Chapter 11: Kevin 11: Part 1
I Don't Own Ben 10 Or Any Of The Characters
A/N: Hello and welcome to chapter eleven! I know that the last two chapters have been bad for Ben and I promise that this chapter will be giving Ben a break from all of that. In the last chapter, I had mentioned that Kevin 11 will be coming to the story, and I wasn't kidding. Not only will he be referenced, but he will be making his debut in this chapter! Also, a couple chapters ago, Gwen discovered that she had mana abilities. That may make you curious if or not Lucky Girl is going to be in the story. I won't confirm when, but she will be in the story. This chapter is really for Gwen to help Ben cope with his increasingly difficult anger problem. And she'll get help with that (more on that later). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and let's get into it!
Ben
Early The Next Morning...
I let out a gasp of shock, as I sprang up in my bed. I had some kind of twisted nightmare. And Kevin Levin, my best friend since second grade, had been in it. That's all I could remember. I sat there in my bed, exhaling and inhaling at a ridiculous speed, due to the fright of the nightmare.
I noticed my hand was on someone else's hand. I looked over to my right, to see Gwen asleep under the covers, on the other side of the bed. I remembered now, that late last night, she came in while I was getting ready for bed, claiming that I couldn't be alone in my current state.
I argued with her, claimed that I was fine (when in reality, I was distraught), but in the end, she won the arguement. She said that I couldn't be left alone, and wether I liked it or not, she would be at my side 24/7 until I was sane again. And so, that's how we ended up in the same bed.
I let out a sigh, as I kicked off the covers. I flung my legs over the side of the bed and just sat there for a minute, staring at my charging phone. She claimed sleeping with me was for the sake of my mental health. But honestly, I thought that was bullshit. What I thought was, that she returned my romantic feelings one hundred percent, but she wasn't ready to admit it yet.
My phone told me that it was four thirty in the morning. And this wasn't any time to go back to sleep. Letting out a quiet sigh, I got up from my bed and quietly walked to the door, and opened it. I walked out into the hallway, then down the hallway, through the living room and into the kitchen. I needed to get a drink of water, so I got a glass from one of the cabinets.
I began to fill it up, from the refrigerator's water supply, when I heard footsteps coming from the hallway. I took a drink from the glass as I stood in front of the kitchen table, staring down at the newspaper that had been there for days now.
Hero or Menace? What a joke., I thought, as I read the headline again. I heard Gwen walk into the kitchen. Not saying anything, I felt her hug herself against my back a few seconds later. Wrapping her arms around my neck, Gwen yawned before she spoke.
"You doing okay?" she asked.
I put my glass down on the kitchen table.
"What do you think?" I asked, in a monotone voice.
"I think you need to turn around so I can look at you." Gwen said, as she let go of me.
I slowly turned around and looked at her. Her signature red hair, which she had a serious case of bedhead by the way, her emerald colored eyes glowing in the dimly lit room. Well, maybe that's just me being too perceptive.
Now that she could look at me, she stepped closer. She eventually hugged me, and she hugged me tight. Not seeing what else to do, I hugged her back.
"Everything is going to be okay." Gwen said.
"So, you say." I replied. "You're just telling me what I want to hear."
"No. You need to hear that. This isn't the end of the world." Gwen said. "You're my baby cousin, Ben. And I am going to be here for you in your time of need."
I chuckled. "Gwen, you're only a couple minutes older than me." I said, as I pulled away enough to look at her face. "And what I need is you."
I went to kiss her, but she must have seen it coming. She pulled away from the hug, and put her finger on my lips.
"Ben, we talked about that. I told you that you can't do that." she said. "And now is not the time or the place to have the rest of that talk."
I stepped away from her, turning around as I did. I sighed, as I put my hand over my mouth. I turned around, to look at her.
"Is it because we're cousins?" I asked in a calm voice. "Because I already told you that I don't care if we're cousins."
Gwen shook her head. "No." she said, just as calmly as I had spoke. "I already told you that I'm in love with someone else. I'm in love with Alien Guy."
I laughed, shaking my head. "Let me just stop this conversation here, Gwen. I made it clear that I don't believe you. And that's all I'm going to say until we have the rest of this talk. Cool?" I asked.
"Cool." Gwen said.
I smiled. "Alright." I said, as I walked to the basement stairs. "Then there is nothing else that needs to be said about it."
"Where are you going? I told you that you can't be alone!" Gwen called.
"It's four in the morning Gwen!" I called back. "You should be asleep!"
"So should you!"
"Nah, I'll be okay!"
I walked down the stairs and into the game room to play some more Halo, when I noticed the door to the lab open and my key sitting on the carpet. The memories of myself completely destroying yesterday were now fresh in my mind. I stepped into the room and flicked the light on. I sighed, as I fought back tears.
"Is that the lab that Alien Guy told me about?" I heard a voice.
I turned around, to see Gwen behind me. I sniffled, as I nodded.
"You want me to help you clean up?" she asked.
It was a nice of her to offer, I'll admit it. I decided not to question how she knew Alien Guy, besides I knew anyway, and she knew that I didn't want to hear his name anymore than I had to.
"Yeah, but not right now." I said, as I flicked off the lights, closed and locked the door.
"Play some early morning video games?" Gwen asked.
I smiled.
"Yeah, okay. Okay." I said, as I moved to the couch.
Two Days Earlier...
"The Null Void is a multi-dimensional prison deep in the recesses of the plumber base." Grandpa Max replied. "No one gets in or out without the plumbers' say so. Well, that was the case. Until 1986 that is."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Animo. He broke out. Somehow he managed to get out." he said. "And it surprised us when he mutated himself into some kind of giant, with a vastly increased muscle structure as well as razor-sharp talons in place of his fingers."
"How did he do that?" I asked. "And when did he do that?"
"We didn't know at first how he did it. And he did it as soon as he got up. He nearly ended the Plumbers. I don't even recall how we stopped him. A lot of good men and women died that day." Grandpa Max said.
"Grandpa, focus! How did Animo do it?!" I asked.
"We managed to revert him back to his human form. And while he was out, we ran multiple tests on him. Some of them all at once." Grandpa Max recalled. "We discovered something disturbing. That serum he took? It was rewriting his DNA structure. Making him inhuman. We didn't notice that he had woken up, not until he impaled one of our scientists on one of his finger talons."
"Animo killed lots of people." I said.
"That he certainly did." Grandpa Max said. "Anyway, we ended taking the last resort and gassed the observation room that he was in, and put him under. And from then, he was kept in cryogenic suspension, since the Null Void wasn't enough. I guess he must have escaped recently some how, I just don't know how. What's next?"
I grinned. "Simple." I said, as I pointed at the Omnitrix. "What the hell is this thing?"
Present Day
I heard a knock at the door, as I sat on the couch with Gwen, watching T.V. I jumped up before Gwen could even react.
"Don't worry, I'll get it!" I said, as I walked to the door.
I opened it, to see four of friends standing there, all sporting the same grins. My two good friends that I met in sixth grade, J.T. and Cash, J.T. having curly brown hair and Cash having short black hair. J.T was also wearing his Harry Potter glasses, I always called them that, because the lenses were round. My best friend since second grade, Kevin Levin standing with them.
Kevin had his signature near shoulder length black hair and dark brown eyes. Gwen's brother, Kenneth Tennyson was also with them, who was in his very early twenties. No one ever calls him Kenneth though, always Ken. He had the same fiery red hair that Gwen did, but most of the time it was buzz cut.
"Well, how about, cuz? You gonna let us in?" Ken asked.
I was speechless. I didn't even know why they were here, and this was when I noticed that Ken had a back pack on.
Kevin laughed when I failed to speak.
"You'll have to excuse him, Kenny Boy." he said.
"Who could blame him? He's probably so shocked because he wasn't expecting us." Ken said. "Gwen probably didn't tell him about the invitation."
I put up my finger, to tell them to wait just a minute. I closed the door and turned to look at Gwen, who was giving me an innocent look from the couch. I walked over to her, sporting an unhappy look on my face.
"Why are they here? What are they talking about?" I asked.
Gwen frowned at me.
"Ben, they're here for you! You are really not well and you need help! You need friends!" she said. "I invited them all here so we could all game for a while! Maybe it'll help you forget. They need to be here for you, Ben."
"Right. Just like you need to be here for me?" I asked.
"That's not fair Ben. I need to be here for you." Gwen said. "Now go answer the door."
I sighed in defeat and walked to the door. I opened it and before I could say anything, Kevin beat me to it.
"Let us in your house, bitch!" he exclaimed, as he firmly pushed me back inside.
Once I had been pushed back inside, they all stepped inside, as Ken tsked.
"Kevin man, what did I tell you about cussing?" he asked.
"Bite me." Kevin said in return.
"Man, how have you been?" Cash asked, as he stepped up to me.
I grinned as I took his hand and we shook. "I've been fantastic, my dude." I said.
"I bet you've been good." J.T. said, as he stepped over to stand next to Cash.
I let go of Cash's hand before J.T. spoke again.
"You have an extremely hot cousin to hang out with, you follow me?" he asked.
I was angry now and was about to flick J.T. on his forehead, but Ken handled the situation for me.
"J.T., that's my sister you're talking about." he said.
J.T.'s face went pale. "Oh, right. Sorry about that." he said.
"Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. I bet you are." I said. "So, what's up guys? What's brought you here?"
Ken gave me a toothy grin, as he brought his back around so it faced me and opened it up. I looked inside, to see Ken's black Xbox 360 inside, cords, controllers and all.
"Your Xbox?" I asked.
Ken sighed in disappointment, zipped up the flap he had opened and opened another flap and brought out an Xbox Original game. Halo: Combat Evolved. Ken looked back up at me.
"LAN Party. It was Gwen's idea." he said.
I looked back at Gwen, to see her smile. I smiled back at her, as I turned back to Ken, still smiling.
"LAN Party, huh?" I asked.
Ken nodded. "You in?" he asked.
I grinned. "I'll kick your ass." I said.
Ken grinned back at me.
"Not if I kick your ass, first." he said back to me, as he playfully punched me in the shoulder.
"Okay, it's settled!" J.T. said. "Let's get downstairs into the game room, connect the Xboxs and we'll play!"
A couple minutes later, Gwen, Kevin and I were all downstairs. Kevin was off in the corner, tossing darts at the dartboard and Gwen stood with me, while I set up the LAN party for Ken, J.T. and Cash to connect to when they got down here.
"Thanks for this." I whispered to Gwen.
"What was that? You'll, have to speak up. I didn't hear you." Gwen said.
I rolled my eyes, knowing damn well that she had heard me.
"Thank you for this." I said, a little bit louder.
"Of course, cousin. Don't worry about it." Gwen said, as she kissed my cheek.
My face went red as she did this.
She's just trying to mess with me. This means nothing, not even to me.
"Stop it." I said.
"Stop what? Stop what?!" Gwen exclaimed.
Before Gwen and I could get into an arguement, I heard a commotion from the stairs.
"Be careful, J.T.! You'll lose your grip!" I heard Cash exclaim.
"Oh, shut it, dickwad! I got it!" J.T. yelled back.
I put my controller down and ran to the stairs, to see J.T. and Cash carrying the flat screen from the living room down the stairs. I was in shock.
"What it the holy hell is this?" I asked, as they came all the way down the stairs.
"Um, we grabbed the T.V. from upstairs, why?" J.T. asked.
"Would it really have been hard to grab a T.V. from Ken's house? Or from your house, or from Cash's house, or from Kevin's house?" I asked.
"Leave me out of this." Kevin said.
"I didn't want to have to carry it through the living room." J.T. sadid, along with Cash nodding.
"It would have been an additional ten or fifteen feet, idiots." I said. "Besides, you could have borrowed the T.V. from my room!"
J.T. snickered. "Get real Ben! We all know about the box of tissues and magazines under your bed!"
They all started laughing. Kevin started laughing, J.T and Cash began laughing as they put the T.V. down. Even Ken laughed, as he came down the stairs. I looked over at Gwen, who was blushing and doing her best to hold back her laughter. I turned back to J.T., as I began to laugh myself.
"Hey, that's funny!" I said, as I continued laughing. "That's good!"
J.T. looked concerned.
"Um, you're going to hit me now, aren't you?" he asked.
"Oh, you bet, dickface!" I said, right before I punched him in the stomach.
J.T. let out a grunt, as he slid down to the floor, back against the wall.
"Alright, people! let's plugin this T.V. and Xbox in and get on with this thing!" I said.
About fifteen minutes later, we had the T.V., Xbox and the LAN Party set up. Kevin, Gwen and I were playing on the bigger T.V., where I had already set up the LAN Party. And Ken, J.T., and Cash were playing on the smaller flat screen on the other side of the room. I had gotten chairs for them from the storage/laundry room. The game session lasted about three and a half hours. And since there were six of us, we decided to play on Blood Gulch for the whole time.
Kevin and I were constantly switching from sitting on the couch or the floor, while Gwen stuck to the couch most of the time. I would have to say that J.T. is the worst player out of the bunch. I was walking along the cliffs in the game, when I heard him speak from across the room.
"Surprise, motherfucker!" he exclaimed, as his character jumped out of nowhere at me.
Only, his character missed me.
"Oh God!" he exclaimed, as his character fell off the cliff, to which everyone else laughed.
The second game we did was Team Slayer, with Gwen, Kevin and I as a team and the other three as a team. Once we started out, an idea popped into my head. As Kevin and I both stuck together as we searched for Ken and his team, I spoke.
"Hey, Kevin?" I asked.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"You ever wonder why we're here?" I asked.
Kevin looked at me and grinned before speaking again.
"It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it?" he asked. "Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a God watching everything, you know, with a plan for us and stuff? I don't know man, but it keeps me up at night."
"What?" I asked. "I meant why are we out here in this canyon?"
"Oh, um, yeah." Kevin said.
"What was all that stuff about God?" I asked.
"Hmm? Um, nothing." Kevin said.
"You want to talk about it?" I asked.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Seriously, though, why are we here?" I asked. "Far as I can tell, it's just a box canyon, in the middle of nowhere. No way in or out."
"Um hm?" Kevin asked.
"The only reason that we set up a Red Base here is because they have a Blue Base over there. And the only reason they have a Blue Base over there is because we have a Red Base here." I said.
"Yeah, that's because we're fighting each other." Kevin said.
"No, no, but I mean even if we were to pull out today and they were to come take our base, they would have to bases in the middle of a box canyon. Whoop de fucking doo." I said.
"What's up with that anyway?" Kevin asked. "I mean, I signed on to fight some aliens. Next thing, I know, Master Chief blows up the whole Covenant armada, and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, fighting a bunch of Blue guys."
"What the fuck are you guys talking about?" Gwen asked.
"Red vs. Blue references, Gwen." I said.
"What's that?" Gwen asked.
"Betrayal!" the game announcer exclaimed, as I killed Gwen's in game character.
"What the hell?!" Gwen exclaimed.
"That's for not knowing what Red Vs. Blue is." I said, right before Kevin and I cracked up laughing.
We looked around the entire canyon of the map and couldn't find the enemy team. We eventually found them in a cave, armed to the teeth with Rocket Launchers.
"Run! Women and children last!" I exclaimed, as I ran away, barely missing a rocket that killed both of my team members.
Some how, I don't know how, we won the game.
One Hour Later...
Kevin and I took a break from the gaming, and went outside to get a breath of fresh air. Besides, he said it was time for him to be getting home.
Once we were outside, we were talking about something, I don't remember what, when Kevin brought up the most weird thing.
"Give it up, Alien Guy." he said. "I know your secret, Ben."
I laughed, sort of nerviously. "What are you talking about, Kevin?" I asked.
"I know you're Alien Guy, Ben." he said.
"How? How do you know?" I asked.
"You talked about wanting to be a hero all through grade school." he said. "And plus, you were always conveniently not around whenever Alien Guy was around. Face it Ben, I know your secret."
"You caught me." I said. "But you can't tell Gwen, or any of them in there. Got it?"
"Oh, I don't want to tell them." Kevin said. "I want to get in on the action. Whatever makes you do that alien thing, I want a piece of it."
"No. No, absolutely not. Out of the question." I said.
"Okay, that's fine. We had a few good games today, right?" he asked, as he put out his hand.
"Right." I said, as I took his hand and shook it.
I stepped back into the house.
"You sure you gotta go?" I asked. "Can't stay for another game?"
He shook his head.
"No, I got to go." he said. "Besides, I can always just tell Gwen your secret at another time..."
I don't know what came over me next, but I stepped back outside and pushed Kevin over.
"Okay, seriously." I said. "Do you want this to be your last day on Earth?"
Kevin looked angry at first, but he didn't do anything. Just then, it began to thunder.
"No," Kevin said, as he looked up at the sky. "but you bring up a good point."
I raised my eyebrow, as I stepped back inside. Kevin slowly looked back at me, as he got up.
"You be nice to those people in there, because you never know when it's going to be their last day." Kevin said. "Because just like that-" He snapped his fingers. "-they could be gone."
I just stared at him, regarding his ominous message.
"Like you said, you never know. So, you be nice to those people in there. You treat them well, as if it were their last day." he said.
My smile had long since disappeared, replaced with just a cold look.
"You do the same." I said, before shutting the door with force.
I looked at him, as he walked down my driveway. For a second, he turned back to look at the door. And through the glass, I saw it.
I saw his eyes. His green eyes. But, wait. Something was wrong. Kevin had dark brown eyes. So, why were his eyes green now?
A/N: So, what did ya'll think? As for the chapter title being Kevin 11: Part 1? Since this is chapter eleven, calling the chapter Kevin 11 was just too tempting. So, what do you think of Ben's (if just brief) return of happiness? What about the introduction of the other characters? What do you think of Gwen's method of helping him cope with his anger? What of Kevin's message at the end of the chapter? Well, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! If you did, please favorite and follow this story! If you want to give me your opinion, post a review or PM me. I'm going to go though, so have a fantastic day, and bye.