Author's Note: I own nothing. We're gonna see a few faces we haven't seen for a bit in this one.

30 Banished

Their landing on Galvan Prime was smoother than Kevin expected. Jen had codes that let them breeze past the security systems and land in the city itself. Ship beeped, slightly unhappy that they weren't back on earth with Julie.

"It's ok buddy, I just have something I need to take care of here." Ship beeped and leapt onto Gwen's shoulders. "Come on it's this way." Jen led them into the largest structure, it was quite impressive and they were met at what could only be called a reception desk by a Galvan who looked them over critically.

"Do you have an appointment?" The small amphibian asked in a near condescending tone. Jen rolled her eyes.

"I need to see Azmuth." Jen stated.

"Do you have an appointment?" The Galvan asked again. Jen took a deep breath.

"Tell him that if he doesn't see me, I'll let Ghostfreak back out and let her do what she wants." The Galvan's eyes went wide and he tapped on the keypad in front of him.

"Go on through." Jen nodded and gestured the others through. The Galvan at the front desk looked like he was about to argue but shook his head. Jen heard him mutter as they went past. "Pick your battles Serth, pick your battles." He went back to his work as they walked through the door. They entered the lab and Azmuth barely looked up from his workbench.

"Ah Jennifer, to what do I owe this surprise?"

"Ghostfreak." That made him look up.

"What happened?"

"She escaped. I've got her back in the Omnitrix but I can feel her in my head and I need help." Azmuth nodded and took a remote off of the shelf. He pressed a button on it and a large structure rose from the center of the floor. It looked like a large tube with a satellite dish on the top. It opened and Jen nodded. She stepped into the device and it closed behind her. The glass clouded green and Jen disappeared. Gwen frowned.

"What is that thing?"

"This is the Genesis Cradle." Kevin raised an eyebrow.

"How does this help?" Azmuth rolled his eyes.

"When the cradle is active Jen is in cryostasis. Which means that none of her transformations can become active unless programmed. It will stop Ghostfreak from taking over, for a time anyway. I should be able to remove Zs'Skayr's consciousness from the Omnitrix. But I will need some outside assistance." Azmuth began to key in a few things on a pad on the outside of the Cradle.

"Who's Zs'Skayr?" Kevin asked.

"What can we do to help?" Gwen asked. Azmuth kept working as he spoke to them.

"I need a trained Anodite. A full fledged energy being would be able to find one stream of conchiousness inside another and remove the invasive presence, without removing the DNA from the Omnitrix." Gwen perked up.

"Maybe I could…"

"I said fully trained. You're years off of being experienced enough to do this."

"Then it's a good thing I happened to be passing through." A new voice rang through the room and in a flash of pink an Anodite formed in the room. She smiled at Gwen and flew up to her.

"You look well Gwen." Gwen smiled.

"Were you looking in on us Grandma Verdona?" The Anodite smiled.

"Well I did promise I'd look in on your progress!" That wasn't the whole reason. She'd been keeping an eye on her grandchildren, from afar. Keeping an eye on their lifeforces. Jen's had flickered mere hours ago. Fear and pain and sorrow, then it was briefly overridden by the scummy purple film of an ectonurite. Verdona was not a fan of the ghostly beings. She looked over the device currently holding one of her granddaughters. It was a clever device, as all of Azmuth's devices were. It held the occupant in a deep cryo stasis, but allowed for the device affixed to her wrist to be worked on and activated remotely. It could probably do much more, if the rumors of the twenty four planets the three had saved after the Highbreed had devastated them. She nodded.

"I'll be just a moment!" She dove through the glass of the device and into Jen's mind. Gwen blinked.

"Ok, didn't know we could do that." Azmuth nodded.

"That's why you can't help her right now. Now don't touch anything. I'm going back to my work, and kindly keep your mechamorph off my experiments." Gwen nodded and Kevin pulled up a few chairs as he yawned. Azmuth glanced at him but returned to what he'd been working on. The cradle beeped and Azmuth glanced at the readout. "Interesting." But he refused to elaborate.

The inside of Jen's mind was calm, Verdona smiled as she recognized Max's secret fishing spot. She watched from behind their tree as Jen laughed with the other members of her little team. She hadn't met the boy at Jen's side before but they were holding hands. She shook her head.

'I preferred Albrasix, but…' Verdona thought but then the scene took a turn for the worst, green lightning crackled around Kevin and left him a lifeless statue, Gwen transformed into her full Anodite form and attacked her cousin as the boy ran. Verdona frowned and stepped forward catching Gwen's mana with ease. It wasn't really Gwen of course, she wasn't quite skilled enough to get into someone's head like this. The false Gwen screamed as Jen scrambled to her feet.

"Grandma Verdona?" She smiled at her granddaughter.

"Of course dear. I'll be with you in just a moment." She turned back to the being squirming in her grip. "Now you, Zs'Skyar, you're not welcome here anymore. Never really have been." She raised her free hand and drew several runes in the air. The ectonurite screamed as a portal formed inside it, causing it to collapse in on itself. Jen blinked.

"How… What… Where did you send her?" Her voice was shaking.

"Somewhere she won't be able to escape from." Verdona turned to her granddaughter and sat mid air. "Now, we should talk." Jen blinked at her.

"I'm so confused. I thought I was at Azmuth's lab."

"Oh you are. Inside the Genesis Cradle I think he called it. We're inside your head. I happened to be looking in on you and Gwen when that horrid monster possessed you. I followed you to Galvan Prime to see if there was anything I could do and look at that, there was." She smiled as Jen sat down on a rock.

"But does that mean I won't have Ghostfreak anymore?" Verdona shook her head.

"No darling. The DNA is still in your little Omnitrix. But I stripped Zs'Skayr's consciousness from it. She can't hurt you anymore, not from where she is." Jen nodded and scrubbed at her face. She stood from her rock and hugged her grandmother. Verdona smiled and hugged her back.

"You have no idea how much better that makes me feel." Verdona nodded.

"Of course I do Jennifer, I'm in your head. But that's not the point, we should talk about what just happened." She gestured around at the leftovers from Jen's nightmare. Only Kevin was left behind, still a solid statue. Jen closed her eyes.

"Do I have to?" Verdona shook her head.

"I suppose not. But Max always found it helpful. It would just be between us, we are alone in your head after all." Jen sat back down on her rock.

"Not sure what you want me to say. Ghostfreak was using my friends to scare me." Verdona shook her head.

"She was using Gwen certainly, but she's done that before hasn't she?" Images skipped through the water of the small cove like ripples from a stone. A much younger Gwen with bright purple eyes and black cracks in her face like broken porcelain standing on the edge of a tall building. Jen shuddered. "Gwen's so much more powerful now, I doubt an ectonurite could even touch her. She has too much mana, it burns them like sunlight in quantities like the one's Anodites have." Jen scrubbed her face.

"You're sure?" She sounded so young. Verdona nodded.

"I'm sure, now about Kevin?" Jen glanced at the statue.

"It's my fault, his initial mutation, this new one. It's all because of the Omnitrix." Verdona shook her head as she watched the memories of Jen's first meeting with Kevin play out on the water. A snot nosed little runaway already far too overcharged for an Osmosian his age.

"He'd had a power problem long before you came along. You and your cousin are two of the most powerful beings on earth and at that time your cousin's spark hadn't fully awoken. You gave him power he couldn't find anywhere else, an already twisted Osmosian wouldn't have been able to resist. And this latest mutation." She paused as she watched the memory. "You can in no way blame yourself for! An assassin tries to kill you, nearly succeeds and your single concern is your friend. You really are Max's grandchild." Jen laughed. Verdona tilted her chin up gently with a hand.

"You are bound and determined to fix this, and I admire that. But you can't hold the blame of worlds on your shoulders. You're a child, and I don't mean that in the sense that you aren't old enough, I mean you shouldn't have to be in the position you are in. Let others help you from time to time. It'll make you feel better." Jen laughed again and scrubbed her face. Verdona looked off into the distance.

"Now the boy."

"Ethan?" Jen looked around, disappointed that he hadn't reappeared. She sighed and looked down at her hands, her eyes wandering to the Watch, on her wrist even here in her mind. "Sometimes I think I might be a bit too much for him." Verdona scoffed.

"If he can't handle the spectacular being that is my granddaughter then he isn't worth your time." Jen smiled at Verdona.

"Thanks Grandma." She hugged the young human.

"I'll see you outside." She said and swooped out of Jen's mind with ease.