Author's Note: I own nothing.
39 On The Waterfront
Gwen was still angry with her cousin, but honestly she sort of understood why she'd left. If Gwen's parents had forbid her from using her powers that night they found out the truth, tried to take them away even, Gwen would likely have run off too. Sandra and Carl were still downstairs with her mother and father, talking about what they were going to do when they figured out where Jen was. Gwen would have no trouble tracking her cousin, she knew that. It was always easy to pick her out, a streak of green in a sea of pink would always be easy to find. But she had a hunch she already knew where she was. Cooper had answered the phone after all, she had to be with him, likely working on their cure for the DNAliens, which would be a good thing to have on hand if it worked. Jen could only cure one at a time and it took time to do but Gwen couldn't help but be a little annoyed as she called Kevin with her badge.
"You two are so in trouble with me." He laughed over the badge in her hand.
"Hey, I've been in her shoes, except I blew up the house." Gwen frowned.
"How did you and your mom make up?" Kevin was silent. "Kevin…"
"We haven't yet. She doesn't even know I'm on Earth. I want to but I don't want her to be scared of me." Gwen frowned at the badge.
"I get that but I think after all these years she'll just be happy to see you again, and that you're following in your father's footsteps." Kevin chuckled.
"I hope you're right." He fell silent again. "So the cargo ship, what do we think is on it?" Gwen set her badge down by her computer and pulled the USB stick she'd used to copy the shipping manifest. She scrolled through it.
"The place they're shipping from is a small island in the Caribbean, it's tiny. A place where they used to test nuclear weapons. It shouldn't take too long for me to figure out what the export is, they don't have that many. You need to go check on Jen. She's not answering the phone you gave her. Cooper is."
"They're testing their theory on the DNAliens she hired Argit to bring in." Gwen frowned at her computer screen.
"How did she pay Argit?"
"She had a stash of Taydenite. I didn't ask where she got it. I tend not to ask questions in business transactions. Force of habit really." Gwen laughed.
"I think I know where she got it. It's probably the leftovers from our summer with Grandpa, she kept a bunch of the projectiles she could make as Diamondhead." Kevin snorted.
"Well if worked out in her favor. Pertasapiens are really rare these days. You know I kinda miss her old aliens." Gwen nodded then remembered that Kevin couldn't see her right now.
"Yeah me too. It's cool to see the new ones but sometimes you just miss the classics. I think she does too." They fell silent for a moment. Then Gwen glanced at the clock on her nightstand, it was nearing midnight.
"Do me a favor Kevin?"
"Anything."
"Check on Jen tomorrow. Tell her she owes me bigtime for running damage control with her parents. They want to talk to her as soon as possible, just talk. Hopefully she doesn't run again." Kevin sighed.
"Were you expecting this?" Gwen ran her fingers through her hair.
"Not really. I didn't expect Auntie Sandra and Uncle Carl to take this as badly as they did. But Jen's never been good with this kind of confrontation. Fighting big bads like Vilgax and the Highbreed, any day of the week. This is something else though."
"She got a history of running off?" Kevin asked hoping his tone was lighter than it was.
"Sort of. She's only done it a few times. Once when Grandpa got hurt during her fight with Vilgax's drones and a bank robber. She wanted to keep us safe. Same with the other time, she ran off with Tetrax to find Azmuth to stop the self destruct countdown on the Omnitrix. Again trying to protect us. I think that's sort of what's happening here. If her parents had managed to get the Omnitrix off she couldn't fight the Highbreed anymore, she'd lose the ability to help anyone." Kevin grunted in agreement.
"Makes sense. Sorry you gotta do damage control on your own. I'll check on her first thing in the morning. I gotta run some parts to Coop anyway. I think they made headway on their idea." Gwen laughed.
"I hope so. I'll see what I can figure out tonight and let you know tomorrow what's happening here. We need to figure out what's happening quick."
"Yep. See you tomorrow Gwen." She grinned at her badge tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Night Kevin."
Things weren't going quite so smoothly at Cooper's house. After fixing the second DNAlien in a row Jen had sat down on the floor, insisting that she just needed a minute. But her glucose levels were bottoming out and she kept nearly falling asleep on the floor of the lab. Cooper helped her to her feet.
"I can fix the gun up from here. You need to eat something and get some sleep. This whole process is draining you, literally. The Omnitrix seems to be using you as a like a secondary generator. The amount of power you put off when you do that, it should fry a normal human. But the Omnitrix seems to keep it balanced." He kept babbling but Jen was only half paying attention. Cooper helped her inside and his mother fussed and fed her and Cooper enough to feed an army before sending them to bed. Cooper had to help her up the stairs and dropped her off in the spare room. Jen kicked off her shoes and curled up under the blanket. She tossed and turned for a few minutes missing her bed and wondering if she would be able to go back to it. But before she could linger on the thought for too long exhaustion took over and she fell into the darkness of a dreamless sleep.
Gwen had a dream that night that disturbed her. She dreamed of a place she'd only been to once for maybe ten minutes. It was dark, but somehow managed to still be colorful. She was racing along at speeds far to fast for her to normally go along rock outcroppings of impossible shapes. Someone was here with her. But she couldn't focus on them. She tried to focus but the whole image blurred. Voices echoed around her.
"Do you really think it'll work?" This voice was male and somewhat familiar.
"I hope so it's our one shot." This one was a girl, and also someone Gwen had at least heard speak before.
"But do you really think that she can help us? What's one person going to do against him?" This voice, a second male, was completely unfamiliar and sounded very skeptical.
"You haven't seen her at work Pierce, she'll be able to help. And you know what he said…" The voices blurred along with the image for a moment. Then both returned. "He knows her best." For a moment Gwen saw Hellen Wheels, a Kineceleran they had met a few months back, standing next to her partner Manny, a tall well built Tetramand. With them was a boy with spikes growing out of his skin, though despite that he appeared completely human otherwise unlike Argit. Then Gwen was sitting up in bed holding her head which was pounding.
Jen slept in until one in the afternoon the next day, Cooper was running numbers on how badly she would be drained if she cured DNAliens more than two times in a row. He was also almost done with the gun. So far it was just a prototype but it was more than they'd had before and it might give them the first real advantage they'd had against the Highbreed. Take away their workforce and the whole plan collapses in on itself. He was almost ready to test it. Gwen was working on what the cargo ship was carrying. Jen and Kevin were set to intercept it that night. They had all discussed this over Kevin's badge after Jen had woken up and eaten. She seemed fine, not even tired anymore after a nice long rest but Kevin made a mental note to keep a closer eye on her tonight than usual.
Little did any of them know that they would not be alone at the cargo ship that night. Sandra had gone up to thank Gwen for telling them what she had told them and overheard the whole plan for that night. She'd relayed it to her husband and the two of them made up their minds. They would make sure their little girl was ok.
Getting onto the ship was easy. Kevin and Jen took a midnight swim out to the boat and climbed up the ladder built into the side of the freighter. Sneaking down to check out the cargo was a little bit harder but they managed it, slipping into the cargo hold. Jen held her nose waving a hand in front of her face to try and ward off the smell.
"Looks like Gwen was right. They're importing radioactive bat guano, refining it into a pure isotope, that can act as a power source. But a power source like this has to be powering something big." Jen went quiet, eyes scanning the room.
"Like that really big arch in Los Solidad?" Kevin asked as he stepped into an office. Jen followed him.
"Yeah, it would track." Kevin busted open the lock on the filing cabinet and began to pull out papers. He waved one.
"Yep! They hired a truck to take this whole mess out to Los Solidad." Jen took the shipping manifest from him and nodded. Jen frowned and pulled the burner phone from her pocket. She's ditched Kevin's hoodie at Cooper's she couldn't risk not having easy access to the Omnitrix tonight.
"Gwen." Her cousin had answered the phone quickly. "Get out here as fast as you can. Swing by Cooper's and pick up my hoverboard if you have to but get here before the ship docks. They've got a truck waiting for it. Most likely a bunch of DNAliens there too. We need to find the Highbreed in charge." Before she could say more a hissing voice sounded behind them.
"You've found me child!" Jen spun just in time to see the fist heading her way. She rolled out of the way with a split second to spare and dove out of the office between the Highbreed's legs.
"You want me big ugly! Come get me!" She took off at a run away from the office as Kevin scooped up her fallen phone. The Highbreed disregarded him entirely.
"We're gonna have to call you back Gwen. The Highbreed found us." He clicked off the phone and absorbed the metal from the filing cabinet. It wasn't ideal but there was an alarm blaring and the DNAliens were already beginning to swarm.