Going Home, part I


Ben


"Crap! Lagrange is getting away!" Grandpa Max shouted. The Tennyson trio were in the Rust Bucket in pursuit of a wanted criminal named Lagrange. "His car is very fast, we're going to lose him..."

"Don't worry, Grandpa!" Watch Boy dialed the Omnitrix, "XLR8 is even faster!"

Lucky Girl grabbed his arm before he could slam the watch. "Yeah, but maybe XLR8 is not strong enough to stop a car, Doofus. Why don't you upgrade the Rust Bucket instead?"

Ben's first impulse was to ignore her suggestion and to say that he had everything under control already, but instead he decided to listen to her. "This time you gave me a good idea, Dweeb." He gently rubbed his finger against her nose.

"Going hero!" Ben selected Upgrade, slammed the watch, and felt his body losing its consistency and turning into a black gelatinous form covered by green electric circuitry.

Upgrade merged with Grandpa Max's RV and a few seconds later they were close enough to Lagrange. Upgrade unmerged from the Rust Bucket, jumped into Lagrange's car, and hijacked it. "This race is over, Lagrange." Upgrade stopped the car and used the seat belt to restrain the criminal.

Max and Lucky Girl got out of the Rust Bucket and Max handcuffed Lagrange.

"This was cheating!" Lagrange shouted angrily. His eyes, behind the red sunglasses, were probably glancing with pure hatred at the hero. "Va t'faire mètt, connard!" Upgrade didn't even need the Omnitrix to translate it for him to understand that he was being insulted.

"There is no honor among thieves." Upgrade replied playfully.


Grandpa Max drove to the closest S.E.C.T. base and, from there, the Rust Bucket was teleported back to Bellwood in one of S.E.C.T.'s "teleport elevators". Back in Bellwood, on their way home, Ben and Gwen were sitting together on the RV's couch.

"This mission was nice, but I hope S.E.C.T. will give me something more challenging." Ben cracked his knuckles, "Stopping C-list villains like Lagrange seems like a waste of my talent."

"Can your ego get any bigger, Ben?" Gwen sighed. "At least you heard me when I said to use Upgrade and not XLR8."

"Every now and then I have to make you feel useful, right?" Ben smirked.

"Doofus." Gwen glared daggers at Ben. "This couch is already too full with you and your massive ego."

Gwen stood up, but Ben grabbed her arm. "Hey, hey, you know I'm just kidding, right, cuz? You are everything to me. I'd be miserable without you." He kissed her hand several times.

"I'll think about whether I forgive you or not, Doofus," Gwen said, with a smile, in a playful tone.

"I'll do anything you want!" Ben looked at her with puppy dog eyes.

"What would you from a year ago say to you today if he were to see you kissing up to me like this?" Gwen arched her eyebrow, still smiling.

Ben glanced discreetly to make sure that Grandpa wasn't paying attention to them, and lowered his tone to answer Gwen, "He'd say, 'The most beautiful girl in the world is crushing on you! You better not screw things up, or I'll kick your butt!'."

Gwen giggled. "Well, I'll get the tape recorder, then you can say again that I'm the most beautiful girl in the world and you are forgiven."

"Wait a minute," Ben said playfully, "Ben from one year ago would say that. I didn't know Charmcaster back then, now I think it's a tie between you and her as the two most beauti-" Gwen punched Ben's arm. "OUCH! You hit me for real!"

"You deserved it, Doofus." Somehow, Gwen was angry and chuckling at the same time.

Suddenly Gwen's eyes flashed for a second in a blue color identical to the color of her magic, and then Gwen seemed to freeze.

"Gwen, what's going on?" Ben shook her arm, already starting to panic.

Grandpa Max stopped the RV. "Gwen? Is everything alright?"

"They're talking to me," Gwen said, as if she were somewhere else, "They're talking to all of us."

"We're not hearing anything, Gwen." Max approached the teenagers, worried.

"We ... she meant Sorcerers," Ben thought aloud. He quickly used the Omnitrix to turn into Magus Viridis.

"-The only chance we'll have to go home, to Anodyne." Magus heard a voice directly in his head. He also felt Grandpa shaking him, trying to talk to him, but Grandpa seemed very far away.

The voice continued to talk to him. It gave him an address - which was in another State - and asked for him to be at that address on a certain day and time, a week later, and ready to get back home. Everything would be explained there.

Magus and Gwen 'awakened' at the same time.

"Thank God, I was worried about you kids." Max let out a sigh of relief, "What happened?"

Magus was almost as confused as Grandpa Max, so he waited for Gwen to have an answer.

"Someone used a very powerful spell to talk to us. Not just with me and Ben, but with all the wizards and witches who live here," Gwen said.

"Here? You mean in Bellwood?" Max asked.

"No," Gwen shook her head. "Maybe here in this country? I don't know how far this spell could have reached. They are gathering all sorcerers. It looks like they got a way to transport everyone back to Anodyne, our home-world," Gwen said.

Gwen was so ... human ... it was very easy to forget she was a descendant of aliens.

"WHAT?" Grandpa Max's jaw dropped.

"I will tell you what my grandmother told me, the story that is passed down through the generations to our people. Thousands of years ago, Anodyne was devastated by wars to the point of being uninhabitable. Everyone would slowly die if they stayed there. A group of surviving Sorcerers, using magic, managed to find another planet where they could live, Earth. But ... Earth was too far away. They paid a heavy price to create a portal from Anodyne to Earth. Many Sorcerers died to cast the spell of the portal that ensured the survival of our species," Gwen said, and paused.

"Today, thousands of years later, it's obvious that Anodyne is habitable again," Gwen proceeded, "But we Sorcerers are all relatively fine here. No one would risk their lives to create a portal back there. They must have gotten a safe way to transport everyone."

"You told me that your grandmother had Sunny's evolutive bracelet." Magus said, "Her friends may have found a way to use that to evolve other Sorcerers. A large group of evolved Anodites may be powerful enough to create a portal from here to Anodyne without losing their lives."

"You're right," Gwen said. "I'll have to talk to my grandmother, to Charmcaster, and probably to my mother as well."

Magus felt a chill in his spine. Would Gwen want to go to Anodyne? Would she leave Earth with her people?

Maybe he could go with her? Magus Viridis was a Sorcerer too, perhaps they would allow him to tag along and live there because of that alien. But what about Grandpa Max? And his mother? And father? If he had to make a choice...

"Gwen, I want you to know that ..." Magus took a deep breath, hesitated a little, but finally said, "I'd follow you anywhere."

First Gwen looked at him confused. Then she grinned from ear to ear. "Don't worry, the thought of leaving Earth never crossed my mind, cuz. But your words mean a lot to me!" She gave him a very tight hug.

Another thing easy to forget, was when Ben was Ben and when Ben was Magus Viridis, since they both looked exactly the same.

If Gwen remembered that Ben was Magus at that moment, she wouldn't have hugged him. If Ben remembered that he was Magus at that moment, he would've stopped her from hugging him.

The second that Gwen wrapped her arms around him, they felt the strong magical connectivity between their auras.

They both knew that Grandpa was there, looking straight at them, so they couldn't even think about letting their 'instincts' take over. But at the same time, the feeling of being there so close to each other was simply fantastic, they didn't want to let go. So they stayed in that tight embrace for minutes. Gwen kissed his cheek several times, and he did the same to her. It took all of his self-control to not let things go any further than that.

Finally, the Omnitrix timed-out and Magus turned back into Ben.

Max just looked at them with the face of someone who already knew everything and was just waiting for them to confess. Ben and Gwen obviously didn't say anything. The minutes to Gwen's house were spent in an awkward silence. But as soon as Gwen left the Rust Bucket, Grandpa - with a serious look on his face - asked Ben to sit on the passenger seat next to him. Ben knew that would probably end badly.

After a few moments, Grandpa Max finally broke the silence, "Before your grandmother, I met an alien. She was an Uxorite. A reptilian species with two tentacles on the head and a long tail. She 'shipwrecked' on Earth, and remained under the protection of S.E.C.T until her ship was repaired. Her name was Xylene."

Ben was surprised. Grandpa had never told him that. "You two…"

"Yes, we dated for a while. But my friends and family didn't like it. You know that my siblings, your great-uncle Gordon and your great-aunt Vera, were agents of S.E.C.T. too. They realized how close I became to Xylene," Max said.

"And what happened?" Ben asked.

Grandpa Max sighed. "She offered for me to go with her. Her ship would be our home, and we could go anywhere in the Galaxy. But ... I didn't love her enough to leave everything behind and follow her anywhere." Max paused. "When you told Gwen that you'd follow her anywhere was it just a spur of the moment thing, or do you really love her enough to give up everything for her?"

Ben blushed hard. Grandpa already knew. He had told his story for Ben to know that he wouldn't judge him.

Ben sighed. "Gwen is the most amazing girl I've ever met. She's kind, fun, she's always by my side and always got my back. And, of course, she is super-ho- super pretty!" Ben paused, then continued in a lower tone, "While deep down I'm just a loser whose only quality is to have a cool alien watch. And she still likes me. Of course I'd do anything for her." And then Ben shrugged, "Anyway, Gwen said she has no intention of going to Anodyne, you have nothing to worry about."

"Ben, I want you to know that I will support you whatever your decision, but ..." Max said with a worried expression as he kept driving, "I want you to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons."

"What?" Ben asked, confused.

"I told you my story," Max said.

"You didn't stay with Xylene," Ben whispered.

"I was very happy with the choice I made. I fell in love with your grandmother, married her, had a wonderful family - including two fantastic grandchildren - and lived many adventures as an agent of S.E.C.T. If I had left with Xylene, I'd probably have been happy too, but maybe not as much as I was."

"You mean I shouldn't be with Gwen?" Ben asked sadly.

"No, that's not what I mean," Max replied. "It's just ... You two are cousins. You have to be prepared for your life to be turned upside down. Your family, your friends ... Many people won't understand this." Grandpa Max said, "Ben, if you are ready for all of this, either it's because you love Gwen more than anything, OR you are jumping head first into an infatuation because you are feeling unhappy and just want to find some happiness in your life. I just want you to make sure that your case is the first option so you have no regrets later."

"I guarantee you it's the first option, Grandpa," Ben replied.

"Thank you, Ben," Max said, "You and Gwen have my unconditional support."

"You know your sons better than anyone else. Do you think my dad and Gwen's dad will support us as well?" Ben asked.

They arrived at Ben's house. Grandpa Max parked the RV in front of the house. Then he looked at Ben and let out a long sigh. "No, I don't think Carl and Frank will support you two, Ben."


That night, Gwen's family went to dinner at Ben's. Ben noticed that Gwen was crestfallen and sad and he couldn't understand why. After dinner, while their parents were talking in the living room, Gwen and Ben went to Ben's bedroom.

"I don't like to see my Dweeb like this," Ben said, closing the door. "What's going on?"

"I called my grandma," Gwen said, sitting on the floor. "She's going to Anodyne. After next week, I will never see her again."

"I'm sorry Gwen," Ben sat down beside her and hugged her tightly.

TO BE CONTINUED…


Author's Notes

* Sorry, folks, I'm very busy lately, so this chapter was shorter and the next update might take a while. I want you to know that your support is my motivation to keep writing. So if you are enjoying this, please favorite/follow the fic if you haven't already :)

* I'm finally wrapping up the Anodites storyline in this arc. I guess you already know where this is going. After this we're going to have two different groups of sorcerers: the evolved sorcerers on Anodyne - they will be the Anodites - and the human-like sorcerers on Earth - they will be called by another name. The big question is whether Verdona will go to Anodyne or stay on Earth with Gwen and Charmcaster. What do you think her final decision will be? Tell me in a PM or review!