# đź“– *Ben 10: The Lost Years*
**Chapter 4 – Prisoner, Then Trickster (~2000 words)**### **POV: Skrall – Retaliation**
He should have killed the brat in Bellwood. Humiliation sang shame in his armor joints, the sting of water damage still sparking against circuits. The boy's mocking voice echoed in his skull.
*Tennyson. Weaponless. Laughing. Mocking.*
Never again.
Skrall's ship drifted in midnight orbit as repairs buzzed. His claws tapped the console with fury. This time, he would seize the boy alive. Not only alive — restrained, caged, broken in view for all the galaxy's hunters to see.
So he returned before dawn. Silently. His ship blotting constellations. His net‑guns primed.
The boy would wake not in his bed, not in comfort, but in a cold cell aboard Skrall's transport.
---
### **POV: Ben**
The first thing he noticed was cold metal.
The second was bars.
Ben blinked awake, head aching, backpack torn from his shoulders, wrists cuffed with buzzing energy restraints. His sweater still smelled faintly of garden hose water and smoke.
"Oh, great," he muttered. "Kidnapped while napping. New record."
The cage around him hummed. Beyond it, rows of alien prisoners slouched in cells, staring. Some sneered, some blinked curiously. They didn't know him. Yet.
A familiar whine broke the silence. Argit, caged beside him, rattled energy bars pitifully. "This is *so* bad. Skrall got us. We're toast. Broiled. Atomized toast."
Ben rolled his eyes, trying to shake stiffness from his shoulders. "Relax. Toast's overrated anyway."
"Relax?! We are in an interstellar MARROW PRISON TRANSPORT! Relax is the *last* thing on the menu!"
Ben sighed. *Okay, genius hat time.*
---
### **POV: Argit**
Argit had been in plenty of prisons, but never so willingly as cargo. The guards here were brutes: Krellians with shock‑blades and zero patience. Your average grunt, the type Argit knew he could normally bribe. Except now Skrall's personal honor was on the line — no bribes, no schemes. Just pain.
And Ben—unbelievable, ridiculous Ben—sat cross‑legged like detention class, *thinking.*
Argit snapped, "Tennyson, plans don't work without weapons."
The brat smirked. "Who said anything about weapons?"
His eyes were flicking nonstop: grate vents overhead, power nodes by the exit, guards' belt keys, the rhythm of their steps. Calculating. Mapping. Argit's whiskers twitched in disbelief.
"...you're insane."
Ben shrugged. "Gifted."
---
### **POV: Random Prisoner – Slogk**
The human boy didn't match the whispers. Too skinny. Too young.
Yet Slogk saw it in his eyes — the coals of defiance. And the mouth. The mouth that hurled quips at guards ten times his size.
The Krellian officer barked for silence. The boy coughed loudly, then called out: "Hey, officer! Quick question—what's the Krellian word for *coward* again? I keep forgetting."
Chuckles stirred from cages. The guard snarled and slammed a baton across the bars. Energy sparked close to the boy's cheek.
But the boy only grinned wider. "Yup. That sounds about right."
Slogk blinked. *Mad. He's completely mad.*
And yet… this human had shifted the air.
---
### **POV: Skrall – Command Deck**
From his balcony perch, Skrall watched the prisoner deck with satisfaction. The boy was baiting like a child, but soon would learn. Once delivered to Vilgax's brokers, no wit would save him.
He zoomed an optic, studying closer.
Why was the boy staring at vent junctions? At panel cracks? Calculating, almost.
Skrall frowned. "Stay caged, brat," he hissed, though unease stirred.
---
### **POV: Ben**
Alright. Equation solved. Guards dumb. Locks powered via board ten feet from central cell doors. Pattern simple: pride > caution.
"Step one," Ben whispered toward Argit, "we get them to open the door."
Argit squeaked. "Door?! That's *away from safety,* you lunatic."
"Exactly."
He leaned back, voice louder now. "Hey, guard! Bet you can't even touch me without frying yourself. These cuffs? Amateur joke."
The Krellian sneered, storming closer. "Silence, human pest!"
Ben smirked. "Why? Afraid the others will hear that you're too scared to face a kid?"
A low growl shook the hall. The guard snapped to the console — and in a fiery burst of ego, slammed the **release panel.**
Door hissed open.
"Hook," Ben muttered.
Before shock‑batons could swing, Ben dove low, twisting wrists tight. The cuffs' buzz shorted against the panel edge, frying sparks. Batons slashed air. He swung up — pivoting with the only weapon he had: his algebra book, jammed in his waistband.
One *thunk* and the baton flew. Another — and the guard staggered, dazed.
The corridor erupted in wild shouts.
"Line," Ben smirked, panting.
---
### **POV: Random Prisoner – Slogk**
The door was open. Sirens screamed. The boy spilled into the hall like lightning.
In two beats of chaos, both guards were flat on the ground, the human wrenching a baton free. His grin stretched with dangerous joy.
And then — prisoners surged. Cages shuddered as systems blipped from the fried panel.
Freedom. *The boy had triggered it.*
Slogk's breath caught. He rasped to his neighbor, "It's him. It has to be. The Watchless One."
---
### **POV: Argit**
This wasn't happening. This shouldn't have been happening.
Ben — scrawny brat, powerless human — had just triggered the galaxy's most impossible trick: a mass prison breakout.
Argit scampered through chaos desperately following his new "partner," squealing: "Do you realize we just started a galaxy‑wide manhunt?!"
Ben turned as he sprinted, sarcasm razor‑sharp. "Relax. It's only *interstellar.*"
---
### **POV: Skrall – Balcony**
His prison deck was chaos. Guards scrambling, alarms screeching, inmates pouring free in unstoppable waves.
At the eye of the storm: the brat. Benjamin Tennyson.
Laughing. Taunting. Leading.
Skrall's hiss boiled from his chest, claws digging the railing. The whispers would spread like plague now. The boy's legend would stain Skrall's failure forever.
"Tennyson…" he snarled, promising vengeance.
---
### **POV: Random Inmate (Whisper Title)**
"He fooled them."
"With no weapon. With only his mouth."
"They'll remember this. Tennyson… The Watchless One."
And the voices rippled, spreading cell to cell, even as escape ships launched chaotically.
---
### **POV: Ben (Closing Beat)**
Ben slammed himself into the pilot's seat of a rattling escape pod, dragging Argit by the tail into the co‑chair. Behind them, the prison transport imploded into riot. Prisoners cheered. Guards screamed.
Ben strapped in, panting. Dirt still under his nails, bruises burning. But grinning.
"Not bad for a homework day."
Argit panted, ears drooping. "You have no idea what you've done. Whole galaxy's gonna be whispering your name now. Every bounty hunter's ears pricked. Every smuggler's gossip. *This will haunt us forever.*"
Ben leaned back, smirk curling sharper. "Good. About time the Watchless One had a fan club."
Argit groaned miserably.
Stars stretched before them. Spark thrummed warm in Ben's ribs. He tightened his fists, eyes alive.
No Omnitrix. No powers. Just brains, sarcasm, and a galaxy already buzzing with his name.
*Game on.*