Chapter Text
A lone figure sat on a large mountain, overlooking the trees below and watching the sun slowly setting
He sighed, even after traveling the world and being far away from the village, he was still... down.
He reflected on everything that happened in the moments leading up to this
He beat Sasuke, freed the Nine Bijuu from the satellites he sealed them in, causing a fluke accident that caused them all to merge with Kurama, making him the new Ten Tails
He's kept the Sage's power that had been given to him, for some reason, guess the old man thought it would be better for him to keep it or something
Hinata died in the war, saving him, which that hurt for a while
Octopops went soon after at the hands of Madara, leaving him the last Jinchuriki
He tried dating, but nothing went anywhere
He tried being Hokage, but that didn't last more than a week, he loved it for the first hour and a half, then the paperwork rolled in and immediately killed that love, so he just handed the hat back to Kakashi and left, deciding to just explore like he did with Jiraiya
The Elemental Nations were at an ironclad peace, leaving him without anyone to fight, Bandits provided zero challenge
He sighed again, running a hand through his sweaty sun kissed hair, dim blue eyes dimming more, a frown on his face, creasing his whiskers a bit
It felt like, the world...
Didn't need him anymore.
"Well, perhaps because it doesn't, have you thought of that my boy?" He blinked, his eyes brightening up a little before he turned, "Huh?"
Standing near him was a somewhat tall, fair skinned man with black hair with white hair on the side, and black eyes, wearing a steampunk outfit and having a silver gauntlet on his right hand, which was on top of a walking stick, a pair of green goggles around his neck
The man smiled, although it looked strained, "How are you dear boy? I am Professor Paradox, a Time Walker, to put it simply."
Paradox looked at the sunset, a wistful look on his face, "Ah, if only I had more time, but alas, reality is a harsh mistress." He turned back to Naruto and lifted his left hand, going under his coat before he pulled something out and held it out to him, "You are lost, you don't know what to do, or where to go from here, but this world has already been saved by you, however lad, there are countless others that need saving, take this and I will explain more in the limited time I have left."
Held in his open hand, was a small, white and green wristwatch of sorts, with a square black screen, and two green lines making an hourglass shape, with thin black lines down the band of it, blending nicely with the green lines on the white band as well, "This is the Omnitrix, possibly the most powerful device in all of creation, take it and slip it over your left wrist."
Naruto raised an eyebrow, he would have asked Kurama about this, but the fox was hibernating unfortunately, so he mentally shrugged and grabbed it, feeling the weight of it, before slipping it over his left wrist, he looked at it before looking back at Paradox, "What now? What does this Omnitrix even do?"
Paradox smiled, "Well, it allows the one that wields it to well, literally transform into other lifeforms as long as the species has DNA, it can be scanned and unlocked as a transformation, I believe Azmuth made it to, 'Walk a mile in another's shoes', literally, young Benjamin used the Omnitrix to save the universe many times... well, until my timelines Ben met his fate."
"What happened?"
Paradox sighed, "Vilgax arrived, melded with the rogue Galvanic Mechamorph, Malware and infused with a bastardized replicate of the Ultimatrix, he went through everything and everyone before holding Ben down, keeping him from activating the Omnitrix as he used the Annihilargh, he succeeded, the universe was going to be utterly destroyed, I was able to slow time on myself and paused time to grab the Omnitrix, I then left to find someone, anyone, worthy of the Omnitrix, as the moment you put it on, you disconnected it from my timeline, it's apart of your own timeline now."
Paradox then made a motion with his hands, "Activate it like this, touch the screen with your right index finger." Naruto did so, while feeling pretty bad for Paradox, the moment he touched the screen, a green holographic circle appeared above it, showing a set of icons, "Now each of these icons represent your current roster of transformations you have access to, which has been reset to the original 10 Benjamin had started out with, select one and press on the screen again."
Naruto cycled through the icons, before settling on the one that looked like a cyclops of sorts, he pressed against the screen and it slid open, revealing the core within, which was circular, had a green hourglass on it, and glowing green circuitry underneath, he slapped his right hand on it, instantly transforming into a tall, humanoid black and green cycloptic being with glowing green circuitry over the black part of his body, and the Omnitrix badge on his chest, where black lines were attached to on his green chest
He looked at his black and glowing green circuit hands, "Whoa! This is cool, what's this guy?" His voice now had an electric humming tone mixed with his normal tone
Paradox grinned, enjoying the excitement Naruto was showing, "You have become what is called a Galvanic Mechamorph, but Ben called him 'Upgrade' while the younger, alternate dimension version of him called him, 'Techno-Bubble'."
Naruto scratched his chin, humming in thought, "Honestly, out of those two, Upgrade sounds... well, it's good, simple and to the point I suppose."
Upgrade started moving and testing out how abilities, his left hand morphed into a large spiked ball, and his left morphed into an enlarged fist with spiked knuckles before he slammed them together and morphed his combined arms into a large cannon before separating and letting his hands go back to normal
There was a little beeping sound before he turned back to normal in a green light, he looked to Paradox, "What was that?"
"It was the time-out function, that is a function that keeps you from being overwhelmed by the personality of the DNA you've selected, there is one more function as well, which is a wide area scanning function, or 'Capture' function that allows you to scan and obtain new DNA samples to transform into, and the Omnitrix does have voice command and it's own on board AI, although Benjamin never figured this out and as such, never spoke to it either, which is one of the many reasons he kept getting the wrong transformation most of the time due to its frustration with him and providing him the alien best suited for the situation, although most of the time he used brute force, he did favor raw strength a lot oddly enough."
Naruto just stared, "Really? How old was this Ben when he wore this thing?"
Paradox waved his hand in a roll, "Well he gained the prototype when he was 10, then kept it to he was 11, then lost an alien and had it taken off for four years, then put it back on when he was 15 and gained the bootleg Ultimatrix a little bit after the original recalibrated and was destroyed, then when was 16 he gained the Official Omnitrix, which is what you have."
Naruto furrowed his brow, "Seriously? Well, I guess I can't really say anything given my own track record."
Paradox chuckled, "Indeed, but now before my fate catches up to me, allow me to give you one final gift."
He suddenly grabbed the back of the silver gauntlet, and ripped out the circular device out of it, "Hold your hand forward." Naruto held out the Omnitrix, Paradox touched it and the screen slid over, revealing an empty compartment, Paradox then pushed the crackling device into the compartment and the screen slid back over, the Omnitrix gained brief blue glow before going back to normal, Naruto scratched his head, "What was that?"
Paradox smiled, with a resigned look on his face, "That was the core of the Chrononavigator I just put into the Omnitrix, it will allow you to see all the branching timelines and clusters of connected worlds, realities, dimensions, so on, so forth as you can imagine, now then, this is my final note: Use the Omnitrix and become the Hero I know you can be."
He closed his eyes as a purple energy ran over him, completely erasing him and leaving nothing.
Naruto frowned sadly, "Man, he was pretty cool..."
He looked down at the Omnitrix, "So, you can talk right?" It responded almost immediately with a feminine voice, "Yes, I am the built in on board AI of the Omnitrix, what would you like to know?"
He thought it over, "Well, what should I do now? I can go anywhere and whenever I want now, but I don't really know where to start if I want to become a hero, you know?"
It responded, "Why not go to the Prime Timeline at the beginning and shadow Ben? This way you can learn how to use me more efficiently and learn how to be more of a hero at the same time? Plus, you can do something Ben never thought about and kept neglecting, which is my capture mode, Ben hardly ever used that, despite how well he used me, that was a large flaw with him."
Naruto nodded, "Yeah, that sounds like the best option right now, if I'm going to be using you, I'll need to learn from the best wielder right? Alright, let's go!"
"I am activating the Chrononav system, stand ready."
He held out the face of the Omnitrix in front of him, a blue light shining out and forming a swirling blue portal, he went to step through it, but paused for a second before creating a Shadow Clone, "Go tell everyone that I'll be gone, tell them... tell them I said I'll enjoy the memories, and that I'm going for something greater now."
The clone ran off to give the message but Naruto wasn't done yet, he focused and his glowing yellow cloak appeared over his form, he looked up to the moon, "The capture mode works on anything with DNA right?" He didn't give the Omnitrix time to respond before squatting and leaping into the air, flying up to the moon and once he got to the surface, activated the Omnitrix, selecting the ghost looking icon, "If this guy is a ghost alien, he should let me go intangible." He slapped the core and transformed into a thin ghostly alien, with green shackles and chains, a single green eye looking down at the ground underneath him, narrowing before his form inverted it's colors, with him slowly sinking into the moon, he sunk lower and lower until he found what he was looking for, or well, who he was looking for...
Kaguya remained still and silent, sealed within the moon, her arms held up and forced in place, her body locked within, she couldn't move, however her eyes did open, "You, what are you doing here child?" Even transformed, she knew who he was, he looked at the badge on his chest, "Omnitrix, activate capture mode, I want to get out of here as fast as I can."
The green hourglass changed to yellow and glowed brightly as a near unnoticeable wave of energy washed through the room, before fading back to green, "Unrecognized DNA Acquired, new transformation available."
He then turned and left just as fast as he arrived, leaving Kaguya alone once more, he timed out back to normal before he grinned, looking at the portal before running and jumping into it laughing as it closed behind him
He jumped out of the portal, rolled across the ground and sprang to his feet, he dusted himself off and looked around, he was in a forest at nighttime, the moon overhead, he closed his eyes, squatting down and placed his right hand on the ground, stretching his senses, he felt a large amount of people nearby, campers, he figured, before getting up and walking forward, "Hey what was the name of that ghost alien I turned into? What'd Ben call him?" "Ghostfreak, an Ectonurite from the Anur system." "Huh... it's alright I suppose." He held the Omnitrix up, "Hey, you can change my clothes right? I feel like if I'm walking a new path, I shouldn't be wearing my original clothes, you know?"
Instead of responding, the Omnitrix sent a green pulse of energy over his form, he untied his headband as his clothes glowed white before changing
He had on black boots with green accents, white pants that the boots connected to, a utility belt with a red, circular buckle, a skin tight black short sleeve shirt with green colors making an hourglass on it, and white trimmed sleeves and collar, a white and green wristband on his right wrist, he looked at his headband, the replica of the First Hokage's necklace dangling around his neck and over his chest
"I'll keep the headband the way it is, don't want to change that." He opened one of his utility pouches and pushed the headband into it, he then ran a hand through his now loose hair and grinned, "Alright, time to find Ben."
He walked through the forest before seeing a shooting star up in the sky, he then watched it suddenly turn and crash down nearby, he then jogged towards the crash site, sliding to a stop behind a tree, he watched as a ten year old boy with brown hair and green eyes, Ben, obviously, sliding down the side of the trench and approached a steaming spherical container that slowly opened, a bulky object shooting out and attaching to Ben who promptly freaked out before calming down a little and activated it, he turned the dial a little before slamming his hand down and transforming in a green flash into a tall, flaming humanoid with red rocks on his body, he looked at his hands and freaked, running around before stopping and calmed down
"What's that one?" "Heatblast, a Pyronite." "Yeah that tracks, pretty good name though."
Heatblast then started playing around, accidentally lighting the forest on fire, Naruto then facepalmed, but quickly shook his head, "Gotta remember he's 10 right now, I really hope he gets a little smarter with the Omnitrix." "I wouldn't keep hoping on that one."
Naruto's shoulders sagged, "Of course you'd say that."
A few minutes later, Ben was back to normal and the Omnitrix was recharging, but was talking with his cousin, Gwen and his grandpa, Max, explaining about it as he used Heatblast to provide a backfire to snuff out the forest fire he caused after some advice from Max
However an unsettling feeling settled in Naruto's gut as something caused a small quake and people started screaming nearby, Max got up to check it out, while Ben started messing with the Omnitrix, bantering with Gwen before transforming into a large, orange fureed dog like alien with no eyes but a set of gills on the side, Naruto rubbed his chin at the sight of it, "I like it because of the orange, does the gills provide a sort of echolocation? And what does he call this one?"
"Yes, the gills provide him with an echolocation ability and he calls him Wildmutt, he is a Vulpinancer." "Wildmutt huh? Yeah that's pretty good." He quickly jumped up into the treeline and coated his body with chakra to keep himself from being seen by Wildmutt before a few drones appeared and started attacking them, Naruto sighed, "This is gonna take a long time isn't it?"
"Oh you have no idea." He groaned into his hands
After the scuffle with the drones, Ben had turned into a tall, bulky humanoid crystaline alien and went after the large drone attacking the campers, Naruto folded his arms across his chest as he leaned against the branches at the top of a nearby tree, "What's that one?" "Diamondhead, from Petropia, and currently one of three surviving members of it, there's him, Tetrax the bounty hunter and you, at least until later on."
Naruto nodded, "Got it, good name." He watched Diamondhead fight the large drone and eventually used his arms to form a chunky, uneven reflecting shield that reflected the laser and cut the drone in half and making it explode, he sighed as Diamondhead left quickly before he timed out again, "Time to find some place to follow them."
"You don't have to follow him for the entire time, just the more important parts, we can skip a few days until something major happens or when he encounters an alien."
Naruto looked at the Omnitrix, "Sure."
In a flash of blue light, he disappeared from the current point in time, traveling forward
He was excited to see what happens next, as long as it wasn't like what he just witnessed
It was interesting, but Ben kinda gave him a headache with his attitude, which he knew was the pot calling the kettle black, but he couldn't help it Ben reminded him too much of his younger, punk self
Well, whatever happens, should be pretty good at least, hopefully it's something cool