In this story, Malware didn't exist in the Ben 10 verse , thus Ben never lost Feedback
It was just like any ordinary wednesday for the world famous superhero Ben Tennyson. Animo was troubling New York by turning some frogs into Dinosaurs and he managed to deal with him quite easily by possessing his controller using Upgrade and reversing the entire process. All of a sudden Gwen expressed this weird idea about going to Ledgerdomain and help Charmcaster free her people. Kevin laughed at this idea while Ben commented that she had been watching a lot of Naruto these days. However Gwen was having none of it and they ended up going to the ledgerdomain anyways.
And like he suspected, the delusional sorceress was up to no good. She planned to absorb the the power of all living beings existing in Ledgerdomain , which even included him and his friends in order to resurrect her father.
Gwen engaged with Charmcaster and Ben had to admit it. If he wasn't too busy destroying the machine which was about to absorb their souls and eventually kill them, It would have been quite a spectacle to see the two extremely skilled mages battling it out against each other. Hope was a nut job, but he had to give the devil her due. There are not many who could fight against an enraged anodite on even terms.
Unfortunately, while helping Ben in dissembling the massive life force absorbing machine, Kevin accidently fell inside the huge steam of overflowing mana inside the soul absorbing machine. Unable to handle the overbearing amount of energy, he slowly disintegrated into nothing. Gwen was terrified at seeing this and shredded her human skin. Assuming her really scary and powerful anodite avatar. Charmcaster, waiting for this, uses the Alpha Rune to absorb Gwen's power and soul, further powering the machine.
For a brief moment, Time slowed down to the wielder of Ultimatrix. Everything went by in super slow motion. Seconds seemed like hours.
Ben fell on his knees. Desperately waiting for his friends to come back and resume the fight. However they didn't get back up and resume the fight. In fact their bodies slowly disintegrated into glowing blue particles and became one with the machine.
No, That can not happen. He can not lose. He was a hero and heroes always won against villains.
This was a nightmare. It had to be. However this was far worse.
The cruel and tempting laughter of Charmcaster echoed throughout Ben's ears. People who were closest to him, his family, his best friend, now laid dead and he couldn't do anything to save them. Despite of all his feats and his awe inspiring transformations, He did nothing to save them
Pure raw fury and murderous rage welled up from within the young plumber. Letting out an enraged battle cry, Ben (Now transformed into Diamondhead) charged towards the evil sorceress only for her to swat him aside like he was an insect.
"Tennyson, you fool. What do you seek to accomplish? You are alone. You are lost. You can not stop me from reviving my father. " Charmcaster laughed as she walked towards with the gait of a queen.
"Then you don't know me Charmcaster. My name is Benjamin Kirby Tennyson." Ben said with steel in his voice, narrowing down his eyes on the white haired sorceress.
"Do you really think you can challenge in the very realm I rule now?." Charmcaster spoke with a bit of contempt and amusement in her voice.
"Oh really. I have thwarted numerous Alien invasions. I have annihilated the likes of Vilgax and Zs'skayr. I have put up with the cooking of Grampa Max for last seven years"
Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
"Many have tried to kill me. Many tried to steal my watch but I have always managed to rise above the odds. I am the one who destroyed your uncle multiple times. I am the one who put an end to the schemes of Forever knights. I am a hero who protects this planet. " All of a sudden, Ben's eyes started glowing with a magnificent cerulean aura. Without any hesitation and regards, Ben slammed the symbol on his chest. A bright green flash engulfed the area and in Ben's stead stood his conductoid alterego Feedback.
Before Charmcaster could understand what was going on, The plugs on Feedback's head attached themselves to the soul absorption machine. The sorceress' eyes widened in disbelief as the very air around the Ledgerdomain changed. Every flowing rock and vines cracked and shattered as the bright red energy swirled around Ben. It was too much of a risk and Ben knew it. He knew his body won't be able to handle this much energy and eventually explode. However as long as he had drawn his line in the sand by avenging Gwen and Kevin, He could deal with it. Lightning cracked around his body, He felt the energy through his skin like a shard of frozen glass, as if attempting to knit through his entire body with sharp needles. The pain touched him in the places deeper than the physical confines of his body, creating an explosion of everything inside. Making him feel like someone had a pushed hot branding road iron to every nerve of his body.
It was completely beyond his understanding how he managed to stay awake through this.
"I am someone the likes of you can never beat. I... AM ...DEFIANCE!" Despite him feeling an insurmountable amount of pain, Ben let out a mighty roar as a gigantic bolt of lightning shot from the symbol on his chest.
Charmcaster stepped back in fear and panic as she summoned every ounce of magic inside the Alpha rune to counter the enraged hero's attack. However despite her best efforts and the advantage of being inside her homeworld, The core of lightning managed to break through the seemingly impenetrable protective barrier, engulfing her in a dome of dazzling , brilliant and magnificent light, forking as it connected with her hands and eventually her torso. Slamming her hard in the very same machine she created to absorb all living beings. Effectively turning the damn thing off.
Ben fell on his knees, feeling completely exhausted. There wasn't much of him left at this point. He was on his last legs. Even though he was still alive and breathing, he felt that his ass had been kicked eighteen different ways from the last Sunday. Not even Vilgax beat him up that badly and that guy actually made his entire body shatter into multiple pieces. He was tired, he was bleeding and probably had more bones broken than he thought existed in a human's body. However towards his relief, he could see numerous souls escaping from within, Kevin and Gwen's bodies eventually emerged within the massive stream of mana. They appeared to be unconscious and grievously injured, however they might be able to survive with some immediate medical treatment.
"Tennyson!" Ben heard a whisper, making his blood run cold.
"Damn it! You gotta be kidding me." Ben cursed under his breath. No longer able to believe his ears. He immediately turned around and was quite surprised to see Charmcaster buried to inches deep in the mud. One of her arms were badly mangled and she exhaled a gust of crisp air. Twisted thorn and pieces of sharp rock embedded themselves on her torso, keeping her in one place.
"I admit Ben, You have managed to get the best of me" Charmcaster coughed up some blood, her mouth splitting into a huge grin which spelled nothing but trouble for our young hero, "However, this isn't the end."
"You." Ben growled in anger, smashing his fists on the ground, "What did you do now?"
The mad sorceress laughed, "It is not I you need to fear anymore Ben. Have you ever wondered why I worked so hard to gather all those souls? Or did you think that only the machine was going to be enough in reviving my father?"
Blinking in confusion, Ben stared in the sky, It was a small glimmering blue light closing onto them in the distant space.
"It comes Ben, someone that even I fear." Charmcaster laughed, " The being who dwells within the infinity, The strongest entity to ever exist in this universe and many others. It is coming Ben 10 and all of us shall perish for it."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Ben yelled in anger, however the psychopath just kept laughing. Not concerned with herself anymore. Ben narrowed down his eyes as the blue dot he saw in the sky kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally it looked big enough for him to gauge. It was a freaking Dragon.
Probably tens of times bigger than a To'kustar.
Yes, the thing was that much monstrous. It was genuine lizard with wings, claws and scales. With each passing moment the silhouette kept getting bigger and bigger, proving all calculations Ben had about it's size wrong. Now it nearly covered half of the entire horizon.
All of a sudden, the Alpha rune floated in front of him, glowing with a magnificent aura.
"Don't worry Doofus, I will protect you." A familiar voice echoed in his ears. Ben's eyes widened in the mixture of fear and surprise as he saw a badly injured and beaten but still alive , Gwen Tennyson standing up on one knee. Alpha rune gradually started gravitating towards her, eventually settling on her palms.
Ben blinke in confusion, his voice filled with both emotion and anxiety, "Gwen..?"
"I am sorry for dragging you and Kevin into this Ben. I should have believed you when you said everyone can't change..."
"It's not your fault Gwen, I should have been...
"We don't have time for this. Farewell cousin. Try not to get in trouble too much." A shadow of smile appeared on Gwen's lips as tears started to roll from her bloodied face. Meanwhile, The blue dragon had almost caught up to him and it was freaking enormous. With it's terrifying scales and sharp glowing teeth...Ben would pick over Vilgax and Zs'skayr combined in a heartbeat rather than facing off against this terrifying monstrocity.
A bright pink energy engulfed his entire body as several magical circles stated floating in front of him. Then Ben started feeling...something wrong. A power that he shouldn't be having otherwise flooded through his veins. Before Ben could realize what was going on he found himself in a swirling vortex of color and light. A tunnel which seemed to stretch for the eternity. Static electricity flared from his conductoid alter ego Feedback as he shot forward.
All Ben knew was pain. Every single cell in his body was screaming at him. An unending agony which he never felt in his entire life. He tried to scream but found himself unable to as there was no air. This caused his mind to be unable of processing anything coherent. He wondered if he was ever going to feel anything other than pain in his entire life.
Then it stopped as time itself came to a crawling hault.
A wave of blinding white light engulfed him and this time Ben's mind completely blacked out from what occured. Making him wonder if this was what death felt like.
...xxxxxx...xxxxxxxx...
Raynare couldn't help but tilt her head, wondering whether everything she was seeing was true or not.
She was just returning back to her hideout after finishing some errands, Towards her utmost amusement, she saw the sky turning angry end of the world black. Despite it being the afternoon, sun completely disappeared from the sky. Chill wind whipped through the entire road as if a storm was about to hit. Raynare knew this wasn't normal. It was clearly magic. Before she could properly analyze what was going on, Sky began to swirl, like someone would see during a very dangerous hurricane. Lightning arced over the clouds, most of it coming from a newly emerge hourglass shaped hole which had opened up in the sky. The thunderous storm began to pick up intensity and frequency, A bulge of green light pushed at the edges of the wormhole, making her feel like someone was trying to force their way out. She was proven right a moment later when a dark sphere blasted out from the hole with enough force to hit a frigging mountain.
Frowning for a moment, the fallen angel flew towards the epicenter of the blast. She wanted to see where was this hole connected to? Who was trying to come out of it and why?
Now under the clear sky, she definitely stumbled upon a sight to behold.
It appeared to be a young american teenager, lying on the ground on his back. He appeared to be really bruised and beaten , Breathing rather slowly but would be able to survive if received immediate medical attention. The young teen appeared to be muscled, very well defined, similar to that of an exorcist in training. Strangely he wore this weird green black gauntlet with an hourglass symbol on the top of it, It let out an magnificent glow, shooting a dome of bright light towards her, which forced Raynare to squint and bring up an arm in order to shield her eyes. However, if she had bothered to look at the boy's gauntlet she would have noticed it's symbol popping up, and a silhouette of a masked individual with four pairs of feathery jet black wings, quite similar to what she had, sprouting behind his back appearing for a very brief moment before the glow receded.
Raynare took another good look at the boy. Normally she wouldn't have paid much attention to a mortal like that or would have most likely given him a quick death. However in the manner this boy appeared and his strange gauntlet, Raynare found herself filled with curiosity.
There was something about this human. She could tell it. What was that magic? How did he manage to arrive here? Who was this boy? And the fancy gauntlet on his wrist, what was that for? Raynare narrowed down her eyes as she considered all these unanswered questions.
The fallen angel let out a huge sigh. Rubbing her chins thoughtfully she finally managed to reach a decision. There was no harm in seeing if the mortal could be of any use to her.
Without wasting much time, Raynare went over to Ben's side , carefully picked him up, spread her jet black wings and disappeared in the sky.
...xxxxxxx...xxxxxxx...
The first thing Ben noticed after waking up was that his aches and wounds have been greatly diminished. It actually felt like he could get back on his feet without the fear of puking up nothing again. His eyes took some time to adjust to the light but that wasn't much difficult considering the place he was into appeared barely lit with the usage of one lamp. He was grateful to find himself on a soft bed, however this place didn't look much like hospital.
Other thing Ben came to notice was a cute young blonde, sitting on a wooden chair near the bedside. She appeared to be a year or two younger and wore traditional nun clothings which came off as a huge shock. She held her hands over his body, emitting a warm green aura within her palms. Towards, Ben's utmost surprise the wounds on his body, whether they were from energy overhaul he felt thanks to absorbing the mana from Charmcaster's killing machine or the extremely unpleasant trip from Ledgerdomain, were becoming smaller and smaller upon the green-ish aura making contact with them . Ben felt the blood and strength returning back to his body, most of his bones were fixed and it seemed like he would be able to completely recover within a few seconds.
Ben wondered. How the hell was this girl able to heal him just like that? As far as he could recall no aliens in this entire galaxy possessed such unique ability. There was no magical ritual around that. While Verdonna claimed that she could perform such feats, Gwen had been only able to work on small burns and bruises at best. Besides this girl was human, if she wasn't then the Ultimatrix would have reacted her. Especially when she was sitting this close from him.
The seventeen year old shook his head, He still needed to figure out where the hell he was and find a way to get back to Gwen. Hoping that they survived from the who dragon fiasco just like he did. However, he felt like it was necessary to have a talk with someone about this bloody monstrosity he saw in the ledgerdomain. He couldn't afford to go there unprepared if he had to.
Turning his head towards the blonde, he asked in a polite tone.
"Excuse me, Miss! Can you tell me where am I?"
However the blonde didn't reply causing Ben to let out an inward groan. He looked at the ceiling. Wondering where exactly Gwen's spell managed to send him.
"Forgive Asia for this moment. Right now, she is solely focused on healing your injuries so we can't afford to break her concentration. However, I can answer your questions if you answer mine."
Ben blinked at hearing that. It was a good news for him. At least people here knew his language. He was too much exhausted to fiddle with the Universal translator right now. He raised an eyebrow. The said individual happened to a female. Which wasn't a big concern , However the way she was dressed...it was quite provocative. Even the strippers and pornstars wore more clothings than that. The dark haired woman, with slender, supper figure and really gorgeous face stepped closer to him, casually leaning against the nearby wall.
She wore what exactly seemed more exposing version of Hooters' uniform. Even the most flirtatious of supermodels he encountered during his many trips to Hollywood seemed way more prudish and modest compared to her. Her clothings mainly consisted of black, strap-like objects (resembling leather) around and under her breasts, a thong-like piece held around her hips by three thin straps(Which did a really poor job with covering her modesty) , gloves that ran right up her arms with small lengths of chains hanging from them, shoulder guard-like objects on her shoulders with three large spikes sprouting from her right shoulder, and apart from all that, she also donned black thigh-high heel boots, Which completed her entire attire. Even though Ben didn't want to gawk at her like some creep, in this situation his eyes couldn't help but wander off every now and then.
"Alright then." Ben slapped his forehead, trying to concentrate on the task in his hands, "Who are you?"
"My name is Raynare." The woman answered, Even if Ben was completely shell shocked at the choice of her attire, he didn't let it show. He had seen weirder things in his life, "And you?"
Ben paused for a moment, raising an eyebrow in confusion, "You really don't know who I am?"
Raynare blinked at the strange question from Ultimatrix bearer, however, decided to reply nonetheless, "No, Is there any particular reason I should?
Ben narrowed down his eyes. A certain number of people loved him and a certain number of people hated him but there was one thing for sure, He was an international sensation. Most people around the world knew about him. Either this weird stripper lady lived under a rock or she was deliberately trying troll him for the sake of amusement. Anyways, he decided to ignore her off handed comment for the time being. Afterall, it was crucial for him to know where he was so he could contact Gwen and Kevin, in order to make sure that they were alright.
"My name is Benjamin Kirby Tennyson and I am from Bellwood, US." Ben responded in a curt tone, "Where I am right now?"
"You are in Japan." Raynare responded as a matter of fact.
"I see." Ben frowned deeply. It was pretty strange. Both she and that nun didn't seem like Japanese. It wasn't like he could remember the entire Plumber's database or knew about every non human living on this planet. But still he had been to Japan last year and if there was something like a nun who could heal people with just a simple touch, Gwen would have definitely mentioned it to him. The girl was all fact and figures.
"Umm...lady Raynare." The blonde spoke out rather nervously as she respectfully bowed towards the weird stripper lady, "The healing is complete."
Ben turned his head sideways and was quite surprised to see that the green warm aura surrounding his body had now been completely vanished. He glanced at the nun who smiled at her in acknowledgement.
"Ah, Thank you very much for your help . I owe you a big one for this." He responded with a grateful nod. The nun gave a rather bashful look. Her cheeks reddening a bit. Ben could easily assume that, she was not accustomed to people praising her.
"Hai! It's..." . However, before the nun could finish her sentence, She was abruptly interrupted by Raynare.
"Great job Asia but I am sure there are many others who require your attention. Why don't you go and check up on Dohnaseek?" Raynare said.
"Hai, Raynare-sama!" Asia nodded in obedience and left immediately, not without sparing a curious glance towards Ben though.
Once the blonde was gone, Ben sat up from the old bed while Raynare went on to sit on the now vacated wooden chair. Even though Ben was trying his hardest to not pay any sort of attention to her, the way she crossed her legs in a single flowing and rather elegant manner while sitting there, It was kinda hard to take his eyes off her
"Well,. What's the matter? You look as though you are distracted by something." An amused smile escaped through Raynare's lips. A twinkle in her glistering violet eyes suggesting that she knew very well where exactly he was looking right now.
Ben deadpanned, rolling his eyes in irritation, "Will you please put some clothes on? This isn't funny anymore."
"It's only thanks to the forbidden fruit your progenitors ate many millennia ago , you humans ended up having this strange sense of shame. Me and my brothers and sisters , we never had to face such fate thus we have never felt need to be ashamed of our bodies." Raynare said with a mysterious smile.
"Ha! Good joke. The old Adam and Eve bullshit, that's nothing but a bedtime story." Ben snorted in response.
"I must say you are completely wrong then.". Raynare continued, her smile spreading a little further, " A lot of the myths and legends you have heard about are true. It's up to you whether you believe in them or not. But all these things, They do exist in the real life."
"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Ben raised an eyebrow. Instead of responding verbally though, The fallen angel just pointed towards her shoulders as dark jet black wings , which appeared to be feathery akin to that of a bird, suddenly emanating behind her back. However towards Raynare's utmost annoyance, There were little to no noticeable changes in Ben's expressions. In fact, he appeared to be mostly calm and collected. Visibly unaffected by the emergence of her "Wings"
Unbeknownst to Raynare, Considering what the boy had been through in his entire life, It was going to take a lot more than a stripper with bunch of bird wings to startle him.
"Hmm .. interesting! So what are you then?" He asked in a really casual tone.
"I am an angel." Raynare said, trying her hardest to suppress the vicious grin which threatened to spread across her face, "One of the guardians of mankind, who resides in heaven."
Ben spared a careful glance at her before stretching his arms with a yawn.
"Just because you have some cheap tricks under your sleeve, doesn't mean I am going to believe in everything you say to me "
Raynare's fists clenched in anger, This stupid mortal! How dare he mock her? She was going to impale him with a barrage of light spears right there and then but before she could attempt such thing, Ben pulled up his sleeve and slammed the dial of the Ultimatrix.
A bright green flash engulfed Ben's body and in his stead, stood his crystalsapien alter ego Chromastone.
"Now this is is what you can call an authentic transformation." The creature entirety made of purple rock and spiked crystals let out a chuckle as he floated in the air.
It took all of the fallen angel's inner strength and focus not to drop down on the floor unconscious as her jaw dropped even further beyond the depths of tartarus, Anime style!
"WHAT?"
So this is it, I have read about a similar scenario in some story a few years back but the name simply just escapes my mind. I gotta tell you, memory is kinda a tricky thing. Anyways I hope you enjoy this story.
Ta da.