In memory of Derrick J. Wyatt
...
"Oh Dustin, don't do this, it's not the real you!"
"I'm sorry, Hazel, but I'm too far gone. Go, save yourself. I don't want to hurt you too."
"No!" Hazel threw her arms around him from behind, sobbing. "You're not a beast, Dustin, you're human! You're my biggest love, my reason to live. I don't want you to die! If you do, I-I-"
The werewolf hung his head, gritting his ever sharpening teeth. He could see the glow of the full moon starting to illuminate the forest through his long brown bangs.
"I-I can't. I need to hunt down the military trash that killed my family. My mom, dad, and little sister are all dead because of him. If I don't avenge them, I won't be able to live with myself. I'm sorry, Hazel."
Tears fell from Hazel's beautiful brown eyes. She looked up at him as he turned around to face her. They stared into each other's eyes longingly, wishing they could've been together under better circumstances.
"Hazel, my beautiful flower."
"Dustin, my precious lone wolf."
As Dustin leaned down to kiss her one last time, and Hazel closed her eyes in acceptance and to kiss back, Dustin suddenly jolted. His head thrown back, he howled, sounding pained and animalistic.
He growled and groaned as his clothes started tearing up, loud rips and tears scratching at his ears. Fur started poking through the tears, and his eyes became cold, distant, and focused. His ears grew longer, his teeth grew into fangs, and his mind started to shrink. He could feel his consciousness start to crumble, all memories and feelings falling away as a sense of hunger and vengeance took over. The painful and terrifying but familiar sensation warped his entire being once again, and soon he became his other self, the demon that lay dormant inside of him.
Hazel gasped and stumbled back, staring fearfully up at him. The werewolf growled with his head hung low again. His nose started to pick up multiple scents around him. So much wildlife he had never detected until now were suddenly in his sights, and he felt enraged, dangerous, and invincible. He looked up to see his lover trembling slightly before him. He gave her the most human look he could muster before turning around and running out of the forest at high speeds and on all fours. Hazel sunk to her knees, screaming in despair.
Dustin grit his sharp teeth as his sensitive ears picked up on that soul-wrenching cry, but he dared not stop. He made his decision, and he intended on fulfilling it, even if it took his last breath.
...
"Bahahahahahaha! What is this movie?!"
"Kevin!"
Kevin was laughing hysterically, unable to take the film's overdramatic corniness. Gwen angrily elbowed him, embarrassed at his behavior. She tried giving an apologetic smile to the moviegoers who turned around to look at them, but could only do so much in the dark room.
"Quiet down or else we'll get kicked out!" She hissed at him.
"Oh, like you want to see the werewolf version of Jennifer Nocturne's Darkfall movie."
"It's because she's not in this that I'm giving it a chance!"
"Man, I have to agree with Kevin on this one," Ben said to himself. He grabbed a handful of popcorn and tossed it into his mouth. "This is pretty lame."
Rook, on the other hand, was watching the movie with wide eyes and his hands clenching his knees.
"Don't tell me you're enjoying this, Rook!" Ben hadn't been paying him attention at all up until now, so he was surprised to see him actually being entertained.
"The emotional weight and drama are stellar," Rook said. "The acting? Not as much, but I am eagerly awaiting to see what happens next."
"This stuff is aimed at fourteen year old girls, don't you have better taste in Earth culture?"
"Seeing as how you only show me Sumo Slammers movies, I do not."
"Touché."
"I can't-I-I'm sorry, Gwen," Kevin started to shake off his laughter. "Whoo! That was too much."
"Why do I bring you around with me?" Gwen shook her head but still rested it back on his shoulder.
"Because I'm handsome," Kevin smirked down at her.
"You could learn some self control."
"And lose all my charisma? Not even you want that."
"I FOUND YOU!" A loud nasally voice tore through the theater. The movie screen tore apart as someone flew through the other side of it (and seemingly the wall behind it too). The lights in the room came back on to reveal a large floating golden chair with a short, chubby, red humanoid sitting in it. He had on a large hat with a gemstone in the center.
The civilians screamed and ran for it, escaping through the exit. Ben and his team got up and readied themselves.
"Collectimus?!" Ben exclaimed. "Wait..."
"No, not quite," the newcomer wheezed. "We may be related, but I am so much more. I am far more ambitious than that incompetent fool. I am the bringer of destruction, the grim reaper of all things innocent, the biggest fan of the real Ben 10! I am his cousin, Yobnaf!"
Kevin started laughing again, throwing back his head and clutching his sides. "This is making my day."
"Silence! You shall pay the consequences for jeering at the mighty invader! You will learn the true meaning of pain, and you will return to your former, glorious selves!"
"Nah, I'm good," Kevin touched the ground and started absorbing its material, coating himself in it. Gwen clenched her fists which glowed with magic, Rook aimed his Proto-Tool, and Ben transformed into Kickin Hawk.
"Ugh! And off the bat you're disappointing me," Yobnaf shook his head.
"Well, then, we'll have to fix that!" Kickin Hawk leapt up onto the chair, ready to attack.
"No! Turn into something else!" Yobnaf pressed a button on the armrest and a shockwave instantly repelled the attack and sent the alien chicken flying back to the ground. Kickin Hawk made a screeching sound as he fell. Yobnaf, looking down at Gwen, said "Ugh, what is that? You're going to need some cosmic plastic surgery!" and pressed a button on one of the armrests and multiple thin, cylindrical blasters unfolded from the sides of the chair and started firing intense beams of light at them.
Gwen threw up a shield to cover the the rest of them, which started to crack under the lasers' pressure. She grunted and dug her feet into the ground. Stepping out from behind the shield, Rook turned the Proto-Tool into a shield of his own. Quickly, he threw it at the blasters, severing their connectors on the sides. Letting her shield go, Gwen hurled a disc of magic at the chair, causing it to spin rapidly.
"Whoaoaoaoaoah!"
Rook transformed his shield back into a gun and fired at the chair's base, knocking it out its place in the air. Kevin ran to the chair as it fell and delivered a punch to it, sending it across the room, where Kickin Hawk was waiting. He spun and roundhouse kicked it, sending it back to Kevin. Kevin turned his hand into a mace and swung at the chair, returning to sender. They started playing with it like a ball, laughing at Yobnaf's constant screams that would decrease in volume as they sent it to the other until it came back, hilariously increasing again. They kept at it until Kickin Hawk leapt into the air and gave it one last kick downward as it came back to him, slamming it into the ground.
"You're paying us back for those movie tickets," he said. It took a minute for Yobnaf to reorient himself, his eyes swirly from the beating his chair took.
"Pah! I don't owe you anything!" Yobnaf slowly sat back up. "But me, you owe a ton!"
"What for?" Gwen asked.
"For trying to attack me, your biggest fan, in such an insulting state!"
"What's so insulting about us?"
"Hellooo? Look at you!"
"Excuse me?" Gwen crossed her arms and glared through her glasses.
"Yeah, you got something to say, pal?" Kevin stepped up.
"Don't even get me started on you!" Yobnaf adjusted his glasses. He looked over at Kickin Hawk. "Ugh, what a pathetic alien. Couldn't you have turned into something worth seeing in person, like Humungousaur or Rath?"
The Omnitrix timed out, reverting Ben to human form. "Don't tempt me."
"See! That's the Ben 10 I want! Something mature and serious!"
"Uh, Ben, who was this Collectimus guy you mentioned?" Kevin asked.
"Some nerd a while back who tried collecting the Earth. He was pretty obnoxious, but we settled on a deal for him to leave."
"I see his personality runs in the family," Gwen muttered.
"That imbecile couldn't even do the one thing he set out for," Yobnaf spat. "Trading the whole Earth for a T-shirt, how pathetic."
"You have no argument from me," Rook said.
"Shut up, you nobody!" Yobnaf snapped. "You're part of what makes this world worse!"
"I am?"
"Ever since Dagon was defeated this world lost its principles! It's bright colors this and lighthearted humor that! Disgusting!" Yobnaf shook his head. "It's like everyone grew backwards. Collectimus shared my view but watched the wrong Ben 10 show, and left his conquest for a souvenir! But I know better. I know you all are the real deal. The once great heroes of this planet that were highly revered amongst the audience that watched you."
"Watched us?" Ben repeated, looking around. "I don't see any cameras."
"Where I'm from, everybody is on TV," Yobnaf picked his nose. "We just tune into anything that interests us." He slammed his hands into the armrests. "And a lot of us are just sick of how you run about doing things these days! We all grew up and matured, but you never did. You continued to have fun. You kept regressing in everything that made you good! Even this world looks horrible now! Where are all of your pupils?!"
He pointed at Kevin. "Why is your chin so big?! Why does everyone in this world look so cartoonish now? Why couldn't those stupid Celestialsapiens make you look good, like more realistic?"
Ben looked at his arms. "This is pretty realistic to me."
"And so will be your beatdown if you don't make your point in the next three seconds," Kevin pounded his fist into his palm, glaring down at Yobnaf.
"Alright, alright," Yobnaf held his hands up. "My point is your lives are a TV show to us. We cheer you on when you reach your highs, and we sit on the edge of our seats when you're at your lows. We're your fans. Which makes it depressing when you don't try to keep up with all the other trends that we like."
"As far as I am concerned, we are our world's biggest trend," Rook said.
"There are so many other superhero productions being pumped out these days," Yobnaf ignored him. "They're not afraid to get brutal, violent, or realistic. That's why we watch them, because older audiences watch better content."
"I disagree with that," Kevin gestured to the destroyed movie screen.
"And live action?" Yobnaf went on. "That's where all the action's at. Think about it! Popular movie stars playing popular cartoon characters! It'd draw in the biggest crowds! Although..." he looked at them with a hint of disappointment. "Your previous ventures into that format didn't work out so well, critically speaking."
"...I don't get it," Ben said.
"Don't worry, you don't have to, now that you're in my hands," Yobnaf touched his hat, where the gemstone glowed. "I'll just make my own live action reboot, and with my technology fueled by my own rage and strife, I can make your reality as I wish it."
Suddenly, multiple red beams of light emitted from the stone, and dove right at them.
Everyone jumped out of the way. Rook fired at the beam coming his way while Gwen hurled another disk at hers, to no effect. Instantly, they were caught in them and vanished.
"Gwen!" Kevin yelled. "Where did you take them?!" He jumped and leapt at Yobnaf but was instantly vanished as well.
"Hey!" Ben ran down the aisle, desperately trying not to get hit.
"You won't escape me!"
Another beam snaked down and hit Ben right in the butt, and the next thing he knew, he was gone.
...
Ben blinked himself awake, his senses dull and feeling drowsy. "Where...am I?"
He buried his face into his hands, rubbing at his eyes. He felt extremely lightheaded, like he'd been crouching too long and stood up too fast. It took a few seconds for his mind to clear, but it felt even longer than that.
"Ben?"
Ben looked up to see a long haired girl in front of him, turning around in her seat.
"Huh, Gwen?"
"You finally made it," Kevin spoke from the driver's seat. Ben finally realized where they were. Looking around, he saw that they were in Kevin's old car.
"Wait, what? How did we get here?" Ben asked.
"Beats me," Kevin shrugged. "Last I remember we were fighting that little snot and now we're here, taken back to the past."
He wasn't kidding; he and Gwen were both wearing their older outfits from a year ago. Gwen's hair had returned to its longer state, her glasses were gone, and she was back in her school uniform, with a blue top and skirt. Kevin's face wasn't as hairy, and he was visibly lacking the chin scar Ben had given him. Being back in the old car was starting to make more sense. But something was off about their faces. Not just that, but the entire fabric of reality looked strangely more defined and three dimensional.
He turned on the car's interior light and looked at himself in the window. His face dropped when he saw himself. He was...handsome. He looked like an early-mid twenties movie star. His face had a sharp outline, but it still looked smooth. His jawline wasn't completely chiseled, but it definitely stood out. His hair also wasn't combed down like it used to be, instead it was combed up some, styled to look wavy and short. He looked several years older than fifteen, despite his youthful appearance.
Ben looked down at himself, expecting but still surprised to see that he was wearing his old outfit. He was wearing the old green jacket, the black shirt, the jeans, and most importantly, the original Omnitrix. It was just as he remembered: it was green and black, with the dial sitting on top of his wrist. He twisted the dial, and the core popped up accompanied by a full body hologram of Big Chill. He was much slimmer than usual, and Ben could vaguely remember becoming very scrawny and lean as said alien. His head started hurting, which he clutched in pain and confusion. Where were these memories coming from, and why did they hurt? He twisted the dial and up next was Swampfire, in his original state before he gained a massive power boost on Anur Transyl. He dialed over to Humungousaur, who was naked again, then to Spidermonkey, whose hair seemed to have flipped upside down. Or is it now right side up? Ben wondered. More vague memories of his aliens' previous looks flashed through his head, but he tried ignoring them, since he felt like he'd be getting a full on headache at this point. He continued to cycle through his aliens, and he was disheartened to see that he was stuck with the original ten he had unlocked when the Omnitrix reformatted itself. All of a sudden he felt very limited.
"I don't think we time traveled," Gwen said, looking out the window. "I don't recognize this part of Bellwood at all."
Ben checked outside, squinting through the night. "Is that an elementary school?"
"Looks like it," Kevin said. "Kind of hard to remember if we've been here before, though. We drove around a lot at night."
"Yeah, and the city never invested in streetlights for some reason."
"Is that why it was so dark?"
"Guys!" Gwen snapped. "I'm positive we've never driven by here before. This town only vaguely looks like Bellwood, and I don't think the Highbreed ever targeted this place."
"The Highbreed, huh?" Kevin nodded, admiring Gwen's outfit. "Yup, seems like the right time frame."
"Except we haven't time traveled."
"Do you think we're in another dimension?" Ben asked.
"We could be," Gwen put her hand on her chin. "But how would we have changed our clothes, and gotten Kevin's car back?"
"And where's Rook?" Ben just noticed.
"I already tried a tracking spell; he's not here."
"Oh man..."
"He'll be fine, Ben," Kevin reassured him. "I mean, he stuck with you this long and you hadn't blown him up yet, have you?"
"Ha ha."
"But seriously," Kevin changed the subject. "This could be a virtual simulation. That little jerk said something about returning us to our former selves, and he obviously got what he wanted. Maybe he's messing with our bodies in the real world."
"I've had enough of virtual realities to last a lifetime," Ben muttered. "Any ideas how to get out of here?"
Meanwhile, Yobnaf watched the scene unfold with utter glee.
"Oh, I just love it when these characters take things seriously," he giggled, kicking his feet from his chair repeatedly. He sat in a highly personalized room, with multiple posters stuck to the walls and empty chip bags and soda cans littering the floor. A large TV sat in front of him, where footage of Ben and his team's conversation was broadcast. He picked up a remote.
"I can't wait to see how much better it'll get. Play!" He pressed the play button, and the play icon lit up in the center of the screen. Back in Kevin's car, the trio were cut short as a sudden force took hold of them. For a second they were frozen in place, every part of their bodies coming to a standstill. Their brains were suddenly cut off from all the memories they had in the past year, and as they were released from their hold, they were mentally rewired. They started moving again, but appeared to be resuming doing something they hadn't been doing until now.
...
A bright green muscle car drove down an empty road, its headlights shining brightly against the dark night. Disrupting the silent and peaceful air with its loud engine, the car drifted about, seemingly aimlessly. But its passengers were anything but aimless. What the average person couldn't see was that they were looking for clues. Despite it being a school night, they were on a mission to save the world.
The car passed under a streetlight, and the passenger in the back's features lit up. A bright green jacket with the number 10 written in white on a black patch and a green and black wristwatch were illuminated under the yellow light. The person who was wearing those features was Ben Tennyson, a teenager who had recently come out of retirement.
Ben impatiently sighed as he stared out the window, hoping against hope that he could find something, anything, that would get him to what he wanted. "Find anything?" He asked.
"Still nothing," Gwen said from the front passenger seat. Her eyes were glowing pink, and her facial features were grimaced in concentration. She hovered a red shirt between her hands, which was also glowing pink.
"What's taking so long?" Ben snapped. "We've been at this for three hours and we still don't have a clue!"
"Maybe if you stop bothering her every ten seconds she would've gotten somewhere!"
"What did you say?" Ben snapped at Kevin, who had just spoken up from the driver's seat.
"You heard me. Stop being a little antsy prick and let your cousin do her job."
"You have no right to talk to me like that," Ben growled dangerously.
"You're in my car, runt. If you don't like it, feel free to get out and do this on your own."
"That wouldn't be a bad idea," Ben started to taunt him. "Since there's been no alien sightings lately, maybe an obnoxiously loud car being thrown several hundred miles by Humungousaur would get their attention." He unbuckled his seatbelt.
"Don't you dare!" Kevin slammed on the brakes abruptly. He turned in his seat to glare at Ben. "If you have an issue with anything, take it out on me. Not on your cousin, and especially not on my ride!"
"Bet," Ben reached for the door handle. "I've been itching to kick some ass lately."
"Cut it out, both of you!"
Ben and Kevin stopped and turned to look at Gwen. Her eyes were no longer glowing, having returned to their normal green color. Tears were forming in them.
"Please. Stop," Her voice was starting to break.
Ben looked down in shame. Kevin turned back to face the front.
"I'm sorry, Gwen," Ben said softly. "I shouldn't have gotten pissed at you."
"It won't happen again," Kevin vowed.
"It's-it's okay," Gwen wiped at her eyes. Kevin watched her, wanting nothing more than to wipe her tears himself. "We're all on edge, and it's hard on all of us," she said.
"Let's just keep looking," Kevin said, stepping down on the pedal again. "You guys don't want to lose your grandpa, I get that. I'll be damned if this ever happens again, especially to you."
Gwen looked at him, a little confused. Again?
Ben forlornly stared back out the window. He didn't show it, but he was nervous beyond all belief. Why, out of all the times that he needed him most, did Grandpa Max have to disappear? When an entire armada was on the move?
"Shit!" Kevin slammed down on the brakes, alerting the Tennyson cousins.
"What is it?" Ben asked.
"Some bad news."
Looking at the front, Ben and Gwen could see multiple trucks and vans parked outside the local ice skating rink. The rink itself was inside a large round building, but at this time, it should have been closed. Some of the vans' doors opened and their drivers got out to stare at the trio.
Kevin lowered his window and stuck his head out. "Is everything alright?"
"Leave this place," a bald driver said simply.
"Give me an answer, chrome dome. Why are you all out here? You know this place is closed right?"
"We are employed here. There's a maintenance problem that we're working on."
"Then why are you all out here wasting time? Plus, do you really need ten vehicles of you guys? It can't be that bad."
"Leave us!" Another driver, this one a woman said. "We will not ask again."
"You're not really good at acting human for someone who used to be one," Ben stepped out of the car and shut the door. Gwen and Kevin followed suit.
"He knows," the woman said to the baldy. He nodded.
"DNAliens!" Baldy yelled. "Attack!"
The squadron of so-called employees grabbed their faces and pulled them off, revealing them to be ID masks. A blue light glowed as they were taken off, revealing their true identities as DNAliens.
"Good," Kevin pounded his fist into his palm before touching his car and absorbing its metal. "I get to kick some alien ass after all."
Gwen clenched her fists, emanating mana in them. She looked down at them, her expression dropping.
Ben held up his wrist and reached for the Omnitrix. "Its hero time."
A/N: January 1, 2022 edit: The untimely and tragic passing of Derrick had been announced six days ago, and it's just shocking. I felt sadness and loss, and right now it still doesn't feel real. He was one of the most important creatives of one of the best cartoons to grace television and had a unique and eye-pleasing art style. His contributions to Ben 10: Omniverse, Transformers Animated, and Teen Titans were part of what made those shows great, and our childhoods would not be the same without him. In the end, his style was iconic and we were lucky to have him. Rest in peace, Derrick J. Wyatt. End edit.
January 15 edit: And no, I didn't write this in response to his death. This chapter and the entire story's outline were planned out months in advance.