A Certain Scientific Omnitrix: Book 2, Grudge Match.

The Sky Scorcher.

"U-uh.. I don't know about this Mikoto.."

This nervous voice spoke out as a skinny, yet fit boy, wearing a green jacket, black shirt and jeans was pulled into a Japanese Hotspring by a shorter tomboyish girl with medium length chestnut brown hair and brown eyes wearing a middle school uniform.

This boy had a good reason to be anxious. He was from America, and the closest he'd ever gone to bathing together in the same pool as a bunch of other naked men, was in a high school gym room after gym class.

This boy's name was Ben Tennyson.. and the girl pulling him into the bath house, was his best friend Mikoto Misaka.. who as a Japanese girl.. was actually used to the Bath Houses.. and trying to reassure Ben that it wasn't all that bad.

"Seriously Ben.. they're going to seperate guys and girls into different rooms." said Mikoto. "So really it's not going to be a big deal. Come on.. we've been working out all day, and you're tired, you need some relaxation. I'll even pay for all of it.. my treat."

"You're treating me to go into a hotspring with other naked guys?" Ben muttered. "What kind of treat is that?"

Mikoto rolled her eyes as if to say 'yeesh.. Americans'.  "Don't be such a baby, just ignore them, close your eyes and enjoy the hot water... and if you feel uncomfortable, turn into Wildmutt and enjoy the hot water, Wildmutt has no eyes right?"

"And then I will be kicked out for having a giant alien monster beast dog freak out everyone in the bath." said Ben.

Mikoto sighed as she pushed through the door of the Bath House and pulled him up to the front desk. "Try and enjoy it.. please.. you need this. I've never seen you so tense.."

It was true that Ben had been getting rather tense of late. Ever since his fight with Impulser about a month ago, the entire world had discovered his alien powers.. and Academy City's board of Directors had been milking it for all it was worth.

As a city that mainly focused on the studies of Science.. Ben's Omnitrix was the holy grail of scientific discoveries... not only did Academy City have an entire library of information on undiscovered sentient Alien life, but they now had a somebody to advertise it for them.. just like the Level 5s that advertised the Power Developement curriculum of Academy City.

So Ben was now being treated a lot like a Level 5.. being forced to attend formal events, display his powers to foreign visitors, and be on Academy City commercials.. and his school now elected him as a representative. (Even though according to him, he could name several classmates he thought performed much better then him grade wise.)

All in all, it wasn't any more then what Mikoto went through ever since she leveled up to a Level 5. But at least she was used to it.. Ben wasn't, and he gained a lot more attention because of his powers being completely different from the vast amount of espers that dwelled in the city, not to mention that his school didn't actually have any Level 5s.

Mikoto's school, Tokwadai Middle School, was the most prestigious all girls school in the entire world. It had 3 Level 5s including her. The other two were Misaki Shokuhou, the Mental Out.. and Aiko Tokwadai, the Loud Route, whose family actually founded Tokwadai Middle in the first place.

Comparably, Ben's school was quite low on the totem pole, so having somebody like Ben was actually a pretty big issue, especially given the lack of high level espers in his school.

Eventually, though, Ben couldn't really take what the fame was doing. He told Mikoto that had things turned out differently 3 years ago in that incident that caused him to fake his death, he might have been the type who thoroughly enjoyed beinig famous.. but this kind of fame, where everyone was trying to study him and initiate experiments around him, it drove him crazy... At one point, he snapped during a press appearance, turning into Big Chill and phasing into the ground, refusing to come up until everyone had gone away.