Ben 10 will always be the property of Man of Action, but the ownership of soulless Cartoon Network corporate overlords. And like the phoenix, I rise out of the ashes of my slumber to provide laughter and unrestrained criticism where there is otherwise the collective gnashing of teeth from spurned fans. The reboot pretty much makes fun of itself, but who doesn't love a semi-affectionate parody to pass the time while we await the 2017 US premier. What an assured travesty.
Our delightfully sordid tale begins with a much simplified cartoony Grandpa Max who now sports a watch and fishing vest, a large bulbous nose, and unfortunate new voice actor...it's David Kaye. He's all right. He'll never be the One True Grandpa Max Paul Eiding is. Nuevo Grandpa Max dragged his precious screaming grandchildren into the Laughin Mint & Museum to do the most boring thing imaginable: be lectured on the rich history, haha, of United States coins. How tragic.
"Grandpa, why do you HATE us?" Ben screamed in sheer agony as he thrashed within the iron grip of his Grandpa Max's meaty hand. "And why are you nothing like your original series counterpart, vaguely outside of looks? You currently function as little more than a walking exposition and moral Aesop dispenser. What happened to your brutal bara gruff Paul Eiding Plumber awesomeness?"
"Why do I have a sudden audible Spanish accent? And why do I contribute overall nothing to the plot beyond exaggerated stereotypical tomboyish female spunkiness and occasionally a lame quip?" Gwen asked, tears welling in her inhumanly large eyes. "What the heck did they do to my characterization? I just get conveniently shoved off screen for 7 minutes when the plot calls for it? I only have ONE episode as Lucky Girl? Do I even get magic in this continuity? Is Charmcaster in this series at all? Is Kevin? Will I ever get to punch or kick people again? Do I still have my freaky Anodite lineage?"
"Now, Ben, this is an action-comedy series," Grandpa Max said. "With a huge emphasis on comedy as declared by the network execs. Meaning there'll be significantly less action overall. There's not enough time to establish proper characterization or interesting over-arching plot in this series. They need that Goofy Random Humor factor to pull in 4-7 year old male ratings. Just go along for the ride, and when the bad guy shows up you turn into one of ten toyeticly oversimplified and disappointingly humanized superhero aliens, then punch them in the face. If the network censors still allow that sort of thing, that is."
He turned to Gwen and frowned solemnly.
"And Gwen...well. Unfortunately, you have a vagina. This is a boy's cartoon, and you know how the network execs feel about vaginas. Plus the era of 22 minute action cartoons with halfway decent writing for female characters is long dead. I'm sorry...I don't expect much for you. Outside of Rule 34, I mean. There's already a ton of it. Those pedos really go to town when cartoony nubile female flesh is introduced." He looked away, his mind distant. "I mean, really. It's not like she has budding tits this time. Completely flat."
Gwen's bottom lip trembled. She saw her fate envisioned in her grandpa's knowing eyes and shuddered.
Grandpa Max's expression lit up at a doorway with a sign posted next to it. "Gosh, look at that, an entire room of wooden nickels!"
Ben and Gwen screamed. They locked eyes.
"We've gotta get out of here, Gwen, or we're gonna die," Ben said, struggling within Grandpa Max's sweaty flesh prison.
Gwen lowered her line of vision to the floor. She had assumed a thousand yard stare. "I...I'm thinking about if I want to live or not. I get the feeling I don't have much to look forward to."
Ben slapped her back into sense. He grabbed her face in his hands. "Shut up, Gwen. There's no time to feel sorry for your predictable shitty treatment on this show! I need you to help me fulfill the plot! Besides, you have to do what I want because I'm the male lead."
"Fine, whatever." She flinched when he removed his sticky paws from her delicate skin, leaving several finger-sized red marks on her face. "Ew, gross! Ben, when was the last time you washed your hands? They're full of old chocolate and caramel!"
"Really?" Ben raised them for closer inspection. His cousin was correct about the remaining traces of delicious sugary goodness. He jammed them into his mouth, sucking on them hungrily. "Mmmmph! Oh yeah. That added skin salt gives it a kick." They were dripping wet with long strings of his nasty spit when he removed them.
"GROSS!" Gwen yelled. She watched saliva leaking from Ben's disgusting lips, unable to tear her eyes away from the horror. "God, I wish something convenient would happen to allow the plot to move on to something better than this!"
(Meanwhile, quite conveniently at that moment in time)
Something strange came lumbering through the trees in front of the mint. It was a big purple ugly-cute lizard...salamander...bullfrog...thing. Something like that. Let's say it's got an amphibious exterior. It had red spikes on its back, many stubby little legs, two giant red eyeballs, a little sniffing nose, gills, and huge mouth full of sharp teeth that looked like they could chew up a lot of metal.
A small robotic bird flew down and perched on a nearby branch. It turned to reveal a mounted camera with the world's first shot of our rebooted beloved asshole, Doctor Animo.
"Come on, fatty, speed it up. We haven't got all day," Doctor Animo ordered in his original and nostalgic Dwight 'Howling Mad Murdock' Schultz voice. At least this reboot's got one returning villain VA."This is an 11 minute show. Actually 10, if you cut out the already short intro and ending themes. That takes up, what? Maybe 45 seconds, combined."
"Me want CANDY," the beast growled.
"For the last time, it's called gold, you bloated dumbass. Er, ah, I mean, yes, candy," Doctor Animo spoke as if talking to a particularly stupid child in the way one would if he were trying to con them into doing something dangerous for his own benefit. And more importantly, profit. "Yes, candy. There's lot of shiny candy right in that building over there." His small robotic bird wing pointed at the mint. "Why don't you go in there and eat it all up, so you can bring it home to me."
"SHINY," the beast growled, smiling blissfully like the unintelligent creature it was. "Me get shiny candy."
"Yes, Slurpstack, you go fetch me that gold. I mean, candy." He wrung his hands as cartoonishly basic villains tend to when they're enacting their devious plans. "I'm going to use it to mold another giant statue in my likeness. I'll put it in my front yard. Then everyone will know how awesome I, the great and powerful Doctor Animo, truly am."
He threw his head back to enjoy a long peal of psychotic villain laughter. After which he paused for a moment of confused reflection.
"Did I really name this fucking thing SLURPSTACK?"
Yes. Yes he did.
"Shiny candy," Slurpstack grunted. A long tongue shot out of his mouth, latching onto the birdy-bot camera.
"Hey, wait, don't eat my-"
But before the good doctor could finish, the giant gluttonous mutant lizard-thing pulled the camera into his gaping jaws and swallowed it into oblivion with a gulp.
Slurpstack began to advance toward the mint, eating every piece of metal in his path. Oh no. Good thing Ben and company coincidentally happen to be in there at that exact moment.
(Meanwhile, elsewhere, in a currently unknown location)
Ssitting in front of his many surveillance monitors, Doc pounded his fist on the desk.
"Damn it! That's the forth camera this week." Leaning back, he sighed and put two fingers of each hand to his aching temples and rubbed in a gentle circular motion. "You know, I'm starting to think I should put more effort into making them smarter instead of bigger."
(Our scene returned to the inane torture at one of the world's most boring museums)
Ben and Gwen managed to wriggle out of Grandpa Max's grasp before they died upon witnessing the full horror of the gold quality inspection room. Two sad looking workers were trapped there, obviously regretting their lives' decisions while staring at gold bars going by on a conveyor belt with their magnifying glasses. They threw any that didn't match up to standards in a wastebasket comically topped with a little basketball net. The woman picked one up, tapped it, and did a behind-the-back half-court basketball shot. It hit the backboard where it exploded into a hundred tiny pieces and dropped through the net into the wastebasket. 3 points.
"That must be..."
"Oh no, please don't, Grandpa," Ben begged.
"Fools gold!" Grandpa Max did jazz hands while wearing a goofy grin. "Ha-cha cha!"
Ben and Gwen cringed, spraining several facial muscles in the process. They groaned in pain.
"I can't take much more of this," Gwen said.
"Me either. I'd seriously rather watch paint dry," Ben said. "Or have my ears filled with wasps. Where's that Clancy freak when you need him?"
"Not returning to this series. There's already too many bug-themed villains." Gwen said. "I mean, really. How many bug-themed villains do we need?"
"I know, right?" Ben said. "Lots of great ideas must have been thrown around the writing room. That's sarcasm, by the way." He rolled his eyes for emphasis. "The new villains are worse than all the old entirely stupid and forgettable series villains combined. They need to stick with the classic favorites instead of trying to force us to enjoy absolute garbage simply because it's NEW. New does not mean GOOD."
"And old does not mean bad," Gwen agreed. "I wish we could go back in time to the era when we still had action cartoons worth watching, not annoying and soulless 10 minute toy commercials. At least the old cartoons were able to tell you an entertaining story with memorable characters while trying to sell you things."
Grandpa Max dropped his grin upon noticing grandchildren's sullen expressions. He sighed. "Aw, I'm sorry, kids. That's just the way things are now, unfortunately. Society has gotten terribly dumb over the last few generations. And sorry about the bad jokes. It's the writing. I've gotta say the lines. That's what they pay my voice actor for." A dull smile resumed after he checked his watch. "Okay, back to the story. Oh boy, I hope we get to see them do the measurement test!"
Ben and Gwen screamed.
That was when Ben's filthy spittle came in handy. Get it?...HANDY...ah ha. It helped loosen the cousins from their Grandpa's death grip. Ben slid out, grabbing Gwen's feet. He tugged for all he was worth, freeing her before it was too late. Grandpa Max was none the wiser. He continued to pretend to be fixated on the boring gold line while thinking of his VA's bank account and didn't notice his adorable little grandies had escaped their fate.
"Thank God," Gwen heaved a sigh of relief.
"I'll say. There's got to be some action coming up. It's like a minute 34 in," Ben said. His eyes immediately averted to the nearest vending machine. "Ooh, distracting candy." He ran to it.
"Ben, you ate like fourteen candy bars already. You're gonna vomit. Not to mention all the bacteria you had to have picked up from sucking on your grimy hands," Gwen said while her lip curled with disgust. "So nasty!"
Ben ignored her. He jammed the first quarter of his intended purchase into the machine. "Man, this is a tiny vending machine. It's barely as tall as I am, a 10 year old boy. And I'm short. Shorter than Gwen, who is a girl. But I guess since the backgrounds of this show are crudely drawn splotchy blob paintings with the barest minimum of detail much of the time, they're not going to be bothered getting things realistically scaled." He dumped in three more quarters and pressed the button.
Down dropped the delicious chemical concoction known as a chocolate candy bar. Ben grabbed it, tore the packaging, and shoved half of it into his mouth.
Gwen walked over with her hands on her hips in typical aggressive feminine fashion. "Ben, did you not hear me? Hello, I'm talking to you!"
Ben burped in her face, briefly startling her into submission. "Honestly, if this going to be your entire characterization for this show, I'll probably tune you out on a permanent basis," he said. He took another bite of the candy, chewing with his mouth open, very male and gross like. Crumbs flew out of his mouth as he talked. "All you do is nag and whine, or be exaggeratedly nice and cutesy-poo saccharine one minute, and be mildly irritating and unfunny all other times. Even more than the old series Gwen was. And the old series Gwen was way more endearing regardless of all that."
Gwen's face contorted in a mixture of rage and desperation. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. "Ben, it's not like that! You heard Grandpa Max. It's the writing!" She dropped to her knees, hands skyward, numerous sobs catching in her throat. "THE WRITING! I have so much potential. It's just the way they write female characters. I can't help it, I swear!" She placed her face in her hands and continued to blubber.
Ben focused his attention on the remainder of his candy bar with a shrug. "Sorry, Gwen. Tell it to someone who doesn't have a penis. Because I can't be bothered to empathize about your female character problems which I cannot relate to in any way, and thankfully never will." He jammed the chocolate chunklet into his mouth and chewed with renewed vigor. "Man, am I glad I'm a dude." He burped again, very loudly. "Everyone will still love me no matter how shitty, flawed, and obnoxious my characterization is."
Suddenly the plot moved to the part with the small amount of action amid all the irritating fast paced Goofy Random Humor CN's target demographic apparently loves so much. The wall busted down and Slurpstack came walking in on 10 legs of massive lumbering evil.
"SHINY CANDY," he growled. He sniffed the air. He followed the scent to the gold vault. "CANDAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" He smashed his bloated facial region into the gold vault.
"Holy shit! A giant monster," one of the patrons gasped before diving out of the path of the bizarre behemoth.
"Holy shit, a reason for me to go hero besides stupid pranks and intentional property damage!" Ben yelled excitedly. "Boy, I'm even more of an immature asshole in this series. Good thing I'm a dude. And really, really adorable." He turned and winked at the fourth wall while he made little guns with his hands. Shooting straight into your hearts. "Aw yeaaaaaah!"
"But I'm also adorable," Gwen said. "Really, really, really adorable!" She put her fingers to her dimples and made a cute face while batting her eyelashes sweetly. "Tee hee!"
"Vagina, Gwen," Ben reminded her.
Gwen's face contorted with helpless anguish. It turned red. Steam comically shot out of her ears.
"Yikes. Not so cute anymore," Ben observed. "That didn't take long."
Ben ran toward the action before pausing to watch a simpleton security guard step up to bat and threaten a 20 foot tall, several hundred ton monster with a flashlight as it entered the vault and began devouring the gold bullion within.
"Hey, giant purple thing! You can't do that! It's totally illegal! Yeah, that's right. I'm talking to you like I assume you'll be concerned with anything I'm saying to you." He waved his flashlight in an intimidating manner. Only it wasn't at all intimidating. Like, say, a gun would be. "I haven't been trained to deal with a situation like this, but damn it, I'm a risk taker! My wife hates it. That's why she recently filed for divorce and custody of our kid. I'm not taking it very well. Good thing all I have is a flashlight."
Slurpstack smacked the guard away with his tail, knocking him into a wall which probably caused a concussion and several dozen broken bones, or some internal injuries. Since this is an extremely cartoony kiddie show not grounded within any trace of realism whatsoever, he's just knocked out. Man, the various authorities in this series are incredibly ineffective. And dumb. I mean really fucking dumb.
"Wow, that was stupid," Ben said. He dialed H for Hero and went Blue Beetle. Er, redesigned Stinkfly. "Time to kick some ass. While making more bad puns than ever before. All crammed into 11 minutes and 18 seconds. Let's get stinky!"
"Ben, Gwen, where did you go?" Grandpa Max finally walked back into the scene. He was wearing a gold colored oversized #1 foam hand and a t-shirt that said I SURVIVED THE GOLD MEASUREMENT TEST in large gold colored letters. "Oh, there you are," he said upon noticing the mass ensuing chaos. "Wow, what the heck is going on here?"
The tour guide man squealed like a small frightened girl of pure virginal innocence and ran from the incoming beast as it loomed down over the huge stack of gold bars. "I'm not getting paid enough for this," he whined in Dee Bradly Baker's shrillest character voice.
Slurpstack began shooting out his slimy tongue to grab up gold bars. He inhaled them like it was going out of style. "MORE CANDAAAAAAAAY," he groaned even as his stomach began to gurgle. He continued to choke down piles of gold while visible in pain from the action. "Hurts...so...good!"
"Dude, that thing's bingeing hard," Ben noted as he flew overhead at a safe distance. "The purge is not going to be pleasant when it happens to something that size."
"Aaw! How sad," Gwen suddenly gasped.
Her ovaries injected her body with a rush of feminine motherly nurturing instinct which overrode her rationality and common sense. She ran blindly toward the hideous mutant creature, overwhelmed by an urge to comfort its pain and sympathize with its destructive villainous ways. This actually happened in the canon, BTW.
"Hey, cutie! You don't look so good. Are you eating your feelings? I used to eat my feelings when I was younger. I think you could benefit from a self-esteem boost and learning how to love yourself. Also some lessons on portion control."
Slurpstack pulled back his puffy face from the vault and swallowed his load. Get your minds out of the gutter, sickos. He turned and roared in Gwen's face. He reared into the air, stomping his feet and shaking the room with massive tantrum meltdown vibrations. The aftershocks caused Gwen to fall on her nonexistent butt.
"Oh no, Gwen! The writers are fucking up your characterization worse than we could have imagined!" Grandpa Max shouted. "Look out!"
"I'll save you from your own stupidity, Gwen!" Ben cried.
Ben Stinkflied his way through the air and began firing wet shoulder farts in the face of the greedy mutated beast. The green goop smacked Slurpstack in the face and caused him to wiggle his tiny little feets uselessly into the air while screeching.
"Ha ha, you have the most ill-conceived character design I've seen so far in this show. And yes, I'm self-aware of mine. Seriously, what are you supposed to be?" He laughed, taunted the ridiculous beast while flying around his head.
Enraged, Slurpster shot out his massive tongue and tried to snatch the annoying bug from the air. But he missed and it headed for Grandpa Max just as he had chosen to break character and heroically rush into danger at that moment.
"Hang on, Gwen, I'll save you! Thereby proving I'm still a combat oriented badass grandpa relevant to a boy's action cartoon series," Grandpa Max shouted, charging like a fearless bull. "Unlike you, who's awful characterization doesn't leave much going for you at this time unless something changes in the writing. Which I doubt because of widely ingrained sexism in the media."
"Hey," Gwen yelled as her bastard Grandpa passed. She couldn't deny the fact that, unlike her, he was still cool and relevant, so she forgave him and resigned to her destined fate with a whimper. "But I'm too cute to get crushed by a morbidly obese monster lizard!"
Grandpa Max ended up getting slapped by Slurpie's tongue and hauled inside the stinking mouth. "Okay, I didn't think this through," he screamed from within. "OH GOD, HELP! IT SMELLS LIKE METALLIC CHILI FARTS IN HERE!"
Slurpstack swallowed Grandpa Max and looked very sad afterward. He held his giant monster tummy and groaned. "Not candy. Taste like rancid old man." He stumbled backward drunkenly and crashed into the wall.
"Oh no! Grandpa's been vored," Ben cried. He flew in the face of the massive creature. "Okay, Fatty McEats Everything in the Room. Time for a sound spanking. Barf up my Grandpa!"
He was about to start punching Slurpstack in the stomach when Gwen cleared her throat loudly, shifting his attention to her.
"Uh, hello? Way to use your brain, Ben," Gwen said while frowning. "If you start beating the crap out of Mr. Compulsive Eater over there, you might injure Grandpa Max!"
Just then the Omnitrix timed out. Ben dropped 10 feet to the ground, injuring himself severely. Oh, no. Wait, kid's show. He wasn't hurt. He just fell on his butt and got a mild owie.
"Owie!" He rubbed his butt. He got up. Ben looked at the Omnitrix. In the red. "Nuts. So, uh. Until the watch recharges, how are we gonna defeat this sucker?"
"Fat jokes?" Gwen suggested. "Those can do an awful lot of damage to the psyche during periods of emotional vulnerability like this big guy is obviously going through."
Ben glared in the creature's direction. He pointed accusingly. "Hey, fatso! You're so fat, you could make a living selling shade."
Slurpstack ignored the hurtful words and continued resting against the wall, trying to regain his breath.
"Must have heard that one before. Now what?"
Gwen shrugged. "Hmm. I suppose we could traumatize him by showing him around the gift shop," she said. "It's pretty revolting. They've got this replica of the museum in those little plastic snow globes. Instead of snow when you shake it, it's tiny coins. Really it's just silver glitter. For only $29.99!"
Ben screamed.
"I know, right? Gwen threw up her hands. "Only someone with massive head trauma would even think of buying that garbage."
"Too risky. We'd never make it," Ben said. He shivered in terror. "I think we'd better come up with something else."
But they couldn't. So they stared into space and waited while the watch recharged. It finally beeped. Ben gave a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness. Time for mindless violence." He dialed Four Arms and prepared to slap the watch.
Gwen walked up behind Ben and grabbed his arm. "Wait a minute. How about using your BRAIN this time around, eh, Ben?" She kept nudging him while winking.
Ben stared dumbly at her.
Gwen frowned. She repeated louder and more slowly, "I said...How about USING YOUR BRAIN THIS TIME around, EH, BEN?"
Ben continued to stare. He stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it before pulling it out with a disturbingly wet pop. "Not getting it."
Gwen fumed. "Are you tuning me out again?"
"Nah, I'm just pretty damn stupid," Ben admitted before pausing to sniff his finger, much to Gwen's disgust. He turned his head. Something shiny caught his eye. "OOH, candy machine!"
He veered toward the object with more quarters clutched in his slimy palm. He dumped them into the machine.
"Ben, you moron! I'm subtly suggesting that you change into Grey Matter to figure out a way to stop that monster thing without hurting Grandpa," Gwen shouted.
"Whuh?" Ben shoved more candy down his gullet.
"You could have come up with this thought yourself like in the show, but since this is a fanfiction and the only intelligent lines of dialogue I'm going to ever get in this series, I'm telling you this instead!" Gwen strained her arms at her sides, fists clenched until the knuckles became white. "And you'd better do it preferably before Grandpa Max dies of suffocation or gets digested!"
"Oh, yeah. I forgot. Oh, wait, I get it now! Going Grey Matter so I don't fuck things up." Ben dialed and transformed into the diminutive froggy alien with a shitload of brain power. Suddenly everything made a delightfully lucid amount of sense. "Wow! I love feeling intellectually superior to all those around me."
But everything made too much sense, causing him to scowl. He looked around in alarmed disgust. Right through the fourth wall and beyond. He gasped.
"Oh man, this show is so dumbed down from the old series. And the writing. God awful. And now I'm going to be completely aware of it the entire time I'm Grey Matter! No wonder the intelligent commit a lot of suicide. It's too much to bear, the cruelness of reality! The realization of being outnumbered by slack-jawed masses every waking moment! And the horrid mindless media they mire themselves in! Oh, woe to the lowest common denominator! Aaaaaaarg! Such suffering for the enlightened! My brain aches with helpless anguish!"
"Ben, just shut up and save Grandpa already!" Gwen shouted.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't get your perpetual canon defilement in a twist," Grey Matter ran toward the downed mutant. "Here goes something."
Ben did many Galvan ninja flip kicks until he made it up the creature's back, positioning himself atop its head and neck area.
"Spit out my Grandpa and that gold, you immense buffoon! You've had enough calories to last for a years worth of hibernation!" He used two fingers to poke various pressure points on the beast's body. "This acupressure sleeper strike will put your troublesome bulk out of commission." He kept poking, but soon realized the beast's large amount of head and neck fat was preventing the strikes from working accurately. "Aw, nuts. Wait, time out! Let me move to a better spot."
The long tongue shot out and slurped him up before he could.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" he shouted. He vanished into the mouth because it's quicker than the useless filler they had to chew up about three minutes stupidly wandering around the bodily cavities before getting to the stomach. "AT LEAST I DIDN'T GO INTO THE NOSE AND END UP FACE DOWN IN SNOT FOR THE SAKE OF A GROSS-OUT GAG!"
He fell for hours down the esophagus anyway. Because funny. Ha ha.
(Meanwhile, in the stomach)
Grandpa Max woke up lying on some gold. Good thing for him because stomach acid was all over the place. He was lodged deep within a fetid prison of squishy innards and clinking gold bars. "Uh oh," he exclaimed. "This is pretty intense. It holds a fair amount of danger and uncertainty for this show. Maybe there's hope for it after all that we could be seeing a little drama."
Ben came screaming through a hole in the wall and landed exactly and conveniently on a single floating gold bar with a comical added sound effect. It only hurt his tiny Galvan face a whole bunch. "Stuck the landing," he groaned while making two thumbs up. "Also I meant to do that."
"Never mind," said Grandpa Max as his hopes died.
Grey Matter stood and shook off his daze. He looked around at all the sticky, slimy, smelly organ flesh and steaming acid. "Wow, this place is nasty. What is this, some kind of womb level? Hey, look at that. The gold is being melted by the gastric juice in here. Powerful stuff."
"Fitting observation, Captain Obvious," came an all too familiar voice. "And you're supposed to be the smartest alien in that arsenal of yours. Talk about bad writing!"
Grey Matter turned. He gasped. "DOCTOR ANIMO?! What the fuck are you doing here?"
Lo and behold the genius, for there was Doctor Animo in all his ultra cutesfied cartoony old man with an increased receding hairline reboot based glory on the camera-bird thing that Slurpstack had swallowed in the beginning of the fic.
"My idiot creature swallowed my expensive camera-bot. But it's okay because it gives me slightly more face time in this episode. Hi, Tennyson. Long time no attempted murder." He waved so you could see the new weird metal dealies on his gloves. Such interesting character redesigns. Basically give the old villains new clothes and make them all petty thieves. We really are regressing beyond the point of no return.
Ben stomped his tiny Galvan Grey Matter foot. "Aw, hell no! I knew this show would be utter shit! It can't BE anything but if they thought it was a good idea to let YOUR psychotic man-child ass back in here," he ranted.
"And I've already got 2 episodes compared to the other villains! Well, I only physically appear in one. And it's only on camera. But, regardless. My magnificent omnipresence is felt. Does that burn your bacon, Tennyson? I told you I'm a popular character," Doctor Animo asserted. He stuck out his tongue.
"Yeah, in your own imagination. Or with psychotic weeaboo sadists who love imagining you crying hysterically in your underwear while eating chocolate cake," Ben said tauntingly.
Doctor Animo winced. He sighed angrily. "Oh, come on. Can we not go there? It's been a whole fucking year and a half free of this shit. And here you go right on rubbing it my face the second we meet in a new series parody fanfiction. Can we just please not go there for once? Let me have my dignity."
"You don't have dignity," Ben said, waving his arm around. "Your entire character is based around indignity that you're too stupid to notice. Genius!"
"Will you just shut the fuck up and fall into that gastric juice already,"Doctor Animo snarled. "I want to laugh with satisfaction while watching the flesh rotting off your bones. Oh wait, that acid is strong enough to melt your bones as well, leaving no trace of you behind! Haaaaa!"
"Why don't you come down here and make me! Oh, that's right. You can't. You're just an ugly face on a camera," Ben said, shaking his tiny clenched first. He put his hands on his hips and tapped his foot. "So why are you playing hide and seek all of a sudden? Too scared to show up in person because you know I'll kick the shit out of you and reduce you to a quivering pile of shed menstrual blood? You giant pussy."
He paused upon hearing a distressed noise behind him. He turned around and saw Grandpa Max.
"Ben, can you stop catfighting with Animo for five seconds and realize that we're both heavily in danger in here?" he pleaded. "There's stomach acid everywhere, and it's rising. We're going to either suffocate or get horrifyingly and painfully digested if you don't hurry and think up a way out of this situation."
They both struggled for purchase in the churning enclosure of sure death, flopping everywhere as the rambunctious beast moved around. A gold bar hit Grandpa Max in the face. He had a few bruises from where the bars had been hitting him the entire time he was in there.
"Not to worry, Grandpa," Ben said. "This is a TV-G kid's show. They can't show realistic violence or death. We're safe. Just uncomfortable. And surrounded by all this shiny gold." Another gold bar flew up and hit Grandpa Max in the forehead. He wobbled, going cross-eyed for a second. Ben cringed. "All this shiny, painful gold. That I'm really thankful isn't hitting me at such a small size. Thanks for being the bigger target."
"Ben," Grandpa Max slurred through a period of lucidity during his growing head trauma, "this is a FANFICTION, remember? None of those rules apply here! Look, I already got burned by the acid on my hand before you showed up." He raised his arm and showed Grey Matter his various hideous skin burns.
"Oh, Christ on a crutch," Ben exclaimed with a look of pure terror. "You're right! I've got to do something! While making sure it doesn't involve painfully juvenile ADHD trash humor to keep what little remains of my dignity intact."
"Oh no," Grandpa Max groaned while face-palming. "Coming up with an idea like that in this series may take a while. Even for a Galvan."
"This ought to be good," Doctor Animo said. He grabbed a bucket of popcorn and got comfortable.
(Meanwhile, again, back inside the gold vault)
"CANDY," Slurpstack roared while stomping his many little feets in an enraged man-child tantrum reminiscent of his creator. "Candy, candy, candy, candy!"
Gwen tried to stay her ground as the room shook. "Come on, buddy! I know you're just taking out your anger on everyone else because your daddy never hugged you. You just need someone to tell you that you matter and deserve love in an infantilizing way!"
Slurpstack threw a large chunk of concrete that barely missed Gwen's head and smashed into the wall.
"Okay, maybe it's me who's projecting onto this guy. Maybe he really is just a big, ugly, stupid creature who's beyond any reasoning," she said. She clenched her fist. "So my next instincts are to drop the motherly concerned routine and go hyper manipulative bitch mode to take full advantage of this big purple dumbass's childish emotionally vulnerable state and thereby easily malleable brain."
She saw that Slurpstack had knocked down the vending machine and smashed it open. All the generic no-name chocolate bars inside had spilled out. Their wrappers shined in the light.
"Ah, how convenient to the plot," Gwen said. She ran to them and grabbed an armful. She ran back to Slurpstack and waved one in his huge face. "Hey, chubb-o! Look what I got! Mmm, more sugary num-nums for you to stuff that distended face of yours with. Yum, yum. Bite-sized pieces of emotional comfort to temporarily divert those thoughts off your endless self-loathing! Sounds good, huh?"
Slurpstack's tongue slobbered out of his mouth. Tears began to well in his giant eyes. "Candy! Candy take away pain of horrifying, worthless existence."
"That's right, come take your medicine," Gwen coaxed while continuing to wave one of the shiny tempting chocolate bars at him. He moved closer. "Now sit down and shut up or I won't give you any."
Slurpstack's lip quivered most innocently. He squatted on his little legs like a good boy. Who knew he even had knees in those stubs.
"Good boy. Who's a good boy? You're a good boy!" Gwen cooed, giving Slurpstack the validation in his miserable life he so craved.
He smiled quite creepily, his massive mutant monster lips stretching from ear to ear, or they would have if he'd had them. They stretched from eye to eye instead.
Gwen recoiled in discomfort. "Oh God! Don't do that, it's terrifying."
(Back in the belly of the beast)
"Okay," Grey Matter grunted, picking up a gold bar. He dipped it into the endless sea of gastric juice until it sizzled and became melty. "First, I need to build an oddly complex rocket ship shape around you out of these gold bars using the monster's stomach acid to glue them together."
Grandpa Max stared blankly at Grey Matter. "Excuse me?"
"Don't question my motives, old man! Just stand there and let me do it!"
"All right, all right! You're the brains."
"Yes, I am. I only wish I were stronger in physique."
"Just hurry up, please, Ben," Grandpa Max urged after he was hit in the face by another gold bar. It left a large welt on the side of his face. "Before I'm not attractive to gerontophiles or bara fanatics anymore."
Ben shuddered, but began working faster to complete his ridiculous task.
Somehow, in a short span of time, Grey Matter managed to build up a wrapping of gold bars around Grandpa Max that looked like a rocket ship. What an absurd train wreck. Who wrote this episode? I'll have to check the credits.
"Okay, that somehow happened. And now my back hurts a lot." Panting for breath, Grey Matter went over to the slimy stomach wall and began massaging it with his slim, delicate Galvan fingers. "Now, I just have to do this. Coochie coochie coo..."
Grandpa Max grimaced. "Ben, what in God's name are you doing?"
"Sensually massaging this creature's organ wall," Ben said. "FOR SCIENCE!"
"This has to be some of the most sophisticated writing I've ever witnessed in a Ben 10 series," Doctor Animo said with the thickest sarcasm possible before taking a sip from his soda cup.
"Ben," Grandpa Max said through the little open window of the gold bar rocket ship. "Maybe it's the cerebral edema talking, but I'm not so sure about this idea of yours."
"Trust me. I'm a Galvan," Ben said while waving dismissively at him. He concentrated on stroking the hot flesh beneath his fingers. "Come on, baby. Let me feel that shuddering organ-asm. Ha ha, get it."
"Ben," Grandpa Max yelled.
The whole place began to shake and the ocean of nasty gastric juices churned wildly.
"Oh shit, here we go!" Gray Matter ran and climbed into the gold rocket.
"Oh, God, we're gonna die," Grandpa Max whispered softly.
Outside, but technically still inside, being inside the mint, Slurpstack began to shriek with severe stomach upset. He stumbled on his many legs, smashing into a wall. He developed the immediate urge to spew. His cheeks puffed with vomit until they could hold no more, and then he blew like Old Faithful. Only hundreds of times more disgusting. Out came a geyser of pure putrid pink colored straight up nasty. And in it, the weird rocket ship made of gold bars carrying Grandpa Max and Grey Matter.
Gwen covered her head with her hands as gold bars and acidic monster vomit rained down. "AH, WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?"
Dee Bradly Baker's character came back in and looked through the smashed window of the gold vault. He shuddered. "There is not enough saw dust in the world to cover that literal hot mess. I quit! I'm going to be a tour guide at the Glore Psychiatric Museum."
"This landing will not be a good one," Grandpa Max shouted in between his screams.
Indeed, the heavy as fuck rocket made of gold bars flew skyward for about seven seconds before turning on its nose cone and plunging hard to the ground below.
"Aaaah! I didn't think this through," Ben shouted. "But that's impossible because I'M FUCKING GREY MATTER! ALL I DO IS THINK! THAT'S MY FUCKING ALIEN SUPER POWER!"
"Ben, it's the writing! The writing! It's ruining us all! There's nothing we can do," Grandpa Max assured him before resuming his screams.
Slurpstack collapsed and began growling, screaming, and flapping his tongue wildly in a mix of just-got-done-vomiting pain, the worst pain known to living beings. Unfortunately, Gwen was right in his path.
"Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?" Gwen wailed, moments before Slurpstack's erratically wagging tongue gave her a good bitch slapping. It knocked her to the ground. Shakily, Gwen lifted her saliva covered head. She grunted in pain. "Oh, right. Female character."
"Candy BAD! Me learn error of ways. Go on balanced diet and exercise program before die of heart attack at age 20," Slurpstack whined while holding his stomach with several pairs of hands. Or feet. Whatever. They function as both.
"Well, Grandpa, since you're guaranteed to survive a fall from this height with your body structure now encased in this comical rocket ship made of gold, I'm bailing out. See ya!" Ben shouted.
He jumped out of the little window of the wacky gold rocket and began doing Galvan ninja jumps from one airborne gold bar to the next, completely unrestricted by actual physics because this is a cartoon and it looks cooler that way. He ended up over Slurpstacks's gigantic form. He landed on the monster's head. The rocket of gold smashed to the ground. Grandpa Max's body fat indeed managed to protect him from more severe internal injury during the impact. It still hurt. A lot. Grey Matter moved to a position on Slurpstack's body that made it easier to give him the old Galvan two-fingered death strike.
"Wha-PA! Hi-YA! WOO-ka!" he yelled, kung-fu style.
Grey Matter's fingers of fury struck a bunch of pressure points on the monster and caused his nerves to short out, making him collapse on his side with his tongue lolling out. He jumped down from Slurpstack's head and landed next to Gwen and the rocket full of Grandpa Max. He changed back into Ben. The plot still didn't make a lick of sense. The audience grew ever more disappointed, knowing the time limit for story resolution was going to yet again leave them unfulfilled.
"Oh, yeah! Saved the day once again in the span of 10 minutes," Ben declared triumphantly. "Who's the greatest hero of them all? Ben Tennyson, of course."
"Ben, what the fuck," Gwen screamed. She was covered in acidic bile from the monster's guts. Her clothes and flesh began to smoke. "What even was that? Now I'm covered in stinking gastric spew! It BURNS!" She ran around struggling to get it off her while Ben stood around looking smug. "IT'S IN MY HAIR!"
"Yep, another day saved thanks to Ben Tennyson."
"Um, Ben, little help here?" Grandpa Max said hoarsely. "Pretty sure my legs are broken." He hesitantly moved one. The action caused him to wince. "Ow. Yep, they're broken. I wish this was the actual show and not a fanfiction. None of this would have happened. And anyway, it'd be all over quickly. 10 minutes of Goofy Random Humor PWP with a few comedic fight scenes thrown in goes by surprisingly fast."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot again." Ben stared at the gold rocket containing his now trapped Grandpa Max. He rubbed a finger to his stubble-free chin in deep thought. His expression became pained. He grumbled and furiously massaged his temples. Sweat began to drip from them. You could physically see his train of thought violently derailing. He strained until his face turned red. He let out a long sighing breath. He shrugged. "Sorry, Gramps. I have absolutely no idea how to get you out of there."
Gwen ran past again, screaming and crying and holding large fistfuls of her own hair. "MY HAIR IS COMING OUT! I'VE GONE BLIND IN ONE EYE! SOMEONE CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!"
"Call two," Grandpa Max groaned. "Please."
"Hey, I'm still here. Someone pay attention to me," Doctor Animo's whiny histrionic voice called from the floor.
Gwen stopped running and screaming long enough to look down and see the robotic bird-camera lying on the ground. "What the fuck? Doctor Animo?" She pointed with much enraged offense. "What is HE doing in this episode?"
In a line I didn't have to make up for this parody, Ben actually shrugged and gave a wordless noncommittal "I 'unno" grunt to Gwen in response to why the fuck Animo is here. It's official, not even the actual writers for this show have any idea what's going on or why. Welcome to Shit Just Happens, the series.
Ben had manifested another delicious candy bar in his grimy hand. "His pet monster ate his portable camera thing so he came along for the ride." He shoved more chocolate into his mouth and chewed loudly, spraying crumbs from his wide-open hanging jaw. "He's been whining the entire time and being a stupid annoying crybaby, like usual."
"I have not!" Doctor Animo leaned forward to shove his face into the screen. "What I've been doing is watching Ben make a complete ass of himself, blunder through some outrageously contrived plots, somehow fail to use his one alien's gift of super intelligence properly, dress his grandfather up as an inexplicable golden rocket, desperately grope a mutant's stomach interior, and get puked up in a wave of pink reeking acidic goop for the sake of 4-7 year old boy target demographic based gross-out comedy." He leaned back and began to laugh hysterically. He pounded the desk with his fist. "It's like something out of a bad fanfiction parody. Only it actually happened!"
"Yeah, well," Ben fumbled for words, "you're...stupid and no one seriously likes you unless they have severe mental damage. Or an old man fetish. If you were in this room, I'd have beaten you senseless by now!"
"No you wouldn't."
"Yes I would!"
"Nope."
"YES!"
"Nah."
"FUCK YOU, ANIMO! YOU'RE A TERRIBLE CHARACTER! I HOPE YOU DON'T SHOW UP IN ANY MORE EPISODES IN THIS 40 EPISODE SERIES!"
"40 episodes?" Doctor Animo repeated. "That's like 4 seasons worth right there. Something tells me this won't be renewed much further. Not that anyone would be upset about it." He slurped loudly on his soda.
"Nope. Not with Justice League Action coming out," Ben said. "That might be our last hope for superhero action cartoons."
Gwen shoved Ben out of the way.
"Okay, honestly, I don't care anymore," Gwen shouted while grabbing her partially bald head and shaking it. "I just want this shitfest over so I can go invest in a wig and some skin ointment."
She raised her foot and prepared to stomp all over Animo's camera.
Startled, Animo spit out his soda and began to plead with his hands. "No, wait! This cost well over a THOUSAND DOLLARS to build! Plus it's all the screen time I get so far in this show! You can't-"
Gwen took out her many pent-up frustrations on the camera and crushed it to pieces while screaming with rage. She jumped up and down on it, then kicked it into the nearby wall for good measure. It looked like one of her forehead veins was going to pop. Ben backed away to a safe distance until she calmed down and her face turned back to a normal color. The vein disappeared.
"Well," Gwen sighed. She smoothed what was left of her hair into place. She inhaled deeply. She then resumed her demented accommodating cheerful demeanor and stared at Ben with only slightly crazy eyes. "That was certainly an exciting 10 minute adventure, wasn't it! How I look forward to more! Only 32 more to go!" Her grin was crooked while her left eye twitched suspiciously.
Ben finished eating the candy bar. He threw the empty wrapper on the ground. "Uh. Yeah? I guess so," he responded hesitantly. "You'll probably end up shoved off screen or reduced to a minor scene or something while I do all the cool stuff. But whatever floats your boat."
Grandpa Max suddenly appeared, freed from his gold rocket prison and wearing only a handful of head and facial bandages while walking on crutches.
"Grandpa, how'd you get out?" Ben inquired while looking vaguely shocked. "And who took care of all your wounds?"
He shrugged. "Plot convenience," he said.
Gwen shook her head. "Makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened in 7 episodes. Why dwell on it?"
Ben nodded. "True.
"Hey, I've got a great idea, kids," Grandpa Max said cheerfully as he wobbled slightly from dizziness. "Tomorrow, why don't I drag you to the Kernel County Corn festival!"
Ben and Gwen screamed.
"Oh, and here's something else you guys are gonna love. Look what I got at the gift shop." He pulled out a replica of the museum in one of those little plastic snow globes. "Instead of snow when you shake it, it's tiny coins! And it only cost $29.99!"
Ben and Gwen screamed again, more loudly.
The End
(Until next time)