Chapter 4: Enter Sublimino: 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 everyone and welcome to Chapter 4 of CWN Version II!

* Sorry for not posting in a few months! I had to take another break from writing and it unfortunately went on longer than I intended for it to. Hopefully it won't happen again. I've kind of become aware that with my track record of taking breaks, not much of what I say on the matter can be trusted anymore. But I will try to stick to a somewhat consistent schedule from here on out.

* Anyway, on to the story at hand. This chapter may be the shortest chapter that I've written for Cold Winter's Night V.2.0. by this point. I will say now that chapters with significant plot will be longer and chapters that are kind of just filler (like this one) will be on the shorter side, but hopefully satisfying in their own right. I will be going over the episode that these next two chapters will be based off of in the next chapter's author's notes, just going over my thoughts and opinions of the episodes plot and villain, so if it proves to be interesting, let me know and I'll try to keep doing it.

* I got nothing else, so with that having been said, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Ben

Saturday, December 30th, 2017

The Tennyson House

Well, Christmas has officially come and gone. Gwen made sure to wake up early on Christmas morning so that no one would know that she slept in my bed with me. And from what I understand, no one found out about it. She and I agreed not to say a word about it. She, Ken and I hung out for a while that day before they went back home. Nothing to really write home about. And so, that brings us to about a week later, give or take.

Mom was prepping the house for another get together between our two families. That would be tomorrow, New Year's Eve. I was set to spend half of the evening with my girlfriend, Julie, as we had planned to go out on a date while we were on break. After that, I would return home to spend the rest of the evening with everyone there. Gwen and I haven't spoken since they left on Christmas. Not because we were back on negative terms, nothing like that.

I guess the fact that she needed some comfort that night on Christmas Eve and she came to me for it left a bit of an awkward atmosphere in the air between us. So, while Mom and Dad watched T.V. together and did whatever else that adults do on a holiday break, I mostly kept to myself. Neither of them really understood the appeal of video games. Dad kind of understood my interest in comics, as he was once a fan himself, although he believes that comics had long since lost their charm and were now just mere advertisements for T.V. shows and movies.

Speaking of movies, my main interest was in Marvel movies and they only attempted to keep up with movie news because they knew that fact. While they don't really get the movies either, some of their favorite actors and actresses do appear in the movies. Like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, for example. My mom loves him in that role. But I'm getting off topic now. While they did their thing, I was down in the basement, playing video games and watching T.V. on my own.

As I had the T.V. on in the background, I was scrolling on my phone, looking for any news story that was worth reading. And boy did I find one. It didn't take me long to find an article with the following headline: Bellwood Center Mall Hit By Thieves In The Dead Of Night. I clicked on it and gave it a read. The headline didn't lie.

According to what the article said, the Bellwood Center Mall here in town was struck with a robbery last night, just after midnight, to be exact. The police only managed to apprehend a few of the thieves, but they seemed to be off. As if they were in a daze. The article's words, not mine. I backed out of the page and turned my phone's screen off.

Midnight robbery at the mall, I thought. could be worth checking out. Probably better than sitting here and doing nothing, anyway.

I got up from the couch and proceeded to walk toward the stairs, turning off the lights down here as I went. I entered the upstairs of the house through the kitchen and walked past my parents in the living room, heading toward my bedroom to get my car keys. Once I had done that, I walked back into the other room to tell them where I was going.

"Hey, I'm going to go to the mall for a while."

I half expected them to advise against that at the very least, but no.

"Okay, honey. Be careful and call when you're heading home."

With that out of the way, I headed for the door. I left the house and got in my car to head for the mall.

Sometime Later

Bellwood Center Mall

When I arrived at the mall, I found that the police were on the scene. Apparently, you could go about your business within the building but are instructed not to interfere with their investigation. So, I entered and started to walk around, hoping I could find anything about what had happened here last night. I wasn't really having any luck. I wasn't sure what I expected to find here, but I clearly wasn't finding much of anything.

I told myself that if I walked around the whole place and didn't find anything, I'd call it quits and just go home. I kept walking around and eventually, I did find something that was a little off to say the least. It was some big towering thing, that stretched all the way up the ceiling of the building. But if was covered by an equally large tarp, so I couldn't even tell what I was looking at.

Well, this is definitely something. But what is it, though?

I looked behind me and then all around me. All of the shoppers were must milling about and generally just keeping to themselves.

Does no one really not notice this thing?

I took a second look at the people around me and that's when I realized something. Almost all of the shoppers in the mall had a specific look about them. As if they were asleep. My next thought hit me like a truck.

What did that article say about the thieves who were caught last night?

I tried to think back to what I had read in said article. I remembered reading that those who were caught appeared to be off, as if they were in a daze. I was beginning to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. That's when I began to hear the sound of static from behind me, so I turned around and saw one of the monitors fixed to the mall's support columns was firing up to life.

Once the static cleared, I saw the image of a middle-aged looking man. He had pale white skin, was wearing a pair of sunglasses with black, circular lenses and the top of his head was bald, but he did have a stream of blonde hair flowing down the back of his head. I could also see that he had a long scar down his right eye, even with his sunglasses on.

Who the hell is this guy?

"Greetings, mall-rats." The man spoke, his voice coming through the mall's intercoms.

Mall-rats? Who does this guy think he is?

I tried to put my thoughts behind me and focused my attention on the man.

"I am Sublimino, master of hypnosis. You are all about to take a journey through that mysterious realm known as the mind. No need to volunteer, now all of you will obey me forever!"

I don't like the sound of this...

Just as I had that thought, a group of dazed shoppers came forward and grabbed the tarp that was covering that large structure, before pulling it off. Removing the tarp revealed a giant grandfather clock looking object, with a giant pendulum attached to it. As I stared up at the giant grandfather clock machine, the pendulum began to move.

Now I have a really bad feeling about this!

I turned and ran as fast as my feet would carry me. As I ran toward the next nearest support column, I turned my head to look behind me. From the end of the pendulum I started to see some sort of yellow, circular rings of energy be outputted from it.

Some sort of energy? Gotta keep moving!

I made it to the support column and dove behind it, just as the man called Sublimino continued speaking.

"Your eyelids are getting very heavy. You are falling into a deep sleep."

I began to look around and take in my current surroundings. The dazed shoppers were just continuing with what they had been doing, but everyone else in the mall hadn't been so lucky. Those who had been hit by those yellow rings had been plunged into a deep sleep, as there were a lot of people that were currently unconscious on the floor. I didn't dare move from my spot yet.

"All arise and obey my command every minute of every day. Now, bring me all the riches of this place."

As Sublimino said that, those who were dazed began going about ransacking kiosks, breaking store windows for easy access to their goods and other actions that you'd consider to be burglarizing.

He's using those people to get what he wants? That's so unfair! I have to put a stop to this!

As Sublimino's "minions" continued with their commands, I heard the man responsible over the loudspeaker one last time.

"Yes, yes! First this mall and then all of America! No one will stop me!"

I dialed up the alien watch and began to hype myself up.

Sorry pal, but your shopping spree is about to be cut short!

Author's Note:

* And that's it for this chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed.

* Did anything in particular about this chapter stick out to you guys? Do you guys prefer longer chapters or was this short one okay? I want to apologize in advance if you didn't like this style. I didn't want to introduce Sublimino and resolve his plot all in one episode, so I decided to cut his chapter in half. Hope ya'll can understand that.

* Is there anything I haven't mentioned that any of you would want to talk about? Please, let me know your thoughts about anything that strikes your fancy in a review if you want or a PM would be okay, too. Anyway, that's all I got. That's going to do it for me, so have a fantastic day and bye.

Review Responses

Car45 (Chapter 3): Regarding chapters 2 and 3; A much better handling of the mistletoe scene and their response to it. They felt very in character. Good interaction at the end of Ch. 3.

Thanks, Car. I'm glad that you thought I handled that scene better than in the original. I'm trying my best to make sure that they're as in character as I can make them. Thanks for the review, as always.

jasongd (Chapter 3): And another great chapter congrats I'll be waiting for the next chapter BWEN FOREVER

Thanks, Jason. I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for the review, as always.

Slayer 606 (Chapter 3): Thanks for the tip. I wasn't trying to suggest a lemon but just dropping the fact that their relationship is technically incestuous. Its definitely a one way no return path, like hooking up with your long time friend. I'm was suggesting was that their relationship is a no go back everyone is affected type. More on the idea the everyone including their families must face the fact of the situation and come to terms with it.

It would be good to explore it more then the last time. The whole idea of accidental pregnancy and seeing others was to hammer in the idea that their relationship is a serious hell no at worst, but controversial at least. It was to say hey this is mest up at first, but relunctantly accepting their feelings for what they are. It would be nice to change it up a bit otherwise you'll just copy and paste too much.

Ps. That idea of the accidental pregnancy came from the Valentine chapter in the original story. The idea of instead of just being horn dogs and doing it, but their self reluctance forces themselves to drink their feelings into repression only to completely bite them back and do the opposite, then the pregnancy was not only supposed to a serious consequence, but a complete warning for both to stay away.

The lemon idea was never my suggestion, I never cared for those. The whole idea of it all was to bring into more reluctance and seriousness on their relationship since not only it's incestuous, but more or less like long term friends hooking up rather then just fall into each others arms. But hey maybe you'll think of more better sets and ideas. Keep up the work.

Thanks, Slayer. As for the lemon thing, I never tried to insinuate that it was your idea, I was just giving my stance on it. If you don't care for lemons, then I'll say now it's not entirely unlikely that I won't write at least one for this story. After all, I told myself I wouldn't do one for the original and look where that ended up. Their relationship isn't technically incestuous, it just is. Your idea is interesting for sure, but I think it'll go unused. I have an idea of how I want their relationship to play out already.

For one, I already plan to give them more screen time for their relationship to develop after the initial confession. And two, I intend to handle it in what I think is a more realistic outcome this time. Though, we'll see how that goes. Also you said that I may end up copying and pasting too much, but fear not. I intend for this to be a complete overhaul of the original story and I have intentions for most chapters from the original to be rewritten to certain extents. Thanks for the review, as always.

Adriandragonus (Chapter 3): i love that ben got more sentimental, a change that's fitting for a grown up dude. yes,i can sympathize with him not wanting to play a newer game that the OG developer has nothing to do with,reminds me of the whole DmC debacle. he also got more understanding of other's feeling, regretting his choice of words on gwen,even when he's justified in this situation.

what boggles me is the moment that notified both cousins that there's something beyond mere familial bond. 6 years apart is more than enough to kill any lingering,yet theirs is still exist. perhaps there's a moment in their summer that made them realize it? that's all i want to know,at least for now.

Thanks for the review, Adrian. I'm glad that you like how Ben has changed. I hate to burst your bubble, but I want to clarify that at this time, they have no other "feelings" toward each other. *yet*. At the time of their summer trip, they didn't exactly even tolerate each other enough to entertain the thought of those types of feelings. It might be a while yet before we see those feelings begin to pop up. Hope I answered your question with this. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Ben stops Sublimino's attempted mega heist. Later in the day, Ben receives a nasty surprise from his current girlfriend.