Gwen's been in the castle for a little over a week now and she has a decent understanding of the men who have taken her in.

Ben is the easiest to read. For every part of him that is ridiculous and a little annoying, he is just as equally compassionate, and Gwen gets along with him easily. It's almost easier than getting along with her own brother. Ben shares her interests, and she is more than intrigued by the Omnitrix. She's heard about it passing but seeing how Ben uses it, like it's second nature to him, is amazing. She'd never tell him though; he clearly already has a big head.

Max is a mixture of a few different things. He can be just as ridiculous and caring as his grandson, but the loyalty and discipline he has to the Plumbers is very admirable to her. He also can command a room in a way she sees Ben wishes he could.

It makes sense that the two are close, but Gwen sees that Ben is much closer to his grandpa and talks very little about any other family. Gwen thinks Max and Ben are probably the only family they've known for a long time. She doesn't pry though, it's not her place.

She can tell that they love each other unconditionally. When she sees them together it reminds her of Ken, and she feels lonely for a while. Max can almost feel her loneliness when it comes on, because he can single her out quickly to be with him. His kindness towards her makes her feel safe. It feels like home in an odd sense.

Rook is the one who has surprised her the most. When Ben can't tend to her, Rook usually replaces him. She's learned so much about his culture and his home planet, Revonnah. She could listen to Rook go one about his family's farm and their own holidays. She asked him once, while they were watching Ben and Kevin spar, if he missed it. She saw him genuinely contemplate it for a few minutes. His eyes never stopped following Ben though as a small smile formed on his feline face.

"Sometimes I do, but this feels just as much like a family." He had turned toward Gwen, smiling brightly. "Do you not agree?"

Gwen had hummed in response to him. She didn't know how she felt about living here yet, just that she felt more like herself than she had in a long time. She almost felt free, even with the rotation of Ben and Rook watching her.

Gwen thinks she gets along with Rook because they can sympathize with each other when they feel like a fish out of water.

Gwen had to explain what that euphemism was to Rook when she told him as such.

Kevin is the one that Gwen has spent the least amount of time with. The irony of that doesn't escape her considering he was the one to bargain with her.

She sees Kevin mostly when she must be in meetings with Ben or Rook, or when Ben and Kevin are sparring.

Kevin's situation doesn't leave her mind either. She has no clue how he became this way, and Ben refuses to tell her. She needs to talk to Kevin about it, but he's the one that seems to be either avoidant of her or indifferent.

Maybe indifferent is the best word for it.

Someone who isn't indifferent toward her though is Mike Morningstar. The guy seems to be infatuated with her, which to be honest makes Gwen flustered a bit.

She never really talked to a lot of men in her town, so to see one so openly chatting her up was new.

She wasn't upset about it in the least, well, except for the fact that Max was investigating his team. That kind of put a damper on the whole thing.

Or that Ben, and sometimes even Rook, would pull her away from conversations with him.

She didn't know much about him besides that he was eager to talk about her powers. Powers that Gwen had been practicing since she came to the castle. Max was still trying to call in a favor from someone he knew to teach her. Until then, Gwen was more than content to practice from her tiny spell book and fling her mana attacks on sacks of sand on the practice grounds.

She's in the middle of getting ready for the day, half dressed, when Ben barges into her room without knocking.

"Okay Gwen, we have a lot of free time on the schedule today so what if we-" Ben is cut off quickly by Gwen throwing a pillow at his head.

"Ben get out! I'm not dressed you idiot! Learn to knock!" Gwen screeches at him and pushes him back out with a ray of her mana.

"Sorry!" Ben screams back at the closed door. She hears his footsteps essentially run away from her bedroom.

Gwen wasn't indecent but still in her sleeping gown. Her face was hot with embarrassment and she shuffled over to her door to lock it. She didn't need him coming back in until she was done.

When Gwen was finally done getting ready, she heard a hard knock on her door.

She throws it open ready to yell at Ben again but comes face to face with Kevin instead. Well, more like face to chest, Kevin's height towers over her.

"Ben said something about switching duties for today, he was muttering something about a door under his breath, but I really couldn't hear him." Kevin says to her, probably noticing the confusion on her face.

"And you agreed?" Gwen asks him still holding onto her open door.

"He's the one who offered to switch, and I didn't really want to do inspections today anyway." Kevin attempts to smirk at her, but it's mangled. Gwen knows its sincere amusement at the expense of Ben.

"Fair." She finally replies, stepping forward and closing her door.

"What's on the schedule then for today?" Gwen asks.

"I wanna see what you can do. We're gonna spar on the practice grounds." Kevin says making a motion for Gwen to follow him.

Gwen's face pales considerably.

"Excuse me? That seems hardly fair!" She follows Kevin, her eyes racking up his form assessing the various aliens he's made up of.

"World's not fair." He gruffly replies eyeing from the side. "Check me out all you want I'm not going to grow any new limbs."

Gwen huffs and rolls her eyes at him. "Kevin, I could barely explode the cell door in the dungeons without being exhausted. What makes you think I can stand a fight against you?"

Kevin leads her outside to a mostly empty area. A few sacks of sand are thrown to the side alongside some hay bales for makeshift seats.

Kevin turns to face Gwen, "Look, I'm not trying to kill ya. I've seen you practicing from that one book you have," Kevin points to Gwen's pockets knowing she carries her small blue book around.

"You get better every day, but you need some real world experience." He says and kicks one of the sandbags to the side.

"You don't need to be shooting at bags of sand, it won't do you any good." He moves to the other side of the field, putting plenty of space between them.

"Also, who knows when that old man is going to find someone to cash in a favor, you need to be advancing already. We don't have the rest of your life." Kevin starts crouching like he does before he starts fighting Ben.

Gwen glares at him from across the field, "Explain to me again why you need a mage? Why is this so important to you!"

Kevin smiles in an almost feral way at her, "Beat me in a match and I'll tell you."

Gwen's interest is piqued now. She'll play his game. Her curiosity is too much to bear at this point.

Gwen's hands start glowing blue with her mana and she stands much taller now, "Fine."

Kevin's smile widens, baring his teeth at Gwen. If she didn't know any better, she'd think he really was trying to kill her.

Keivn's Pyronite arm lights up ready to throw fire towards Gwen, "I won't go easy on you." he says to her from across the field.

"Good! It'll feel even better when I do beat you!" Gwen yells out with as much bravado as she can find.

Kevin actually laughs at that, his voice coming out in a gruff noise, "Okay then, this will be fun."

Kevin's laughter cuts off as he lifts his enflamed arm up and shots at Gwen in quick succession.

She shrieks slightly and uses her mana to put a shield up to block the hits. Kevin keeps shooting at her and gives a running start toward her.

Gwen's shield starts cracking after three of Kevin's fire balls. She's been put immediately on the defense and she can see Kevin's form moving toward her.

She turns slightly to start running and forms her mana into floating platforms for her to jump onto. She narrowly avoids Kevin's arm swing at her.

From above she bears herself a little easier, but not for long as Kevin uses his wings to bring him up to Gwen's height.

Kevin smirks at her as he flies to her eye level, "You can't really run from someone with wings Gwen."

Gwen smiles back at Kevin, bringing her hands up, "Who said I was running?"

She brings her glowing hands down quickly and two solid blue mana rays fly from her hands and hit Kevin square in his face knocking him back.

Gwen makes more steps to land gracefully back on the ground. She uses her powers to fling projectile mana balls towards Kevin sending him crashing towards the trees that are behind the practice area.

Kevin's back smacks into the trees and he falls down the trunk. Gwen smiles to herself and starts walking closer to where he fell.

Before Gwen can get near, small crystal shards fly toward her. She pulls up a shield once more but as it cracks and shatters, she has to keep making more.

Kevin's form is coming closer to her, his Petrosapien arm pointed at her.

"You're gonna need more than a cheap shot to bring me down!" Kevin yells at her as he encroaches.

Gwen keeps putting up shields but comes up with a new plan quickly.

"How's this for a cheap trick?" She responds to his mocking.

She holds one of her hands behind her and says her first enchantment during the battle, "Tur-bo" she says clearly.

A twisting of the air pulls around them as a mini tornado forms from Gwen's hand. It launches her into the air up above Kevin.

Kevin moves to keep shooting crystal shards at her, but Gwen's hand that caused the mini tornado moves towards him. It launches his projectiles back at him with full force. He brings his arms up to shield himself from it.

Gwen's spell fades and her gravity sends her spiraling toward Kevin. She puts her legs out to try and bounce herself off Kevin's arm for her landing.

Kevin opens his arms slightly to see her using the momentum of her fall to land on him. He smiles to himself and jerks his Petrosapien arm up to catch Gwen by her ankles.

"Gotcha!" he exclaims. She shrieks as he throws Gwen down onto the ground.

The impact cause her to lie on the ground unmoving. She tries to get her head to stop pounding and push herself back up, but she's exhausted. Her body is aching from the impact but also from the intense use of her mana. Kevin moves into her swimming vision and she sees two of him. She closes her eyes tightly, a feeling of nausea now lingering in the mix of everything she's feeling.

"Yea I think we're done here..." Kevin mutters to her.

Gwen groans as a response to Kevin.

Gwen feels her body moving, but not because of her. Kevin gently has picked her up in one of his many arms, which arm she isn't sure. Her vision is still swimming behind her closed eyes. Just as quickly as he lifts her, he places her back down.

She feels where she is and realizes Kevin has just moved her to a hay bale.

"Just take a deep breath and count to fifty." Kevin's voice tells her. "It'll help." He adds.

Gwen nods and listens to him. Her muscles are aching and she feels more drained than ever.

Once she finally reaches fifty in her head she slowly opens her eyes. Kevin stands in front her and she only sees one of him this time. She feels significantly less nauseous, but her exhaustion is still there.

"Ya know," Kevin starts grabbing her attention, "that wasn't too bad."

Gwen rolls her eyes. "You hit me once and I couldn't get back up. I also don't know if I could do another spell after that either." Gwen holds her right hand up to inspect. She forces herself to try and manipulate some mana but her hand flickers blue for only a second before nothing comes back. She sighs.

"Don't beat yourself up, that was more of a challenge than I thought you would put up." Kevin smirks at her.

Gwen's face brightens slightly but a frown falls quickly.

"You wouldn't happen to pity me and tell me anything about why you want a mage, would you?" she asks, cocking her head at him.

Kevin laughs again at her, "I don't pity anybody." he proclaims.

Her head falls and she stares at her feet. She feels like a child for how sore of a loser she's being right now.

"But-" her head shoots back up to look at him, he's avoiding her gaze, "we can keep sparring. If you beat me I'll tell you anything you want."

Gwen's cheeks puff in annoyance, "That's not fair, I'll never knock you down. Ben barely can half the time and that's with a multitude of aliens at his disposal!"

Gwen feels bold and decides to bargain with him, Kevin seems like a man of deals after all. "How about anytime I land a good hit on you, one that really sends you flying, I get one invasively curious question?"

Kevin ponders over this for about five minutes before her responds, "I'm going to regret this but fine. We spar once a week."

Gwen's face lights up with a bright smile. "Great!" She exclaims.

She pushes herself off the hay bale and starts walking back to the castle.