A Word From the Author:

World of Heroes will NOT have OC's being the main characters. Sure, it may have some as incidentals or quick throwaway jokes, but as for being apart of the main characters themselves? You can all rest easy knowing that ain't gonna happen and that any and ALL major characters will be from shows involving The Cartoon Network channel (even as far as Two Stupid Dogs if anybody remembers that).

World of Heroes

Chapter. 1

KIDS NEXT DOOR TREEHOUSE

AUGUST 30TH

Local Time: 5:00 P.M.

"Stand still you little brats!" yelled Dr. Animo, sitting on the back of his frog as it tried catching Numbahs one through five with its tongue. "It'll make your defeats all the less humiliating!"

"Humiliatin'!?" shouted out Numbah-4, back flipping away from the tongue as it lashed out and onto the roof of a car parked in front of the house next to the KND tree house. "Says the guy wearin' a salad bowl on his head ya' creep!"

"Salad bowl!? You little ingrate!" Animo said as his frog leapt backwards onto a house across the street to avoid concentrated laser fire from mustard-bottle and soda popguns from Numbah-4 and the rest of his team. "This is my DNA trans-modulator you little ocker! It allows me to induce growth and evolution in any animal I so choose! In fact…"

Dr. Animo's helmet glowed a ruby red, a beam of energy of the same color shooting forth and striking a cute and innocent squirrel that Numbah-3 nearly had a heart attack over when she saw it being struck. Whatever cuteness and innocence it possessed, however, was soon gone when it suddenly grew to about the same height as Animo's frog and suddenly sported three extra pairs of beady burgundy eyes, claws like sword blades, and a maw drooling with pearly whites as large as the claws.

As Numbah-3 fainted into the trashcan behind her, the now giant and mutant Squirrel let out a roar that made Numbahs one, two, four, and five quiver in their shoes and seriously consider if their weapons would prove but bee-stings against such a monstrous rodent.

Atop his frog, Animo smiled cruelly. "If I were in your position, now would be the part where you brats start running."

Taking his advice, the four conscious members of the KND high tailed it out of there, throwing their weapons up in the air. The giant mutant squirrel bellowed out another roar before giving chase.

"Hahahahaha!" Animo laughed out as he watched his new pet follow the KND in several revolutions around their tree house. "How you children managed to become a threat in the eyes of my employer, I'll never know!"

"Pretty big talk for someone who wears a salad bowl on his head!" said a childish voice from behind him.

Growling, Animo said, "I told you little ankle-biters, it's—" as he turned around. He stopped however when he saw that the boy behind him wasn't one of the KND but, rather, the object of all his hatred (as well as several bed wetting nightmares he'd never admit to anyone): Ben Tennyson or, as he was more commonly known as the world over now, Ben Ten.

"You!" Animo pointed, his frog hopping to face the young hero. "What are you doing here!? You're not a member of these rotten kids' so called organization!"

"Actually, I was made an honorary member about a week ago. Plus, I live in the neighborhood," Ben said with his arms crossed over his chest, smiling smugly. "Now, are you gonna come in quietly, or do I have to jog your memory about what happens every time we meet?"

"Grrr…destroy him!" Dr. Animo commanded his frog.

Ben dodged the tongue by jumping off the roof and landing on the grass of the back lawn. Rubbing his sore hindquarters, he said, "I'll take that as a yes."

Animo's frog leapt off the roof with the intent of landing upon Ben, but a split-second before it did, a green light flashed underneath it and it came to a violent stop. So violent, that Dr. Animo was knocked off of his mount and looked up to see a four-armed alien in the same clothes as his enemy holding up his agitated amphibian with a single one of its aforementioned appendages.

With frightening ease, Ben, now as Four-Arms, pushed the frog high into the air with all of his namesakes. In front of the tree house back across the street, the giant mutant squirrel found himself graced with a ticket to la-la land right as he managed to corner his query. The frog followed it soon after. In the street, the team saw Ben land with Dr. Animo struggling in vain to break free of his alien grip. After taking off his trans-modulator and crushing it like a tin can, Ben waved, "Hey guys! How's it hangin'?"

"Ben 10? Cool! What brought you out to this neck of the woods?" asked Numbah-2, excitedly.

"Well, like I was explainin' to this dufus here—"

"—Unhand me you prepubescent ruffian!"

"—I live here. In fact, I've been in Bellewood since I was five and a half."

"Five and a half?" questioned Numbah-4, suspiciously. "If you've been here for that long, then what the heck's been keepin' ya' from lending out some help with them aliens ah yers all those times we were gettin' our butts kicked?"

"Dude!" Numbah-2 said, slapping Numbah-4 in the back of his head. "He didn't get that awesome alien watch of his until like, a few months ago! How exactly was he supposed to help us before then, huh?"

"He could have tried joinin'," growled Numbah-4, as he rubbed the back of his head.

"But I did try! Ten times! Every time I did though, I was always rejected. Something about being too headstrong," responded Ben, dismissing that claim with his freehands. "Pfff…as if."

"Well, I'm certainly glad that you're helping us now Ben, honorary member," Numbah-1 said, that last word spoken as his eyes turned to briefly glare at Numbah-4, "or not."

"Yep! You sure is ok in Numbah-5's book."

"Me two." Said Numbah-2, one hand giving a thumbs-up and the other, a peace sign.

Numbah-4 was intent on grumbling to himself with his arms crossed when Numbah-2 nudged him in the shoulder with an elbow. Sighing, he mumbled out, "Me four, I guess…"

"Aw, thanks guys. That means a lo—"

"—I mean," Numbah-4 interrupted, "sure he hangs out in a cheap knock-off of the moon base with a crazy guy old enough to be Numbah-3's uncle who claims to be, like, a bajillion years samurai warrior and a tubby lard butt whose also an adult, our sworn enemies, but aside from that, you're—"

Numbah-4 never got to finish that sentence because Numbahs one, two, and five ran up to him and covered up his mouth with their hands as best they could.

"—Inspiring!" shouted out Numbah-1, perhaps too quickly.

"—Ultimate!" shouted out Numbah-2, perhaps too quickly.

"—A force to reckon with!" shouted out Numbah-5, perhaps too quickly.

As they grinned forcefully and chuckled nervously, Ben looked at them oddly and said, "Uhhh…thank you?"

Animo complained, "Oh can you just get it over with already and put me in prison!? All of this unconditional, childish praise being washed upon you is starting to make me pine for my jail cell and three square meals a day of chili, as well as nauseous!"

"Ah pipe down ya whacko. I promise you'll be back where you belong before dinner," Ben said, looking down at the first earthly super villain he ever fought. "Well guys, it's been fun, but like Dr. Salad bowl here said, I've gotta jet! See ya!"

Ben waved them all goodbye before leaping into the air towards the direction of the nearest police building.

"Whoa. Man, that kid sure is something…" said Numbah-2, looking on.

"Oh give me a break!" yelled out Numbah-4, finally managing to break free of his teammates' hold, dusting himself off and grumbling some more as he walked back inside the tree house.

From a trashcan he kicked to the ground as he did so, Numbah-3 rolled out, covered in week old baloney, moldy bread slices, and a rotten banana peel on her head. Waking up, she groaned out, "Oh…what happened?" Sniffing the air, she then pinched her nose in disgust and said, "Pee-uuu! What smells like Numbah-4's room out here?"

ABANDONED MANSION

AUGUST 30TH

Local Time: 5:15 P.M.

On a rather sizable hillside overlooking the neighborhood, an alien creature, like a man-sized chameleon with stripes in two opposite intensities of purple, dropped his people's natural ability to generate an active camouflage field. With his three triangular eyes, red, green, and blue in color from left to right and a grin like that of the Cheshire cat, he slithered up to the gates of a house: a mansion, to be precise. One that had seen better days thanks to decades of abandonment and the shambles that goes along with that as a package deal. It was a commonly spoken about locale in the lore of the children of this city. Some legends told that it was once the home of an unusually nice young rich couple, but was swiftly abandoned not long after their boy went missing one dark and stormy Hallows Eve night. Others said that it was once the meeting place of a secret cult that was trying to summon some demonic force to take over and enslave all of mankind: kids, teens, adults, and seniors included. Others said that it was a place where spirits, vampires, werewolves, mummies, Godzilla, and monsters got together to throw some pretty sweat parties. There were even some who said that all of these stories were stupid and made up by big kids to scare little ones or make them seem cooler and more knowledgeable by comparison.

With a stealthy gait, whatever the mansion's mysterious past or true nature, the alien slinked over the rusty gates leading onto the property and turned the knob to the front door. With a creak that made the creature grimace, it opened and he slowly made his way up the spiral staircase straight up into the attic, making more creaks and grimaces with every step taken on the haggard wood.

Opening the door there, he turned to close it when, suddenly, he heard a girlish voice say, "What a wonderful view this house possesses, wouldn't you agree?"

Turning back around, he saw a chair, as haggard as the house if the way it was torn with its stuffing showing was any indication. It stood facing a large rotund window with several cracks and pieces of glass missing. He vaguely recalled seeing a figure there, watching his approach with the ease such a vantage point would provide, but had dismissed it as his mind, filled with all the stories the earth children had told of this place, playing tricks on him. After all, his employer was always right on the dot when it came to being punctual, never being a moment too late or a moment too soon when it came to the set-up meeting time. If his grasp of earthly time was correct, she would be three hours early, which meant that whoever was in that chair and had watched him come into the house…he held serious reservations about whoever it was being her.

Quickly, he said, "Poison snake bites you…"

"And you're poison too," the girl said, completing the proverb without skipping a beat.

The creature allowed his posture to slacken some. "So…it is you. Mind telling me why you're so unusually early?"

"Because Mr.775, that watch you have on is set for Eastern Standard Time while we're currently on the West Coast and therefore operate on Pacific Standard Time. You should probably set it back about three hours if you want to operate more accurately in this region of the country."

Mr. 775 said, "Gah! What is it with this wretched planet and toying with me!?"

"That's the Earth for you. What other choice is there to do but…what I have in store for it?" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "It's just as well that you came when you did though. This book was starting to bore me."

Over the back of the chair, Mr. 775 saw her throw said book: a very large one that landed at his feet. Picking it up and dusting it off, he could see that the title read: The Silmarillion. He tossed it aside like a piece of garbage.

"I take it this means your Op was a rousing success?"

"Yes, though I'm afraid your distraction managed to get himself caught by Ben Tennyson."

"Eh, like I care. Animo doesn't really figure into anything else I have on the books, and if I need him to do something for me again, I could always have you or one of the others spring him. That, or let this Western revolving door prison system we have spit him out for me."

"Others?" Mr.775 asked, hopefully. "You mean—"

"—that you're race is still extinct except for you? Yes," the girl interrupted bluntly, shooting down and deflating any and all hope that had swelled up in Mr. 775's chest. "I was actually referring to…other operatives I have doing various task for me."

"Oh…right." Mr. 775 said, sullenly.

"Don't worry though. When this is all over, you have my…word, that you're home world and its people will live again. Just as soon as we destroy Ben Tennyson, and the rest of this, Avengers League..."