Author's Note: I own nothing.

2 A Bond Once Broken

Present Day

Kevin stared at the watch sitting inside the safe. It looked so innocent, so inert just sitting there. If one didn't know what they were looking at they would never guess that this was the most powerful device in the universe. The normally silver hourglass that mimicked the Plumber symbol on the face of the watch was dull with five years worth of dust. Kevin had tried not to think about the Watch since he'd taken it off, opting for a normal life instead. But now staring at the Watch he wondered why he'd ever kid himself into thinking he could be normal. He was half alien after all. In a few years he might grow horns like adult Osmosians were known to do. Normal was never really an option. He'd always planned to join the Plumbers when he finished school. He carefully picked up the Watch.

"Maybe it was supposed to be this way." He muttered it into the silence of the room. He stared down at the Watch for another moment. If he was going to do this there was one person he needed to tell about this. He tucked the Watch in his pocket and climbed out of the basement, tugging the rug and couch back into place he headed for Glen's prep school.

When he arrived Glen was just finishing up his final set on the mats. He flipped his opponent with ease, glancing up once he had him down. He frowned as he spotted Kevin next to the bleachers but helped his opponent back to his feet. They bowed to each other and the team headed off to the showers, except for Glen who headed over to Kevin, pulling his shoulder length hair out of his usual short ponytail and shaking his head.

"You look stressed what's up?" Kevin slipped his hand out of his pocket, showing Glen the Omnitrix.

"I need to tell you something."

Five Years Ago

Glen had gotten bored waiting by the fire with his own thoughts, that was the last place he wanted to be honestly so he set off looking for Kevin. As he did he thought, he couldn't seem to stop doing that lately. He hadn't seen his cousin Jay in years, they wrote to each other now and again. Though they'd never really been close it was weird that she was just missing. One minute she was in his life, the next she was gone. He shook his head and frowned as a sharp smell met his nose. It was the smell of smoke. He looked up, thinking that maybe he had accidently circled around back to the camp fire, and screamed as he spotted the source of the smell. The figure looked like they were made of lava rock with a silver hourglass symbol sitting in the center of their chest.

To say that summer had been a great distraction from his missing cousin wouldn't be entirely true. Especially since they had ended up finding her, briefly, a few times. But she'd made it clear in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with anyone who's name was Tennyson or Levin, the revelation that she had some kind of superpower had irked Glen for ages, until he got his hands on one of the Charms of Bezel. He'd done quite a bit of research on the Charms and discovered that while the main set would grant great power there was a secondary set the original creator had made after discovering elemental powers on Earth. Where the original creator was from wasn't stated anywhere but the charm Glen had gotten his hands on years ago had been the elemental charm of Earth. While his powers weren't exactly the same as his cousin's, since his were tied to the Earth, he had discovered that the gift of magic was definitely hereditary.

Present Day

"You're not really thinking of putting that thing back on are you?" Glen asked as he ran a towel through his hair. He'd already showered and changed out of his Gi.

"I am. I wanted you to know because…" Kevin paused floundering for words.

"Because I'm your best friend and you know that if I found out that you had gone into a dangerous situation without me I would hunt you down and feed you to my Azaleas?" Glen asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, that. We should probably tell Cooper too." Kevin said lamely.

"I'll handle my boyfriend, you've got bigger things on the brain right now. Seriously though are you sure? It took a lot to get the damn thing off you." Kevin hated when Glen pointed out the obvious. But he'd shown him the video message his dad had left behind. It was obvious that Devin hadn't taken the Omnitrix, so Kevin was sure he was asking his son to put it back on. That meant something serious was going down. But before he could reiterate that point the locker room door banged open.

"The Omnitrix ain't yours. Set it down and walk away and this doesn't have to get ugly." The voice wasn't a familiar one but Kevin knew the blaster in the man's hand was dangerous. He laid a hand on the metal of the locker as Glen slipped a hand into his pocket. Kevin nodded slightly. It was amazing how quickly they slipped back into sync. Glen tossed something that looked like sand at their attacker and his feet sank into the floor.

"Pocket sand?" Kevin asked as he deflected a shot with the metal coating his arm. He slammed the weapon out of the man's hand.

"Pocket quicksand, Cooper thought of that one actually. You know how much he likes bad tv." They turned to their trapped adversary. His expression didn't change and Kevin frowned.

"I'd like some answers." Kevin said, stepping around the small patch of quicksand that had appeared in the locker room. The man was struggling.

"You should not be messing with me." He pulled off his face revealing a fish faced being in what looked like a Plumber suit underneath. "I'm a duly deputized Magister of the Plumbers." Kevin rolled his eyes.

"I know what the Plumbers are. My dad is one. He was working a case, now he's missing." The Magister squinted at him and frowned.

"You're Devin's kid? Kevin Eleven. I thought you were just some punk who snatched it from the Rustbucket. I'm sorry. I was on a case with your father when he went missing. Get me out of this and I'll catch you up on what I know." Kevin nodded at Glen and he pulled a small bottle from his pocket. He drew a rune in the air and the sand trapping the Magister's feet swirled and funneled itself back into the bottle leaving the Magister on the ground. Kevin helped him up and he nodded. Putting his hand back into his pocket, where he'd slipped the Omnitrix in case a real fight broke out, he pulled the Watch back out and opened the back carefully slipping it back around his wrist.

That night found them staking out an illegal weapons deal. Cooper had been buried under a project but promised that if things got dangerous he was a call away. The train yard was empty when they arrived but it didn't stay that way for long. Several trucks pulled up from opposite ends of the yard. From one set exited men in armor and robes, from the other came what appeared to be ordinary men. Neither group made any move to confront each other as a low rumble echoed through the train yard. A deep purple sports car rolled into the yard and Kevin had to hold in a whistle. It was a McLaren, sleek with black accents, it was one of the more expensive cars on the market, but it was slightly longer than the regular models. He'd bet good money this was a custom job. It pulled to a stop on the other side of the train tracks between the trucks.

The first thing that exited the car was a boot. It was brown leather and extended up over the knee of the figure wearing it, brown leggings disappearing under the boot. Another followed and it took Kevin a minute to process who had just gotten out of this car. After all last time he'd seen her she hadn't looked quite like this.

Last time he'd seen her, her face had been cracking like broken porcelain, deep purple, nearly black energy seeping forth. She'd screamed as the portal to the Null void closed behind Glen who'd been in tears as he handed Kevin the Omnitrix back. But whatever had been happening to her she seemed to have recovered well, there was no sign of cracking on her face or arms, though those were covered in tattoo ink. He couldn't make out shapes from here but there were a lot of them. Gold glinted from several piercings in her face, three rings in her left eyebrow, one in the right. She had at least two piercings through the bridge of her nose. Kevin glanced at Glen who had gone stock still.

"Glen is that who I think it is?" Kevin asked looking back over at the girl who'd gotten fully out of the car now and was stepping up to a crate. The brown leggings Kevin had been admiring earlier led up to a short wrap skirt that barely dropped to mid calf in the same deep purple tone as the car. Her top was a deep brown too, accented by a necklace of scattered deep purple stones. Though her torso was covered up to the neck her arms remained bare. Her brown hair hung to the middle of her back and she flipped it out of the way as one of the knights laid a briefcase down in front of her.

"Whoever that is they're brokering the deal." Magister Labrid pointed out and Glen swore under his breath.

"That's my cousin, Jennifer Tennyson."