wrong.

"That being said, you did a pretty good job of standing up to those bullies, so why we go get some ice on that eye and some ice cream to go with it."

He added with a smile that felt especially warm as Ben smiled back at him happily. "Yeah, that sounds good Grandpa Max."

"Ok, lead the way then."

It was dusk by the Tennyson arrived at the camping grounds, the sky slowly turning dark and stars appearing with the sun going down. The camping place grandpa Max picked was quite, bare. No mobile toilets or bathrooms, no firepits' set up around, not even a faucet for water! Hell no Internet!

'Just me, Grandpa, my dweeb of a cousin.' Ben thought, sitting down on the pine table with benches on either side bolted stuck to it. They don't know why grandpa Max picked this one, but at least it was private and isolated one? Thought they couldn't even see the lights or hear another car around them, only the sounds of the forest and the critters inside.

"Chow time." Max announced as he placed the bowls down on the table, to reveal that they're filled with worms, much to they're disgust.

"Okay, I give up. What is that?" Ben said, looking at the worms in disgust. "Marinated mealworms, hard to find them fresh in the states. You know, they're considered a delicacy in some countries."

"And totally gross everywhere else." Gwen remarked quietly, as she watched a worm crawl out of it's bowl.

"If these don't sound good, I've got some smoked sheep's tongue in the fridge." The Older man offered the two of them, causing them to gagged. Right, they are almost forgotten about their grandfathers….. unique diet. "Couldn't we just have a burger or something?"

"Nonsense. This summer's gonna be an adventure for your taste buds." Max smiled warmly at his grandkids as they realise that you were going to be stuck with it all summer.

"I'll grab the tongue." Max said as he headed in the RV as Ben then leaned over to his cousin and whispered. "Okay, I've got a half-eaten bag of corn chips and a candy bar in my backpack: What do you got?"

"Some rice cakes and hard candy."

Think we can make them last the whole summer?" He asked in hope only for cousins sulk in response. After a few moment, ben who not happy with how this summer was starting, suddenly jump off of the bench.

"Alright I'm going to go for a walk then, have fun Dweeb." He said, sick of doing as waving a hand behind you towards his cousin.

"Whatever Doofus, enjoy your walk through the muddy and dark forest, just remember to yell when you get lose." She responds, but Ben didn't responded as he had already walk away.

"Aw, man. This is gonna be the worst vacation ever." Ben thought out loud, having had been walking through the woods for a few minutes now before stopping a clearing and look up at the stars, feeling as down as ever as he trudges along in the woods. "I might as well have gone to summer school."

However his attention was suddenly snapped to the sky as a sound in the skies above, looking up in the skies as what appears to be a shooting star was flying over his head.

"Whoa! A shooting star!" Ben said in awe only for the "star" then suddenly made a quick change in direction and headed right for him, much to his shock and horror as Ben ran away before he could get hit by the star. Only for said star then smashes right into where he was, causing him to fly back from the site.

"Looks like a satellite or something." Ben thought out loud to him, starting down at the crater as the light from the crater then dies down. Only for the ground to suddenly starts to crumble from under his feet, causing the young teen to fall into the crater. Ben quickly gets up from the ground to see the smoking crater and starts to stop smoking to reveal a small pod as it suddenly began to open up.

And inside of this pod, was a glowing green light, shining upon his face.

"A watch." Ben whispered to himself as the light fully showed itself, showing more of the device itself.It's appearance was a large wristwatch in black and grey colour, with a grey dial in the middle and a green hourglass shape on it.

"What's a watch doing in outer space?" Ben asked himself in confusion, curious as to why such an ordinary object would be in this pod and cause this much damage, begins to reach out his hand to grab the watch. But he didn't get a chance to grab himself, as the watch suddenly latched itself onto his left wrist, much to your shock. You looked down to find that the watch had stitched itself in place, just above your wrist where your watch strap meets his arm.

"Get off me! Get off, get off!" Ben cried out as he tried to shake the alien watch off of him, but to no avail as he tripped onto the ground, climbing his way out of the crater and running back to the campsite.

"Ah! It's alive! It's going to eat me! Get it off! Get it off!" Ben shouted as he tried to get the thing off in a panic. Thankfully the thing doesn't seem to be eating him, which he noticed after calmed down a bit.

"Okay, if you're not eating me then what are you?" He asked, looking down at the watch, giving the face a tap, which made the dial of the watch suddenly pop up, causing him to jump a bit, but what surprised him more was when it did answer.

"HELLO HUMAN, I AM EUNICE, YOUR AI ASSISTANT/COMPANION IN THE USAGE OF THE OMNIMATIX."

Okay, he has several questions?

"The fuck is an 'Omnimatrix'?"

"THE OMNIMATRIX IS THE ULTIMATE PEACEKEEPING AND EXTINCTION PREVENTING TOOL, CREATED BY THE AZMUTH, THE GREAT MIND AND THE FIRST THINKER."

'Oh, he's definitely a pretentious narcissist.' Ben thought as she continued. "THE OMNIMATRIX IS A PORTABLE LIBRARY OF INTERGALACTIC GENETIC DATA THAT ALLOWED THE WIELDER TO ALTER THEIR DNA AT WILL AND TRANSFORM INTO ONE OF THE 1,000,905 GENETIC SAMPLES OF DIIFFERENT ALIEN SPECIES."

Despite it sounding like a bunch of technobabble that a Science teacher would blusher at, he did understand what was being said. Well, to the extent that Ben could. Looking around to see if anyone was nearby, Ben decided that he would continue to see what else this watch does. "So, you're like tutorial AI right?"

"THAT IS IN MY DESCRIPTION?"

"Okay… so why don't you just tell me what to do with this thingy?" Ben asked the AI and after a second she then responds.

"EXCELLENT! TO BEGIN PLEASE PRESS THE ACTION BUTTON THEN ONCE THE DIAL POPS UP TURN IT IN ANY DIRECTION PRESS DOWN ONTO THE SPECIES YOU WANT!" Following her instructions to a T, Ben found himself pondering on which one he wanted? The dial of the watches then shifted to a silhouette of particularly humanoid as his arms and legs were differently shaped and the top of his head seemed to have odd shaped hair.

"Cool!" He exclaimed before pushing down the dial, causing an activation sound and a massive green flash. Suddenly, as the watch flashed a bright light around him, a rock-like substance started to surround his entire left arm and expanded itself onto his face, coating his entire body into a rock-like skin. The rocks started to crack open with fire. You then looked at himself to see that he had changed into a magma-based lifeform whose body is composed of a bright inner magma body covered by dark red rocks, with the symbol of the watch on his center chest. 

His response to his brand new body was immediate!

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ben screamed out in terror at the mere sight of himself, but instead his voice was a raspy, gravely voice. "AAAAAAH! I'm on fire! I'M ON FIRE!"

After a few more seconds of screaming and running, he finally stopped once he realised that the fires around him weren't even hurting him, in fact, he felt perfectly fine.

"Hey, I'm on fire, and… I'm okay!" The fiery being said to himself. "Check it out; I'm totally hot." He said ith more confidence, laughing at his own joke.

"THAT YOU ARE DEAR USER, AS PYRONITE ARE A PLASMA-BASED SPECIES CAPABLE OF PRODUCING AND COMMANDING FIRE AT WILL."

"Wow, cool!" He said, definitely wanna try some of those powers she mentioned. Turning to the tree behind him, a smirk appeared on his face.

"Uh-huh. Here goes!" Ben declared as he managed to shoot a small fireball at the tree, shooting off the branch and burning a hole in it.

"That's what I'm talkin' about." He said to himself, placing his palms together to create a bigger fireball and threw it through several trees at once.

"So cool…no HOT!" Ben exclaimed in childish joy only for his eyes widened in shock as all the trees around him started to catch on fire. Realising what he had done, try to stomp out the fire on the ground, but since his whole body was made of fire, it just caused more fire.

"Oh, man. I'm gonna get so busted for this!" He exclaimed. "Why didn't I just turn into a water guy instead!"

However unbeknownst to Ben while he "trying" to put out the fires, Gwen was currently putting out fires on her own, putting away any fire she saw. Both of them unaware of the other, until you were right on top of the other, spraying onto your hot head, causing him to yell in shock. He turned around to face his cousin, who looked at him and screamed in terror at the sight of the fire monster.

"Look, I know I look weird, but there's no reason to be scared-" The pyro said in a calm manner...But Gwen just struck him across the face with the fire extinguisher, sending him back a few feet away from her. The pyro got up, only to be sprayed in the face by Gwen, greatly irritating the former teen. "Hey!" The fire based being exclaimed, coughing in response as the flames quickly grew back.

"I don't know what you are, but you'll stay down there if you know what's good for you." Gwen threatened, pointing the canister at the fire being.

"Why do you always go for the face? Is this gonna be a whole thing, dweeb?" He asked as Gwen's eyes widened as she recognizes the way the creature talked, only one person she knew could talk to her like that.

"Ben?" Gwen gasped as she put the canister down. "Oh god, Is that you? What happened?" Gwen asked in awe over her cousin's new appearance.

"Well, when I was walking, this meteor fell from the sky and almost munched me, except that wasn't a meteor or a satellite, but this cool watch thing that jumped up onto my wrist and when I tried to get it off, I suddenly was on fire, only it didn't hurt when I was accidentally starting this mega forest fire." Ben recapped quickly.

"Gwen," Max called out as he came running to her. "Are you alri-" Max was about to ask until he saw the heat creature beside her. "What in blazes?"

"Hey, Grandpa, guess who." Gwen suddenly asked.

"It's me, Grandpa." Ben waved his hand at his grandfather.

"Ben?" Max said in shock. "What happened to you?"

"Well, when I was walking, this meteor-"

"Um, excuse me. Major forest fire burning out of control, remember?" Gwen said, cutting off her cousin and referring to the fires around them.

"What do we do?" The former teen asked. The older Tennyson thought about it for a few moments.

"Backfire." Max stated before clarifying, "Start a new fire and let it burn into the old fire. They'll snuff each other out." He then turns to his grandson."Think you can do it, Ben?"

"Shooting flames, I can definitely do it." Ben said with confidence and looked like he was smirking. Ben then ran further into the forest while Gwen and Max ran back to get out of Ben's way. Once Ben got close enough, he fired a beam of fire from his palm and managed to set fire to a few more trees, causing another fire.

After a while, the fires had finally ended, with the park ranger looking over the site in shock.