Author's Note: I own nothing.
19 The Call
Jen called Al and Veraxi and gave them the all clear that night. She frowned at her phone as it started to ring again. She blinked at the number. It was just a bunch of eights. She frowned and ignored the call. Her phone rang three more times that night. She eventually turned it off. The number was always different but it was always just one number repeated eight times. She frowned as she pulled up to Gwen's house the next day. Her phone was going off again. Her mom had told her to turn it back on. Kevin's car was already there. Jen ignored the call and headed inside.
An hour later Jen threw her phone across the room.
"This thing is so stupid." Kevin frowned.
"What's wrong with it?" He stooped and picked up the phone, with a small crack now running through the screen.
"It won't stop ringing. I don't know any of the numbers. It's weird numbers too." Kevin rolled his eyes.
"Have you thought about answering it?" Jen rolled her eyes.
"You don't answer numbers you don't know. Everyone knows that." Kevin rolled his eyes and looked down at the phone in his hands as it began to ring again. He stared.
"Answer it!" He held out the phone.
"Come on Kevin I'm…." She went silent as she stared at the phone. Gwen frowned looking up from her book.
"What's wrong?" Then Gwen looked at the phone in Kevin's hand and read the caller Id. 'Grandpa Max.' The three of them stared at the phone as it rang for a moment before Jen lunged at Kevin and snatched the phone out of his hand.
"Who is this?" She demanded it as she answered the phone, not bothering with pleasantries.
"Come to Los Soledad." The voice was echoing and so loud Jen had to pull the phone away from her ear. She tapped the speaker phone on and repeated her question.
"Who is this? How did you get the phone you're calling from?!"
"Come to Los Soledad."
"Who is this?"
"Come to Los Soledad."
"Tell me who this is!"
"Help me." There was a click over the line and the three of them stared at it for another minute, completely silent. Jen grabbed her jacket and took off for the door. Gwen stopped her with a bright pink block over the door.
"This could not be a clearer trap."
"How did they get Grandpa's phone?"
"I don't know." Gwen said standing from her spot on the couch. "But it's clearly a trap." Kevin frowned.
"Why didn't they answer her questions?" Both girls turned to him. He looked up and raised his hands. "I'm just thinking out loud. Why didn't he answer her questions? Best way to get Jen to do something is to give her a story, best a sob story." They both raised eyebrows at him, he shrugged. "I wouldn't be a criminal mastermind if I didn't know that, come on. Two words you heroes can't resist, 'help me'." Jen rolled her eyes and pulled up the browser on her phone.
"Los Soledad is about half an hour drive away from here. There… There's nothing there. It's an abandoned military base." Jen frowned at her phone. "It's been vandalized recently. But no one's doing anything about it. It's just been left to rot." She frowned.
"We can't go out there."
"I'm going out there. I have to know what's going on." Kevin looked over Jen's shoulder at the article she'd pulled up.
"Strange lights in the place, rampant destruction for no reason. It sounds just up our alley." Gwen frowned.
"So we're walking into a trap."
"Two to one, yes we're going."
Gwen rode in the back for the half hour trip to Los Soledad. It was extremely awkward and silent. Not even the radio played, mostly because Jen hated Kevin's station and he refused to change it. So they were all relieved to get out of the car when they arrived at the deserted army base. It didn't take long for them to get attacked, except the being wasn't attacking them. It ignored them entirely. It was going after the buildings. Jen frowned as she transformed back to normal inches from the rubble of the front face of the building. She knelt and ran a hand through the track left behind by the creature. It was covered in dust. She frowned and brushed the dust off her hand and onto her pants.
"At least the building it destroyed wasn't the library." Gwen said. Kevin rolled his eyes.
"You really love the books huh?" Jen rolled her eyes at Kevin.
"She means we need to do some research. Sadly, unlike crime, heroism isn't exactly an easy thing to do." Kevin frowned as both girls stepped over to the building they seemed to know was the library.
"How come you two know so much about military bases?"
"Grandpa Max." Kevin nodded.
"Grandpa Max had a hand in everything huh?" Gwen grinned and Jen nodded.
"Yep." Gwen grabbed a microfilm off the shelf and fed it into the computer. "I think I found something."
Jen had experienced all sorts of reactions to her aliens, from abject terror to a childlike glee. Nostalgia had never been a reaction she'd experienced before. The grin on his face confused her.
"Swampfire! That takes me back. Or is it forward! It's so hard to tell Jen. Have we met?" Jen frowned as she let go of the man's lab coat.
"How do you know my name?!" No one they hadn't already met should know Swampfire. She didn't recognize this man. It threw her off.
"Have we met yet I suppose the question should be. Would you like a gumball?" Jen blinked.
"No thanks. Swampfire doesn't have teeth like people, probably shouldn't risk gumballs. Wait why do you know me?" The man smiled as he slipped the bag of gumballs back into his pocket.
"Oh we're old friends. Or rather we will be." Kevin And Gwen had caught up to them by now and Kevin pointed out the painfully obvious.
"It's the dork from the photo, the Paradox guy."
"You haven't aged a day, in fifty years." The man, Paradox, shook his head at Gwen, a fond look in his eye.
"Oh considerably longer than that Gwen." Kevin frowned.
"You two know this guy?" Jen shook her head. Gwen frowned her hands glowing pink.
"Jen, do we know him?"
"No." Gwen struck quickly and they all blinked as Paradox vanished.
"Gwen?" The redhead shook her head at her currently plantlike cousin.
"Ta-ta!" The voice of the man came from outside this time. The three teens turned to the windows. The man was leaning against a rusted light pole outside.
"We need to talk to him he's clearly linked to that creature." Gwen grabbed Jen's hand, vines under her skin, warm with the fire that burned within.
"Last time we tangled with time travelers it did not go well." Jen nodded.
"You two have fought time travelers?"
"Story for another time." Jen said as she dodged around her cousin and into the street. The man stepped behind the light pole and vanished again. Jen blinked and held back but Kevin had no such reservations. He rushed into the fight, like he always did. And it did not go well for him. Especially when the creature showed up.