Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or its sequels, spin-offs and related characters. All is the property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
If It Can't Break Out of It's Shell
Chapter Twenty-One: ...And Its All Done
Gwendolyn let him sleep on the floor again. Kevin knew he was on the floor because it was cold and he felt stiff and sore.
A soft hand caressed down the side of his face and Kevin opened his eyes to see his wife gazing down at him.
"Hey, Creepy." She whispered.
"Hey." He groaned back.
Kevin pushed himself up to a sitting position and looked around at the magic circle. He flexed his shoulders, then raised his arms over his head in an attempt to stretched his back. Something felt different. But it didn't look like anything in the room had changed. Well... his proto-tech armor was hanging up in a corner since it couldn't be put in a laundry room dryer. But other than that, nothing much had changed since Gwendolyn forced him into a pair of Friedkin pajama pants and commanded him into the circle. So, if it wasn't something in the library that had changed... was it something in... him?
"I feel different." He informed her.
"Different how?" Gwendolyn asked.
Kevin looked down at his hands, trying to apply a word to the 'something different' he was feeling. Weaker. Tired. Empty. Finally, he settled on... "Stable. I feel stable."
She smiled at him. Satisfied. "Are ya hungry? Wanna go out to eat?"
"Out?" The Osmosian blinked at her. "You'll let me out."
Leaning forward on her knees, Gwendolyn closed the space space between them and pressed her lips to his in a tender kiss. Her lips parting to invite him in. Not fully understanding, but appreciating the affection all the same, Kevin allowed his tongue to slither out. Her tongue slid over his, caressing and tasting. When their lips parted again, a string of saliva dripped between them, but neither seemed concerned or made an effort to wipe it away.
"We're done, Baby." She told him. "I got them all. You're back to-" she did not use the word 'normal' "-your baseline energy level."
"Oh." He looked back down at his hands. So that was why he felt so weak, tired, empty, and... stable. This was a good thing. So, why was he suddenly so apprehensive. "What happens now."
Gwendolyn pursed her lips. That pink lipstick of hers flattening into a line of internal conflict. She knew what he was really asked. 'What happens with you and I? What Happens with Devlin?' Now that he was sane and himself again, Kevin understood exactly what it was he did to their son. How he raised the boy, and how he betrayed him. Kevin knew how much his son would distrust him and how difficult it would be for Gwendolyn to invite him back into her life if her son didn't want him around.
"We'll start with breakfast." Gwendolyn stood, offering him a hand up.
…
Kai took Devlin to his therapist appointment and sat with him in the waiting room until he was called in. Admittedly, she hadn't known the boy very long, but she had known Kevin. She imagined leaving the building and walking out on hs appointment the moment he was no longer being supervised was exactly the thing the Osmosian would have done. To keep the younger one from doing the same thing, Kai stayed with the boy until he was called in.
Devlin grumbled, glared at Kai, then stood up and joined Dr. Borges.
He sat down on the overly comfortable couch and crossed his arms over his chest.
Dr. Borges sat patiently.
Devlin wondered if they were going to play that game again, the game he didn't understand the rules to. The one where she talked first, but he still lost. He tapped his fingers on his arms. "Do you know about my parents? Do you know who they are."
"Why's it important that I know about your parents." She asked, that irritatingly patient look on her face. "I'm here for you. Your parents have nothing to do with what we talk about here."
He tapped his fingers on his arms again, glaring at her. "What does it mean when a woman keeps going back to a man that has consistently proven to be bad for her in every possible meaning of the word?"
"That could mean any number of things. I'd have to talk to the woman to know." Borges informed him. "Is this woman hypothetical or someone you know?"
"Oh, don't play the dumbass." Devlin snapped, uncrossing his arms, his hands balling into fists. "You know very well who I'm talking about. You know who I am. You know who my mother is and who- -what my father is."
Borges leaned forward, interested, resting her chin her hands. "Why don't you tell me about your parents, Devlin."
His eyes narrowed at her. Why would he have to tell her about his parents? Who in the hell didn't know who the High Magus Gwendolyn Tennyson was? Who hadn't heard of the infamous Kevin 11,000? What rock had she been living under? What planet was that rock on? Clearly, Dr. Borges had been living under a rock on Pluto with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears if she didn't know who either Gwendolyn Tennyson or Kevin Levin were.
"You should know who my parents are." The Osmosian informed her flatly, recrossing his arms back over his chest and once again tapping his fingers on her arms.
That patient expression was back. "Whether or not I know who they are is immaterial. I want you to tell me about them. Your impressions of them. How they make you feel."
Devlin continued to glare at her, tapping his fingers on his arms.
Dr. Borges waited.
Devlin's eyes flicked up to the clock. It was barely ten minutes into their hour. That was a long time to just sit and stare someone down. He tried it the first time and still ended up letting slip more than he wanted to. This time he would be more careful about what he said.
"I like my mother." He said. Paused. Thought about if he wanted to say more. Decided it was best if he left it at that.
Anything more and he would start going into how he disapproved of how she still loved his father. After everything that happened between them, everything he did to her, and how he betrayed her... she really should not still be in love with him. It was actually legitimately worrying. Devlin was honestly, actually, and truly concerned for his mother.
"It must have been shocking for you." Borges asserted. "Learning that the High Magus was your mother. How did that make you feel?"
"So, you do know about my parents." The Osmosian growled at her, feeling like he'd once again been manipulated.
"Yes, but do you understand why its important for me to hear about your parents from you?" She asked.
Devlin shifted his weight on the couch, once again glaring at her. This had to be some sort of trap.
"Why don't you tell me about your father." Borges suggested.
The Osmosian offered her a smug smile. "Ya know, someone told me recently, you might get what you're looking for, but you might decide its not really want you want." He told her, remembering Scruffy the Janitor from Friedkin -the one his mother called Bezel. "Are you sure you really wanna know about my father?"
"I want to know about your relationship with your father." She clarified. "And how it still affects you now that you're living with your mother."
For the first time since his mother told him he had to attend therapy, Devlin actually considered walking out. Leaving the room and the building, and just quitting his counseling all together. Fuck school! He never seemed to need it before. He didn't need it now. Devlin already knew all he needed to know. He learned by doing.
...With his father.
But the things Kevin taught him weren't right. Or, at least, not correct for the life he was trying to live now. His father taugth hm how to survive, live, and thrive in an entirely different kind of world, for an entirely different kind of life. Those lessons couldn't be transferred or translated over to how he was living now, with his mother. A quiet and -comparatively speaking- peaceful life. With a house and a dog. School on weekdays (if they ever let him back in) and extracurriculars like alien fighting on the weekends. It sounded like a nice life, actually. But Devlin wouldn't get to live it if he couldn't identify and weed out the lessons and behaviors he learned under his father that could ruin it.
In an uncomfortable moment of glaring clarity, he realized that was what Dr. Borges wanted. That was why she wanted to hear about his parents from him -even though she already knew who they were. That was the game she was playing. She was trying to identify what made him different. What made him not fit in with the life he was supposed to be living now. That was why Devlin didn't like her from the moment he met her.
She was trying to dissect him.
Except, now, thanks to his epiphany, he understood that that was exactly what he needed. To be dissected. Operated on. Cut up into tiny pieces and the bad parts taken out. Skinned, gutted, and dressed.
Finally, after a prolonged pause, Devlin uncrossed his arms and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. It was as close to curling up in a ball as he could get without laying down. "Kevin Levin raised me."
And he stopped there.
Kevin Levin raised him. For his entire life prior to meeting Kenny, Ben, and Gwendolyn, Kevin was all the family Devlin had ever known. Yeah, he wasn't exactly the greatest family in the world. Yeah, Kevin was negligent at best, and downright abusive at worst -if not physically abusive, than emotionally abusive- but he was still the guy who raised Devlin. He was the one to teach the younger Osmosian how to control his powers, and after he could control them, how to use his powers. As reluctant as he was to admit it, as much as he resented the fact, Devlin had to admit that Kevin made him the person he was.
"I am what I am-" a pause to examine his word choice "-who I am because of him."
"And how do you feel about that?" Asked Dr. Borges.
The Osmosian just blinked at her. "What do you mean."
"You say you are the person you are because he raised you." She elaborated. "I'm sure living without him these past few months has been an adjustment. Kevin is what's familiar to you, even if he might not be healthy for you. Do you miss him? Do you still want him in your life?"
…
Kevin couldn't decide if the stares he and Gwendolyn were getting as they sat in the campus canteen were because they recognized him as Kevin 11,000 or her as the High Magus. They were collage students attending a magic school, and Gwendolyn was basically Minister of Magic (or whatever), so the latter was the more likely. But, still, collage students did still watch the news and Kevin had been on it -in one form or another.
"Do you feel uncomfortable?" Gwendolyn asked over a cup of coffee. "If you're not ready to be around people we can take this back to my library."
The Osmosian looked around the crowded canteen. The people that had been watching their table looked away. But not everyone had been staring at them. Most were actually minding their own business. Talking to their friends, reading books, typing on iPads, doing homework. Normal collage stuff. It was awkward being out and about among normal people again. But he could deal with it. As uncomfortable as it was to be in a crowded room, it was less uncomfortable than being back in the dungeon he'd been living in for the past month.
Kevin stabbed a meat-like breakfast sausage with his fork. "This is fine." He said, shoving the sausage in his mouth and speaking as he chewed. "I'm fine."
"Good, because I also wanted to talk." She informed him. "Are you ready to talk or do you need more time?"
"Talk about what...?" The Osmosian asked slowly.
There could be any number of things she would want to talk about now that he was back to his baseline level of sanity again. The night he left. Why he did it. How he raised Devlin alone without her input. Why Devlin might want him dead instead of locked up.
"You can stay in my library as long as you need." Gwendolyn began. "Until you get a place of your own, or whatever you else you need to get back on your feet. The utilities are provided by the campus, and Ben and I can help you out with food and clothing. When you feel up to it, Grandpa Max will arrange for you to be evaluated to see if you're fit to be reinstated to your old job and rank with the Plumbers."
Kevin paused, staring at her. His fork hovering forgotten between his plate and his mouth.
"Hold up." He said. "Go back to the part about 'a place of my own'. What happened to our house?"
"You mean my house." She corrected. Gwendolyn set her coffee mug down with a sigh. Resting her chin in her hands, she looked him directly in the eyes. "Kevin, listen... You're better now. I know you're better now because I made you better. You're back at your baseline energy level, your emotions as stable, and you clearly understand that your actions have consequences. So, I hope you understand that one of the consequences of your actions is that I don't trust you to be around my son anymore."
He hesitated a moment before replying, second guessing his words. "Because... because I took him away, or because he wants to kill me."
"To be fair, both reasons are valid." She informed him. "But actually, its because of the lasting emotional and psychological damage you did to him. I know you weren't in your right mind, and Devlin might know that too. But he's still a child and I can see that knowing something and understanding something are two very different things for him. He hates you -and from what little I understand, he has good reason to. I'm not going to make my son live with someone he hates. So you have to find a place of your own."
Kevin slammed his form down on the table -and his fist along with it. "You mean after all that pain, torture, and bullshit we just went through to get me back this way, I don't even get to be with you!" He bolted to his feet, chair falling backwards from the force of the sudden motion. "What kind of fucking bullshit is this!?"
"Please calm down." Gwendolyn muttered. She did not jump to her feet or raise her voice. "You cannot be surprised by this. What did you think it was gonna be like once we finished? Did you honestly think you would just move back in with me? That you, Devlin, and I would suddenly become a happy, well-adjusted family? After how you traumatized Devlin, that's just not possible."
"So, I'm being kicked out of my own house!" He snarled.
"It was never your house." She reminded him. It was her parents' house, and her parents gave it to her. The property was in her name, not their names. "And you haven't lived there in a decade anyway. You're not being 'kicked out', I'm just not letting you back in."
"What the hell, Babe!?"
Now everyone in the canteen was staring at him. Not because he was Kevin 11,000, or because he was sitting with the High Magus, but because he was making a scene.
"Kevin, if you're not going to calm down, then can you at least lower your voice." Gwendolyn, at least, was remaining calm.
The Osmosian spun around, trying to fix every other person in the canteen with his unique and terrifying glare. "What the hell are you all staring at? Huh! You never seen and guy fight with his wife before? Mind your own goddamn business!"
With a sigh, Gwendolyn finally stood. She came around to the other side of the table and grabbed her husband by the hand. Maybe it really was just a little too soon to be letting him out of the library and taking him out where there were other people. "That's it. We're going."
She pulled on his arm, trying to drag him away from the table.
"Go where?" He snarled. "Back to that basement you've been keeping me in?"
"Yes." She hissed without sympathy. "You're not fit to be around people just yet."
Gwendolyn pulled Kevin out of the canteen and because he also didn't want to be stared at by strangers, the Osmosian let her. She dragged her husband back across the quad, on a rout back to the library. Kevin stopped them about halfway across the grass. As much as he didn't want to be stared at by strangers, he wasn't ready to be thrown back in there. He missed the fresh air and open sky.
"Wait. Please." He said, halting in his steps and digging his heels in. "I'll be calm. Just don't make me go back in there yet."
Gwendolyn likewise paused, turning around to look at him. Kevin was avoiding her eyes, looking off to the side and slightingly down. Studying the trample patterns in the grass, or the unraked leaves that Bezel hadn't collected. He looked so vulnerable and insecure -unlike just a few short moments ago when he was so hostile and aggressive.
She closed the space between them, taking both his hands in hers and leaning up to kiss him.
"Okay." She muttered to his bottom lip. "Okay, we don't have to go back in just yet. Do you wanna sit down?"
She sank to sit on the grass, patting the spot next to her for him to follow suit. Kevin crumpled to the ground next to her with a graceless thump. He looked up at the sky, the blue Earth-sky mottled by light and fluffy white clouds. Between his weeks spent under the library, months spent in the Null Void, and years spent in space, it felt like a lifetime since the Osmosian had seen the sky. He glanced back at Gwendolyn. Even when she was mad at him, she was still sympathetic and understanding. She really was too good for him. Kevin did not deserve her.
"A place of my own, huh." He muttered, speaking more to himself than to her. "I guess it wouldn't be all that different than when I had to find my own place after Ragnarok demolished my mom's place."
Gwendolyn took his hand in hers. "And it wouldn't be forever. Eventually, Devlin will want to move back out. Go to collage, or the Plumbers Academy, or just get his own place to have dates over for the night. If you still want to by then, you can move back in then."
"Seems like an awful long time to wait." Kevin grumbled.
"Yeah, well, I had to wait eleven years to get my son back and you gave him back to me broken." She snapped, without an ounce of sympathy. "You can wait another seven to ten years for him to reach the age of majority and decide he wants his own space."
"Or, you could stop sheltering him, let me move back in, and he and I can reconcile in our own way." The Osmosian suggested. After all, he did raise Devlin -true he wasn't exactly in his right mind for most of that time- but the boy had technically known him longer than Gwendolyn. They knew each others habits and moods. What upset each other, and how to diffuse each others tempers. It made more sense to Kevin for him to be in the house with Devlin and Gwendolyn. Then again, he also just plain wanted to be able to live with his wife again.
"Devlin thinks you'd be better off dead." Gwendolyn reminded him.
"He'll get over that." Kevin brushed off her concern. It was nice that even when mad at him she still worried about him.
"I mean, you fucked him up so badly that he doesn't even have Stockholm Syndrome for you." She clarified, wanting him to understand that her concerns weren't for his physical well-being, but rather her son's mental and emotional state. "You hurt our son so much that he flat out said, since no prison can hold you, we should just kill you outright. He doesn't see you as an uncommonly strict parent, or hard authority figure, Kevin. Devlin sees you as an enemy -and that's telling of just how much damage you did to him. I don't think that damage can be reconciled. So, for everyone, I'm not gonna let you move back in."
He glared at her. Angry that she was choosing someone else over him. Resentful of their son for her loving him more than Kevin. Frustrated after being away from her for so long and now that they were together again they weren't actually allowed to be together. His hands balled into fists, pulling up tufts of grass.
She closed the space between them and gave him a placating kiss on the lips. "Like you said, it won't be all that different from when you had to find your own place after Ragnarok destroyed your mother's house." She reminded him. "And we still found time and ways to be together then."
This was true.
Kevin's memory played a quick clip show highlights from their underages escapades. He flushed noticeably, remembering how all that sneaking around and avoiding her parents, his mother, and Ben just added an extra layer of excitement to their couplings.
"I could get used to it again." He finally conceded.
Gwendolyn leaned in and kissed him again. "Good. 'Cause I was really looking forward to sleeping with you again." If Kevin had anything to reply to that, he didn't get to say it because she kissed him again. Deeper this time. Her tongue darting into his mouth, coaxing his tongue to slide into hers. She didn't pull away again until the Osmosian moaned into the kiss. "I've still got some time before I have to picked Devlin up from his appointment... We could do more than kiss."
"I think I'm ready to go back into the library now." Kevin managed to gasp back.
Smiling, Gwendolyn stood. Taking Kevin by the hand again, she lead him back to the library.
"Ya know, there's something I still don't know." She said once they were inside. Where it was quiet, dark... private.
"About what?" Kevin pulled her close, flushing her body against his, those flannel pajama pants doing nothing to hide just how excited he was to finally be able to 'do more than kiss' with her. "You know everything, Babe."
"About the night you took Devlin." She whispered, effectively bringing any possibility of lovemaking to a grinding halt. "I don't know what happened after I passed out."
Kevin pulled away, any arousal he he had evaporating. "Babe... do we have to talk about that now? I don't- I'm not exactly proud of my actions back then."
…
The car pulled into the ship yards, tires screeching and did not stop until he was practically about to ram into the landing treads of the Rust Bucket. That was about when Servantis slammed on the breaks.
He checked his rearview mirror to see if Kevin had managed to keep up with him -or if he'd even bothered to follow him at all. Now that the boy was removed from the household, would the Osmosian even care where Servantis took him or what happened to him? If he were still sane... probably. After all, his precious Gwendolyn would never forgive him if he allowed anything terrible to befall the child. But a half-insane Kevin running off an overdose of Omnitrix energy... that was another matter entirely.
Ignoring Devlin's cries -the infant had been crying since they left the house- Servantis got out of the car for an unhindered view of the ship yard entrance. The sky was clear, not even a cloud to obscure visibility, but there was no Osmosian.
Then something landed on the roof of the car next to him.
With a start -and a bit of a jump that the Rooter would never admit to- he wheeled around. Sort of fading into the visible spectrum, Kevin appeared perching on top of his car, staring at Servantis with his mismatched inhuman eyes.
"Not this ship." He said.
The Rust Bucket had a tracker.
Kevin hopped down from the roof of the car, all his limbs and parts moving in a way that did not seem natural. Like they weren't synchronized properly. Like he didn't have full control. Servantis raised an eyebrow at him.
"What!?" Snarled the Osmosian.
"How do you feel?" The former-Proctor asked him.
"Fine!" A pause. "The same. The same as every time."
With more care than his lumbering, off balanced, and mismatched body, and foul mood would imply, Kevin pulled open the door to the back seat. All that care he had with the car vanished the moment the Osmosian reached into unlatch the belts holding Devlin in his carseat. He pulled the baby out of the car and held him, not in his actual arms, but in that odd -and slightly off putting- elbow tentacle.
"Gawd, shut-up you obnoxious little asshole." He growled at the infant.
"Perhaps if you attempted to change back to your human form." Servantis suggested, not sure if it was even possible in his current state with his energy levels as they were. The former-Proctor seemed to remember Kevin easily transforming back into his natural human shape when he thwarted his plans to destroy Ben Tennyson and returned all the Amalgams to themselves. But that was years ago... Kevin was a lot younger then and a loss less angr- Kevin was a lot younger then. "Having his father hold him in a form that's familiar shape might aid in calming him."
A low growl rumbled up from the Osmosian's throat and for a moment Servantis wondered if Kevin was going to attack him. One never really could exactly predict what an Osmosian overloaded with energy might do. Hell! Even perfectly sane and normal, Servantis never knew what Kevin might do. Even at his baseline the man was mercurial by nature.
But he didn't. Instead, he thrust the baby into Servantis' unprepared arms. The older man staggered under the weight of the mutant child, the wind knocked out of him.
"Hold him for me." Kevin commanded. "I need to concentrate."
Hefting Devlin in his arms and transferring some of the weight to his hip, the former-Proctor nodded. Concentration and control always had been uphill battles for Kevin.
He exhaled slowly, the Osmosian's breath coming out as a small puff of smoke with just the slightest crackling of embers. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled again. Then...
Absolutely nothing happened for several moments.
Servantis shifted Devlin to his other hip and regarded Kevin critically, wondering if the younger man wasn't ever trying to change back and had just fallen asleep on his feet. Though, he couldn't imagine how anyone could sleep with all the noise Devlin was making.
Then Kevin groaned.
His whole body trembling.
The Osmosian collapsed to his knees.
The fingers and claws of all three of his arms that had hands dug scratches into the asphalt of the ship yard driveway. Kevin grit his teeth against some strain on his body. Saliva dripping from his mouth and sizzling like acid on the ground. He cursed, shoulders tight with pain. His shoulders would be in pain, the Lepidopterran wings started reseeding into his back. Curling as they shrank and disappearing under his skin. He let out a wail of pain when the extra arms drew themselves back into his sides, his ribs shifting back into their proper places to accommodate the change. A slightly softer, growl of discomfort -teeth once again clenched- as the tail slid back into his spine, up his back. Kevin collapsed, unable to hold himself up.
Servantis watched all this with an interested eye. Osmosians really were fascinating creatures.
He succeeded, though. Kevin succeeded in controlling himself enough to transform back into a human shape. All those 10,000 aliens were still inside him, though. No energy had been released. It was still inside him. All the powers and abilities of Ben's 10,000 aliens plus Kevin's own Osmosian abilities. Kevin 10,001. Idly, Servantis wondered if that number was gonna continue to go up, or if he would stop here. From what the former-Proctor already knew of Kevin and his habits...
The Osmosian pushed himself to his feet. Panting and out of breath.
His eyes weren't clear. He still wasn't completely in control. His pupils were dilated, the blood-vessels in his eyes swollen making his eyes look bloodshot. When he blinked, they flashed with residual mana that hadn't burned off yet. All of the 10,000 aliens of Ben Tennyson's Omnitrix, Kevin's own Osmosian abilities, and Gwendolyn's mana. Kevin 10,002.
Kevin took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
His eyes cleared slightly.
Less mana twinkling.
"Give him to me now." The Osmosian held his arms out for his son. "I can take him now."
Slightly relieved to no longer have to keep holding the -admittedly very heavy- infant anymore, Servantis passed Devlin to his father.
Kevin took his son in his arms and for half a second, the Rooter thought an expression of tenderness, even affection crossed his face. But it was there and gone in less than a moment. The Osmosian rocked the mutated and misshapen baby in his arms as if it were an unwelcome and tedious chore. "Come on ya little twerp. Will you just shut-up already." He added a little sway to his hips as he rocked the child. "You're fine. You're safe. I'm not gonna let anything hurt you."
...and he wouldn't let Devlin hurt anything else either.
He kept at it for a while. Longer, in fact, than Servantis thought Kevin had patience for.
"You're safe. Shut-up already. Nothing's gonna hurt you. Shhhh. Shut-up you little asshole."
Finally, Devlin started to calm down. His inhuman and feral cries subsided into very human-like hiccups before he finally exhausted himself to fall asleep in his fathers arms.
"Finally. Fuck!" Kevin groaned.
With a sigh of relief the Osmosian laid his sleeping son back in the carseat.
"We just got him out of there." Servantis complained.
Kevin's head snapped up with a hostile glare. "The car goes where I go. If Devlin's in the car, then he also goes where I go."
He finished strapping the sleeping infant in, shut the door gently and walked around to the trunk. Popping it open, he began rummaging around through the surplus alien tech he kept there.
"And where are we going?" Asked the Rooter, coming around to lean against backdoor that Kevin just shut. He glanced through the window at Devlin's asymmetrical sleeping face. For a tiny mutated monster, he actually was really cute.
"I need to get Devlin out of range before Gwen wakes up." Explained the Osmosian. "She can track us with her mana. Devlin more than me since he lived inside her. He's steeped in her aura."
"So you don't actually know where to go." Servantis concluded.
Whatever Kevin was looking for, he must have found it, because he lifted his head up out of the trunk. "Before you say anything or try and convince me to go wherever the fuck you wanna go, let me just say one thing." He straitened, as if whatever he was about to say was awkward, or difficult for him. "You were right."
"I was?" The Rooter raised a brow. About what?
"This is a double-cross." And Kevin pulled his hand out of the trunk.
It was then that Servantis saw what it was that Kevin had been digging for. A Null Void projector. Like the kind Max and Phil used to use when they were in their prime. The Rooter reacted, but the Osmosian was quicker. There was a flash of golden light and Servantis was gone.
Kevin dropped the Null Void projector on the ground, then brought his boot down on it. Smashing the thing into pieces so that no miraculous escape could be possible -at least not any time soon. Certainly not in enough time to interfere with the Osmosian's efforts to abscond with Devlin.
He cast one longing look on the Rust Bucket. He had spent so much time working on it. Retrofitting, refurbishing, improving... it was like his second baby. It was also the fasted ship in the yard.
But it had a tracker that was connected directly to Ben's Omnitrix. It would take too long to deactivate. Kevin knew because he was the one who installed it. He wanted it to be as full-proof as possible in case the ship was stolen or their team was separated from it. He never imagined himself being the one that would steal it.
...and he still wasn't going to be.
Kevin climbed into the driver's seat of his car and drove to the back of the yard. To where the Plumbers kept their confiscated vehicles. The ones that were evidence in open cases, or illegal property seized in raids. There were plenty of fast ships there. Not as fast as the Rust Bucket, but fast enough to get him away from Earth and out of Gwendolyn's tracking range before she came to.
…