Out of all the people coming through Kevin's study door he isn't expecting Argit. In fact, that's the last person he was expecting right now while Kevin's anger boils under the surface and his paranoia flares up.
Argit looks pretty unperturbed as he waltzes in. He doesn't come too close to Kevin but lingers more so by the door. For a quick escape, Kevin realizes.
Kevin takes a deep breath before he opens his mouth, trying not to yell, "Argit-" Kevin grits his teeth. "why are you here?"
Argit scowls at Kevin, but knows better than to come closer, his body language is stiff, "Tennyson sent me to fetch you. Something about Red and that sparkly guy, Mike. Honestly, I couldn't be bothered to care. He said it was an emergency."Argit replies.
Kevin stands quickly and pushes towards to the door, "Where are they Argit?" Kevin growls out as he closes in on the opossum like alien.
"Down in the library! Geez! Can't a guy do his job in peace?" Argit screams and scurries out of Kevin's way.
Kevin and Max both bolt towards the library. The two are peaked with curiosity and concern.
Kevin has no idea why Gwen and Ben are in the library or what the hell they are doing with Mike Morningstar, but he doesn't like it.
Max calls with his Plumbers badge for Pierce's team for back up and to be prepared for anything.
Kevin and Max make it into the front section of the library to find Ben transformed into his Aerophibian form, Jetray. He was flung across the room back towards the front entrance where Kevin and Max were entering. He plowed into two bookshelves, taking them down. Rook was on the other side of the room aiming one of the Plumber issued guns to shoot at Mike Morningstar, who did not look like himself at all. Morningstar's skin is covered in solid gold, and a faint glow surrounds him, continuously pulsating. He easily dodges around Rook's shots as if he were playing a game.
Max immediately rushes towards Ben to make sure he's okay.
Kevin looks around for Gwen and see her crumpled figure on the floor next to Morningstar, looking pale and drained like the women he saw in the photos.
"What is wrong with you Morningstar?! What did you do to her?" Kevin turns on the former Plumber enraged.
"Isn't it obvious your royal blunder?" Mike replies. He aims an attack at Kevin, he dodges but just barely.
"I deserve more. I always have. You brought this beautiful endless supply of energy on a silver platter to me! I'll only ever need my lovely Gwen to feed me for the rest of my life!" Mike rejoices and uses his power to propel himself into the air.
Ben flies up from his spot on the ground and shoots at Mike from above and hits him in the face. Ben shouts down to Kevin, "He's been absorbing energy from her for weeks! That's why she has those markings. He did it to the girls at the fair!"
Rook shoots at Mike but he's too fast for Rook. Ben only hit him because Mike was too busy monologuing to Kevin to notice Ben got back up.
Kevin uses his Pyronite arm to shoot fire blasts at Mike, he hits him and sends him flying back against one of the bookshelves.
"Max! What's Morningstar's power? You hired him!" Kevin yells back.
"It's energy absorption, he can use it through electricity, but I guess draining people has become his preference!" Max tries to rush towards Gwen's form on the ground, but Mike beats him to her.
Mike lifts Gwen and holds her to his body, as he hovers in the air away from the men below.
"No one is taking her anywhere!" He screams out. "She's mine! She's almost a perfect energy being, she'll never drain." He laughs at them and clutches her closer.
Kevin uses his wings to lift his large body into the air.
"Kevin! You can't blast him, or you'll hit Gwen!" Ben screeches at him and glides in the air opposite him.
"I know that Tennyson!" Kevin roars in frustration.
Kevin thinks about how he can get Mike to just put Gwen aside. He eyes Ben near him and decides to flank Mike from two different sides.
Before Kevin can even fly closer, Mike starts hitting him with his energy beams. It burns Kevin's exposed flesh and pushes his massive form back toward the library's opening.
Kevin's body lands on a large table, breaking it in half.
"How do we get close to him?" Rook asks and he and Max continue to shoot at him, only hitting their mark a couple of times. Mike dances around them and mockingly laughs at their failure.
"We have to distract him; he'll keep feeding on her as long as he's touching her!" Max replies to Rook.
Kevin sits up and goes over to Max and Rook. Ben flies around Mike trying to get closer.
"I'm going to try and flank both his sides with Ben, you both need to be underneath him so we can try to block him." Kevin says and hurls himself up towards Ben.
"Tennyson! Work opposite of me!" Kevin yells at Ben across from the room.
"Try not to get hit!" Kevin adds.
"Easier said than done Kev!" Ben shouts in reply.
Kevin and Ben start hurling towards Mike, dodging a few of his energy beams. He can only aim at one of them at a time while he holds Gwen.
Rook and Max surround him from the ground, their weapons pointed at shooting at Mike.
Mike growls in frustration. He screams, "Enough!" He releases Gwen's body as he shouts. He curls in on himself and sends out a pulsating wave of his energy to attack all of them.
Rook standing beneath Morningstar just catches Gwen and hurries behind a bookshelf with her frail form.
Mike's attack sends Kevin and Ben down to the ground, with Ben's Omnitrix tapping out and his body changing back to his human form.
"You think you can beat me?" Morningstar asks heatedly from above the men on the floor.
"You brought this poor girl here to save you didn't you Kevin? How does it feel to know she will be the reason that your existence finally ends? To know she belongs to me?" He gloats from above and is charging himself up for another attack.
Kevin tries to move, but the last attack knocked him and Ben down. He turns his head, and he can see Gwen sitting in Rook's arms. She is starting to move, and all Kevin can think is to be thankful she isn't dead.
Rook tries to push Gwen back down, but she stumbles and pushes herself up. Mike catches her out of the corner of his sight.
"Oh, you can still move. I'll have to fix that my lovely Gwen, but after I deal with the prince here." Morningstar says in mock surprise.
"No, you won't." Gwen mumbles and moves in front of Mike. She holds her arms up with what little strength she has, she casts a spell, " Reverto Meus Ops Mihi"
Suddenly the air in the room changes and pushes and pulls everyone around. Gwen's hands glow the bright blue of her mana and she projects her attack towards Mike Morningstar.
Her mana wraps around him and squeezes tightly against him, Morningstar's body starts convulsing in the air, his back arches uncomfortably back.
Gwen's body starts to glow blue all around her, her skin coming back to life and replenishing the color that had been lost. As her body returns to normal, he begins to lose the golden shine and starts to rot and decay before them.
"What- what are you doing?" He cries out in agony.
"I belong to no one!" She proclaims and continues to drain him of everything he took and then some.
When she's done, Gwen looks completely normal again. Mike's body collapses to the ground and crumples. His skin is a decaying gray color, and he covers himself with his hands, as if he can protect himself still.
"Tell them Morningstar, tell them what you told me! About how you've been stealing information and tech to sell to the Forever Knights!" Gwen yells at the sad lump of a man on the ground, keeping her distance.
"Or should you tell them about how you've been using your position here to out multiple aliens to the Forever Knights? Honestly the list of illegal activity you monologued about is huge, I don't know if we have time for it all."
In the middle of Gwen talking, Pierce's team finally comes through the library. Pierce leads his team of three, Manny a Tetramand, Helen a Kinecelarn, and Alan a Pyronite. Kevin can't blame them for what transpires quickly.
The team walks in and sees Kevin, Ben, Rook, and Max all down and fairly beaten on the floor. Damage surrounding the library with shelves knocked down, tables broken, and books are flooding the floor. They see Gwen standing tall, her mana flowing around her, and Mike Morningstar on the ground in front of her, their teammate, crumpled in a pile.
The four of them quickly get in formation and start attacking Gwen.
Helen runs in circles around Gwen, blocking her from Morningstar. Helen spins Gwen out onto the floor, knocking her down.
Before Kevin can get up to stop them, Manny is shooting his blaster at Gwen. She barely throws up a shield to block them.
Pierce goes over to help Max up, who Kevin can hear telling Pierce to stop his team, Gwen isn't who he called them in for.
Kevin hurls himself up and grabs Manny's wrist to stop him from shooting.
Alan is over next to Ben talking quietly to him.
"Stop!" Kevin growls out at Pierce's team. "She's not who you should be attacking!" His voice is deep and authoritative.
"She just whipped the floor with ya! What do you mean, stop?" Manny demands but doesn't continue to shoot.
Helen is now over next to Rook and helping him stand and looks over at Kevin and Manny in confusion.
"What's going on? Magister Tennyson called for backup?" Helen asks.
Gwen puts down her shields and looks at the new group who has crashed in. Kevin can see the panic on her face.
"We called for backup because Gwen was being attacked." Ben grunts and he leans on Alan for support.
"Who was attacking her? What's going on?" Alan replies just as confused as everyone else.
"Morningstar was playing all of us. He was the informant who was leaking all our information. He was taking Gwen's mana and using it as an unlimited supply to source his own powers." Rook responds to the group.
They all turn to look at Morningstar's form curled on the ground but find no one there.
All of them are on high alert.
"Spread out and look for him! He can't escape. If he does, who knows what will happen. Everyone keeps their badges on their person. He shouldn't be able to hurt any of us, but I don't want to take any chances. I'll inform everyone in the building." Max says and he grabs his own Plumbers badge to send out the communication.
The groups split immediately to start looking.
"Not you three, you need to stay here." Max says referring Kevin, Gwen, and Ben.
Kevin tenses up anxiously. He makes frantic eye contact with Ben who looks just as unsure as he does.
The room clears out and leaves the four of them in the scattered disarray of the library. Gwen is shuffling her feet and looking down. She's trying to make herself smaller, which next to Kevin isn't hard.
"What happened here?" Max says directing this question at Gwen and Ben.
The two share a look and Gwen opens her mouth to respond, "Mike tried to corner me, and he asked if he could talk with me in private Rook thought we could have 'privacy' but not really, so we went to the library and honestly I don't even know what happened, but he started draining my mana-" Gwen was rambling very quickly trying to explain what even happened.
Ben interrupts her, "That's when I was looking for them, and I called Rook. He told me what was going on and then I connected that Gwen's only other contact was Morningstar and I realized he had to be the one who branded those girls-"
Ben runs his mouth just as quickly as Gwen and she nods along in agreement and breaks off Ben's sentence.
"Yes, yes! Then he started monologuing, and basically told us his whole ordeal while he was draining me!" Gwen's voice rises in excitement and Ben shrugs his shoulders in agreement.
"Okay okay, calm down." Max replies to them and raises his hands at them.
"Gwen why don't you let Kevin take you back to your room, and he can guard your room until we find out about Morningstar's whereabouts. I'll talk to you later, get some rest for tonight." Max tells her.
"Ben, we need to keep talking, come one we can patrol and talk at the same time." Max says and pats his grandson on the back and takes him out the door.
Kevin is left alone with Gwen and she's starting to look exhausted.
"Are you okay?" He asks her, in the gentlest tone he could muster from his own strange voice.
Gwen finally looks up at Kevin for the first time since he barged in. She looks weary and her eyes are filled with worry as she looks at him.
"I'm fine now..." She sighs, "I mean physically I'm okay. Mentally, ask me in a few hours." she replied.
"What about you? You just found out one of your Plumbers was running a coup behind your back." She places her hand gently on Kevin's Petrosapien arm, looking up at him with genuine concern.
Kevin freezes under her touch, he wasn't expecting that. Her hands were so warm and soft, the shift in someone treating him with gentleness was jarring. To be honest, he wasn't expecting Gwen to be the one who took Morningstar out either. She was full of surprises today.
Kevin swallows hard before responding to her, "I'm any word that can define anger right now, but I'm not surprised." He averts his eyes from Gwen.
"If anything, I'm more irritated that I didn't know it was Morningstar immediately." Kevin mumbles.
"He oversaw private information and intel, he's the last person you would suspect. He was also unfortunately very charismatic." Gwen says assuredly.
Kevin doesn't reply but starts moving to the door.
"Come on, it's been a long day. You should probably go to sleep." Kevin states.
Gwen nods and follows but she goes to say one last thing, "Kevin," he turns his head to look down at her in question. "thank you for coming to save me." She smiles at him.
Kevin scoffs at that, "Saving? You?" He sends her a crooked smile from his mouth with fangs hanging out, "You didn't need saving. You handled that all with little effort or need of assistance." Kevin said to her.
Gwen's face flushes pink, and she turns her head away from Kevin's view.
"Thanks." She mumbles quietly.
The two make their way towards the living quarters and pass the multiple Plumbers running around the castle looking for Morningstar.
If anything, that's what makes Kevin's blood boil right now. Is that Morningstar was able to sneak away. He hopes that Morningstar is dumb enough to try and find Gwen, because Kevin's itching to punch that smug blonde man halfway across the room. He glances to the side to look at Gwen, she's coming down, he can tell. Once Kevin knows that Morningstar is locked up, he's going to make a personal visit that he can promise.
