Ben 10 is the combined property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. No copyright infringement intended. I'm kidding. You'll only want to forget about 7 minutes of it. Please note I do have a life outside writing terribly poor quality fanfiction during my free time. If I don't update for a few weeks or months or years it's because I'm busy doing things that actually matter.
Our sordid tale begins in a moonlit forest of indeterminable origin, where the most evil creature known to man was on the hunt for prey. That creature, was man. His prey, the poor innocent trees. More specifically, he was an evil French-Canadian lumberjack named Ax-Crazy Pierre. He got that name not because he was highly mentally unstable but because he was crazy for axes and loved collecting them. He was still a very evil man who wanted to maim poor innocent trees when no one was looking.
"Haw, haw," Pierre said as he rubbed the end of his traditional lumberjack mustache between his fingertips with malicious environmentally destructive intent, advancing toward the vulnerable tree. "I'm gonna chop this innocent pine down while no one's around to stop me. Then it's gonna become paper someone will draw some terrible Rule 34 of your favorite childhood cartoon characters on, haw haw haw! It's gonna be really bad. They might as well have used the paper to wipe their ass. And then all that oxygen will be gone forever. And also there will be many homeless squirrels. By the way, if you suspected this would be a Doctor Animo episode based on my voice, congratulations. You're right! Haw ho ho evil laugh."
He swung his ax, cutting a gash into the poor pine's trunk, grunting with a reused sound effect from the old Ben 10 library. That was Animo getting tossed roughly to the ground in Animo and the Mutant Ray. What the fuck. They couldn't pay Schultz enough to record more lines? No wait, they've reused OS sound effects in OV too so I can't make this fake rant work out like intended. Oops. Moving on.
Something else was in the forest that night beside the tree killing lumberjerk.
Something odd. Something incredibly stupid.
Pierre looked around with comically exaggerated confusion. "Huh? Wha? What smells like bacon flapjacks and ass?" He pressed a hand to his nose, gasping as he noticed the sickeningly sweet but sour odor was accompanied by an eerie light blue fog. He began to cough. He turned his face away from the revolting smell.
And there it was in front of him. The magnificent, the unspeakable, the unmemorable...Forgeti!
"HOLY SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK!" Pierre screamed in a mix of fright and arousal. Then he passed out.
He woke up an unspecified amount of time later, missing both his pants and wallet that had been in one of the pockets.
"My God! What happened?" he cried, rubbing his aching head. He sat up and looked around, distressed. "I don't remember any events that previously transpired over the last few hours or minutes! However long it's been! And where are my pants?"
He screamed in agony.
"SCENE TRANSITION," Ben yelled, hands in the air. "Hi, everyone." He waved to no one in particular. "I bet you missed us, didn't you?" He dropped his smile, hung his head in shame and shook it. "Ha, I'm kidding. Of course you didn't."
Gwen fumed, stomping her precious little foot. "BEN!" She held up a book titled The Forgeti, The Illuminati, Work From Home Offers, Global Warming, And Other Made Up Bullshit Only Stupid People Believe In, Like The Ones Who Bought This Book by I.M. Richer. "The Forgeti is totally a real thing. Just because you don't believe in it doesn't mean it isn't real."
"Oh, come on, Gwen. Remember when you used to be the somewhat level-headed and rational one?" Ben waltzed off to join Grandpa Max in the middle of a busy intersection of the hiking trail. "I can't believe the villains in this show get better characterization than the main cast of heroes. God, I hope season 2 makes things a bit better for this show instead of worse." Ben hung his head again. "Oh, who am I kidding?"
Gwen had her button nose buried in the book as she walked. "It says here the Forgeti protects the forest from evil. Like Captain Planet, only smellier. And slightly hairier. That's so cool!"
"Oh, poor naive Gwen," Ben said, assuming his cockiest face. He turned to her. "The Forgeti doesn't exist because it's a really stupid concept that only some really terrible writer would ever conceive. And even if it did exist, it would have to spend its entire waking existence realizing how dumb its own existence was due to being an intelligent primate species capable of self-reflection. So you'd never see it. It would be too busy hiding itself in shame."
"Grandpa, Ben's trying to crush my childishly innocent hopes and dreams!" Gwen yelled.
"Ben, don't be so hard on Gwen. You know she can't help her reinterpreted lovably naive idiot sidekick characterization," he said, taking a photo of some moss growing on the side of a nearby tree. "You guys aren't supposed to be catting at each other anymore, you know. The reboot got rid of all that. We can't have too much character development in these new generation shows. The children might start thinking and stop buying."
"Sure, whatever, but this is a fanfic and I can act however I want," Ben grumbled, folding his arms. "Providing the narration allows me."
"Why can't we just act like we do in this canon? Sweet and nice and funny, and sort of heroic when we need to be. Why does everything have to be mean-spirited and vulgar and contain trace amounts of skeevy rape jokes?" Gwen frowned with profound sadness, gaining audience sympathy.
"I don't know," Ben said. He stared blankly into the blue sky peeking through the tree tops. "I just don't know. Maybe it's because writing incoherent mean spirited bullshit over the past 30-40 minutes is a lot easier than hand crafting intelligent stories that take far more time and effort to plan and write and edit." His train of philosophical reasoning derailed immediately with an intrusive thought of his awesome Cy-Bear. "I wish somebody'd write an AU fic where I actually got the Cy-Bear from Need For Speed."
Gwen narrowed her eyes. "Ben, are you ever gonna stop talking about that stupid thing?"
"No, I'm not." He turned away from his adorably annoying cousin and pouted. "Okay, maybe I'll stop talking about it when you stop talking about the stupid Forgeti that doesn't exist."
"It does exist," Gwen said with utmost certainty. "And we'll see it today because we're totally going to find it in the next 10 minutes or so!" She grabbed Ben's arm and dragged him away into the forest. "Come on, Ben, we've only got 9 minutes and 45 seconds!"
"Okay, the time thing isn't funny anymore," Ben said, digging his sneaker heels into the dirt uselessly as he was dragged against his will. Gwen had somehow amassed the strength of a thousand hyperactive chipmunks in her otherwise small and weak ten year old girl body for the sake of the plot. "And also NO, I DON'T WANT TO GO ON THIS STUPID FORGETI HUNT! IT'S EMBARRASSING!"
"Aw, come on, kids. Give it a chance. You never know. It could turn out to be some actual fun for a change," said Grandpa Max. "Hey, we might even see a giant salamander around on this hiking trail. I'll make it my screen saver. On my smartphone. Which we now all have because media reflects current technology. Except for those retro-y nostalgia cartoons created by rich millennials that still feature strange devices known as VHS tapes and make a million references to both the well known and obscure pop culture of the '80s and '90s they grew up with."
He gasped, noticing a rare fungi on a rock a few feet away.
"Ooh! Time for me to wander off out of this scene so you kids can get introduced to this episode's new obnoxious side characters. See ya later."
And he was gone.
"Good thing this is a G-rated kid's show. The adults in charge of us sure do love to leave two ten year olds alone for extended periods of time when there's creeps and weirdos and cartoonishly ineffectual attempted murderers about," said Gwen. "That doesn't work out so good in real life as it does here."
She turned around to see Ben was in the midst of trying to chew his own arm off.
"What?" Ben glared. "I wasn't trying to get away. I got hungry."
Gwen gave an angry sigh and pulled some trail mix out of her shorts pocket. She tossed it to Ben who tore open the bag and began to devour it ravenously.
"I can't believe this show has me acting like the smartest one here at times," Ben grunted through a mouthful of M&Ms and peanuts. "It's weird."
"You'll get used to it," Gwen said. "Just like I got used to being turned into a blissfully adorable saccharine idiot who does anything the plot wants me to." She pressed fingers into her dimples and giggled. "Tee hee!" She stopped smiling and urged Ben further into the forest. "Now enough talking. Let's find that Forgeti!"
"Ha ha, you seriously believe in that legend?" came a voice from behind the pair of children.
Stranger danger.
Ben and Gwen turned. Two bearded douchebags wearing scarves came walking up.
Ben screamed and pointed. "GWEN, LOOK OUT! HIPSTERS!" He was about to smack the Omnitrix when Gwen grabbed his hand and shook her head. "Oh, come on, Gwen! These guys look like total assholes. They've got to be the villains for this episode."
"No Ben, I think they're just two weirdos who need to be here to move the plot along," she said. "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. I have to anyway because I'm forever sweet and accommodating to all." Gwen turned and smiled at them.
"Yeah, well I don't! My characterization is moderately salvageable," Ben grumbled and crossed his arms again, tighter this time, briefly cutting off the circulation in the process. "But fine. Whatever."
"El oh el, you believe in the Forgeti that isn't real. It's about the fakest thing in existence," said the fat hipster, he and his nondescript partner having overheard the children's unreasonably loud conversation as they approached.
"The Forgeti doesn't exist so there's no point in looking for it. That's like, a major logical fallacy if I ever heard one," said the skinny hipster.
Ben scrutinized them, raising a brow. "Are you two guys relevant to the plot or not?"
The fat hipster shrugged. "I dunno. Are we?"
The two laughed obnoxiously and walked away.
Ben turned to Gwen. "I'm not sure what we're supposed to be taking away from our interaction with those guys." He rubbed his chin, pondering. "On one hand, they're typical seeming sarcastic hipster douches. On the other hand, they might provide some adequate comedy relief that's been so lacking from the given side characters in this show." He removed the hand from his face and placed it on his hip, raising the other to gesture while he spoke. "Also are they supposed to be just friends, or related, or together or something? Is it up for interpretation?"
Gwen slapped Ben on the back. "I ship them no matter what! Two guys standing together is my OTP. But no one cares about background or side characters on this show. They're really not interesting like the ones from the past series and will be lost to obscurity as time ravages. Like the entirety of this show. Okay, now come on. I think I see something in the bushes over there!"
"Wait, Gwen. It could be a bear," Ben said. He paused for a moment of deep thought. If he could capture a bear, he'd have one half of the Cy-Bear of his dreams at hand for free. "On second thought, cool! Let's check it out." Next he pondered how to obtain some missiles and a laser.
"I bet it's the Forgeti," Gwen yelled happily. She skipped off to investigate.
"Yeah, right," Ben said. "You think we're gonna run into the mysterious motivator of this story that quickly?"
"Well, it's already 2 minutes and 28 seconds in! Something's gotta happen!" Gwen called.
The kids ran deep into the heart of the forest. Ben found Gwen standing in awe of a large malformed shape hidden in the shadows.
"It's a Forgeti!" Gwen whimpered with teary joy. "Now I can prove to everyone I'm not crazy for believing so hard in this utterly nonsensical myth I read about on the internet and also this book I purchased for $19.99." She held up the book before stepping in front of the creature.
"Forgetiiiiiii," the creature moaned from the shadows.
"Oh great and powerful Forgeti, please forgive us for trespassing in your forest," Gwen said. "We mean you and the forest no harm. We're friends of the ecosystem! We're kids who grew up with FernGully: The Last Rainforest and it left a huge impact on us."
She was confused as to why the Forgeti started cracking up at that revelation. She gasped when a familiar voice came from the shadowy shrubbery.
"Oh, man! That piece of preachy crap?" The fat hipster poked his head out of the leaves. "I bet you only liked it because Tim Curry sang 'Toxic Love' and you write FernGully fanfiction about him with your edgy evil fairy Mary Sue, and Zak and Pips slash."
"Ha, I bet you don't even know they made a terrible sequel to that movie," said the skinny hipster, stepping out from the bushes, revealing he was carrying the fat hipster on his shoulders to appear as the much taller but still fake Forgeti.
"Dude, how are you managing to hold that other guy up?" Ben gasped.
"Hey, most of this is water retention," said the fat hipster. "I'm actually very light. Thanks for being so rudely assumptive! You little fat shamer."
"W-what? The Forgeti wasn't real? My hopes and dreams," Gwen whimpered with renewed sadness overtaking the joy she had previously felt. Her bottom lip trembled. She looked up at the trolls meekly. Her eyes twinkled wetly with sad welling tears of sadness. "I do not write FernGully slash fiction. I just liked the movie and thought it had a good message." She lowered her gaze to the ground with growing shame of her public embarrassment.
The hipster guys laughed. One took out his phone and snapped a quick memento of the aftermath of a vicious trolling.
"Hahahaha! Dude, look at your face. It's so sad and cute and broken. You were all like, oh my gosh, the Forgeti is totally real! And then you were like, oh, it's those two guys we met before who so totally trolled me into thinking the Forgeti was real! Now my hopes and dreams are crushed and I don't know what to believe in anymore! I'm probably dissociating right now."
Ben's nose wrinkled in righteous anger. His lip curled. "Told you you should've let me go alien on their butts like two minutes ago!" He backed into some bushes while dialing the Omnitrix.
The hipster trolls continued to laugh at poor little Gwen's expense until Diamondhead jumped out of the bushes and roared "BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA, FUCKHEADS!" sending the pair screaming and fleeing for their lives.
Diamondhead enjoyed a laugh while Gwen continued to thousand yard stare in a random direction.
"Ah, that was a good one. I still don't get how that skinny twig dude is holding up the other really fat dude," he said as he watched them fading in the distance beyond the trees. "But that scene was funny as shit." He shrugged. "I dunno, maybe that's part of the joke. Somehow he's doing something that doesn't make much sense. Or he's really strong. Or maybe the fat guy is really light." Diamondhead tapped his chin in thought.
"Oh, there you kids are," said Grandpa Max as he walked back into the plot at that convenient moment in time. "So, how about those two side characters?"
"They're jerks," Diamondhead said bluntly. "They made Gwen cry by pretending to be that fake monster she believes in and trolled her super bad."
Gwen's head snapped up. "THEY DID NOT TROLL ME! I wasn't even mad. I was momentarily contemplating giving up my blind faith in pursuit of tangible evidence. But now I'm better. And also the Forgeti is REAL! I'll prove it. Somehow!"
Gwen stomped off. About three feet into her tantrum, she let out a delighted squeal.
"Look! Another rustling in the bushes! Some shadowy figure! This time it's got to be the Forgeti," Gwen said as she ran toward it like an idiot.
Diamondhead turned and looked over his shoulder. "Seriously? We just had one fake out and we're gonna jump right into another? You know that's got to be the fake out followed by a real scare trope, right? Gwen?" He reached out his hand for his dweeb cousin, witnessing her rushing headlong into danger once again. "Gwen! Stop running blindly toward potential danger, you lovable idiot!"
"I didn't find any giant salamanders," Grandpa Max said. "You have to wonder how far I'm taking this obfuscating stupidity slash plot conveniently senile old man thing knowing Vilgax is going to show up in this series one day in the future. Am I a Plumber in this continuity? Aren't I? I seem incredibly inept if I am, given the way the show treats me. Guess we'll just have to wait and see." He smiled and shrugged.
"I personally can't wait to see how the show will treat Vilgax," said Diamondhead. "It's either gonna be really fucking show savingly amazing, or really fucking show destroyingly awful."
"Hm. It's not hairy like a Forgeti, but it's something strange and unusual in the forest, and it's right here in front of our eyes." Gwen went right up to the large purple scaly finned monstrosity messing around in the bushes and tapped it politely on the backside. "Look, I can put my finger on it. Tangible!"
"Uh, Gwen." Diamondhead tried to get her attention, pointing to a red pickup truck parked a few feet away. It had several caged animals in the back. One was a classic frog of a familiar particular villainous motif that until now hasn't show up much. "I don't think the Forgeti drives one of those."
"Don't put your hands on that thing, Gwen. You don't know where it's been," Grandpa Max warned.
"I'm fine, Grandpa. If I believe hard enough, the Forgeti will show up and conveniently save me from any danger," she said as she continued to poke the obvious fish-thing on the back.
Diamondhead face palmed, causing a loud noise as crystal hit crystal. "Oh, Gwen."
With a roar, the giant bipedal fish monster wearing a snap on shoulder canon of some sort who would make a kick ass figure in the toyline but watch them never make one of him jumped out and confronted Gwen.
And who should come strolling out of the bushes but everyone's favorite...not really...classic villain who wasn't thrown in jail for very long since his capture in Beast Inside...unless those episodes were out of order...DOCTOR ANIMO!
"Salutations, jackasses," said Doctor Animo. "Look, I'm finally dressed like my action figure and now you get a good close up view of me wearing the goggles and helmet from the front this time. Savor it."
"Doctor Animo," everyone shouted in unison.
"Yes, that's my name. Say it as much as you like because I'm an egomaniac and love hearing my own name. Especially when it's being shouted in fear or anger of my noted villainous tactics." He patted the fish monster's side. "Speaking of which, here's my latest creation. I named him Gill. See, it's cute. He's a fish, get it? The kids are finally gonna love me, damn it." He balled his fist and shook it. "Everyone will love me if I hog enough screen time!"
"You'll be a forgotten bad memory by the second season, you quack! Once Vilgax gets here, you're gone for good," Diamondhead shouted. "They gotta make room for the GOOD villains people actually care about."
"We were looking for salamanders, not psychos," said Grandpa Max. "I like my fanfic version of this dialogue better. More fitting."
"Grandpa, what is your obsession with salamanders?" Diamondhead whispered to which Grandpa Max shrugged.
"Giant salamanders, Ben! They're just so...big," he said with senile awe, waving his hands. "What's not to love?"
Diamondhead placed his hand to his forehead, making a clinking sound. He flinched. "Ow! Please stop making me palm so hard, guys. I think I chipped myself that time."
Gwen popped up in front of everyone, pointing accusingly at the mad doctor. "We're also looking for the Forgeti, and he's totally going to kick your ass when he finds out what you've been doing in the forest to all the poor innocent woodland creatures, Doctor Animo!"
Diamondhead and Grandpa Max looked embarrassed by their family member's outburst.
"Uh, yeah. About that...Is it too late to say I'm estranged from this family? They do not represent me or my bloodline." Diamondhead inched slowly away. Grandpa Max pulled him back. "Aw, man."
Doctor Animo chortled. "Poor Gwen Tennyson! Such susceptibility to false notions you have. I hope I'm the first to smash your childish nativity to pieces when I say this: THE FORGETI ISN'T REAL AND YOU'RE AN IMBECILE FOR BELIEVING IN IT!" He threw his head back and barked another laugh. "And let it be known that I could very well make an actual Forgeti using my powers of insane science. But I don't want to because it's a pathetically stupid idea only an absolute moron would ever conceive."
"See, Gwen. The Forgeti is such a stupid concept that not even Doctor Animo's dumb ass would bother to make one," said Diamondhead, thumbing at her. "Now that's telling you something."
"Okay, nice to chat with you. Now my fish monster's going to murder you dead," said Doctor Animo before he snapped his fingers.
Gill, the goofy as all get out yet comically endearing fish monster lumbered toward the group and started blasting his shoulder laser thing at the enemies.
"Aw, shit. Now his mutants are packing weapons?" Diamondhead blocked the blasts with his arms, reflecting them back at Gill. "Suck on these knuckles, Billy Bass!" He ran up and punched Gill's big ugly fish face.
Gill got pissed and tried to return the punch, but Diamondhead created a shield and busted his little fish hand bones. FISH HANDS. Fish don't have hands. What madness. Gill danced around holding his throbbing hand, proving that no matter how tough these new mutants look, they're a bunch of comedy relief at heart and completely nonthreatening.
"Damn this writing," Doctor Animo grumbled. "This mutant would have been great on the original series, or even Omniverse. But nooooo. He had to be on the most kid-friendly ultra comedy 10 minute length reboot series, making him ridiculously ineffectual." He kicked a rock with the tip of his boot. "Damn it, Gill, stop making me look bad!"
Getting yelled at by his master for fucking up only caused Gill to turn to face him and look slightly embarrassed, leaving him open to another one of Ben's diamond hard punches. He took another powerful blow to the head and made gurgling fishy screaming sounds.
Doctor Animo groaned. He saw Max Tennyson cheering from the sidelines and got a good idea. "Ah, how nice and vulnerable." He pulled out a...what the fuck. Is that a web shooter? Oh, it is. I bet it was crafted from the finest mutant spider silk. Great tensile strength. "HEY, FATASS! LOSER SAYS WHAT?"
Grandpa Max turned in confusion. "What?" He received a face full of web net and crashed to the ground.
Gwen freaked out. "Ooooooooooh nooooooooooooooooooo! Grandpa's captured and it's all because I poked the villain of the day's evil mutant fish beast while on an obsessive hunt for a mythical creature!" She collapsed to her knees. "Oh, why? Why am I so prone to compulsive idiocy in this show?" She burst into tears.
"Probably for the same reason Grandpa's suddenly prone to getting his ass kicked by Doctor freaking Animo, of all people, and becoming a dude in distress when the plot calls for it," said Diamondhead. "Also thank goodness the Omnitrix hasn't timed out on me or we'd be getting curb stomped."
Just then, the Omnitrix timed out.
"Aw, come on," Ben yelled. "That's too fucking convenient!"
Gill picked up the netted Grandpa Max and laughed at his misfortune before throwing him into the back of the pickup truck.
"This isn't even my truck," Doctor Animo said as he climbed into the driver's seat. "I stole it."
"Yeah, we could have probably extrapolated that from you being a giant asshole and not normally respecting the established laws of society for the past few dozen years," Ben said.
"If I had my proper characterization, I'd be chokeholding you about now, Animo. Not helplessly stuck in this convenient net. You lucky son of a-" Grandpa Max gasped and did the starry-eyed thing like in Steven Universe.
Is that a reference? What is even going on in these shows. Please, no more crossovers.
Oh God, we're gonna have a Ben 10/SU crossover in the future, aren't we? Aliens, alien super heroes, young boys struggling with their burden of heroism and cross-species interplanetary shenanigans in the face of untold evil, annoying romantic subplots slapped in by the crew's shipping fanatics that only gets more annoying as the series progresses...yeah. It makes sense. Or did they already use up their slot by crossing with Uncle Grandpa. So is there a Gem's DNA sample in the Omnitrix? Hahahaha. Ah. Moving on.
"A giant salamander!" He whipped out his phone and took a photo. "Well, damn. I guess I have to thank you for finally allowing me to see one. But I'm not happy about it." He pouted after making the giant salamander his new screen saver.
"Shut up, Fat Tennyson," Doctor Animo yelled from the driver's seat. He stuck his head out the window to taunt Ben and Gwen before he made his getaway. "And you, Tennyson Jrs, you miserable vigilantes...Well, one vigilante and one bungling sidekick who is occasionally relevant to the plot, more like it...anyway. Have fun finding your way back out of these woods all alone. It gets pretty dangerous out here at night, what with all the bears and coyotes. Especially when I mutate them into twisted, hulking, bloodthirsty monstrosities and send them after you. Mwahaha!"
He jammed his foot on the gas and screeched away, taking a sharp turn, giving us an actual idea of how he drives. Crazy, with reckless abandon for all those around him. Nice.
"Well, that happened." Ben stood up and brushed himself off. He ran to Gwen who was locked in a fetal position, clutching her book to her chest. "Gwen? Gwen, snap out of it! We've got to rescue Grandpa Max before Animo turns him into a skunk with five butts or something."
Gwen was unresponsive.
Ben picked up a stick and poked her gently with it. "Gwen? Are you dead?"
Gwen groaned, signaling that no, she was not. She sort of wished she was.
"Well, I'm gonna transform into Wildvine and carry your limp unresponsive body to the next phase of the plot," he said as he did so.
He grabbed Gwen in a tangle of vines and swung his way through the forest to an ominous and conspicuous cave with some fake leaf camouflage curtains up.
"Ha, I can't believe it was this easy to find Dr. Animo's hideout. Almost like we're moving on a contrived, linear plot or something," said Ben as he dropped Gwen to the ground and assumed human form. "C'mon, Gwen. Pick up the pace!"
"Oh, fine." Gwen jumped up and resumed her bright-eyed cheerful disposition, skipping to the mouth of the cave. She pulled back the right side of the curtain.
"This isn't foreboding at all," Ben said. "You go on ahead since you're the expendable character."
"I'm not scared of a dank, dark cave." Gwen took a step forward.
A bunch of guttural stock animal sounds came from the back of the cave. Oooh, spooky. If you're a 93 year old grandma with a heart condition.
"Seriously? That wouldn't scare kids of this generation, and they're easy as hell to freak out," Ben said, shaking his head. "It's like this show isn't trying at all."
"Yeah, let's see the kids of the Safe Space Generation check out the Nightmare Fuel page on the original series," Gwen said.
"Totally. I just want to tie them to a chair and let them watch Permanent Retirement or Ghostfreaked out," Ben said. "Hey, kiddies. Eleven years ago this is what your elders grew up with, back when the greed driven Moral Authority didn't have its grimy corporate paws all over everything. These shows actually told entertaining stories full of drama and action while selling toys on the side. Billions of toys."
And you can luckily still get them on DVD or digital download, kids. If you're dissatisfied with this series, try checking out the rest you missed from years past. It's loads better than the endless stream of annual garbage we have now, aside from a few gems here and there. Or just sit there and watch Teen Titans Go for 95 hours until you die of brain failure. I don't care.
He and Gwen ran inside the cave and followed a light source until they reached Doctor Animo's cool new laboratory. It's an impressive lab. Which begs the question, how the shit did he build all this stuff in here. How long was he here for? The show doesn't explain how the fuck he got all that stuff and managed to get it working in a cave in the middle of a forest. Including a computer. I know he's good at pulling things out of his ass in every other series and this is a cartoon, but come on. My willing suspension of disbelief has been tested.
"Shut up! It looks cool," Doctor Animo said. "You never questioned all the other stupid shit I did in the past series. Why start now?"
He's got me there. I sort of feel obligated.
Doctor Animo walked over to Max, who was strapped securely on a table to a machine that looked like it would swap his brain with a cute little platypus if he wanted to. But he had something better in mind.
"I've been hand crafting all kinds of twisted genetic abominations to fill this humble and exceedingly boring forest with, but this is unprecedented. Now that I've captured you, Fat Grandpa Tennyson, you'll be the prize specimen in my collection." He pointed to Max. "I'll make something so much more interesting than a stupid Forgeti out of you. You're going to become a legend. A big, fat, hairy legend! Cryptozoology nutcases all over the world will be rushing here daily to try and snap a photo of you taking a dump. You should thank me."
"Animo, you're insane and a terrible human being," Max snapped. "I hope by now from this evidence slathered all over this show that the rabid weeaboos finally realize how you turn innocent forest creatures into snarling monstrosities and don't love them like your cute little babies like in their weird Mary Sue sexual shipping fantasies. You're a huge evil jackass!"
"Ha, good luck with that. The Beast Inside confirming my deep-seated daddy issues just made me more of a sympathetic jerkass woobie to the melodramatic wangst driven Mary Sue shippers! Expect loads of unintentionally comedic sob fic of me to come for the next few dozen years!"
"You're deluded," Max grunted.
"Tell it to the tag count, loser. You're just jealous I have more fanatical kissy-vomit Sue crap fic than you." Doctor Animo placed a piece of duct tape over his captive's mouth. He inhaled in a comically exaggerated pose that would make a good reaction image if you chose interest in that sort of thing, then exhaled deeply and steepled his index fingers. "Ah, I know. How's about we cross you with your precious giant salamander. You'll be the world's biggest. Fattest. Most gigantic!"
Grandpa Max licked the edge of the tape until one corner of it came off. "I'm not fat, I'm pleasantly plump," said Grandpa Max, wrinkling his brows. "Ew, duct tape taste!"
"We're here too," said the chubby one of the pair of comedy relief hipsters who were in a rusty cage, fearfully awaiting their turn to become more interesting characters than they were as humans. "This is totally a hoax, dude."
"I know this is a scary situation and we've been kidnapped by some crazy scientist dude who's probably gonna human centipede us or something, but you're in denial, man," said the skinny one. "Bars aren't hoaxes! They're completely tangible!" He knocked on them. They rattled in response.
The fat hipster started to cry loudly. "OH, GOD, I KNOW! I'M IN DENIAL OF REALITY, DUDE! IT'S WHAT WE DO WHEN FACED WITH INCONVENIENT TRUTHS!"
Gill walked over on his unnatural fish legs and used his also unnatural fish arms to bang on the bars of the cage, terrifying the pair of annoying whiny hipsters into tearful submission. They clung to each other and wept silently for either a painless death or a miracle. Gill laughed at their hilarious suffering. So did half the audience.
"It's that fish creep," said Ben, hiding behind some stalagmites. "And where there's a fish creep, there's Grandpa. And probably Doctor Animo. And maybe a possum with two faces! Wouldn't that be freaky."
"Oh no! The poor innocent woodland animals of the forest," Gwen noted as she looked at all of them, trapped in cages far as the eye could see. "What is Doctor Animo doing to them?"
Ben waved his arms. "Uh, duh. He's MUTATING them into horrific creatures? That's kind of his thing. More proof that stupid Forgeti isn't real. Otherwise he would have come in and stopped Animo from ruining the forest and harassing the animals, don't you think? I mean, what kind of benevolent forest protector would just sit by while his children are turned into disgusting abominations of science by wimpy old Doctor Animo!" Ben turned and pointed to the Omnitrix. "And now it's time for the only good part of this series. Time for me to kick butt. Goin' Four Arms."
Gwen grabbed Ben's hand before he could slap the watch. "No, Ben! I have more lines of dialogue!" She sighed. "I still believe the Forgeti is real. But if you don't, that's fine. Anyway, I'm going to act as voice of reason again regardless of me having spent the entire episode flipping out over some mythological creature who hasn't shown a single trace of itself yet. You should go Grey Matter." She dialed the Omnitrix for Ben and pushed it.
"Wait, what?" Ben vanished in a flash of green light and assumed his Grey Matter form. "You know, Gwendolyn. I'd be irritated by this turn of events if I wasn't so intelligent right now and such petty behavior beneath me."
"Just go thwart the creepy bipedal fish monster, Brainiac. We can argue inconsistencies later." Gwen scooted Grey Matter toward the evil in question.
"That I shall. In as dramatically contrived a way as possible!" Grey Matter declared before he scampered off, undetected, as Gill searched around for the source of the noise he thought he heard. "All I need to do is sneak over to the fishman and get inside that shoulder blaster. Then I'll reroute it and make it slightly off model so I can hold it on my own without it being too heavy."
And so he did.
Gwen threw some stuff to make distracting noises so Grey Matter didn't get caught. The tension wasn't very tense. She ran out of pebbles so she threw her own hair clip at one of the douchey hipsters and beaned him in the head.
"Ah, convenient! How uncharacteristically intelligent of Gwendolyn to assess and improvise on the fly. The writing might be getting better after all." Grey Matter jumped into the shoulder blaster and rewired it to explode. Wait, what? "Oh, drat! I foolishly assumed and lead myself to disappointment."
Well, the blaster exploded and blew off of Gill's shoulder and kept working for some reason now that Grey Matter had it. Also Grey Matter and the blaster changed size. It was large enough to fit on Gill's shoulder but then suddenly small enough to fit on Grey's shoulder easily. No one will pay attention to this even though I've pointed it out for the sake of parody.
"Okay, sucker! Raise those fins or get blasted into a steaming fillet," Grey Matter said to poor Gill the fishman, ending his screen time and further reducing him to comedy relief. "Into the cage over there."
Gill backed himself into the cage and shut the door and cried because he would have made a cool toy but he won't get to be one due to the extremely limited budget. Also he can't talk. Most of Animo's mutants can talk in this series. Poor Gill. We could have had so many fish related puns. Actually, never mind. It's better this way.
"The fat guy's name is Melvin," said the skinny hipster as they shared more irritating comedy dialogue. Are they together or what? None of these characters are explained in any way. They simply exist and are mostly annoying or forgettable.
"I'm not fat! I'm large bodied," said Melvin, his left eye twitching.
"This is my best episode so far, don't you think, Benjamin," said Doctor Animo as Grey Matter turned around and realized Gwen had switched from spunky sidekick again to damsel in distress mode. Doctor Animo had her by the tiny easily fracturable twig arms. "You get to see all my cool lab junk, animals mutating right on screen, giant fish mutant minion armed with laser canon, I captured both your grandpa and cousin. I have my goggles up. I'm going to look really cool in these screen shots."
"Ben, don't feed the troll! Don't feed the troll!" Gwen yelled.
"Gwen! I know it's the writing, but do you always have to become a hindrance five seconds after you prove useful," Grey Matter said.
"Put down the weapon or the girl gets a dose of this," said Doctor Animo, pulling out an old school syringe full of mutant serum. Sweet. "I'm appealing to those who grew up with all the '90s cartoon mad scientists."
Grey Matter bared his tiny Galvan teeth. "Bah, those were cliched and uninteresting!" He looked around quickly, trying to think of a way out of the current predicament. He couldn't for some sad reason. He began to sweat. "If there was ever to be a convenient plot device to ass-pull us out of this mess, let it reveal itself now!"
Gwen helplessly struggled in Animo's grip of evil. She thought of something highly irrational yet convenient to the plot. "Oh! I SUMMON THE FORGETI!" she yelled.
As if on cue, a mysterious fog just like the one in the prologue story began to rise off the ground.
"Dude, did you fart?" asked Melvin with a slightly disturbed face.
Ben's head swung back and forth. "What? No, I...huh? It's a mysterious fog!"
"I can't believe you're still clinging to that crackpot myth. And they say I'm insane." Doctor Animo was too busy laughing at his enemy's stupidity to notice the giant approaching shadow behind him until Gwen freaked out.
Lo and behold, the mighty Forgeti. For real this time! Gasp.
"OH, OH! LOOK! LOOOOOOOOOOK! HA, SEE, I WAS RIGHT THE WHOLE TIME!" She began to dance around and pelvic thrust. "Oh yeah, this is stupid, but it's awesome, because I was riiiiight in the end, and the Forgeti is real, and this episode is dumb but it's also pretty great, ha ha ha, oh yeah."
"What the shit?" Doctor Animo turned around and gawked at the giant purple Forgeti looming closer. "Oh, come the fuck on! That's bad writing if I ever saw it! I didn't even get to fight Tennyson!" He had no time to react before he was hilariously palm-smashed full bodied to the floor by the Forgeti's giant palm. "OW! Well, at least I won't remember this humiliating defeat," he groaned before he passed out.
Gwen stopped waving her arms and turned around to gloat at everyone. "See Ben and hipsters, in yo face!"
Too bad everyone was already knocked out from the Forgeti's amnesia fart gas or whatever the heck it is. Poor Gwen.
A cruel realization struck her. "Oh. Wait, wait, WAIT! NO! THAT'S NOT FAIR! NOBODY WILL SEE ME PROVED RIGHT BECAUSE THEY'RE GOING TO FORGET ALL ABOUT THE FORGETI BEING REAL THEREBY RENDERING MY VICTORY NULL AND VOID! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" She screamed before bursting into angry tears. "No, it's not fair! I was right the entire time!" She stumbled over to the Forgeti and collapsed in his big palm. "It was you...who was the troll...all along." And then she too passed out into blissful narcotic slumber.
Some unspecified time later, the group woke up in the forest.
Ben yawned widely. "Man, that was a good sleep. What happened? Did we sleep through the entire episode? Was this episode about hiking and looking for giant salamanders? How boring. No wonder we fell asleep. I feel sorry for the audience at home." He rubbed his eyes.
Grandpa Max held a hand to his forehead. "Uh, do I know you kids?" Gwen slapped him. "Oh, right. My grandkids! I knew that." He shrugged and tried to fake innocence.
"Wait a minute. Who's that?" Gwen pointed off screen.
Ben turned around to see an unconscious Doctor Animo and a giant fish monster tied up and hanging from the tree branch.
"I have no idea. Some creepy old guy and a giant fish."
Doctor Animo's eyes popped open. He looked disoriented. "I'm Doctor Animo, you infuriating little brat. Please untie me, I've been up here for three hours and I'm going to get a brain hemorrhage," he begged. Blood slowly trickled from his nose, running down his cheek.
"We're still here," said the fat hipster whose name nobody remembered any longer.
"Also nobody remembers any Forgeti so us trolling you is still valid, haw," said the skinny hipster.
"This sucks!" Gwen growled. "I have no memory of why I'm feeling so righteously indignant, but I am."
Grandpa Max reached into his pants pocket. "Hey...where's my wallet?"
"Mine's gone too," cried Doctor Animo. "But my anal virginity is still intact so that's a plus."
"Oh, yeah right. We all believe that," said Grandpa Max.
Everyone laughed at Doctor Animo's expense while he looked pissed off and increasingly sick from blood pooling in his chest cavity.
"I'm still a firm believer in the Forgeti even though I didn't get to expose him and prove I wasn't crazy," said Gwen.
"It's okay, Gwen," said Ben. "If you believe in the Forgeti, then I believe in the Forgeti."
Gwen beamed. "Really?"
Ben sucked in a breath and barked out a laugh. "No. I just wanted to see the look on your face when I TROLLED YOU!"
Then everyone laughed at Gwen's expense and her self-esteem took several dozen irreparably damaging blows.
Meanwhile, up in a nearby tree secluded among leaves, the Forgeti counted his stolen wads of cash for later. He was going to buy some blow and a couple hookers. Who could stop him? His power of noxious amnesia causing mist is pretty scary if you think about it outside a lame cartoony context.
"So do we call the cops to come get Doctor Animo or just leave him here to die and get rid of him, or," Ben wondered aloud, waiting for suggestions from the group.
"Leave him to die," everyone said in confident unison.
"Please call the cops," Doctor Animo whimpered. "Also I hate every one of you. Even the ones I've never seen before and will never come into contact again. Fucking hipsters. I just hate them on principle."
"Doesn't everybody?" said Grandpa Max.
"Hm, looks like majority rules," Ben said with a smile. He was about to walk off before a mysterious force gripped him. He struggled to move, but couldn't. The hero's code was irresistible. "Damn! I must...help...bad guy...heroes...code!" He shook his fists, grunting with irritation. "Oh, fine! We'll call the stupid cops and save Doctor Animo from a cruel and well deserved death he brought on himself by being a TOTAL FUCKWAD!"
Ben transformed into Four Arms. He grabbed Animo and his fish mutant's ropes and broke them with one set of hands while catching the falling bodies in the other set.
"Don't say I never did anything for ya. Seriously, don't!" He tossed them to the ground against a tree. "I'd love to forget this moment."
"Wouldn't we all," said Grandpa Max as the wah-wah music played.
"I'm sort of hoping I won't appear in season 2 and all the old villains introduced here will be replaced by a bunch of newer even shittier ones," whined Doctor Animo, sniffling back coppery blood down his throat. He began to fake cry. No one fell for it. "I miss my dad!" Nope. He folded his arms and glared. "Oh, fine. I'll just sit here and wait for the hurt/comfort fic to roll in again. It'll happen. I just hope it happens with a better writer who actually cares about me for my actual canon characterization and not just because they want to fuck my hair since I remind them of the anime bishonen they creepily fetishize in place of their ex-boyfriend." He shuddered.
"Say, is anyone else hungry? Let's all go to the Yum Yum Yum fest," said Grandpa Max.
"Oh God, that just sounds so stupid," Ben groaned.
Gwen shivered. "I can feel my characterization slipping further and further in anticipation," she whined. She grabbed her stomach. "Ooh. Pre-nausea. Not good!"
"I could eat," said the skinny hipster.
"Me too," said the fat hipster. "I'm a vegan though. Seriously. I am."
"Sorry, you two're never going to appear in another episode ever again," said Ben.
The hipsters went "Aww" and looked disappointed before fading into obscurity, never to be seen again, unlike some of the other background characters who appear in literally every other episode. In the background. And we don't even know their names. Or care.
The Forgeti's stink mist began to envelop the area once again to help everyone forget this fic existed. You're not going to miss those wallets either. Bye for now.