The Theory of Everything
Chapter One: "Relativity"

Devlin held the locket in one hand and a scarred identification bracelet in his other. Both were ties to his past, but they felt like they came from another world entirely. The bracelet was made of some tough silver metal, sized to fit around the wrist of a skinny eleven-year-old boy. It had been used to ID him when he first arrived at a group home on the Saturn colony, when he'd been left without a mother and with a father in the Null Void. The name had once read "Devlin Levin," but he'd scratched out the last name years ago, in a fit of fury about who he'd come from. The locket, on the other hand, didn't have any identifying features on it, but it was a tie to his Levin side all the same.

He heard the door swish open, and he hurriedly tucked the locket under his clothes and stuffed the bracelet into his pocket. It had been years since he'd more or less come to terms with everything; he didn't need his family thinking otherwise.

"Don't tell me you're going to hide here the entire party," groaned his brother, Ken. "The Null Void Chamber? Seriously, Dev?"

"Given a choice between this and Great-Grandpa's cooking?" Devlin challenged, raising an eyebrow.

"You'd be surprised what you can tolerate when you're drunk," Ken answered, albeit a little sheepishly. "But don't let Dad hear that." Devlin chuckled and shook his head. "So really, what are you doing here?"

Devlin sighed and looked over at the Null Void Chamber. Beyond its safeguards was the pocket dimension where the universe's greatest criminals were locked away. Including his biological father.

"No idea, really," he admitted.

Ken gave him a worried look. "You're not going to face him again, are you?"

Devlin shook his head. "No, I think I made my point last time. Not that I think it made much of a difference to him, but I got it out of my system. I guess I'm still a little conflicted."

"What's to be conflicted about?" Ken asked. "He manipulated you. He would have killed you."

"I know," Devlin answered. "But at the same time, he was my dad."

Ken snorted. "Not anymore he's not. Trust me, our dad has earned a lot more right to that than he ever did."

"And I wouldn't even have you guys if he hadn't decided I didn't mean anything to him," Devlin said. Wryly, he added, "I don't know whether I should keep on hating him or start thanking him, at this rate."

"You know what I think," Ken added. That got a smirk out of Devlin. "So, come on. What really brought this on? It can't be the party."

Devlin reached under his shirt and pulled out the locket, holding it up for Ken to see. Ken raised an eyebrow and said, "Not really your style."

Devlin snorted as he stuffed it under his clothes again. "Thanks. Belonged to my grandmother—Kevin's mom."

"Is this what her lawyer sent when she…" Ken started, and Devlin nodded. "Wow. So…"

"There's nothing inside," Devlin replied. "I checked. Just some kind of family heirloom."

"Weird," Ken answered, and Devlin shrugged. "Anyway, we'd better get back to the party before everyone wonders where we are."

It had been ten years since the day Devlin's adoption was formalized, months after the battle that had brought them all together. Naturally, the family was throwing a party for the occasion, with various relatives embarrassing themselves on the dance floor. Just about anyone who could call themselves a Tennyson at any point in their life was there, including Ben's ex-wife, Kai, Ken's mom. Ken chatted with her for a bit while their grandparents, Sandra and Carl, fawned over Devlin and how much he'd grown in the decade since he'd joined the family. Desperate for a change in topic, Devlin looked around and noticed that in true Tennyson fashion, someone was missing from the party.

"Hey, is Ben here?" he asked, interrupting his grandmother. "I didn't see him when I got here, and…"

"Think I was late again?" Ben asked, walking in at just the right moment. Grinning at the sudden look of surprise on Devlin's face and the half-annoyed expression on Ken's, he said, "Nope, I'm actually on time. It's your aunt who's late. I was just calling her to brag."

"More like be a complete pain, as always," Gwendolyn cut in, stepping through a magic portal. Like her more famous cousin, the sorceress had also aged over the years—creases near her eyes and a couple of streaks of grey in her long red braid—but time had not defeated her; her magic was just as powerful as ever and had always intimidated Devlin to some extent.

Giving Ben one of her patented looks, Gwendolyn turned her attention to her nephews and gave them an apologetic smile. "Sorry I'm so late, guys. Been working a pretty tough case. Anyway, congratulations, Devlin."

"What's to congratulate me for?" Devlin asked. "You're the ones who took me in. I should be thanking all of you."

"Yeah, but you managed to survive us for ten years," Ben answered, earning yet another glare from his cousin.

Gwendolyn sighed. "Ben, can I talk to you for a minute?"

As she grabbed him by the arm, Ken and Devlin snickered, barely trying to hide their amusement. Once they'd safely disappeared into the kitchen, Devlin said, "You'd think they'd have grown up by now."

"Yeah," Ken answered, but he sounded a little distracted.

Devlin snuck a glance around. Everyone else had gone back to the festivities, so he asked in a low voice, "What's up?"

"You're going to start mocking me," Ken said, "but do you ever get the feeling that Dad and Aunt Gwendolyn aren't telling us something?"

Devlin snorted. "That's a no-brainer."

Ken shot his brother a look of mixed confusion and offense. "Wait, you do? And all this time, you've rolled your eyes when I say Dad doesn't trust us?"

"Well, you do whine about it a lot," Devlin answered. Ken raised an eyebrow. "I'm serious. And hear me out: Ben's in charge of protecting this whole planet. Something goes wrong, he's on it. Aunt Gwendolyn's got it worse sometimes—she's got every magical crisis in this galaxy, simply because she's that powerful. Of course there's stuff they're not telling us."

"And this doesn't bother you?" Ken asked.

Devlin remembered finding a hidden microphone on him when he'd confronted Kevin—how angry he was to learn about it, only to realize after he'd spent a good time yelling that Ben had only been trying to keep an eye on him to make sure that Kevin wouldn't attack, like he inevitably had.

"Not the way it does you," he answered. "Not anymore."

After he'd been dragged into the kitchen, Ben dug his heels into the floor and crossed his arms. "All right, what did you need to talk about?"

Gwendolyn raised her arms to either side, and her hands glowed blue. A shimmering curtain of blue light surrounded the kitchen on all sides, protecting them from any interruptions or eavesdroppers.

Ben raised an eyebrow. "You don't usually throw up wards. This must be important."

Gwendolyn sighed as she lowered her arms. "I didn't want to say this with everyone out there, but yeah, it's bad. It's Charmcaster again."

Much to her disappointment, Ben looked less than worried. "Charmcaster? Really, Gwen? How many times have you beaten her?"

"I'm serious," she said firmly. "We found bodies." Now, Ben's expression went serious. "It was obvious that whatever they went through, it was painful."

"Do you know what caused it?" Ben asked.

Gwendolyn scoffed. "You know if I did, I'd be out there trying to stop it right now."

"Gwen," Ben insisted, giving her a patient stare.

She sighed. "All right."

Raising her hand, she brought up images of the crime scenes—four victims, different species, different genders, but all of them had in common a look of pained horror frozen on their faces. Ben studied each one carefully with the ease of decades dealing with alien crimes of all degrees.

"Charmcaster's always preferred using books for her high-level spells, so she would have needed time to cast this," Gwendolyn explained. "And there weren't any runes or arrays at any of the scenes."

"It could have been a ward," Ben suggested. "Make sure nobody can escape while she casts the spell."

"We considered that," Gwendolyn answered. "But more likely, it was an array as a magical construct—wouldn't leave a physical trace, and the magical trace would be caught up in the rest of the spellwork."

Ben turned back to her with an eyebrow raised. "That'd take up a lot of power, I'd think. At least enough needed for this kind of spell."

"I know," Gwendolyn said. "Which is why we're really worried. Charmcaster and I are academic mages—we work with books and artifacts to channel the power already within us. To pull off something on this level, I'd need these." She gestured to the Charms of Bezel positioned on her sleeves. "And even they don't have the power to do something like this."

"Which is?" Ben asked.

Gwendolyn sighed and shook her head. "It's like the lifeforce was completely drained from them. We've done autopsies—both magical and physical. There aren't any wounds. But there's also no lingering trace of lifeforce in them at all. Usually, when someone's killed like that, we can pick up on it—leftovers from cellular processes and things like that. But there's nothing there."

"That definitely sounds like it'd be high-level," Ben agreed, and Gwendolyn nodded. "So how would Charmcaster be able to do all of that while throwing more of her needed magic into an array? And why drain innocent people like that? They're non-magical, right?"

There was a humorless smile on Gwendolyn's face. "I knew you'd catch on eventually. No, none of them had magic. But they were all extremely fit—it would provide a lot of lifeforce. Our best guess is that Charmcaster's somehow tapped into ambient magic, probably through some kind of spell."

Ben looked at her, helplessly confused. "You've never mentioned ambient magic before."

"That's because it's pretty rare in comparison," Gwendolyn explained. "The ones who usually have it were born with it—it's a part of their species' makeup. Ambient mages draw their power from the world around them—that's how they build up their stores of power."

He nodded. "She's draining the lifeforce from people to build up her stores. And that's how she's able to hold an array there—she's more than replacing what she's used."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Gwendolyn admitted. "I told the others in Investigations, but you know them."

"Right," Ben answered. "No speculation—they don't like theories without evidence to back them up."

"And I don't exactly have anything in the way of hard evidence," Gwendolyn agreed. "Just four bodies, and my suspicions."

"That's enough for me," Ben insisted. "What kind of spell do you think she used?"

"The Archamada is the only spellbook I can think of that would be comprehensive enough to include ambient magic," she replied. "The only one that still exists, at least."

"Then we're in serious trouble," he summed up blithely.

"Yeah," she answered, just as casually. "But seriously? Promise me that if you find Charmcaster, you won't face her without me or anyone else from the Magical Division."

"Of course," Ben said, again sounding too casual. Gwendolyn gave him another one of her looks. "C'mon, Gwendolyn. You should know me better than that. I'm not the kid who rushes into things without thinking anymore."

Before she could retort, there was a ripple of energy against the ward. She lowered it, and Ken poked his head in through the kitchen door.

"Dad, Aunt Gwendolyn? We're running low on hors d'oeuvres out here."

Ben grabbed a bag of chips and tossed them to Ken. "Put these out first. I'll grab more food before Great-Grandpa decides he has to cook."

Ken grinned. "No problem. By the way, what were you guys talking about in here? You had the wards up for a while."

"Nothing you need to worry about right now," Ben answered easily.

Gwendolyn started to head out of the kitchen. "I'll let them all know you're running to the store."

"Thanks," Ben said, quickly transforming to XLR-8. "I'll be back soon."

While he sped off too quickly to hear it, Gwendolyn didn't miss the exchange between his sons:

"I told you."

"Let it go, Ken."

She really hoped Ben knew what he was doing, both regarding Charmcaster and regarding his kids.

Much later that night, after everyone else had gone home, Ken and Devlin found themselves with trash bags in hand, leaning over and under the tables.

"Answer me this: how'd we end up on recycler duty for our own party?" Ken asked.

"Because Great-Grandpa's too old to do this anymore, Ben had to take care of a situation, and Aunt Gwendolyn went home to get some sleep," Devlin answered.

"Oh, right," Ken deadpanned. "And you were stupid enough to say you'd stick around for a little bit. Somehow, that means I get drafted too."

Devlin snickered. "You're welcome."

Ken deposited a full bag in the recycler, a receptacle that teleported the garbage to a facility for sorting, recycling, and other disposal. As he reached for another bag, he said, "So how much do you want to bet that Dad's situation is related to that closed-doors meeting with Aunt Gwendolyn?"

Devlin rolled his eyes. "I didn't know it was time for one of these already."

Ken shot him a confused look. "One of what?"

"Your 'Dad doesn't trust me!' rants," he answered, making his voice mockingly high-pitched and whiny.

Ken grimaced. "I don't sound like that."

"Yes, you do," Devlin answered simply.

"Yeah, well…" Ken replied, reaching for something to fight back with. Devlin grinned as he failed.

"Genius hacker, high IQ, and you still can't come up with a good comeback?"

Ken picked up a half-eaten slice of cake. "I've got your comeback right here…"

But before he could throw it, a shrill beeping alarm sounded throughout the complex. Immediately, they dropped everything and raced to the computer, bringing up holographic monitors.

"Ben?" Devlin asked, seeing a red blip blinking on the screen.

Ken moved one screen and tried to bring up another, meanwhile typing with his other hand. After a frantic moment, he said, "I can't get his comm. It must have been destroyed."

Devlin pointed at the screen with the blinking red light. "We've got his location, at least."

"Yeah," Ken agreed. "Let's head out there."

Devlin hesitated. "You sure? It looks like he's in trouble."

"Which is why he needs us," Ken argued. "We're faster than anyone else is. By the time it takes for the Enforcers to get there or Aunt Gwendolyn…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Devlin answered. "All right."

Ken smirked, reaching for the Omnitrix. "I'll race…"

But before he could finish, his brother dashed out the door, inhuman speed courtesy of his alien heritage. Ken snickered as he selected XLR-8 on the watch.

"Cheater."

Reference to Ben and Kai being divorced is based on the fact that she's not even in "Ken 10," despite apparently being Ken's mom. I know that there's supplemental trivia saying what happened to her (and that Ken has a sister), but since it's information not actually shown in the episode itself, I treat it as optional canon. The concepts of academic and ambient magic are directly taken from Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic books, with some adjustment here and there to fit with the magic we see in the Ben 10 universe. Thanks go out to Shaun Garin for helping me figure out how to make this chapter flow.