The summer mountains rolled by in a lazy, sun-dulled blur, hills green as old glass, trees knitting a patchwork of shade over the highway.
Amber sunlight spilled across the asphalt and brought with it the warm, dry scent of summer: cut grass, hot rubber, the faint iron sweetness that came off the roadside rocks.
The Old Rust Bucket coughed and rattled along like it had stories to tell and nowhere to be in a hurry.
Inside, a boy watched the world slide past with the patient boredom of someone who had seen too many sunsets from too many windows. His hair was dark brown that bled into a lighter ochre at the tips, and a single stubborn white streak stood out on his forehead like punctuation.
He rested his chin on his hand against the cool glass and let his eyes drift. Deep violet pooled at the top of his irises and melted into a warm, gold-tinged hue along the bottom, eyes that looked like they'd been designed to surprise people who tried to read them.
He was ten, or thereabouts: small for his age but not scrawny, a body that felt like it belonged to someone who'd been here long enough to get used to it. His hair hung a little long at the nape, with a long pony-tail at the back. An old pair of pilot goggles dangled from his neck, while he wore this long, old, raggy brown coat that nearly touched the ground.
On his left wrist, clinging to his skin like a second pulse, sat a watch that glowed with a faint, pale gold. It looked a lot like stories he'd watched once, only the green had been swapped for gold.
He called it the Another Omnitrix.
Evan Gold. Ordinary transmigrator, extraordinary introvert.
The memory of the life he'd left, or that had left him, clung to him the way heat clung to the back of the truck seat. He remembered an exhausting nine-to-five, the kind of exhaustion that had the shape of too many tasks and too few hours. He remembered college homework stacked like small towers, a life balanced on a thread.
Then a message from an unknown contact had slid into his world: a character sheet, a joke maybe, a whim. He'd filled it in on a midnight dare and hit send. Closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, he was somewhere else entirely.
His body had shrunk back to a child's frame, not seven, but nine or ten, and the watch on his wrist hummed with possibility. It took five full, disorienting days for his head to stop spinning and for the new life to feel like the one he'd woken up in.
When he finally remembered the name of the device, it should have been relief. Instead, it was confusion: the Omnitrix's dial functioned smoothly, and the playlist was empty. An Omnitrix with no playlist is an Omnitrix with no aliens. An Omnitrix that only looked like in a story.
Evan gave it a week. He didn't have a choice. He tried shaking it, pleading with it, even making a show of tapping the face like you would an old radio that just needed coaxing. Nothing change.
He couldn't take it off, couldn't pry it loose; it sat on his wrist like a promise that hadn't yet decided what to be. Then, on the eighth day, the dial popped up by itself. The surface of the watch shimmered, images flickered, and a tiny, dizzying carousel of forms spun into place.
"Damn, it actually works?" he said to nobody and everything. The smile that followed felt small and private.
From then on, the watch updated once a week. One alien, sometimes more a likeness than a living thing, would appear in the playlist and quietly declare itself his. Some fit the stories he remembered from the Ben Ten universe; others seemed to be drawn from other universes and fictional works from his memories.
Ten weeks after the first chirp of the dial, his 'father', Stay Gold, who was spectacularly unreliable whenever Evan wanted a straightforward answer, decided a change of scenery was in order.
"Learning experience," Stay Gold called it, with the same voice she used when she'd shuffled paperwork and called it "important." So Evan was packed off to spend the summer with an old friend of the family: Maxwell Tennyson. A summer vacation that would conveniently cover his tenth birthday.
Now the Rust Bucket hummed along, the boy inside half-watching the highway and half-working through the elastic knot of anticipation.
Evan shifted his eyes across the table, his bored gaze landing on the young girl sitting across from him. She had orange hair and bright green eyes, her posture a little too composed for someone their age, as if she preferred things to be neat and properly arranged.
Gwendolyn Tennyson, also known as Gwen. She was one of Max's grandkids, and since Evan himself was just a tag-along on this road trip, he obviously didn't have any complaints about it.
Their exchange had been simple, consisting of nothing more than a brief "hi" before the two of them settled into a quiet silence. The only reason she knew anything about him at all was because Max had given a short introduction earlier.
Right now, they were heading to pick up Max's other grandkid, a young boy named Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, or just Ben.
The Rust Bucket continued down the road, its old engine rumbling steadily as the scenery rolled by. After a while, Evan raised an amused brow while looking out the window, and the small reaction caused Gwen to follow his gaze.
"Doofus, that is so embarrassing!"
Not far from the road, two boys were hanging from a tree. By their underwear, no less.
One of them was clearly Ben, while the other boy was someone Evan didn't recognize and honestly didn't care enough to identify.
"Ben, we're heading out," Max called.
"Uh, Grandpa! Could you give me a hand?"
A moment later, both boys were let down from the tree. Ben quickly jogged over and climbed into the Rust Bucket with Max, while the other kid disappeared somewhere down the street, heading off to who-knows-where. No one paid any attention to where he went.
"I was so looking forward to vacationing with you…" Ben began excitedly before his eyes landed on Gwen. "You! What are you doing here?! Grandpa, why is she here?!"
Ben's mood dropped so quickly it might as well have fallen off a cliff.
"Please! Doofus! Don't flatter yourself," Gwen shot back immediately. "I was forced into this too! Someone convinced my mom that going on a trip with him would be a great summer experience."
She clearly wasn't any happier about the situation.
"Grandpa…" Ben's gaze finally shifted again and landed on Evan, who was sitting quietly across from Gwen.
"Sup," Evan greeted.
He sounded casual, though he was somewhat amused and mildly interested in finally meeting the Tennysons. It had honestly been a long time since he had last watched or read anything related to Ben 10.
Because of that, his knowledge of this world was a little unreliable. He couldn't fully trust the original storyline anymore, especially now that he himself existed in it and even the Gold Family had somehow become part of this universe.
Not to mention that once someone remembered the kinds of threats that appeared in this world, it became a lot harder to act like an excited childhood fan.
"That's Evan, Evan Gold," Max said with an easy smile. "He's the child of one of my old friends. We go way back. He'll be joining us for this summer vacation, so you kids be nice, okay?"
After saying that, Max returned to the driver's seat and started the Rust Bucket again.
Ben rolled his eyes. "Aww, man! Do I really have to spend this summer with this big nerdy dork?"
"Hey! I've already made my summer plans!" Gwen quickly picked up a sheet of paper from her bag. "I even color-coded it so I wouldn't repeat the same activity two days in a row. I just didn't expect that I'd have to travel with a doofus, especially for three months!"
Max sighed from the front seat.
"I just thought spending summer vacation with you guys would be fun. Is there something wrong with that?" He paused for a moment before adding with a helpless chuckle, "I have a feeling this summer is going to be very, very long."
Night eventually fell.
The Rust Bucket had stopped near a stretch of forest, where the tall trees cast long shadows and the quiet of the woods made the place feel slightly eerie.
Outside the vehicle, Evan, Ben, and Gwen sat on a few camping chairs that had been set up beside the Rust Bucket.
"Dinner's ready!" Max announced as he stepped out of the vehicle.
In his hands was a large bowl filled with something that was still moving.
Ben leaned forward slightly, only to recoil in horror. "Grandpa! What is this?!"
"Marinated mealworms, hard to find fresh in the states." Max replied proudly. "In some countries, they're considered a rare delicacy!"
"Ugh, I think that's beyond disgusting!" Gwen said, her face turning pale.
"If you don't like those," Max added helpfully, "there's smoked sheep's tongue in the fridge."
Ben stared at him in disbelief.
"Grandpa, isn't there any normal food? Like burgers or something?"
"Don't be silly," Max said cheerfully. "This summer is going to be a culinary adventure for your taste buds. I'll go get the sheep's tongue from the fridge."
With that, he turned and walked back into the Rust Bucket.
Ben immediately leaned forward and lowered his voice.
"Alright, I've got half-eaten corn chips and a chocolate bar in my backpack. What do you guys have?"
"I have a few rice crackers and some fruit candy," Gwen replied.
Then both of them looked toward Evan.
"Nothing," Evan said calmly as he picked up a mealworm and tossed it into his mouth.
His entire Gold Family consisted of weirdos and menaces. After discovering that some insects could technically be eaten, Gold Ship had once pulled several pranks by placing insects inside her siblings' food, which had eventually led to her being thoroughly hunted down by the rest of them, and crucified for some time before they let her go.
Compared to that, this wasn't even particularly bad.
"Eww… that's so gross. How can you eat that?" Ben said, looking a little pale.
"Evan, are you okay eating that?" Gwen asked with concern. "Is it actually edible? Do you feel sick?"
"My younger sister sometimes puts insects in my food, so I'm used to it," Evan replied calmly. "Thanks for the concern, Gwen."
He continued eating the mealworms as if nothing was unusual.
Ben looked like he had reached his limit.
"You guys eat first. I'm going for a walk."
He stood up quickly, looking slightly unwell as if he might throw up at any moment, before heading straight toward the deeper part of the forest.
"Okay, stay safe," Evan said simply.
Although it had been a long time since he had watched Ben 10, he still clearly remembered one important scene.
This was the night Ben would find the Omnitrix in the forest.
Evan had no intention of interfering with that.
After all, he already has his own Omnitrix, and he didn't want to be a hero. Evan simply wanted to live this new life of his peacefully and carefree, without the weight and responsibility that came with saving the world.
---
AN: Yo, A here. Got bored, and this random idea suddenly came up, so I wrote it out. Tell me if you like it or not. Also chapter will depend on whether or not I can write them out or not.