Project Deca Ep 1.5: Ben 10 Team Tennyson

Attai walked out the front door of Mr. Smoothy holding a script and reading off of it with a bored expression.

"At last, K*men R*der Z*-O was born..." Attai mumbled.

Ben, Gwen, and Kevin followed him out the door, each carrying scripts of their own.

"Attai, what are you doing?" Gwen asked.

"Well, since C*T stole this idea from Z*-O wholeheartedly, I figured I'd just read off the script for that complementary project instead." Attai tapped the script he was holding.

"He didn't steal anything!" Ben protested. "He 'creatively reinterpreted it for his own use'."

"Where the hell did you get that from?" Attai grimaced.

"It's written right here." Ben turned around his script, pointing out the line he had been reading off of.

"Okay, whatever." Attai sighed.

"Hey, as long as we're talking about C*T, can we ask why he always starts his stories in media res?" Kevin interjected

"What do you mean?" Gwen said.

Kevin pulled out a whiteboard from seemingly nowhere, flipping it around to reveal a complicated diagram with various scenes and series logos on it.

"Well, he starts off every Tech 10 series a while after the main character gets their powers." Kevin gestured to the whiteboard. "He started off Not Applicable a while after Napoleon got Swarm 1 and met Herculian. Here in Project Deca, it's starting off with Attai Zehn already having been doing his job for who knows how long."

"Not long at all, actually." Attai pointed out. "That's why I only had the Heatblast and Gatling cards at the start of the episode."

"Then why did you act like you had an 'I've seen it all and nothing matters' attitude earlier?" Gwen raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a 'man with no past', remember?" Attai began pacing back and forth. "I don't have my own frame of reference for this yet, and my emotional understanding of things is severely underdeveloped, so my opinions largely rely on completely literal, disassociative interpretations of facts."

"Back to me, I have some questions for this 'C*T' guy myself." Ben shoved Attai aside. "Why pick Veggie King and Timeking as the villains here? They're both massive pains."

"Timeking seemed to get around a lot on early BTFF, appearing in a few different series, so he was a natural choice for appearing in an anniversary special like this." Attai replied, more than a bit annoyed.

"And Veggie King?" Kevin asked.

"He's just the kind of recognizable stupid concept for a villain that exemplified a lot of the original BTFF's rogue's gallery." Attai shrugged.

"Speaking of villains..." A gruff, muffled voice said.

The man in power armor slammed through the door to Mr. Smoothy holding a script of his own.

"Why did I get so little screen time this episode?" He demanded. "I'm supposed to be the main villain!"

"For the show in general, yeah, but your big plan obviously isn't going to get showcased this early." Attai rolled his eyes.

"So when do I get to play a bigger role?" The man in power armor huffed.

"Probably when it's time to roll out my final form upgrade." Attai waved him off. "Go sit in your trailer until we need you."

"Fine". The man in power armor conceded begrudgingly. "But if I'm not the main character antagonizing you until then, who is?"

"Good question." Attai put his hand up to his chin. "If only this series had a poster or something you could look at to see if there's an important-looking character that sticks out like a sore thumb."

"Speaking of sticking out like a sore thumb, Team Tennyson is a continuation of Alien Force where the Omnitrix was never destroyed, right?" Ben interrupted again. "Why did I have Heatblast unlocked?"

"Heatblast was in the Omnitrix's playlist since at least the start of Alien Force ' s third season." Attai explained, gesturing towards the script. "You can see his hologram in Vengeance of Vilgax: Part 1 when you're scrolling through your aliens."

"I remember that." Gwen said. "Didn't they use Alan Albright's Pyronite form for the hologram model since they didn't have a model for Heatblast in the show's style laying around?"

"Oh, yeah." Ben nodded. "That was weird."

"Speaking of repetitive conversation segues, isn't this segment getting kinda rambly?" Kevin interjected.

"Everything on this god-forsaken website is rambly." Attai scoffed.

"He's got a point." Ben said. "It feels like this segment doesn't actually have all that much to do with Team Tennyson..."

"Team Tennyson doesn't have that much to do with Team Tennyson." Attai snapped. "None of the episodes were ever written out, so there's not much source material to work with."

"Why is it called Team Tennyson, anyway?" Kevin asked.

"Well, the three of us are a team, and we're lead by me, Ben Tennyson," Ben replied. "Therefore, Team Tennyson."

"Who said you got to be the leader?" Kevin scowled.

"Probably whoever named the series after me."

Ben and Kevin began arguing loudly back and forth, with Gwen trying unsuccessfully to step in between them to get them to stop. Attai just grumbled and rolled his eyes, closing his script.

"Okay, I think I'm done here." Attai grumbled. "See you next month."

TO BE CONTINUED.