Chapter 25: Turning Up The Heat

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 Five of the reboot!

* This chapter will also turn out to be pretty different from the original story. I hope you all enjoy how it turns out.

* As promised, this is the second post for tonight. I don't really have anything to say in regards to this chapter, so let's get right into it!

Earth-Prime

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

Downtown Bellwood, Leon Jones' Hideout

Ben

The echo of the gunshot rang in my ears. The spray of blood that came from Animo's gunshot wound to the head hit me in the face. I wiped the blood from my mask as I realized what Leon had done.

"What the hell have you done?!" I asked.

Leon pulled back on his handgun as he put the safety back on.

"I got revenge." He replied. "I got revenge for what that animal did to me."

"But it wasn't up to you! You can't just kill someone like that! There has to be a judge and a jury! An—"

Leon interrupted me by pointing his handgun at me. In response, I began to back up out of fear.

"Shut your fucking mouth." he said as he took the safety off once again. "I gave you a chance to quit. I gave you a chance to go back to whatever hole you came from. And you didn't listen!"

Before either of us could say anything else, Albedo jumped into the situation out of nowhere, much to my surprise.

"Alright, everyone just be calm here!" he exclaimed.

Leon immediately pointed his handgun at Albedo.

"Who the hell are you?!" he shouted. "What are you doing here?!"

I myself was curious as to why Albedo decided to jump in. I only told him to jump in if things began to look bad. Sure, he could have jumped in right after Leon executed Animo, but he wouldn't have stopped it and this would have happened, anyway. But on the other hand, Leon may have been a bit unhinged, although he only wanted revenge on Animo. So, that being said, I don't think he would actually shoot Albedo. Yet, that is.

I have to jump in now, I thought. Otherwise, Leon may try to kill Albedo because he's paranoid of him or something.

"Leon, he means you no harm!" I assured him. "He's someone like me!"

"I don't care!" Leon exclaimed. "Both of you are going to leave, right now!"

But that doesn't make sense! You just told me that you tried giving me a chance to quit, as if you weren't going to let me go this time. So, what's the deal?

Before any of us could say anything else, something unexpected happened. I heard a scream of agony, but it didn't come from any one of us. All three of us turned to look in the direction of Animo's body, to see Animo himself holding his head in his hands as he screamed with agony. It was at this point that I noticed the lack of a bullet hole in his forehead. I remembered when Grandpa Max told me about Animo's past.

If he was capable of turning himself into a monster, could he have a healing factor, as well?

Animo's screams gradually changed from agony filled screams to screams filled with rage. Eventually, his screams stopped and were replaced with growls of anger. He moved his hands away from his eyes, revealing both of them to be green. All three of us backed up as Animo began to rip through his clothes. Animo continued to grow exponentially in size. When he finally did stop growing, he was taller than Fourarms, even if by just a few inches.

He had green hair, instead of his gray hair and his eyes remained the glowing green, while his skin was pale white and his muscle density had increased greatly, however the only thing that seemed to be wrong is that the long, talon-like fingers that Grandpa Max had told me about were nowhere to be seen. The monster that used to be Animo just stood there, growling angrily.

"What the fuck?" Leon broke the silence, his voice sounding full of fear.

Yeah, I thought. You didn't know he could do that? I guess what Grandpa told me isn't actually public knowledge.

"Don't move" I spoke. "Maybe his vision is based on our movement."

The monster looked at me, his growls becoming more aggressive. I didn't dare move. He finally took one step and even though he had been looking at me, it looked as though he was moving toward Leon. In response, Leon dove for one of his guns, causing the beast to roar with fury. As he went for Leon, no matter how much I hated him for almost killing Animo, I decided to distract Savage Animo. I turned to look at Albedo.

"Albedo, help me distract this thing!" I exclaimed.

He looked back at me with a bit of surprise, but quickly nodded and we both dialed up our respective alien watches. Albedo transformed into a black and white version of Fourarms, so Dark Fourarms, I guess? Meanwhile, I transformed into Diamondhead. Once I had transformed, I jumped in front of Savage Animo, hoping to catch his attention. In response to this, he roared with fury as he beat his chest.

He then tried to strike me, however, before he could do that, I jumped up and slashed across his chest with a diamond shard, before kicking off of his chest, causing him to stumble back a little bit. As Savage Animo recovered, he surprised me by thrusting both of his arms out, followed by all ten of his fingers extending into talon-like appendages.

Oh, there they are! I hadn't guessed that he could control that!

He then caught me off guard and batted me aside, however, this came with him getting one of his talons stuck in the floor of the rooftop.

"Come here, ugly!" Albedo exclaimed as he moved in and punched Savage Animo in the face. "Go see how our buddy is doing!"

He didn't need to tell me twice and I didn't bother in replying, I just ran right over to Leon where he was currently getting his gun ready.

"What are you doing?!" I exclaimed.

"I'm gonna kill him before he can kill us." Leon replied.

"Are you kidding me?! I can't allow you to do that."

Before either of us could say anything, Albedo interjected.

"Ben, can we please come back to this later and focus on how we're going to deal with this thing?!"

"Right!" I exclaimed as I turned around again.

I approached the two of them once more and began firing diamond shards at Savage Animo. However, this didn't seem to amount to anything. It was then that he finally managed to free himself and he charged toward me. I dove out of the way, so that he was now targeting Leon instead. Leon himself was aware of this and moved out of the way. Savage Animo slammed both of his fists into the ground where Leon had been standing only a second earlier, sending his firearms all over the rooftop.

"Buy me some time, you two!" Leon exclaimed, before he ran over to dig through one of the weapon piles.

Really? You're going to just run back over there immediately?

Neither of us tried to protest, though. Albedo jumped onto Savage Animo's back almost right away and got him into a headlock.

"You're still a little man in there, Animo!" he exclaimed. "Now calm down before I have to snap your neck!"

Albedo, Albedo, Albedo, I thought as I shook my head with disappointment. You're putting in a good effort to help, yet you still act immaturely. However, at the same time, I'm not sure that snapping his neck would do anything.

Savage Animo let out a louder roar and began to struggle harder a few seconds later. In retaliation, Albedo moved his hands to the neck and began to pull. But Savage Animo managed to grab hold of Albedo and threw him over his shoulder. Seeing this, I ran over to combat Savage Animo. He was extremely resilient. He would counter almost all of my punches and would then follow that up by trying to strike me to strike me. A few seconds later I heard gunfire, followed by a mixture of Savage Animo's agony and rage filled screams.

"I think you pissed him off!" Albedo exclaimed.

"Not helping, Albedo!" I exclaimed in response.

Savage Animo got down on one knee and just stayed like that. That's when I noticed him grunting in pain accompanied by the sounds of the bullets that Leon had fired into him, just popping out of his back. I stepped around him to look at his back and was astonished to see that the slits in his skin - from the bullets - were healing in just seconds. It was like Leon hadn't just unloaded an entire clip on his back.

"We might be in trouble." I spoke up.

"Buy me some more time!" Leon said as he backed up.

I let out a sigh as he ran to the other end of the roof and began digging through another pile of his weapons. I heard Savage Animo let out a roar of fury. I redirected my attention to him and saw that he was now charging toward Albedo. Maybe because I was no longer in his field of view? Albedo didn't have time to react and was caught off guard, Savage Animo ramming him into the wall of the adjacent building.

After Savage Animo had Albedo against the wall, instead of attempting to impale him with his finger talons, he began hitting Albedo with force. In retaliation, Albedo put his feet up against his chest and kicked Animo backwards. I decided to assist Albedo, by running over to Animo and striking him in the chest. He roared with rage and when he turned to attack me, Albedo slugged him in the jaw with one of his fists.

In response to this, Savage Animo began sending strikes toward Albedo, trying to hit him, but to no avail, as he and I took turns attacking him. As Albedo took one of his turns, I saw Leon from out of the corner of my eye, run up to Animo and begin blasting into his back with a shotgun. I noticed the wounds on his back, the skin that was now missing.

However, the skin began to quickly regenerate. Leon moved around Savage Animo to shoot him in the face, but even that didn't stop him! Savage Animo staggered backwards and whirled around, revealing a hole in the upper right corner of his face. I could also see parts of his skull. But I didn't see those parts for long, as just like everything else up until this point, his face began to regenerate.

He popped his neck, before charging toward me this time. I charged towards him in response and punched him in the knee as hard as I could, causing him to go off course. As he went off course, Albedo looked to Leon.

"Can you conjure up something that will actually put him down for more than a second?" he asked.

"Give me some time." he said as he ran over to another pile of weapons.

I let out a sigh as I turned to see Savage Animo approaching me.

"Dr. Animo! I know you're still in there!" I exclaimed. "It's time to calm down!"

That obviously didn't do anything, because he let out a roar of fury and charged towards me. However, before I could decide how I would act, Albedo rushed in front of me and began to grapple with Savage Animo, trying to push him backwards. However, he was only able to push him back by a little bit.

Savage Animo was even stronger than Fourarms, it seemed. Albedo continued to push back against Animo, however, he then pushed Albedo back even harder, sending him backwards. He was about to charge towards Albedo again, when all of a sudden, Leon shouted at us.

"Get down, you two! Now!"

Albedo and I turned to look at him as Savage Animo seemed to do the same thing. Leon was holding one of his M16 rifles, with what looked like an underbarrel grenade launcher attached to it.

"Oh, shit." I cursed under my breath as I hit the deck.

I'm sure that Albedo got down, as well. Not even a second later, I heard the sound of the launcher firing, accompanied with the sound of Savage Animo's pained screams. His screams ceased not even a second later, when I heard a loud explosion, followed by the feeling of blood splattering on the back of my sweater and I could have sworn I felt pieces of meat, as well.

I got up to see Savage Animo just standing there, motionless. He was groaning silently with pain. I noticed the gaping hole in his stomach from the grenade he had just taken. It was so big that I could see parts of his spinal cord. His eyes rolled back up into the back of his head and he fell over, causing a loud crash when he hit the floor of the rooftop. I looked at Leon as I breathed heavily, while Albedo began to get up a short distance away from us. He dropped his rifle as he took a breath.

"We even?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I think so." he replied.

We stood there for a minute, not noticing that Savage Animo was slowly getting up. We finally did notice when he started letting out low, drawn out grunts. We looked in his direction to see that he had stood back up and was grunting in pain.

"What the hell?! Come on!" Albedo exclaimed.

Savage Animo still had the hole in his stomach, but probably not for long. The veins, arteries, muscle structure and skin were all slowly regenerating. But I imagined that it wouldn't take long for him to completely regenerate.

This is bad, I thought.

However, before Savage Animo could fully heal, I heard a squelching sound accompanied by more of his pained grunts. All three of us watched as Savage Animo was carried off of the rooftop by a grapple line of some kind, which was embedded into his back. As this was happening, he was fidgeting and flailing his arms around, trying to free himself.

"What the hell?" I asked as I looked further up at the small aircraft that was carrying him off.

"Sorry, my friend! I must borrow this one from you for a while!" I heard a familiar voice.

I looked up to see Vilgax hanging out of the open door of the aircraft, holding the grapple gun that was pulling Savage Animo into the air.

So, he's not here to try and take Albedo again? I think it's best that I don't say anything about that.

"Vilgax!" I exclaimed.

He ignored me.

"Get us out of here!" he called. "We're done here! Sit tight my friend; you'll see us again soon!"

I sighed as I saw the ship moving out of sight. I turned around to see Leon pointing a rifle at me. By extension, he was probably intending to hold Albedo at gunpoint, too.

"I don't understand." I said as he gave me a hateful expression.

"No, you don't. I'm going after Animo and that thing. And this time, neither of you will stop me!" he replied with anger.

"I can't stop you, so let me help you! You don't know Vilgax, that thing. He's dangerous!"

He actually seemed to consider it for a moment, before he shook his head.

"I won't let you get in my way again. Goodbye, Alien Guy."

I knew what was coming next, he was going to shoot me, I don't know what good that would have done, seeing as I was currently in Diamondhead's form. However, before he could shoot me, Albedo charged Leon, sending both of them off of the roof.

"Albedo!" I cried out as I followed them off of the roof.

Luckily, both of them landed on the ground unharmed. Well, of course Albedo would have, as he's currently in Dark Fourarms' form. Unluckily, however, Leon was still pissed off.

"It's your fault that Animo got taken by that thing!" he exclaimed as he pulled his sidearm from its holster. "And now I'm going to make sure that neither of you get in my way ever again!"

He fired, but of course, the gunfire didn't hurt us in our alien forms. Albedo approached him and picked him up with one of his hands.

"Don't do this." Albedo urged him. "Don't make us have to hurt you."

Leon struggled against his grip and managed to shoot Albedo in the chest, causing him to grunt with frustration as he slammed Leon into the hood of a car.

I guess it was an admirable attempt, I thought. Though I think you and I both know that he's beyond the point of being talked down.

Eventually he started to hit Albedo with the butt of his pistol, seeing as he ran out of ammo.

If he's going to keep trying to kill us, we have to get him away from here.

I approached Albedo to tell him this.

"Hey, if Leon is going to keep trying to do this, then we need to get him away from here and to a less populated area."

So, we started leaping, hopefully toward a less crowded area. Albedo kept leaping with him in his grip, while I followed. Eventually we ended up at a deserted gas station. However, when Albedo landed, his foot connected with the ground wrong, causing him to trip and fall. Leon fell out of Albedo's grip and rolled himself away from him. Both of us reverted back to our human forms at this time and decided to get into cover, as we heard him reloading his pistol. He started firing, which all things considered, was a terrible idea on his part. I emerged from my cover, with the intentions of warning him. However, before I could do that, Albedo called out to me.

"Ben, what are you doing?!"

I looked over to him.

"I have to warn Leon to quit shooting! There are gas pumps in the area!"

I then turned to look in Leon's direction.

"Leon, you need to stop shooting! You could hit one of the gas pumps around us!"

He didn't regard my warning in the slightest.

"I'm going to kill you both for interfering!" he exclaimed as he kept shooting.

I took cover again, hissing in frustration as I heard one of his bullets hit something metallic. Being curious and fearful, I peeked around my cover, to see what he had hit. The first thing I saw was the dark brownish liquid flowing out onto the ground.

Oh, shit. The gasoline!

I fully emerged from my cover again and began to shout at Leon.

"Leon, stop fi—"

BANG!

A Few Minutes Later

When I came to, there was fire everywhere. All of the gas pumps had exploded. It would be a miracle if Leon was still alive somehow. And as our luck would have it, he was still alive. Possibly crippled, but alive. Albedo and I got up and began to walk around, looking for him. And eventually we found him. The flames from the explosion had charred what was left of his skin. It looked like his clothes had been burned to his skin in some areas. But the worst part? He was still alive through it all. It must have been slow and painful.

And he was also still conscious. He noticed us.

"Leon!" I gasped upon seeing him.

His hair was gone. The flames had practically cooked him alive. He looked at me and even with his severely disfigured face; I could still see the hate in his eyes.

"I hate you." he spoke in a slurred fashion, accompanied with a gurgling sound.

After calling 911 and reporting our position, I looked back down at him. I got on one knee so that I was closer to him.

"The paramedics will do what they can." I said, my voice full of sorrow. "I'm sorry this happened to you, Leon."

He looked at me with that same hateful look.

"Fuck you." was the only response that I got from him.

I felt Albedo put his hand on my shoulder from his place behind me.

"We should get moving." He said to me.

I nodded.

"Okay." I replied.

We then left Leon where he was currently at and ran down a nearby alley. Whatever would happen to Leon, my troubles with him were over. And as for my life? I was still going back home to Gwen tomorrow. But I still needed to figure out what I was going to do with Albedo, how I was going to help him.

Sometime Later

Downtown Bellwood, The Tenement Building, The Rooftop

After we fled the crime scene, Albedo and I stopped on the rooftop of the tenement building for a little bit. When we got back, Albedo was the first one to say anything.

"Are you alright?"

I shook my head.

"No, I don't think I am. I can't help but feel guilty about what happened to Leon. I feel like if, even as shitty as this may sound, if I had just left him run free, then maybe that wouldn't have happened."

"Maybe you're right. But at the end of the day, there's nothing that you could have done for him. Sometimes you just have to take the bad stuff that happens and deal with it."

I shook my head again.

"No, I let him blow up those gas pumps. I could have stopped him, but instead, I did nothing."

"I don't think that Leon was stupid, Ben. He knew what he was doing. He was already too far gone."

"Maybe you're right. I don't know."

"What are you going to do now? Are you still going to go back home?"

I nodded.

"I'll go home tomorrow. For the time being, I'm going to see if there's anything else that needs to be done in the city before I turn in for the night."

Albedo stuck out his hand after I said that.

"Well, thank you for helping me."

I didn't take his hand to accept his handshake. Instead, I was confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I know with you going back home, you'll be too busy to continue helping me."

I won't lie, that kinda hurt.

"Don't say that. Sure, I may be returning home, but I can still make time to continue helping you."

Albedo didn't say anything in response, he just stared at me with a look of surprise on his face. So, I put my hands on his shoulders.

"You're my clone, Albedo. The way I see it, you're my responsibility. I'm going to figure out where you belong."

He continued looking at me with surprise, before smiling.

"Okay, then. I'll see you when I see you."

I returned his smile with one of my own and patted his shoulder with a slight wink.

"You bet."

After that, Albedo departed, leaving me by myself once again.

Epilogue

Unknown Location

?

"Bring him in." I spoke.

The giant hanger doors opened and Vilgax wheeled in our new recruit, who was strapped to a gurney. The gurney was adjusted so that the subject was upright, instead of reclined back.

"Here he is." Vilgax replied.

"Good." I spoke as I ascended from my seat. "Now, who do we have today?"

I had already addressed Vilgax, so I turned to the giant standing in the corner of the room.

"Aloysius Animo."

Animo is currently allowed control over his mutated form thanks to an inhibitor chip that is embedded into his spine, which will stay there until I can come up with a more permanent solution to his problem.

I then turned back to the subject resting on the gurney.

"Leon Jones, I want to see a world without Alien Guy." I spoke once more. "With our combined strength, victory will be ours. We will crush Alien Guy. Vilgax, open the chamber."

Vilgax walked over to said chamber and opened it, revealing the black and purple armored suit that was inside.

We actually had this armored suit on loan from the Forever Knights, I thought to myself as I turned back to Leon.

"If you get in that suit, you'll be able to breathe normally, walk again and so much more. You'd be a walking tank. So, will you join us?"

Leon didn't speak for a few seconds.

"Yeah." He spoke at last.

I grinned.

"Good." I said as I turned around.

We only had three more members to recruit and then we would be able to crush Ben Tennyson. I will allow nothing to stop me!

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 Five? Did anything stand out to anyone? I really hope that you guys enjoyed this one, 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

* Okay, so for this installment of Director's Commentary, just like the last one, there is a good bit to talk about. Let's begin. To start off with, there was a lot to change about the Savage Animo fight. For one, Albedo showed up! This was not only a way to get him some more screen time so to speak, but I thought that most of Ben's original lines were out of place for him, personally. I did cut a few, I think, but most of them became Albedo's lines for his inclusion.

* And I think for the most part it works. Albedo is more inexperienced with this kind of work than Ben is, so of course he would be more brash, impulsive and immature than Ben, with some of his lines that is.

* Next up, we're going to talk about that ending scene with Ben and Albedo. I had the idea of Albedo assuming that Ben would quit helping him, as he's going home and that'd he would be on his own again, which leads to Ben assuring him that he will continue helping him, that he will figure out where he belongs. I quite like this idea. It serves as development for their relationship, as well as character development for both of them, I think. This is one piece of Albedo's redemption arc, which will continue to slowly play out, until his arc reaches it's high point, where we'll get the brotherly bond between him and Ben, as well as the kind of character that Albedo is currently, if that makes sense.

* I want to just briefly cover the topic of Savage Animo. I get the feeling that most of you did not enjoy his inclusion in the original Volume One and I can understand that. This isn't what Animo was in the original series, but none of the villains are exact carbon copies of what they were in the original series. That would be boring. You may remember that Grandpa Max told Ben that Animo tested a prototype of a super soldier serum on himself, that's why he can transform like that.

* And sure, that isn't Animo, but I liked the idea of him being obsessed with improving the human condition and later, once he lost his sanity, he became obsessed with devolving humans to their primal instincts. That isn't Animo, again, but I like the idea. And if you don't think it's a good idea or a good origin, then that's totally okay. I understand that not all of my ideas are going to stick and be winners. However, I have toned down his OP level, I guess you'd call it, a bit. His healing factor works a bit slower and we won't see him breathing fire like he was in the original Volume One's final arc.

* In the very least, I hope that the additions made to Ben and Albedo's inclusions in this chapter made the whole Animo thing a bit tolerable to those who don't like it. Anyway, that wraps up this installment of Director's Commentary. Thanks for reading.

Next Chapter: Ben chases an armored figure through the streets of Downtown Bellwood. Later on, he meets a potential new ally.