Replacement
By Chibi Hime
AN: Ben 10 and Kevin 11 (c) MOA/CNS
It was close to three in the morning. The train yard was quiet. The full moon shone down from the sky and an eerie silver light illuminated the ground below, causing an eerie haze. One of the boxcars suddenly lurched and its door slid open.
The huge, misshapen form of Kevin 11 pulled itself awkwardly from within.
Unsteady feet hit the gravel and he teetered there for several long seconds before a pathetic combination of wing flaps and limps carried him across the train yard to the chain link fence that separated it from the suburban neighborhood beyond. He placed his oversized, Pyronite hand on the fence and it fell away in molten pieces almost effortlessly. The motion had little meaning. The fence was an obstacle, he had removed it.
Kevin continued his motley limping as he made his way past strangely familiar streets and landmarks. His mind was eerily vacant save for his singleminded goal. He hadn't been to this town in years, but he found her remembered the streets extremely well. A lot of the landmarks he remembered had been torn down and replaced with new, more fashionable construction.
It made things harder, but he still found his way.
He came upon the house he was looking for and childish fear sprung into the pit of his stomach. Countless, panicked butterflies seemed to beat against his insides. The pause made the mutant wonder why he had even bothered coming here.
By all accounts, it was a perfectly normal house.
It had a car in the driveway and a swing set in the backyard. It had a screen door and a welcome mat.
But it wasn't a perfectly normal house.
It was his house.
Well, it had been his house.
Why had he come back here?
He knew he wouldn't be welcome, so why?
Because he had nowhere else to go.
Because he was hurt.
Because he had needed a destination so horribly that he had picked this place.
After his transformation and subsequent fall, he felt battered, broken and shocked. Everything seemed surreal and his brain, with red madness clawing at the edges, had demanded he have a destination. He had NEEDED a place to go. He picked this place.
He wanted Mommy to kiss it all away. He wanted her to exclaim how wrong she was and what a mistake she had made. He wanted her to say it was all her fault. He wanted her to take pity on her mangled progeny and take care of him...at least until he figured things out.
She wouldn't, though.
He knew it.
She hadn't wanted him when he looked human, but was something else.
Why would she want him now?
Still, childish whimpers escaped from his razor toothed mouth as he limped toward the house as if he were only a boy coming home with a scraped knee and not the twisted mockery of a monster.
He managed to make it to his old bedroom window.
He stuck his lower arm's claws under the wood and was about to ease it up when he saw the room had a new inhabitant.
He pressed his grotesque face up against the glass.
The walls had been repainted a light pink and children's toys were stacked neatly on the shelves. Nothing of his remained. It was as if every memory of him had been stripped from the place. Where his bed had been, there was a white wooden crib and a small little being slept there under a light blanket.
Kevin's mouth went dry and he leapt back, as if the window sill had burned him.
He heard a low growl. Kevin turned to see his old dog...his only friend during his early years, snarling at him. Tentatively, the mutant extended one of his lower hands. The dog, bombarded with a slew of unfamiliar scents, snapped at it. Kevin felt betrayed.
The dog barked loudly and Kevin saw a light turn on in the house.
His chaotic mind produced fragments of thoughts, all manic.
He'd been replaced.
He wasn't needed.
He wasn't wanted.
He wasn't welcome.
He wasn't missed.
Kevin bit back a howl of agony and managed to scramble to the side of the house. He peered around the side and saw another light, this one in his old room, come on. He saw his mother come in and look around.
Did she know he was there? Could she sense him?
He saw her step closer to the window and look outside. He leaned forward slightly and for a moment, their eyes met. Two brown human eyes met three mismatched alien eyes.
Then she screamed.
She screamed a chilling wail of fear and disgust that seemed to physically hurt him.
Physical pain lost all meaning as he tore away from the house. He dashed all the way back to the train yard, where he collapsed and let out an inhuman roar of rage and despair.
All that running, all that painful flapping and limping had been for nothing. His parents had replaced him with someone else...they didn't even miss him. It was another blow to his unstable mind and that red madness that had been eating away at his mind since he washed up on the California beach seemed so welcoming.
It didn't care that he was ugly...or a freak...or a monster. It didn't remind him of how anguished he was at being discarded. It kept him from sorrow and filled his mind with vengeance. Red was warm, comforting, understanding. It gave him purpose and made him forget the mental and physical pain. Red told him to get back in the boxcar.
Red told him to heal.
Red told him to go back the way he came.
Red told him to get revenge.
Kevin did so.
He curled into the corner of a boxcar and fell asleep, drawing himself into a ball. He lulled himself into a deep, healing slumber with thoughts of tearing Ben Tennyson to pieces. He would make him pay. He would make him suffer for what he had forced Kevin to endure. When it was all over, Kevin would take Ben's pretty little cousin and make her touch him, hug him and tell him everything was fine...that it would be alright. She'd kiss away his pain and anguish. As time went by, she'd believe it. She'd grow to care for him...love him, even. She would make him forget his past miseries. That was his plan. Kill one Tennyson, Take the other. It worked for Kevin. It brought a smile to his twisted face,
She would be his Replacement.
End.