Chapter 11: Kevin 11: Part 1

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 Eleven of the reboot!

* So, this chapter, just like those in the past, will have a chunk 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

Wednesday, May 30th, 2018

Gwen's House

Gwen

I had momentarily left Ben's house, returning to my house so that I could talk to my brother, Ken. I stepped up to the stoop, took out my keys, unlocked the door and walked in after opening it. My brother came into the living room as I shut the door behind me.

"Hey, sis!" he greeted upon seeing me. "I thought you were staying at Ben's house for the next few weeks?"

I nodded in response.

"I am, but I needed to slip away for a few minutes. Ken, I was hoping that I could ask for a favor."

"Sure. What can I help you with?"

"Ben seems to be troubled about something and whatever it is, he doesn't want to talk to me about it. I was wondering if you could get a group of his friends together and come over to the house later today to play some video games for a while. I think that will take his mind off of whatever's bugging him."

"Yeah, I think I can do that. It's been a while since we all got together at the clubhouse anyway, so it would be good for us all to get together for a while. I make a few calls and let you know later today."

I nodded once again.

"Okay, thank you."

"No problem. Now that that's out of the way, do you want to stay for a while? Have some breakfast?"

"Thanks for the offer, but I need to get back to Ben's house. I'll see you later."

"Oh. Okay, then."

I turned to leave the house without another word. Or at least I intended to.

"Bye!" Ken called out.

"Bye, I'll see you later today."

Sometime Later

The Tennyson House

Ben

Gwen had left earlier this morning. She just told me that she needed to go back to her house so that she could talk to her brother. She didn't tell me why or what she needed to talk to him about. I was sitting on the couch, waiting for her to get back as she came in through the front door.

"Oh, hey." She spoke as she came in.

"Hey." I replied.

"Are you doing okay?"

I nodded.

"Yeah. My hand still hurts a little bit, but I feel okay."

She smirked at me.

"Your hand hurting is entirely your fault."

I rolled my eyes in response.

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

"So, anyway, I just wanted to tell you that we might have your friends over later today to play video games for a while. Are you cool with that?"

"Yeah." I spoke as I got up. "Who knows? It could be fun."

"That's what I'm hop—Hey, where are you going?"

"To my room. I just want to lie down and be alone with my thoughts for a while. I'll come back out in an hour or so—maybe less—and then we can watch T.V. or something."

"Oh, okay. Well, whatever's bugging you, I hope it gets better."

"Thanks."

Four Days Earlier

"The Null Void is a multi-dimensional prison based inside of S.E.C.T.—the Special Extra-Terrestrial Containment Team's—base." Grandpa Max replied. "No one gets in or out without the plumbers' say so. Well, that was supposed to be the case. Until 1986 that is."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Animo broke out. Somehow he managed to get out. And it surprised us when he mutated himself into some kind of giant, with a vastly increased muscle structure as well as razor-sharp talons in place of his fingers."

"How did he do that? And when did he do that?"

"We didn't know at first how he did it. And he did it as soon as he got up. He nearly ended the Plumbers. I don't even recall how we stopped him. A lot of good men and women died that day."

"Focus, Grandpa. How did Animo do it?"

"We managed to revert him back to his human form. And while he was out, we ran multiple tests on him. We discovered something disturbing. That serum he took? It was rewriting his DNA structure. Making him inhuman. We didn't notice that he had woken up, not until he impaled one of our scientists on one of his finger talons."

"Sounds like Animo killed a lot of people."

"That he certainly did. Anyway, we ended taking the last resort and gassed the observation room that he was in, putting him under. And from then on he was kept in cryogenic suspension, since the Null Void wasn't enough. I guess he must have escaped recently somehow, I just don't know how. What's next?"

I grinned.

"Simple." I said as I pointed at the Omnitrix. "What the hell is this thing?"

Present Day – A Few Hours Later

I was sitting on the couch with Gwen, watching T.V., when I heard a knock at the door. I got up before she could do or say anything.

"That must be them." I said as I stood up. "I'll get the door."

I opened it, to see four of my friends standing there, all sporting the same grins. My two good friends that I met in sixth grade, J.T. and Cash, J.T. having curly brown hair and Cash having short black hair. J.T was also wearing his Harry Potter glasses; I always called them that, because the lenses were round. And Kevin was with them, too. He had also been my best friend since second grade. Gwen's brother, Ken Tennyson was with them, too. He was in his early twenties. He had the same fiery red hair that Gwen did, but most of the time he kept it buzz cut.

"Well, how about it, cuz?" Ken asked. "You gonna let us in?"

"Gwen told me that you guys were coming. It's great to see you all."

"Then let us in your house, bitch!" Kevin playfully exclaimed as he pushed his way past me, followed by the other three of my friends.

Once all of them were inside, Ken tsked in response to what Kevin had said just now.

"Kevin, man, what did I tell you about cussing?" he asked.

"Bite me." Kevin said in return.

"Man, how have you been?" Cash asked as he stepped up to me.

I grinned as I took his hand and we shook.

"I've been fantastic, dude." I said.

"I bet you've been good." J.T. said as he stepped over to stand next to Cash.

I let go of Cash's hand before J.T. spoke again and turned to look at him.

"You have an extremely hot cousin to hang out with, you follow me?" he asked.

I was a bit offended by what he said and was about to flick him on his forehead, but Ken handled the situation for me.

"J.T., that's my sister you're talking about." he said.

J.T.'s face went pale.

"Oh, right. Sorry about that." he said.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. I bet you are." I said. "So, what's up guys? What are we doing?"

Ken gave me a toothy grin, as he brought his backpack around so it faced me and opened it up. I looked inside, to see Ken's black Xbox 360 inside, cords, controllers and all.

"Your Xbox?" I asked.

Ken sighed in disappointment, zipped up the flap he had opened and opened another flap, bringing out an Xbox Original game. One of my favorite Xbox games to be exact, that being Halo: Combat Evolved. Ken looked back up at me.

"LAN Party. It was Gwen's idea." he said.

"LAN Party, huh?"

Ken nodded.

"You in?"

I grinned.

"I'll kick your ass."

Ken grinned back at me.

"Not if I kick your ass, first." he said back to me, as he playfully punched me in the shoulder.

"Okay, it's settled!" J.T. replied. "Let's get downstairs into the game room and get everything set up!"

A couple minutes later, Gwen, Kevin and I were all downstairs. Kevin was off in the corner, tossing darts at the dartboard and Gwen stood with me, while I set up the LAN party for Ken, J.T. and Cash to connect to when they got down here.

"Thanks for this." I said to Gwen. "I'm feeling better already."

"Of course, cousin. Don't worry about it." she replied.

After that short exchange, I heard a commotion from the stairs.

"Be careful, J.T.! You'll lose your grip!" Cash exclaimed.

"Oh, shut it, dickwad! I got it!" J.T. yelled back.

I put my controller down and ran to the stairs, to see J.T. and Cash carrying the flat screen from the living room down the stairs.

"What hell is this?" I asked as they came all the way down the stairs.

"Um, we grabbed the T.V. from upstairs, why?" J.T. asked.

"Would it really have been so hard to grab a T.V. from Ken's house? Or from your house, or from Cash's house, or from Kevin's house?" I asked.

"Leave me out of this." Kevin chimed in from his place in the corner.

"I didn't want to have to carry it through the living room." J.T. said, with Cash nodding along in agreement.

"It would have been an additional ten or fifteen feet, idiots." I said. "Besides, you could have borrowed the T.V. from my room!"

J.T. snickered.

"Get real Ben! We all know about the box of tissues and magazines under your bed!"

They all started laughing. Kevin started laughing; J.T and Cash began laughing as they put the T.V. down. Even Ken laughed as he came down the stairs. I looked over at Gwen, who was blushing and doing her best to hold back her laughter. I turned back to J.T., as I began to laugh myself.

"Hey, that's funny!" I said as I continued laughing. "That's good!"

J.T. looked concerned.

"Um, you're going to hit me now, aren't you?"

"Oh, you bet, buddy!" I said, right before I punched him in the stomach.

J.T. let out a grunt, as he slid down to the floor, back against the wall.

"Alright, people! Let's plug this T.V. and Xbox in and get on with this thing!" I exclaimed.

About fifteen minutes later, we had the T.V., Xbox and the LAN Party set up. Kevin, Gwen and I were playing on the bigger T.V., where I had already set up the LAN Party. And Ken, J.T., and Cash were playing on the smaller flat screen on the other side of the room. I had gotten chairs for them from the storage/laundry room. The game session lasted about three and a half hours.

And since there were six of us, we decided to play on Blood Gulch for the whole time. Kevin and I were constantly switching from sitting on the couch or the floor, while Gwen stuck to the couch most of the time. I would have to say that J.T. is the worst player out of the bunch. I was walking along the cliffs in the game, when I heard him speak from across the room.

"Surprise, motherfucker!" he exclaimed, as his avatar jumped out of nowhere at me.

Only, his avatar missed me.

"Oh God!" he exclaimed as his avatar fell off the cliff, to which everyone else laughed.

The second game we did was Team Slayer, with Gwen, Kevin and I as a team and the other three as a team. We looked around the entire canyon of the map and couldn't find the enemy team. We eventually found them in a cave, armed to the teeth with Rocket Launchers.

"Run! Women and children last!" I exclaimed as I ran away, barely being missed by a rocket that killed both of my team members.

Somehow, I don't know how, we won the game.

One Hour Later

Kevin and I took a break from the gaming, going outside to get a breath of fresh air. Besides, he said it was time for him to be getting back home.

"Hey, before I go, I just wanted to say that I wanted to talk about something when you came to see me the other day, but you left so fast that I didn't have time to bring it up."

"Oh, I'm sorry, man. What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, um, I know that you're that Alien Guy character, from the news."

I laughed, sort of nervously.

"What are you talking about, Kevin?"

"I know you're Alien Guy, Ben."

"I'm afraid that I have no idea what you're talking about, Kevin."

However, even though I said that, he persisted with his claims.

"Ben, stop trying to talk your way out of this. It's pretty obvious. For one, you hardly ever stopped talking about comic books and how you wanted to be a super hero all through elementary and middle school. And two, you were always conveniently not around whenever Alien Guy was present. Just face it Ben, I know your secret."

I let out a sigh as I saw that there was no point in continuing my attempts to disprove his claim.

"Fine, you're right. I am Alien Guy. But you can't tell anyone. I'm serious about this."

"Hey, I'm not interested in leaking your secret."

"Then why are you even bringing this up?"

"Well, because I want to get in on the action. Whatever makes you do that alien thing, I want a piece of it."

"No. No, absolutely not. That's out of the question. Too dangerous."

"Okay, that's fine. We had a few good games today, right?" he asked as he put out his hand.

"Right." I said as I took his hand and shook it without a second thought.

After that, I stepped back into the house, before turning back to look at him.

"You sure you gotta go? You can't stay for just one more game?"

He shook his head.

"No, I've got to go." he said. "Things to do at home."

"Okay. I guess I'll see you later, then."

"Bye."

I shut the door behind me and I watched him as he walked down my driveway. For a second, he turned back to look at the door. And through the glass, I saw it. I saw his eyes. His green eyes. But something was wrong. Kevin had dark brown eyes. So, why were his eyes green now?

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 Eleven? 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 Eleven.

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

Director's Commentary

* So, this chapter actually has a bit more differences from the original version when compared to the revised version of Chapter 10. To start off, the opening scene with Gwen visiting her brother back at their house is completely original to this version of the chapter. I just thought that there should be an actual scene in which Gwen goes to her brother and asks if they can get a group of Ben's friends together to try and cheer him up, so there it is.

* Next up, I cut a good portion of the "gameplay scene" in which Ben plays Halo with everyone. I honestly could have cut the entire scene altogether, however, that would make this chapter all the more shorter. And so, against my better judgement, I decided to keep it in.

* And lastly, in the original version of this chapter, there was a bit of a conflict scene between Ben and Kevin at the end. So, I cut that, due to most of it being an obscure easter egg to something that only I would understand. I've gotten better in recent years and back then, I didn't make wise decisions with this story, to put it bluntly. So, it was cut in order for the interaction to come off as more realistic. With that said, it's time to wrap this up. Thanks for reading.

Review Responses

Guest Review (Chapter 10): I just found this chapter yesterday and sofar it's really good. I can't wait for more, thank you for your time in writing it!

Thanks for the review. I'm glad that you think this story is really good so far, you have no idea what that means to me. Thank you for your compliments, but in all honesty, I should be the one thanking you. I decided to relaunch this story, rebuilding it from the ground up into the story that it should have been and after how awful the original iteration turned out to be, I'm just grateful that anyone is giving the reboot the time of day. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Ben responds to an event taking place in the city, in which a bank is being robbed by a being with alarmingly similar powers to his. However, this situation quickly descends into something darker than he's looking for.