Ben 10: Alien Rebirth

by B.E.A.T.N

It started with an alien device that did what it did. It stuck itself upon his wrist with secrets that it hid. Now he's got super powers, he's no ordinary kid. He's Ben 10! My retelling of the Ben 10 series, with various changes throughout the story, including: a darker tone, more focus on certain characters, skipped and altered epispdes, etc. New chapters (almost) every Tuesday!

20. Chapter 20

Ben 10: Alien Rebirth

Chapter 20: Camp Fear

We see the RustBucket driving along through a rather raining storm.

In the RV, Ben and Gwen are in a quarrel about whose birthday would be celebrated on the actual date as Chester naps in the corner of the room.

Ben, "come on, it should be mine."

Gwen, "no, it should be mine. I've been planning and picking everything for the party. And besides, you're invited."

Ben, "oh great! I get to go to your stuffy party?"

Ben picks up one of many invites Gwen made for her party and l flicks it over his shoulder. He then takes off his shoes and socks and starts scratching his foot.

Gwen, "ugh, that's nasty."

Ben, "I can't help it. My foot's been itchy all day!"

Max, "why don't you two share your party? You've been doing that for years?"

Ben, "that's the problem. Gwen plans everything, I like to improvise, it's a recipe for disaster."

Max, "oh come on. It can't be that bad?"

Ben, "maybe I'd be able to focus on this more if my foot wasn't this itchy!"

Max, "hold on, I've got something for that."

Max fishes out a foot powder.

Max, "traveling around so much means you gotta stay prepared. This powder is designed to kill any kind of fungus."

As Max drives, suddenly, a boy runs in front of the RV yelling, "they're coming!"

Max nearly hits him, but is just fast enough to swerve the RV out of the way.

Fortunately, the boy was able to avoid getting hit, though he ended up falling down the nearby cliff, with only a branch to grab a hold onto!

The trio ran out of the RustBucket to see the kid hanging on for dear life!

Gwen, "hold on!"

Ben, "StinkFly to the rescue!"

He activates the Omnitrix, but transforms into Cannonbolt instead.

Cannonbolt, "oh, man! Can't this thing ever get it right?"

The boy started losing his grip, but Cannonbolt jumped down after him, caught him and curled into his shell, pulling the boy in too. They roll down the cliff, and land safely down and the boy is alright.

Cannonbolt, "you alright?"

The boy screams and faints in utter terror.

Cannonbolt, "yeah, sounds about right."

The RustBucket drives down to them as Cannonbolt turns back into Ben by the time it gets down there.

Gwen, "is he alright?"

Max goes up to the kid and says, "he's alright. Looks like he's just unconscious."

Ben, "who is this kid?"

Gwen, "his name is Gilbert."

Ben, "how the heck do you know that?"

Gwen, "just my intuition. That, and it says so on his name tag."

Max, "what's a kid doing out here in the middle of nowhere?"

The three of them get the still unconscious Gilbert into the RustBucket.

As they lay him down, Gwen recognizes the outfit he's wearing.

Gwen, "hey, he's a camper from Camp Opinicon! That's the outfit all the campers wear."

Ben, "how'd you know that?"

Gwen, "Ken and I went there when we were little."

Max, "we should get him back to his camp. Next stop, Camp Opinicon."

As Max begins driving to said camp, they then find a strange looking rash on his arm

Gwen, "ugh, it's some kind of fungus. A really nasty looking one."

Ben pokes it and continues to be curious.

Gwen, "don't you have enough fungus on you?"

Ben, "sorry, I was just curious."

….

Soon they arrive at the camp, seeing that it's abandoned. No one was there.

Ben, "okay, anyone else super creeped out by this?"

Gwen, "definitely."

The three of them leave Gilbert in the RustBucket as they go into the mess hall. They couldn't see anyone else there.

All they saw was an abandoned area with a huge mess left behind.

Max approached a plate of spaghetti.

Max, "it's still warm. Looks like the campers left in a hurry."

Gwen, "I don't like the sound of that."

Ben, "make that two of us."

As they continue their search for anyone, the lights suddenly come out.

Max, "the storm must have taken the power down. Good thing I came prepared."

Max was ready for any situation and had a flashlight with him.

He shines it on Gwen, then on Ben, who was eating the spaghetti on the table.

Ben, "what? It's not like anyone's gonna come back and eat it?"

They soon enter the kitchen, only to find the place with no people.

Gwen, "a camp with no-one around. Is there anything creepier?"

Ben, "being at an empty school?"

Gwen, "that's…. Actually creepy. Good one."

That's when Ben finds something nearby in the darkness, which is revealed to be two twins.

Max, "you kids alright?"

The twins nod.

Gwen, "can you tell us your names?"

They reply, "Andy and Mandy."

Ben, "what were you hiding from?"

Andy, "monsters."

Mandy, "outside."

Max, "you kids had better come with us. We can get to town to see just what's going on."

The twins nod and follow the trio to the RustBucket. When they get back, Gilbert is just starting to wake up.

Max gives Gwen, Ben and the twins their towels.

Max, "use these to dry off. We don't wanna add colds to our list of issues right now."

Ben and Gwen don't want to share.

Ben, "let go!"

Gwen, "you let go."

The two play tug of war as the twins get along just fine.

Mandy, "it's okay."

Andy, "we can share."

The twins use their towel to dry one another off.

As Max sits in the driver's seat, he says, "they could learn a thing or two from those kids."

As Max turns the engine on, it fails.

Max, "what the?"

Max tries again, still no luck.

Max, "I'm gonna check the engine. Be right back."

Max gets out and opens the hood of the RV, and a mass of greenish fungus covers the engine!

Max gets back into the RV and says, "the engine's covered in vines. Guess we'll have to take shelter in the cabins for now."

And with that, the small group makes their way into one of the cabins.

Ben starts to take care of his foot problem.

Mandy, "you got a rash?"

Ben, "yeah, and it itches like crazy."

Andy, "everyone gets those at camp."

Gwen, "we noticed. Your friend Gilbert seems to have one."

Gilbert was sitting by himself, looking very afraid.

Max, "I'll see what I can rustle up for us from the kitchen.

Max makes his way towards said kitchen as Ben and Gwen look at one another in worry.

Gwen, "Grandpa rustling up a meal?"

Ben, "this can only end in tears."

Ben and Gwen begin searching for anything other than Grandpa's cooking.

Mandy and Andy manage to find a care package and start sharing it with one another.

Gwen finds one, and she and Ben start bickering.

Ben, "come on, give me some of that."

Gwen, "you'll just scarf the whole thing down!"

Before they can argue any further, they hear Max yell!

"Aaaaghh!"

Ben and Gwen, "Grandpa!"

Ben looks to everyone and says, "stay here, I'm gonna see what's going on."

When he tries to leave, Gilbert grabs his hand and says, "don't go out there! They'll get you!"

Ben, "my Grandpa's out there. I'm not leaving him alone!"

Ben runs out, and as he looks for Max, he pulls down his wristband, activates the watch and transforms into WildMutt.

WildMutt heads out further into the woods to track down Max by his scent, and it leads him to an area in the woods filled with mushrooms and fungus.

As WildMutt looks around for more clues as to where the heck Max is, he's led to a deep pit, where he is wrapped up with giant blue vines!

WildMutt tries to escape, though without success, and he is pulled down into the tunnels below!

WildMutt finds Max in the deep tunnels of the pit, but he's pulled into the darkness as WildMutt reverts back into Ben!

Ben, "Grandpa!"

Mushroom-like aliens start to surround Ben, ready to go after him, and Ben runs away for his life.

Ben, "so this is what Mario sees in his nightmares!"

Ben keeps running through the tunnels until he finds a cliff! He climbs up the cliff wall and heads to a nearby bulldozer, and uses it to defend himself from the living mushrooms.

Ben, "eat this ya overgrown toadstools!"

Ben manages to run over several of them, but then the bulldozer starts getting constricted by the giant tentacles and it throws it out of the tunnels! Ben is now back on the surface, and races back to camp as fast as he can!

In the cabin, Ben bursts through the door, startling all of them!

Gwen, "Ben, what's going on? Where's Grandpa?"

Ben, "Grandpa's been kidnapped! This whole place is crawling with mushroom aliens!"

Andy, "we know about those things!"

Gilbert, "I've been studying fungus all summer. I tried to warn everyone when the fungus started growing in numbers, but no-one believed me!"

Mandy, "except Andy and I."

Gilbert, "right. These things took over the camp, and everyone evacuated as fast as they could. Us three were the only ones who couldn't get out in time."

Ben, "we need to get out of here. But not without Grandpa!"

Gwen, "agreed. We need to find him. Together."

The cousins emerge from the cabin, when suddenly, a giant pod emerges from the ground! This forces them to run back into the cabin!

They try going out through another door, but this keeps happening, as the ground is soon overpopulated with puffballs!

The kids all stick together as they make their way through the fungal jungle.

Ben, "what are these things?"

Gilbert, "they look like an old fungus I studied. They hold spores that can spawn even more of these mushroom things!"

Ben, "well we can't let that happen. We need to stop these things. How do we do that?"

Gilbert, "well, the only way to stop a mushroom is to destroy its mycelium."

Ben is puzzled by Gilbert's explanation.

Ben, "can I get that in english?"

Gwen, "the mycelium is the brain of a mushroom. Destroying that should do the trick."

Ben, "I will always be confused by your knowledge of mushrooms."

As Ben tries to run off, Gwen stops him.

Gwen, "wait, Ben, let me go with you. He's my Grandpa too."

Ben sighs and says, "Gwen, I know we share a lot of things, but there's one thing we don't share, even with your powers being a thing."

Ben holds the watch up to emphasize his point.

Gwen understands and says, "be careful, and good luck."

Ben gives Gwen a hug as he says, "you too. Keep the others safe."

Gwen, "I will."

Gwen runs off with the kids to find safety, while Ben quickly dials up the Omnitrix and transforms into XLR8.

XLR8, "hold on Grandpa, I'm coming!"

XLR8 heads back to the area with mushrooms in the blink of an eye, and begins searching around the cave for any sign of Max.

….

Meanwhile, Gwen and the campers go to the archery range, thinking it would be safe.

While they decide where they can take shelter, the ground begins to shake as suddenly, a giant mushroom emerges from the ground and engulfs the twins!

Gwen, "oh no!"

….

XLR8 continues to go deeper into the cave and tries to avoid the tentacles that attempt to constrict his body as he runs.

….

Gwen manages to find a bow and arrow, lights the end on fire using her magic, and shoots the giant mushroom down!

Fortunately, the twins are alright, though more mushrooms emerge around the four kids!

Gwen, "ugh, it's just one of those days, isn't it?"

In the dark, eyes stare at the kids in danger.

….

XLR8, on the other hand, finally finds Max wrapped up in the giant tentacles!

Max, "Ben!"

XLR8, "Grandpa!"

XLR8 attempts to cut the tentacles with his super speed, but before he could finish, he reverts back into Ben!

Ben, "aw, man!"

Ben then ends up being tied up himself!

….

The kids on the upper ground try to find another way to shelter as they get chased by the killer fungus!

Gwen, "I hope Grandpa and Ben are doing better than we are!"

….

Ben and Max are struggling to get out of the cave, the vines constructing them.

Ben, "come on, if I can just get HeatBlast or something, I could burn these things to a crisp!"

Max, "you might wanna hurry Ben, who knows how much longer we have until they do something to us."

Ben tries to activate the Omnitrix, and when he does, a vine grabs onto it, and the watch glows yellow for a second, with a strange symbol appearing on the dial before Ben is engulfed in a bright green light!

He begins to transform into an all new alien! They look like a giant living plant with a single big blue eye!

Max, "what the heck is that?"

The new aliens says, "beats me. I've never seen him before", he releases spikes that free him from the vines, "but I like what he can do! This is so wild, I'm made of vines! Hmm, Wildvine? I like it."

He slashes Max from the clutches of the tentacles, and the two begin to make their escape from the tunnels.

….

Meanwhile, the kids slide down the wire of an obstacle course, but a mushroom comes along to bite it and they all fall down faster than London Bridge!

Mushrooms on the ground were able to break the fall, but only to find more of the mushroom spawns in the ground.

Gwen, "quick, into that shed!"

They all head to a nearby shed, though it seems to make the situation worse as the mushrooms surround it, waiting to attack their prey.

Gwen and the others see a variety of sports equipment to use as weapons.

Gwen, "alright, that's one good thing that's happened to us."

Gwen grabs a rather large baseball bat as Gilbert grabs a shovel.

But then, Andy and Mandy start arguing over a golf club!

Andy, "give it here!"

Mandy, "no! You take something else!"

Andy, "but I wanna use the golf club!"

Mandy, "so do I!"

Gwen, "will you two both stop it!"

The twins stop and look at Gwen.

Gwen, "now is not the time to be fighting! You're brother and sister! You're supposed to get along with one another, and work together!"

Andy, "but you and your cousin kept arguing."

Mandy, "yeah!"

Gwen, "well we were wrong. We love each other, we just forget it sometimes. Now we all need to work together if we wanna make it through this. So I suggest you two stop fighting each other, and start fighting some mushrooms."

Andy and Mandy seem to agree as Andy gives Mandy the gold club and grabs a hockey stick to defend himself with.

Gwen, "good, now, let's do this!"

….

Inside the underground cave, Wildvine and Max are running through the tunnels, when suddenly, more vines sprout from the ground and wrap them up, bringing them further underground to encounter the Mycelium.

Wildvine, "let me guess, you're the brainiac behind all of this?"

Mycelium, "I prefer Mycelium."

Wildvine, "then you're the thing I need to stop!"

Max, "um, Ben, who are you talking to?"

Wildvine realizes that the Mycelium has the ability to communicate with plant life!

Wildvine, "I can hear this thing talking to me! It must be because I'm this thing."

Mycelium, "you are a plant like us. You should be helping in our conquest!"

Wildvine, "ain't gonna happen, buddy!"

Without knowledge of himself, Wildvine tries out some of the powers he can do.

The first one he discovers is that pods on his back can act as bombs! He uses his arms to transport himself to go after Max as he gets dragged away by one of the vines!

….

The kids continue to fight the mushrooms after them, though they seem to run out of ideas as they keep coming and coming.

Gwen starts shooting fire at the fungus, but it only stops a few each time as more keep coming!

Mandy is caught by a tentacle, but Andy is able to save her, and the twins run back over to the others as they continue to defend themselves.

….

Meanwhile, Wildvine continues to fight the giant Mycelium with their abilities they've learned!

Mycelium, "even if you destroy me, the spores above ground can still be spread all over the world!"

Wildvine, "over my dead body!"

But as soon as he goes on the attack again, the watch starts beeping!

Wildvine, "no! Not now!"

But in a flash of red light, Wildvine reverts back into Ben, who gets grabbed by the Mycelium once again!

….

The kids are surrounded as the mushrooms slowly close in around them!

….

Ben and Max are in trouble, but one idea comes to Ben's mind.

Ben starts shaking his shoe off!

Max, "Ben, what're you doing?"

Ben, "you said that the Athlete's foot powder can kill any kind of fungus Grandpa! Let's test that theory!"

He throws his shoe, filled with the Athlete's foot powder, into the Mycelium's mouth! The rest begins to shake around, growling in pain and anger as they explode in a huge gush of slime that covered Max and Ben as they fell to the ground.

Ben groaned, "ugh…. Well…. I'll take this over being fungus food…."

….

With the control of the Mycelium no longer available, the mushrooms die all around the others!

Gwen, "they're dying! Ben did it!"

….

Ben and Max come back to the campgrounds safe and sound, though still covered in the Mycelium's slime.

They were able to stop the fungus, but the spores were another problem.

Max, "how are we gonna stop those things from spreading?"

Luckily, Ben remembered what Andy said before.

Ben, "Andy, can you show us where they keep all of the Athlete's foot powder?"

Andy, "sure, but why?"

Ben, "we're gonna need a lot of it. Gwen? Care to help?"

Gwen, "I thought you'd never ask."

….

So to finish up the job, Gwen rides on top of StinkFly, showering the spores with foot powder, making them die before they can spread to other places.

Gwen and StinkFly were very happy to work together as a team to stop the fungus problems at the camp, with Gwen even smiling as StinkFly carried her.

….

Later, after the campers and the staff of Camp Opinicon returned, the Tennyson family went to a diner in town.

Ben and Gwen acknowledged each other for their teamwork.

Ben, "you did good protecting the others from those mushrooms."

Gwen, "yeah, but you managed to destroy them all with the foot powder. Anyway, listen, I was thinking that you could take the real date on our birthday?"

Ben smiled and said, "actually, I don't mind sharing a birthday anymore. At least, I don't mind sharing it with you."

Gwen smiles as she and Ben hug one another.

Max then shows up with two small pizzas for them. One with pepperoni.

And one with…. Mushrooms.

Ben and Gwen, "ewwww."

Max, "hehe, you may not be able to agree on a lot of things, but there's something that you can agree on."

Ben and Gwen, "no more mushrooms."

And thus we end another adventure for the Tennyson's as they laugh at their jokes….

….

Reviews:

kashriramji: um…. What the heck are you talking about? Ben was a boy since the unaired pilot. He was never supposed to be a girl. In the pilot, Ben and Gwen weren't cousins, but neither of them swapped genders. And I'm one of those people who's usually against the Bwen ship. They're COUSINS!

OMNISENSE95: I'm glad you are. It's the very next chapter! And yes, Camp Fear was the next one.

Guest: I plan to show Malware in an original chapter after Xylene is introduced.

shriramasokan: um…. Maybe I'll do Ben x Samus for a future story. But not for this story. This story isn't really a crossover, aside from Generator Rex and Secret Saturdays. But I honestly hate the version of Samus that's a ruthless killer, and she actually HAS a sense of humor in some of the games. And ANY time I write Ben, I ALWAYS remove his cocky attitude.

Omnicaster: glad you liked it. I plan for Ben and Hope to have 3 kids. First is Lumi, Ben's Necrofriggian daughter. Second is Kenny. Both of them will wield an Omnitrix. And I plan for a 3rd OC kid who will have Hope's magic. I plan to make huge changes to Duped. Namely; only 2 Ben clones. Nice one stays at the tennis match with Gwen and Hope, while the aggressive clone goes off with Kevin. At the end, Ben uses 10 clones to flight the Knights, and the whole group goes off to see the Sumo Slammers movie.

Monkey D- Conan: well, I'm glad this story has caught your eye. Rest assured, I try to give each retelling my own changes and touches. In the case of Ben 10, I'm trying to give it a fleshed out continuity and story. And yep, Hope will be joining the story very soon….

Ushindi: I'm glad you enjoyed this chapter. 1. Kevin's half brother, Ethan, is an OC I'm going to add in during Alien Force. 2. I really like Gwen 10K. She barely has any scenes, but she's so cool. 3. I love the Ben 10K episode so much!

Tippy 1.1: yep, Hope is arriving very soon. No problem about Ultimate Big Chill. And yeah, Ben not going ultimate will play into Ben and Rook's issues. Glad you like my ideas for Ultimate Kevin. I like the dialogue for the Ultimate Echo Echo vs Malware fight. Also, as for what you said about Omniverse: NO HAREM STUFF! Looma and Ben don't get engaged. Attea doesn't fall in love with Ben. Elena doesn't fall in love with Ben. Ben will have no interest in Kai. Ben and Julie won't be a couple. No kiss with Jennifer Nocturne. No flirting with Eunice. Hope won't get jealous, since there will be no reason for her too. Catfight is gonna be about Hope teaming up with Looma and Attea to save Ben from Nyancy Chan, not because all 3 girls want him. And I'm completely skipping The Most Dangerous Game Show, since…. Honestly…. I HATE THAT EPISODE. This jerky host forces Ben and all of these women into this game show, where half of them have tried to kill Ben, only a 3rd are actually potential love interests, others like Drew Saturday are already married, and the worst part is when they bring in some of Ben's FAMILY into the game! I am going to skip this episode with absolutely no regrets. And I'm NOT going to give Ben and Hope any relationship issues, because I hate unneeded drama. Ben and Hope are indeed opposites attract, I agree on that. But as I've said; Hope isn't gonna have any favorite alien, and I'm glad you understand that.

Guest: I'm glad you enjoyed those changes to the chapter.

….

I nearly skipped this episode, but since WildVine is introduced here, I knew I had to do it.

And as a bonus, later today, I'm releasing the next chapter.

Why?

Because it's my birthday!

The next chapter…. I am SO excited! Not because Tough Luck is my favorite episode, it isn't, but because this is when Hope finally enters the story!

Like I've said, she's going to join Ben and the others right after her first appearance, one of the biggest changes to the story I am doing.