A Certain Scientific Omnitrix: Book 2, Grudge Match.

Meet The Folks.

Mikoto couldn't say that she slept easier that night.. the truth was she felt nervous. As to why she was nervous.. well, after the day she had at the hotsprings, most people would say, "hey, who wouldn't be?"

But Mikoto had gone through worse.. The Level 5 Sky Scorcher was primarily known for being extremely head strong and violent, so this wasn't the first facility she'd burned down, even when she was a Level 4. In any case, nobody wanted to cause too much trouble for her, because since there were 9 Level 5s total in Academy City and one boy who could turn into over 90 aliens.. people were trying not to put out too many scandals.

Truthfully, the real reason Mikoto was nervous, was she wanted a certain family reunion to go off without a hitch.

Mikoto woke up in her bed feeling as nervous as she did when she went to bed the night before.. Due to rather complicated circumstances, the Tokwadai Dorms had never been repaired from Sixsix's attack.. Apparently, according to Ben, after Albedo found out about the experiment's failure, he refused to pay Eighteight and Sixsix in light of their failure, and not only that, he destroyed their ship, stranding them on Earth.

In a blatant rage, and also because they really couldn't touch Albedo with his kind of resources, Eighteight had rampaged to the dorms that were under repair, and completely demolished the building with a plasma bomb.

That of course, had been the final nail in the coffin of ignorance that aliens did exist, because as she blew up the dorms, Eighteight flicked off all the street cameras, and screamed a couple of alien swearwords.

Mikoto sat in her bed for a minute, her stomach felt like butterflies were running high on caffine inside. Today was the first day of the Daihaseisai..

The Daihaseisai was a city wide festival where all the students from every school competed in athletic games and events. The events were actually more popular then the World Cup. And espers were encouraged to use their abilities.

According to the programs that were handed out to visitors watching the events, this was to study the effects of many espers using their powers all at once in mass quantaties..

Ben had recieved an official letter only last week that said he was allowed to use his Alien abilities for different reasons, that researchers wished to observe how his aliens moved and adapted to certain situations and stimuli.

But the main part of the Daihaseisai that held Mikoto's head in such a fit of nerves, was the fact that family would be allowed to visit and watch the games... Mikoto's mother would come of course, but the family she was really concerned about, was Ben's mother and father.

How would a reunion go after they spent the better part of 3 years thinking their son was dead? Helen, Ben's adopted part alien sister who would be flying in on a seperate plane after visiting London, wasn't a problem, as she had known Ben was alive for a while. Neither was Ben's Grandfather a problem.

Gwen Tennyson, Ben's cousin, who Mikoto rather liked, had enrolled in a prestigious All Girls School in the Learning Garden, and would also be participating..

All in all, it was a convergence of the Tennysons after Ben had left his home town of Bellwood years ago, and Mikoto didn't know whether things would be tense or happy. She wanted it to go perfectly of course. She was the one who had gotten Ben to call his parents and patch things up.. but for some reason.. that was the least of concerns...

For some reason.. Mikoto wanted Ben's parents to like her. They weren't her parents.. yet she wanted them to approve of her, which in Mikoto's mind, really made no sense.. Why would she need their approval!? She was Ben's friend of course, but why would Ben need approval from his parents on what friends he made? He was 15!