**Chapter 1: How Did I Transmigrate to DC? It's Too Dark Here**
"Where the hell did this send me? Am I back in China?"
Just waking up on a bus, Ben Tennyson stepped off and looked around the unfamiliar intersection in confusion.
It was late. The wet asphalt road looked like a shattered mirror, reflecting the dim streetlights and the gloomy silhouettes of skyscrapers.
Several children ran along the street. They didn't apologize after bumping into a passerby; instead, while the passerby was shouting at them, their accomplices quietly swiped the wallet from his back pocket.
Before Ben could step forward to stop them, a thug in a leather jacket across the street snatched a woman's handbag and fled quickly.
Hearing the woman's cry for help and watching the thug disappear into the alley, blending into the shadows, Ben couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
"This place is so chaotic, and the streets are full of foreigners. Did the bus get lucky and hit a wormhole while I was sleeping?"
He had just come out of a Comic-Con, cosplaying as the character sharing his name. Ben hadn't expected that just by taking a nap on the bus, he would be sent to this godforsaken place.
At that moment, a news broadcast playing in a shop window caught the teenager's attention.
"Regarding the recent large-scale kidnapping incidents sweeping through Gotham City, there are new developments. The suspect is suspected to be the rumored Batman. Warning, the following footage may not be suitable for younger viewers."
In the news footage, a black shadow wearing a cape flashed across the surveillance screen in just a few seconds, abducting a victim who was withdrawing money from an ATM...
"Gotham City? Batman? Did I really transmigrate?! But why to DC? This place is way too dark!"
Ben knew that the criminal in the news couldn't possibly be Batman, but that didn't mean Gotham was safe.
What was even more despairing was that even if he left Gotham City, there wasn't a single city in the entire DC Universe that was absolutely safe. Once caught up in a major event, no one could remain an outsider.
"Wait, why do I look like I've shrunk?"
In a trance, Ben looked through the shop window glass and saw that he had actually turned into a fifteen-year-old.
He scratched his hair hard. The brown wig had become real hair, and even his pupils had turned emerald green.
"I turned into 15-year-old Ben Tennyson? Then the toy watch on my hand, could it be..."
He tried pulling hard on the little broken watch on his wrist. Ben was pleasantly surprised to find that he couldn't take it off no matter what.
Seeing the change in the watch, Ben nervously pressed the switch on the original Omnitrix toy on his wrist.
As the dial popped up, a green light flashed. The hourglass pattern's borders interlocked to form a diamond shape. As Ben turned the dial, the silhouettes of 10 alien heroes cycled through constantly.
"Wildmutt, Diamondhead, Heatblast, XLR8, Four Arms, Ripjaws, Grey Matter, Ghostfreak..."
Looking at the alien heroes appearing on the dial, Ben knew that his toy, which originally only had a plastic shell, had turned into the genuine Omnitrix made by Azmuth.
"So cool! It's a real Omnitrix!"
The Omnitrix comes from *Ben 10*. It is a Level 20 technological device created by the Galvan, Azmuth.
It is mainly used to promote communication between cosmic civilizations and break down racial barriers. It also serves as a "Genetic Ark" for endangered species, preserving the DNA of aliens on the verge of extinction.
The initial watch only unlocks ten aliens. As for the remaining one million aliens, Ben could only hope that transforming into Grey Matter would allow him to crack the Omnitrix's master control program.
In addition, after making contact with and scanning the DNA samples of intelligent beings, it can also allow Ben to acquire the ability to transform into the corresponding species.
Therefore, the first thing Ben needed to do now was to leave this hellhole of Gotham City, go to the Daily Planet in Metropolis to find a reporter named Clark Kent, and then touch him with the watch to scan Kryptonian DNA.
Looking at the noisy and chaotic streets of Gotham, and not knowing where the Batman who protects this city had gone, Ben turned and walked into an empty alley, preparing to transform.
Since he wanted to leave Gotham and head to Metropolis, he had to choose the fastest one.
Turning the dial until the image of XLR8 appeared, Ben carefully pressed down on the core of the Omnitrix.
"It's Hero Time!!!"
Accompanied by a flash of green light, Ben's body began to change at the DNA level. Muscles bulged from his wrists, then spread to his entire body.
His skin became tougher, and he wore a black streamlined helmet on his head. His body was primarily black and blue, and the Omnitrix symbol moved to his chest.
His hands transformed into sharp claws, a tail grew from behind him, his legs became like those of a velociraptor, and two black rollers appeared beneath his feet.
In just the blink of an eye, Ben completed the transformation and excitedly shouted the hero's name.
"XLR8!"
Before leaving this city, Ben intended to test XLR8's speed first and adapt to his transformed body.
Lowering the helmet's visor, Ben rushed out of the alley like a blue-black lightning bolt.
In the animation, 10-year-old Ben's XLR8 had a top speed of three hundred miles per hour, while the adult Ben 10,000 could patrol the entire Earth in a few seconds.
At this moment, Ben was only 15 years old. Right now, he was far inferior to Ben 10,000 in both experience and age. But wanting to surpass the XLR8 transformed by the 10-year-old Ben Tennyson was something he could definitely do.
He picked up the wallet that the kids had thrown by the trash can after emptying it, and shoved it back into the passerby's hand.
Because Ben was so fast, the passerby only felt a gust of wind blow past him, and suddenly his wallet was back in his hand.
For Ben, after transforming into XLR8, he felt as if the slow-motion button had been pressed on the whole world.
"Now I should play Quicksilver's theme song. Woo~ ha~~~ Sweet dreams are made of this..."
Humming a tune, Ben passed through several alleys in the blink of an eye and saw the thug in the leather jacket rummaging through the handbag for valuables.
Before the other party could react at all, Ben delivered a light kick, sending the thug flying into a large dumpster nearby.
Catching the handbag that the robber had dropped mid-air after being sent flying, Ben sped along and returned it to the woman who had been robbed.
Having easily helped Batman and the GCPD solve a simple street crime, and after briefly adapting to XLR8's speed and reaction time, Ben began to move at full speed along the Gotham roads.
Now, it was time to leave this hellish place...