Author's Note: I own nothing. Here comes a character that we haven't seen in person yet but that I really like.
43 Shattered, Again
Kevin glanced into the backseat of his car a frown on his face. Jen was curled up there, wrapped in a bright purple blanket, there were dark circles under her eyes and her breathing was wheezy. Gwen was watching her cousin like a hawk. It had been two days since Ethan left for Mount Rushmore and Jen's cold had gotten bad but they couldn't exactly take her to a doctor, with her altered DNA. Azmuth had advised against it anyway while she was out on her week long expedition around the universe with him and Paradox. So Kevin was using an old family recipe. If this cold got any worse Gwen would be telling Grandpa Max. He had a cold cure that had worked on the Omnitrix user before and would likely do so again. Jen wanted to avoid that though as it was nasty beyond belief. So they pulled up to the only open Mr. Smoothie in the area this late, a rest stop style just a few miles outside of town. Kevin ordered her regular and pulled a small flask out of his glove box. Jen frowned.
"I don't get how this is your old family cure. It's a smoothie." Kevin shook his head and poured some liquid from the flask into the smoothie.
"That's not the cure. It's just what's most likely to help you in particular keep it down. It's bitterroot. My mom put it in ice cream for me." Gwen smiled slightly. Kevin still hadn't gone back to his mother but he'd pointed her house out to Gwen from the car. He was too insecure right now with his current appearance to go see her. But it was nice to hear him talk about the good bits of childhood as Jen sucked down the smoothie, her fingers pinching her nose as she did to try and block what sense of taste she had left. Gwen had made herself a promise that once Kevin was cured she would drag him by the collar to his mother's house. Jen pulled back from the straw her face pinched and Gwen held out a tissue. Her cousin snatched it up and sneezed hard. It sounded like a miniature explosion. Kevin snorted. Gwen glared.
"What? She's tiny, you'd expect her to have one of those dainty sneezes. She sort sounds like a car backfiring." Jen glared, slightly glazed green eyes still fiery as she blew her nose into a second tissue. Gwen held back her own snort of laughter. It was true that Jen was the shortest of the group. She was all of five feet tall, set against Kevin's near six foot form and Gwen's five foot five. Even Ethan was taller than her at five three. But she didn't like feeling smaller than others. But before she could complain about it a bright light filled the parking lot. Kevin looked up and frowned.
"We've got company." Jen glanced out her window and frowned. She left the car as Gwen began to protest.
"I know that ship." She snuffled before she closed the door. Gwen frowned as she looked out her own window. She blinked.
"No way!" She hopped out of the car too. She knew the ship currently landing just outside the parking lot too. Though the last time she'd seen it they'd been waving goodbye to its pilot safe in the knowledge that the creator of the Omnitrix wasn't going to let the universe blow up, and even trusted Jen with the device. Kevin frowned.
"You know this ship?" Kevin asked looking a little tense. Usually when the Tennyson's recognized a ship it meant it was about to start firing on them. But Jen was smiling.
"It's Tetrax's ship!" Jen said before coughing into her sleeve. Kevin frowned.
"The bounty hunter you made friends with when you were a kid?" Jen nodded as the gangplank lowered from the back of the ship. Jen sniffled and held out a hand to Gwen who handed her cousin another tissue. A large figure in a grey spacesuit stepped out of the ship, the black helmet retracting to reveal the face of a Petrosapien. Gwen smiled as Jen stepped forward.
"It's good to see you!" But Tetrax didn't look happy at all. Instead there was a frantic glint in his yellow eyes. Jen frowned but Tetrax was faster than her right now. He gabbed her and yanked the Omnitrix to him as she cried out in pain, his stone grip was far too tight on her arm.
"Jen Tennyson! Give me Chromastone!" He spun the dial on the Omnitrix.
"Wait!" She cried out a second too late as he slapped the dial down selecting Chromastone. Green lights flashed and Diamondhead stood where Jen had mere seconds before. Tetrax frowned.
"You're not Chromastone!" Jen shook her head trying to pull her arm free.
"Yeah no. If you had let me talk I…" But she sniffled and sneezed sending shards of Taydenite flying. Gwen had to throw up a shield against them, Kevin diving behind her. Tetrax seemed unusually impatient.
"I sense Chromastone within you." His eyes narrowed in contemplation and a wall of solid Taydenite sprouted from the ground around them, hiding them from view. If Tetrax had been acting normal Gwen wouldn't have been worried but the ex bounty hunter had never acted like this around Jen. Exasperated sure but never like this. She conjured steps and she and Kevin raced up them as the screaming started. Gwen ran faster. Tetrax was pressing a large gun to Jen's torso and Diamondhead was shattering into pieces that fell away revealing Chromastone as the pieces of her cousin tumbled to the ground. Gwen blasted Tetrax back away from her cousin as the form they hadn't seen since it was shattered by Vilgax shook its head. Something didn't seem right though, this Chromastone was more red than pink and the normally green cycloptic eye was white.
"Jen?" Chromastone shook its head.
"Not Jen."
"Their right." Diamondhead's voice echoed from the still intact head on the ground and Gwen's stomach turned sour. But Tetrax didn't seem to notice that he'd just shattered someone who considered him a friend and mentor. Instead he held a red crystal out to Chromastone who nodded.
"It is time?" They asked and Tetrax nodded. Chromastone nodded back and stabbed Chromastone in the torso with the crystal which absorbed into the dark stone there. Then Chromastone took off, flying up and out of the atmosphere. Diamondhead looked after it.
"I did not know Chromastone could do that." Tetrax nodded, kneeling to gather up the shards that were Jen.
"They can do far more than that." Before he could do more than set down the pieces of Jen down by her currently disembodied head Gwen had him trapped in mana bindings. She glared as Kevin looked over Jen.
"Shit, he did a number on you. Gwen help me get all the pieces of your cousin together." Gwen used her mana to help Kevin gather what they could of Jen's shattered Taydenite. Kevin placed the Omnitrix symbol where he guessed her torso would be. Gwen frowned.
"Are we sure this is even going to work?" Gwen had seen her cousin with the injuries her aliens sported before and it wasn't pretty, she didn't even want to picture the pile of gore that might result from this. Kevin frowned, clearly thinking along the same lines.
"We don't really have a choice, the Omnitrix is going to time out eventually." Gwen closed her eyes as Kevin slapped the Omnitrix. Green lights flashed and Gwen peeked through her narrowed eyelids. Jen was sitting fully formed on the pavement, there didn't appear to be a scratch on her. She sneezed a few times and groaned flopping backwards onto the pavement.
"How does a silicone based life form even get a cold!" She grumbled her voice still stuffed from her stopped up nose. Tetrax shrugged.
"I have never had one, I fear that malady may be something only you experience." Jen glared at him from her spot on the ground. Gwen turned her attention to the ex bounty hunter too.
"What do you want to do with him?" She asked her cousin as Kevin helped her to her feet. Jen looked him over.
"Let him go, so he can explain himself." Tetrax nodded and did just that, telling them the tale of the single shot his world had to be reborn, and its people along with it. Then of course Vilgax attacked demanding the return of his crystal. But Kevin and his big mouth let slip where the crystal was being taken. Vilgax flew off and they followed close behind in Tetrax's ship.
Recreating a species was something Jen Tennyson could now say she had done twenty five times. She was exhausted, but the energy she'd channeled as Diamondhead, somehow miraculously unshattered, seemed to have cured her cold for which she was grateful. It also seemed that she could once again use Chromastone as now both crystalline aliens appeared on the Omnitrix instead of constantly selecting Chromastone and getting Diamondhead instead. She grinned as they loaded back into the ship. The Petrosapiens were already rebuilding their cities and towns as the ship took off. Jen sat down and smiled to herself. It was a good feeling knowing that she had helped that happen. Tetrax reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"My people owe you a debt that can never be repaid." Jen shook her head.
"Your people don't owe me anything they have every right to life, just like everybody else. I'm just glad I could help." Tetrax smiled.
"And that is what makes you a hero. It is good to see you again Jen Tennyson." She smiled too.
"It's good to see you too although maybe next time we can forgo the shattering and just hug instead." Tetrax laughed. Jen joined him after a moment. But when they landed all laughter died. Max was waiting for them with a few Plumbers she knew had been stationed at Mount Rushmore. Jen frowned.
"Grandpa what's going on?" Max Tennyson took a deep breath.
"Something's happened Jen."
