Growing Pains • Ben 10 [On Hold]

Chapter 3: Paradox's Idea Is A Bad Idea

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Almost instantly, Ben collapsed into DefCon One.

Where the other two passengers that had traveled with him across the plane of dimensions and realities struggled to reorient themselves and get their bearings, Ben forwent letting his body acclimate to his new surroundings. His vision was as blurry as it had ever been and he knew in his heart if his legs could become sentient, detach from the rest of his body, jump him and beat him to a pulp for forcing them to support his weight so suddenly, he'd already be jumped and beaten within an inch of his life.

Stepping through that portal had felt like walking off the edge of a cliff, falling for an infinity and being abruptly jerked into a standing position. Generally, not a particularly good feeling. Solutions to Potentially Dangerous Problems With Little To No Advice On How Badly Things Could Go Wrong, Or How To Not Throw Up in the Middle of Someone's Tool Shed Sponsored by Paradox. Or at least going by the metal racks and empty brown cardboard boxes thrown askew, it appeared to be a tool shed.

Along with stamping down on his body's immediate reaction to instantaneous space travel which was to violently projectile vomit, and going into DefCon One, Ben promptly initiated the first few stages of chewing his cousin out. Gwen, hunched over on herself beside a groaning Kevin, trying to physically prevent the hurl from making a star appearance all over the concrete floor of the shed, still had her hands firmly around the Chrono Navigator's knobs. Probably to prevent it from sporadically clicking and opening up their return portal. Which they might as well have done now, seeing as how she had somehow messed with Paradox's settings and teleported them into the wrong location.

The shed was small, but aside from the racks, the boxes, little husks that looked like molds of something, cobwebs (the upkeep of the place was terribly subpar,) Ben could see next to nothing else. But only because the soon-to-be victim of their time criminal activities had taken advantage of their states of distress and distraction to press herself in the one corner of the shed light from the hanging bulb didn't hit all that well.

It would have been a smart tactic. An intelligent one, if Ben had yelled at Gwen long enough for her to give in and warp them back. If.

But Ben's sight had returned in full. And he saw.

Trepidation at having been caught showed on the brown-skinned girl's face like neon paint on a black canvas. In her widened eyes. Parted lips, gritted teeth. Rapidly rising and falling shoulders as her chest pumped in a wild attempt to get oxygen to her brain and keep from losing consciousness in a room full of perfect strangers. Perfect strangers that had arrived via hole in midair.

It was as if the shed in its entirety, along with its contents, had been plucked from the ground and submerged in molasses. Although all these events occurred in real time, none of the reactions, the movements, none of it felt in the moment. From Gwen and Kevin just recovering from their nauseated spells, watching Ben and the strange, frozen girl stand less than three steps apart interact without their lips forming even the beginnings of a word was something very nearly dreamlike.