A/N: There ya go. Don't forget to review.
Setting: Anodyne? Dream realm?
A being, womanly in shape, stood at the center of pool glowing with eerie pink energy swirling around it. The being had pink tendrils for hair emanating life and animation to those in touch with it. Her name was Verdona.
She separated her two hands creating a small pink ball of energy. The globe began to gain momentum rapidly swirling and swirling. The globe began to expand in very fast pace. Energy began to crackle in the orb. The energy being looked at the orb and fired another blast into it. The reality began to shatter as the orb absorbed the energy being into it transporting to another realm.
This realm had alien geometries. The sky was the floor that she walked on. Stairs were everywhere. The labyrinth kept transporting her from one place to another. Verdona however, was not amused thanks to her being here six times a day to meet her former lover, Max Tennyson. Verdona shifted the entrances to lead her to Max's dream. She saw a gate with Max's name inscribed in an alien language. The gate quickly opened for Verdona.
After the gate was shut, Verdona quickly tried to find Max himself in his own dream. Around her were all sorts of things he once dreamed. Bizarre architecture, confusing roads and Vilgax himself were all walking in the dream. She saw his dream about their first kiss and some stuff that followed afterwards. Aliens lurk in the darkest corners of his mind.
Finally, she came upon another room. It was dimly lit but Verdona could see what was happening very clearly.
"Max!" Verdona shouted at him. Max woke up from his dream and tried to grope for something. He muttered incoherent words as his vision cleared.
"I missed you." Max told her while sighing. Verdona smiled but she quickly regained her composure.
"There isn't much time." Verdona told Max, "Bellwood is destroyed. A bunch of aliens wanted to conquer this planet. "
Max gasped concerned, "What happened to Shag Carpeting?"
Verdona was not amused, "Ben and the others are okay. They escaped with some help from the US government."
"Can you help us?" Max asked.
Verdona sighed and answered, "No. I can't. The queen forbade us from involving with the lower powers. That is why I was talking you through your dreams."
"Let me out of this dream, I need to get back to them." Max told her.
Verdona spoke again, "Max, you can't. But you and I must play our parts in this way. The plumbers cannot help us. The Birt'vuli even destroyed the Highbreed planet. From recent news, I heard they are on the Moon."
"What happened to the Plumbers?" Max asked.
Verdona replied, "You see the Birt'vuli species are from the planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. They require oxygen like humans. Their planet was destroyed in a global war so they needed a place to stay. All the planets they came were inhospitable. They had devices to alter gases in the atmosphere but apparently one of the leaders suggested them to invade Earth, the only planet with the right amount of oxygen in it. Things will go downhill from there."
Max asked her again, "What do you want me to do?"
"You know the Norse myth of Yggdrasil right? In the myth, the world tree supports different realms all connected to one another."
Max asked, "The actual world tree?"
"No. It's more or less alien kind. The tree itself is a hyperspace gateway leading to numerous realms around the Milky Way. The moon has an entrance to Earth and so does Mercury, Pluto and Anodyne which were all inspirations of the different realms in the folklore. Also Asgard is a Galactic court. Thor must be that Atasian guy."
Max asked, "You want me to find the gateway?"
"Yes" Verdona laughed, "The gateway is in Sundsvall, Sweden. You must protect the gateway or the world will collapse to the invasion."
The realm began to shake and pieces of it began to crumble. Max and Verdona held on to each other not wanting to separate yet again. More and more, it began to crumble. A huge slab of rock slammed into Max's head taking him out of his sleep. He yawned and quickly dressed. He urgently called Ben's cellphone.
He thought, Damn it. Now back to my objectives. Go to Sweden and find the gateway.
As he took out his laser gun, he felt an explosion it front of him. The dust cleared and Max quickly looked. It was fat clown with a Cheshire cat's grin. He was Zombozo. Behind him were two other minions, Frightwig and Thumbskull.
"Zombozo's here!" he shouted as he fired another blast of concentrated explosives at Max's RV. Thumbskull ripped off the door of the RV. Max gasped. He fired the laser gun at Thumbskull who yelled at the pain. Max went to the back of the RV where he saw Zombozo and Frightwig who also had entered the RV.
As Frightwig twirled her hair and attacked, Max fired yet again at Frightwig. Frightwig screeched until Max hit her with a frying pan.
Max looked around and searched, where is my plumber's badge?
"Looking for this?" asked Zombozo holding the badge so that he could see. To his surprise, Frightwig already wrapped her hair around Max while Thumbskull stood up walking to the side of the clown.
Zombozo cackled creepily again, "Let's go, my minions. We have better things to do than lurk around in this mess."
The man left. Thumbskull and Frightwig threw Max aback who hit the kitchen sink. Max groaned at the pain. Two minutes later, the people who attacked them were gone. Max quickly tried to start the thrusters mode.
"Damn it. I've got two problems to handle. I guess first things first." he said. He looked through his shirts. He must have a spare Plumber badge somewhere. One after another, there was none. After much searching, he found one. The badge was shabby and probably broken. It lost most of its luster. Max thought, this would do.
He pressed the badge on the horn on the steering wheel. A honk sounded from the RV. It continued on for two or three minutes. A small flicker of blue light emerged from the steering wheel. The door began to shut even after being broken. Soon the interior of the RV was blue.
A robotic voice spoke, "Salutations to you, Magister of the Earth. I'm Povstání; my sole purpose is to serve you. May I know your destination?"
He answered, "Yes, Sundsvall, Sweden."
"As you wish." The robot replied. The interior began to glow much bluer and the heat was rising. Max bore the heat as it rose. A thunder arose and the RV disappeared from the forest to somewhere else.
Setting: Forever Knights' Castle, Bellwood?
Ben looked at the girl more carefully. It was Gwen. Her animalistic growl was there. Ben did not know what was happening. Gwen began to focus her beams of mana directed at the Knights. She began to mercilessly slaughter the Knights.
"What in the bloody hell is this?" the King questioned, "That Anodite girl."
Ben quickly rushed out of his room. Kevin was still snoozing. He quickly rushed to him. He tried to wake Kevin up while Gwen was still slaughtering the Knights. As a final attempt, Ben kicked Kevin in the chest. Kevin groaned as he looked furiously at Ben.
"Gwen is berserk!" Ben shouted at him.
Kevin looked at her as she kept killing, "You don't say."
Kevin absorbed metal and quickly shaped it into a hammer. Ben looked at him and told him.
"Use a frying pan shape. That's a girl's main weapon."
"She's tearing them apart!" Kevin shouted.
Ben looked at him confused, "Ewww!"
Kevin tried to catch Gwen off-guard while Ben transforms into Big Chill, "Anatomically…"
"That does not help." Ben replied. Big Chill fired a beam of ice trying to freeze Gwen stationary. Gwen summoned a fire spell thawing the ice. She levitated and created an energy fist punching Kevin in the face.
Big Chill shouted at Kevin, "What's happened to her?"
"Did I tell you?" Kevin spoke interrupted by a solid rock sent by Gwen, "about the monster that we fought."
Big Chill replied, "I only heard the details."
"The alien, Birt'vuli used mind-control of Gwen after she became exposed to its' voice. Gwen was out cold after the alien lost control of her powers. I think they are still alive."
Ben asked while trying to shield against Gwen's attacks, "Did you know that Bellwood's destroyed?"
"What?" Kevin looked at Ben, speechless and shocked, "Is my mother here?"
"I don't know." Ben faltered then replied. Kevin let out a growl. In his rage, he leaped and attacked Gwen viciously. Gwen groaned, blood was flowing down from her forehead. Kevin realized what he did. He fell to his knees.
"Oh.", it was the only coherent word he could utter. He looked at her. Fortunately, Gwen's life energy began to heal her. Sadly, it was very slow. Blood was still rolling down from her forehead. Kevin looked at Ben then at Gwen. A rhythmic beat of the heart drew Kevin closer and closer towards her.
Kevin softly kissed Gwen and his tears falling on to her. After his lips left hers, Kevin suddenly began to shudder and convulsed. Ben watched in shock not knowing what to do. Kevin's eyes began to turn pink. Kevin's metal form quickly faded away. Thick blood veins began to take hold of Kevin's body. His eyeballs rolled and he collapsed onto the ground.
Gwen woke up. Her forehead wound was already healed. Gwen looked around trying to remember what happened. She looked and saw the unconscious Kevin with Ben near him.
"What…" she looked at Kevin, "what happened? Why are we in the Forever Knights' castle?"
Ben began to explain her everything. It took a few minutes to crush all of that information inside her head. Gwen looked at Kevin who lay numb and cold under both of them.
"We have to do something." Gwen told Ben, "I can't let him die."
Ben asked her pragmatically, "What do you expect me to do, revive him? He would probably another hell of a monster."
Gwen was flabbergasting. Her boyfriend is going to die. She had to do something. She tried to think of a life spell. There has to be a spell to resurrect Kevin, she thought. She decided to try it later.
"Ben, what are we going to do next?" Gwen asked. Frank and Lily came over hugging Gwen after she had woken up.
Ben told her, "The helicopters will take us to a nearest town. The CDC will lock the place from infecting more citizens."
"…Ben, this is serious. The next phase of the invasion could come any minute even seconds." Frank told Ben grinning, "I learned that from science fiction."
"So far, we've no contacts from any Plumbers except Azmuth." Ben told her, "I am sure we handled one invasion once. We could handle again."
"This is not targeting you, Ben." Gwen explained, "It's the whole world we are talking about."
"And haven't we tried to the whole world?" Ben asked.
"The aliens could be targeting Paris, Mumbai, Beijing or Hong Kong! We'll never know." Gwen looked at him exasperated, "God!"
She sobbed and left back to her bunker. Frank and Lily sighed and looked frowningly at Ben before leaving. Ben's eyes wiggled as they went back to bed.
"Whatever that just happened, someone's got to fix this mishmash that you people made!" King Cyril shouted. No one really listened to him. He let out an "ugh" before leaving.
Meanwhile, Gwen meditated, trying to summon her Book of spells she had stolen from Charmcaster a long time ago, to this bed. She knew she could revive Kevin with one of this spell. Unexpectedly, a pink flash appeared with Verdona in front of Gwen.
Gwen asked, "Grandma?"
"No my dear, I'm calling from Anodyne. It's like telephone but you don't need to press the buttons." Verdona grinned.
"What are you doing here?" she asked as she slowly ascended down to her bed.
Verdona replied, "I'm trying to tell you the consequences of trying to revive Kevin with your spell book."
"And those are?" Gwen asked.
Verdona replied, "Kevin gave his life energy, albeit involuntarily. All magic comes with a price. If you were to succeed in reviving Kevin, let's just say you'll never succeed in fully resurrecting him. He'd be either a zombie, ruthless or devoid of all emotions."
Gwen replied, "But, I've to. This is my only chance."
Verdona looked at her soothingly, "I'm really sorry, Gwen. It's hard to accept a death of a loved one. I know I've been there."
"What do I do?" Gwen asked tears flowing down her cheek. She tried to stop crying about Kevin's lying body on her bed.
Verdona sighed and thought to herself, I can't believe this; I've to reveal the secret of life to my own granddaughter.
"Gwen, if Kevin gave up his natural life to save you, there is a way to revive him back without a resurrection spell." Verdona told her, "Anodyne is full of life energy and souls of hundreds of mortals absorbed by Anodites. Some of them are deposited onto another planet, Emanet. It's a neighboring planet which is ruled by a tyrannical king. There's some chance that Kevin would wound up there."
"What do I do there?" Gwen asked. She didn't expect her grandmother to know much about the intergalactic counterpart of North Korea.
Verdona sighed, "The truth is the place is very oppressive. You won't be amused when you find many Anodites enslaved there."
"How do I get there?"
"There's a temple in Mexico. It once contained the Sword of a Mayan war god, it's crumbled now. The gateway is still there." Verdona clicked her fingers. The room began to shimmer in very vividly. The flash blurred Gwen's eyes and as soon as did open, she saw forest. She remembered the time during the summer vacation when she first came here.
"Ugh, I've to go. The queen's gonna kill me if she finds out." Verdona spoke as her hologram vanished.
Will Gwen be able to find Kevin in time? Will Ben be able to stop the invasion of the Birt'vuli? Time will tell...
