The Power Trio
When Gwen II was playing with the new friend that her mother had given her - Tak - she stumbled into an uncomfortable revelation. It was due to a transformation that the over-enthusiastic Galvanic Mechamorph cutting had somewhat misjudged over the Ben 10K HQ - morphing into a battle cruiser over the guest room just to show off to its owner its new tricks.
In truth, why she'd always wanted a Galvanic Mehamorph as loyal as her mother's Ship was because they made a great tandem - the absolute best of friends. Ship protected her mother and her mother's family to the very best of his ability and made a great dog, to boot. Ever since she gained Tak, she'd been trying to build the same loving relationship, one that would help her in her times of need - especially with her stupid trouble magnet brother and their enabler troll of a cousin - and one who she would love and dote to absolute pieces.
But today, as she bonded with her very own cutting, she hadn't taken into account his rabid enthusiasm. It was far more excitable than Ship was, and seemed more desperate for love and attention. So it showed off quite a bit.
Instinctively shielding herself from becoming hurt, she had curled up into a fetal position and proceeded to scream her head off. Her mind raced through a whole host of things that she could be doing instead of this - like reading a book or writing on her journal or any other number of things that were less life-threatening than this one. Then she realized she wasn't harmed at all because as she curled up into a ball on the ground something else seemed to have formed around her. At first as she blinked her eyes open, she thought her Aunt Gwendolyn had come and saved her. With a tearfully grateful expression, she looked around. But as she found only a very sheepish looking Incursion battlecruiser and a very demolished guest room, the dawning horrific realization started to sink in. The powerful manna that covered her, staying stable despite the Galvanic Mechamorph metallic limb trying to punch a hole or even a crack through it, was all her.
Lips quavering, she stared tearfully at the dome of pink over her head and started to cry - so much for becoming an archeologist in the future. All she wanted was a quiet life of digging holes and cataloging the past to hark back on historic encounters with aliens and humans. It seems like fate was cruel enough to suggest that careful, reserved and controlling Gwen II was going to be just like her lineage before her - walking right into the line of fire to get beaten up to an inch of her life by alien rogues. As Tak reformed back to an adorable ball of Mechamorph cutting, he tried to console her by rubbing against her leg. She just cried more.
Kenny was born with absolutely nothing but the enthusiasm to become a hero while his cousin Devlin was born with abilities both conferred by his parents with equally powerful alien lineages that he had calmly and comfortably fallen right into. Even in his continuous prayer over the idea of having powers and finally be able to start using them for the greater good and be loved just like good old Dad, he would open his eyes and be purely human and Omnitrix-less. Much to his great disappointment and to the teasing of his cousin and his little sister.
That day changed when he was finally given the Omnitrix at the age of ten, just like his father before him. His actual enthusiasm and drive - and that well-meaning compassion so strongly resonant that it felt like it would surpass even his father's ability to make friends with enemies - pegged him as the ideal inheritor of the Omnitrix.
But he was given a paltry playlist of ten, and even more paltry selection of aliens to his list. Dark green eyes stared at his Dad, willing him to stop being overprotective for about two seconds and at least give him a Humongousaur instead of a Toepick for goodness's sake but his dad simply stared back and blinked at him happily like he wasn't being a total lame-o. Crossing his arms in begrudging acceptance, he allowed his dad to annoyingly ruffle up his hair before sulking constantly and groaning at everything that showed up on his playlist later on.
His cousin wouldn't stop laughing, like it was the most amusing thing to ever witness.
Devlin got the lucky end of the draw. Part Osmosian and part Anodyte, he wasn't as susceptible to the great insanity that would fall upon those Osmosians that dared to even catch whiff of energy absorption. Low level natural energy - a low note compared to the manna that surged through him - and some electricity - though his dad didn't like seeing him playing around with that stuff - were manageable. He could take them and dish them. Maybe he wasn't as good at manipulating life energy or using magic the way that his mother did, nor did he become an expert in the matter conformation that his father did so well he didn't even have to think about it, but he was a jack of all trades and contained abilities his parents couldn't even do. In that sense, of the two boys, he was the talented one and the graced one. He would brandish around an ego that came with that ability, which hilariously would be matched by Kenny - who still had his father's legacy and universal fame to brandish.
Nonetheless, when push came to shove, Kenny proved to be one thing that would establish him quite squarely as the child of the famous Ben 10,000. Despite the hilariously pathetic list of aliens that he had been given on his own version - one that came with a serious limiter to avoid mucking with his dad's full-powered, master-control accessed Omnitrix - of the weapon, he had ingenuity incomparable to even his very learned and straight As sister. In the battlefield, his resourcefulness and quick thinking would always earn his side an advantage that was far more invaluable than having an alien that could simply stomp his enemies under his foot.
There was no easy way out of getting to the top prize, of becoming just as great or even surpassing the legacy of his father. But Kenny was determined and his heart was in the right place, he was definitely his father's son. The patience and calm he demonstrated as he worked harder than his power-privileged cousin was a marker that he was his mother's son. He was Ken 10 and perhaps his crushingly human normalcy might be a small pothole on the road to his success, but he would get there because of his desire to be a hero. Sometimes, that's all you need.
Devlin was, in a sense, quite privileged for his heritage. Most children wanted to be like their parents - an amazing mother who was the most talented of her family to ever use the spark and an incredible father who has seen both uses of energy and matter manipulation at least once and had come from blood of Plumbers to boot - and who could blame this particular child for wanting to follow in such footsteps? Nonetheless, it didn't come easy. Despite what his cousin said.
The thing about his ability was that it granted him some things that his parents weren't able to do, but he needed to be careful and know when to walk around eggshells over his powers. Which was a quite a difficult juggling act than one would expect, it was actually the reason why he felt he couldn't really reach the level of expertise of his old folks. Both powers were immense and they both came with the risk of losing humanity at the extreme end of their spectrums. While he could balance them, he had to maintain them at a certain level - which by the way, was extremely hard to judge. But he wanted to be a Plumber and he used whatever he did have in his arsenal to train up and utilise on the battlefield.
It was all driven by his desire to protect and care for his family. There were more things he inherited from his father other than his face, and it was that strong inclination to preserve his familial ties which occasionally outranked the safety of the universe. While the Tennyson clan probably had the principle of duty over family, his side of the family was a little bit more ambiguous on that end.
It wasn't that much of a problem, when one really thought about it. After all, who looked out for those who looked out for everybody else? Who had the saviors' backs when they're the ones in need of saving? So he had taken on that role: the older brother Ken and Gwenny had that wasn't really their brother.
In a lineage this good, he had a lot of expectations to live up to. So he was still working pretty hard to actually meet those expectations. In the end, the one who had it easy didn't really have it easy. But it was still hilarious to make fun of Kenny - and back up Gwenny when she was berating her brother for diving head first into a mess he couldn't handle - and dangle the carrot over his head just because his cousin would always predictably bite. Too easy, man.
They made a fascinating ensemble: all completely different. The powerful who wanted nothing of it and had to slowly begrudgingly accept the stress that came with it. The completely human who wanted nothing more than a taste, a chance, of the same greatness. The gifted who simply sat comfortably in the role and wanted to live up to the grandness that was paved before him. A power trio. A new generation, eerily similar yet utterly different from their predecessors. They were the next generation of heroes.