Author's Note: I own nothing. This one's gonna be a little different. Hope you guys like it.
30 Stranded
Jen would never say that fighting a Highbreed was easy. Even with six Echo-Echo's crawling all over the thing, blasting sound it barely slowed it. Then Kevin threw a rock at the teleporter. Jen barely had time to let out an aborted screech before both she and the Highbreed were dragged into the blue swirling portal.
Gwen screamed as her cousin and the Highbreed vanished together. Kevin ducked as pink light began to fly.
"Gwen! We can get her back! It's a teleporter! But I need it intact to fix it!" He ducked and covered his head. The pink light flickered and he blinked as they vanished, leaving just the after image. Gwen was taking deep calming breaths.
"You're sure you can fix it?" Kevin nodded at the redhead.
"Piece of cake." He probably shouldn't mention he had no idea how to make a cake. "It's just gonna take some time." He wasn't exactly lying. But since he'd more than likely busted a stabilizer when he'd chucked the rock at the construction there was no telling where exactly in the galaxy Jen had ended up. Add to that the fact that she and the Highbreed had teleported together and the odds of getting her back alive shrank to single digits. Of course he wasn't going to tell Gwen that, he did not need an angry Anodite breathing down his neck while he worked. More than he already had one anyway.
He quickly began to assess the damage. The quartz that made up the majority of the teleporter was cracked where the rock had struck it. Kevin absorbed a bit of the quartz, just enough to cover his hand and focused on the feel, letting the quartz spread forming an easy patch through the crack.
"That's actually a really cool power." Gwen said watching him closely. He nodded smiling lightly.
"Thanks I learned it in prison. It makes welding really easy." Gwen laughed lightly. Somewhere in the back of his mind Kevin was stunned that Gwen had enough faith in him to be laughing moments after losing her cousin, possibly forever. She trusted him to get her back. He refocused on the task at hand taking a deep breath, he had to get this right.
Reinrassic lll, seventh son of the Noble Highbreed House, noble heir to the purest blood of the universe was annoyed. For the past few weeks he'd been losing DNAliens here and there to the Plumber's spawn. Unworthy creatures that they were it took them a considerable amount of time to find him. The boorish one, the male of the group, Reinrassic was reasonably certain of that though not entirely sure, had damaged the teleporter. He threw a rock at it, like the mongrel vermin he was. The changeling he'd been warned of had been clinging to him, disgusting tiny creatures. Then they were both tossed through the portal.
The fight between the two of them and the sandworm was over quickly, only because the two of them worked together. They would need,, to work together to survive. It became blatantly clear to him very quickly that he was dealing with a child, and that set him back a bit he'd admit that, though only to himself. Vermin was vermin, right?
She was a persistent little wretch, changing shape several times into other aliens but that wasn't even the most annoying thing. The most annoying thing was how persistent she was about helping. At every turn, every inconvenience she leapt into action to try and right the situation. He did not need this child to save him, to care. And yet care she seemed to. It was nothing like what his lessons had taught him.
He had been trained from a very young age that the Highbreed were the superior race in the universe. Of course they were, but he had also learned that every other being in the galaxy was beneath them, and would be unhelpful and bitter towards them and should be treated with contemp. But JenJen Tennyson was not unhelpful. She listened when he spoke, argued like the rest of her filthy kind but saved his life multiple times. He did not understand it. Everything he'd ever learned was being called into question by this young human.
No, he could not question it now.
"I'm gonna call you Reiny." He could not believe the audacity of this creature. She didn't seem to be paying attention to him though. She was poking the fire with a stick. "It's weird. Despite the fact that I don't trust you any farther than I could actually throw you, it's pretty cool how we've managed to work together to survive. We aren't friends, but we're not exactly mortal enemies anymore either."
"You and I are enemies." How did this human child not understand that?
"My point is we've been able to see past our differences." She poked the fire again. "Let me put it this way. I try to see things from every perspective, and usually it's pretty easy, because I have to be a lot of other things than what I am. It widens the view of the universe. I've never been a Highbreed but who knows. Maybe the DNA is in the Omnitrix. I get to walk a mile in other life forms shoes."
"Such presumption! But what else is to be expected from a genetically inferior creature?" She looked up at him, confusion and a bit of offence written on her face.
"Why would, I a pure blooded Highbreed, ever want to become friends with a lowly creature like you?" The human rolled her eyes and tossed the stick she'd been using to poke the fire into the blaze. The night on the desert planet was cool, pleasantly to him but he knew humans preferred it a little warmer than this. She had given him her jacket when the suns and heat here had proven too much for him. He hadn't wanted it. She had offered it of her own accord. He had been forced to take if after they stopped for water. The suns were quite intense, the human's skin was redder than normal but she didn't seem to have any other adverse effects from the climate.
"I was trying to be nice. Find some common ground."
"You and I are more than mere enemies." He went on to explain the proud history of the Highbreed. The first race in the universe. It was a story every Highbreed learned as a child. All other species were mongrels spawned by rebellion and treachery. "Hideous abominations of nature! Especially humans! As soon as I no longer require your aid for my own protection, JenJen Tennyson, I shall eradicate you! And there will be one less vermin infesting a grateful universe!" She glared at him then she shook her head frowning.
"You can't really believe all that? Not after everything we just went through. Not after the way I've been helping you."
"When you weren't trying to kill me." They were both silent for a moment, red eyes glaring into green. "You are tired human. I shall take the first watch."
"No, I am wide awake. I'll take the first watch at least I won't kill you in your sleep. I don't really trust you to offer the same thing." She sat down by the fire and picked up another stick, poking at the fire.
But despite her assurances of being very much awake Reinrassic could see the tiredness in the way she held herself. He'd been observing humans for quite some time on Earth after all. He'd learned things from the prisoners. He was in charge of overseeing one of the egg machine's on Earth for the production of more DNAliens to complete their work. He'd seen more than a few humans, and never cared. Why was he starting to now. The two unlikely companions remained silent. After a while Reinrassic looked over and tilted his head.
She had fallen asleep, flopped over not too far from the fire on the slightly warmer sand. He breathed out. She was so clearly a child. He had not seen a child in a very long time. Every child born on the Highbreed home world these days was precious, something celebrated by all of them. That celebration had not occurred for so long that he could barely remember the last time it had occurred. He glanced down at the jacket sitting in the sand next to him as the human shivered slightly in a gust of night wind. Once the suns went down on this planet the temperature plummeted. It took a few more shivers for him to give in to this feeling in his chest. He tossed the jacket over her, careful only to ensure that the sleeves did not end up in the fire.
Why. Why had he done that? He should slit her throat while she slept and be done with it. The universe would be grateful to be rid of one more piece of filth. He stepped forwards and stopped as the sand moved. Not five feet from the sleeping human one of the crawling burrowing sand bugs dug its way out of the dune. It nosed at the air for a moment. Then it turned to sleeping defenseless human. All he had to do now was nothing. He was only a few hours away from the teleporter, assuming the human was correct in her directions. Echolocation was not something the Highbreed could do. The bug scuttled closer to the girl. Reinrassic stepped over her and she finally stirred and screamed. He couldn't blame her, he had threatened to kill her, it probably looked suspicious.
But she seemed to assess the situation quickly as she rolled out of the way and he swatted at the bug out of the air mid leap with a quick flurry of spikes from his fingertips. She scrambled backward in the sand as the bug lunged again and this time he caught it around the middle. His mistake as he discovered when it twisted, pincers around his upper wrist, scissoring through it in an instant. He cried out as the bug was dropped from useless fingers.
"Can you regenerate it?" Her question was childish, slightly stupid too. Something he was quick to point out to her. He did not expect what she did next. Transforming into the creature she called Swampfire and reattaching his arm. He shook his head as he flexed his fingers.
"Better?" She asked as she turned back to her normal human form.
"Why would you heal me?" He truly didn't understand. She shook her head as she retrieved her jacket, seeming to only realize now that it had been on top of her as she slept, though it had not been there when she fell asleep.
"Why would you help me?" She shook out her jacket and shivered slightly before slipping it on. It was still cold night around them, no telling when the suns would rise again.
"It was in my own interests to stop that creature from killing you." That wasn't all of it. He had been contemplating slitting her throat in her sleep after all.
"And it's in my interests to help anyone who needs it." He remained silent. He turned away from her and sat down looking up and flexing his fingers. JenJen Tennyson did not seem to know what to do either. The silence became slightly oppressive as Reinrassic tried to find out a star pattern that he knew.
"I will wake you in the morning, JenJen Tennyson." She shook her head, glancing back over at the dead bug, where it was still smoldering in the sand.
"Don't think I could get back to sleep now even if I tried." Instead she sat down not too far from him, looking up just like him. "I don't recognize any of them." She sounded a little forlorn. Reinrassic remained silent for a moment before he pointed upward with the hand she'd healed.
"That bright one there is the star you call Beetlejuice." JenJen blinked at him.
"How do you know what we call it on Earth? Wouldn't think you had much time to learn earth astronomy what with the whole big plan thing." Whether or not she was fishing for information he could not tell. He shook his head.
"The whole sector refers to it as that." They went silent again but JenJen looked slightly more contented looking up at the star he'd indicated. Then she sighed and stood.
"Well either you can sleep or we can head out, no point waiting around here any longer than we have to." He nodded at her.
"I do not require as much sleep as you. We should continue." She nodded and they continued in silence.
Reinrassic made up his mind by the time they made it back to the teleporter. He would not be returning to Earth.
"There it is! Come on!" She took off at a run as the suns began to rise. He stopped and so did she, shoes skidding slightly in the sand. "Not the whole ten paces behind thing again!"
"Go home JenJen Tennyson. I shall remain here." She looked at him in such confusion he was reminded of the last time he had looked into the eyes of a Highbreed child. She shook her head.
"Did you hit your head or something? The teleporter is right there! We can finally go back to our lives!" And yet he could not. He could not go back to the other Highbreed with his tainted arm.
"I have spent too long with you, JenJen Tennyson, and have therefor myself become contaminated." Contaminated with doubt as much as with the DNA of her Methanosian form.
"Contaminated?"
"As clearly evidenced by my uncharacteristic behavior. Risking my own life to save you, a lowly human."
"Reiny, what you did was a good thing." He did not even object to the childish nickname anymore. He had, Elders help him, grown nearly fond of this being.
"I have obviously become infected by your mongrel influence, and am now myself unclean."
"Even if I believed that was true, why stay here? This place will kill you!"
"In self imposed exile, as it should be. For I can never return home, or anywhere. I could infect the rest of my kind. The only honorable choice is to remain here."
"No!" She shook her head, a child denying a hard truth.
"Because all beings other than pure unadulterated Highbreed must be expunged from the galaxy. Including myself." She seemed to grow angry at his words.
"I thought I had gotten through to you! I thought you had changed!" He nodded at her.
"This much is true. I have changed. And now I must pay the price."
Kevin was beginning to panic. The teleporter was fixed. He'd done everything in his power to make it work. But it wasn't working.
"Everything is fine on it! It should be working!" Unless there was nothing to bring back through. Unless the damaged stabilizer had sent Jen and the Highbreed both into a sun or some other gruesome fate.
"We have to get her back, there has to be something we can do!" Gwen was close to tears, anger giving way to grief. Then the portal lit up blue and Kevin held his breath. This was the moment of truth, please let it be Jen who came out of the portal first. Or at all at this point really. He and Gwen had been here for hours it was nearly three in the morning. Then a lone figure hopped out of the portal and Kevin breathed a sigh of relief as Gwen let out a cheer. It was far too short to be a Highbreed.
"Jen!" Gwen embraced her cousin as soon as she could, pulling back when she noticed the sunburn on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose. She was slightly scratched too and there was sand clinging to her hair and skin, not to mention her clothes. Kevin ruffled her hair, sending a wave of sand falling to the warehouse floor.
"You gave us a scare there." Jen grinned at him then frowned as Gwen spoke again.
"Where's the Highbreed, did it get away?" Jen shook her head looking back at the teleporter, almost confusion written on her face.
"I doubt it." Gwen fussed and bundled Jen into Kevin's car, glaring at him when he complained about the sand. At least Jen was kind enough to dump it out of her shoes outside of the car. He wasn't sure how his apartment became the place to go when they had an injury but it had and he'd stocked up accordingly. Gwen found a bottle of aloe in his cabinet and smeared it on her cousin.
"What happened?" She shook her head.
"I don't really wanna talk about it. If my parents ask we went to the lake, and I forgot my sunscreen." With that she wrestled the bottle away from her cousin and went to commandeer Kevin's bathroom to get rid of the sand that clung to her. Kevin glanced at Gwen who was washing her hands in his kitchen sink.
"Do you think she killed it?" Gwen frowned at the soap on her nails like it had personally offended her.
"I don't know. I don't know if Jen's actually capable of that. But the Highbreed are the reason Grandpa Max is gone. Maybe?" She sounded scared. Kevin frowned.
"It would have killed her if she hadn't."
"I know that but if she did it would be the first time. She's always done things her way, but she has rules, rules she doesn't break and her number one rule has always been not to kill except as a complete last resort. She's only ever gone even semi homicidal on Vilgax. And only when he was threatening me and Grandpa." She shook her head.
"I don't want her to be capable of that."
"Yeah me either." Kevin said but silently he knew that was what was most likely. Why else would she not talk about it?