"Ow.. ooohh.." 

Ben blearily opened his eyes. 

Blurs and colors filled his vision. He could barely comprehend his own consciousness, or even his own existence as his mind felt almost as rattled as a fish in a little baggy held by a toddler. 

"Easy.."

A soothing female voice spoke as Ben felt a pair of gentle hands readjust his head on the soft pillows that held his cranium aloft.  The girl's warm and soft fingers smoothed his hair over before placing a soaked towel over his burning forehead. 

"Wh-who.. wh-where?" Ben groaned. "G-Gwen? 'S dat you..?"

"Hmmm, I hope Gwen isn't my competition in your world my dear, heheh."  

Ben's vision cleared to reveal the face of a beautiful young woman with shimmering green eyes and light colored hair tied into twin tails. 

"Ophelia." Ben muttered as his vision mind finally cleared up, and his memories of the past weeks started to sweep back in.

He remembered it all..

He was a Super Hero called Ben 10, who had the ability to transform into super powered aliens, but then for some reason he had been kidnapped, had his memories rewritten temporarily and thrust into another alternate world where he and other heroes were supposed to kill each other for survival in something called a Radiant War..

He had instead tried the approach of allying with the heroes, and so far managed to ally with The Killer, The Fairy and after a hard fight, the Vampire who was now tending to him..

 "What happened?"

"The Demon happened that's what." said Ophelia. "We got attacked. You've been out.. er.. for a while."

"H-how long?"

"2 weeks."

"T-Two-!?"

Ben made to sit up, but felt his entire spine and stomach ache as he struggled to do so. 

He was only dressed in a pair of pajama pants with bandages wrapped around his chest. 

"Easy, easy, the Omnitrix doesn't heal you as fast as my Vampiric blood with me." said Ophelia. "Though even my healing's been considerably slow. Just look at my body.. "

"Ophelia.. whoa.." Ben murmured as he looked at Ophelia. 

Ophelia wore a sleeveless black top and a pair of denim shorts, so the bandages on her body, along with the copious amounts wrapping around her left arm could be seen clear as day. 

Ophelia blushed. "I-it seems one of the Demon's skills is known as Gate Seal. Her power allows her to seal away abilities that rely on drawing things from other worlds or entities in differing locations, as a result I can't heal as well as I normally do."

"You have a power like that?"

"Of course." said Ophelia. "I have the blood of the Raven Dragon, or at least its avatar, so I draw power from its real body in its own dimension."

"Real body?" Ben muttered. 

"Indeed. Remember Shub Niggurath. Do you truly believe that was her true body?" asked Ophelia. "Nope. It's more like her video game avatar. She sits behind the controls back in her own dimension while that shell with a small fragment of her power operates in lower dimensions. She's far too powerful to actually operate in this world using her real body."

"Like the Eldrazi in MTG." Ben muttered.

"Of course, where do you think the Wizards of the Coast company got the idea for the Eldrazi in that card game?" asked Ophelia. "They're based of Lovecraftian lore."

Ben shook himself for a moment. "Dang I hope everyone's okay.. Hanzo, Erice, are they  alright?"

"Oh they're okay. They've been making excuses for you and everything. In fact they've been staying over for the past two weeks too." said Ophelia. "It's like I said to you before. Having fragments of my territory spread out under most of the city is a pretty big advantage. None of the other contestants anywhere will dare go after us."

"Except the Demon.." Ben muttered.

Well not her either. She's powerful, but if she doesn't have the ability to activate her own Radiance where I have my Radiance like you did with help from Erice, then it's likely I'll still exhaust her and give her quite a few injuries." said Ophelia. "That presents an opportunity for everyone else to defeat her, which they DEFINITELY will take considering how much of a nuisance her immense power is."

"You sure she thinks like that?" asked Ben. 

"I'm sure of that much. This isn't the first time I've managed to spy her in action, and in battle at least, she's definitely  no idiot." said Ophelia. 

"Good, guess her being smart keeps us alive until we know how to deal with her." Ben muttered. "If we can figure out where she lives at least, maybe we can talk under momentary truce?"

"Ben I don't think it's that simple. We have to figure out what sort of person she is first, if she'll even keep her word if we request a truce. Just because she's a hero, doesn't mean she's a good person." said Ophelia. "The three of us discussed things quite a bit, and we decided right now, the best strategy is to get me and you back into fighting shape before we really start going at it."

"Got it.." Ben said.

Ophelia went pink for a moment, and smiled. "U-uh, I never really got to thank you.. you know.. for saving me?"

"I mean its what I do, plus you're my friend, I can't possibly just leave you to wallow in your own guilt." said Ben. "Something tells me I know how it feels.."

"Indeed, I'd say every good hero has experienced it now and then." said Ophelia. "B-but to me you're beyond just a 'good hero'. Ben umm.."

Ophelia slowly began to remove her shirt as she pressed her body against Ben's chest.

"E-eh!?" Ben stammered. "Ophelia why are you getting naked? I-is this a vampire thing?"

"Would you like it to be?" Ophelia whispered as her eyes turned scarlet and her fangs grew out. "After all.. I know plenty are turned on by that sort of thing right? Doing it with a vampire."

"Doing what? " Ben said, blinking obliviously. 

"Heheheheh, you are sooo oblivious.." Ophelia whispered, smirking,, her lips drawing closer and closer to Ben's. "But it makes you so much cuter. Don't worry, I'll take away that innocence soon enough. Consider this my thank you present.. for my closest.. dearest.. of friends."

"FOOOOOOMMM!!" Suddenly the screen door was slammed open as none other than Erice Tsukuyomi, dressed in gym shorts and a sports bra, sweating as if she had just been out for a morning jog, stood framed in the doorway, glaring furiously at Ophelia.  Her neatly cut black hair with a red streak shimmering in the little daylight coming through the window, her angry pinkish-red eyes staring straight at the shocked blood red vampire eyes that had just moments before been transfixed in Ben's green ones. 

"I-.. I will go help Deca prepare breakfast!!" Ophelia squealed, dashing out of the room frantically. 

"O-Ophelia!? Wh-what!?" Ben stammered.

Ben looked up at Erice, opening his mouth to ask her what that was all about, but stopped when he saw the beautiful black haired girl, her face the very image of fury incarnate, raising her bare foot. 

"YOU ABSOLUTE JERK BEN TENNYSON!!" Erice screamed, tears of rage flying from her eyes while she stomped straight on his still healing gut. 

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!" Ben squealed with pain, his very cry of shock causing the birds roosting in the garden outside to fly out into the morning sun. 

___________________

"You look like you've been through hell Boss.."

Hanzo said this as he brought a spoonful of rice and tonkatsu pork to Ben's mouth in the dining area where the low coffee table was set up.. 

The green haired Deca was humming cheerily as she busied herself in the kitchen. A maid's apron tied over her strange green custom dress. 

It was probably  the first time Ben had ever seen her in the kitchen doing things, as it had usually been him who took care of any domestic ordeals by his own insistence, much to the artificial human's chagrin plenty of times. 

"Ah.. well.." Ben took a pause to eat the food Hanzo offered him, feeling slightly embarrassed he still couldn't use his arms well enough to feed himself.  "Hanzo.. what's your take on girls?"

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. He then looked at Ophelia and Erice who were both seated opposite of each other, silently eating their food, determinedly not looking at each other. He immediately seemed to put two and two together.

"Well they're more emotional, and take words spoken more seriously than guys usually would. Because of that, when they care for somebody, they can get extra confusing to the likes of us." said Hanzo. "My sister in particular's a huge headache when she sets her mind on something or starts thinking about me."

"You have a sister?" Ben asked. 

"Oh yeah. I wonder how she's doing from time to time. Hopefully the gods have her good and fooled on my whereabouts and such and she's not worrying." said Hanzo. "She gets troublesome when she's worried. Most girls do. When they set their minds on doing something, females can be downright terrifying."

"No joke." Ben muttered as he watched Erice silently pick up her dishes and bring them to the sink. "And they hurt.. a lot... physically."

Hanzo snorted. "Wait, did Erice actually hit you while you were still healing boss!?"

Ben explained the situation in undertone and Hanzo began to laugh.

"Shit, either you're the luckiest guy on Earth, or the unluckiest! Do ya know how much I'd pay to have somebody like Erice or Ophelia feeling the way they do to you towards me instead? I mean even by the standards of nonrealistic supermodels, they're amazing."

"Huh!?" Ben said. 

"Ben, don't tell me that your parents haven't at least explained the Dragons and the Hummingbirds to ya."

"It's the Birds and Bees where Master Idiot comes from." Deca said, as she stooped down next to Ben and placed a cup of tea in front of his bowl. 

"Heh, right, well I guess you probably never dated much." said Hanzo. 

"Actually I did."

At these words, Ophelia and Erice, who had just returned to the table and therefore were JUST coming within earshot of the hushed conversation, both whirled around.

"Y-YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!?" stammered Erice.

"Y-You're spoken for!?" Ophelia squeaked. 

"She's gone." said Ben. "I only just remembered her the day me and Ophelia fought. "

"Oh.." Both girls looked relieved. 

Ben frowned, leaning forward a little. "It.. feels so weird not being able to remember her name though. Or how we even ended our relationship. Something tells me we didn't even decide to do it. 

Ophelia and Erice both looked at each other, this time their faces displaying a different type of worry. 

Even Hanzo was now folding his arms, looking down and closing his eyes. 

"What's up now?" Ben asked. 

"Ben, I wouldn't lie if I didn't say that the gods.. or maybe just the goddess now that we know about the whole thing, is cruel in her own way." said Erice. "What you're going through is only the beginning." 

"What do you mean?" Ben asked. 

"We're heroes Ben." said Ophelia. "Different kinds of heroes, from different kinds of worlds, but there are plenty of things we have in common, namely the downsides of the job."

"Loved ones dying, getting killed in vengeance by the enemies we make. It's a common hazard." said Erice. "As your memories come back, you're going to have to brace yourself for relearning some shocking stuff."

"C-come on, look at me!" Ben said. "I mean do I seem like a tragic grim hero type whose life was shaped by tragedy? I mean, I hope I'm not overstepping by saying this, but Hanzo's more that than I am! And you guys taught me that even when the goddess takes memories, she doesn't take our actual personalities or selves. Part of a way to let us fight with our normal skills."

"Well yes." said Hanzo. "True enough, your attitude and demeanor make it highly likely you're mostly the lucky hero whose managed to keep loved ones out of harm's way. But that just means either you're lucky, or you're exceptionally strong, or managed to detatch yourself from the whole ordeal. You definitely don't want it to be the last option, it's not healthy."

"And if I'm exceptionally strong?" Ben asked. 

"Well that doesn't make rediscovering what happened hurt any less." said Ophelia. "Trust me. I've had 10,000 years to get used to blood and death. But the first time I remembered the murder of my family months ago.. I cried for hours."

Ben frowned. What kind of horrors was his past hiding. He was almost afraid to remember. 

"You're the newest guy to the Radiant War, but you've got something we never had. Us." said Hanzo. "We'll help you pull through it."

Ben smiled slightly at this. "Huh, we really are a team now aren't we?"

"Thanks to you." said Ophelia. 

Ben blushed slightly. "Eheh don't flatter me like that.. heheheh."

"He's still an idiot." Deca said. 

"Vmmmmm..." The sound of a phone vibrating on a counter caught Ben's ear at that point. 

Bemused, he watched as Erice suddenly picked up Ben's cellphone which was charging in a corner and put it to her ear. "H-hey Mika! You still plan on visiting later-?"

"Wh-wha?" Ben muttered.

"How do you think we've been keeping your other friends off our backs while you were konked out of your mind?" Hanzo muttered. "Homura-san's already ticked off enough that Ophelia and Erice are the ones looking after your sorry self."

"R-really?"

"There wasn't much choice." said Ophelia. "We can't bring you to a traditional hospital, and I myself was a doctor once upon a time. One of the many professions I picked up over my long lifespan. I needed to be here. We had you on a ventilator at one point."

"J-just how much did the Demon rough us up?" Ben stammered. 

"You don't want to think about it." growled Hanzo. "Trust me. If you'd seen your body after you nearly go incinerated. If it wasn't for that weird alien you turned into using Ophelia's DNA and Erice bathing you in the sacred water of the Lady of the Lake, you'd just be a sentient piece of meat or dead."

"Weird Alien?" Ben asked. "Which one?"

"Not any of the 10 we've already seen that's for sure." said Ophelia. "It was... almost vampiric. I think your Omnitrix might've mistaken my genetic info for another alien creature that was the spawn of the Raven Dragon like the vampires of my world.  I only caught a glimpse of it though.. a flash of fangs and then boom, we got hit."

Ben scratched his head. "Well I guess it might be in the current database.. let's take a look."

Ben activated the hologram dial on the Omnitrix's faceplate with a trembling finger and began cycling through the holograms. But he had only just gotten past XLR8 and Humungousaur when his finger suddenly froze in shock. 

"G-guys? Sh-should this actually be possible..?"

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't look like the alien we saw, nothin' close. Looks kind of cool though.. kinda looks like that dumb Ultraman show.."

Ophelia however, looked shocked. She of course, having faced the very alien herself, knew it well.. 

"H-how? Y-you shouldn't be able to access that one! Not after your Radiance ended!"

"Wait, don't tell me THAT is-." Hanzo began. "Shit.."

"It still says I  only have around 12 available.. " Ben began.

"Ben!" Erice interrupted the conversation, holding the phone still. "Mika needs help! Apparently a pervert just broke into her house!"

______________________

A few moments earlier..

Homura Mika sighed as she held her mug close to her lips and blew on it quietly before taking a careful sip. 

She felt so lonely.

With Tay in America and Ben unconscious for weeks, Mika had found herself the subject of almost complete isolation that month.  

Even with Erice and the new exchange student Ophelia visiting her now and then, it was occasionally. And visiting Ben herself never really helped anything as he was always sound asleep. 

She pouted, glaring down at the coffee in her mug, her legs kicking around under her dining table. 

To say she was jealous was an understatement. Since when did Ophelia become close enough to Ben that she was the one staying at his house to care for him? 

Erice she could understand a bit since those two got kind of close over time, and Mika herself managed to witness it. But Ophelia's sudden care for Ben seemed just that: Sudden.

Just what was with all these girls suddenly falling over Ben like a super blanket sale? 

"Mmmmmmggghhh.. " Mika grumbled. "This is just making me go stir crazy... THAT's it! I can't take it anymore. I don't care who those two are, o-or how beautiful and cute they might be. I-I am his childhood friend!" 

Mika stood up, slamming her mug back down on the table. "I'll be the one to care for him, I don't care if they try to run me out by force!!!"

Mika picked up her phone and dialed Ben's number. 

As she did so.. she heard something near her door.. a strange woosh followed by a clunk, as if it had just opened rapidly, then shut quickly and quietly. 

"Wha-?" Mika murmured, standing up, still holding the phone to her ear.

"H-hey Mika! You still plan on visiting later today?" Erice's voice answered on the other line. 

"Sorry Tsukuyomi-chan, umm I might need you to call the police." Mika said, peering over to her door, which still looked shut.  "I think I have an unwanted guest."

Mika looked down fearfully, and confirmed it. Her welcome rug had been shifted upwards as if somebody had stepped on it and accidentally shifted its position as they walked out.

"ZZZZZmmm.." 

Mika blinked at the strange sound that now seemed to be coming from upstairs. "Tsukuyomi-chan, I think they might be upstairs now."

"Homura! Listen to me, I'm coming over!" Erice said frantically. "Don't do anything stupid! Stay out of sight!"

Mika suddenly felt absolutely annoyed as the image of Erice grinning and flexing her athletic body in front of a swooning Ben played across her mind. 

"I-I'm perfectly capable of handling the situation Tsukuyomi-chan!!" snapped Mika as she picked up a frying pan from the kitchen and hurried upstairs. 

"Wh-wha!? No this isn't about handling yourself! What if the guy has a gun!? Homura-chan? Homura-chan!"

"Heheheheheheh" Mika slid close to the door that led into her bedroom. She could hear the gleeful chuckles of the stranger as she drew close to the crack in her door and peered in. 

A strange boy was in there with his back to the door.

His youthful asian face was visible in the large mirror near Mika's closet. Young, spirited, and calm would probably be its normal expression if Mika had to take a guess, but at the moment his face looked red, gleeful and blood was dripping from his nostrils, ruining the image, his snow white cloud-like tufty hair bouncing in his happy perverted revelry. 

 He was dressed in a pure white trench coat with a high collar that seemed hide half the lower half of the boy's face.  He wore what appeared to be a pure white police hat with a golden winged badge on the front that said TPD on it. 

He also wore a belt that seemed to possess a number of strange buttons and dials in certain segments, and much to Mika's horror, he had a strange looking, but quite real seeming silver hand gun holstered to his hip. 

Mika gulped and held up the frying pan as she slipped in.

"These are the best!" squealed the boy as he brought up a pair of Mika's pink floral patterned panties. "I know I was just here to gather info! But honestly this girl's also top notch in her own way! HAHAHA eheheh!!"

Mika bit her lower lip and swung at the boy's head. 

"FMMMMM!" suddenly the boy disappeared as a blur zoomed out of Mika's reach.

"FMMM!!" The boy returned to normal speed, appearing standing next to Mika's window, his gloved hand on a dial attached to his belt. 

"E-EEEEK!" the boy stammered. 

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" Mika screamed, dropping her phone and waving her frying pan around frantically. 

The boy turned the dial on his belt again, and he immediately turned into a hyperspeed blur, dodging every single one of Mika's swings before appearing behind her back at normal speed. 

"H-HOLD on lady! U-uh! Honestly I'm not actually here to look at your panties! Th-though I have to admit they smell nice!!"

"YOU CREEEEEEP!" Mika screamed, swinging her frying pan at the boy's face. 

The boy turned into a blur again, reappearing next to the door. 

"L-look, you wouldn't happen to be able to calm down and- UAAAAAGGGHH!" the boy dove forward, ducking down to avoid the frying pan that had just been thrown at him. 

"OOOMPH!" the boy collided with Mika, momentarily dazing her. 

"U-uggghh.." Mika groaned, as she felt something very strange on her chest, as if something were squeezing her breasts like a pair of stress balls. 

She looked over to find that the boy had fallen on top of her, and was looking absolutely gleeful, blood exploding from his nose as he felt Mika's breasts. 

"EEEEEEHEEEEEEE!! HEAVEN!!!" squealed the boy. "U-uh ehem I mean.. SORRY YOU'RE TOO HOT!!" the boy leaped back as Mika now began sobbing and throwing everything at the boy she could get her hands on. 

"S-so I'm just going to leave now! And eventually you'll- EEAAAAAHHHH!!" The boy was forced to dodge as an entire dresser whizzed by his head. "OKAY BYE!!!"

The boy opened the door, only for a blue and black blur to slam straight into his face and sent him smashing into the other end of Mika's room. 

Mika fell to her knees, her face pale with shock. 

Forget the super fast pervert.. Now standing in her room was a tall, blue dinosaur-like creature with wheels for feet  and wearing an armored jumpsuit standing in the middle of her bedroom. 

XLR8 glared furiously at the white trenchcoated boy, flexing his sharp claws.  "Alright shithead!! Legitimately I have NO puns for this one. I'm just here to beat the ever living crap out of you!!""