Chapter 35: As Old As You Feel
The Planet Kryptos
The Draconic Nebula
14:43 pm Local Time; June 19th, 2000
Three Days After Vilgax's Attack
Azmuth knew all the theories about what controlled the universe. Like every other Galvan, he knew everything from the Qlinx Theorem's elegant equations that ran the universe and were proved with every hyperspace jump right down to its primitive roots in Quantum Mechanics. Unlike most of them, though, he'd seen more back when he still traveled the galaxy. He'd learn the ideas of fate and destiny from less orderly minds. He even knew the most primitive theories about how it was guided by a being that resembled the people who worshiped it. Usually a wise and benevolent figure...
Who no one ever mentioned was a comedian.
He tried to tell himself that he knew better, that the universe was governed by something very close to random chance. He'd run enough experiments that proved it, but that didn't change anything. Not when he'd been pondering the truth since the moment he truly considered evolution just before he left the pond of his birth. Of all the intelligent species throughout the galaxy, the Galvan were considered to be at the apex of the ladder, followed closely behind by the Cerebrocrustaceans. The most intelligent, technologically advanced species in the galaxy were tiny, yellow-eyed and gray-skinned creatures. Small body, enormous mental capacity.
Hence, evolution proved the comedian all on its own, and how he laughed at the realization.
But Azmuth wasn't laughing at what chance brought to his door today. No. He hadn't laughed in a long time. Generations of other creatures had come and gone in the time since he could last remember cracking a smile and there was nothing that was happening now that would break that streak. He watched the sleek blue starship as it descended through the atmosphere of his second Refuge Laboratory, and he was sorely tempted for a moment to activate the defenses surrounding his secret sanctum. After all, Xylene certainly deserved a little humiliation after the stunt she pulled the last time no matter how well she performed with the precious few tasks he'd trusted her with since.
Tasks he never would have given her if there was anyone else he could have turned to.
So Azmuth was tempted. He resisted, although his yellow eyes stayed narrowed into slits as he stared at the screen. Why the Galactic Enforcers still felt like they could just stomp into his life whenever they felt like it was one of the many things that vexed him. The entire point of leaving Galvan Prime and sequestering himself into a hermetic existence was to get away from it all. To focus on pure research. To NOT be their cure-all.
Unless she'd come to report on what she'd found in the space around his old lab...
He let a finger twitch at that. Not the one that turned on the defense grid, but the scanners. The sooner he knew what the Uxorite wanted the sooner he could send her on her way, perhaps with her tail between her legs.
The scans lasted for a whole picosecond before all the holographic monitors around him came to life in a brilliant emerald and displayed a familiar hourglass symbol. Azmuth's eyes flared open. He blinked once or twice and then stepped down from his hoverchair onto the floor. The Omnitrix was aboard Xylene's ship.
Which meant that the boy was here too. Grimacing, Azmuth brought up another holoscreen and accessed the Omnitrix remotely for the first time in days. Tapping into the master control, he found it...stable. That solved one burning question, at least. The boy hadn't caused it to become a miniature hypernova in progress a second time. Perhaps he could learn.
A quick glance at the alarms that he'd muted days ago showed more trouble than he ever would have imagined that even that boy could get into. Trouble that started with the emergency survival protocols activating just days ago and ended with the surprise that the Omnitrix had recently scanned another new form to the Index.
And when he glanced at the new genetic code...
Azmuth hadn't laughed in a long time, but surprise had afflicted him a few times since then. For the second time, his surprise came because of the un-evolved creature attached to his masterpiece.
He exhaled and dismissed the holoscreens, then held up his arms over his head as if to don a shirt. In a flash, his uni-flex suit was covered in a - by Galvanic proportions - rather distinguished robe of black and green. The last time he'd spoken with Ben Tennyson, wielder of the Omnitrix, he'd left the covering behind. This time, it felt appropriate.
Stepping onto a hoverdisc, Azmuth glided through the halls of his compound and made his way to the landing pad. The disc set down and disappeared, and he folded his hands behind his back, assuming a relaxed posture that still let every bit of wisdom and intelligence he possessed radiate out from him. It was mid-afternoon on this world, and the light from the enormous, yet relatively cool red giant star was just beginning to tinge deeper.
Xylene's ship touched down and the engines went silent. The bay doors opened and the boarding ramp descended at its usual angle. The Uxorite came down slowly, her cephalic tendrils waving ever so slightly in what Azmuth recognized as hesitation, and a fair amount of nervousness. The Galvan squinted one eye at her, and Xylene had the good sense to flinch.
"Before you ask, I didn't come here on my own behalf."
"I am aware." Azmuth said in the face of those formal words and unusually meek tone, already looking past her towards the other beings coming down the ramp. One, he expected. The second, he recognized from their last encounter. The third...
Azmuth glanced between a haunted and traumatized Ben Tennyson, his broken and injured cousin, and an older human with a swelled and battered nose and a growth of fur covering his chin. All of them looked like death warmed over and he felt a chill that made him actually take a moment to collect his thoughts. With neither child speaking, he looked to the older human who had come with them. Compared to the two children, he was built like a brick wall. A crumbling one, though.
"You would have to be..."
"Max Tennyson." The gray-haired man replied. "Their grandfather."
Azmuth nodded. He already knew this and spent a good half-second mentally reviewing the Galactic Enforcer reports that mentioned him, most of them written by the Uxorite at his side. Admirable traits for a human. But then, Ben Tennyson had many of the same qualities. He blinked once before responding. "Then perhaps you would care to tell me how the Omnitrix scanned a sample of Chimera Sui Generis DNA earlier." By the grave looks on the faces of his four visitors, he had a very good idea who the source donor was. The probability of it being Myaxx was less than one percent, given that she was a good 48,000 light-years away working on another project of his.
And testing out a new assistant, one he'd taken on in a moment of mad weakness. He hoped this one would pan out, but he had his doubts. He had nothing but doubts these days.
Ben must have seen it on his face because he flinched and that set off a chain reaction that would have been rather amusing if it wasn't so sad. Gwen saw the look on her cousin's face and started to reach for him consolingly, only to freeze and withdraw her hand as if it had been burned a moment later. Azmuth felt a worried lump begin to settle in his stomach.
Max Tennyson visibly swallowed. "Inside. Please."
Azmuth gave the request a very small amount of deliberation before unfolding his arms out from behind his back and gesturing for the laboratory's entrance. Max Tennyson gently put his hands on the shoulders of his grandchildren and ushered them forth, but Xylene didn't follow them in. Azmuth looked at her expectantly, and the Uxorite shook her head. "I'll just...wait out here. And...Azmuth?" The Galvan waited expectantly as she deliberated and finally bowed her head. "Don't be...They're..." She stumbled through the sentence and finally sighed. "He's hurting enough." Though Azmuth didn't have the ability to read minds, he could pick up on emotional cues as well as anyone else, and offered a curt nod. He summoned up another hoverdisc and floated into his sanctum after the three humans.
True to her word, Xylene waited outside.
- o - o - o - o - o -
It had been her job to take the Omnitrix back to Azmuth close to three human years before. A special agent and a member of the Galactic Enforcers who ranked just under Ultimos himself, Xylene was to bring the device back to its maker on Galvan Prime on one of the rare trips he made back home. She'd never arrived, though. He still remembered all the reasons she gave and the stubborn way she ignored all his refutations before she disappeared in the other direction. Their window of opportunity to transfer it safely before Vilgax got wind of the Omnitrix closed shut, and then everything went to hell. Disgusted, Azmuth had returned to his first, more well-hidden sanctum and waited.
And then the Omnitrix came online. He'd been expecting the signature to reflect Chimera Sui Generis DNA as the base template, but instead...it had been human. The Omnitrix had attached itself to a human, of all creatures in the galaxy. It had been a whirlwind after that, complete with a few harrowing minutes where the signal even went offline. And then the Omnitrix had come home and he met Ben Tennyson.
Azmuth didn't make the Omnitrix to be a weapon. In truth, he had wanted to destroy the damned thing and bury another part of his past. But Ben Tennyson, a mere boy whose heart and spirit outshone everything else, gave him pause. So instead of destroying the Omnitrix as he had intended...he fixed it.
He let Ben Tennyson, a ten-year-old Earthling, go back home with it.
Now a twelve-year-old Ben Tennyson was asking him to remove the Omnitrix and take it back. And the boy wouldn't...or couldn't...even tell him why.
"Are you certain, Benjamin?" Azmuth asked quietly. The brown-haired boy couldn't even look at him as he nodded in the affirmative. He didn't look at his cousin or grandfather either. He just stared at the floor, while his right hand rubbed at the skin around the Omnitrix and the bandages there. The scanners showed the scratches that the simple cloth was hiding, some of them deep, and the cause. Azmuth risked a glance at Gwen and their grandfather, and both were as solemn as ever. So Azmuth sighed in defeat, nodded, and led Ben to a reclining chair that rose out of the floor. A translucent scanning platform was perched on each armrest, and when Ben slumped into place, the left one came alive.
Bringing up a small holoscreen, Azmuth began perusing through the Omnitrix. The vast array of nanofibers that ran from the device and all through Ben's body not only served to anchor it properly and ensure proper transformations and default template restorations but also acted as one very blatant security feature. To simply rip the Omnitrix from someone was to damage it beyond anyone's ability to repair, save for Azmuth himself. There were other...still very brutal methods...that one could use to remove it. In truth, the Galvan had always kept the "Detach" command very simple.
He had also never told anyone about it.
"You scanned Vilgax, didn't you?" Azmuth asked. He knew the answer with statistical certainty, but the sudden flinch from the otherwise mute hero told him enough, as did his secondary glance at Max. The elder human clenched a hand into a fist hard enough to blanch his skin white.
Azmuth gave his head a shake. "You don't have to do this, you know." His tiny fingers flew over the virtual keyboard in front of him. There were times where being an enigmatic genius paid off. Nobody was paying very close attention to what he was doing. They probably thought this was all part of the Omnitrix separation process.
"I have to take it off," Ben said, so dully that Azmuth knew it wasn't the first or even the tenth time he'd said that particular phrase. And for Ben to say something so...so wrong...
Azmuth gave his head a shake. "Very well." He finished his work. It had been a good while since he'd last updated the Index anyways. He had all the reports, but that was never as good as getting the data first hand and there were still mysteries that needed solving and software updates that he didn't dare send, not when the signal could be traced to both of them, even if there wasn't any urgency now. It was a shame that it wouldn't be used. The Galvan opened his mouth once more, and with a few last taps to complete his final modifications, he spoke the command.
The Omnitrix responded immediately. The nanofiber ports retracted, and the spiderwebs were cleanly, and safely, severed. In a day or two, they would biodegrade and be absorbed into his body, leaving him none the worse for wear. The dial went dark, the clasp detached and separated, and the Omnitrix tumbled off of Ben Tennyson's left arm and clattered to the floor.
In the silence of Azmuth's laboratory, that metallic ring seemed to echo forever. Ben pulled himself out of the chair and knelt beside the lifeless machine that had been so much of his life for so long. He held it there in his hands, staring at it with wide eyes. Like he couldn't believe it.
Azmuth saw Gwen walk over to Ben, touch his shoulder gently, and say something to him. Something about coming back outside. Looking at the sky before they left. Ben offered no reaction to hearing her, but a minute after she departed, the boy mutely walked past his grandfather and dropped the Omnitrix in Max's hands.
The door closed behind him, and Max Tennyson and Azmuth were finally alone.
The distance didn't matter as the five-inch tall Galvan and Max matched stares, even if Azmuth did have to crane his head to keep the once Plumber in view. He watched the man's eyes widen a little in intimidation, and he wondered what exactly Ben told the man about him. Ben or Xylene, who was the more probable guess, and he knew what the woman thought. The words 'Little Troll' was used more than once on that fateful day. He watched the man finger the Omnitrix for a few seconds, but it was Azmuth who spoke first.
"Vilgax is no longer among the living, correct?"
Max crumbled a little at the words. "No. Aside from..." He hefted the Omnitrix for emphasis. "...That look in his eyes. I wish I could take it away from him." He looked towards the door his grandchildren had gone through. "This shouldn't have happened. What they're feeling, what they saw, it..."
"Everyone responds to trauma differently." Azmuth observed. He conjured up a hoverdisc beneath his feet and floated up to Max's eye level. "But for as many years as you've been a warrior, you knew that."
He had to, at least as well as Azmuth did even if he didn't have the centuries. Centuries that went by as he watched some of the toughest, hardiest soldiers come out of a firefight shaken so badly they had to be shipped home to psych wards, and he'd also seen frail specimens emerge from skirmishes with half their unit wiped out and still be themselves. And then he'd seen the ones who had pieces of themselves chipped away over time, so gradually that when they snapped it seemed to come out of nowhere.
Azmuth had seen the last from far too close a vantage point and turned his back on the human at the thought for the security of his laboratory and all the experiments in it that didn't demand anything from him except his mind.
A mind that froze as the man behind him - the one he'd already forced from his thoughts - said, "I always did wonder what sort of man created the Omnitrix."
"Hm." The Prime Thinker didn't let himself do anything of the kind as he made his hoverdisc stop. Stop, but he didn't turn it so he could face the human or the eyes he felt on him.
"...Why did you?"
"For the same reason I make every invention." Azmuth replied with a scowl, his gravelly voice chastising. "Because I wanted to make the universe a better place. To help make bridges between species. And just like with everything else, people like you got their hands on it and turned it into something horrible." It would have been so easy to just leave then. He had a thousand avenues for his escape and enough regrets already. Only the terrible certainty that he would have one more after today made him allow in a murmur, "Until your grandson came into the picture, that was."
"I should have come along on that first trip." Max after a moment with a tone that finally made Azmuth turn just in time to watch the elderly man shake his head and for once he couldn't read the human with any certainty. It could have been in admiration or as a warning until his next few words settled the matter. "I was so worried about them."
"Hm." Azmuth said again and the sound seemed to be enough this time because. Max finally worked up enough ire to glare back.
"Is that all you can say, or are we just that boring to you?"
Azmuth shrugged. "The Omnitrix was never meant to fall into human hands. However, it did. And I was honestly quite impressed. That is why I let Ben keep the Omnitrix after I reset it. He may not have been using it for its intended purpose...but he was using it for noble ends. Having him here, I can see he is in pain.'' Galvan made sure that Max was watching him closely. "There is no cure for what ails him. Or his cousin. Or you, for that matter. In time, perhaps, he will recover. But he isn't the same boy who came stumbling into my hidden workshop with the equivalent of a dying star on his forearm."
"I wasn't expecting a magic bullet," Max answered. "But...what do I say to them? I tried to soften the blow, and it backfired on me. They're worse now than they were right after we found each other. After Ben..." He choked up again and there looked to be something wrong with his eyes for a moment. Then he held out the Omnitrix like he felt the weight of the universe in his hands. "Take it."
Azmuth tilted his head to the side and considered the request. "Is your world safer than it was before? Is the galaxy any less wild?"
"...No. But I thought that you would be happy to take it back."
Azmuth grunted again and gave his head a shake. "I left it with Benjamin Tennyson."
"He won't wear it."
"Then tell him to keep it." He instructed Max. "He is hurting today, but the Omnitrix is still his. Whether he wears it or hides it away, it is his now."
"I want him to be safe, Azmuth. I want them both to be safe." Max insisted. The Galvan shrugged again.
"Your grandson taught me something, Max. For years, I sequestered myself away, tired of the machinations of everyone around me. But you can't escape it. You can't hide from it. That's the crux of our existence. Mine. Yours. His. Ignoring the world won't protect you from it. You want him to be safe? Help him recover. And then help him get back up on his feet again. And if you can't, his cousin will."
"I hope you're right," Max said as he swallowed down a lump in his throat and slowly pulled the device back. "It's a little ridiculous that you and my sister would say nearly the same thing if you're not." Azmuth almost smiled at that. He'd heard words like that before after all. It was something of an honor for the other person, he was sure. "It's too late for them, isn't it? I've dragged them into this and… And they're never going to be the same again, are they?"
There weren't any smiles now. Just a look away. A look towards the door that was already closed. "It is… unlikely."
"I just…" The human started as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand. Azmuth knew that what he said next were words that he hadn't told any other living person. That wasn't even a question fit for the younglings in their pond, much less the Prime Thinker, but the actual words were a surprise. "I'm so tired. I need to be strong for them, but I'm getting old. I should be stronger than I am."
"I believe that there is a saying which crosses species," he said finally. "You're only as old as you feel."
And as terrible as the man looked with what appeared to be a recently reset broken nose that was clearly still bothering him he still let out a sad, sharp little laugh at that. "And how old do you feel then, Azmuth?"
The Galvan scientist gave the question five full seconds of contemplation. Bit by bit, all the failures in his life, all his successes that had become warped and twisted were heaped upon one another. The Null Void. The Omnitrix. The Galactic Enforcers. And countless more, including today. The look on the faces of those two children was a spike of agony.
The slight drop in his shoulders went unnoticed by Max. His response didn't.
"Today, I feel...very old." Azmuth admitted as the man turned to the door.. "Very old indeed."
- o - o - o - o - o -
The Planet Kryptos
The Draconic Nebula
15:08 am Local Time; June 19th, 2000
Three Days After Vilgax's Attack
Gwen felt ancient as she made the short walk out of Azmuth's laboratory and into the dull red sunlight. Not from the pain in her stomach. That was almost gone even if the bruises did still ache when she breathed in too deep.
It wasn't the worst one.
She stopped at the mouth of the short tunnel and blinked away tears before she looked around. She didn't know what for, she just wanted to see the world.
Her gaze settled on a rock instead. One that wasn't too far away and didn't look the least bit different from the ones she'd seen at home. The only thing it had going for it was that it looked like it would be a comfortable place to sit. One that would let her keep her back on the ship that wasn't anything like the blood-red one she saw every time she closed her eyes, but that didn't seem to matter. She walked through a field of little black plants that almost looked like clovers and came up to her calves to get to it. It wasn't until she was halfway through that she saw the way the light shined on their wet-looking leaves.
It was like walking through a field of rainbows.
Rainbows that she watched over even as she reached the rock. Rainbows that she finally pulled her eyes away from so she could see everything else. The sun was huge and high overhead but it burned with the same color as a sunset at home. It should have been hot under a sun that big, but she was chilly as clouds that looked like pink cotton candy passed by overhead and blocked out some of that red light.
This was the third alien world she'd ever visited, but it was the first one that she got a chance to sit down and look at.
And her last.
It was over.
Gwen stared at the horizon, but all she saw was how surprised her Doofus looked when the Omnitrix came off. It was like he never thought it would really happen. She wasn't sure if he thought he'd change his mind or if he never had a choice to begin with. She just knew that once it was off it was like the last three years never happened.
The heroing was done.
They were a team. Gwen knew that she could do it without her Doofus, just like she knew he could do it without her, but she wouldn't. She made a promise, and she made it for a good reason. It was too dangerous to go alone. They'd had too many close calls together.
One too many.
She was going to miss helping people.
Sleep would be possible again, though. Real sleep without having to worry about being woken up at all hours by her phone beeping an alarm or a clawed hand shaking her shoulder. School should be easier. Life should be easier.
The lies were done.
She didn't even know how many she'd told her parents since that first summer started. Lies about being safe, about being in bed, and everything else. Lies about being fine. Lies that they only believed because they trusted her and they shouldn't. She hated lying, but she had gotten so good at it over the years.
Except with Michelle, who saw right through them, who went hysterical because she knew that things weren't okay. Knew when even her parents didn't. Gwen almost told her everything then. About Phoenix, about Vilgax and the magic and the Omnitrix.
Almost.
Admitting that she was in the city during Vilgax's attack was easy. Making up the rest of it was hard. She didn't even remember what she said now, but she remembered Michelle thanked her for telling the truth after that. Her best friend thanked her for lying to her.
She was so tired of lying.
It had only been a few minutes but the whole thing was already starting to feel like a dream. The brave knight and the sorceress fighting together to protect people. Until it counted, anyway. When it mattered, he was on his own.
They were over.
They had barely even started and they were over. Gwen closed her eyes and put her face in her hands, but she didn't cry. She didn't want them to be over, not when she didn't even know what this was yet, but she didn't know how to fix this. He wouldn't even look at her, and she couldn't look at him. Every time she tried, all she saw was how much she hurt him.
And she had. Over and over, in every way she could. She couldn't even listen to a tape without making things worse. She didn't mean to freak out about the tape deck, but hearing him say that, even if it was a recording...
It had been one lie too many.
It had taken every bit of courage she ever had to ask him to come out here with her. To see just one star with her. And he didn't answer. He didn't even look at her. He just stared at the Omnitrix in his hands.
They were over. She never even found the right word and they were done. Three kisses. Three kisses weren't enough, but that was all she'd ever get.
That's what she was afraid of anyway, what she was waiting to find out. She sat back up and took a deep breath and just looked up as she waited to see if Ben would join her. That was how she found the small moons that circled this world, and she almost smiled as she watched them glow in the sky.
She didn't know how long she waited, but it felt like forever. It was long enough that she was sure that she had her answer. It was long enough that her legs were as numb as the rest of her as she pushed herself up and turned around.
And saw Ben standing by the lab's entrance not twenty feet away. She didn't know how long he'd been there, but he was looking right at her. There was a whole alien world around them, and he was looking at her. She almost ducked her head, almost blushed, almost brushed her hair back, and almost yelled. Instead, she looked back and smiled. Or tried to, she didn't even know if her lips moved. She just hoped he'd smile back.
She loved his smile.
She watched for even a twitch in his lips, but he just stood there and stared, pale and wide-eyed as he rubbed his bare wrist. She watched him and remembered the second yesterday when she thought she had lost him and her world went cold. Somehow he had gone from the most annoying thing in her world to her whole world.
And she let him slip out of her hand.
There wasn't anything that she could say that would fix that. She knew there wasn't. There weren't any spells either. Not even Grandpa knew what to say when he came out, and he could fix anything. He just stared at them both before he walked up to Ben and handed him the Omnitrix again.
Somehow her Doofus lost even more of the color in his face as he took it. For a second, she thought he'd drop it or throw it away, but Grandpa put his hand on the watch and said something. Something that made Ben stop, made him look at her and nod, and just like that Gwen knew.
She knew that he was keeping it and that he would put it on again one day. It might be tomorrow or it might be years from now, but he would put it on again.
That thought went through her head over and over as Grandpa led them both back into the ship, as she went to the room Xylene let her use and found the backpack that Aunt Vera gave her. She reached for Charmcaster's old spellbook, the one she'd only hidden away under the new clothes out of habit and pulled it out with a purpose. When he put the watch on again, she would be ready. She wouldn't let him down again.
Never again.
- o - o - o - o - o -
Avalon
Classified
4:12 pm Local Time; June 20, 2000
Four Days after Vilgax's Attack
"You've let me down, Gentlemen," Jim said. His voice wasn't a growl or a hiss, he had enough control for that. Control that his left wrist was paying the price for as he held it behind his back with a grip so tight he was sure he would have broken it when he was younger. "Worse than that, you've let the world down."
Those words made Presidents and Premiers quake before. They were words that Jim reveled in just for that, just for the moment when he made the men who thought that they ruled the world realize what this universe really was. They'd made grown men weep.
Now they just made the men behind him squirm as Jim stared at the screen in front of him and the pictures splashed across it. The pictures of Phoenix burning in the night, of the drones and the Starship. Pictures that caught a flash of a dome that burned like a pink sun in the middle of it all, and of a desert in the day. The picture of that had the fuzzy edge that long-range surveillance always did, but it was necessary with the Colonel and his Plumb-ette there. Annoying either of them was never a good idea, but he had to see it for himself again, the picture of them in the desert, of the boy walking on that damned ship with the Omnitrix on his wrist.
And him coming back yesterday without it.
"I-it was either the device or the world, General," one of the three dared to say the obvious like he didn't read the reports, didn't study them for the one detail that would let him drag in Max Tennyson by his ear so he could get the truth out of the man, but there wasn't anything. A doomsday virus that disrupted the Omnitrix's core…
It was just what Jim would have done. It's what he had a whole room full of eggheads working on just so he could if it was necessary, so of course the alien had the same thing ready. Vilgax was even more of a monster than the rest of his kind, but no one could say he was a fool. Not when he lived his life based on the same words that Jim had carved into the metal wall next to his desk decades ago. "Adversus extinctionem bene optandum aliis," he muttered the words to himself.
Options. The alien device gave them so many and now…
"Dismissed," Jim muttered as he stood there and stared at the screen. His eyes should have been drawn to the devastation on it, but he couldn't tear them away from the boy and his empty wrist. The most powerful weapon in the galaxy and they'd let it go. He barely paid any attention to the sound of the shuffling feet or the door sliding open behind him as the men all but fled his office.
All but one. "That boy saved the city, General," the man said. His voice was just shy of quivering as he said it and he fled as Jim sucked in a breath.
"A city…" he muttered to himself as all the bones in his wrist ached under his grip. They could have rebuilt a city. They could have rebuilt a thousand, but there wasn't any replacing the Omnitrix.
If Albright had just followed orders and brought the Colonel and the device back right after Phoenix then maybe they could have found a solution to the problem themselves. If the man wasn't such a good soldier he would be spending the rest of his natural life watching over the thing that was sleeping under Antarctica or the gate under Malta.
As it was, Jim was sorely tempted even as he kept his back turned on his desk, at the cold metal of it that was all that was left of the people he beat on his way to claiming this room and the glasspad that was waiting for him on top of it. He didn't reach for it, he didn't have to. He might not recognize the man he saw in the mirror anymore, but he knew everything that was on that bit of alien wizardry.
Every demand for his time, for the men that he didn't have anymore. Not when he'd lost so many already after the last year that he couldn't spare any of the ones he had left if the world on the screen in front of him was going to have another day.
Not yet anyway.
"Merlin," one of the dozen women who made up Control's voice filled the room then. It was a voice that Jim barely heard as he stared at the still image of the boy who was sitting in a burning city that filled the screen. "The Security Council is waiting - "
"Let them wait," Jim growled as he tightened his grip on his wrists until the ancient bones in them ached. He didn't have time for the petty men who only thought that they ran the world. Not today. Not when he had this many fires to put out.
If the words startled Control, she didn't let it show. She wouldn't be here if she did and Jim didn't think a thing of it as she just answered, "Yes, sir. We have the updates on the SCP missions in Nigeria and - "
Secure, contain, protect. It was supposed to be the core of their mission, but today? "Is the world ending?"
"No, sir. Not at the moment."
"Then don't waste my time, Control," Jim growled. "Anything else?"
"Area 51 has begun - "
"I don't give a tinker's damn what those eggheads are doing, Control," Jim snapped before she could finish again because he'd have to be a damned fool not to know what they were working on. Vilgax's ship. Theirs now, and the thought of being able to say that about the giant warship should have given him more satisfaction. Instead, his glare could have burned a hole in the screen. One that would have filled the empty space on the boy's wrist. "Anything else?"
There was silence then. Silence instead of the no he was hoping for, and enough of it that he had to clear his throat. They knew better in the old days, he thought. Back when the world was barely connected by radio and he could count on his people to use the sense that God gave them. Back when - "We've gotten a report from York, sir, but - "
Jim did something that he hadn't since the heady days at Normandy, he froze. Not for long. Not any longer than he did as he stared at the pillboxes and the fire coming from them, but he did. "Put me through."
"S - ?" the woman started before she caught herself. "Yes, sir."
There was a click then. One that hadn't even faded from the room before Jim snapped out, "Alpha Sierra, report."
If the man was the least bit put out about not even getting a chance to get the first word in, he didn't show it. "It's like the reports said, Merlin. The center is a complete loss. The monster that attacked it - "
The words should have rocked Jim. Some part of him knew that they should. He knew more than a few of the people who were facing the ends of their lives at that retirement home. It was a part that Jim put away the moment he took this job. "Then tell me something that isn't in the reports, Adler."
The room went silent then for a dozen heartbeats. Maybe it was because of the casual use of his last name over the radio, but Jim doubted it as he clamped his mouth shut and stewed at himself for slipping so badly even as the man cleared his throat. "For as bad as the fire was and as incompetent as the emergency services here are, only two people are missing, Merlin. A nurse named Amara Chada," Jim let the name slip by as the nothing it was, ground his teeth, and waited for the news he knew was coming. The news that meant that everything that he'd done and had Nimue do had finally come to naught, "and a patient. One George Senex, who barely shows up in the records. If the staff and residents weren't frantic about him… " Reproach and curiosity filled the man's voice at the words trailed off. Not concern, though, but Jim wouldn't have sent him if that was an issue and they both faded as he continued, "we're still sifting through the rubble, but - "
"Find him," Jim barked out before the man could finish fishing for the answers that he'd never get. "Whatever it takes. I want that man back in that bed or his body on my desk before the day is out, Alpha Sierra! Understood?"
There wouldn't be a body. Jim knew that even as there was another pause on the line. One that was finally broken by the man saying, "As always, I am your servant, Mer - "
The line went dead with a wave of Jim's shaking hand. "Damnation." The word just slipped out, but it was the only thing that gave him the least bit of satisfaction before he spat out, "Control. I want all eyes on the Organization until I say otherwise."
"The - ?"
"The Forever Knights!" The name he hadn't used in fifty-four years wasn't a shout, but only just barely as Merlin slashed his hand through the air and killed the intercom. His office went quiet as he closed his eyes and stewed at the past that should have been long gone just like their order. They were barely more than a handful of sad men who held onto something long gone and the psychopaths who imagined themselves kings, but they were a start. One that Jim would have to stomp out before they could be made into anything else.
"Unless he's already found them." Jim sagged with those muttered words and felt all his years even though he knew it was impossible. Not in four days.
But the old man had done more with less before.
Jim's eyes flew open at that thought as he remembered all the stories he'd made himself forget a lifetime ago. His mind was on the glasspad on his desk and the reports that filled it. The ones that should have warned him -
And his eyes fell on the boy on the screen again - the one with the empty wrist - and only one report mattered. One report that had more information than he'd ever use. Information on everything from DNA results to psych profiles and started with a list of names. A list he knew by heart by now:
Albright, A.
Armstrong, E.
Cruz, M.
Daniels, C
Green, K.
Tennyson, B.
Tennyson, G.
Validus, E.
Wheels, H.
The list of names was so short - they all that was left after they took out all the variables that might make the impossible all the harder - and it was shorter still because he knew things that the brains downstairs didn't, but it would be an ace in the hole that no one else had if it worked. "Optandum aliis," Jim repeated as he turned back to his desk and jammed a finger down on a button he never thought he'd use. "Today's your lucky day, Doctor. You're getting one of your wishes granted. Project: Chimera is reactivated and and you'll have your first two subjects before the week is out."
He spat the words out the second he heard the click of the line answering and let it go just as the man on the other end sucked in an excited breath. Then he turned back on the screen, sank behind his desk, and prepared for the future.
- o - o - o - o - o -
City Hall
Santa Mira, California
12:38 am; July 4th, 2000
20 Days After Vilgax's Attack
Sometimes he remembered the field trip he took when he was still a baby and he saw this inside of this building for the first time. It seemed so big back then. So important as he stood there and imagined his future.
The memory almost felt like a dream now as he looked at the walls that were covered with a dried green slime that was as alien as everything else he saw. As alien and as flat, like he was watching a movie or having a dream. A dream or a nightmare. Just enough of one that he would have screamed if he could, or he'd try and the thing that clung to his face would tighten the tentacles that it had wrapped around him tighter until the scream and the thought both died and the dark came back and took everything away.
The dark and the voice that came with it. The one that whispered over and over that this was necessary. That they were saviors.
These were always the bad times. For the rest, the world was just a dream that smelled like the ocean as he stood there, one of many lost in the dark at the edge of the room. One of many who watched the three bathed in light as they stood in the middle at attention. Three giants. Three creatures who were the furthest thing from human, who only shared some of the same shape even though they towered over everyone here.
The Firstborn. The Highbreed, the same voice whispered, the awe coming through even though the sounds didn't. Didn't sound like English, didn't feel like words, but he knew them anyway. They just were.
Just like the Highbreed.
The giants with their snow-white skin didn't have any eyes that he could see - and he could see so much more now in the dark - unless that was what the weird red slashes on their face and chest were, but they all faced the screen that hung before them anyway and watched the one that looked so much like them but more who was on the other side. The one whose deep, gravelly voice filled the room now. "The Council and I have read your report from the city called Portland, Commander. Is there any doubt?"
The one in the middle straightened at the words. Stood tall and proud as it rasped out, "No, your Supremacy. We found no sign of any other world's technology in use and only the Abomination - " the squid-like thing around his head tightened its grip at the word. Tightened even though he didn't scream, and some part of him realized that it was afraid. That everyone in this room was and it seemed wrong. " - could have stopped Vilgax, the Conqueror, on this world and left the city anything other than a cinder. It is here, it is just well hidden and guarded as I have said."
"Then we shall call off the searches on the other worlds," the thing on the screen rasped before it leaned closer to the screen and loomed larger. "Your plan is approved, Commander. Expect reinforcements within the - "
"No!" The one on the far end shouted suddenly as he stepped forward. If it was human, he would have expected it to be red with fury, but it wasn't and no color touched that white skin. None but what was already there, the colorful marks on its face and chest and the black stains on its feet and hands. A hand raised now even as the wings that were usually drawn tight against its back opened just a little. "No, the Abomination is too dangerous! We should burn this world while we can, not - !"
The one in the middle rounded on that one without any of the displays, but he still took a step back, and he wasn't the only one of the servants who did because they were the Highbreed and beyond this. "No! We do not hurt the innocent! Not more than we must, Subcommander! Have you forgotten our ways?!"
"Have you forgotten the Devourer?!" The subcommander spat out, and then there was just pain and darkness as the thing squeezed down on his head and neck. Squeezed until he couldn't breathe, until every instinct screamed for him to reach up and tear at the tentacle around his neck, the one that was a part of him now.
But his hands wouldn't move. Not for him. Not anymore.
"The fault would not be ours!" the third's voice rumbled out in the darkness like thunder. "We've tried to draw the Wielder out from his people and all it gained us was the extinction of our pawns!"
"Then we shall try harder!" The Commander said, and there was a noise. One sudden and sharp and another that he felt through the floor even as he tried to breathe. "The Blood Pack were nothing and the galaxy is better off without their kind. We do not massacre the innocent!"
"No," the voice on the screen agreed, its voice another deep rumble before it softened. "Easy, my friends. Easy. The Devourer has not yet returned. Remember your hosts." Air came a moment after those words. Air came, but the pain didn't go away. Neither did the terror. He wanted to rub away the one and run with the other, but his hands just went behind his back as his body stood straight again. As they all did, and when he opened his eyes again, the three were back to where they were, even if the Subcommander's face was marred by a green splotch now,
A mark that he looked away from and that was when he saw her in the dark.
It was just a glimpse. Just a flicker of his girlfriend as she stood on the other side of the room and waited just like he did. Not that he could see any of the bronze skin and teasing smile he remembered in the thing he saw now. The thing that buried her in the pale green skin that had spread out over her and stared back with its single red eye. But it didn't matter how much this nightmare tried to devour her, it couldn't hide the way she stood. The little tilt in her hip that always drove him crazy and not even this could take away.
Even if it did take everything else.
"The Abomination must be found and destroyed, but if the Creator escapes us…" The one on the screen intoned. "Your plan is approved, Commander. Begin the preparations and expect reinforcements within the week. And the Queen you requested." There was another rustle then. One that came with a word that felt like mother and a joy that was so short-lived. "Find this Abomination - this Omnitrix - and its creator. Find them and destroy them before Darkness falls again and we shall prepare in case you cannot."
"Yes, Your Supremacy," the Commander said as the three bowed even as the screen went dark. "We have much to do. Subcommander, prepare the Hatchery," the commander said with a look at the third that was a glare for all that it didn't have eyes.
"Yes, Commander," the third hissed, still bitter as it turned and left. His girl left with him and he watched her like he always did for the look he didn't know if he wanted to see or not, because knowing that she was still in there, as trapped as he was…
"Commander," the one closest, the one he served, said for the first time. "Your plan will take time and I - "
"Yes, Reinrassig," the Commander said with something that might have been a sigh that cut his master off as he caught himself. "You may continue your work until the day. Find these Plumbers."
The words were simple ones and said in a tone that he remembered from his boss when he worked at the auto shop, and Reinrassig bowed, turned, and left as he followed.
Followed him into another office. One that he knew wasn't special in any way even before the night this all started. The night he found out what it was like when he had a nightmare he couldn't wake up from. Reinrassig didn't look at him as he sank into the only chair here. The one that was as much a part of the room now as the stuff that covered the walls and the Highbreed touched with a stained-black three-fingered hand. It should have seemed like magic when the slime pulled away and a screen came to life under it.
It should have, but it didn't and he wished the dark would come back because the woman who appeared looked so much like his girl did when they saw the burning thing fall from the sky and chased after it. Not her face, but her expression, the terror and tension written all over her as she pulled against the ropes that were holding her in that chair...
If he'd known, if he thought about anything except for the feel of her hand on his arm as she tried to pull him away or the way her voice quaked as he reached out for the pod that they found just Lying there, smoking in a crater. The same way it quaked when they watched their first horror movie together and he got his first kiss right after she buried her face in his shoulder, and he hoped that after this, after he showed her how tough he was...
Then he heard the pod hiss open and saw the things inside.
" - so sorry, baby," the woman sobbed out and he couldn't breathe even as the thing on his face made him look at her. Made him study her from her short cut blond hair that was tied tight back to the weird blue overalls she was wearing to the tears that were running down her cheek from her one uncovered eye that was closed tight and the thing that already covered the other.
The same squid-like thing that he saw when the pod split open and every time he saw a mirror. Saw in the split second before they sprang out at them as his girlfriend shrieked. For that moment, he was sure that would be the worst thing he ever heard, but the noise the woman on the screen was making….
The terrified panting sound he heard every time the huge alien thing in front of him listened to this recording and every time the dark came. It was the same noise his girl made as he tried to pull the thing off of her until his body stopped listening to him. A noise as far beyond words as he was as he felt he tentacles around him shift even now.
He wished that the words that followed that noise, the words that were almost a babble were any easier to take, but they weren't. The only thing that made him feel any better was that the voice he heard coming from the screen didn't sound a thing like the one he used to make laugh.
The woman's one uncovered eye didn't sparkle either as she opened it. The blue of it was just a narrow ring around black as it flickered this way and that, as unfocused as some of the guys got after work as they smoked. The mumbling was almost the same, though. Almost. "The people? You'd really like them, Baby. I know that Plumbers is a silly name, but… They're all just like… Don't say that, Helen! He likes you so much and so does his son even if Manny… I don't know. Maybe. I can't! It's a - I can't tell you - Honey, please you know I - I - " the woman's voice broke then as something that sounded like thunder filled the room. A sound he remembered just like he did his master rushing from the room as he followed. A sound he caused as he fired his rifle into the crowd of pirates and they fired back, but they were scared and he wasn't.
Not with the Highbreed at his side, not when his life didn't mean anything compared to protecting the galaxy, but there were more pirates than them and the vermin were already at the gates. He wasn't afraid, but it was a relief when they stepped into the rings, so they weren't there for the rest, but the computer listened to the very end.
"A - all right, baby. Major Albright is just like the soldiers in the movies, always barking orders, but Armstong and Cruz both served with him for years - since even before they became Plumbers together a-and Neil says that - th… N - N… No I - I - Stop it! You're not - ! You're not my Hel - !" The woman shouted just like his wife did. Shouted and pulled at her bonds as the thing on her face narrowed its one eye and her breath and voice got so ragged. "N- not - not my boss - W - we serve under C - Colonel T - T - Tennyson - n… No!"
He wished the darkness would come back as he watched the woman squeeze her eye shut and howl. Howl until the thing on her face wrapped a tentacle around her neck and squeezed until she collapsed against the ropes. He stared at her slumped form after, slumped just like he remembered his baby doing, only the woman on the screen didn't cry and his didn't stop. Not until she did, but by then she wasn't her anymore.
And he wasn't him.
But he was here, watching the woman who was held up only by the ropes and the chair as the sounds of shooting were replaced by an explosion rocked everything. Then the screen went dark as his master just stood there for such a long moment before he reached up with one black hand and touched another button. One that went to a program that had been running for weeks already. One that was just a list that scrolled by almost faster than he could read. Names and addresses for work and home. Names with pictures.
Most of them were just men and women in uniform that looked as formal as the ones in his yearbook. The rest, though, the rest looked just like the ones he remembered. The ones of him and her as the names flashed by like the hundreds more stars he saw raining down on their hometown the night this nightmare started...q
Then the huge alien pressed the button again and the woman came back. " - so sorry, baby…"
And it started all over again.
- o - o - o - o - o -
Ben's Living Room
Bellwood, California
3:35 pm, July 12th, 2000
28 Days After Vilgax's Attack
All it would take to make the nightmare stop was him pushing one button, but Ben's finger didn't move. He couldn't. He just looked at the TV, all sixty inches of it, and stared at the destroyed city that it was showing.
"-clean up efforts continue in Phoenix, Arizona. City officials are hopeful that the last of the debris will be removed by the end of the month," the man on the tv said with a smile that looked just as fake as the frown that took its place as the camera angle changed and he turned in his seat. "But in our lead story, vandals set fire to the Chicago Historical Society last night. The worst of the blaze was centered on the First Contact exhibit, which had been touring the country for the last three years. Early damage estimates are in the millions and several artifacts have been reported destroyed. There are no suspects at this time. The only clue left behind was the message 'Remember Phoenix, Never Again,' which police discovered graffitied across the front of the building. No suspects have been - "
Ben let the words wash over him as he sat there. The words and the pictures of the ruined building even as he itched at his bare wrist until he heard a voice he couldn't ignore - not for long, anyway - call his name. "Yeah, Mom?"
"It's time to - " His mom said as she stepped into the living room and her words disappeared in a sigh. "I wish that you wouldn't watch the news."
Ben just shrugged. He didn't even look at her. He didn't have to, he knew what he'd see. The same worried look that he'd seen since he got home. A look that didn't go away even as she made herself sound so excited. "We're going to be late for your first day back in karate! You don't want to keep Gwen waiting, do you?"
The thought made him feel sick, but he stood up anyway and started for the door. The back of his neck itched because he could feel his mom's eyes on him. She was always watching him now. Her and Dad. They had been ever since he got back weeks ago. They never yelled – not that they ever yelled all that much to begin with – or told him what to do. They didn't even stop him from staying up late and always seemed to want to hang out with him.
Being in his room with the door shut was easier. So was keeping the blinds closed as the TV just kept playing….
"For heaven's sake, Ben, turn off the television first."
Ben knew that he should have rolled his eyes at that because they were so boring and normal. Maybe made a joke just to see if he could make his mom sigh or laugh, but he didn't. He just clomped back to the couch and picked up the remote instead of admitting that the words made him feel a little bit better anyway because that was just sick.
But not as sick as what he heard slip out of the tv's speakers. "-asking for any information that could lead to the whereabouts of Helen Amber Wheels, who disappeared from her father's backyard four days ago. This is just one more tragedy for the family after her mother died on duty only three months -"
Ben stopped and stared as a photograph of a little blond girl with a blue streak in her hair filled the screen. It had to be a school photo. Nothing else would explain the fancy dress or the fake smile before it changed to her with a woman who could only have been her mother pushing her on the swings, and seeing them both smile over the caption at the bottom that said Atlanta Tragedy.
Ben watched it all and felt his left wrist itch.
It would take a couple of recharges, but Ben knew that could XLR8 it and be there in about an hour if the Watch played along. All he had to do was go get his Dweeb and -
And he turned off the television and followed his mother out the door.
"You must be so excited to see Gwen today," his mother said as she tried to fill the silence with a nervous babble as she drove. "Your father and I were thinking that you could invite her over after class. It's been so long since we've had her over. It would be fun." She stopped and snapped her fingers as if she just had a thought, but he knew she'd been practicing all of this. "I know! She could sleep over! That way you two can spend the whole day together tomorrow. I already talked to Lili and she said that it would be fine with them."
"Dad said okay?" Ben asked, his voice dull and doubting. "After what happened? I thought that he..."
A couple of months ago, Dad threw a fit over Gwen coming over for a few hours. Now he said she could stay over?
It felt like a trick.
It felt like it should matter. It came the closest anything had in weeks.
"Your father was just being silly back then. He didn't mean anything by it," Mom said with a wave of her hand. She gave him a too-wide smile. "What do you think? We could stop at the store and get all the processed sugar that you two can stand!"
Ben gave his mother a look. "Are you feeling okay, Mom?"
Sandra nodded a little too much as they pulled into the parking lot of the dojo. "I'm fine, Ben. What do you think? I think you two would have a blast!"
He thought, and as he did he looked out his window.
There was only a small class standing outside of the dojo. Most of the kids had gone away for the summer and most of the ones who hadn't couldn't leave the house. Not yet. Not when everyone was still half-panicked and the TV wouldn't shut up. Sensei had been thrilled when Ben and Gwen's parents had called to see if they could rejoin early. Thrilled, and then worried when he found out why.
The man would be staring when Ben went in. He already knew that. Everyone else did when they found out, but that didn't stop him from reaching for the van's door handle or muttering something to his mom as he pushed it open. He ignored her happy voice as his eyes went to the crowd that was waiting in front of the dojo. It took him even less time to find his Dweeb.
It was the first time he had seen her since they had gotten back from space and he couldn't take his eyes off of her as she stood there, her eyes on her feet as Paul and Mary stood next to her and talked around her. He stared and he couldn't breathe. Not any more than he could then as he watched her sit on that rock with her back to him and stare out at an alien world like a dweeb.
His Dweeb.
He stared then and he stared now, just so he could take her in as she stood there in her gi. Her hair was longer, he realized. Not by much, but it was longer than she had ever had it before. There were dark circles under her eyes, too, when she looked up after Mary touched her shoulder, and she looked skinnier. Skinny enough that he would have worried. He would have, but when he put on his gi an hour ago his pants had almost fallen off. If he took his mother up on her offer that problem would be solved for both of them.
Ben could see them doing it. Spending the whole night just playing video games and watching movies and eating junk until they were both sick and...
Gwen would be close enough to talk to, to touch. He never realized how often they touched each other until the last few weeks as they went on and on about everything. The hugs were rare, but they were always touching each other's arms or hands or sitting so close as she used his arm as a pillow. He missed all of the little touches - all of her - and he wanted them back.
And she'd be close enough to...
His eyes went to her lips and he just saw the sweat soaking her face already. Soaked just like it was before when half of her face was covered with blood, and like it was every night when he closed his eyes. He just saw the blood again just like he had every night since they fought Vilgax. That and her lying on Aunt Vera's couch after in just the tank top and shorts that she had worn under her Plumber suit. His head felt so full of cotton and the edges of the memory blurred, but nothing could make him forget the sight of her lying there with her tank top pulled up and her eyes closed tight as Grandpa and Aunt Vera worked on the horrible marks across her stomach as alien light filled the room. They talked to her the whole while even though she hadn't said a word since that first injection, talked, and joked even as they pulled out more and more alien stuff from wherever Aunt Vera had hidden it.
And Ben had just felt sick as he just stood there while they did everything that they could to help his Dweeb, and all he could do was stand there in the corner and watch.
Watch when he just wanted to hold her hand. Watch like he did as she screamed at him and pulled at his hand, her face covered in blood and he didn't know why, just that his hands hurt and - and what did he do?
Watch like he did when she just collapsed with horrible sobs at the sound of his recorded voice.
Watch like he did when vines dragged her underground and a fireball burned into the sky right where he'd left the Rustbucket, left her.
Ben watched and felt like he was being choked even before he heard Vilgax's snarl in his ear again, 'They're dead, Boy. They're dead. You're dead. Your whole world died the second you stole the Omnitrix!' The moment he heard those words he knew they were true.
And he heard all the noises Vilgax made right after that, too. The way the alien howled after he drove a single shard of a crystal into the monster's chest and made it grow as Old Squidface howled and slammed them both through the window and -
And what he said as they fell, as Ben put all his concentration into that crystal even as the alien called his name and -
"-son!" The howl was so much louder now, almost as loud as the heart he heard hammering in his ears, but it was the feel of the hand on his shoulder that made Ben jump away and slam his hand down on where the Watch should have been. His palm found bare skin instead as he spun around and his mom's pale face instead of the tentacled horror he was expecting, her blue eyes huge and worried as she said, "Ben?! Are you okay? What's - ?"
"I'm fine!" Ben snapped back as he tried to think, tried to breathe past the words he'd said every night since even before he got back even as he whipped his head around. Every night, over and over again and it happened now as he stared at his Dweeb and her too-wide eyes and dug his fingers into the armrest. "I'm fine."
He would have given anything to let go, to run up to her and hug her as tight as he could just to know that she was still alive. Still a part of his life. He didn't even care that she was in the middle of a crowd. They could make fun of him for the rest of his life and it wouldn't matter.
Ben saw his Dweeb turn and her eyes go wide when she saw him and sucked in a breath as he watched her take a single step back. Back when he was sure that she was going to come running up even though he still didn't have the words. Words he knew didn't matter even before her eyes fell to the ground as she remembered, too. He was always the one who charged in, but she was the one who always got hurt.
She couldn't even look at him. How could he ever expect her to forgive him?
The thought made him drop back into his seat, his knuckles still white around the handle that he never pulled. "Can we go home, Mom?" He asked. His throat was so tight that he could barely force the words out. "I don't feel good."
And his mother just stared at him. "But what about Gwen?"
The Dweeb was beyond annoying. Obnoxious and bossy and way too afraid to relax and have fun. She was beautiful. Smart. Brave, braver than him. She heroed for so long without anything but some martial arts moves and then she became a sorceress and it didn't make her any more amazing because she never needed magic. She was the only person he ever met that was never boring. She was always aggravating, but never boring if only because annoying her was so much fun. She was the only one who he could fight with and actually talk to and her lips tasted like strawberries
They were going to see the stars and he just kept hurting her over and over again and he couldn't breathe.
"Please?"
"Did you have a fight? Did you do something? Did she say something?"
"No," Ben said as something made him look, something made him as Mary gave his Dweeb the hug that he wanted to. "Please."
"Is it because of the car accident?" That was the story Grandpa came up with to explain what had happened to them and the Rust Bucket. Their parents had been worried when he told them it was a fender bender, but when he brought them home and they found out the Rust Bucket was totaled...
Ben had never seen his parents so mad. Or Gwen's. They yelled at Grandpa. They yelled and the man just stood there. He had called Grandpa a few times on the phone, but he hadn't seen him since.
Not even Grandpa could look at him now why did he imagine she could?
"Mom!" Ben closed his eyes so he couldn't see his dweeb looking at anything but him.
"Then why? What happened? You've been so quiet since you've gotten home. Why won't you just tell me what's wrong?!"
Ben looked at her, but he didn't even know how to start. He wanted to tell her everything. All of it. How he and Gwen were heroes together. How she was so brave. How they had saved the world and saw alien stars. But if he did, Grandpa would get in trouble and he was already in so much trouble. If he told them, he would never see the man again.
And he couldn't lose them both.
So he said as little as he could. "I just... after everything that happened I just don't want to do karate. I don't want to fight anymore."
His mother stopped at that. Stopped and thought, her lips thinning to a line as more appeared in her brow and he knew that she believed him even before she nodded. He didn't know how true it was until he said it, but it's what she wanted to hear ever since he started. He knew she hated how violent karate was for all her talk about wanting to learn more about Japanese culture. "Okay. Okay, but you have to do something. You can't just mope around the house."
He knew it didn't matter to her, or him, so he just said the first thing that came to mind. "Soccer tryouts are coming up soon."
"That sounds... good," Mom said with a nod that didn't look the least bit convincing. "What about - ?"
"If I tell Gwen, she'll yell until I stay, and I really don't feel good."
Again, it was just enough of the truth that she believed him, but it didn't take any of the worry from his mom's eyes as she drove back out of the parking lot and onto the road for home. Worry that got worse and worse until they were in the driveway and she finally said, "There. We're home. Now give your cousin a call and - "
And Ben didn't have any more fight left in him, so he pulled out his phone and called hers. It should have been easy since he knew she didn't have it. And it was until he heard the recording of her voice, "You know what to do, Doofus!" She said and laughed before she vanished in a beep.
One just like the ones Ben heard while she was lying on the couch. "I…" That was the only word that came out of him. For a moment, he was sure that was the last word he would ever say, then the phone beeped again and he felt his mom's eyes on him. "She must have turned it off. I'll tell her later," he somehow said around the cotton in his mouth.
He stared at his phone for the rest of the day after he somehow got back in his room and into bed. Stared at it as it rang, stared at it when it stopped, and kept staring as it trilled the alarm that meant that there was someone out there that needed a Hero. Words flashed by, transcribed from the police band. Words Ben didn't read as he thought of the Omnitrix that was hidden in the box under his bed with all of the rest of his souvenirs.
There were people out there that needed help. That needed a hero. He knew that.
He knew it just like he knew that Grandpa told him that it was his choice to take the device off, and his choice if he ever wanted to put it back on. He had said that, but he made Ben keep the Watch anyway.
Grandpa said that it was his choice, but Ben knew that Grandpa lied even as he pushed himself out of bed and forced his feet into the first kata he ever learned. The one he wouldn't forget any sooner than the girl he saw on the TV today. It would be so easy to go hero again and save her, but if he did...
Then so would his Dweeb and he already watched her die twice now. He wouldn't let her get hurt again. Not because of him.
Never again.
- o - o - o - o - o -
Erico Omake
Erico's Omake is Azmuth's section at the start of this chapter. I'm sure that quite a few of you recognize his story 'As Old As You Feel.' Unlike the rest of his side stories, this one felt like it should be a part of the main story, so we added it here with a rewrite to make it fit the reboot better. If you'd like to read the original version or just leave him a review for the excellent story, just add s/11270591/1/Little-Moment-As-Old-As-You-Feel in the address line after the net.
From Erico:
AOAYF is also on AO3, along with all the other side stories. Did I mention that Jim Huxby is a real son of a bitch? It bears repeating.