Chapter 12: Easter Festivities

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 12 of CWN Version II!

* This chapter probably won't be as exciting as the last arc, really this is just Gwen meeting Ben's friends for the first time, as well as a bit more development between Ben and Gwen.

* I don't really have anything else to say here. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter for what it is!

Ben

April 1st, 2018

The Tennyson House

I was lying on my bed in my room, just killing time until my friends showed up. On any other Easter, they'd be at home, celebrating with their families, too. However, due to Easter Sunday falling on the first of April this year, they had all done their festivities the day before. Their parents all claimed that it was a little weird for Easter Sunday and April Fool's Day to take place on the same day, so that's why they changed it up.

It didn't really make any sense, but more power to them, I guess. At my house, we were having Easter dinner on Sunday as we would normally. Gwen, her brother and their parents were coming over to have dinner for us, or lunch, depending on how you looked at it. And because they had already celebrated with their families, my friends were coming over to hang out for a portion of the day, as well.

"Ben, your friends are here!" Mom called from the living room.

Well, speak of the devil.

"Alright, I'll be right there!" I called back.

I left the room and walked down the hallway to the living room. My parents were in the kitchen, currently prepping the honey-baked ham for lunch later in the day. I opened the front door to see my three of my best friends – Kevin Levin, Cash Murray and J.T. – standing outside on the stoop.

"Hey, what's up guys?" I greeted the three of them.

We all exchanged our greetings as I moved out of the way to let them into the house.

"How've you guys been?" I asked once the formalities were out of the way.

"Pretty good, can't complain." Kevin replied first. "Been trying to catch up on old Daredevil comics."

I nodded.

"Cool, cool."

I turned to look at my other two friends.

"What about you guys?"

Cash just shrugged his shoulders as if to tell me that he hadn't been up to anything interesting, so I turned to J.T.

"J.T., what's up with you, man?"

However, he didn't say anything, which caused Cash to elbow him. J.T. then looked at Cash, as if he had been in a daze.

"Are you going to tell him or do we have to?" Cash asked him.

I was a little confused and even a bit worried that J.T. may have been involved in something bad, but my worry was misplaced. He finally sighed before speaking.

"I'm trying to finish all the mainline Halo games on LASO difficulty."

The slight worry that had been building up immediately vanished as I felt a bout of laughter coming on. And laugh, I most certainly did. As I laughed, I tried to formulate a response to what my friend had just said.

"Why in God's name would you attempt that?! Do you know how long that would take? You could be doing something so much better with your time!"

He let out another sigh.

"So, the rest of the guys have told me."

Now that the catch up was out of the way, I proposed that we actually do something with our time together today.

"Come on guys, let's go outside to the back and play some baseball." I suggested. "It's been a while since we had a decent game."

"I'm down!" Kevin expressed his agreement.

Even J.T. seemed to get over his semi-glum mood.

"Sounds good to me."

With that, the four of us headed for my backyard. To bring you up to speed, my backyard decently sized and also connected to a small wooded area. Kevin lived about fifteen minutes away from me and had an even bigger backyard, which also connected to a wooded area. Before we get outside, Mom stopped us so she could briefly speak to me.

"Ben, honey, Gwen, Ken, and their parents will be here in an hour!"

I let out an annoyed sigh.

"Mom, don't call me 'honey'!"

In response, my friends all chuckled. While I was getting over my embarrassment, Kevin "took charge" over our group.

"Come on, lads." He said as he walked toward the back door. "Let's head outside."

As they walked out the door ahead of me, I begrudgingly let go of my embarrassment and decided to just follow them outside.

One Hour Later

For our baseball game, Kevin and I made up one team, while J.T. and Cash were the other team. Cash and I both played little league when we were kids – though, this before we actually became friends – and even though we were both pretty good at the sport, he was objectively the better player out of the two of us.

My backyard wasn't actually a perfect diamond shape to be playing baseball, but we tried. J.T. and Cash were up at bat currently, while Kevin and I were in the outfield. Kevin was the pitcher and he had just threw the ball toward Cash, who hit the ball with as much force as he could muster. The ball went flying past me, which prompted me to chase after it.

"I got it, I got it!" I exclaimed as I turned around to follow the ball's direction.

Once I turned around to see where the ball was going, I stopped almost immediately as I saw it sail over the roof of my house, heading toward my front yard. After I saw it happen, I just kind of stood there, staring up at the direction it went in.

"Um, don't got it?" I asked as I turned to look back at my three friends.

"I thought you said that you got it, idiot?" J.T. asked.

"Yeah, way to hustle out there!" Cash chimed in as Kevin laughed in response.

"Shut up." I muttered, disregarding what both of them said. "So, who's going to go get it?"

I was trying to hint that the one who had hit the ball in the first place should go, but that didn't end up working out in my favor.

"It's your house, isn't it?" Cash asked in a rather snobby tone.

His words instantly melted the joking personality that I was currently using.

"Wow, Cash. Way to be a team player." I said in a sarcastic tone. "Fine, I'll be right back."

I turned around once again and walked toward the backyard gate to the front yard. As I entered the front yard, I began scanning the area for our lost baseball.

Typical Cash, I thought to myself as I searched. He does something that he should take the blame for, but pushes it to someone else as usual. He can't do anything wrong! As much as I love the guy, he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes! Both him and J.T.

I was having no luck searching for the ball. I knew that it disappeared over the roof and I had assumed that it made it to the front yard. I guess I just had to hope that it didn't actually get stuck on the roof.

"Lose something, Doofus?" a feminine voice asked out of nowhere.

I looked to my right to see Gwen standing there, with our baseball in her hand. I just stared at her with surprise for a second or two before I took the ball from her.

"That's funny." I replied. "I didn't know you were here."

She smiled as she retracted her hand.

"Just got here. So, you guys are playing baseball, I take it?"

I nodded as we began walking toward the backyard together.

"Yeah, Cash hit the ball over the roof and into the front yard. And then told me to go get it."

"But it's your house?" she asked.

"Yep."

"That's a little unfair!"

"And yet, here I am."

From there, we walked toward the backyard gate in silence. Upon reaching the gate, I saw that Ken had already made his way into the backyard and was already giving out high fives, as well as generally greeting our friends. Gwen and I approached the other four teens, prompting them to look to us once we reached them.

"Gwen," I spoke as I extended my arm toward my three friends. "This is Kevin, J.T., and Cash. They're all my best friends, for reasons beyond my comprehension."

"Nice to meet you guys." Gwen replied as she extended her hand to shake the hands of my friends.

"Likewise." One of my friends said, while the other two also extended their greetings.

I found it interesting that she was introducing herself to Cash, considering that they had already informally met on the bus ride to the museum a few weeks ago. But seeing as she was clearly displeased with him interrupting our conversation at that point, it wouldn't surprise me if she had just forgotten about it. Once the meet and greet had settled, she turned to look at me with a sheepish expression on her face.

"Your best friends? I thought I was your best friend?"

I looked back at her as I felt my face heat up, before I found myself stammering out a response.

"Well, you've only been back in my life for a few months and we hardly know each other like we did back then! Give it time! I'm sure you'll be one of my best friends too before long."

Too my surprise, an amused look formed on her face following this, as if my rushed and embarrassed response humored her.

"Relax, Doofus!" she said as she began laughing. "I'm just messing with you!"

I let out a sigh of relief.

Don't mess with me like that, I thought.

While I was a bit flustered, Kevin cleared his throat and took the lead of the conversation.

"Hey, since Ken and Gwen are now here, we can play 3v3 baseball!"

That perked me up and I decided to throw my hat into the conversation.

"No, we've played baseball for the last hour. That's a bit old now."

"Well, what do you recommend, then?"

I gave a grin as I thought about my suggestion.

"We should play 3v3 tackle football."

"I'd be down for that." He replied, along with the other three murmuring their agreement.

"And Gwen and I both should be the captains of the opposing teams."

I was sort of expecting her to reject this idea, however I would be surprised by her response.

"Are you challenging me, Doofus?" she asked.

I turned to look at her.

"Why? Are you afraid?"

She smirked at me.

"You wish."

So, we began picking out our teammates, which didn't take very long. Kevin and Cash were on my team, while Ken and J.T. were on Gwen's team. I won't bore you with the details about our game, as it was actually pretty lackluster. Even as tempting as it would have been to use my powers to gain some sort of advantage, I couldn't do that. It wouldn't have been right and it also would have defeated the act of winning itself.

And if you thought it would have been funny if I had tried to tackle Gwen, don't go there. I had thought that it would have been wrong for me to tackle a girl, so I never made any attempt to do so. However, that didn't stop her from tackling me. She caught me off guard and actually surprised me with how strong she was. She had ended up tackling me to the ground and somehow managed to keep me held down.

From there, my team fell apart. At the beginning of the game, we had managed to score a couple of points for ourselves, while Gwen's team scored in between our two respective points. Well, without me to help them out, Kevin and Cash kind of panicked. It doesn't help that none of us really know anything about playing football. We were just playing for fun, after all. While Gwen had me pinned down, Ken and J.T. were able to work together in order to get their last point. Only at that point did Gwen get off of my back and help me up. Of course, from there, Gwen returned to Ken and they exchanged high fives.

"Way to go, sis!" he cheerfully exclaimed.

"Thanks!" she replied before turning to look at me. "I just had no idea that Ben was so submissive!"

I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, shut up. The only reason you guys one is because I chose to make no attempts of tackling you!"

She chuckled in response, as she put her hands on her hips and slightly leaned forward in my direction.

"Oh, don't be such a sore loser, Ben!"

Just then, I felt someone grab me from behind and put me in a headlock.

"Yeah, don't be such a sore loser, Ben!" I heard Cash exclaim.

"Get off of me!" I said as I struggled to pull away from him. "And stop rooting for them! We were on the same team, dumbass!"

I let out a sigh as I finally pulled away from him and rearranged my shirt. After that, the rest of my friends all walked back over to us.

"So," Ken spoke up. "You guys want to go again?"

I shook my head.

"No, I think that's enough sports for one day, actually."

Gwen took this as an opportunity to annoy me some more.

"What's the matter? Afraid of losing again?"

"Shut up."

Luckily, Kevin interjected and supported my opinion.

"Actually, I agree with him. We played sports for an hour before you guys has shown up and it's gotten a little stale. Let's just sit around and chat for a while or something."

"Okay, I'm cool with that." Ken replied.

Upon his saying that, everyone kind of mumbled their agreement, so it was pretty clear what we'd be doing now.

A Few Minutes Later

After that, everyone took a few minutes to either go wash their hands or to go get a bottle of water, sometimes both. Once that was done, we all met back outside. Kevin, Ken and Gwen were talking in the middle of the backyard, while J.T. was off by the fence, browsing the apps on his phone and I was just kind of taking in the scenery of springtime. As I watched Gwen open her water bottle and begin drinking from it with her back to me, Cash appeared to my left and said something quite suspect.

"I'm gonna tackle your cousin!"

I gave him a confused look.

"What? Why?"

"Oh, don't be a such a square! It'll be funny!"

Before I could even say anything in an attempt to discourage him, he took off running toward Gwen. I wanted to call out a warning to Gwen, however, I both wouldn't have time nor would I even need to do this. As soon as Cash reached her and attempted to tackle her, she reached back and grabbed his arm, proceeding to throw him over her shoulder.

"Holy shit!" three of us guys said in unison, myself included.

J.T. and I rushed over to where Cash now laid on the ground and looked down at the pained expression on his face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Gwen asked him.

Even though he had just been thrown onto the ground and hard, Cash surprisingly got up quickly as he spoke in an agitated tone.

"What the hell's wrong with you?! Throwing me over your shoulder like that when I was just trying to tackle you!"

"We weren't playing football anymore, you crazy bastard!"

Cash's facial expression then changed, as if he was realizing what an idiotic move he had just made was. He then looked at me.

"Did I make a mistake again, Ben?" he asked me.

When I didn't answer, that seemed to all but confirm it for him.

"Oh, I wish I was different!"

Mood, I thought as I let out a sigh.

I stepped up to Cash and patted him on the shoulder.

"There, there. You'll do fine, buddy."

And just maybe next time don't try to attempt tackling my cousin without warning?

Half An Hour Later

Sometime after that, we all sat down in the middle of the yard and started chatting, just about anything in general. Even though all we were mostly into were comic books and video games, I think Gwen got a kick out of talking to new people. After talking for a good half an hour about what was going on in our daily lives, the conversation fell silent. It stayed that way, until after a few seconds when Kevin suddenly spoke.

"Worst comic book movie, go."

While Ken and the rest of my friends began thinking to themselves, Gwen leaned over to me, clearly being confused.

"Um, what are they doing?" she asked.

"Sometimes one of us will name a specific topic if our conversation goes sour. It's actually pretty useful in generating a new conversation."

"Oh, I see."

With that, J.T. was the first to speak.

"Kick-Ass 2. It was wildly inferior to the original and desecrated the second volume of the graphic novel."

Ken shook his head in disagreement.

"Kick-Ass 2 is an insignificant choice in comparison to some of the really bad comic book movies out there. In fact, it's even not that bad of a movie to begin with."

I nodded.

"I agree."

Next after that, Ken spoke out with his pick.

"Well, if we're going to go with older movies, I think I'm going to pick Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer."

"Ooo, good pick." Kevin replied. "Good pick."

"Is there even anything likable about that movie?" Cash chimed in.

"They made Galactus into a fucking cloud!" I added.

"They made Galactus into a fucking cloud." Ken agreed.

After that, Cash threw his hat into the ring.

"I've got it. Batman & Robin!"

Kevin shook his head in disagreement.

"Bad movie or no, Batman & Robin is delicious garbage."

Cash tried his hand at a different pick following Kevin disagreeing with him.

"Um, Spider-Man 3, then."

To his dismay, I shook my head this time.

"Spider-Man 3 didn't give us a good adaptation of Venom, but in terms of everything else, it's honestly not a bad movie."

He let out a sigh.

"Okay, then Daredevil! Daredevil—"

"—is delicious garbage!" Kevin and I finished in unison as we high fived each other.

"I give up." Cash said with a defeated tone.

Kevin and I chuckled as Ken spoke up again.

"What about you, Gwen? Do you have an opinion on bad comic book movies?"

She shook her head.

"No, the only movie I've seen is the first Spider-Man movie, which apparently is one of the good ones. I don't think I can add anything to this conversation."

"Oh, well, okay then."

And just like that, we went right back to waiting for the next person to give their opinion to the table. Kevin cleared his throat and spoke.

"I'm going to pick Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice."

We all murmured in agreement, the movie in question being so bad that none of us had anything to add to it. That left me as the last person who hadn't said anything in response.

"I can top all of those. Fan-four-stic."

As soon as I mentioned that title, they all collectively groaned in response. Meanwhile, Gwen was as confused as ever.

"What's 'Fan-four-stic'?" she asked.

"It's what the 2015 Fantastic Four movie is called, due to the number four being in the middle of the word 'fantastic'."

"Oh."

Considering how they reacted to my pick, I would say that I had won this conversation.

A Few Hours Later

We had just gotten done eating easter dinner and my friends had left about an hour ago. After we had dinner, I went to my room to be by myself for a little bit. I also went to my room because I realized that even though I was a vigilante, I didn't actually have my own costume yet. That could be a potential problem later, such as if the alien watch were to time out on me while I'm in public view.

Wearing a costume while not in alien form during my "patrols" could counteract that. However, I couldn't just go out and buy a costume from any store. If I did it that way, then it could be possible to trace the costume back to me. That left one other alternative: sewing my own costume from scratch. But that came with a problem. I didn't know how to sow. Yet. So, here I was, drawing up potential costume designs in a notebook. At least I was until there was a knock at my door.

"Come in." I said as I shut the notebook and slipped it into a drawer in my nightstand.

My door opened and Gwen walked into the room.

"What's up?" I asked as I sat up a bit straighter.

"I think we're going to be leaving soon," she spoke as she sat down across from me on the foot of the bed. "so I thought I'd come and chat you up since we didn't actually get to talk in private today."

"Okay."

After I said that, a questioning look formed on her face.

"So, are we still going to try to come up with a schedule for these comic book movies?"

I gave her a sheepish look.

"We'll get it done. I'm just more focused on working toward graduation right now."

She looked a bit disappointed, but nodded.

"Okay."

"I'm actually glad that you're bringing this up. I wanted to say sorry once again for initially turning you down a few weeks ago. I being a dick just because I didn't like the idea of watching some of the movies on your list and due to how long it would take."

She held her hand up and surprised me by what she said.

"Don't apologize. I overreacted that day and was generally more difficult than I needed to be. Not only that, but I was kind of a bitch, with my giving you the cold shoulder."

Wow, I wasn't expecting her to apologize for her own actions like that, I thought.

"Let's just call it even." I eventually said.

She nodded.

"Even."

I then recalled how she threw Cash over her shoulder when he tried tackling her earlier.

"Hey, where did you learn to flip people over your shoulder like that?"

She smirked at me.

"Surprised you with that, didn't I?" she asked. "I learned how to do that in my Jiu-Jitsu class."

"You take a martial arts class?"

"Yeah, I thought I mentioned that when we were here for Christmas?"

"You know what? You did. Sorry, I guess I forgot about that."

She shook her head.

"Don't worry about it."

After that, a few seconds of silence passed between us, while we both struggled to find something to say next. However, after some time, she spoke again.

"So, there's this travelling circus thing that's coming to Bellwood soon, within the next few weeks, actually. Would you be interested in going with me?"

A circus, huh? Well, I never actually got over my fear of clowns... Still, I should just say yes. She wants to spend more time with me and I want to spend more time with her.

I smiled at her.

"Sure, I'll go with you."

She smiled back at me.

"Thanks." She replied as she stood up from my bed. "Well, like I said, we're going to be leaving soon, so I should probably get out of your hair."

"Alright."

"See you at school?"

I nodded.

"Yep."

And with that, she turned and left my room. After she had left, I briefly considered getting my notebook back out to continue brainstorming potential costume designs. However, in the end, I realized that I just wasn't as interested in it as I had been a few minutes ago.

Author's Note

* And that's it for the chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed it! Sorry if this chapter wasn't your cup of tea. Consider it a bit of a filler chapter, but I really wanted you guys to see the camaraderie that Ben has with his group of friends. I hope that I conveyed that well.

* I also would like to apologize if you had expected to actually see a scene of Ben tackling Gwen during their football match. Sorry, I just did not see any way of making that scene interesting. They don't have any feelings for each other now anyway, so I don't know what any one thought they'd get, if this is an issue, that is.

* If you're reading this on the evening of Christmas (which I doubt anyone is), then Merry Christmas! If you're reading it after Christmas, then Merry Christmas again and I hope you have a Happy New Year.

* With all of that having been said, I do believe that's everything I had to talk about here. I hope you guys have a Happy Holidays and I'll be back in 2024!

Review Responses

jasongd (Chapter 11): And another great chapter congrats it's your story and you can do whatever you want with it If you want to cut out all the non-essential chapters and move them up to after they get together then do it if you don't want to then don't do it In my humble opinion, whatever you choose will still be fine and this story will be great story I'll be waiting for next chapter

Thank you, Jason. I really appreciate your kind comments. I guess we'll see what happens with rearranging the future chapters of this story. Thanks for the review, as always.

Slayer 606 (Chapter 11): Cute, nice to see you back in the game I guess. I would rather have a bit more development between the Tenyson family, obviously because Ben and Gwen are going to pair, their folks would be involved this situation willingly or not. After Ben and Gwen hook up should be the best parts of the family. However cutting out the side characters would be kinda rushing through the story quickly. I would've like to see Gwen and Kevin team up and use their powers, but if not that's fine. Anywho keep up the work.

Thanks, Slayer. In regards to your topics of the development of the family, you may find yourself being a bit disappointed. The bulk of this story's plot is already written and while there will be some development, you may have to make do with what I bring to the table. I hope you won't be too disappointed, though.

It's not cutting out side characters, it would just be cutting any minor chapters that come before them getting together. As in one-off villains or one-off chapters, all of the important stuff won't be getting moved. If it wasn't clear, the reason I'm doing this is because if I don't move these chapters up, then we pretty much immediately cut to the epilogue chapters.

And I don't think anyone wants the story to end that quickly after they get together. Unless however, readers are interested in me adapting one story arc from Alien Force. But I haven't heard anything back about that yet. I will respond to you saying that you'd like to see Gwen and Kevin team up and use their powers by saying: maybe. Oh yeah, and that the names Gwen and Kevin should just never, ever be used in the same sentence. Thanks for the review, as always.

adriandragonus (Chapter 11): Ooh almost missed this one! It's been so long since the last chapter, but I'm glad that you're okay there! As for the story, I am glad that Ben managed to beat the villain and still in the good side of Gwen. It's sweet of Ben to strive for Gwen's forgiveness, he needs to show this commendable side of him more! And I think Ben managed to get the best of his civilian and superhero lifes,at least for now, and so I'm glad of it. his life needs to be at its peak before he faces the ultimate enemy (the epilogue is a tease about Vilgax, correct? ).

Thanks, Adrian. I'm glad you made it in for this chapter quick enough and thank you for your kind words. As for you wanting his commendable side to be shown more, you'll be in luck in future chapters. Or in the very least, I hope that you'll like what I've cooked up. I've written multiple iterations of Ben Tennyson over the years and I think that this one is truly different than any other that I've written in the past. And yes, of course it was Vilgax. Who else would it be? Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: During a walk through the woods, Ben encounters a creature exhibiting wolf-like features.