My Lovely Family
Chapter 7 - Gwendolyn
It was a cloudy night. Hex opened a communication portal with his niece, Charmcaster. She was stuck in a state jail for running a series of robberies to mystical store.
"There's still time for you to redeem yourself, my niece."
"You've changed too much, Uncle Hex. When I was little you taught me all about spells to rule the world and now... you stepped into the good side…"
"That wasn't the life your father wanted for you, dear. Justice always prevails. You want to spend your whole life in prisons?"
"No, uncle" replied Charmcaster in a confident voice. "What I want is to get revenge on those who put me here: Ben and Gwen."
(Opening theme)
Cassandra was everyone's attention. Max always took the time to see his great-granddaughter. Time passed and the baby grew more and more like her father.
Ben continued his routine of establishing order in the world, while Gwen rested and made sure that her body returned to normal. She helped her husband by communicating with him and monitoring his struggles.
"One day, you're going to beat these bad guys," Max said, holding Cassandra in his lap. "Just like Dad and Mom."
"And you'll be very smart, just like your great-grandfather," said Gwen.
"Cassandra is just like you when you were little, Gwen" Max remembered. "You were also quiet in our lap and smiled at everyone."
"Glad she also got something from mommy! I thought she was just going to take after Ben...
"No, she has some features from you too. After all, it wasn't Ben who carried her for 9 months."
Max and Gwen laughed, but suddenly she felt sick to her stomach.
"Is everything okay, Gwen?" asked Max worried.
"Yes…" she replied, feeling dizzy. "I need to throw up…"
She teleported to the bathroom while the headquarters alarm sounded, announcing a danger in sector B-delta-9. With Cassandra on his lap, Max ran to the central pillar, where the system was in control, and contacted Ben.
"Hazard in sector B-delta-9, Ben! Run over there now!"
"Grandpa!" Ben wondered. "Fine, but where's Gwen?"
"I'll talk later. Don't worry she's fine. But hurry up."
As XLR8, the hero ran to the danger spot. Found a giant Lenopan attacking civilians. He shifted into Cannonbolt and hit it hard. But quickly, the alien gathered his body parts and began to laugh at the situation, leaving Ben confused.
"Hahahahahahahaha. Any silly attack happens and Ben comes to save everything. Hahahahahaha."
"Lucy!" exclaimed Cannonbolt. "Can't you get enough of screwing up?"
"Of course not! If I have a chance to kick you, why waste it? Hahahahaha"
Lucy had been released after just over a year in prison. Camille was right. She got a taste for committing crimes. She was dedicated to being the exact opposite of Gwen, even if she had to be a reckless villain.
"You know I don't want to kill you, don't you?" said Cannonbolt before turning into the Four Arms.
"Yeeeees ... And that's why I come back." Lucy tried to strike the alien, but the Tetramand gave her a double punch, causing her to lose her balance.
Lying on the floor, the Lenopan reached out her gooey arm and grasped the Four Arms' head, making him see nothing. With her other arm, she punched him in the chest and threw him away. But he didn't fall for long: he soon turned into XLR8 and appeared behind Lucy (who was standing looking for him). Before she knew it, Ben turned into the Arctiguana and froze her.
The Plumbers came to take her back to prison.
"We will have to take more severe measures," said Rook.
"Lock her up at Arkham Asylum" joked Arctiguana before returning to XLR8 form and running to headquarters."
Charmcaster was released. He left prison with Hex. They climbed onto a platform and flew back home. They talked on the way.
"Honey, you know you're a very powerful witch," said Hex.
"Yes, I am. The biggest witch out of Ledgerdomain" boasted Charmcaster.
"Then you should know that powerful wizards must make decisions very wisely."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you'd better leave this life of crime and go back to Ledgerdomain."
"What?" Charmcaster was a little annoyed. "I need to beat the Tennysons, there's nothing to stop me."
"Niece, I'd understand your case if they had done something to you at first."
"And they did! When they broke our plan to gather the power of Bezel to control the world."
"We shouldn't be doing that. The universe was not ours so we wanted to control it. Not to mention that this was a long time ago: they were 10 years old and today they even have a daughter."
"A DAUGHTER?" the witch got scared. "You mean the cousins got married and even had a daughter?"
"Exactly!"
"Hmmm…" Charmcaster turned her face and began to think of something. Hex did not notice.
The elevator door opened and XLR8 rushed in before turning back to Ben.
"What happened to Gwen?"
"She's in the bathroom. She had a lot of nausea today" answered Max.
"I'm worried, Grandpa."
"You shouldn't, Ben. This is how it happens in most pregnancies."
"But when she was pregnant with Cassandra she didn't vomit so much…" Ben took his daughter in his lap.
"Every pregnancy is one way, Ben. There's no way to predict what will happen. Ask your mother."
"My mom?"
"Of course. She had gotten pregnant twice before she had you.
"But what happened?" interrupted Ben.
"She lost the two children she was expecting. First, she was going to have a boy and then a girl. Sandra took a long time to get pregnant again. And you were born a healthy child. Each case is a case, my grandson."
Ben was calmer.
"So I don't have to worry about Gwen?"
"No, my grandson. The only things you have to worry about are keeping the world safe and being a good father to your daughter."
Ben looked at Cassandra, who was sleeping peacefully in his lap.
"She's your face" found Max.
"Wow... what bad luck…" Kevin mocked, reading his newspaper.
"Bad luck to what, honey?" asked Julie.
"Bad luck to the girl, she's Ben's face. Look..." Kevin showed the news to his wife, pointing to a picture of the Tennysons holding Cassandra.
"Oh, she's cute! Her hair looks like Ben's mother's."
"Yeah, it suits Ben's cuck beak."
Julie wasn't waiting for her husband's statement.
"What cuck beak? Look how you talk about Gwen!"
"I'm just saying what I see. The mother is redhead, the father has brown hair, and their daughter is born blonde? It's obvious the baby is Cooper's daughter or whatever Gwen was hanging around with."
Julie tapped the newspaper wrapped around Kevin's arm.
"First: you even admitted that she looks like Ben. And second, you can see you don't understand anything about genetics."
"Of course not. I never went to school."
"If you had gone, you'd have known that's indeed possible a daughter be born with dark blond hair if her mother is red and her father has brown hair. What they couldn't have is a black-haired son, since Gwen is a redhead."
"So if I had a son with Gwen…"
"He would be born with brown hair," said Julie, returning to the kitchen.
"Damn it! So anyway this kid had to look like Ben…" Kevin paused a long time before speaking again. "Hey, Julie! We have to go to New York next week."
"For what?"
"I... I have to find a customer there. Hope you don't mind spending time there."
"Of course not, love! Wherever you go, I go along."
Ben and Gwen were in the bedroom, sitting on their double bed. Gwen held Cassandra in her lap and took her finger from the baby's mouth.
"So Lucy attacked again…"
"Again and it looks like she won't stop soon" Ben sighed. "I know I promised I wouldn't kill her, 'cause I don't want to get in trouble with Alien Rights or whatever. But it's very hard to find a solution to her problem."
"I don't understand why Lucy got so bad out of the blue. She was a little pest, but she was never a villain. But since she played Charmcaster to seduce Kevin, she never stopped doing bad things."
Cassandra began to whining. Ben and Gwen soothed her.
"I don't think Cassie indeed likes hearing about Kevin" joked Ben.
"So she indeed took after you."
"That is, she's going to be a very funny girl and not a queen of cuties like her mother…"
"But she's going to be smart and not a tremendous doofus like her father."
The couple laughed and kissed. In the middle of the kiss Gwen, felt sick. She gently placed the baby on Ben's lap and ran to the bathroom.
After Cassandra's birth, Ben and Gwen were told not to have sex for two months. They followed medical recommendations and Gwen only got pregnant again in February. If all went well, the child would be born in October.
Ben waited for his wife to return to the bedroom to continue the conversation.
"Grandpa was telling me I don't have to worry. But I don't like to see you puking all the time."
"It's pregnancy stuff, Ben," Gwen scooped Cassie up. "Each one is unique. My mother had some complications when she was pregnant with me and some when she was with Ken."
"And she's still having complications with her tongue…"
"Ben!" but Gwen could not help finding that line funny.
Cassandra laughed. Ben picked her up.
"You found it very funny, didn't you?" he tickled the baby. "That annoying grandma doesn't leave daddy alone…" Cassandra had just laughed.
Natalie was at home talking to her sister on the phone.
"But don't you think it's too early to have another?" Gwen's aunt asked, with her nosy way. "They just had had one, already pregnant again…"
"Yeah, but if it was their choice…" Natalie replied. "I, for myself, would wait four years to have the next, as I did with my children. But if they think they have to have it now…"
"Then it ends that idea of separating the two. It gets harder now because they have a daughter and are waiting for the second."
Frank was annoyed to hear his sisters talk. He was not in the habit of listening to his wife's conversations, but they spoke so loudly that you could hear the conversation from the other room of the house.
"Why do they have to get into the lives of others? Leave Gwen alone…" he thought.
Months later, Gwen was in the ultrasound room with her husband. Ben held a cart where Cassandra slept.
"It's another girl," said the doctor.
"Another girl!" they said together.
"Yes, look there. A little girl. You will be the parents of two girls. Congratulations, Mr., and Mrs. Tennyson."
The cousins were very happy. Ben scooped Cassandra up and turned his daughter to the monitor.
"Look at your little sister, Cassie. She's inside Mom's belly like you were a year ago."
Cassandra would reach out and open and close her hands. She wanted to get the monitor. Ben took her closer and the baby touched the screen as if she was fondling the image. The relatives were able to enter the room and the situation was the same as when Gwen had taken Cassandra's exam.
A week later, Charmcaster was attacking Keystone with her spells. But she was nowhere to be seen. There were several outbreaks of pink rays that caused panic in the citizens, but the witch herself was not found.
XLR8 ran to help the people but found it strange that the spells came out of portals and there was no sign of Charmcaster. The lightning bolts ceased out of the blue, making the alien very confused.
The intrusion alarm rang at headquarters. Charmcaster was attacking the tower and finally managed to drill a hole in the wall and entered fluctuating, catching everyone by surprise.
"Hello, Gwen!" said the villainess.
"Grandpa, get Cassie out of here. FAST!"
While the Plumbers that took care of Gwen fired at Charmcaster, Max took his great-granddaughter on his arms and ran for the elevator. The heroine made a sphere of mana around her. The witch created a shield to protect herself from the shots and launched a magic beam that put a barrier ahead of the elevator door.
"Not so fast, Max!"
Cassandra cried and her great-grandfather tried to calm her down as he ran to find a way out and avoid the witch's spells. "Calm down, Cassie. Grandpa Max is here. We will defeat this evil witch" he said. The Plumbers were draining their weapon batteries, making the shots weaker and weaker. That was when Gwen broke the sphere of mana and threw a mana ray at Charmcaster, knocking the villainess over. She quickly took the Omnitrix prototype and turned it into Gray Matter. The witch could not see her.
"Running away from me, Gwendolyn? I must admit, I didn't expect that from you" said Charmcaster before knocking over the Plumbers with a spell, leaving them unconscious.
"And what you expected? Total surrender?" said XLR8, quickly bursting upon the scene and hitting the witch with his tail.
Charmcaster soon got up and began casting her spells at the alien, but he was too fast and always dodged. She then spun and disappeared.
Nobody knew where she could be. That was when she appeared behind Max and tried to take Cassandra from his arms. The Plumber resisted, but the witch cast a spell that paralyzed his body. She picked up the baby and turned to XLR8, who was running to help his daughter.
"No one step further, Ben! Or then your daughter dies."
Ben returned to his normal form, terrified.
"What you want?" he asked with a trembling voice. "Do nothing to my daughter, for God's sake!"
"What I want? I want you and your wife to surrender to me. That you let your whole ridiculous planet into my hands. And then I let your child live."
Cassandra cried in despair. Ben stared at his grandfather and daughter.
"Okay! I surrender. Just leave my daughter alone. She's not to blame for anything."
"You're right ... she's not to blame for anything" said Charmcaster, feeling victorious. "She's just a helpless child, right?"
"Helpless not!" Gwen came up behind the witch and punched her head with one hand as she created a mana barrier that enveloped Cassandra with the other.
The witch fell to the floor. Gwen carried her daughter and handed her over to Ben, who was crying with relief as he hugged the baby. The heroine ran to free Max.
"Oh, Cassandra, my baby! I swear nothing will happen to you while I'm alive."
"Daddy," said Cassie as she touched Ben's face.
Max moved again.
"Forgive me, Gwen. I tried as hard as I could."
"It's not your fault, Grandpa!"
"But how... How you did it?"
"I used Gray Matter to update the system and detect the presence of human or alien life. So even though she was invisible, I knew where she was. That's when I discovered her and acted fast."
"As always, very smart" Max hugged his granddaughter.
"That's my wife!" Ben approached Gwen and kissed her.
"Mommy. Grandpa Max" Cassandra said as she extended her arms to both of them. Gwen took her and Max held her hand.
"Didn't I say we'd defeat the evil witch, Cassie? That nasty has no chance against the Tennysons" Max said to his great-granddaughter.
Charmcaster got up slightly dizzy and was about to attack, but Ben grabbed her by the neck, taking her off the ground.
"NEVER, NEVER EVER MESS WITH MY FAMILY" he shouted as he strangled the witch, leaving her breathless. "You understood?"
Ben was nearly killing Charmcaster by asphyxia, but he opened his hand and dropped the villain to the ground. The Plumbers returned to normal and placed her in a cocoon just as Lucy had been put. She could not use her powers while encapsulated. Rook commanded her transportation to a base where her fate would be decided.
It was on October 20th. The Tennysons were in the maternity ward. The nurse brought the newborn baby. She was redheaded and had green eyes. Everyone looked at her through the window, delighted like on the day Cassandra was born.
"She is just like you, Gwen!" Ben said while holding Cassie.
"Indeed, Ben! A little redhead, just like me."
"We should give her your name."
"Gwendolyn? But then she'll have the same name as me. It can be confusing when someone will need to talk to Gwendolyn and we won't know if it's with the daughter or the mother."
"We'll find a way to not confuse you. We can call her Gwendolyn and call you Gwen. Who guarantees when we'll have another red-haired daughter? I want to name her just like the most beautiful red-haired woman that exists."
"It's a nice tribute. But I still think she should have her own name."
"Okay. Let's give her my middle name."
"Gwendolyn Kirby Tennyson?"
"Why not? Kirby sounds more like a surname than a first name. There's no confusion."
Cassandra laughed.
"Look, Cassandra liked it," said Ben.
Gwen looked at Cassie, holding in her hand.
"You want to see your little sister?" the mother approached her daughter, while the baby slept on his lap. "Did you like the name?". Cassandra smiled. "So that will be. Gwendolyn Kirby Tennyson."
When relatives entered the room, Ben revealed the name of their second daughter. Everyone approved, not even Natalie criticized. The news spread around the world. Gwendolyn would grow just like her mother, as at looking as intelligence and kindness.
Author's Notes
This is the last chapter where Kevin's scene is limited to a dialogue between him and Julie. Next time there will be more action. Seize the explanation from the scene between them to send this chapter to your Gwevin friend who understands nothing about biology and insists that Gwen is Devlin's mother (this is not possible).