A Certain Scientific Omnitrix: Book 3, Magical Warfare

An Unknown Dark Past

"I do not understand you Ben Tennyson." said the tree monster. "I have analyzed your situation in Academy City, your fight against the darker systems that seek to twist you to their will, and yet you have not gone the way of the Accelerator or the Impulser. The darkness has not ripped you apart. Yet all my calculations of human emotions say it is not possible to avoid such a fate..how?"

"You're really asking me that?" said Ultimate Way Big. "I'm kinda wondering if I should be answering a simulated intelligence that really isn't a living thing. And come to think of it.. isn't curiosity an emotion?"

"I merely simulate curiosity for the sake of the knowledge of my masters."

"Fine." said Ultimiate Way Big. "If your masters really wanna know.. it's that the Darkness did swallow me at one point. I was nearly obliterated by it.. I think it finally completely engulfed me when I was 14. For 2 months, I beat my way through the streets.. that's something not many people know.. cause I have to say, a year ago I was pretty good at covering my tracks. Then I met one guy who changed everything.. but's that's as far as I'll go.. if your masters wanna find out how I get through things.. they shouldn't send half baked tree weapons!!!"

And with that, Ultimate Way Big charged the monster once more..

______________

Ben remembered it like it was yesterday, his time in Academy city. Like a stone engraving made into a timeline, permenantly etched in his mind.

The time line was made into a pretty general scale. Year one, he was 13, he faked his death with the help of Gwen and Grandpa Max and accepted Aiko's offer to go to school in Academy City. Year two, he fell into a dark place. His loss of faith in the Universe, in the good of humanity, involved him deep within the dark side of Academy City. Two months later.. one of his friends found out about his dark involvement.. and he returned to his senses just barely, one year later, he met Mikoto Misaka, and his darkness was wiped clean by her wonderful pure love. And now.. present day.

Ben had only been in the darkness for 2 months.. he wasn't so brittle, that he'd break permanently. Though he didn't think much of it, Touma and Mikoto told him plenty of times that he was one of the strongest people they knew.

Ben didn't think so. When he first started with the Omnitrix, he acted like a complete goofball and pretended things were a joke to hide his fear of messing up. After all, as a hero, his actions tended to determine if someone lived or died.

At age 14, Ben had completely lost faith that any of his actions could do anything to save anyone.. there was too much hate in the world, too much bad, with not enough good... and so Ben worked in the dark. ITEM wasn't the first hired gun organization for Espers Ben had ever met. ALIEN had been an organization founded by Esther Miyagi, a level 4 who found Ben traversing the streets, and witnessed Wildmutt power down some simpleton thugs.

"How would you like to do what you did just now? But get paid for it?" Esther had asked.

Ben had shrugged and said. "Sounds interesting."

ALIEN had been made up of 5 members, including Ben. The other 4 members were all Level 4s. And while Esther was technically the leader who organized missions and black op jobs, Ben was the most prominent member, earning the team their name.

Ben had been asked before, that year he met Mikoto, by Misaki if he was prepared to delve into the Dark Side of Academy City, and Ben had meant it, when he said he'd seen the darkness before. ALIEN did many similar jobs to ITEM, usually given jobs that involved some pretty questionable work..

Ben refused to kill anybody, he wasn't that far gone. But he wasn't that unimpartial towards anything else.

Then, one day, Ben was given a new job..