"So help me God, Tennyson, if you don't get out here right now I am gonna fuck you in the ass!"
"Kevin, that's disgusting," Gwen said, crossing her arms.
"With a baseball bat!"
There was a flash of green light and Ben materialized near the storm drain. "Gwen…" he said, walking over and trying to frown angrily but succeeding only in frowning adorably.
"Hey, Ben. Everybody else is out back. It's not really fair to use the Omnitrix for hide-and-seek-"
"-but whatever, you use your energy powers so who can blame him-"
"-shut up, Kevin, but at least you heard us eventually."
"Do you hate gay people?" Ben asked very abruptly, staring her down. Gwen immediately looked confused.
"What?"
"You told Kevin that buttsex is disgusting – you hate gay romance!"
Gwen rolled her eyes. "Ben, there's a difference between-"
"First you cheat at my birthday party and use magic for capture the flag, and now this! My cousin is a hoooomopoooobe!" he shouted at Kevin, who, being his usual slightly jerky self, laughed out loud.
"Kevin was sexually threatening you to get you out of your hiding place," Gwen pointed out entirely reasonably.
"Oh my god Gwen just shut up," Ben responded in an equally reasonable way. "Just because their love is different doesn't make it evil. I knew there couldn't be anything between us, not after the Morningstar thing, but this is the last straw. We're through."
"I- but- what"
"You heard me, Gwen Tennyson," Ben said. "It is over. Done. No more man-meat for you."
"Ben, we're related," Gwen screeched.
"Hot," Kevin commented.
"Aarghhh!" She stormed off in the direction of the rest of the birthday party, all of whom had long ago given up on Gwen actually returning from hide-n-seek to attend her own celebration and were currently deciding when was best to cut the cake.
Ben looked at Kevin, who grinned. "She's gone, you can tell me what's up," Kevin said, walking over and flinging his arm around Ben's shoulders – never a man to miss an opportunity for unnecessary touching.
Ben looked at him very sternly. It was heart-meltingly cute. Especially because Kevin's arm was around him. "I do not understand."
"Were you doin' alien drugs or something in the sewer? I won't tell, promise."
Ben lifted his chin. "I was doing no such thing. I believe in equal love. Also, I wanted to break up with Gwen."
"Oh my god you were serious?" Kevin paled at the prospect of incest between his two best frenemies, a by-product of having a gooey marshmallow kitten bunny center.
"Don't listen to him!" a new voice called. Ben and Kevin turned together, Kevin's arm still unnecessarily around Ben's shoulder, to see…
BEN?
Except he had alien handcuffs on and was missing his green jacket and looked a little disheveled, which meant he must have been kidnapped and fighting recently, and someone had wanted or needed a green jacket instead of a red one, which meant that…
"Shit, you're Albedo," Kevin realized out loud, absorbing the punch glass in his hand and using it to punch his Ben in the face with glass.
Too bad his other hand was still on Albedo!Ben's shoulder, and his head snapped back briefly with the impact, which did not send the evil impostor flying like Kevin had planned.
Albedo therefore had plenty of time to get to his Omnitrix and FLASH! Suddenly, he was Big Chill. Kevin's arm started to get cold, but the Ben feeling still wasn't gone and his body reflexively sought unnecessary Bentouch.
"BIG….CHILLLLLL," Albedo said, to make sure they knew which alien he'd turned into. Then he breathed ice in Kevin's face, who swore as his upper half froze over and Albedo slipped out of his grasp.
"Mnn, un mnufnmu," he said angrily. It must've been extremely profane, but luckily his jaw was frozen shut and the noise muffled through a couple inches of ice, so no kids in the audience could decipher it.
"Glad to see you too," Ben said as he grabbed the punch glass out of Kevin's hand with his handcuffed hands and bashed it into Kevin's ice-coated shoulder, shattering the coating.
Kevin sucked in some air. Then he grabbed Ben by the shoulders and growled, "Where have you been?"
"Ooh, funny story," Ben said, face lighting up. "I was trying to find a good hiding place, and-"
"Y'know what, I don't really care," Kevin rectified, letting go of Ben and crouching to absorb some asphalt. "Let's go pound that asshat's face in, and then get back to Gwen's party."
Ben stuck his still-handcuffed hands in Kevin's face. "I can't transform with these alien handcuffs on my Omnitrix," he complained. "Break them first?"
Kevin inspected them. "Guhh…I dunno how Albedo got his hands on those, but we'll need a legit key," he said, frowning.
"No foolin'?" Ben looked glumly at the alien handcuffs.
"Yeah forreal, and don't ever say that again or I'll punch you in the mouth," Kevin said. "You hang tight, I'll get Gwen and murder the fake, we'll fix that later."
"That's very gallant of you, Kevin, but y'know you guys'll lose without me," Ben pointed out.
"Shut your face!" Kevin, offended, smacked Ben in the face, forgetting he was still asphalt. Clearly Ben had been kidnapped violently because he actually fell down.
"Ow, that hurt!" Ben whined, rubbing at his face with his shoulder. "Kevin, you punk!"
"Sorry, dude, I forgot I was asphalt," Kevin said apologetically.
"It's cool. Anyway I think Albedo put the key in his pocket so we can just get it after you hit him once or twice."
They ran into the backyard, guns blazing (not literally, as Kevin was still black like the road and Ben remained scruffy and bright jacket-less as before,) only to find Albedo tied to a chair, glowering at a triumphant Gwen, who unlocked a surprised Ben's handcuffs, returned his jacket, and told Kevin off for something, although he couldn't quite figure out what.
"How did you beat Albedo?" Ben asked. "He totally just beat me up and kidnapped me and took my clothes."
"Ben, we're at my birthday party," Gwen pointed out. "Grandpa Max, Cooper, Manny, Helen, Alan, most of my karate team and club and class, Ship, Pierce, my archery partner Kent, and Grandma Verdona are all here. It took us like, four seconds."
"I'm here too," Julie said, but everybody ignored her.
Ben pouted a little bit. Grandpa Max reminded him that he saved the whole entire universe multiple times, and the pout ended, leaving a pleased smile in its place.
"What did Albedo want, anyway?" Kevin asked Manny, still annoyed that he hadn't gotten to pound anyone's face. "He was like, talkin' about gay stuff with Gwen when we ran into him."
Manny shrugged.
"He was trying to undermine our power as a team by making our convoluted love triangles even more complicated, since we're all more beautiful and dramatic than him," Gwen said accurately. "He came back here and started confusing Julie by telling her you liked Kevin more, so we all attacked him and found out he was Albedo."
"Because he was confusing Julie?" Ben asked, skeptical. He didn't mention the Kevin part, because after all, he knew Kevin's favorite color and middle name and secret tickle spot and virtually nothing about Julie as a real person. "I do that all the time."
"No, because he tried the salt and vinegar chips and started screaming about chili fries when he didn't like the taste," Alan said. "Dead giveaway."
"Yeah, salt and vinegar chips are gross," Ben said sympathetically.
"Ok, whatever," Kevin said, having no patience for things involving too much time. Or too much smart. Or too much Ben, because it inevitably led to unnecessary touching plus information about Sumo Slammers that he could really do without since he hadn't seen the show since he was, like, twelve. Or whenever was the last time he watched TV before leading an exclusively dangerous and illegal life.
"Good thing we know better than to let our love polygons take over our lives, eh?" Grandpa Max laughed. No one else did, except the laugh track, which sounded even more fake when nothing funny was going on.
"I'll go get more muskrat jerky," he said, and left.
"Anyway, happy birthday, Gwen," Helen said, and everyone except Ben suddenly remembered that everything was not supposed to be about Ben all the time, and ushered Gwen towards her cake, where everyone sang her happy birthday (the girls from her karate class each hanging onto one of Manny's very manly arms, having taken a fancy to the way he charged at Albedo, and glad now that he could hand out multiple slices of cake.)
Ben just smiled, sure that somewhere, a camera was focusing on him instead of Gwen. And he was absolutely right.
They were getting into presents, Gwen ooh-ing and ahh-ing at everything from magic flowers, to hand chalk, to a very nice wreath, to the brand new copy of Mockingjay which just came out like yesterday oh m g Mockingjay ahhh eek Mockingjay must have that she almost stopped the party right there for reading, to a sexy-looking tri-barreled blaster with water cooler that Pierce proudly proclaimed had been to the Moon and back and would be trustworthy should her magical energy Anodite powers ever fail.
Ben didn't get her anything, but she was used to it by now. In fact, she knew the whole scenario. He'd promise to make it up to her after the party when he remembered it was horrible of him to shaft her, and then never would make it up because alien fights would keep getting in the way until Gwen had forgotten her birthday had been ignored. She'd gotten him a flimsy plastic samurai sword from the dollar store for his birthday, so she didn't feel empty inside like most years.
Kevin's present, though, was totally awesome.
"You didn't," she breathed, opening the envelope.
"Sure did," he said, a pleased smile across his sweet Kevin features. "You're always listenin' to them when you hang out in the garage, so I figured – you like it?"
"Like it?" Gwen said, positively radiant. "Kevin, I love it! Thank you so much!" She flung her arms around his neck and he politely and charmingly returned the hug. "This is – and I can't believe I'm saying it – better than Mockingjay," she said. "How on earth did you get tickets to the Korean boy band farewell concert for next week that I never thought in a million years I'd get to go to even though I've always secretly hoped to see them live someday?"
"Uh…" Kevin replied; the question had gotten a little too long for him to hold on to.
"Wait, why are there three?" Gwen suddenly said as a third ticket fell out of the envelope, having somehow mysteriously been missed when she first tore them out.
"You, me, 'n Ben, like usual," Kevin said, confused. "I mean, unless you got somebody you'd rather go with."
"No, that's fine," Gwen said, assuming – as usual – that Kevin was clever or magical enough to read her mind and realize I WANT TO BE ALONE WITH YOU, STEED, except she knew he was gay because he came out to her and frequently asked her for smart girl advice, but she couldn't help trying. Going alone with him would've been preferable to letting Ben tag along and be a show-stealer, too, except she knew Ben would end up getting tickets because he was famous and showing up anyway, probably to sing badly onstage in an alien form and in Japanese instead of Korean. So she let it slide, for now, excited for the concert – it was the last stop on their last tour, after all.
The concert went great! Ben showed up late but Gwen was having too much fun to give him the attention he so secretly wanted, and he and Kevin got to make out because it was loud and confusing and Gwen wouldn't notice and feel betrayed and if they regretted it later they could assume they kissed somebody else, because after all it was loud and confusing at that Korean boy band concert.
Gwen made sure no one around them broke the law by drinking underage, partying while smashing highschoolers' booze with her magic powers. Kevin had a couple drinks anyway, because he was a tough guy and classy, so he was feeling good but not particularly buzzed when the lead singer suddenly dropped dead on stage.
There was a collective "What the fuck" moment shared between the remaining members of the boy band/backup and the audience, then all hell broke loose with people freakin' the heck out! Fortunately nobody noticed lasers suddenly shoot out of nowhere and teleport the Tennysons and Kevin Eleven away.
"What is going on here?" Ben shouted immediately as they materialized in a bare white room, light shining in their eyes.
"You're just mad 'cause your hot dog got left behind when we teleported," Kevin observed.
"So what if I am?" Ben fumed. "It's a legitimate concern!"
"Be quiet, you three," a very sexy lady said, striding into the room with a pen in her hand but nothing to write on. A handsome man followed her, looking a little useless despite his excellent scarf.
"I was being quiet…ma'am," Gwen said. Ben kicked her leg under the table and when she turned to him, confused, he put his finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. Gwen did that disappointed breathing thing.
So did Kevin; Gwen glared at him.
"Seriously." Then a folder seemed to materialize as the sexy lady slammed it down on the table. "Where were you four minutes ago?"
"Uh. We were at th' concert," Kevin said.
"Yeah, you beamed us out of there," Gwen pointed out.
"Your hair looks great," Ben said.
"Isn't it totally hot? I gave her that conditioner," the handsome man said. The sexy lady glared at him, and he fell silent, the abashed-Kevin expression they knew all too well appearing upon his visage.
"Lady, we were there with like a million other people," Kevin scoffed. "What're you trying to pull?"
"Well, I'm an alien cop," she said. "And you guys are all going to alien jail because the lead singer was shot with a level-five laser gun."
"WHAT!" Gwen said indignantly.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" Kevin said even more indignantly.
"As if." Ben leaned back in his chair, fingers locked behind the back of his head.
"Even though Ben Ten saved the whole damn universe a few times, or whatever-" Ben sputtered and his chair fell back onto four legs as he scrambled to respond- "-that doesn't change the fact that Kevin Levin here has a criminal record."
"But he's good now," Gwen pointed out. "Plus, how could we possibly have murdered that Korean pop star? Personally, I'm basically his biggest fan."
"Kevin Levin has a really hardcore criminal record," the alien sexy lady cop clarified. ("That's why he's so dangerous," Ben swooned from the floor.) "We could probably get him sent to the Null Void on any charge at this point. Without a trial."
"That's dirty," Kevin snarled, standing up and knocking over his chair. He also knocked over Ben, who had started to rise to complain about being judged by the rest of the world's standards. Ben grabbed his leg in response.
"Okay," Gwen said. "But you know we could just break out. We're three of the most powerful people ever."
"Yeah, and we didn't murder nobody," Kevin added.
"Don't we get to see a lot of, I dunno, you guys looking at the body and talking to each other and writing clues on a whiteboard and meeting with real suspects and actually catching them eventually?" Ben asked the fine-scarf'd assistant while patting Kevin's leg, who smiled hopefully.
"No," the sexy lady alien cop said, and the man's hope wilted. "That shit only happens on bad crime procedurals."
"Or good ones," the man pointed out, stroking his scarf affectionately.
"Or good ones," she amended. "Anyway, in the real alien world, we just pick people up who don't stand a chance of getting out of it, convict them, then either fry them or send them into another dimension. It's easier on interplanetary politics that way."
Jaws dropped. Ben's, Kevin's, and Gwen's, to be precise.
Kevin fumed. "I can't believe it! I'm not goin' back to the Null Void! Especially when I didn't do anything!"
"It would've been fair for her to bring up smuggling," Ben said. "Or at least extortion. Blackmail."
"Assault," Gwen added.
"You guys are not makin' me feel better." Kevin looked very sad. "Especially if you have to go to jail too."
"Yeah, right," Ben said. He pressed in on the Omnitrix's sides and rotated the dial. "I'll just go Humongousaur, we bust out and save the world, they arrest someone else. No way are we wasting any more of my time with this law nonsense."
Gwen didn't mention that it was supposed to be her time today.
Suddenly red lights started flashing everywhere and the room shook.
The alien cops teleported away and the walls fell apart to reveal a charred wasteland.
Cars were torn and twisted, trees scorched away at the trunk, giant rifts in the earth where once the Interstate had stood, houses shaken to their foundations. People crawled along, dragging stubbed and torn limbs, screaming, dying, bleeding everywhere. Pretty much everything was on fire or destroyed, and evil laughs rang out across the stratosphere every few minutes. Yellow clouds hung in the air, looking suspiciously poisonous.
Ben looked horrified; Kevin almost fainted right there; Gwen clapped her hand to her mouth.
Then Gwen burst into flame.
"Gwen!" Kevin screamed, absorbing the table and trying to smother the flames as she writhed and her eyes glowed. Ben turned into Big Chill and tried to freeze the fire away, but there was nothing they could do; she stumbled over to the edge of an abyss and fell in, body as bright as her hair.
Kevin sunk to his knees beside the edge as Ben transformed back in a flash of green light. "Gwen…" he whispered, then looked up at Ben, terror in his eyes. "What- how-"
"I don't know," Ben said, sitting beside him and drawing his knees up to his chest. "I think, maybe…" he stared at the empty space where Gwen used to be. "I think someone finally managed to destroy the world when we were being accused of murder."
The white-painted steel covering Kevin's body slipped away slowly, like a Disillusionment Charm. He watched his hands turn back to warm flesh, then clenched them into fists. "I thought I was finally doin' something right!" he said, stuffing those fists to his eyes as if he could stop the tears coming. "I thought if I could fix cars good, save the world, pick out nice birthday presents, maybe-" his shoulders heaved "-maybe karma wouldn't come back t'bite me in the butt. And now Gwen's gone."
Ben reached out a hand and laid it on Kevin's shoulder, patting awkwardly. "She can't be gone," he whispered. "We've just gotta…fix it, somehoww. That's what heroes are for."
"I don't know if I can be a hero, Tennyson," Kevin said. "Not anymore."
What could he say to that? They sat in silence together for a little while longer, until Kevin's sad eyes watched the flames of a burning, ruined car and Ben watched Kevin's sad eyes, still not having taken his hand off of Kevin's shoulder.
"Hey, Kev." Ben said, trying to appeal to Kevin's love of short words. No response.
"Hey," he said again, shaking his shoulder a little. "We can fix this."
Kevin just stared ahead, looking sad and hopeless.
Ben's hand moved to Kevin's shirt collar, almost without thinking, and he tugged Kevin forward into a sudden, furious, hopeful, totally hot kiss.
Kevin's whole body seemed to jerk with a current; first in surprise and then in excitement as he leaned in to add some tongue and make it a really totally hot kiss, even better than their brief vaguely loud and confusing makeout session at the concert.
They sprang up, hope renewed and youthful vigour firing them up. Ben's face seemed to shine as he smiled at Kevin, and Kevin found himself returning the look.
"Let's knock them dead."
Kevin nodded, about to say something, when suddenly…
"No need," drawled a very familiar voice. "I have no intention of dying today."
They turned to see Albedo, hands on his hips and smirking.
"Oh fuck off Albedo, we hate you and you'll never get to do either of us," Ben said in exasperation, cool and not an asshole now that the entire world was on the line.
"You know you want me," Albedo said, opening his jacket – now the regular red one – to reveal an…actually, super hot little sparkly top that accentuated his, er, Ben's lankiness well and showed off his nipples without actually showing anything.
"That's a super hot little top," Kevin said. "And how'd your hair get back to normal?"
"It wasn't permanent dye, and thank you, I had a coupon for Hot Topic," Albedo said.
"I hate you!" Ben voice-crackingly shouted, whipping out the Omnitrix.
Albedo grinned and dropped his pants, revealing hot tight little short shorts, and then activated his own Omnitrix.
Ben slammed his hand down at the same time as Albedo, and Kevin hadn't absorbed anything yet, distracted by Ben's evil twin's booty.
"JEFFREY!" Ben shouted, now in full laserbat Jetray mode.
"WAY BIG." Albedo's terrifying planet-sized eyes seemed to laugh as he brought his hand up like it was going through water, swiping at Jet Ray.
"You went Waybig? That's no fair!" Ben screeched, flapping in place. "That's supposed to be a trump-card alien, dude, and only for heroes, I can't believe you."
"I had to survive the Reversible Worldwide Atom Bomb somehow," Albedo said, reaching towards him.
"Awesome! It's reversible? That means we just gotta beat you!" Ben crowed. Next thing, he found himself in Waybig's grip and those horrifying alien eyes were peering victoriously at him from up in the atmosphere. Ben was having trouble breathing, between the hand and the actual lack of oxygen.
"Too bad the reverser is hidden in Los Soledad," Albedo said triumphantly. "and you're finished."
"No he's not!"
Albedo had only…well, thirty seconds, but that's not very long for a guy who moves as slow as Waybig – to react as a red Kevin Levin kicked his foot and sent him flying.
Jetray was released and swooped down to see Kevin. "Thanks!" he said.
"Pound now, talk later!" Kevin said. "I absorbed some Invinciblefiredracium, but I'm not sure how long it's gonna last – dunno how it even got here. Beat that little shit into the ground before my half-life is up!"
"Got it!" Ben shot Albedo in the face with lasers until he yielded, transforming back into a scantily clad Ben-lookalike.
"That was major hot, hero!" Kevin ran over and swept Ben off his feet, picking him up and twirling him once before putting him back down. Both laughed as they stumbled, dizzy, leaning on each other, and Kevin victory-kissed Ben. "Should we go get the world-destroying bomb reverser now and bring everybody back?" He said once his mouth was free.
Ben shook his head, grinning. "Let's enjoy the alone time for just a little bit longer."
"You only have twenty-four hours or else the Reversible bomb is irreversible," Albedo said helpfully, shaking his little butt. Ben slapped Kevin when he couldn't look away.
"What? He knows how to move it," Kevin said, rubbing his cheek.
"You're lucky I can't turn into asphalt," Ben said jealously.
"Did someone say ass-phalt?" Kevin said, a sexy grin appearing on his face.
Ben tried to stay angry and indignant and jealous, but he was too adorable and Kevin was too sexy, so he gave in.
"Harder, Kevin!"
"Good."
They came together on what was left of the hood of Kevin's car. It was almost romantic, except for the charred and curling dangerous metal all around them – but it had been a great day of occasional great fucks (and lots of learning what Ben could do with his adorable smoothie-slurping hero mouth) nonetheless.
"Okay," Ben sighed. "Guess we better reverse the bomb and save the world…again."
"Mhm," Kevin said, busy inhaling Ben-scent from his jacket. "Even tho' I kinda like it more this way."
"Yeah, it kind of sucked getting arrested and watching Gwen die," Ben admitted. "But then we found out it was reversible, and even though the foraging for food and shelter and running away from hellhounds thing is a pain…"
Kevin smiled into Ben's jacket, already knowing what he was going to say.
"…there's nobody I'd rather do all that with in the world. Or lack thereof."
They were holding hands when they activated the reverser, and when the interrogation room appeared around them again, they punched the alien lady cop in the mouth and then took off, simultaneously kicking Albedo in the balls before he could even set the bomb off.
Albedo went to alien jail instead of them. The murder of the K-pop star was never properly solved.
Victory cheers and a victory party commenced!
UNTIL NEXT TIME
THIS IS BEN. 10!
[applause]