To the followers of the Original story you had followed and enjoyed what little of that story had to offer and much more, I'm re-iterating some of those concepts and rewriting this entire story. I say this now because I'm gonna get serious with this story, somewhere as serious as I planned to be with Journey Back Home, but on a Marvel level scale. Also, shoutout to Hugh Jackman for just being the best Wolverine I've ever seen in a long time, and RIP Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther shall rest easy with his ancestors, knowing that everyone will honor him in the best way. WAKANDA FOREVER!
Anyways, back to the story you came for.
The sounds of a screaming man can be heard. In place of Ben Tennyson was a humanoid Inferno. Red rocks made up most of its Biology, as well as the fire that had a physical form of its feet, hands and the inferno that was making up most of its head. This creature was panicking beyond belief.
"I'm on fire! I'm on Fire! AAAAHHHHH!" The pyrokinetic entity exclaimed in panic, running in circles, leaving scorched footprints everywhere he stepped. He eventually stopped, noticing that while he was still on fire, he didn't feel any pain from it. "Hey, I'm on fire.. and I'm okay! Sweet." The creature stated. The creature spat on the ground, a lava loogie burning the ground a bit upon contact. "So... what does this guy do anyway?" The creature asked itself. It held out its hand as a fireball formed. "Ohh yeah, this is gonna be sweet. I'm gonna call this guy... Torch! No that's stupid... Magma Monster? No... I know! Heatblast!" Heatblast stated, throwing the fireball at a tree.
He fired his fingers in a finger gun like motion and blasted the trees. "Check it out, I'm hot." Heatblast chuckled to himself. Almost immediately, smoke was rising. Heatblast's smile turned to astonishment, as fire started spreading throughout the entire forest. Heatblast tried desperately to stomp out the flames, but it just ignited them more. "Oh man... I'm gonna get so busted for this." Heatblast nervously remarked as he tried more and more to put out the fire.
Further off into the woods, The man with claws kept on running from what seemed to be a bigger, furrier man with sabretooth tiger fangs. This was the notorious Sabretooth. Sabretooth tackled the man to the ground, trying to attack up close, but the man kicked the beastly man off of him. Soon after, another man came into view. A man with short, but spiked up blonde hair and fire on his hands. His suit seemed to be A Dark blue with even darker Navy assets on other parts of the suit. There was a huge 4 on his chest. This was Johnathan Storm, AKA, the Human Torch... the Human Inferno of the Fantastic Four.
"Ok, big man. Let's put you back in your cage for a bit." The man said before firing a stream of flames towards the monstrous mutant. Sabretooth dodged, getting a little singed, but still willing to put up a fight. "Damn it, the day I get saved by the walking lighter..." the man grumbled. He took a whiff of the air, and his eyes widened. He looked around and saw a huge mound of smoke coming from ahead of him. "Was that you, candlehead?" the man stated. Johnny looked to the smoke rising. "Must be someone starting a wildfire, I'll go check it out, you handle this guy." Johnny stated. "FLAME ON!" Johnny exclaimed. His body became enveloped in fire as he flew to the fires.
Back with Gwen and Max, Gwen notices the huge cloud of smoke. "Uh, Grandpa?" Gwen asked aloud. Max looked to the smoke mound rising from the forest. "Looks like a forest fire. Either its an arsonist, a mutant, or someone who's playing around with something they don't understand..." Max soon realized the gravity of the third option and turned to Gwen. "Ben. Go, take this and go find your cousin. I'll get the rangers notified and join you when I tell them!" Max stated, handing Gwen a fire extinguisher and running to the RV, turning on his CB radio. Gwen ran into the woods, ready to hopefully face the flaming mess that she'll soon see.
Johnny just landed in the midst of the wildfire, seeing that everything is burning crazy. "Okay, couldn't have been me, so who or what did this?" Johnny asked himself. Heatblast ran past him, stopping to stomp on a small fire in a panic. "Come on, work with me here! Stop burning the forest down! I made you, can't I unmake you?! Come on, Man!" Heatblast panicked. Johnny eyed the creature before him and tapped Heatblast's shoulders. "Please don't hurt me! I was trying to put the fire out, I swear!" Heatblast recoiled. "Easy, you must be one of those uh... mutants, right?" Johnny inquisited. Heatblast got a look at the flaming man before him, and immediately saw him for who he was. "You're the Human Torch! Johnny Storm, the Human Inferno! Big fan of yours, Big fan, sir!" Heatblast fanboyed, shaking Johnny's fire covered hand with gratitude and ease. "Well, nice to know I have fans with my uh... unique talents? What is this, sir?" Johnny asked.
"Well, I was walking and I saw this star in the sky, so I wished I had powers, and it came down, hurdling towards me. I got away in time, but it wasn't a star, but some sort of ball shaped satellite. But it couldn't have been a satellite as it had a watch inside it. it clamped onto my wrist and I couldn't get it off for the life of me, so I pushed on it, and I became this guy, who I call heatblast, and I accidentally started a wildfire. I promise you, this was a freak accident, I'm really sorry!" Heatblast explained.
"Yeesh man, have some dignity, you aren't a kid." Johnny stated.
"I am! I'm an 8 year old kid, travelling on a road trip with my doofus cousin and my Grandfather! I can't go back to them looking like this!" Heatblast panicked again. Johnny was about to call this in to his team, until the roar of Sabretooth got both Johnny and Heatblast's attention. The man with claws came crashing through, his jacket getting torn and slightly burned, and he looked at heatblast.
"Something about you is oddly familiar, bub... your scent... who are-" the man didn't have time to finish screaming until a shrill female's scream was heard behind them. It was Gwen, shocked, astonished and downright angry at the sight of Johnny, the man she saw earlier and some sort of walking volcano.
"Gwen, I know this looks bad, but I can expla-" Heatblast suddenly got knocked over the head with the extinguisher and doused Johnny in the contents of the extinguisher, and aimed it at the man, who unsheathed his claws before recognizing her scent.
"I thought something was familiar in the air... I take it that flaming weirdo is with you, kid?" the man asked, glancing back to the direction he unintentionally came from, directing attention to heatblast.
Heatblast got up and rubbed his head. "I don't know what you are, who you are, but you're going down." Gwen stated. Heatblast manipulated the fire onto Gwen's shoes, causing her to panic and extinguish it as Heatblast chuckled. "I warned you." Gwen stated, raising the extinguisher above her head.
"Don't even think about it, freak!" Heatblast remarked. Gwen stopped, and looked at Heatblast confusingly.
"B-Ben? Is that you?!" Gwen stated, her confusion becoming astonishment, and her astonishment becoming anger as she pointed the extinguisher at Johnny.
"It's okay, he's one of the Fantastic Four! It's human torch!" Heatblast stated. Gwen pointed at the man with claws, expecting her doofus cousin to have an answer about him.
"He's the guy we met earlier today. I was just gonna call him Wolverine, judging by those claws he has." Heatblast stated.
"Don't mean to interrupt a bonfire bonding session..." A rough, snarling voice rang out. It was Sabretooth, with a broken bone claw sticking out of his shoulder. "...But who's going to introduce me?" Sabretooth said grinning. Gwen screamed yet again, and Johnny got back up, reigniting his fires as 'Wolverine' unsheathed his claws. Heatblast readied some fireballs and glared at the feral mutant. "Bring it on, Cat boy. It's a 3 vs 1." Heatblast stated confidently. Sabretooth charged at them, Johnny and Heatblast literally laying down the firepower as 'wolverine' got in close to deliver some physical damage of any kind.
"Gwen, are you- what in the?!" An older voice rang out. Max had just arrived on the scene, beholding the sight of Heatblast, Human Torch and The man they saw earlier fighting a man with a strange feral nature. "Gwen, what is going on here?!" Max asked her sternly. Sabretooth tossed wolverine into a tree, breaking it. Gwen saw from behind her grandpa, that very tree was going to collapse onto him if he didn't move.
The man got up and tried holding it, pulling it towards himself, struggling to keep it still. "GET OUT OF THE WAY, BUB!" the man exclaimed. Max and Gwen moved closer to Heatblast and Johnny, as Heatblast was just now realizing that he had a lot to explain to his grandfather. Sabretooth tried and tried, but he was getting exhausted, the heat from the fires and the superheroes were getting too unbearable for him, and the smoke was hindering his enhanced senses. He quickly made headway and started retreating.
"And stay away, you furry freakazoid! HA!" Johnny retorted. Johnny turned his attention to Wolverine, who had tossed the tree out of the way, and Heatblast, who was nervous about how to explain the situation to his grandfather.
"Ben, how did any of this happen?!" Max asked sternly. The forest around them was crumbling. "Less talk, more getting out of a forest fire, bub." Wolverine stated. "We can't let this go unattended." Johnny stated. Max then realized something. "Backfire... start a new forest fire and let them both snuff each other out." Max stated. Heatblast smiled confidently. "Setting fires, its what I do best." Heatblast then ran through the fire ridden forest and got to the other side of the forest, starting yet another fire, intentionally this time, and the fires began to snuff each other out, like his grandfather knew they would. Heatblast quickly got out of sight, meeting up with his family, Torch and the man back at the campsite, where an explanation is definitely due.
The Baxter Building
Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic; Susan Storm/Invisible Woman; Ben Grimm/The Thing
"You're sure Johnny's body cam data was recording something, aren't you?" a woman asked. This woman had blonde hair, a slim figure and was working on a type of force field around a strange form of debris. "I know how it sounds Sue, but it's for the good of us all, shows that Johnny isn't trying to exploit his powers for fame anymore than he's used to doing." A man answered. This man had short, but well groomed and combed Brown hair and 5 o'clock shadow on his face, his arms stretching like rubber or some kind of elastic material, wearing a lab coat over a dark blue suit with that 4 insignia on it. Suddenly, some video feed sparks on a big monitor. A flaming human monster and a man with bone claws, as well as Johnny, are fighting back against Sabretooth.
"Huh, didn't think Johnny boy would actually make some friends." a gravelly, but joyful voice called out. The thing that spoke didn't seem human at all, but humanoid in nature. Its skin was covered or made up of orange rocks, each one cracked or sculpted in a certain way to make it seem more human. It had no shirt, but it wore elastic shorts that were Dark blue, with a White belt that had a black 4 insignia on it. "Well Ben, we may need to go down there ourselves.. I've seen and heard of mutants... but I've heard and seen nothing like this. Our instruments picked up a strange object in the area as well, maybe that flaming thing came from it." Reed stated, turning the monitor off and taking off his lab coat.
"Come on guys, let's go get Johnny and some answers." Reed stated.
The Campsite
Our family trio, the man with claws and Johnny, who turned his heat down a bit sat around a fire. "So you're saying this watch just clamped onto your wrist?" Max asked the flaming monster that was his grandson.
"Yeah, and this time, wasn't my fault!" Heatblast stated popping a marshmallow in his mouth. "I swear!"
"I believe him, I smelt something in the air not too long ago, was heading to the pre-started fires anyway. Guess I should be grateful that I didn't get what was there. How's it feel, kid?" the man stated. "Weird. I'm okay, I feel that at least, but to not feel the burn when I'm made of fire, it's almost too bizarre for me." Heatblast stated.
"I never met anyone with powers or the mutant gene that was capable of something like this, so consider yourself lucky... kid." Johnny said.
"So, what's gonna happen to him now? He just gonna be stuck like this forever?" Gwen asked.
"I don't wanna be the fire guy forever! How am I supposed to play little league if every time I'm on the field, I char up a pop fly?" Heatblast worried.
"Well, we'll find something out. Maybe if we're lucky, this isn't permanent. We don't know how this entirely works yet, so let's keep calm and try to just focus on the positives." Johnny explained.
In that moment, the insignia on heatblast started to flash red and white rapidly, making a dying beeping sound before enveloping Heatblast in a bright flash of light. As the light died down, Ben was his normal self again, and the watch on his wrist glowed a bright red, insinuating that there was a time limit and a recharge function. "I'm me again! Yes!" Ben exclaimed happily.
"Well, that's too bad, I kinda preferred you looking like a bonfire." Gwen solemnly remarked. Ben was still pulling on the watch, in an attempt to try and remove it. "It... still... won't... come off!" Ben struggled.
"It'll be best if you don't mess with it right now, we need answers from you two. Explain yourselves, now." Max sternly turned his attention to Wolverine and Johnny. Almost immediately, a futuristic jet-like vehicle lands, and out from it comes the other 3 teammates that make up the Fantastic Four. "Johnny, answers please." Reed stated.
"Good to see you too, Reed. I'm alive, thanks for asking." Johnny jabbed. "So what exactly are we looking for, Reed?" Susan asked curiously. "A device of immense power, something that ties back to the fire creature who wore an emblem of the same shape... an Hourglass of sorts." Reed explained. Ben and Gwen were both shaking with excitement that the full Fantastic 4 Team was right here in front of them. And Ben suddenly got a bright idea about the watch on his wrist. If it turned him into the fire guy, what were the other 9 forms like? Ben decided to approach Reed and tell him everything that had transpired.
"With power like that, either things aren't in balance if a kid of all things has this device, or maybe it's a sign of something to come. I'll have to look into this further, but I highly advise not using it anymore, as it may have some unforeseen consequences attached to it that have yet to see the light of day. Johnny, Ben, go get our equipment... We might be here awhile." Reed said aloud.
Above the Planet, a huge alien ship has just come to Earth, monitoring the destroyed ship that was already present.
"M'lord... we searched the entire ship below." a voice rang out.
"Speak now, and be wise of which words you speak to me." Another voice rang out, tougher, malevolent, and angry.
"While the ship did have the Omnitrix, bare in mind that I did say it did..." The voice shaked, rattled with fear.
"What nonsense do you speak of, my prestigious right hand?" The tougher voice stated.
"W-well sir... T-the Omnitrix... isn't there..." The voice quivered. Within minutes, the voice had seemed to flinch as a huge hand raised above his own, and was ready to strike, but it didn't.
"This needn't be a worry... send some scavenger drones down to the planet below... whether we destroy earth or conquer it is no longer my concern. My only concern is the pity I'll swiftly deliver on the lower lifeform that dares to take my prize. So says Vilgax." The entity known as Vilgax stated calmly and collectively.
"Y-yes, M'lord.. You heard him, send them down." The frightened voice stated. As drones were powering up and descending onto the planet, the real fight was soon to begin.
AAAAND That is were we'll leave things for now. I personally like where this is going. We have a semi-set timeline for where this takes place in the MCU. In Ben, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four's case, as well as others soon to come, this is Phase 0. Where heroes are coming in different forms, and these heroes will pave the way for a new wave of heroes, this will in turn lead to the beginning of Phase 1. But for now, let's focus on Phase 0. As I will state, the X-Men are still in their infancy, or at least, the final X-Men team is in its infancy. These things take time and planning to be perfect to a certain degree. As of now, Logan hasn't joined the X-Men yet. But by meeting Ben and the Fantastic Four, there's going to be a major change with how things unfold from the original Ben 10 Canon. We'll have things like the Highbreed invasion, the elusive Limax invasion, Aggregor and the like... But That's not until later phases. As of now, We got a limited roster of heroes under our belt, so let's make the most of it.
Feel free to comment down what you think might happen in the next chapter, as we'll see the introduction of another superhero, this one being more unique than the rest of the bunch.