Everything was quiet at Frank Tennyson's home. He and his wife were sitting down in the living room, him reading a newspaper, while Lili read a book. The man smiled at his wife fondly over the top of the sports section. He knew how peculiar his family was, and how much she'd had to deal with, but Frank had worked hard to give the woman he loved a normal life. The result of his hard work could be found all around them. The house they lived in was normal, if not a little extravagant, their daily activities were normal, and they had the most wonderful daughter who got straight As and almost never complained about anything.
Fortunately, Frank wasn't upstairs at that moment. If he had been, he might have noticed the strange, pink glow emanating from the cracks between the door and the doorframe of his perfect daughter's room. He might even have been so bold as to go into that room to find out why the young red head was playing with artificial, pink lights. Instead, he would have found the girl floating up in the air, her legs crossed, eyes shining a bright shade of magenta, a pink glow illuminating from her in every direction.
Most definitely not normal.
Gwen was meditating. It was a calming exercise to do after practicing making beams of the pink energy shoot out from her fingertips. It was a dangerous thing to be doing in her room, since she could easily break something, but what options did she have? Ben's house? While that was a possibility, especially since Ben broke stuff on a regular basis, the 15-year-old didn't exactly feel like explaining to her parents why she was going to her cousin's house at 7 p.m.
Suddenly, she felt something. The girl gasped and opened her eyes. The 'something' immediately went away as she fell back on her bed. Gwen sat up and frowned at her door. It was like something was ripping a hole in her very being. It hurt. But she'd had this feeling before. What frustrated the girl was that she didn't know what it was! It appeared at regular intervals almost every other day around this time. She'd been expecting it, but the pain was still a shock.
It's just your powers, the girl tried to console herself. Nothing out of the usual. You probably accessed something new.
Cheered up by the thought of finally understanding her powers, the young witch crossed her legs and went back to meditating. Her powers had been a mystery to her ever since that summer when she and Ben had learned that aliens really did exist, and that they were living on their planet at that very moment, living normal lives, just the same as anyone else. The red head didn't like mysteries. Of course, she enjoyed reading them as much as any normal, teenage girl, but in real life, they were unnecessary complications that simply added to karate tournaments, French tests, Emily's piano recitals, and the rest of her AP classes. These things all worked together to make Gwen Tennyson's life as difficult as possible. She didn't need anything else to top all that off. But her powers were a part of the young girl's life, and she never said no to a challenge.
There it was again. The feeling like something was ripping inside of her. Gwen gasped as she went limp and tried to pull out of her trance. It wasn't working, though. Her gasp turned into a groan as the girl fought the pain threatening to overtake her. It had never been this bad before. Abruptly, it didn't matter anymore. There was no more pain, no more ripping. She wasn't in her room, but in some abandoned factory over on the dark, spooky part of town that no one ever went to. There was a portal there, carefully hidden by crates and boxes. A portal that, even in her state of mind, Gwen found familiar. It was red and pulsing with life. A portal to another dimension…a dimension she knew…a dimension she'd been in before as a little girl with-
She ran.
Ignoring the stares Gwen got from her parents, she ran out of her house, grabbing her purse along the way. If only she could get there fast enough, maybe then she could stop him. But she was already so exhausted… Her powers really had done a number on her this time.
After a few blocks, the red head stopped at a lamppost to catch her breath. It was apparent that she couldn't run anymore. The factory she'd seen was on the other side of town, and her house was nowhere near a bus stop. Summoning up every last bit of strength she had, Gwen cast a spell – a transportation spell. She was immediately enveloped in bright, pink light, that, when it evaporated, revealed the red, pulsing portal the young red head had seen in her vision. And, in front of that portal, a curios look on his face, stood someone the red head knew well, even if she hadn't seen him for five years.
Kevin Levin.