Chapter 4: Back on Track

I Don't Own Ben 10 or Any of the Respective Characters, The Rights Belong to Man of Action Studios and Cartoon Network

Author's Note:

* Hello and welcome to Chapter Four of the reboot!

* So, this chapter will feature a good chunk of differences from the original cut, just keep that in mind. You may notice that I have changed the title of this chapter from "Alien Device" to "Back on Track". That will be explained later.

* I don't really have anything else to say in regards to this chapter, so let's get right into it!

Earth-Prime

Saturday, May 26th, 2018

The Tennyson House

Ben

I woke up at eight o'clock the next morning, instantly remembering that I was public enemy number one of Bellwood. Was the whole incident my fault? Yes, it was. In my attempts to summon Heatblast's energy to thaw me out, I overdid it and burned down the apartment building as a result. But if it weren't for Doctor Animo, that never would have ended up happening.

So, we were both at fault. Unfortunately, the press, police and public didn't know about that part and they likely never would. As a result, I was seen as a public enemy. I was treated to something different. I sat up in my bed, still in my day clothes and saw that the alien watch was back on my wrist. I was a little confused as to why it was on my wrist, as I had taken it off before going to bed last night.

But I did recall being pretty tired, so for all I knew, I could have just put it back on and had forgotten about it. It also was in its original form, not its camouflaged form. I just sighed as I tapped one of the buttons on the side of it, setting it into its camouflaged state. I then got up from my bed, walked to my bedroom door, opened it and walked out into the hall. I walked down the hall into the living room, where I saw Gwen asleep on the couch.

I sighed with disappointment when I saw her without even as much as a quilt draped over herself. I walked back into the hall and quietly opened the closet door. I pulled out a quilt and quietly closed the door, before walking back into the living room and draping the quilt over her. After doing that, I walked into the kitchen and just stood there, thinking to myself for a few seconds.

Eventually, I decided to just go work in the lab until Gwen woke up and then we'd eat breakfast, before doing whatever we'd do today. So, I left the kitchen and returned to my room to get my key to the lab. I then went downstairs to the basement and unlocked the door to the lab, before entering the room. I turned on the light and the first thing that I noticed was the mess of files on the floor from yesterday.

I sighed, disappointed with myself that I had never come back in here to clean up after myself. So, after shutting the door behind me, I cleaned up that mess before I got to work. After that had been done, I repeated the process looking at a sample of my blood from yesterday and found something interesting. It seemed that the number of the "green blood cells" had stopped increasing.

Does this mean that they had somehow stabilized in a way?

I reached for my tape recorder to record my findings just now.

Gwen

A Few Minutes Later

I woke up on the couch, with a quilt draped over me. I yawned as I sat up, looking around the living room as I did.

I must have fallen asleep out here last night, I thought. While watching T.V.

"Ben?" I called out.

I tossed the quilt off of me, got up from the couch and walked down the hall to his bedroom door, which was cracked open a bit. Once I got there, I pushed his door open all the way, to find that he wasn't in there. However, his bed had been made, so he must have been up and about for the day, already. I set off to find him, on the account that I wanted to talk to him.

I walked around the entire ground floor of the house looking for him, but I didn't find him. Next, I searched for him downstairs. I was surprised to see that he wasn't in the game room. I approached the door to the room that he had asked me not to go into and I knocked.

"Ben, are you in there?" I asked out loud.

After a second or two, I heard him reply from the other side of the door.

"Yes." He replied.

"Is it alright if I come in?"

"Yeah, I guess. Come on in."

I opened the door and walked into a medium-sized room, which had a few folding tables set up against the walls, all of which having science equipment resting on them.

"What is all of this?" I asked.

"It's my lab." He replied without looking up from a microscope. "Just a hobby of mine."

That answered my next question, so I kept quiet in the meantime. As I stood there, I heard him mutter something. I think he said that something was fascinating. I cleared my throat and spoke again.

"So, uh, what are you doing?"

"Looking at a blood sample of mine."

Hearing that made me curious.

"Can I look, too?"

"I'd rather you not. Sorry, it's just a privacy thing."

While he didn't necessarily have to show me his blood sample, his answer didn't exactly make sense. What would be so private about his blood sample that he wouldn't let me see? That only made me more curious. I suddenly remembered the reason why I had gone looking for him.

"Can we talk?" I asked.

"In a minute." He said as he removed a slide of glass from the microscope, wiping it off with a tissue.

After that was done, he turned to look at me.

"Do you mind leaving the room, so I can lock up?"

I shook my head.

"No, that's fine." I said as I turned to leave.

"Okay, thank you. After I'm done here, I'll go wash my face and then we'll talk."

"Sounds like a plan. See you upstairs."

I left the game room and started back up the basement stairs.

Ben

Once Gwen had left the room, I did the same. I shut the door behind me and locked it. I then put the key around my neck and left the basement, shutting off the lights as I went. Once I was back upstairs, I walked through the kitchen and living room, past Gwen, where she sat on the couch. I entered the bathroom to wash my face and once I was finished with that, I left the room. Almost immediately, Gwen approached me.

"So, uh, there was something that you wanted to talk to me about?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Yeah, I did. So, I came to stay here for three weeks to spend time with you and catch up on lost time. And last night after you were just so distant, I realized that that isn't happening like I had hoped it would."

I shook my head.

"That's not necessarily true. We may not have spent a ton of time together yesterday, but we have been catching up through playing video games together and you telling me that you do freelance photography for the Bellwood Post."

"Well, the freelance photography stuff is a good way for me to make some money without having to get a real job."

"And I think that it's great that you've found a way to legitimately make money."

"Thank you. Anyway, like I said, we haven't been spending as much time together as I would have liked and I was hoping that you might want to give it another shot today."

I lightly tapped my foot on the floor for a few seconds before answering.

"Give it another shot how?"

"Well, we don't really know that much about each other still. Like, we know that we both like video games and you know that I occasionally do freelance photography for the Post. My idea was that we play like a 'twenty questions type' game to figure stuff out about each other. Stuff we like, what we've done with our lives, just anything that we can think of."

That idea made me vaguely curious about what she could possibly want to know about me, so I decided to entertain it. I shrugged.

"Sure, why not? If it makes you happy, then I'll entertain the idea."

She smiled in response.

"Okay, well let's go sit on the couch then and talk!"

So, we went to go sit on the couch in the living room. She sat on one end of the couch and I sat on the other.

"Okay, here's how this'll work," she said. "one of us will ask a question that can be quickly answered and the other will, well, answer. No complicated questions, though. Okay?"

I nodded.

"You first."

"Okay."

She put her fingers on her chin, as if she were thinking. A second or two later, she spoke.

"Cats or dogs?"

"Dogs." I replied.

I thought to myself for a few seconds.

"What was your favorite subject in school?"

"Literature and English. You?"

"Tie between science and history. What high school do you go to?"

She shook her head.

"I don't go to a high school, my parents enrolled me in a Saint Agnes Academy, a private school in Downtown Bellwood. What about you?"

"I go to Madison High School, just fifteen or twenty minutes from home."

After that, I began thinking again.

"What's your favorite food?" I eventually asked.

"Spaghetti. You?"

"I like pizza."

Next, I thought of an interesting question, so I went for it.

"Have you ever kissed a boy? Or a girl?"

"How dare you assume that I like girls, you sexist!"

But she said that as she laughed, so I knew that she actually wasn't offended. Afterwards, she looked at me with a suggestive gaze.

"What about you? Ever had a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?"

I saw what she was doing. However, I didn't entertain it.

"What makes you think I want one?"

"Just guessing. What's your favorite video game?"

"Too many options to narrow down an answer."

"You can't just pick one?"

"Fine. Halo: Combat Evolved."

She started laughing.

"We just played that!"

"Yes, we did. And it's the only game that comes to mind, right now."

"Did you ever participate in after school activities at Saint Agnes?"

She shook her head.

"No, but I did dabble in karate. Have you ever kissed a girl?"

I smirked.

"Don't ask, don't tell."

"Ah, you're no fun. Favorite comic book character?"

"Spider-Man. What about you?"

"I don't really know any comic book characters, sorry."

"Then why'd you ask me?"

She shrugged.

"I had an idea that you liked comics, so I asked."

The game went on for another ten or fifteen minutes, before we decided to call it. We both got up from the couch and I stretched as I spoke.

"So, what now?"

"You remember that new water park that I mentioned when I got here the other day?"

"The Riptide Rapids Zone? What about it?"

"It's open all day today. Well, it's open all day every day, but that isn't my point. My point is that we could spend the whole day there, put the last half day behind us and actually try to have a good time."

I shrugged.

"I guess I could go for that. I could get out of the house for a day."

She smiled as her eyes lit up.

"Does that mean we're going?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not? Just let me go get my trunks on and put shorts on over them to wear on the way to the water park. I'll be back in like, five minutes. If even that."

I walked down the hall and into my room. I shut the door behind me and began to change into my swim trunks. A few minutes later, I left my room wearing my trunks, along with a pair of basketball shorts over them. I waited for Gwen to be ready to go. She came out of her room about five minutes later, wearing shorts and a T-shirt over what I assumed to be her swimsuit.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked.

"Sure." I said. "I'm ready whenever you are."

She grinned.

"Well, let's go then! I'm driving!"

We walked out of the house, me with the keys to the house and my phone. And she had a bag with sunscreen in it, a fresh change of clothes for her, a couple of water bottles and goggles for both me and her. Well, only me because I snuck my goggles into her bag. A few minutes and two seatbelts later, we were on our way.

Author's Note:

* And that's it for this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed!

* How did I do compared to the original version? Give me any comments or questions that you may have in either a review or a private message, please. I am very curious on what you all are thinking with the changes that I've made to this chapter.

* Anyway, that's going to do it for me. I'm going to go, so have a great day and bye.

Director's Commentary

* To start off this installment of Director's Commentary, I want to state my reasoning for the change in this chapter's title. The original chapter was called "Alien Device" due to me alluding to the possibility of the Omnitrix being sentient and capable of movement on its own in my version of the Ben 10 universe. With this version, I decided to mostly scrap that, although, you may see this idea return later on in the reboot. So, I changed the title of this chapter to "Back on Track" due to Gwen's desire to get her and Ben's friendship back on track after Ben was distant with her for half the day yesterday and they did nothing as a result.

* So, I decided to cut all of the stuff regarding Ben being angry at the Omnitrix. It just aged badly and I don't think it had any place here whatsoever. I also changed up a bit of the dialogue between Ben and Gwen to better suit this version of the chapter, as in this version of the story, Gwen is just fascinated by Ben's alter ego and not obsessed with him.

* And to end off this installment of Director's Commentary, I want to discuss the "twenty questions" style game that Ben and Gwen played toward the end of the chapter. I realized that this version of the chapter would end up being shorter than I wanted, so I came up with this idea. I especially liked the ideas of Gwen asking Ben if he's ever had a girlfriend/boyfriend and if he's ever kissed a girl, and him replying with "What makes you think I want one?" and "Don't ask, don't tell.". I just really like the two teasing each other like that. With that said, it's time to wrap this up. Thanks for reading.

Review Responses

Patjeeson (Chapter 3): I like the title "hero or menace" on the newspaper, it gives me Spiderman vibes. Good chapter ; - )

Thanks, Pat. Well, the Spider-Man vibes were intentional, I'll say that much. Thanks for the review, as always.

Guest Review (Chapter 2): Wonderful work! I hope you keep this story going because i really enjoy it and have seen too many good stories left unfinished. You really have great potential

Thanks for the review. I will keep this story going, in the meantime, at least, so don't worry. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Ben and Gwen have a fun few hours at the Riptide Rapids Zone, only for the day to be interrupted by a new threat.