Chapter 13: Benwolf

I Don't Own Ben 10 or Any of the Respective Characters, The Rights Belong to Man of Action Studios and Cartoon Network

* Taken from Chapter 4: "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."

* Taken from Chapter 5: "Thank you, Slayer. I am trying my best to get this story out. I have no plans to abandon it and I hope to not take any long breaks again, but I can't promise anything."

* Taken from Chapter 11: "Sorry that it's been a few months since my last post. … I would like you guys to know that I have no intention of abandoning this story, it's just that some of my breaks may last a bit longer than others."

* Alright, now that those flashbacks are out of the way, I can get on with my opening here. So, I'm really bad at keeping a schedule and even worse it seems when it comes to maintaining good mental health, along with the will to work on this story. Every time that I get back into this story and I say that I'm going to see it through, something gets in my way. To make a long story short, I just didn't have any real interest in writing for this story during the first month and a half and once I finally regained interest, I got Covid for the second time, my work schedule changed significantly, my mental health nosedived deeper than it's ever been and tensions with my father nearly reached a boiling point.

* However, I'm back in a good place now, things have for the most part smoothed over and I'm trying my best to consistently write. If you don't believe me at this point, I wouldn't blame you, however, I just want to say that I do intend to finish this story, even if it takes until I'm fifty years old. Now with all of that out of the way, let's get on with this, shall we?

Author's Note:

* Hello and welcome to Chapter 13 of CWN Version II! And a happy 2024 as well! I hope that you guys are having a good year so far!

* So, this chapter will end up being much shorter than the previous chapters, kind of a filler chapter, but there will be some relevance to the plot. I'll be honest, there will most likely be a handful of quite short chapters in this story, I just want to guys to be aware of that.

* I don't have anything else that I need to say. With that out of the way, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Ben

April 4th, 2018

The Suburbs – Ben's Neighborhood

A few days had passed since my family's Easter festivities. Gwen and I had seen each other in passing at school, but I hadn't had the time to actually talk to her. About a week and a half from now, we'd be going to this traveling circus/carnival thing that was coming to Bellwood, which she really wanted to check out. I myself was feeling a little anxious about going to this thing. Not because I would be hanging out with Gwen or anything like that, but because as I had mentioned before, I hadn't gotten over my fear of clowns that I had kept since my childhood.

I know, I know, a fear like that may seem childish, but for whatever reason, I've never been able to move past it. Anyway, moving on from that, I came home with a decent bit of homework, as well as a good bit of anxiety due to the aforementioned hangout. After having dinner and getting my homework done, I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. I left my room after getting on my tennis shoes to tell Mom that I was going out.

"Mom, I'm going for a walk to clear my head." I said.

"Okay, honey." She replied. "Be careful. Don't stay out for too long."

"I won't."

I stepped outside and took in the scenery around me. It was dusk and the sun had already begun to slip from view beneath the trees. Even so, there was still some light for me to see where I was going. I headed around the back of my house toward the path into the woods, taking the same path that I had walked the night I found the alien watch. As I walked, I began thinking about my upcoming hangout with Gwen.

I really want to enjoy my time with Gwen next weekend, but what if my anxiety with clowns kicks in? I don't want to freak out and cause a scene with her and it would be so embarrassing to explain to her that I'm STILL afraid of clowns, even at eighteen years old! I really just kinda want to call her and ask if we can do something else. But she really wants to do this, so would she be upset? And will she ask why I don't want to go to this thing?

I cursed to myself, not knowing what the correct thing to do here was. I walked deeper into the woods, planning to go to the crater where I found the alien watch just to reminisce for a minute, before turning back to call it a night. However, I would never make it to the crater. I eventually came to a stop due to thinking that I had heard something beyond the trees and brush to my left.

What is that?

I stopped what I was doing and walked toward the tree line on my left. From there, I began the arduous process of weeding through the trees and somewhat thick brush. After about thirty seconds of walking, I came to the edge of a clearing where I was met with an… interesting sight, to say the least. I was staring at some giant bipedal creature, that appeared to be digging through the dirt on the opposite side of the clearing as me. It appeared to be eight or nine feet tall, but as it was beginning to get darker, it was hard to tell.

What is that thing?

As I stood there at the edge of the clearing, the creature in front of me slightly turned its head, where I could barely notice that it had a snout.

Is it some kind of werewolf? Do werewolves actually exist?

While I was busy contemplating what this thing was, it continued to move, seeming less and less interested in what it had been doing previously.

And it can totally smell me, can't it?

I slowly retreated back into the trees behind me and thought about what I should do. As I was now obscured by the branches and brush again, the creature began to slowly make its way in my general direction. While it got closer, I could see that it seemed to be sniffing the air, as if it were tracking whatever had its attention. I crouched down and began moving to my right, no longer being interested in being out for a walk.

Okay, I'll slowly make my way to the other side of the clearing so I can see what it was digging for. Hopefully it won't see me as it's busy trying to find whatever got its attention. I'll just briefly check out what it was doing and then take the long way home to avoid going back the way I came.

I began slowly creeping toward the other side of the clearing, being careful to stay inside the tree line to make it harder to detect me. I hoped to make it all the way around to the small pit that the creature had been digging in, while avoiding detection. About fifteen seconds into my sneaking attempt, I began to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, accompanied by the sound of pitter-pattering heavy footsteps behind me. I whirled around to find not only that the creature had found me, but it was a mere second away from attacking.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed.

I flipped backwards and used my hands to push myself up into another arc, landing several feet away from the creature. I was finally able to get a good look at it. It definitely looked like a werewolf, but more alien in nature. It had thin arms and legs but appeared to be nimble enough for it to move around with more agility than your average human had.

The hands and feet, or "paws" in this case, all had three razor sharp claws on them, which is most likely what almost hit me. The wolf's body was really bulky and muscular compared to its limbs. The body and limbs themselves were a pale blue color, so pale that it almost looked gray. It had a long, fluffy-looking tale composed of jet-black fur, with fur of the same color sprouting up on its head and neck.

However the fur stopped at snout, which was a matching color to the body. I accepted the fact that I had aggroed the beast and there was no longer any way for me to get out of this. I dialed up the Omnitrix and selected Diamondhead before transforming.

"Didn't your mother tell you to never cry wolf?" I asked after the green flash.

If the creature could speak English or any human language, it didn't seem to have anything to say as it lunged toward me, letting out an agitated and hostile growl. I flipped out of the way to the right as the werewolf creature zipped past me.

"What? I thought it was funny!"

The beast wasted no time turning in my direction again before charging like it had previously. It was fast, there was no doubt about that. And that meant that I had to be faster. The next time it would charge, I'd be ready to engage. As I anticipated, the creature charged again and once it reached me, I started swinging. I nailed it in the face and in the chest a couple of times before I flipped backwards to give myself some space.

I had apparently only staggered the creature because it was already preparing to charge once more. When it did charge I decided to hold my ground instead of dodging this time. As soon as it reached me, I crossed my arms over my chest and pushed it back when it attempted to hit me. Now seeing another opening, I hit it with a flurry of combo punches again. After a few seconds of me attacking had passed, the creature retreated instead of me this time.

It flipped backwards like I had, seemingly mimicking my previous movement. From there, the creature leaped up into one of the trees, where it grabbed onto and held onto the tree's bark. It began leaping from tree to tree and I was forced to follow its path with my eyes. After almost ten seconds of this act, it came to a stop and turned its body so that it was looking at me. I then was surprised and somewhat sickened to see its snout beginning to split apart into four separate pieces.

Once the four pieces were fully apart, an earth-shattering howl erupted from what used to be the creature's mouth. Even though it shouldn't have been able to affect me while I was in Diamondhead's form, I found myself clapping my hands over the sides of my head in pain. Eventually it stopped doing this and the snout closed up again.

Apparently the watch has some sensitive ears, I thought.

It started doing the thing again where it would leap from tree to tree. It continued doing this while I was forced to follow its path.

What is it doing now?

Eventually it came to stop and turned itself to look at me. And I didn't like the posture that it had up in that tree. I could tell that it was about to lunge toward me and when it would, it would try to pin me in order to go for my throat.

You have one shot at this, Tennyson. Don't fuck this up.

It only stayed up in the tree for another few seconds before it let out a loud growl and lunged just like I thought it would. Right before it reached me, I grabbed onto the creature's wrists and turned to my right, where I threw it to the edge of the clearing. It was sent flying toward the tree line, where it ended with a sickening cracking sound. I ran over to see what had made that sound and I wasn't expecting what I would find.

When I had thrown the wolf creature to the edge of the clearing, it had landed on a few big, sharp rocks. And I was currently staring down at its broken form. Its neck was forcibly bent to the right, exactly where the beast had impacted with the rocks. And I could see the shape of the spine pressing into the now deformed neck, as if it was threatening to erupt from the skin at any moment. I heard the alien watch begin its time out sequence and before I knew it, I was back in my human form.

Is it dead?

I made a stupid decision after this. I walked right up to the body of the creature and reached out to feel for any signs of a pulse. And as soon as I did this, the creature suddenly came back to life, letting out an inhuman growl as it slashed at me with its claws. I was just barely able to back up in time and lift up my arm in an effort to avoid the strike. But it connected, I heard a horrible squealing sound as the middle claw connected with and skirted down the alien watch.

I immediately backed up to get away from the creature, but there was no point in doing so. It collapsed back onto the ground almost as quickly as it had lashed out at me. I just stood there with my heart pounding in my chest as I noticed a new noise and a faint yellow glow coming from the watch. I looked at the watch to see that it was glowing yellow and that it was rapidly spinning around, while stuck in an odd hourglass-looking shape. Within a few seconds it stopped spinning and returned to the shape it would be in while I was picking what alien form I wanted to transform into.

And I was staring at a silhouette that looked really similar to the creature that had just attacked me. I also noticed that the creature's other two claws had torn through my jacket sleeve but had miraculously hadn't cut my skin. I looked down at the creature where it lay motionless once again. I kicked its foot, almost expecting for it to attack again, but it didn't move anymore.

I guess it is dead, I thought.

I looked back at the watch and allowed it to go back into its recharge mode after I didn't interact with it. I took one last look at the wolf creature as I began to think to myself.

As it was dying, it just slashed the alien watch and I get the feeling that now I could transform into it if I wanted to. Its as if it were casting off a piece of itself…

I took another look at my jacket sleeve to remind myself that it had been torn open.

How on earth am I going to explain this to Mom? I can't just let her see the claw marks on my sleeve!

I stood there thinking about what I could do when I came up with a plan.

I could just take off my jacket and drape it over my arm, making sure that she can't see the side that is slashed.

I then remembered that I had seen the creature digging for something before I had drawn its attention. I turned back to look at the small hole that it had dug in the ground and went to approach it.

"What were you digging over here for, anyway?"

I bent down and looked into the hole, where I saw several small, glowing purple pebble-sized objects. I picked one of them up and almost immediately felt my fingertips beginning to go numb.

What the hell is this? And why is it making me feel like this?

The numbness slowly began spreading to my hand and that's when I had a bad feeling about this stuff, so I quickly dropped it back in the hole. The feeling in my hand and fingers began to slowly return to me. I didn't want anyone else coming across this stuff, so I began shoveling dirt back into the hole with my hands. I then patted it down until you couldn't tell that a hole had been there. I turned around, half expecting for the wolf creature to be gone, but its body was still lying where I had left it.

Well, that's good, I guess. I should get home. I've been out here long enough.

I left the clearing and hurriedly made my way back in the direction that I had come. I occasionally looked over my shoulder, getting the feeling that I was being followed, but I knew I was just paranoid. I made it back home in no time and took off my jacket to drape it over my arm, just like I planned. As I walked in, Mom immediately noticed that I wasn't wearing my jacket.

"You aren't wearing your jacket?" she asked. "Weren't you cold?"

"I was beginning to get warm on the way back."

"If you say so."

"Um, I think I'm going to going to bed soon. So, I'll see you in the morning."

"Okay. Good night, then. I love you, hon."

"I love you, too."

I returned to my room and shut the door behind me. I opened my closet and put my damaged jacket in there until I figured out what to do with it. I then went to sit on my bed to reflect on what had just happened. I put my head in my hands as I sat on the edge of my bed. I didn't even know what to think.

What the hell even was that back there? And what were those purple rocks that it was digging up? Why did they make me feel numb in my fingertips? I should probably go back there sometime tomorrow and hide that thing's body or something.

I let out a yawn as I stretched and stood up from my bed. I pulled back my covers and went to get on a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt. After that I went to shut off the lights in my bedroom and finally slipped into my bed.

That's been enough excitement for one night. Hopefully tomorrow is less exciting.

I let out one last yawn as I shut my eyes and from there, I was asleep in no time.

Author's Note:

* And that's it for the chapter! I hope you all enjoyed. This was basically another filler chapter like the last one, but it will come back into play later.

* So, this chapter was the barest attempt at adapting the Benwolf episode from Season 3. Obviously, it would have been a little difficult to come up with a perfectly spot on adaptation, so I came up with something that I thought was a bit original. Hopefully it got the job done. After this chapter, the story will be getting back on track so to speak.

* With all of that said, I can't say that I have anything else. So, I once again hope that you enjoyed this one and I'll see you guys in the next one!

Review Responses

jasongd (Chapter 12): And another great chapter congrats I'll be waiting for next chapter I also wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year and good ideas for new chapters for this story and the next stories you will create BWEN FOREVER

Thanks, Jason. I really appreciate the kind words. Thanks for the review, as always.

adriandragonus (Chapter 12): So this is a rewrite of chapter six of previous version, right? I like it, this one ended on a more positive tone compared to the previous one. And they actually play tackle football on this version!

Thanks, Adrian. Yes, this was a rewrite and it was more positive than the original version. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Ben and Gwen both experience an odd scenario.