Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or its sequels, spin-off and related characters. All is the property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
Gwevin Week 2020, Day 1 – "Crash"
One that Fell to Earth
Devin's hands gripped the controls tighter as the ship rocked and shuddered around them. The ship was not responding to his commands and try as he might, he could not get the massive craft back under his control.
They were going to crash.
He looked to the side, his eyes meeting those of his co-pilot.
Aggregor knew. He realized it too. Devin was an ace pilot. If he was as scared as he looked then they were not going to be able to maneuver themselves out of this one.
"Kevin…" Devin began. He didn't mind all that much if he died. They lived a dangerous life and death sort of came with the bargain. But… their son…
"I'll get him to the escape pod." Aggregor nodded, not needing Devin to finish the thought. Kevin might have come from Devin's body, but he was Aggregor's son too, and… they wanted him to live.
"Greg!" Devin called after him before he could leave the cockpit. He reached up to his neck and lifted a cord over his head. From the cord dangled, not a locket, or a pendant, or anything decorative, or of perceivable value. In fact, to an Earthling, it might look like a padlock. A padlock scratched with two vertical lines, almost like the numeral 11.
Devin tossed it to Aggregor who caught it. He looked at it in his hand for half a second, then nodded, understanding. He dashed from the cockpit to collect their child.
Kevin was still so young. They hadn't really counted the years living on the ship. The years were counted differently on every planet they visited anyway. But Kevin was young, not yet an adolescent.
He was also scared and confused. Not understanding why one of his parents was trying to stuff him in their ship's escape pod. They never used the escape pods before. Escape pods were only for when things got real bad. Like, dads couldn't fix things bad. Like, abandon all hope and abandon ship bad.
If that were the case, then shouldn't both dads be climbing into the escape pod with him?
Kevin didn't realize, as Aggregor was belting him in, that the escape pod on their ship was not large enough to hold three bodies. It was barely big enough for little Kevin.
"Dad?" Kevin asked, now, suddenly, irrationally scared.
"You'll be fine." Aggregor assured him. He draped the padlock cord around Kevin's neck. It hung a lot lower on him than it did on Devin, and Aggregor tucked the lock under his shirt. "Don't ever use your powers unless you have to."
Aggregor then slammed the hatch shut and banged his fist against the release panel.
The escape pod bearing Kevin shot out the side of the ship.
Taking some of the exterior plating with it and that was not supposed to happen. The exterior hull must have been severely damaged. They didn't have long now.
Aggregor just barely had enough time to return to the cockpit where Devin was still impotently fighting with the pilot controls.
"Devin…" Aggregro's voice was a ghost of a whisper, barely detectable over the groaning of the ship's insulation coming apart.
"Did Kevin get out okay?" Devin asked, attention still on the array of warning lights flashing around him.
"Devin." Aggregor repeated. He grabbed his mate by the arm and pulled him out of the pilot's seat. There was nothing they could do anymore.
They held each other as the ship broke apart around them. The hull peeling away and the cabin depressurizing. Everything inside burnt up as they entered the planet's atmosphere.
But Kevin's escape pod was fine, and Kevin inside it was safe, as it fell to the planet below. Aiming for a heavily wooded and foresty area.
…
Gwen was not a fan of this summer road trip with Grandpa Max and Ben. Grandpa was great and all. But she had a whole summer plan already. Diligently scheduled and rigorously reviewed. The perfect balance of leisure activities and academic extracurricular that would have looked great on a collage application.
But apparently, regular ten-year-old weren't supposed to be quite so concerned with collage, and Gwen needed to 'lighten up sweetie'.
So, her parents made her come on this stupid trip!
Gwen sat at their camp ground's picnic table, looking up at the sky and feeling sorry for herself.
Then she hear a loud, almost deafening sonic boom. A sound her textbooks taught her indicated something breaching the atmosphere. Satellites made sonic booms when they fell. Some military jets made sonic booms when they reached a high enough altitude. Maybe there was some kind of industrial tech testing site near their camp. Maybe Gwen could get in some extracurricular anyway!
Then, eyes still watching the say, Gwen saw what had to have been the thing that made the sonic boom.
It didn't look like any kind of tech from an industrial corporation she'd ever seen. The silhouette was all wrong for a jet, and it was not the controlled dive of a corporate satellite that was decommissioned. This was something plummeting in free fall from space!
Gwen measured it's trajectory, using the white line of its wake as a guide and guesses the general area where it would inevitably make landfall. She wanted to be the first on the scene.
Maybe it was just a meteorite. Maybe it was something more exotic.
But she was going to get to it first! She was going to put that on a collage application and make the schools fight over her!
…
It was not a meteorite.
It was definitely, definitely not a meteorite.
Gwen looked down from the rim of a crater at what could only be described as a 'pod'. An alien pod since it, not only fell from space, but also had markings on it that she didn't recognize as any Earth-based language.
For half a moment, Gwen wondered if maybe the wiser thing to do would be to run back to camp and get her Grandpa. Or any adult for that matter. If she was about to meet an alien, maybe she would need an adult.
But that also meant that they would get credit for the discovery. Grown-ups always pushed kids out of anything that was even remotely 'ground breaking' claiming it to be 'too dangerous'. Well, Gwen wasn't gonna let that happen to her! She was gonna be the one credited with discovering alien life!
Sliding down the slope of the crater, Gwen approached the pod.
Walking a full circle around it, she decided on what looked the most likely 'opening' and tried to feel around for a seem in the metal, or a button, or a lever, or something to get it to open.
Aside from being remarkably cool to the touch for something that had just fallen through the ozone layer, Gwen found nothing of interest. Just smooth non-terrestrial metal.
Perhaps the alien inside the pod did something, because there was a snap. Like something unlocking, then the unmistakable hiss of rushing air and the pressure inside the pod equalized with the air pressure outside the pod.
Gwen felt her hair brush against her cheek, and she tucked the errant strand behind her ear.
Finally, a seam did appear on the surface of the pod and a hatch slid open. Gwen was gonna see her alien!
A body climbed out of the pod. Stumbled on the unfamiliar ground, and fell in the dirt.
"What?" Gwen exclaimed with disappointment. "I was expecting an alien, but you're just a kid like me!"
And, indeed, that's what he looked like.
Human by all outward appearances. A little taller than Gwen, but not by much. Skinny. With a mop of dark hair and dark eyes to match. He was paler than her, he probably didn't get much sunlight.
When he stumbled something on a cord fell out from the collar of his shirt. It hung around his neck on a cord. But it wasn't anything impressive. It wasn't any kind of alien locket, or pendent from an undiscovered culture, it wasn't even pretty. It was just an old and scraped up padlock which someone had scratched the number eleven into.
All and all, Gwen was unimpressed.
The boy pushed himself up into a sitting position, leaning back on the heels of his hands. He glared at Gwen, with an expression halfway between anxious and confused. He looked back at the pod, almost as if he expected it to explain or translate something for him. It occurred to Gwen then that he might not actually speak any English. He looked human, but that didn't make him American.
"Do you have a name?" Gwen asked. "Uh, nombre? Shoot! You're probably Russian! What's the Russian word for name? Oh! I should learn Russian! Add that to my collage application."
The boy only continued to stare at her.
He smacked a fist against the side of the pod. Something inside gave a synthetic groan.
"Are you Russian?" Gwen asked.
Finally, the boy seemed to inexplicably understand her. "No. I'm Osmosian."
"Oh, you do speak English!" She smiled. "I guess oyu just hit your head or something."
He did not answer.
She offered him a hand to help him to his feet. "Anyway, I'm Gwen. What's your name?"
He looked at her hand suspiciously for a moment. Then up in the sky, searching for something that wasn't there. When he didn't see what he was looking for, his eyes fell back to Gwen's outstretched hand. Decision flashed across his dark eyes and the boy took the hand that was offered to him.
"Gwen. I'm Kevin."
…
END