Chapter 21: Ben Tennyson No More: Part 3

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 Twenty One of the reboot!

* Here's Chapter Twenty One, as I promised in the beginning Author's Note of Chapter Twenty. Anyway, before we jump into the chapter, I will say that we have now stepped into what might be considered controversial territory, with Ben being an anti-hero/vigilante, whichever term you prefer. I thought that this entire story arc needed a bit of an extra flair that the original arc didn't have and I will explain this further in this chapter's Director's Commentary installment.

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

Earth Prime

Monday, June 4th, 2018 – Earlier That Day

The Tennyson House

Albedo

I had been on my own for a couple of days now and things weren't great. I was having conflicted thoughts—conflicted thoughts that a guy like me shouldn't be having—and I felt that I needed advice. I wanted advice on how to be a better person. Me, wanting to learn how to be a better person. Crazy, considering how my "life" began, right?

Well, I thought that the only person who could give me advice was Ben himself. Sure, he may not be happy to see me and there's every possibility that he'd try to blow the whistle on me, but I had no other option. So, here I was, standing outside of his house, about to knock on the door. So, I knocked and I was surprised when Gwen answered the door shortly thereafter.

"No, not you!" she spoke as her eyes widened. "I don't exactly know what you had planned, but it would have meant bad news for my cousin! Get out of here!"

She had every reason to be suspicious of me, as well as wanting me to leave. But if I wanted to make any progress, I would have to stand my ground.

"Look, I know that you're suspicious of me, but I promise that I have no interest in messing with Ben's life!" I insisted. "I just need some help trying to figure out what I should do with my life. So, can I talk to Ben, please?"

"Ben isn't here."

"He isn't? Then where is he?"

"I don't know where he is. And even if he was home, I wouldn't let you see him. I don't believe for a second that you've changed your ways. Now get lost before I call the police!"

Gwen

After I told him to get lost, thinking that I had given him a message, he surprised me with is response.

"I'm sorry if I gave you any trouble." He replied.

Then, just like that, he turned and walked away from the house, just like I told him to. I felt extremely confused.

Why did he just leave without causing any more trouble? Isn't that the kind of person he is?

Albedo

As I walked away from the house, I felt a negative urge pulling at me.

What are you doing?! Turn around and take his life while you still can!

I shook those thoughts away and kept walking.

No, I thought. I'm not that person anymore.

Ben

Downtown Bellwood

"Albedo." I said. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you playing at, Ben?" Albedo asked as he stepped into the room.

I cringed as I heard that name.

"Don't call me that."

"But it's your name, Ben."

"I'd rather not answer to that name, nor live as that person, anymore."

Albedo looked surprised.

"But that completely goes against what you taught me the other day! You taught me that you and I are not the same, but that's okay. You made me learn that I am a monster. And ever since, I've been doing what I can to make myself into something with just a degree of humanity. I've even tried to stop a few muggings. But I'm not as good as you, Ben."

I ignored the fact that he said that name again.

"So, what? You expect me to train you? You want to be my sidekick?"

He shook his head.

"No. No, I want you to teach me how to be a good person. I want to know how to live my life correctly."

I just stared at him.

"I don't have anything that I can teach you."

Instead of turning whatever this was into an argument, Albedo remained calm as he spoke again.

"Let's come back to that. What are you doing here? Why weren't you at your house? I went there in hopes—"

"Why couldn't you just stay away from my life?"

"You're the only person who could possibly help me. Now, what made you leave home like this?"

"Look, two, maybe three of my enemies know my secret identity. I won't make that mistake again. So, I threw away my civilian and personal life. That way, my friends and family will be safe from any enemies I make in the future."

"Bullshit."

"What?"

"That doesn't mean that you have to abandon your life! You just need to be more careful and take more precautions when it comes to your superhero life! Plus, you have Gwen worried sick about you!"

"I know that she's worried. I just finished speaking to her as Alien Guy."

"Well, if you know that she's worried about you, then why don't you just throw in the towel on this whole 'living as a vigilante' thing and just go home?"

"As much as I would like to return home, I can't risk her safety by going back."

"I understand where you're coming from, but I still think that you should reconsider."

I shook my head.

"No. I'm afraid I can't do that. If any part of you still wants to take Ben's life, then you can have it."

"Sorry, but it's not my life to live. A guy's got to go his own way, make his own decisions. Just like you made the decision to abandon your life as Ben Tennyson. Besides, I think you and I both know that Gwen wouldn't want to see me. Not after what I pulled."

I don't know what it was, but the first part of what Albedo said just now stuck with me. I cleared my throat and spoke once more.

"If we're both clear on the fact that you can't change my mind, then you can leave now. I have things to do."

"Not until you at least help me out a little."

"I already told you that I can't teach you anything!"

"That can't be true. You had to learn how to be a good person from somewhere."

Well, you're persistent, I thought. I'll give you that.

"Why do you care so much about being a good person? If you really do care, let's take into account that you're a clone of me. By just going off of that, then we should have the same brain and by that hypothesis, then we should have all the same memories, too. And if all of that is the case, then there's no point to any of this for you. You should already know how to be a good person."

"Sure, I have all of your memories up until the point of my creation, but I also have the urge to do bad things, like a darkness inside me. I don't want to submit to the darkness and, this internal struggle makes it difficult to know where to begin."

I won't pretend to understand that, I thought.

"Regardless of that, I still can't teach you anything. I'm sorry, but you're wasting your time here."

Even still, Albedo persisted.

"I don't believe that. Take me out with you on one of your patrols. I might learn something."

This time, I spoke in an annoyed tone.

"I told you before that I have nothing to teach you, now leave—" I was speaking, but cut myself off before I could finish my sentence. "You know what? Come on. You're right. Maybe you will learn something."

I didn't know if I actually believed that or if I was just trying to get him to leave me alone.

Sometime Later

When I took Albedo out with me, I had him wrap one of my shirts around his face, seeing as he was a clone of Ben Tennyson. After some time of looking, we eventually found a group of thugs attempting to hold up a convenience store. For the most part, everything went pretty well, at least until the end. Toward the end of the fight, once I was done handling my two thugs, I witnessed it all.

Albedo was handling two thugs on his own. And one of them ran up behind him and hit him with a wooden rod. I tried to warn Albedo, but it happened too fast. Anyway, Albedo instantly turned and probably due to those "darker instincts" that he was talking about, he grabbed the thugs face and put his head through a glass window. He pulled the thug back into the shop and I saw that the guy's face was covered in cuts from the glass.

Albedo must have realized what he had done, because only a couple seconds later, he fled the area out of shame, leaving me to finish up there. So, I handled the last two thugs by myself and once that was done, the owner of the shop thanked me for helping. He also asked about Albedo and I assured him that I would take care of it. Upon exiting the store, I found him sitting on top of a nearby rooftop. So, I worked my way up to the rooftop with him to confront him.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" I asked once I reached him.

"Is that thug okay?" was all he asked.

"No thanks to you."

Albedo stood up to look at me.

"I can't help what I did, Ben! It was my darker side seeping through!"

"You need to calm down, right now. If you really are serious about being a good person, then you have to get your darker side on lockdown. You can't let it control you."

"I know that."

"A hero's job is to help people, as well as to keep bad-spirited people from hurting or taking from others. We help those who need it, stop those who wish to do harm, but we do no harm to them ourselves."

He was silent in response to what I said, so I continued.

"Do not make this mistake again. If you do, then you're on your own in your quest to try and be a better person."

"Okay." Albedo eventually replied in a simple, but quiet tone.

He didn't say anything else after that, so I spoke again.

"Okay, let's go."

"Let's go where?"

"Back to the abandoned tenement building."

"I thought you wanted me to leave you alone?" He replied as he stood back up.

"I do. But there's no reason for you to be alone again right away. Now, come along."

Sometime Later

The Tenement Building

Once we got back to the building, Albedo spoke after some time of silence.

"So, I've become aware of a situation in the city, but I'm not experienced enough to handle it."

"And so you want me to handle it for you, is that it? Fine, then. Don't keep me in suspense. What do you got?"

Albedo dropped a file at my feet. I bent over and picked it up. I began leafing through the file. All that was here was a few newspaper articles, as well as a picture of a man who was either in his late twenties or his early thirties. His name was Leon Jones and he had pale blue eyes, as well as blonde hair.

"How did you get ahold of the information regarding this 'Leon Jones' character?"

"I paid money to print off the info in that file at one of the libraries in the city."

"I don't want to know where you got the money to do that. Who is he?"

"Leon Jones. He's an ex-marine. Taking the law into his own hands."

"So, you're telling me that I'm dealing with the Punisher here?"

"Yeah, basically."

"Great."

"Will you look into it, though? Please?"

I shut the manilla folder with a sigh.

"I'll do what I can."

"Thanks. If there's nothing else for us to talk about, then I should probably head out now."

"Goodbye, Albedo. Remember what I said to you about being a hero and a good person."

"Don't worry, I'll remember."

And with that, he walked over to the window, where he stepped up onto the windowsill and transformed into a black and white version of Diamondhead, before leaving through the window.

He shouldn't just waste a transformation like that, I thought as I walked over to one of the tables in the room. He could have just left through the door.

I set down the small file on Leon Jones on the table. I just stood there for a few seconds, before I decided that it was best for me to start studying up on this Leon Jones guy.

Several Hours Later

I sat on the edge of the rooftop that I was on as I surveyed the drug deal that was going on below me. I thought that if I waited long enough, that Leon Jones would show up. I waited and waited. Until finally, something happened.

"Hey! Who invited you?!" one of the guys yelled.

I thought that they had seen me, but that wasn't the case. I eventually noticed a man in a trench coat approaching the scene.

"Hey! I asked you a question!"

The guy in the trench coat kept walking towards them, showing no sign of stopping.

"Hey, idiot! Do you hear me?!"

That's when I noticed that the man in the trench coat pulled out an AR-15, seemingly out of nowhere. He had probably been concealing it in his trench coat. And he just unloaded into all of the druggies down there.

"Holy shit!" I said as I used the pipe on the wall to slide down to the ground.

Once I had gotten to the ground, I noticed that the place was a blood bath. All of the druggies were dead. I snuck up on the guy as he continued to slowly walk through the crowd of dead people, probably planning to put down any and all stragglers. I eventually caught up to him and I jumped up, getting him into a choke hold.

"You know how I feel about killing in Bellwood?" I asked as I tightened my hold on him. "I may feel that criminals need to be punished, but I don't kill!"

With no trouble at all, the guy threw me over his shoulder. That's when I got a good look at his face. It was the suspect that I had seen from his picture. It was, in fact, Leon Jones. He walked up to me and pointed the barrel of the rifle at my head. He kept the rifle's barrel leveled in my direction for a few seconds, before he lowered it ever so slightly.

"Nah. You aren't worth it." he spoke in a gruff tone.

He then turned over his rifle and struck me with the butt of it, knocking me out.

Sometime Later

I eventually came to, immediately feeling pain in my head. I began to look around, trying to move as I did, and that's when I noticed that I was chained to a metal pillar. My hands were on either side of me, so I couldn't activate the alien watch. I gasped when I realized that I couldn't move. I heard someone clear their throat and I looked up to see the man, Leon Jones, leaning up against a brick wall. He saw me look up at him.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty." He spoke as he approached me. "It's time to get down to business."

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 Twenty One? Did anything stand out to anyone? I am especially curious about what everyone thinks about the middle segment of this chapter, so please give me any comments or questions that you may have in either a review or a private message.

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

Director's Commentary

* Alright, so for this installment of Director's Commentary, there's only one thing that I have to talk about. And that is the aforementioned "extra bit of flair". So, what is it? Well, I am talking about Albedo's expanded role in this version of this story arc. In the original story, he was just kind of forced into staying with Ben's family, as well as working with Ben, doing superhero stuff. And while that's still going to happen, I think there should be a reason behind it. So, I've decided to give Albedo his own plot arc.

* I like the idea of Albedo desiring to be a good person like Ben (since he is technically a version of Ben), but because of his darker instincts, he suffers from an internal conflict. And he needs Ben's help to set himself straight. So, he'll be having a bit of a bigger role in the "Ben Tennyson No More" and "Lucky Girl" arcs, as well as the couple of chapters in between said arcs. I hope that you guys like this and I also hope that this ends up making this arc more tolerable. With that said, it's time to wrap this up. Thanks for reading.

Next Chapter: Ben has a conversation with the proclaimed punisher, Leon Jones, and later on, finds himself in a compromising position.