Ben's Fault

Chapter 1

Megin Levin's POV

"WAKIE WAKIE!!" Kevin's voice filled my ear and jolted me awake. I threw my arm out in the direction of his voice, my hand hitting his head. Normally, this wouldn't have hurt, and my fingers would have met soft hair. (Or greasy, depending on the day.)

But Kevin wasn't normal. He hadn't ever really been normal, what with his ability to absorb energy and matter, but at least he had still looked human. Now, my big brother had been mutated and my hand hit his crystal-kagonite (?) head, jamming up my fingers.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!" I cried out and sat up. "KEVIN!!" I glared into his rock-featured face and asked, "What is your problem? It's Saturday, dammit!"

He laughed and grinned down at me, way too chipper at this time of morning. He messed with his I.D. mask, and then put it on, immediately looking the way he had before Ben had burned the Omnitrix into overload. My heart gave a little pang at how familiar it looked, and then the also familiar fury at Ben began to burn inside my chest.

"What do you need Kevin, I can't even believe you're up at this hour!" I said, flopping back down and burrowing into my comforter.

"Megin, it's ten a.m.!"

"Exactly my point!" I said, popping up, and then retreating back. "Tell me what you want before I kick your sorry butt into Wednesday." My voice was muffled by my blanket.

"Alright, we have some plumber business to take care of, and we might need some backup. A lot of nasties to put down, and could maybe be a challenge." He grinned ruefully at me, "And afterwards we're doing some training. Gwen says it's about time for your next karate class." My head appeared above the covers again.

"When you say we…?" I trailed off questioningly, knowing were this was going.

Kevin knew too.

"Oh, just me, Gwen…and Ben too."

"I'm not going." I said flatly, and hid once again. But that was a mistake because Kevin started tickling me. "Hey! No fair!!" I cried out between gales of laughter. I was extremely ticklish, a trait Kev had luckily avoided from our mother.

"Oh, come on Meggie!! It's been months now, you need to stop being angry at Ben! Even I wasn't mad at him for this long!" He finally stopped and pulled down my covers, his face close to mine. "That should tell you something."

"Yeah, that you're a weak grudge-holder." I replied. Kevin gave up.

"Fine, if you change your mind, we should be done about noon. Here's the address." He tossed a scrap of paper on my bedside table and left with that. I threw my blanket off. And snatched the paper off my desk, scanning it and recognizing the area, I immediately knew that it was crawling with DNAliens.

I would go. But just for Kevin and maybe Gwen too, because she was turning out to be a lot cooler than her first impression. But I would not go to see Ben, in fact! I would just ignore him. Wouldn't even look at him. Exactly. That was it.

I yanked on my green shorts and black tank, and then laced up my most pain-inflicting combat boots. I knew because Kevin had told me so, shortly after he had found me. I smirked a little at the memory as I grabbed my jacket and hollered at Mom.

"Bye Mom, I'm going to make sure Kevin doesn't kill himself!"

"Be back by dinner." She replied without missing a beat.

I jumped on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could, but not before grabbing some juice from a near outlet. Supercharged, I traveled faster than normal, and reached my destination in a short time, just in time to see an especially ugly alien rear up behind Ben, who was completely oblivious as Cannon Ball.

Without thinking, I launched myself off my bike and threw a flying-side-kick at the ugly's head. I landed with my foot implanted in its face as all three of them, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin, turned to stare at me.

"What?" I asked defensively, "Kevin told you was coming, right?" and when they still didn't move, I almost screamed, "WHAT?! Why are you standing around, they're going to kill you?!"

Well, that worked.

As if out of a trance, they began fighting again.

And apparently I had knocked out some nasty's great-uncle or something, 'cause one of them came at me, screeching its disgusting head off. Or maybe it was just pissed. Either way, I threw it off course by…ya know, throwing it.

We carried on like that for almost an hour, hitting, ducking, kicking, (and I may or may not have 'accidentally' hit Ben a couple of times) until none were left standing, and the cargo they had attempted to transport was unguarded.

I frantically whipped my head around, looking for something else to hit, my temper not exactly burned out yet. I finally gave up when Kevin came over and said,

"They aren't gonna come out of thin air Megin." I pouted at him.

"You sure? There could be some hiding over…" I stopped as he shook his head. I hung mine. Gwen came and joined us.

"It's okay," she said, "We're going sparring, so you can hit more things." I brightened a little at that. I cast a glance at Ben and asked,

"What is he doing?" I made sure to add a hint of venom in my question.

"Beaming over the stolen goods." Gwen replied, completely understanding my hatred, though she didn't like it. I mean, Kevin was her boyfriend, so she had every right to be as angry as I was. But were she couldn't understand how I couldn't let it go, I didn't understand how any of them could let it go. My brother looked like some monster!

And it was Ben's fault.