Chapter Text
A twenty two year old Ben and twenty one year old Julie scream as they fall though a portal seemingly in the middle of the sky. Ben selects a transformation and turns into astrodactal before grabbing Julie and ship. They sigh in relief as they slowly lower to the ground in a random patch of woods.
Ben frowns “the hell was that!?” Julie frowns “thought you were more used to this” ship beeps as they sigh “I’ll check out surroundings” he says turning into jetray and flying up. Julie waits for a moment before he returns “found a place near a beach, also we’re definitely not home” she frowns “why?” “Russia’s missing” she goes wide eyed
He sighs “we should probably walk…” she nods and holds his hand “…this might sound bad but I’m glad your here” she smiles understanding “I’m glad I’m not waking up in bed alone” ship beeps happy their also there making the couple smile
He smiles softly as they make it to a road with a sign “beach city up ahead…no population count” She frowns as ship trots ahead “Hope they have a pawn shop, then I can sell some diamondhead crystals for money” Julie frowns at that but nods “yeah…we do need shelter” he chuckles “I was more thinking beds but that too”
They make it in the ‘city’ and mange to find a pawn shop. After Ben makes some crystals they manage to sell them for over $10,000. They sigh in relief knowing they had money but they were still stranded. They roam around trying to find a place to stay.
They both stare as they pass a fry shop “screw it” Ben walks up “hey, do you sell chili fries?” A young boy managing the shop looks back to check “we do but I’ll be honest it’s canned chili” Ben shrugs “we’ll take it” the boy shrugs and makes it and hands it to them. Ben pays and sits down at a nearby table with Julie
She frowns “so…we’re practically homeless right now right?” Ben shrugs “there’s probably a hotel, or motel here, and if not planets big…but I’d rather stay near where we teleported” she nods in agreement as they eat. The fries were sublime but the chili sucked. They finish eating and Julie looks over past him “is that a structure?”
Ben looks behind him and notices a hand made of stone in the distance “woah…is that man made?” Julie looks at the beach and then at Ben “don’t see a sign saying it’s trespassing over there. Wanna check it out” Ben nods “read my mind”
As they walk they pass a pizza place and a doughnut shop “seems this ‘city’ is more a tourist town…” she shrugs “I mean this place is gorgeous, would love to vacation here” Ben looks at her “I think we’re gonna have to.“
She frowns “why not try alien x?” He sighs “I did, it’s locked for some reason, almost like the universe doesn’t want us to leave” she shivers “I hate that that’s a genuine possibility” he nods in agreement
As they walk they look out into the waves. Ben was tempted to go ripjaws and explore but reeled it in. Fun would come later…hopefully. As they walk they see the structure come into full view as a huge statue of a woman with multiple arms “WOAH!” Julie nods in agreement completely stunned. The statue was in decay but all that proved was that it was thousands of years old
Julie starts to mumble theories and Ben chuckles “maybe it was aliens? I mean I don’t know this world but for us that’s a standard conclusion” she chuckles “yeah probably…the head shape is strange, is that meant to be a second face…can’t tell from this angle…”
Ben looks down to investigate the body of the statute before blinks “a house?” Julie looks down confused to indeed see a house at the bottom of the statute “what?”
Ben shakes his head in faint disbelief but frowns “we might be trespassing now…we should go” she nods in agreement not wanting to deal with an argument. Suddenly the omnitrix beeps trying to scan for something. Ben frowns “it hasn’t used this setting since the microchips…”
Julie frowns “is that bad?” He shakes his head “no, just strange” they don’t notice a boy walk out of the house having noticed visitors “hello! Are you new to beach city?” They jolt at the sudden voice and look down to see a young boy.
They blink “uh…yeah…where’d you come from?” He smiles and points over at the house. Ben frowns “sorry if we’re trespassing, we saw a statue and got curious” the boy smiles “it’s ok! The beach is open.” They nod and he smiles “my names Steven, what’s yours?
Julie coughs in embarrassment “where are my manners, I’m Julie Tennyson” Ben chuckles still not used to that “I’m Ben Tennyson” the boy smiles “would you like a tour?” Ben looks at Julie and she shrugs “I guess…but shouldn’t you make sure it’s ok with your parents?”
Steven smiles “it’s ok, the gems don’t mind as long as it’s daytime” Ben blinks “the gems?” Steven smiles “they’re my friends who stop even monsters and save the day” Ben and Julie blink. They were unsure if he was serious or screwing with them.
They slowly nod “ok…let’s go then…” Steven smiles widely and walks forward and they follow “Fist stop is my favorite place! The big doughnut!” They look up seeing the store “that is a big doughnut” Julie says looking at the stores logo. He smiles “I’ll be right back” he enters and Ben frowns “do you think that gem stuff was true?”
Julie frowns “I’m uncertain. The omnitrix is acting strange but he looks young. So maybe it’s his imagination” he shrugs as suddenly they hear Steven scream “NOOOOOO!!” They go wide eyed and burst into the store and spot Steven panicking at a mini fridge that looked like a cat
Steven panics “this can’t be happening, this has to be a dream!” Ben and Julie blink letting their guards down as Steven panics. Apparently his favorite ice cream sandwich had been discontinued. Ben frowns at that, he understood.
A woman who worked there apologized to Steven and told him he could have the fridge, she then looks over at Ben and Julie “oh, sorry about him. Are you new here?” They nod and Julie looks over “he was showing us around…this was the first stop” she nods and chuckles “yep that’s Steven, helping anyone.” They notice him struggling to lift the fridge. Julie walks up and seemingly effortlessly picks it up
She smiles softly at Steven “since you’re helping us how about we help you bring this back to you home” Steven smiles and nods. Ben looks over and chuckles “that weights nothing to you does it?” He whispers to her and she smiles “it’s decently heavy, if it was filled I’d be struggling”
He smiles and offers assistance but she shakes her head “I’m good, let’s just get going” they walk back to the ‘beach house’ and Steven enters with them.
They immediately get assaulted by green centipede looking creatures and by instinct Ben decks one that tried to jump on Steven as hard as he could making it disappear “woah, nice punch stranger!” They look over to see a small purple woman with a whip. She had one of those creatures wrapped up and she makes it disappear as well.
Steven looks around mesmerized “woah, what are these things?” A tall slender white woman grunts lifting one up and she frowns “Steven, what did I say about inviting random people to the house” Steven frowns “sorry, but they helped me” the centipede she was holding spits a green liquid out and it dissolves the part of the floor it lands on “I’m you guys, these things don’t have gems”
Ben and Julie were feeling overwhelmed as another woman, tall and with shades speaks “there must be a mother somewhere” a centipede tries to sneak attack the woman but before she could react Julie kicks it away. The tall woman frowns “we shouldn’t be discussing this with humans nearby”
Ben and Julie blink at each other. Humans? Steven meanwhile notices a centipede raiding the freezer part of the fridge in the home and he swats it away well demanding it leave in a childlike way. He then notices cookie cats inside and gasps “no way, it can’t be!” He pulls out a cookie cat “I thought they stopped making them” The tall woman walks up and shuts the freezer and nods “we heard that to, but would you mind explaining your new associates?”
Ben coughs “sorry, we’re new here and we spotted the statue, Steven here noticed us and offered to tour us around town. He spotted his favorite snack was discontinued and the store worker. We were in the big doughnut by the way. The worker let him keep the fridge so we offered to bring it back here”
The lady nods, seeming pleased enough with the explanation. “My apologies” Ben nods and Julie looks “so were those aliens?” Pearl tries to think of an excuse before amethyst blurts out “yep! Fight them all the time.” Ben frowns “strange…”
Garnet frowns “you do not seem phased by this information” Ben chuckles “surprisingly enough I fight aliens all the time too” she frowns and Ben sighs “yeah…that does sound like bull when I say it like that” Steven frowns as amethyst giggles “oh yeah, with what weapon?” Ben smirks and dials up a transformation “with this!” He slams his arm down and suddenly he turns into ditto, he chose this one because it looked the least threatening.
They all except garnet gasp in horror. Steven gasps in amazement. Julie looks over “shouldn’t you have explained this first?” Ben shrugs “eh, I’m more of a visual explainer” she rolls her eyes and looks over seeing the gems had their guards up, again, except garnet.
Ben and Julie try their best to explain their situation and as they do the gems guards lower. Eventually they finish with “then we fell through a portal and ended up in the woods over there”
Pearl frowns “garnet?” Garnet frowns before saying “I believe them” Pearl gapes at that “so your from another universe?” Ben shrugs having returned to human “universe, dimensions, reality. Dunno which but it’s one of them”
Steven smiles widely “so you’re a superhero!?” Ben chuckles at that “guess I am” Pearl frowns again “so if you’re stuck here why don’t you seem worried?” Ben chuckles and explains who and what professor paradox is and since he wasn’t there this was meant to happen.
Amethyst was frowning “so…time travel?” He nods “yeah, but he can also go though the omniverse, he’s sort of a constant, he’s probably helped you in the past, or will help you in the future”
Amethyst sighs “can we take a break from all this? My head hurts” Julie nods in agreement. Ben looks at Steven “so…that’s the cookie cat right?” Steven looks over at his bar and smiles.
They expected him to just open it and eat it but to Ben and Julie’s surprise he starts to sing what they guess was the commercials theme song. Ben looks over at Julie with a raised brow and she shrugs. Eventually he finishes and takes a bite.
Suddenly a glow is seen from his gut and suddenly a pink shield appears in front of him. Everyone gasps in shock. Pearl gasps the loudest “Steven…it’s your mothers shield”
Julie was confused, his mother’s shield? Where was she? She watches as Steven gets overexcited and the shield launches off. Quickly ship wraps around her forming her mech suit and she grabs it before it smashes into a tv.
She huffs out a sigh of relief having caught it and gently tosses it to Steven who fumbles it and it dissipates. He frowns for a second before he smiles. He was excited he could summon it before he looks to Julie
“Your backpack can become a robot suit!?” Julie blinks in confusion, backp- oh, ship. She smiles “you can demorph ship” her armor morphs into a somewhat bit blob of black and green “ship!” Stars appear in Steven’s eyes as he leans down to pet it
Suddenly a loud rumble is heard, they all run out and spot a giant one of those centipede things “it’s the mother!” Garnet cries out in surprise, she had been completely blindsided.
Ben smirks “good, something to hit” Julie deadpans “seriously?” He frowns looking over “today has been long and stressful!”
Julie shrugs as he turn into diamond head, he shoots some crystals at it but the thing didn’t seemed phased. He blinks in surprise, he had taken a baby one out with one punch as human. He frowns as it sprints at them.
Julie now in ships mech suit fires a blast trying to not damage the statue it was on. It eventually jumps down and starts spitting acid. A splash hits diamond heads arm “YEOW!! Holy that stings!”
Julie grimaces, this was not their best performance. The creature had managed to pin the gems down before Steven suddenly appears with the mini fridge trying to summon his shield.
It wasn’t working, suddenly some acid hits the fridge disintegrating half of it, electricity spilling out since he plugged it in with an absurdly long extension cord. Steven in rage singing the cookie cat song tossed the fridge at the centipede making it get electrocuted.
The gems realizing their opening jump the creature. It suddenly disappears leaving only its eye. Ben and Julie wince at that before garnet forms a sphere around it, she taps the top and it disappears.
Ben looks “hey-“ “when you make it to the street turn right, wait for the intersection and turn left, third building on the right” he blinks “what?” Garnet smiles “that’s where a hotel is”
Julie blinks “how!?” Garnet smirks “I have my ways” Ben shakes his head “cool…” an awkward silence befalls everyone before Steven speaks “I can take you, finish the tour” he says calmly seeming to actually read the room
Julie smiles “we’d love that”
They exit and the gems look to each other in worry, dimensional travel, they thought they’d seen it all but this was close to taking the cake.
Steven shows them around, after a bit he finds the hotel “you know…I don’t remember this place being here…” he mutters to himself. They say their goodbyes.
They enter and manage to get a room. They pay and Ben smiles. They look around and find the room.
Julie opens it and looks around, the place was nice, decently sized for a one bed room. She inspects the blankets and furniture making sure no funny business had happed before they got there. Eventually satisfied she sits on the bed.
Ben smiles at her before his face falls “we’re gonna be here awhile aren’t we?” He mumbles as she rests her head on his shoulder. “We’ll survive this, we always do” he smiles softly at her. He then gets up “I’ll be right back”
She nods and after a minute he returns with six bottles and she looks “are they?”
He smiles “alcoholic? Yeah. Not to much though, just enough to numb the night”
She nods and grabs one, they both open them and move them close together to celebrate their new prison. As they do a third bottle hits theirs “ah, celebrating even though suffering.” A man says with a toned down Scottish accent.
Ben and Julie look over wide eyed “professor! It’s you!”
He smiles and trying to relive the tension he pulls out a gum ball “gum ball?”
They both chuckle and shake their heads, they knew it was thousands of years old.
He smiles softly “I wish I came bringing good news…but sadly I can only give a warning, you will one day return home, but only when the universe demands it worthy…”
Ben frowns “so we should just go with the flow?”
Paradox smiles “In a manner of speaking, and I can say you will not age here, so do not worry of returning to little Eunice as elderly”
They nod and all three chug their drinks and paradox chuckles “be safe you two, I do hope for your survival” he says before disappearing
“…I’m getting more booze” Julie whoops at that chugging another bottle, this was gonna be hell.