Chapter Text
The worst thing about being a hero was the pressure. That was true, even since Ben had started his long journey down the hero’s path, seven(? It felt oh so much longer than that) years ago. The worst part about the worst part was that it never went away. The pressure escalated – heroes went from fighting street thugs to dealing with universal threats on a near-daily basis.
Case in point:
Ben didn’t think himself to be very smart. Oh, he was awesome by any measurement of the word, to be sure, but as for book-smart… that was Gwen’s area, not his.
But he had to get book-smart, analytical, whatever, now. Because if he didn’t…
Okay, fact: The universe was ending. Also a fact: Ben very much wanted the universe to not end. Fact three: He had an alien that could warp reality in the Omnitrix.
Minor setback: Alien X’s personalities squabbled so much they wouldn’t get anything done until the death of reality, by which point it might be too late to do much of anything. Another minor setback… he didn’t know much about creating a universe.
It couldn’t be hard… right?
It was a funny thing, pressure… put something under enough of it, and eventually… they break.
That was exactly what happened to Ben Tennyson when he was standing across from the Annihilargh, locked in the form of Alien X, unable to do much of anything until their personalities came to a resolution. Then, it went off, and he could see reality being sundered into nothing…
And Ben broke. The whole universe dying was a magnificent, beautiful, terrible thing in all its grandiose scale, and despite being far removed from most of reality, Ben could still see it, could witness it all unfolding at once.
And he did something he hadn’t done for a while.
He cried.
Ben broke, and he wept for the universe and all within it, and as Serena and Bellicus granted him control of Alien X to restart creation, he wondered where everything went wrong.
All he wanted was for things to be simple again. Simple hero work – the bad guys were bad, he was the good guy, people needed saving, but the whole universe wouldn’t be at stake…
He just wanted to go back to that first summer vacation. Just him, Grandpa, and Gwen going cross-country, having adventures…
He missed that. God how he missed that.
He wanted his best friend and his mentor back by his side, full-time. He wanted simple villains to deal with. He wanted threats that wouldn’t end the whole world…
He wanted to have fun again.
With that thought dominating his mind as he channeled Alien X’s phenomenal cosmic powers, Ben lost himself in the mix, unable to see what exactly he was creating.
And then, he awoke.