Chapter 10: Stress Management

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 Ten of the reboot!

* So, this chapter, just like the last one, may have a good amount of differences when compared to the original version.

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

Earth-Prime

Tuesday, May 29th, 2018

Ben's Clubhouse

Ben

It was about nine in the morning now and I was still hitting the bag, while listening to the Beatles' Come Together. I had just finished my third Coca-Cola and I had put the empty can with the other two empty cans on the counter across the room from me. I had also removed the alien watch, since I hadn't been using it and put it on a nearby table. I was punching the bag like I had been doing, when I heard the door begin to unlock.

I walked away from the punching bag and over to the CD player to lower the volume a little bit. A second or two later, the door opened and I saw Gwen standing in the doorway. I was a little relieved that it wasn't one of my friends, as I wasn't really in the mood to chat with anyone. I walked back over to the punching bag and continued hitting it as I heard Gwen step into the clubhouse. I opened my mouth and spoke.

"What are you doing here? And how did you find me?"

"You weren't home when I woke up this morning. I looked around for a while and eventually I found an address book in your mom and dad's room. I found the address to this place, as well as a brief description of what it was and a key with a matching address. So, on a hunch, I decided to check it out."

"I don't think they'd like the idea of you snooping around their house."

"I had to find you somehow. I was worried when I didn't find you anywhere in the house this morning."

I cast a look her way to see her looking around the place.

"So, this is your clubhouse?"

"Yeah. My friends and I hangout here. Dad pays for the power and utilities, so it's my clubhouse."

"If your dad pays for the power and stuff, then technically it's his clubhouse."

"Whatever you say."

"So, why'd you leave earlier before I woke up?"

"I had some stuff on my mind and I needed to blow off some steam."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"No, but I appreciate the thought."

After a couple minutes, I stepped away from the punching bag to take a break. I walked over to the fridge and opened it to grab another coke.

"You know that those are bad for your teeth. Right?"

"Yep." I said as I shut the fridge without a second thought.

After a few seconds, she spoke again.

"Um, can I have one?"

I raised an eyebrow, but didn't turn to look at her.

Didn't you just say that these are bad for your teeth?

I decided that it would be better to just give her what she wanted instead of mouthing off to her. I opened the fridge once more and got her a coke. Once I shut the fridge this time, I tossed the can behind me.

"You know you could have just handed it to me." She retorted as I heard her catch it.

"Sorry."

I took a drink or two of my coke and with my break over, I returned to the punching bag.

"You're coming off as really distant. Are you sure that there's nothing I can do?"

"Positive."

After some time of hitting the bag and seeing it swing back and forth, I spoke again.

"Actually, there is something you can do. Come here and hold the bag for me."

She began to approach me, speaking as she did.

"Okay. Um, why?"

"Because I don't want the bag to move while I'm hitting it."

She didn't speak further. Instead, she walked up the bag and grabbed the other side of it, holding it in place.

"Just don't hit it too hard, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it."

I didn't need to see Gwen to know that she most likely rolled her eyes in response. I started hitting the bag and Gwen handled her end, just holding the bag in place. Eventually, my stressful thoughts returned and I began to up the force that I was putting into my punches. In response, I felt Gwen back up a little bit as she continued holding the bag in place.

"Hey! Ease up a little, please!"

Her words didn't click with me and I kept up my current pace.

Stupid police force! It's not like I wanted to burn down that building! And who is Vilgax and what does he want with the alien watch? And what about that negative version of myself that I saw in the mirror? What the hell was that about?

I suddenly jerked one of my hands backward and then hit the bag with force, jostling it against Gwen and her grip. The sudden movement caused her to lose her grip and she fell over backwards onto the floor.

"Ow!" she exclaimed.

Instead of stopping what I was doing to help her up, which is what I should have done, I continued on with hitting the bag. And eventually I hit it so hard that I hurt myself, as well.

"Agh!" I exclaimed as I drew back my right hand with pain.

As I held my hand in pain, Gwen finally got up and walked back into my field of view.

"What the hell did you do that—" she began to speak with anger, but when she saw me holding my hand in pain, her tone changed entirely. "Ben, what did you do?"

She approached me and took my hand in hers, which only increased the amount of pain that I was feeling. I heard a dripping sound and I looked down at the floor, to see red dripping from my hand. She then turned my hand over so that I could see what I had done. The skin of two or three of my knuckles had split and blood was flowing freely from the wound. She let out a sigh before speaking.

"Come on. We're going home."

She briefly left my side to grab a few paper towels from the other side of the room. She then returned to me and wrapped the paper towels around my wounded hand, while keeping one of them for herself. Once she made sure that they were wrapped tightly, she spoke again.

"That should keep it contained until we get home. Stay here."

She bent down to clean up the few drops of blood off of the floor and after that, she shut off the CD player. I grabbed the alien watch, out it in my pocket and then we left.

The Tennyson House

Sometime Later

Once we got back home, Gwen told me to go wash my hands with soap and hot water and then to sit at the kitchen table while she went to find the first-aid kit. I winced in pain, as she used rubbing alcohol to clean the wound on my hand. She told me that after she took care of my wound, she'd make us breakfast. She told me that she'd clean it and stitch it if it needed it, then she'd bandage it.

"You'll be lucky if you don't have a couple broken knuckles, which I don't think you did." she said. "Jesus, what the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't. I guess I quit thinking for a minute."

"Well, I want to reiterate that I'm willing to help with whatever's bothering you. Just say the word."

When I said nothing in response, she spoke again.

"Right, well here's the bad news first. Since I'm not a doctor, I can't tell if you need stitches. The good news is that it's tightly bandaged and with the pressure, hopefully the bleeding will stop. We'll check on it again tomorrow and if it hasn't improved, then we might have to take you to a doctor."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

She shut the first-aid kit and stood up from the kitchen table, but instead of leaving the room to put the kit away, she spoke.

"And Ben?"

I looked up at her to see her shooting a gaze of seriousness and disapproval at me.

"Next time, don't hit the damn bag so hard that the force will send me off my feet. And definitely don't hit it hard enough to hurt yourself."

I looked down at the kitchen table with slight shame.

"Sorry."

"Hey, no harm done. Well, not lasting harm, anyway."

She then left the room to put the kit away before she would get started on breakfast.

Author's Note:

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

* What did you guys think of this one when compared to the original version of Chapter Ten? This one is heavily edited compared to the original, which we'll get to in the Director's Commentary. 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 thought of this version of Chapter Ten.

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

* Also, I'm aware that it's early Saturday morning and not Friday at the moment. My personal life was really busy and hectic this week, so I wasn't able to start working on this chapter until yesterday. Well, better late than never, I guess.

Director's Commentary

* Just like last time, there is not a lot to talk about in this installment of Director's Commentary. Either way, let's begin. So, in the original chapter, Gwen eventually goes back to her house after how Ben has been acting lately. Seeing as none of the weird stuff that happened in the original has happened here, the second half of this chapter was kind of unnecessary here. So, I decided to salvage the scene from the original Chapter 9 in which Gwen patches up Ben's hand. I took that scene and repurposed it (as well as rewrote it quite a bit), to be used here. With that said, it's time to wrap this up. Thanks for reading.

Next Chapter: The following day, in order to get Ben to feel better, Gwen gets a group of his friends together to come over and play video games for the afternoon.