Chapter 23: Anger and Jealousy

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 23!

* We're going to have a string of original chapters here before we get back to revised versions of previous chapters. This chapter may be on the shorter side.

* That's all I'm going to say. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Ben

The Following Day – Wednesday, April 25th, 2018

Madison High School

I had made it back home the previous night without Mom discovering that I had snuck out. After my previous couple of days, I just wanted a normal day for once. Unfortunately for me, I would be in for a rude awakening that day. It happened after third period, while I was at my locker trading out my textbooks. I heard footsteps approaching me and at first, I thought it was Gwen, maybe coming over to clarify the situation from yesterday. I wish it had been her. I turned my head to see Brad Miller standing there.

"Uh, hey Brad." I spoke, being too shocked to say anything else. "What's up?"

He cleared his throat before speaking.

"Ben, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot yesterday and I wanted to make it up to you."

Wow, he remembered my name this time, I thought.

As much as I wanted to sock this guy in the jaw, I decided to at least hear him out. I waved my hand in front of me.

"Nah, man. Don't worry about it. You didn't know who I was. Let's just leave it at that."

"Great!"

I nodded and now considered the conversation to be over, so I turned my head to finish up in my locker.

"But…"

I turned to look at him.

"…I'm going to have to ask you to stay away from her in the future."

Wait, what?

"Are you kidding me?"

He shrugged as if what he were asking for was a reasonable request.

"She's her own person, she can do whatever she wants and she can hang out with whoever she wants!"

"I don't want her hanging out with other guys."

I can't believe you! What a piece of work!

I glared back at him, having that reasonable look on his face.

"Wow! I can't believe you! I was willing to give you a chance, but you're just—"

"Hey, if a nerd like you ever gets a girlfriend, maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from."

Yeah, I'm sure I will.

I continued with my point despite the fact that he had interrupted me.

"I was so willing to give you a chance and hold my tongue despite what I think of you, but I can't with you."

I slammed my locker shut and walked past him, before speaking just low enough so he'd hear me.

"She deserves better than a piece of shit like you."

I would have been more than satisfied if the conversation had just ended there. But of course, it's never as simple as that, is it? I heard Brad spin around and quickly approach me from behind. I just narrowly dodged a punch that would have hit me in the back of the head and spun around myself. I socked him in the eye with enough force to knock him down, where he went crashing against the row of lockers.

"Don't!" I said as I pointed down at him. "Be the bigger man! Just take my comments as constructive criticism and walk away!"

He wasn't willing to do that. He got back up and tried diving to wrap his arms around my midsection, but I simply pushed him back into the lockers. I was done trying to talk him down. He got back up and moved to punch me again, but I swept my leg through the air and knocked his leg out from under him. This time I didn't wait for him to get back up again. I just ran in the direction of my next class. I didn't have the time to waste in trying to deal with him.

I wish that the whole Brad debacle would just end there. But of course, it's never that easy.

Later That Day

The Tennyson House

When I got home from school today, I was surprised when I saw Gwen waiting for me by my front door, with her arms crossed over her chest.

What's she doing here? We weren't scheduling a hang out today, were we? Does she just want to clear up everything that happened with Brad yesterday?

Before I could say anything, however, she stepped forward as she uncrossed her arms and spoke first. And it wasn't anything nice.

"Why did you assault my boyfriend?"

Right after she said that any vague sense of being glad to see her immediately vanished into thin air. She was being real accusatory all of a sudden for no reason and I didn't like it. I let out a sigh as I took off my backpack and flung it to the ground to my right, creating a thudding noise as it hit the ground. This seemed to intimidate Gwen as the unhappy look had disappeared, as well as the fact that she ever-so-slightly backed away from me.

"We don't have to do this now." She spoke in an unsteady tone. "We can talk about this—"

"No!" I exclaimed as I pointed at her. "You wanted to talk about this thing? Well, we're going to fucking talk about it!"

She didn't say anything, still looking a bit shaken up, so I continued.

"You want to go and date the dumb, meathead jock? Fine. You want to just allow him to walk all over me like I don't exist? Fine. But don't you ever accuse me of shit!"

At this point it seemed that she got over having been intimidated by me, because she fired back.

"I asked him to go apologize and make things right with you, just for you to start a fight with him! What has gotten into you?!"

So, she sent him to apologize to me? That figures, I should have known that a dick like him wouldn't apologize on his own volition.

"You sent him to apologize, but you could have done so much more!"

"What would you have me do?!" she yelled back as her face began to grow red.

"Easy!" I exclaimed as I pointed my index finger to my temple. "Observant!"

She looked at me as if she were confused before once again firing back.

"Observant? That's rich coming from you!"

"I'm not the same dumb ten year old that I used to be, Gwen! This guy views you as 'his' exclusively and doesn't want other guys to even talk to you!"

"And where's your proof?!"

"How about he actually said it to me?! He physically told me today that he wants me to stay away from you! And when I told him that you deserve better, he tried to hit me as I was walking away!"

Now that I had fully laid my cards out, Gwen was at last silent and the angered look on her face had been replaced by one of surprise. For whatever reason, I didn't allow her to say anything about this. I just bent down to pick up my backpack and sling it back over my shoulder.

"Observant. Look it up it a dictionary." I repeated as I once again pointed my index finger to my temple. "How about instead of immediately pointing fingers at your cousin, who by the way, you know much better than that other wonderful human being, you actually pay attention to what kind of person your new boyfriend is?"

I walked past her without giving her an opportunity to give a response.

"Ben, wa—" she began to speak.

I opened the door without listening to her and slammed it shut behind me, making it abundantly clear that I was done talking with her. Mom, who was sitting on the couch in the living room, gave me a confused look as I stood there after the fact.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

I let my backpack fall to the floor again, this time landing without a thud.

"Gwen came here to accuse me of getting into a fight with her new boyfriend."

"Well, did you?"

What is this? What kind of person do people think I am?!

"No, Mom, I didn't. That piece of work came to me today and asked me to stay away from her, because he doesn't want her to even spend time with other guys."

"Okay, but you still yelled at her?"

I was beginning to get really annoyed by this topic. I ran my hand down my face in order to maintain my composure.

"She came to me and instead of asking me for my side of the situation, immediately accused me of starting a fight with him. That made me angry, so I told her what she should have done instead."

"But you can't just yell at your own family members for not doing what you think was right!"

I let out a sigh as I picked up my backpack from the tile floor at my feet. This conversation was going nowhere and it was time to move on from it.

"It's not my fault that she decided not to be rational with me." I replied as I began walking the path to my room, my backpack slung over my shoulder. "From my point of view, I didn't do anything wrong."

"Ben—"

"I don't want to hear anymore about this topic. It's done. Leave it."

I walked down the hallway and entered my room before shutting the door behind me.

"From my point of view, I didn't do anything wrong." I repeated to myself.

Except, you did, I thought.

I dropped my backpack to my left one last time and slid down against the door to a sitting position as I let out a sigh. I folded my arms over my knees and rested my head there.

"Why did I act so cruel to her?" I asked myself.

That night I had an odd dream. In the other world that my dream took place in, I was sitting on a wooden chair inside of a living room, right in front of a fireplace. I found this to be strange because my house in fact did not have a fireplace. However, I acted as though this didn't bother me.

"Why did I behave like that toward her today?" I asked myself the same question from earlier.

"Pretty sure that one was your bad, pal." A voice suddenly said from nowhere.

It was odd, though. I recognized that voice. It was my voice. I turned around in the chair to see the ten year old version of me, sitting right behind me in another wooden chair. But he had spoken with my eighteen year old voice, instead of the voice I had when I was ten. His face was obscured by darkness, but I could tell it was him because of the clothes he was wearing. I scoffed as I turned back around.

"You? When did you get a new voice?"

"When you grew up, I suppose. Isn't that how puberty works? Along with everything else, it deepens your voice?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Well, I don't like it. It doesn't sound right."

"Oh, don't worry. I agree."

"Is there a point to you being here? What do you want?"

"I'm so very glad you asked! I want to make us great again. We were so much better when we were harsher and ruder to people, when all we cared about was ourselves."

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine.

"And what about you? What's the point of being nice and helping people?"

"If I can just keep helping others, I can—"

"You've helped enough people!"

"You're not listening! There's no room for selfishness and hatred in this world, it gets you nowhere!"

"I would argue that kindness and being helpful gets you nowhere. And so, when everything comes crashing down all around you and you realize that kindness really won't help you, that's where I'll be. I'll be waiting for you and we'll go back to how we used to act."

I shook my head.

"No, I'm better now! I'm better now, I'm better now, I'm better—"

The next thing I knew, I had woken up in a cold sweat. I took a deep breath as I sat up in my bed.

What a weird dream. I haven't dreamt or really thought about my old self in a long time. Why would I have a dream like that now of all times?

I thought it over for a few seconds, before I told myself that I had really changed. I was never going to go back to being the person I was then and that was the end of that. I laid back down and tried to make myself feel better so that I would be able to fall back asleep. As I laid there, I found myself unconsciously thinking something as I began to drift off again.

I'm better now, I'm better now, I'm better now.

Author's Note:

* And that's it for this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed it!

* So, what did you think of this chapter leaning into the drama side of this story? What did you think of how Brad instigated a fight with Ben? How did you guys feel about how Ben and Gwen got into a heated argument, with him lashing out at her after she accused him of starting a fight with her boyfriend? What do you think will come from both of these things?

* Maybe more importantly though, what are your guys' thoughts on the dream that Ben had? Is there reason for him seeing a younger, more arrogant and selfish side of himself?

* I'm really curious to see what you all think. Please, if you have any thoughts, you can post a review or if you'd like to express something privately, than you can PM me. One last thing, I did get a review on the last chapter from a specific user, but from what I understand, the user is on a list of FF users who are going around scamming writers posing as "artists". So, due to the fact that I'm 99% sure that this person is a scammer, I won't be posting their review in the Review Responses section. That's going to do it for me, so have a fantastic day and bye.

Review Responses

adriandragonus (Chapter 22): I like that you have Ben maintain his moral compass, some other fanfic writers are keen to turn him into teenage Punisher LOL. I was thinking Tetrax is going to mentor Ben just like he did in OG series, seeing that this Ben lack any figure to teach him in fighting (i assume Granpa Max isn't around to do so) Oh, and was that Vilgax at the epilogue? And at some point in the future, Ben's love life and his vigilante life are going to cross each other, aren't they?

Thanks, Adrian. Yes, Ben will maintain a strong moral compass throughout the story. There will be only one or two times in present where he'll go overboard, but we're a long ways away from that. I was one of those writers once, but I've matured into a better writer since then, I would think. Yes, that was absolutely Vilgax in the epilogue, I won't even try to dance around that topic.

If you paid attention in Chapter 11: The Course of History: Part 2, he already appeared in that epilogue, when one of his drones informed him that the Omnitrix is located on "a small, backwater planet in the Gamma Quadrant and that the planet is called Earth". I wouldn't say that his love and vigilante lives will cross each other, but I will say that after a certain point in the story, both lives will make the other difficult. Thanks for the review, as always.

jasongd (Chapter 22): And another great chapter congrats I'll be waiting for next chapter BWEN FOREVER

Thanks, Jason. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Due to his small fight with Brad, Ben lands himself into trouble the following day at school. Gwen follows Ben's advice and decides to ask Brad what really happened between the two of them.