Three months. Three magical, intergalactic months of unimaginable fun. He had helped so many people, learned so much about his grandpa and about the universe at large.
And about himself. He had always wanted to be a Hero like the Justice League but he always, always made a mess of everything, never strong enough or fast enough.
But he was fearless. Or at least had the ability to overcome it.
It was one of Ben's only good traits, one he fully embraced and exploited when the Omnitrix, a watch-like device as thick as his left wrist and colored medium and dark grey, with a white hourglass symbol on its face, around the dial was four button-like pearls that seemed decorative and a real green button on the side with white tubes running around the watch ending at the other side.
With it he could transform into ten different and unique aliens for around ten minutes... sometimes.
it was actually twenty two aliens by the end of it all but that wasn't really the point.
Benjamin Kirby Tennyson was undeniably a Hero but now it was all over. Summer was done, Grandpa Max had dropped him and his cousin, Gwen off at their homes.
Now here Ben was, laying on the bed reminiscing on his adventures, near deaths, and all that jazz. The ten year old brunette looked towards the ceiling not knowing what to do or how to feel.
His emerald eyes seemingly searching at the white painted ceiling for answers on his next course of action.
Was he still a Hero? Could he still be a Hero despite being in a town that was literally the safest place in America. He supposed that he could just turn in XLR8 and travel to other cities, states but he wasn't sure he could beat the bad guys just as the blue velociraptor-like alien.
Ben guessed he could wait out the transformation and recharge time to transform again but he also knew every second counted, he would just be putting him and others in danger.
He had gotten much more skilled in his human form, learning to wield firearms or just fight in general by his grandpa but still it wasn't enough.
'If only I still had Master Control or… something! That could be used as a stop gate.' Ben sighed, turning in his bed and looking out his window. "Like Magic..." the peach skinned boy sighed.
He wasn't like Gwen, the brunette knew he could be smart, come up with tactics that even surprised his warrior grandpa who had been a Hero for much longer than himself as a Plumber; a intergalactic police officer but magic took not only memorization which 'he' was good at but complete perfect enunciation, visualization, and mana manipulation that he just didn't have any talent for.
He didn't have any Mana to manipulate, and despite being able to memorize the words he would never be able to actually say it without weeks, maybe months of practice, and he would actually have to understand what a spell was for to visualize it.
Gwen somehow could do all three and do it with ease. Yeah sure she messed up alot but for someone who could only do magic for a month she was scary good, Charmcaster's equal when it came to pure power and overall spellcasting.
'Where did she even learn Latin? Is that a class in her school or something?' the brunette's thought strayed to his orange haired cousin who shared his eyes.
Ben twisted and turned but he couldn't calm himself, his thoughts were all over the place. He got up from his bed and changed into a white shirt along with green shorts and grey tennis shoes.
He quickly walked down the stairs and out the door, "I'm taking a walk!" he called out and didn't wait for an answer, knowing his parents wanted him to be independent as much as possible.
As he felt the night air on his face and the moon light on his skin, he took out his phone and plugged in his earphones, he played one of his favorite songs.
As the seconds passed he smiled widely, "Remember black skies, the lightning all around me! ~" Ben nodded his head to the beat with a smile and sang along.
The emerald eyed ten year old felt a calm run through him and without even realizing it almost an hour had gone by.
As he was close to the bay, Ben saw two men arguing near a seemingly brand-new or at least, a well kept blue convertible.
If he was anybody else, if Ben was an ordinary ten year old then he would have thought nothing of it but he wasn't.
Ben Tennyson was anything but ordinary, he saw the fear filled gaze of the smaller, thinner, brown skinned man who was seemingly held still by the much more muscular, tanned bald guy with a sharp, fake smile.
So with nothing but courage in his heart he continued walking with a slow, easy pace not showing a hint that he knew what was going on. When he turned a corner, his right thumb pressed the small button on the Omnitrix and the dial popped up, with several twists the silhouette of one of his favorite aliens showed itself, with a grin he slammed down and everything changed.
A bright green light exploded off his form and what replaced the small ten year old was replaced by Cannonbolt, a broad shoulder six foot and two inch, white furred alien that looked similar to a panda that was covered in yellow armour plating on his shoulders, back of his arms, side of his thighs, and back, the only thing similar to his human form was his emerald green eyes. "Aww man, I was hoping for XLR8!" he exclaimed, his voice deep unlike his natural one but anyone could hear the genuine disappointment.
'Whatever, time to help!' Cannonbolt rolled into a ball and like a tire, his body screeched across the paved ground, in less than a second went from zero to sixty and before the carjacker knew what hit him, his head was slammed against the window with just enough strength to disorientate the criminal, causing him to let the victim go.
"Hey there pal, did anyone ever tell you carjacking is wrong?" Cannonbolt asked with a smile which looked more wicked than what the hard shell alien was probably intending.
It wasn't long until he was standing in front of the bay, staring out to the ocean. 'I'm a Hero. Even if I'm stuck here, even if I can't help as many people, I still have my Omnitrix and even if it's just an occasional fire or robbery I'll be their Hero! Who cares if it's not an universe ending threat.' he looked up towards the beautiful night sky.
'A shooting star.' Ben saw a bright, almost greenish light fall across the starry night horizon, suddenly it turned and seemed to head straight towards him. "Why does this feel familiar?" Ben muttered as he was about to run for his life, the meteorite slowed down.
Raising an eyebrow Ben stood still as the glow became more and more intense until it was right in his face. The bright glow slowly dulled revealing a bright green ring with a reflective shine, in the middle of the ring was a raised lantern symbol. "Potential.." the brunette heard an old, grizzly voice and a phantom image of a short statued blue alien with long white hair, wearing a red gown with a symbol similar to the ring and glowing white eyes full of power appeared, his hands cupping the ring. "You're so young, too young… you can't be worthy..." The alien uttered before disappearing, the green ring continued to float.
"Oooookay." Ben muttered with a puzzled look, before shaking off the last several seconds and circled the floating object before his eyes widened. "You have the same symbol the Green Lantern has." He lightly spoke, he kinda liked the Hero but he was almost never seen, never did anything that was newsworthy unless he was with the rest of the Justice League.
"What was that guy's powers again? Flying, shooting out energy, and making things?" Ben questioned before nodding to himself.
That's all he or anyone ever saw him do, fly, shoot, and make things. "So… what is that what you can do? Someone puts you on and you give them those powers?" Ben smirked. "Lame! The Omnitrix is way better!" He exclaimed before grasping the floating jewelry out of the sky. 'But you would solve my little transportation problem.' With no hesitation he placed the ring on his left middle finger. 'That's if I'm-'
His body flashed green, and suddenly wore a skin tight, spandex like suit, his torso an emerald green that matched his shin-high boots and domino mask, above his boots were colored black along with his biceps, his eyes becoming a pale blue that made them appear entirely white that went along with his forearm gloves. "This also feels familiar." Ben muttered and looked at his reflection in the water below the pier.
Making a face at his outfit, especially at his left glove that covered the Omnitrix, 'I'm not wearing spandex, I'm not that kinda Hero.' Suddenly his tight black pants became jean-like, his long boots shorten to his ankle and morphed in high-top like sneakers where his jeans seemingly tucked into. His top half became a sleeveless, semi-loose hoodie with a large green ten in the middle of his chest, the zero appearing like a lantern and beneath the new symbol was the Omnitrix's symbol, his gloves completely disappeared making the black spandex underneath seem like a compression shirt.
"This… is much better. damn I look amazing." Ben smiled widely. 'Note to self, can change outfit with a thought.' His smile lessened for a moment. 'Does that mean?' with a concentrated frown his body flashed green and he was back in his regular clothes. "Nice." With some focus he willed his new uniform on, "Now how do I fly?" He tried to remember how Green Lantern did it, and from his memory there was nothing special, he just flew. 'Probably innate like Ghost Freak.' With that thought firmly in place, just as if he was the ghostly alien, he willed himself up.
"Feels weird flying as me." Ben muttered before a wide smile eclipsed his face, with a second breath he shot up in the air past the clouds within a few seconds. "WHOA!!" The brunette twirled like a corkscrew, the air never thinning.
It didn't take Ben long to hit the Mesosphere, once he did he began floating and twisted back to look down at his planet, his face stretched in an exhilarated smile and a moment later he dropped, free falling back towards earth. "WHAAGGGHHHH!!"
As Ben's heartbeat accelerated, his body getting closer and closer to the ground, his smile only grew wider. When the brunette was only a few feet off the ground he zoomed back into flight, the air being cut with pure speed. 'Let's see how fast I can go!' He passed several cars, the windows breaking at the pressure he was creating. 'Definitely faster than Stinkfly or Ghost Freak!' The ten year old laughed as he flew upwards, passed the height of the tallest building and flew backside to the ground.
'What else? What else?! Green Lantern could produce energy blasts! Like Eye Guy and Way Big! Plus he could create things.' Ben raised his right fist and as if he was Eye Guy willed a green beam of power out of his ring.
A moment later his ring glowed with power and a much larger beam of energy escaped the jewelry, the next moment several much less powerful green balls of energy shot across the skyline.
"Okay! And finally…'' With a draw of the eyebrows that went unseen beneath his mask, a giant fist the size of his body formed out of his ring that he waved around before transforming into a giant knife, he then morphed it into a motorcycle before being absorbed back into the green ring.
He slowed down and floated in place as he took several deep breaths. "Whoo, little tired." Ben muttered before looking at his ring, "Now, do you need to be charged, like the Omnitrix?" He questioned himself, not expecting a reply.
'Eighty-two percent charge.' Ben blinked at the voice in his head. "Cool. How do I charge you?" A moment later a trail of green appeared in front of him and without a thought followed.
Surprisingly it took him back to the pier, to a glowing green hunk of metal that laid where he took the ring. 'How did I miss you?' Ben felt surprise run through him, landing beside it, he picked it up and the metal morphed into a Lantern that had a nice sheen to it. "Ohhh! Is that why he was called Green Lantern?" He nodded at the thought, with another the costume vanished from his form, taking his earphones and placing them in his ear, he began playing another song.
"You would not believe your eyes if ten million fireflies!~"
Ben wore a black wool hoodie with his usual green cargo pants and white tennis shoes with black highlights, his face blank as he sat in class.
The brunette had started fifth grade today and he already hated it. He would much rather be fighting a bad guy or putting out a fire. 'I… hate my life.' Laid his head against his desk as his teacher droned on about… something?
'What in the world is she talking about?' Ben looked up tuning back in. " Now that we covered what to expect from the year, let's review what you learned last year! See if anything stuck." The emerald eyed brunette rolled his eyes.
'Sure didn't! How come I have such a good memory but still suck at school?' Ben laid his head down, and closed his eyes. 'Not like it matters, I'll be bullied for as long as I stick my neck out for other people but…' the ten year old smiled to himself. 'Helping people is worth it.'
Mongul, a mustard yellow skinned, ruby red eyed alien war-lord tyrant of a moving planet named War-World, standing at eight feet tall, with a large build surpassing any bodybuilder. He wore a dark grey skin tight suit with black highlights.
Mongul had recently escaped Slidside Penitentiary, a supermax prison where metahumans, people with extraordinary powers, are sent after committing the worst sort of crimes. Mongul himself was sent there after destroying Coast City, killing seven million people.
Despite his heinous crime against humanity that was greater than even Hitlers' he was simply imprisoned instead of executed because of his inhuman durability equaling Superman's but with no external weakness to speak of.
This evil warmonger had decided, after securing his freedom, to locate the man who helped imprison him, Green Lantern. "I'm going to rip you apart." With little effort he began tracking the rings' constant energy signature. "Slowly and painfully for the humiliation you made me experience."
With a yawn Ben ate his lunch, ignoring the chatting around him until he heard a horrifying sentence. "I just can't believe Coast City was destroyed." Ben's head jerked up.
"What!" Ben exclaimed loudly, surprising the two girls walking past him. "What did you just say?" One of them, a raven haired girl answered the question.
"You haven't heard? Three days ago Coast City was destroyed by some alien named… um… Mongul... I think? Superman and Green Lantern managed to stop him from destroying Metropolis but… yeah." She nervously told the infamous Ben Tennyson who would pick a fight with anyone he thought was a bully.
With horror on his face, he remained silent as the two girls walked away. 'Three days ago… that's when I came back from Xenon.' Ben felt his world cracking around him. 'If… if the Self-Destruct wasn't activated I could have been here, could have helped… could have… could have done something!' His face twisted in fury and a moment later he curled into himself, his head practically between his knees, "Fucking Animo." He muttered through gritted teeth.
Ben tried calming himself, it's not like it was his fault Coast City was gone, he was one Hero busy with a different, equally important situation. "What's wrong Benny? Having a tough first day at school?" Cash Murray, a school bully he regularly bumped heads with, exclaimed loudly for the whole cafeteria to hear.
Cash had a dark skin tone, brown that matched his eyes and dark, black hair with a football shaped head.
J.T or Jason Taylor, Cash's best friend and minion snickered behind the slightly taller ten year old, his skin much lighter, pale white as if he had never felt the sun on his face, with messy unkempt brown hair a shade or so darker than Ben's, his face was round which matched his thick glasses.
Ben stood up with fury in his eyes unlike anything the two boys had ever seen but unlike what everyone was expecting, the brunette simply moved past them, not saying a word.
It didn't take the emerald eyed Omnitrix wearer to locate and enter a computer lab. Once Ben logged in, he immediately searched Coast City and clicked on the first article, and a second, and a third.
With every word read, his anger grew until all he felt was fury and Ben was reminded of Vilgax, of his uncompromising thirst for power, of his unending quest for dominance of all life for no other reason but ego.
"Is that why you did it, just to prove that you could?" Ben muttered unaware he missed the end of lunch. "Superman should have killed you. Someone as powerful as you, you're going to escape just like Vilgax did, aren't you?" Ben slumped in his seat, his eyes red with unshed tears. " Except you aren't bound by some quest that will make you ignore everything else," Ben shook his head. "You're just going to destroy another city, just because you can, right 'Mongul of 'WarWorld' ." His voice became dry, sarcastic, and cold as he read that name from a quote Superman provided along with his history with the tyrant.
"AGH!" "WHO IS THAT?!" "Is… is that an alien?! Ohh! Do you think Four Arms will show up?" Ben turned towards the door leading out to the hallway, loud footsteps echoing.
With a quick press of the Omnitrix button the dial popped up, 'Sounds big, i'll go with…' "Diamondhead!" Within a moment his body transformed into a seven foot, bluish-green crystal alien, he had four crystal shards standing out of his back, two on his upper back and two on his lower, his eyes pupil-less and a familiar emerald green.
His clothes morphed into a sleeveless unitard, the left side was white and the right black, the Omnitrix face rested on his left shoulder.
With hardly a thought, his right hand sharpened into a spike, paying attention to the footsteps that came closer to his location, seeing the crack under the door darken.
A moment later the door shattered, revealing Mongul, not that Ben knew that. "Hmm, I thought your species was extinct?" The yellow skinned tyrant looked at the symbol before a smile stretched across his face. "Ahh! You're the Omnitrix wielder aren't you, Ben 10. "
"Damn right bud! So I would think twice about whatever stunt-" before he could continue Mongul moved and Diamondhead blocked a hit towards his head with his right spike.
"Not many people could block that, looks like the rumors weren't extrergated. Is it true that you defeated Vilgax." Diamondhead struggled to stay upright.
"That idiot? Yeah, threw him into deep space, won't be seeing him, ever!" The petrosapien smirked as dodged a punch to the stomach and pressed his spike under Mongul's jaw. " If you don't want the same thing happening to you, I suggest you give up." The red eyed tyrant chuckled.
"Arrogant aren't you, of course when you have two of the most powerful weapons in the universe, who wouldn't be?" He asked rhetorically.
"Two? Buddy, I only have the Omnitrix." Diamondhead replied with confusion and Mongul's smile widened.
"You don't know, do you? The power ring of Will, the greatest weapon ever created before the Omnitrix at least, of course some people might disagree with that line of thinking." The warlord told the ten year old who felt surprise run through him.
"You can't be ser-" his guard lowered slightly and Mongul took immediate advantage, his right hand shattering the spike, like it was a toothpick before grabbing his head and bringing it to his knee several times before punching him through the wall into the street.
Several cars swerved around him and Diamondhead struggled to his feet. 'Like fighting fucking Vilgax.' He thought to himself as he stood up, his shattered face realigning and his right hand regrowing.
Mongul stepped out of the hole his body made. "I'm always serious, Ben Ten." The petrosapien narrowed his eyes.
"It's Diamondhead In this form."the crystal-like humanoid stated and the mustard skinned tyrant raised his hand in false surrender with a smile.
"Of course Diamondhead, now stay still and let me rip you apart." Mongul shattered the concrete as he moved Diamondhead dodged the first punch but was unable to move out of the way of the kick across his ribs.
Flying across the street Diamondhead managed to aim his left hand towards Mongul and sent several spikes towards the manic who simply let them hit his skin, shattering on impact.
Twisting through the air, Diamondhead skidded onto his feet and laid his hand across the street on a wave of crystals, sending the red eyed tyrant flying and tearing the street to pieces.
With a breath the silicon alien began running, each step creating a pillar that forced him higher into the air, his fingers sharpened into knives, Mongul was simply smiling as he looked towards Diamondhead as he leaped down, a moment later the mustard skin tyrant met him half way and bear hugged him tightly.
"AAGH!" His Diamond hard skinned began cracking, with a thought, spikes came out of his torso but Mongul simply kept hugging even as they fell to the ground.
"You may not be the Green Lantern who humiliated me but you're still a Green Lantern, I'm going to enjoy destroying you like I destroyed his city." Diamondhead's eyes snapped open, with a scream, a column of crystal shot off his stomach as thick as his torso, successfully separating the two of them and pushing the tyrant into the ground.
"You… Your Mongul?" He whispered with barely held rage and the mustard skinned conqueror shattered the column keeping him down with a punch.
"Yes, I'm Mongul, Lord of War-" with a flash of green, a twelve foot, dark red giant with two pairs of four fingers arms, four emerald eyes. He had a black strip resting across his head, between his eyes and another strip resting down his chin.
Four Arms wore a spandex suit familiar to Diamondhead except the white was separated by a thick black line resting in the middle of his torso and ending at his black pants.
With a super powered leap, the behemoth clenching his upper fists, letting loose a roar as he landed where Mongul crashed. "BOOM!" The mustard tyrant had both his hands in a death grip, Four Arms' second pair of fists clenched and punched upwards, loosening the war lords grip.
A moment later his main pair of arms smashed against the side of his head and forced it down to his waiting knee, Four Arms' leg jerked out kicking across several blocks.
With another leap, he pulled back all his arms and smashed them against the prone figure, a shockwave rolled from point of impact, dust clouding his vision but he could feel two of his fists held tightly, of course two of his other hands were free and both jerked up in a uppercut creating a second shockwave.
Four Arms then kicked Mongul in the stomach, sending him flying, his body caving a car around it.
A moment later the war tyrant roared and rushed towards the four armed aliens and began landing blows with furious zeal. "I'M TIRED OF THIS GAME!" The titan was able to block a few hits and exchange a few of his own but Mongul was landing a lot more blows.
"AFTER I'M" a haymaker punched to his side, " DONE WITH" an upper hand punch to the sternum, " YOU, I'LL KILL THE KRYPONIAN!" Mongul with speed like a cheetah, moved around the twelve foot giant and punched him in the back of his knee forcing Four Arms to kneel, "AND TERRAFORM EARTH INTO A NEW, BETTER WARWORLD!" The mustard skin tyrant stood up and brought both his fists down in a hammer punch to the back of Four Arms head.
The red giant dropped to the ground barely conscious and with a deep breath, Mongul raised his foot high to air and brought it straight down to his enemy's head.
In the moment before his head was smashed, Four Arms rolled away from the attack, the ground caving for the tyrant's strength, his leg disappearing at the knee.
As he rolled back onto his feet, the Tetramand took several deep breaths, gaining back some sense and leaped to Mongul to bear hug him, the Omnitrix blared red. 'NO!' A red flash covered his body and Ben solidly hit the tyrant's chest. 'THAT WAS NOT TEN MINUTES!' The youngest male Tennyson felt the air leave his lungs as he landed on the concrete.
Looking up, he saw the sadistic smile of Mongul and immediately concentrated on his fail safe, the green lantern ring.
With a flash his clothing changed into his apparent uniform and a shield covered his body. "AGHHH!" the red eyed WarLord screamed in anger. "You know how to use the ring?!" Ben smirked and with narrowed eyes the shield surrounding his body expanded rapidly, throwing Mongul a dozen feet away.
With a breath Ben flew towards his now downed enemy and raised his left arm, Mongul shook and crushed his teeth together before smiling at the rapidly approaching Green Lantern.
He raised his own fist ready to snatch the boy out of the sky but a blast of energy, shooting out of the power ring, encompassed his body and for what seemed like the thousandth time he was knocked off his feet, flying further into time until a large hand wrapped around his body and threw him high up into the sky.
Ben flew after the War Lord but floated right beneath him and aimed another blast at the mustard colored alien who curled into himself jerked all his limbs, the sheer strength of that act creating whirlwinds and pushing him towards a surprised Ben who was too late in making another shield.
With a squeeze Mongul was sure to hear and feel a snap but no such thing happened, looking down he saw an aura of green surrounding the boy who smiled smugly before it turned dark, the aura expanded and Mongul flew off him.
They soon came back to earth, Ben's constructs having no damage and his energy blast, while hurt, actually did jack shit. Ben was already down fifty percent on his ring, so he decided to wait out the clock until the Omnitrix came back on line.
"AGHH!" The new green lantern created several hundred shields around Mongul and continued to make more with every passing second. "I will have my revenge!" The brunette could see people starting to lose their fears of their fight as beginning to record, he waved at one camera giving a thumbs up and in that second the Omnitrix turned green.
With a savage grin Ben pressed the watches button and twirled the dial until Four Arms silhouette appeared, he slammed it down and transformed.
Mongul didn't know what hit him as Four Arms, who now had the white on his spandex turned green, worked with the ring, punching the tyrant with enough strength to send him flying before an energy rope wrapped around him brought him back to his waiting fist.
It took him just three minutes to knock the evil Alien out with the final move: a quadruple hammer fist aimed below the chin and on top of Mongul's head.
'Thirty six percent charge.' Four Arms blinked and looked at the ring before the cheering of the crowd caught his attention unaware of the few snippets of conversation from the crowd and the larger conversation that would happen on the internet with two sets of video came to light.
Max Tennyson, the grandfather of Benjamin and Gwendolyn Tennyson, an older man with grey hair, a plump body and usually stood at five feet and ten inches decided to sleep in after an entire summer of waking up early only for a call on his phone to disturb him.
After a moment he opened his eyes, it took him a moment to reach his phone and answer, "Hello?"
"Grandpa Max! I don't know if you heard but Coast City was destroyed a couple days ago." Max sighed, he had heard, he was on earth when it happened and it devastated him, he was just glad Mongul was defeated by Superman and Green Lantern. "The alien that did it escaped and tracked me down, I just knocked him out but I'm not sure what to do next?" Max blinked at what he just heard.
'Ben defeated Mongul? The Lord of War World? The alien that the Green Lanterns and Plumbers could never apprehend? That it took the might of two of the Justice League strongest to even stop?! Ben defeated him, by himself?!' "GRANDPA!"
"YEAH!" Max exclaimed in shock and confusion before clearing his head. "Sorry sport, I need you to repeat whatever you just said."
"I said," Max could definitely hear the eye roll and the annoyance in Ben's voice. " I know earth can't hold someone like him, and since he's an alien don't the Plumbers have first crack at him?" Max nodded his head.
Yes, since Mongul mostly operated in the milky way and not the wider galaxy at large, the Plumbers had the right to him, except the Plumbers were no longer a thing on earth since the formation of the Justice League taking care of every problem including extraterrestrial, and the technology able to hold beings such as Mongol became more common place.
"How secure is he?" Max asked with a hard tone.
"... not very, I have a shield around him but he can break through them like tissue paper." Max nodded, assuming Ben meant a diamond shield.
"I'll track you right now, and the both of us can take him to Mount Rushmore." Ben whopped with joy and a second later hung up.
After locating Ben via his Phone, Max pulled up at an edge of a crowd and stared in shock at Ben, normal Ben, flying several meters in the air with a bubble of green energy around an unconscious Mongul, a crowd of people and police surrounded them.
A moment later Ben shot some energy at the rustbucket surprising Max and moved several thousand yards away from prying eyes before entering the RV with his prisoner. "Hey grandpa! Like the look?" Ben pointed at his outfit with a smile and Max began laughing.
"So, let me get this straight, blue guys that call themselves Guardians of the Universe, make these rings and spread them out to the universe to make them cops?" The older Tennyson nodded along. "These rings, somehow powered by pure will, can do almost anything, except effect things that are yellow and need to be charged every twenty four hours." Max gave another nod and Ben gave a confused frown.
"But the ring seemed pretty effective on Mongul, I didn't have any trouble knocking him around with it." Max sighed and shrugged.
"I don't know what to tell you Ben, yellow shouldn't be affected by the Green Lantern ring, I also know that only those who reach maturity of their culture can even be considered to wear it but it seems like you're breaking all the rules." Ben hummed in acknowledgement.
"It is what I do best." Max gave a laugh and nodded along, silence soon encompassed the two until Ben broke it with an usually serious voice.
"Grandpa, shouldn't we, shouldn't we kill him." Max blinked at the question but didn't take his eyes off the road. "I Mean he destroyed a city! Killed seven million people and who knows how many more in space! He deserves it, doesn't he?" Max swallowed before nodding.
"He does, most likely the only reason he wasn't was because it just isn't possible with how tuff his skin is even with inhibitor collars but Ben we, we shouldn't be the ones to do it. I'm a retired Plumber and you're ten years old. We… we don't have the right." Ben looked down in thought. "You want to be a Hero, right Ben?" The boy nodded.
"Heroes don't kill, they protect and serve but killing, killing is for the people in charge. Heroes should only kill when there's no other choice, like the police." The young boy nodded but inside, he still thought he should have killed Mongul, he thought about it when he became unconscious but he felt something twist inside him at the thought, especially since he couldn't fight back.
"But if Superman killed Mongul before he came to earth then none of this would have happened, millions of people would be alive. What if… what if he comes back, he escapes again, won't it be my fault if he kills more people?" Ben whispered and Max remained silent for what seemed like forever.
"No, it would be the Plumbers for not keeping him secure, when they get here to collect him. It isn't Superman's fault for Slidside Penitentiary not keeping Mongul from escaping and it isn't his fault that he was teleported away before defeating Mongul and taking him to the proper authorities on War-World" Max took a breath. "A Hero's job is to help, it's to let people smile in a dark and scary world, if you become dark and scary then you're not doing it right." Ben sighed.
"My future self seemed dark and scary but the people he was protecting smiled all the time, they loved him and he killed Vilgax." Max shut his eyes for a moment. "Isn't it… isn't okay to.. to kill if the people are safe? if the monsters that make the world such a scary place don't exist anymore?" Max couldn't find the words to retort his grandson and both remained quiet for the rest of the trip.
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