Chapter 22: Ben Tennyson No More: Part 4

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 Two of the reboot!

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

Earth Prime

Monday, June 4th, 2018

Downtown Bellwood

Ben

I struggled against my chains, as Leon walked closer to me.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, deciding to play dumb. "What do you want?"

"That doesn't matter, Alien Guy." Leon said, saying my name with audible sarcasm.

I watched him walk away, in the direction of a duffle bag.

"So, what's your story?" I asked.

"Shut up." Leon said as he began to dig through the duffel bag.

I continued struggling against my chains in an attempt to break free. I looked at Leon as he dug through the duffel bag.

"You can stop that now." he said.

"What?" I asked.

"You can stop struggling against your chains." Leon said as he turned around, carrying what looked like a modern shotgun.

A Spas-12, maybe?

A look of fear started to come onto my face, realizing that I was in some pretty deep shit.

"Because the only way that you are getting off of this rooftop, is if I let you." Leon said. "And that is unlikely, unless you turn out to be different than I thought."

That's when I realized that I still had my mask on.

"Why didn't you take my mask off?"

"Because I don't give a shit about who you are. You're all the same to me."

"All the same? What are you talking about?"

"All of the criminals I've put down? You're all the same to me. That masked hero bullshit doesn't fool me. You are just as much a criminal as those gangster pieces of shit that I put down every day."

"No, you didn't put them down." I said as I shook my head. "You murdered them."

In response to this, Leon cocked his shotgun and pressed it hard against my temple.

"You want me to open up your brain all over this rooftop? Is that what you want? Provoke me some more and that'll happen!"

I said nothing in response.

"Wise choice." Leon said as he tapped me not so gently on the head.

I let out a groan of irritation as he walked away, towards something that was covered by a tarp.

"Leon?" I asked.

He turned back around and pointed the shotgun at me.

"How do you know my name?" he asked as he walked back over to me.

"I've read a couple of newspaper articles on you and I've seen your picture."

"Sure, you did."

He then turned back around and returned to the covered structure. He pulled it off, revealing dozens and dozens of those military ammo cases that I've seen in video games and on T.V.

"So, uh, do you have a family?" I asked, breaking the silence between us.

"Stop." Leon replied.

"What about a job? You've spent time in the military, haven't you?"

"Stop it now."

"Stop what?"

"Stop digging for information. I'm not telling you anything about me."

I ignored him and proceeded with my questions.

"Okay, Leon, who or what did you lose? Let me tell you something. No one is going to feel sorry for you! No one feels pity for people like you!"

Leon dropped the shotgun, turned around and quickly approached me. Once he had stopped in front of me, he slugged me in the jaw with all of the force he could muster.

"Agh!" I cried out in pain.

After that, Leon pulled a block of wood to sit down on.

"Okay, now it's my turn."

"Alright." I spoke after I had caught my breath.

"Why are you running around in a mask, trying to be a so called hero? Why would you throw away whatever life you had to do this instead?"

"Because I want to help people. I want to stand up for the less fortunate. And because I'm not afraid to do what's right."

"Has anyone told you that you're doing it wrong?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You're just putting them away. I'm putting them down so they can never wreak havoc again."

"Who made you judge, jury and executioner all at the same time?"

"Someone has to do it. Otherwise, those monsters live to walk and wreak havoc another day."

"You know, I could say the same thing about your methods. I think they're wrong."

"I don't care what you think nor am I interested in arguing with you about morals."

Following this, Leon walked away from me and back over to his pile of equipment. Several minutes of silence had passed between us and by this time, he had unpacked quite a bit of his equipment. At least two bulletproof vests, three different types of handguns, two AR-15s, a couple more shotguns, a sniper rifle and a ton more ammo.

The more I think about it, I thought to myself as I continued to watch. Leon's desire to cleanse the city is a sort of odd parallel to my current mission.

"I'm guessing that the average civilian can't get his hands on all of this stuff." I spoke, finally breaking the silence.

Leon didn't say anything in return.

"So, what do you plan to do with all of that stuff?" I spoke again.

"Put down anything that commits crimes. Starting tonight."

"Tonight? Are you kidding me? You've been doing this for at least a couple weeks now, what do you mean starting tonight?"

"I mean that I'm switching over to a twenty four hour service starting tonight. I'm not stopping until this entire city is cleansed of all of those who prey on the innocent."

"You can't, that's my job! And I don't kill! You're no hero! You're a fucking psychopath!"

"I never claimed to be a hero."

Leon didn't say anything at first, surprisingly.

"You need to lay off of this thing you're doing." he spoke a few seconds later.

"What do you mean?"

"This thing you're doing? You're not cut out for any of this. I highly suggest you crawl back into whatever hole you call home and never come back out. And stop using that phony voice. It's not doing anything for you. You sound—"

I cut him off.

"I'm not even out of my teens yet!"

"Well, you sound ridiculous."

"I take offense to that!" I said in my normal voice.

"Go home. Now where is that flashbang I misplaced?"

As he looked around the area, I felt around to see if I there was any way for me to get out of my chains. That's when I felt something in the shape of a short cylinder. I looked down at the flashbang that Leon claimed he had misplaced.

Why is his flashbang here? He was in the military, professionally trained I would assume, so this should never happen to a professional!

"Hey, Leon?"

"What?!" he screamed, before turning to look at me holding his flashbang.

His face changed to a look of surprise.

"How the hell did you—"

I cut him off by pulling the pin on the flashbang grenade, while using my leg as leverage so that the grenade wouldn't move. I then did my best to toss it in his direction as he began to pull a gun, before quickly shutting my eyes thereafter. The bang still hurt my ears, though I wasn't blinded. Leon, on the other hand, was both temporarily blinded and deafened. All of a sudden, I noticed that I could move again. Leon must have shot me loose while he was blinded!

There's no way this is real life! This kind of dumb luck only happens in comic books!

I knew that trying to attack Leon, even when he was blinded, would be suicide. So instead, I opted to hide behind the pillar that I had previously been chained to. In hindsight, this was a stupid move. Anyone else would immediately try to get away from the gun-toting psychopath, but I guess I was afraid of Leon somehow detecting me and attempting to attack.

What the hell am I even doing at this point? I really could have ran, but here I am hiding from Leon! And waiting for what exactly?

Several seconds had passed and by this time, I heard Leon begin to speak.

"You do know that I can see you, right? You can quit hiding and come out now."

He's being awfully chill for someone who just had a flashbang grenade thrown at them, I thought. No less by their prisoner...

I considered what he said.

Maybe he's right. Was it a bad idea for me throw away my life as Ben Tennyson? Should I just throw in the towel and go home before things get worse?

"I'm waiting."

Alright, I thought. I don't see any other option.

"Okay, I'm coming out."

"Great. Do just that."

I raised my hands in surrender as I came out of cover and looked at Leon, who was pointing a handgun at me! It surprised me when he immediately fired the gun and I felt a jolt of pain in my shoulder, as well as down my arm. I looked down to see drops of blood falling to the rooftop below me. I looked at Leon's smoking gun, as the world around me felt off and disturbed. I slowly touched my shoulder, which was wet and burned with pain. When I brought my hand back, I saw that my fingertips were red with blood. My blood.

"Leon?" I asked, backing up as the world around me slowly began to dim.

He didn't answer.

"You shot me. You actually shot—" I began to speak, but quickly found that I didn't have the strength to finish my sentence.

"You'll be fine." Leon said as I continued to back up.

My eyes shut as I backed into something. The last thing I remember before completely losing myself to the blackness was the feeling that I was falling.

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 Two? Did anything stand out to anyone? 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 chapter.

* 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, for this installment of Director's Commentary, I only have one thing to cover. So, without further ado, let's get started. The only big change that had to be made to this chapter was pretty much just dialogue and stuff related to dialogue. There were a lot of things from the original version of this chapter that Leon said, which made him come off as immature. So, I had to do a number of edits to actually make him sound like a mature adult, instead of an immature one. I hope that makes sense. With that said, it's time to wrap this up. Thanks for reading.

Review Responses

Patjeeson (Chapter 20): Good chapter , curious about what will happen

Thanks for the review, Patjeeson. It's really great to get some reviews on this story once again. Thanks for the review, as always.

Patjeeson (Chapter 21): So Ben will be trained by the Punisher or maybe compromise on some of his morals? Changing little by little . Albedo turning a new leaf is good character development maybe will help Ben himself to not go overboard with his patrols

Thanks for the review, Patjeeson. So, your theory about the "Punisher" (Leon), did not end up being true, unfortunately. Yes, the idea of this entire story is to change the original. Some changes will be noticeable, others maybe not so much. And we'll see what happens with what you said about Albedo. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Ben meets and is somewhat acquainted with an older girl who saves his life.