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"Darkstar."
He smiled at her, a wicked grin displaying his blindingly white teeth. "Hello, lovely Gwen. Nice to see you again."
Gwen narrowed her eyes, exposing a dangerous glint reflecting back at him. "What are you doing here?"
He chuckled. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Clenching her jaw, she lunged into a striking position, fully prepared for a battle to occur. Well, fully expecting one, at that. "What do you want today?" Gwen countered, half harshly, half boredly.
He strided towards her, and while she couldn't quite see his face due to his mask, she knew there was a devilish gleam in his eyes and a vicious smirk to match underneath. "May I not simply pay a visit to the most beautiful girl in town?"
The Anodite scoffed at him, straightening her posture. "Yeah," she retorted, "Right."
"Oh, lovely Gwen," Darkstar began, "You really don't know how beautiful you are...do you?" He quirked the corner of his lip, stretching his arm out to cup her chin. She jerked her head away from him, but he snagged it right back into his bony fingertips.
"Let go of me," she bit out, again ripping her chin out of his chilling touch.
Darkstar snickered, stretching out his arm. He reached for her again, managing to capture the lower half of her head in his grip. "Don't deny the chemistry we have, Gwendolyn. You know you can't fight it."
Gwen held back most of the foul remarks on the tip of her tongue. "You ambushed me on a dark sidewalk, in the middle of the night to talk about chemistry? ...I should've brought my science homework."
He ignored her question and smart comment, continuing on with his useless rambling. "Where's your precious pet now?" he snarled, spitting as he enunciated every word, "You're in my hands, and he's not here to save you."
"So that's what this is about? Are you trying to draw Kevin out?" Gwen asked, ceasing to fight against his grip. She gave up on trying to tear her face away, and simply focused on listening to him drone on and on instead.
She'd figured out his objective that way.
Darkstar snickered. "Don't sound so uninterested, lovely Gwen. Once I bring him to me, I'll kill him. But don't fret, you'll have a front row seat."
The redhead lackadaisically rolled her green eyes. "I feel like I've heard that before."
Neglecting her repeated snarky remarks, he pressed further. "It's always you rescuing him. This time, I'll drain all his power and kill him, for good! Then we can be together. Forever," Michael told her, a frightening greediness present in his tone.
Gwen opened her mouth to rejoinder, but was immediately cut short by a loud voice from her right. "Hey, ugly!" Kevin yelled, "Get your hands off my girl."
The younger hero scoffed. "That was lame," Ben instantly informed him, interweaving his arms across his chest, "I trash talk way better than that."
Kevin rotated his head towards his teammate, glaring at him. "Uh, Tennyson? Trying to stop the bad guy from hurting Gwen here."
Ben turned to him. He grinned sheepishly. "Right. Sorry."
Darkstar chortled. "Kevin Levin," he said, his tone dark and devious, yet somehow not very threatening to the trio, "Just in time. For your own demise, that is."
"Okay," Ben remarked, still angled at Kevin, "You have to admit, that was lame."
Kevin snickered. "Can't disagree with you there."
The villain scorned the pair. "Enough of this foolishness. Let's get down to business."
Ben chuckled. "Why bother? We're just going to kick your butt, as usual."
He narrowed his eyes. Without speaking, he thrusted his hand out. Dark matter erupted from his palm, slamming into Ben's nimble chest.
The changeling yelped in pain, his body skidding backwards across the street. He landed several yards away, his damaged figure curled in a heap.
"Ben!" Gwen shrieked. A desire to run towards him blossomed in her chest, but she still wasn't able to break away from the grip of Darkstar.
"Tennyson! You okay?" Kevin called. He didn't turn his head to glimpse at Ben, more focused on his girlfriend trapped in the grasp of someone else.
Ben loudly groaned before responding. "Okay, I am officially missing the Sumo Slammers marathon. Can we please get this over with?"
"Gladly," Kevin responded, suiting up.
Following his lead, Ben grinned and slapped his watch. Seconds later he reappeared as Humongosaur. And, much to to the annoyance of the others, shouted out the name of his current alien form.
"Let Gwen go, or this is going to get ugly," Humongosaur commanded, pointing one of his thick fingers towards his cousin.
Darkstar smirked. "Come and get her," he retorted. The villain tossed her aside like a ragdoll, her body slumping against the pavement with a pained moan.
Kevin's jaw noticeably slackened. "Gwen!"
"You go after her, I'll handle this," rumbled Humongosaur.
Kevin nodded, managing to avoid Darkstar whilst racing in his girlfriend's direction. She'd already begun to sit up when he had arrived, but he still felt the need to thoroughly investigate her for any possible injuries nonetheless. Placing one hand on her back and one on her arm, he questioned, "Gwen? Are you-"
"I'm fine," she cut him off, pushing herself up from the ground. He shot her a pair of concerned eyes, but she shook them off. "Darkstar!"
The energy-sucking villain shifted his gaze towards her. Big mistake. In the miniscule amount of time he was distracted, Humongosaur shifted into Spider Monkey, and before Darkstar could even react, the newly arrived alien had him pinned against the nearest lamppost underneath his thick spider web.
The trio's masked adversary began to struggle against his restraints, groaning while he attempted to free himself. Unfortunately for him, his actions led to no avail.
Spider Monkey laughed at his opponent, flashing his pointed fangs at the group. "Guess we have this all wrapped this up."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "That was terrible. And besides, you've told that before."
Ben's form reverted to his normal self once again, still amused. "That was funny!"
"Wasn't even funny the first time you told it, Tennyson," Kevin replied.
"Hey!" the changeling cried. He groaned. "Ugh, whatever. Gwen, call the police. I don't want to miss any more of the Sumo Slammers marathon!"
As Gwen reached to pull her phone out of her pocket, the trio's playful conversation was suddenly interrupted by thunderous screams echoing back at them. Darkstar had ripped his body free from the spider web before any of them could even utter a word in response.
"I will destroy you all," the masked man roared at them, black energy erupting dangerously from his palms.
Gwen managed to protect herself from the attack by creating a pink manna shield, whilst both her teammates were immediately hit dead on by Darkstar's power. Gritting her teeth, she briefly granted herself a glimpse of both of their weak figures, then proceeded to poorly attempt to maneuver towards her opponent.
She continued to make her way in his direction, her pace immensely increasing after hearing Darkstar's sadistic laughter. Once in close enough range to be audible to him, she yelled, "Darkstar! Let my friends go."
"Or else what, lovely Gwen?" he retorted, head still aimed towards the males.
The redhead clenched her jaw. Her fingertips tingled with an infusement of power and anger as she continued to watch Kevin and Ben become more limp as their life force drained. "Or else this!" she yelled in return. Manna spewed from her hands, hitting him directly in the chest. Yelping, he went toppling backwards across the dark pavement.
Kevin and Ben, released from the entrapment of Darkstar's power, both began groaning. Ben rubbed his head before even making an attempt to move upwards.
The Osmosian stood up first, looking extremely irritated. "I'm gonna pound that dude so hard he won't be able to see straight."
"My head hurts," Ben whined, following Kevin's actions, despite the complaint he just muttered.
Wordlessly, Darkstar again used his powers to try an attack on his adversaries. This time though, Gwen's shield stretched around both her teammates as well as herself. "Give it up, Darkstar!"
"Not until Kevin Levin is destroyed and you're mine, lovely Gwen!"
"Hey!" Ben exclaimed, "What am I? Sliced liver?"
Gwen, ignoring her cousin's comment, grunted whilst she thrust a pink oval towards her foe. He dodged it, but she continued to launch attacks directly at him nonetheless.
Both Kevin and Ben prepared themselves for battle again, the changeling slamming his hand on his watch and yelling "Echo Echo!", the Osmosian touching a nearby light post to absorb the sturdy material. The Anodite continuously hurled all the manna she could conjure up towards him, the other two beginning their ambush. Echo Echo multiplied himself, circling around the energy-sucking villain and releasing his ear-piercing scream. Kevin, on the other hand, went for a direct attack, forging his fist into a thick square to slam into his adversary's face.
Darkstar winced, his knees buckling as a repercussion of Kevin's hit. He moaned, but, with his little energy that remained, he aimed his sparkling black power at the Osmosian, which caused him to topple to the ground alongside his foe.
Heart clenching at her boyfriend's agonized screams, Gwen gritted her teeth and shouted ragefully at Darkstar. "Let him go!"
The villain chuckled. "Absolutely not. I finally have Kevin Levin in my grasp. And soon, lovely Gwen, you will be all mine."
Echo Echo, ceasing his obnoxious screams, morphed once more into Humongosaur. Whilst Darkstar was distracted, the newly arrived alien rammed into him from behind. Kevin, instantly released from the masked villain's powers, took longer to get up than the previous time, but was certainly much more irked than he earlier was.
"Dude, just give up already," Humongosaur said, standing, as what the team hoped to be victoriously, over his enemy.
"Never!" Darkstar shouted, launching another blast of his power into Humongosaur's chest.
"Agh!" the alien cried before his enormous body stumbled backwards.
After several more failed strikes on both her part and Darkstar's, she had decided to end it. "I have had enough," Gwen declared, glancing at her cousin and his opponent. Grunting, a newly created shape formed from her pink manna burst from within her palms, slamming hard enough into Darkstar's torso to suddenly render him unconscious.
Walking towards her teammates, she blew a stray piece of red hair out of her face.
"You couldn't have just done that earlier?" Kevin questioned, nodding towards their adversary.
A yawn departed from her chest before she could even get out a response.
"So much for his plan to destroy you, Kev," Ben noted, grinning.
"Yeah," replied Kevin, "it was a pretty unrealistic plan anyway."
Gwen scoffed.
"Hey! I'm nearly impossible to defeat," the Osmosian proclaimed, placing a hand over his chest as his suit of protective material diminished.
Ben sighed. "Can we just go home? I'm tired and missing Sumo Slammers!"
"Yeah, yeah, quit your whining," Kevin retorted.
The redhead rolled her eyes. "Let's go."