I disclaim owning stuff. This is a one-shot spin-off to my Bwen fic 'Set the Fire to the Third Bar', focusing on Maxy. Written due to a review requesting a Maxy sequel. Cheers! (I might do more one-off sequels for Maxy in future, too. Not positive. I'll definitely do more Bwen stories though. Anyway, thanks for reading!)
Slowly fluttering her long eyelashes as her eyes came to a sad close, a lanky-limbed girl a day shy of her fifteenth birthday hung her head as she sat at the kitchen table in her home. A nearby television propped on a counterspace was detailing a news report about another alien invasion, this time across the seas in Europe. Who knew when these invaders would strike the States next?
Opening her green eyes again as she felt a hand on her shoulder, the pale-skinned, freckled-faced girl glanced over to see that it was her father who'd decided to comfort her. "Your mother and I have fought against worse," he said to her in a kind voice as he nodded his head toward the television report, before adding, "As did your great-grandfather Max, and your godfather, Kevin - lots of our friends have. And we will again."
"Dad, I have a really bad feeling about all this," the girl answered in her scratchy, low voice, her eyes shading off to the side. "I mean, no offense, but just because you and Mom and Kevin and Julie and everyone else was able to fight off a bunch of alien nonsense before, doesn't mean you'll be able to do it again. There are Plumbers all over the world, right? And yet, China just had to surrender the other day. And before that was Russia, and before that-"
"I'm aware of what's going on, hon'," the thirty-year old Benjamin Tennyson said in a reassuring voice to his daughter, tightening his clasp on her shoulder.
"Then you're also aware that all of these nations just surrendering is a big, bad nasty sign of worse things to come!"
Inwardly far more concerned than he had the heart to admit to his daughter, Ben looked away from her, emitting a sigh. He knew there'd be worse to come, and he knew that his bright-eyed kid had every right to be so concerned. He'd watched from the living room windows as she'd gathered her friends together every evening after school, the whole lot of them practicing fighting moves against one another, trying their best to procure some sort of defense squad should Bellwood be attacked at random. It was a small effort, but they gave it their all, those kids. And to see his own daughter be the leader of it all made him feel proud as could be, but also terrified. It didn't take much effort for Ben to recall something said to him when he himself was barely older than his Maxy was now.
"The point to this - the part that will alleviate, I would hope, much of your guilt - is the fact that, as I said, it was written in the stars for you and Gwen to create the future defender-of-Earth before leaving the island. So it was therefore, sad as it was and still is, written in the stars for your grandfather to end up being the one to destroy the Omnitrix. Just think if Gwen had done it alone, and lost the life already created? And if it hadn't have been Max Tennyson sacrificing himself, then perhaps the little one wouldn't have been called Maxime after him." Paradox had said these words to him, so many years ago, and Ben just as easily remembered how he'd responded, as well:
"My head's hurting so bad right now… I mean, I totally understand what you're saying now - for the most part - but my head is aching from realizing it all. Like, if Grandpa hadn't done what he did, then this blond girl wouldn't have been a Maxy at all - that is what you're saying right? That all the tiny factors, well, factored into who she ended up being, to help defend Earth?"
"You've got it."
Looking back to his only, precious daughter, Ben frowned slightly. Defender of All Earth. The title had seemed, well, cool to him back when he was just barely more than a kid his own self. To be the father of a savior of Earth, it was an astonishing, honorable thing. But it was terrifying, as well. He knew all too well the dangers that fighting off aliens could bring. He and Gwen had been through terrible things, times of depression, moments of hopelessness - the thought of his daughter going through these things did not make him happy.
"Dad, now you do look worried," Maxy said, her eyebrows creasing in the middle of her forehead; it was a trait she'd inherited from her mother.
"Don't worry about it," Ben answered her, releasing her shoulder as he then gave a wry sort of laugh. "Ha, we keep using this 'worry' word way too much lately. Just go on now, before you're late for first period. Don't you have a science exam this morning?"
"Ugh, why'd you have to remind me?" the girl replied, before standing up from the table and walking over to the nearby coatrack to retrieve her green backpack; Ben couldn't help but smile - - she had her mother's mannuerisms and his distate of chemistry.
"Sorry, Max'," he said to her, before stepping over to give her a kiss atop her hair. "Try to have a good day today, test aside."
"I'll try," she replied, before heading out the front door.
"And don't let Loxley hit you too much after school today! You know how it angers your mother!" he called after her, and Maxy threw up a hand in reply to acknowledge him, before heading on her way to the schoolyard.
"And it doesn't anger you?"
Turning around sharply upon hearing the sound of his wife's voice, Ben raised his eyebrows at Gwen, before answering her, "You know I don't like her being harmed in any way, but to be fair, she throws the punches right back. They're just learning self-defense, beautiful."
"Well the bruises certaintly don't look beautiful on our daughter, handsome," the redhead replied as she crinkled her nose and gave a closed-mouth grin to the man who still managed to drive her crazy as much as make her happy after all these years.
"They'll fade, the bruises. The skills won't," he was quick to point out, stepping forward to hook an arm around her waist. "And if what Paradox said was any indication of truth at all, and I'm sure it was… she's going to need those skills."
Frowning as she leant her face forward, leaning in against Ben's chest, Gwen caught sight of the plate Maxy had left on the kitchen table, before closing her eyes. "She didn't even finish her toast this morning," the redhead mumbled into her husband's shirt. "I'm worried sick about that girl of ours, Ben. I really am."
"You know I am, too, but, I have to assume that she'll turn out okay, you know? In the end?" the broad-shouldered man replied, now wrapping both arms around his wife. "I mean, someone called the defender of the Earth isn't likely to be a pushover exactly, now is she?"
"Nah, I suppose not," Gwen agreed, but Ben simply held her closer in response, squeezing her tightly; he could hear the formation of her tears beginning just by telling from the sound of her voice.
Many yards away from her home now as she walked along her way to school, Maxy stared blankly ahead, hitching her backpack higher up on her shoulders every so often. It was particularly full of books that morning, as she'd procrastinated all her studying time down to an all-weekend studying bender the two days beforehand. Her mother hadn't even bothered to lecture her for it this time, since it was about the thousandth time she'd done it since middle school. Then again, maybe Maxy wished her mother would have had - spending your entire weekend juggling both studying and worrying about impending alien invasions wasn't the most fun way a girl could spend her time.
Nevertheless, just as the scrawny legged girl caught sight of the school's flagpole, she was interrupted by a sudden, out of nowhere surge of wild wind, crazy breezes coming from every which direction, sending her already unkempt hair into a mess of tangles. "What the-?"
"Hello, Maxime River Tennyson."
Turning around so quickly upon hearing the sound of her full name that she almost toppled over sideways from the weight of her backpack, Maxy blinked a couple times as she found herself face-to-face with a somewhat older looking man in a lab coat. Shifting her eyes from left to right, she then arched an eyebrow, before asking, "Uhm, did you just cause that windstorm?"
"Yes, sorry. Sometimes it happens when one time travels, you see."
"Okay, sure, why not," Maxy replied with a shrug; she'd never personally met the man standing in front of her before, but she knew of him from hearing tale of him by both her mother and father. Even her godfather had mentioned him in a story or two. "So, Paradox, is it?"
"Right you are. Ah, it is strange to have someone address me before I introduce myself to them first… must be how it feels when I do it to other people. Huh."
"Most likely," Maxy agreed with a sideways nod of her head, before shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "So… is something strange and - or - epic about to happen? Cos usually that's how it works in the stories you're a part of that my parents and their friends tell me about."
Giving a sort of shrug, the time traveller mulled over this thought and then said, "Well, if you consider traveling into the future strange, then yes. If you consider seeing your own self in the future epic, then certainly. Otherwise, no and no. But if so, then yes and yes. However, just to note before I actually do so, this isn't something I'd normally do."
Tilting her head to the side, Maxy said, "Okay, what now?"
"You are your father's daughter, indeed."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Maxy snapped back at once, a hand moving to rest against her hip.
"As you are your mother's daughter, as well," Paradox said as an addendum, before clearing his throat and continuing on. "I've been somewhat popping up here and there, around and about you now and then, lately. Couldn't help but catch on to how worried to death you're becoming with all these alien invasions and such things occurring throughout the world."
"Wouldn't any normal person be worried to death?"
"Perhaps," Paradox replied, before reaching forward and giving Maxy a pat on her shoulder. "But you, in particular, needn't worry so much about the possible aspect of earthly failure in regards to these invasions."
"And why is that?" Maxy replied, thoroughly confused about what the time traveller was getting at. "What do you mean?"
"It'd be easier to show you than tell you, so I am about to just that - show you, that is," Paradox replied, before clasping his hand onto Maxy's shoulder more securely.
Before she could ask for furture elaboration on the matter at hand, Maxy found herself whirring about through time and space both, things shifting and changing all about her, though nothing on her persona changing one iota. Seconds later she had stopped moving at all, and found herself to be perfectly intact - though a bit woosy - standing at the edge of a cliff in some sort of desert land. Paradox remained stood across from her, only then removing his hand from her shoulder.
"We don't have long to stand around here and spy," he said to her, before moving his arm to gesture out toward a canyon down beneath and beyond the cliff on which they stood. "But I thought it might raise your hopes - give you a bit of strength of heart - to see yourself in just a years' time."
"I'll be here in just a year from now? Wherever here is… where is here?" Maxy asked at once, her eyes widening as she gazed down upon the battle ongoing below in the canyon; she dare thought she saw herself leading the opposition, her unkept hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as she charged forward, some sort of intergalactic weapon at the ready.
"Keep looking," Paradox said to her simply, denying to give her any more precise details than what she could see there for herself.
"Loxley…?" Maxy soon said in a voice above a whisper, watching as the sandy-haired geek from her homeroom and gym class single-handedly took down some alien pawn with only his fisticuffs; she then emitted a loud gasp as she watched a blast from a laser gun nearly miss her father - it had been blocked by a psychic-constructed sheild of purple from her mother.
Then turning her attention to her future self once more, she watched as she leapt atop a mecha of some sort, utilizing her weapon by way of smashing it repeatedly into the top of the robotic machine. From the left she saw an attack heading her way. Nearly wanting to cover her own eyes to not watch if her future self would make it out of the way in time or not, she kept her vision clear long enough to watch as a young man with shoulder-length black hair leapt from a different mecha he himself had conquered seconds beforehand onto the one with her, blocking the would-be assault by simply raising his arm, which had on it a strangely large, shoulder-to-wrist length metal gauntlet.
"That was Devlin Levin!" Maxy exclaimed, her eyes widening even further as a bit of a red tinge flushed across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks.
"Indeed. It seems your after school self-defense class will turn out to be quite handy, after all, won't it? I mean, sure, other forces will be helping too, but can it really hold a candle to the Plumbers and the Plumbers' friends, with their wit and know-how?"
Smiling brightly as she looked over to Paradox, Maxy gave him a curt nod of her head, before partly biting down on her lip. "Guess I've been worrying myself sick a little too much, haven't I?"
"So've your parents," Paradox replied, raising his eyebrows. "Which is why I intend to show them a little sneak peek eventually, too. When they're ready for it."
"Okay then, whatever that means," Maxy answered him, looking back to watch the battle.
"Ah, but alas, it's time for us to take our leave, Miss Tennyson," Paradox said to her, reaching out to take hold of her wrist.
"Already?" she asked him, though she did not pull her wrist away from his grasp or resist in any other way.
"Already," he said simply, before closing his eyes.
Yet again, Maxy felt herself being whirred through time and space, held within a veritable vortex where no harm could become her during the traveling; a strange yet wildly fun experience, to be true. Within seconds she found herself standing within feet of her school's campus once again.
Giving Maxy a wink, Paradox said, "Go on now, you have just enough time to get to class and tuck in to that chemistry exam of yours."
Frowning at once, the blond rolled her eyes, before shaking her head and saying, "Oh well. Will I at least see you again? If so, any time soon?"
"Both of those questions will have to wait to be answered," Paradox replied, before bidding Maxy a curt goodbye and disappearing into thin air.
Blinking at the suddeness of Paradox's disappeance, Maxy eventually turned around and headed on for the school building, murmuring to herself as she went, "Future super-fighter of Earth, I am… why do I need chemistry again?"