Chapter 11: Hero Time?
Chapter 11! That's my lucky number, you know! And actually, now that I think about it… my real name starts with a K…. and my last name starts with a B… so maybe it's destiny that I should love Bevin! (Or maybe it's just hot and everyone should like it).
Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10.
Kevin pulled Ben with him, dodging the blow given by his older self, the pale hand crashed through the wall, curling bits of metal into the white skin and sending thick streams of red dripping down to his elbow. The older version sneered, struggling to pull his hand out from the wall, with a snarl, the hand was released and the body turned back to face the younger versions.
"I don't understand," Ben said as Kevin pushed him behind his body, "why do you want to kill me?"
The brunette received his answer as the older form began to mutate, changing into a sickening design of creatures, a different form than he had ever seen before. The new form charged again, grabbing Kevin's neck with a thick black tendril and tightening his grasp, sending electric green bolts whizzing about. It wasn't after Ben, it was after his younger self.
"You'll ruin everything!" The deep voice of the monster snarled and Kevin struggled against him.
"No!" Ben ran to Kevin and started pounding on the mutated arm that held him, "You don't understand!"
"Shut up! Shut up!" the voice was sickening, a deep and raspy whisper that reflected the desperation of the creature. The mutant turned his flaming jagged face on the brunette and hissed, "do you want to die?!"
Kevin's struggled, trying to transform but unable to do so as his lips turned purple and he began to lose his vision.
Ben twisted the omnitrix, selecting the first silhouette that came up and attacking the mutated Kevin. His assault was successful, the mutated form released the pale body, which crumpled to the ground and did not move.
The door burst open and Devlin and Kenny ran inside. The dark haired boy looked up at the large mutated form of his father and snarled.
"I knew better than to trust you." His small form mutated also, changing into yet another combination of alien creatures and charging at his father. Kenny followed suit, changing into Atomix and attacking the large mutant form.
Ben ran to the unconscious body of his friend, changing back into his human form as he fell to his knees and shook the lifeless weight.
"Kevin!" Ben clawed at the black fabric, his eyes tearing up when Kevin didn't respond.
"Stay out of my way!" Kevin 11000's voice boomed as he spewed yellow goop over the two teens that were fighting him. With a splat, they hit the wall, grunting as they tried to escape the sticky prison.
"Dad!" Kenny cried to Ben, who turned around to face the huge monster.
"Stand aside," Kevin 11000's voice hissed as he returned to his human form, his eyes were wild as they looked past Ben at his former self.
"No!" Ben threw his arms out to shield Kevin's body. "You don't have to do this!"
"It's me or you Benji," The older body was moving closer, the murderous glint more apparent, "we both know what the greater good needs."
"No sacrifices," Ben said quietly.
"Kill him!" Devlin screamed to Ben as he struggled in the messy trap.
Ben held strong, his eyes following older Kevin as his body morphed back into the twisted figure, knocking Ben away with one of his many arms and bending over to pulverize the unmoving body with his sharp, flaming teeth.
The brunette hero dove in once again, crying as his left arm was seared by the blistering flames inside the mutant's mouth. Ben screamed at the pain but refused to pull back, even as the flames traveled up his arm, licking away at the skin until singed bits of flesh curled away. He turned his face away, shutting his eyes tightly to try and block out the anguish that he felt.
"What a mess!" A calm voice rang out. Ben opened his eyes and looked up to the form of the ageless professor. He was holding his watch in his hand and studying it closely. "Give a boy a false prophecy and what does he do? He makes it real! What a mess, indeed!"
"Professor Paradox?" Ben asked, glancing around at the others and finding them frozen in time. "What's going on?"
"First things first, boy. Get out of his mouth, it's bad manners."
Ben cringed as he pulled his bloody arm out of the time-frozen mutant's mouth and stood to face the man in the lab coat.
"Mind telling me what's going on?" Ben said angrily. "Like why you lied to all of us?"
"To save the world, of course," Paradox shrugged as if it were a perfectly natural statement- which for him it often was. "The world needs heroes, Ben. And you can't always count on them to pop up on their own."
"So you would make us all suffer for it?" Ben yelled.
"All heroes suffer, Ben. It's what they do. You claim to fight without sacrifices, but that's all you've been doing. Think of everything you've given up to be a hero. You've sacrificed your whole life for it!"
"My life? Fine." Ben glared. "But I won't give up Kevin's."
"You don't have to." Gwendolyn appeared in a flash of hazy light; as usual, she seemed to be enjoying herself, "The rip worked. The future is changed." She smiled and then added in her private afterthought, "I like it better this way."
Paradox looked down at his pocket-watch and smiled, "leave it to an energy being to think outside temporal conventions."
Gwendolyn smiled too, reaching into the professor's white lab coat and pulling out a red gumball. "Mine," she said simply as she plopped it in her mouth.
"So, what? All this for nothing?" Ben sneered as he tried to sooth his badly burned skin.
"Hardly all for nothing." The professor rebutted, "thanks to your cousin here, you can have your cake and eat it too."
Gwendolyn nodded as she blew a bubble. She sucked the gum back into her mouth before speaking as she toyed with her earring, "I'll return the kids back to my time."
"What about-" Ben turned to the huge mutated form behind him to find that it was gone.
"Taken care of," Paradox said, closing his pocket-watch and looking towards Gwendolyn. "Now if you wouldn't mind taking them back to their time?" He pointed towards the two teens that began screaming as they exited the time-pocket and joined the normal time stream.
Kenny and Devlin's screams faded when they saw the two adult forms standing where the large mutant had been.
"What happened?" Kenny asked.
"All will be revealed- but not by me. I'm off to save the world in another day." The professor turned and began to walk into the glowing blue light of eternity, jumping slightly when the red-headed Anodite gave his rump a fast pinch. He turned and looked at her indignantly while she gave him a wink and a wave.
"He's got some mana, that one," Gwendolyn raised an eyebrow as he disappeared into the light. She then turned to her cousin to address his wounds, moving her hands over the bloody spots and healing them with a brilliant pink light.
"That will still hurt for a bit," she warned, "but it shouldn't scar, tell Kevin to clean it properly when he wakes up." She turned to the teens that were still glued to the wall, "Come on boys, I'm taking you home. Things may be a bit different than you remember."
"We can't just leave Ben with that thing!" Devlin had freed one of his hands and he was pointing accusingly at his young father's unconscious form.
"That's no way to speak to your father," Gwendolyn tsk, tsked as she waved the goop away with her energy, freeing the two young teens. "There's still so much you need to know before we return home… Well, I'll tell you on the way there." She waved her hand and opened a portal beneath them. They both let out a startled yelp as they fell, the red-head fast behind them, chatting up a storm about all that had gone on.
Ben turned to Kevin, placing his hand on his chest and feeling the steady heart-beat drumming under it. He let out a long sigh of relief and kissed the pale forehead before he struggled to his feet.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ (In the future… again.)
"They'll be here soon, I think." Ben said as he straightened Kevin's tie. The pale man stood up straight and brushed the long black ponytail over his shoulder. "Don't look so scared," the hero joked, sliding his hand over the black cloth of his partner's pants, "our room is sound-proof."
Kevin smiled nervously and leaned into the kiss offered by the brunette. He stopped when he felt the energy around him fluctuate.
"Pardon me for interrupting," Kevin's eye twitched when he heard the professor's voice. "But I'm told apologies are in order."
"A little late, don't you think?" Ben raised his eyebrows and discreetly removed his hand from Kevin's body.
"Oh, that's my fault," Gwendolyn waved as she appeared from behind the professor, giving him another goose pinch that he reacted with a painfully annoyed expression. "I wanted to meet me when I got here and say hello to the kids."
"And I was hoping that you could take your cousin off my hands," the professor said in a huff, "she's been following me through several centuries and- oh, would you stop that?!" the red-head only chuckled as he swatted her hand away from his rump.
"About that," Kevin smiled wickedly, "We're going to be pretty busy raising two teen-aged heroes. We've got to think about the greater good here, doc. I don't think we'll have much time to help you out."
"He's right," Ben smirked at the loss of hope in the professor's eyes and wrapped his arm around his lover. "Time is just not on our sides."
Another flash of light appeared and three teens fell onto the floor while the red headed woman landed gracefully on her feet with a smile, "And that's where the gumballs come from." She turned to see the two adult lovers looking back at the children with curiosity and herself waving excitedly at… herself. "Oh, hello everyone."
The Gwendolyns had a good conversation while everyone else shuffled about uneasily. Devlin stayed behind Kenny while Gwen marched up to her father and demanded that she be allowed to do all her shopping in the past. Kevin looked at the two boys, trying to see if his son was any warmer to him after their last encounter. He felt a pang of disappointment when he caught the boy's expression and realized nothing had changed. They still had a long way to go.
****
Kenny landed on the giant statue of Ben Ten-Thousand and sat next to his adopted brother. He let out a low humm, "I see they've got one of your dad too."
Devlin scowled. He didn't care if his father had a giant statue next to Ben's, he promised himself that he would never be fooled by the man again and, unlike his father, he kept the promises he made.
"You've got to give him a chance," Kenny said, turning his head to look at their city.
"Growing up, Dad always used to lock me out of the null void. I'm just returning the favor…. He doesn't deserve to be treated like this after what he did. Maybe he didn't do it in this timeline, but he did in the other one. How can you just forgive him after you saw what he was capable of? He tried to kill your dad!"
Kenny was silent for a long moment while Devlin tried to calm his angry breath.
"I think you're wrong," Kenny said softly, "I don't think that's what he was trying to do at all."
Devlin sneered, "as soon as he found out that I'd met you, he came up with a plan to escape and trash your house. I thought it would be fun, so I went along with it. But as soon as he saw the opportunity to really hurt your dad, he took it. He's a bad guy, Kenny! He'll betray-"
"I think he did it because he didn't want you to spend your life locked up in the Null Void with him."
"Then why'd he go through all the trouble of attacking you guys?"
"Because it made us trust you…. It gave you the chance to do the right thing. And it got you mad enough not to try and let him out. I think he was just trying to do what's best for you while still keeping his distance from my dad."
Both sat in silence as Devlin considered the possibility of his brother's words. Considering the past few days they'd had, it seemed quite within the realm of feasibility.
"Now come on," Kenny said as he stood to his feet and held his hand out to his brother, "your dad is going to take us for a ride in his new car."
Devlin pursed his lips anxiously, trying to decide if it was worth giving his only blood relation a second chance. His pale hand accepted the outreached palm of his best friend and he was lifted to his feet as a floating green car hovered down to great them.
Kevin was driving and Ben waved happily from the passenger's seat, beckoning for the boys to join them. Devlin looked down and glared slightly, fighting his better judgment to run as Kenny pulled him into the car.
"Where to?" the black-haired man asked, looking at the two boys through the rear-view mirror.
"Smoothies," Ben said. It was not a suggestion.
Kenny happily agreed and Devlin gave an uncaring shrug- which his father took as a thrilled yes. He put the car in gear and sped off into the busy city.
Oh my, oh my! Paradox you're in for it now! Anodite Gwen likes you! I have to admit I surprised myself a bit there. I hadn't thought of pairing the two until it suddenly happened. But I love the idea of Gwendolyn following/stalking Paradox through time and harassing his butt-cheeks! Paradox is usually so chipper so giving him something to be annoyed at makes me really happy! (Sadist at heart).
One more chapter to go! Who wants a lemon? Keep in mind that if I get reviews, I'm more likely to post early!
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