Chapter 21: The Vengeance of Vilgax
"Did you want to go by yourself?"
Gwen's heart pounded in her ears as she asked that. They had never talked about the future before, not really. Not beyond their plans for next Friday or where they wanted to go during the summer, except for some vague talk about college.
Vague talk on his part. She already had her preferred college picked out and two back ups. Even if there was something she would rather do there was no sense in letting this stuff wait.
They didn't talk about the future, but she thought about it. She never told him before now about wanting to go to all of the alien worlds. She didn't because she knew that he would always be a hero, and that he couldn't do it alone. He was a Doofus, after all. He needed her help, and she never wanted him to think that helping him somehow kept her from doing what she wanted.
As if.
Besides, she was sure that heroing would take them into space again eventually.
To find out that he wanted to go, too.
Her stomach clenched as she searched his eyes. A part of her waited for him to say no. Even after all that had happened between them, a part of her still waited for him to say no. To say no and laugh and ask her why she thought he would ever want to spend time with a Dweeb like her.
Instead his face glowed with a relieved grin. She barely heard the insult that followed. She just heard the 'of course' that was hidden inside it. She pretended that she was upset – well, she might have been, for just a second. She'll show him leash laws – but that's all it was. An act. A last chance to pretend that things were still normal.
As if normal had been a part of their lives at all for the last two years. As if it was normal to spend their free time fighting aliens and monsters and criminals. As if it was normal for a couple of kids to have magic powers and an alien watch.
As if it was normal for her to shiver just because someone touched her hand. As if it was normal for cousins to hold hands like this while they were looking up at the stars. Or kiss on New Years. Or go on dates.
They'd gone on a date, she finally admitted to herself. Grandpa was there, she kind of remembered seeing him when she wasn't staring at Ben and trying to think of something to say because every time she looked at him her mind went blank, but that didn't change anything. He'd dressed up for her, and her for him. She didn't know what else it could be.
Her first date. Her first kiss. He was hogging all the important moments. She always knew that the jerk was selfish, but she had no idea just how much.
For once, though, she didn't really mind.
And now they were planning a future.
No. Normal was gone.
Everything seemed more intense now. The feel of the picnic table under her back, his arm under her head - it was just the right shape to be a good pillow and so warm - and the stars. It was like she was just seeing the sky for the very first time as she stared at the thousands of stars that shined down. "There are so many."
She saw him nod, "It will take a while." He said, and she could hear the out that he was offering her. There was still a chance to change her mind.
No.
"Just a little." She wondered if he knew how big the galaxy actually was. Or how long it would take to visit ten thousand worlds. Probably. No matter what she said, she knew he wasn't stupid. Just reckless and impulsive. And completely uncaring about school.
Which was fine. Because he had her to balance that out. And to smack him when he had a test coming up. Smack him and explain things to him in a way he actually got.
But even if he didn't know how long it would take, she did.
And she knew how to use the time. She had once stayed up all night with a dictionary just trying to find the word that described how he fit into her life. There were so many that came close, but none exactly worked. Doofus was the first on one list, of course, followed by annoyance, exasperation, freak, slacker, pest, cousin. They all came so close. And so did hero, friend, inspiration, and family.
She found other words in the book, words that made her blush to think about and in no way was she ever going to write any of them down anywhere because that was exactly what her mom would find if she ever came snooping, but they didn't fit either.
There was another word, but she knew it wasn't right. She knew it even if she did spend a good hour looking at it. She was only twelve and for all she knew, this could all be gone tomorrow with a change of hormones. She'd seen it often enough in school. Kids who were strangers, and then all over each other, and then strangers again.
But if it was hormones...
It didn't feel like hormones. She hoped it wasn't.
But even if it wasn't, she knew it couldn't be that word. Not yet.
She didn't know what Ben was to her. She never found the word that matched, but she had only spent one night looking. The time it would take to see all those worlds might just be enough to figure it out. And if it wasn't...
Well, Azmuth was bound to have missed a few aliens when he was putting the watch together. They would just have to go looking for them, too. She was never one for leaving a job half done. Unless it was the dishes.
She nodded to herself. It was a good plan. "Where do you want to start?" She knew that he would be looking at her now with the exact same look he had back at New Years. The look she'd kept her awake for so many nights.
Just like she knew that if Grandpa and Aunt Vera weren't on the other side of the sliding glass door, she would have finally found out if the second kiss was as good as the first.
She felt something cold touch her neck and startled a little. She tried to reach up to wipe whatever it was off, but she would have had to let go of Ben's hand and that was the last thing she wanted to do. Instead she tightened her grip. She knew she couldn't let go of his hand. The cold feeling didn't matter at all compared to that.
Neither did the scream of the first falling star as it burned through the air above them. A scream that sounded like words running together, over and over again.
She finally turned her head enough to look at him. But instead of the look she wanted, he just looked confused. He opened his mouth to say something, but his words were lost as the meteor hit the ground behind them with an ear splitting explosion. The table bucked under them and he was thrown into the air. She grabbed onto his hand as hard as she could, but it didn't matter. She felt each of his fingers as they slipped out of her grip.
He still looked confused as flew away from her and vanished into the night.
She tried to scrambled after him, but something was holding her down. She struggled against whatever it was, and the move made her head and stomach and leg all scream in pain. The stars were falling around her as burning purple streaks of energy that were so bright that they burned her eyes, but they didn't help her see him at all. "Ben!" She tried to shout after him as she reached out to where he had been.
She tried to scream for him, but she couldn't breath. Her lungs burned as she tried over and over again to suck in enough air to scream, but she couldn't breath. She reached out...
And a hand caught hers.
Her eyes opened and she was in a room that was almost completely dark except for the moonlight that was coming through the window in the ceiling. It wasn't much, but there was just enough light for her to see the silhouette of something hanging over her. A bit of it moved, and she realized that someone leaning on the ground next to her. "Ben?" She used the last little bit of air she had to ask. It was barely a squeak, but it left her head spinning.
"Gwen. Thank God, thank God," Grandpa whispered as he let go of her hand, lifted her up and hugged her. It wasn't a usual Grandpa hug. The best of those were so tight that it made her bones ache when he was done. This one was so gentle that she barely felt it, but it still hurt so bad that she would have gasped if she had any air left in her at all. She made a sick hollow sound in her throat and she would have clawed at it if her arms weren't trapped under her Grandfather's.
He looked terrified when he heard the noise she was making. He set her down and the second her arms were free her hands went to her throat. His eyes shot over to something that was lying on the counter and beeping next to her as he adjusted a small cylinder he had in his hand. She looked at it in a panic and recognized the hypospray. He shook his head, put the spray down and caught her hands in his. "Honey, look at me. Gwen. You have to calm down. You're having a panic attack. You have to calm down. Breath, honey. Breath"
She tried. Knowing the name of what was happening helped her remember what to do. This had only ever happened to her once before. It was right after her first summer with Ben. Marci and her lampreys thought it was funny to shove her into the maintenance closet and lock her in one day after school. They caught her by surprise because she'd been listening to her disc man instead of paying attention. She had screamed at them even as they laughed. She knew in her head that it was safe, that someone would be along soon enough to let her out, but it was so dark that for a second she felt the wildvines dragging her underground again.
The teachers found her a minute later when the closet door was knocked across the hall. For once, having the reputation of a karate expert paid off. Everyone believed her when she said she just gave it a little kick and the door came loose. No one had the nerve to ask why the door was smoking. No one asked, but no one ever did it to her again, either.
This didn't feel like that. She didn't feel cold then. She'd never felt cold and sweaty at the same time before. Her eyes darted around as she tried to find Ben. She saw Grandpa, but she didn't see him.
He would be here. He had to be here. Why couldn't she see him? She had to find him. That was the thought that letter her grab control of the panic. She forced the panic down and finally sucked in a breath. It stunk of fear and smoke and burnt insulation.
Something sparked in the wall down by her feet, and the smell of burning insulation got worse.
She took two deep breaths and groaned as her stomach pulsed with pain, but the dark spots left her eyes. "Where's Ben?" She asked. Her voice sounded rough to her ears, and there was an undercurrent of panic in her words that she refused to pay any attention to.
"You have to take it easy, honey. You were banged up pretty good. I've fixed the worst of it, but you can't -"
"Where's Ben?" Her eyes went to Grandpa's as she shivered.
The alien gizmo he was looking at didn't throw off much light, but there was enough to see the funny turn of his nose and the bruises already forming under his eyes. And to see the flash of panic in them. "I – I don't know. I can't find him. Did he, did he go alien? Do you remember? What was he doing before..?"
She shook her head. She didn't even have to try to remember. It all came back. "We – we were watching the news reports from Phoenix while you drove. We muted it so you wouldn't know. We didn't want you to worry."
She closed her eyes. They knew that it was Vilgax the second that they saw his ship hovering over the city on the news.
Vilgax, the monster who had started all of this. Their first enemy, and their worst.
The news anchors were frantic as they tried to keep up with all the reports of the dozens of drones that he had launched against the city. They saw dozens of attacks, and maps and warnings. The last report they had watched was a live video of a group of soldiers firing a missile at one of the walker drones. They hit it, and the explosion sent the machine stumbling against a building. For just one second, they wanted to cheer. Then the drone forced itself back up and turned to the soldiers and cameraman. The last shot had the legs of the cameraman as he tried to run away.
Then screen went to snow as the words 'signal lost' flashed.
"But we couldn't watch anymore. We had to go and help. I know you said to wait, that the three of us had to fight Vilgax together, but we couldn't." Gwen said, her voice was desperate to both explain and apologize. "We're good. I know that you said not to, but we've been heroing for years now by ourselves and we're good at it. Really good. We could have helped."
"I know, Gwen. I've known for a while now," he said as he brushed his hand through her hair. "We'll talk about it later. What happened to Ben?"
She felt a sick stab of worry. She knew that Ben always got blamed for things that they did together. When she was younger it was part of the fun, but not now. She had to make him understand. "We both decided. It wasn't just him. It wasn't his fault. We're a team now." Finally he nodded and she felt so relieved that she just wanted to close her eyes. To go back to sleep even though her heart was pounding. "He was standing up and dialing through the watch, looking for XLR8. I was just about to stand up when I saw...
"It was one of the flying drones. It was flying just over the roofs of the buildings next to us. I saw it turn its guns to us. I couldn't even scream. I couldn't even warn him. Or you. I just jumped across the table and grabbed his hand. He looked so confused." She had not even thought of using magic. It had happened so fast she had not thought of anything at all but protecting him.
"I was going to try to pull him into the booth next to me... But - but something hit the back of the Rust Bucket. Everything went crazy and he just slipped out of my hand. I saw him fly past me and he looked so confused." Her eyes burned but she didn't cry. "He needed me and I let him slip out of my hand." She forced her head up, even though the move made her temple explode in pain and her stomach burn.
"Where is he? Ben? Doofus? Doofus, this isn't funny!" She screamed and her voice echoed weirdly around them. She waited for him to jump out from behind Grandpa and laugh. But he didn't laugh. He could never let a joke go on this long without laughing. He would never do something this cruel. She couldn't see Ben, so she looked at her Grandfather. He would know. He had to know.
Grandpa had always been a mountain of a man. Not just because of his size, but because he was as calm and unchanging as any mountain. No matter how bad things got, he stayed steady.
Until now. For just one second she saw him break. He lowered his head and took a single breath that was just short of a sob before he looked up again. His voice was calm and collected as he shifted and slipped his arms under her knees and shoulders, but she could see the light from the alien device reflecting in the tears running down his cheeks. "We have to go. Vilgax will be here soon."
"No!" Gwen said and she shoved him away. "We have to find Ben. He NEEDS me. We're partners! He can't do this alone! We promised!"
"I'll find him once you're safe, Gwen."
"No. He needs me. He needs my help NOW."
Her Grandfather stopped. He reached up and ran his hand through her hair. "Gwen. I'll find him. If he's okay I'll bring him to you. I promise I will, but... but if he isn't. You shouldn't... That shouldn't be..." He hung his head and shook it. "Try to remember him like he was when you two were watching the stars. Remember that. Not..."
All she remembered was letting his hand slip out of hers.
"Why are you-!" She started to shout as she looked around the weird room they were in. Why did he want to move her again? Why didn't they just stay in the Rust Bucket to find Ben? Wh...
She stopped and looked around again. All of the weird shapes on the wall suddenly spun 90 degrees over and she knew where they were. She was looking up at the dining booth. The window over her head was the side window, and she was lying on the kitchen cabinets. There was a strap dangling from the seat over Grandpa's head...
Her seat belt. She remembered feeling it break now, right after it had dug so deep into her stomach that she thought it was going to cut her in half. She remembered that, but she didn't remember falling. The Rust Bucket had flipped over on its side.
She didn't remember feeling the Rust Bucket fall over, but she did remember the white flash of the stasis field kicking on. Grandpa had explained it once as an alien's version of an airbag. He'd tried it on the two of them once, just so they would know what it felt like. Or that's what he claimed at the time, but she always thought he just wanted a few minutes of peace and quiet.
But if they were in the Rust Bucket, then Ben had to be around here somewhere. It wasn't that big...
Except that the glass in the big side window over her head was gone. And so was the side door. How fast had they been going? She tried to remember. Grandpa had run the jets on the back of the Rust Bucket at full speed to get them here. They had still been roaring when...
How fast had they been going?
Because she was who she was, she knew the answer almost as fast as she asked the question. And her world went cold. "He slipped out of my hand," she whimpered and closed her eyes. "I tried to hold on. I did."
"I know you did, honey. I know that no one would have tried harder than you. You can't- it wasn't your fault. Did he - did he have a chance to change?"
Gwen shook her head and tried to remember. She'd seen him fly past her. She thought she saw a flash of light, but that might have been the stasis field kicking on. The alien tech was good, it saved her and Grandpa but it didn't stop everything. It couldn't stop something that was already flying. If she had held on, it might have been...
They were going to see the stars.
It was her fault.
He was... he was... The she heard the scream in her head again, the same one she heard in her dream as the meteor fell. Heard it repeat over and over again without end. She felt something burn in her chest and Grandpa jumped back as a violet energy surrounded her hands. She shoved her hands under her and pushed herself up. Her head and stomach and leg all complained, but they didn't matter.
Not to her, but Grandpa jumped forward as the alien device he had pointed at her started screaming. "Gwen, you have to take it easy. You're hurt." He grabbed her arm to try to hold her in place. She looked at him, and his eyes went wide with fear as he yanked his hand back.
The world glowed around her. She saw her home in the light for the first time since she woke up. It was torn apart, with their stuff spilled everywhere, but she could still see it as it was. As it had been during the happiest times of her life. Their entire first summer, their 11th birthday - it had been before either of their real parties, but it was just the three of them and it was her best birthday ever. She never told him that, why didn't she?
She knew at a glance that they would never be taking the RV for another road trip. Not even Grandpa could fix this. She let herself feel the loss for a moment, and then the Rust Bucket didn't matter either.
She held out her hand until it almost touched what had been the ceiling. The words came without hesitation and the runes burned themselves into the air. And then they burned through the steel. A second later a blast of air blew the section of roof away. She stepped out into the night.
And the stink of smoke got thicker and the sky around them glowed with fire. She knew that people needed their help. They needed help, but she had to find Ben first.
She'd promised not to go heroing without him, and she kept her promises.
She looked out over a half a mile of broken metal and glass and asphalt. The Rust Bucket has flipped over again and again, and each time it left more of itself behind. One side of the road was lined with businesses, the other by a strip mall that had half collapsed. Almost every building had their windows broken out. She looked at it all, and stopped at a loss. She had no idea where to start. The magic on her hands arced out, desperate to be used now that she had called it up, but she couldn't think of anything to use it on that would help.
Grandpa stepped out behind her as he threw the strap of the emergency kit over his shoulder and he frowned as he looked around. His eyes went to the sky, to Vilgax's ship. It still hung there, unmoving and uncaring even as the city under it burned. She thought about trying to tear it out of the sky and dozen spells flashed in front of her eyes, but it wasn't important. It would take too much time and effort if she could even do it at all.
Protect Ben first, then hero.
Grandpa shook his head and knelt down in front of Gwen. He looked in her eyes, and she saw something in them that made her flinch. "Gwen. If we're going to find Ben, you have to do it right now."
Gwen nodded as her eyes raced around the debris. What did he think she was doing? But there was so much stuff on the ground. He could be under anything. She took a step forward, ready to start running.
But he grabbed her arms and held her in place. "No. Listen to me honey. We don't have time to look. You have to find him."
"How?" She asked, and her voice shook against itself until it sounded like she had said the word a half a dozen times in the same moment. How could she find him if she didn't look?
"I don't know how it works, but you can find Ben somehow. I noticed it years ago when the Forever Knights caught Ben at the water park. All we had was half of a street name that could have meant four different streets that were scattered all across town from each other and you picked the right street. You didn't use the map, and you didn't guess. You just looked and knew what part of town he was in. You've done it again since then. At parks, at the mall, when you were fighting last year. I don't know how, or why, but you can do it. You have to do that right now."
She shook her head because she didn't know what he was talking about. It was just guesses. Lucky guesses by Lucky Girl. Guesses and the fact that she knew the Doofus. It wasn't anything special. She tried to concentrate, but her head ached and her mind kept circling through all the spells she had ever read to find one that would help. Usually, she could do it without the magic doing anything, but now she could feel it surge in her with every half thought word.
It had never felt like this before. Like a fire that she was just barely controlling.
"Just close your eyes and look."
"That doesn't make any sense!" she shouted, and again her voice repeated over itself. No sense whatsoever, but she didn't have any better ideas. So she closed her eyes. When she opened them again to complain about the wasted time the street in front of her glowed with little stars, all of them the same color of green as their eyes. Some as the stars were as small as a bit of sand and a couple over by the strip mall that were huge.
"He's everywhere," she said and smiled even as the scream in her head got louder. It was beautiful.
She felt her Grandfather rock back. "Wh-where's the closest..."
She looked around and saw a star glowing out of what had been the roof of the Rust Bucket. She pointed. Her Grandpa made a surprised noise and she almost fell when he pulled his hands away. She saw him hurry over and pull the star free.
He was holding a shard of blue diamond as long as a tent stake in his hand. The scream in her head slowed a little as she looked at it. "Diamondhead. He changed. He's okay."
"He's in trouble," Max said with a shake of his head, but he sounded like himself again when he was in a fight. Calm, determined and just a little angry. He looked up and down the ruined street and shook his head in confusion. "I was only out for a couple of minutes. How did all of this..."
"The little freak likes to break things," Gwen said. She felt light headed and giggled. "And so do I. Just a bit."
"Do you see anything that might tell us where he is?"
Gwen forced herself to focus. Most of what she saw was the size of the crystal or smaller, but there was a couple of big glowing green blobs, in front of and behind the strip mall. The still standing bit of it anyway. She nodded and hurried over. It only took a bit to get there, even though they were both limping.
It was half buried in dust, but Gwen recognized the crystal as soon as she saw it. It was Diamondhead's left arm. Someone had broken it off. Someone had hurt him.
She looked at it and heard something whine and thought for a second it was her, or Grandpa. Then Grandpa spun around and lasers shot out of the sleeves of his Plumbers uniform as he moved to shield her behind him. She turned and looked around him to see the drone that had attacked them earlier flying down the street at them. It must have been watching them this whole time. Watching and waiting.
It had hurt Ben, hurt Grandpa, hurt her. And destroyed their home.
She raised her hand, palm out, and said the word that had been itching in the back of her head for all of this time. Then a single rune burned in the air in front of her, it burned such a dark purple that it almost looked black. The drone was the size of a truck, bigger than anything she'd ever tried to catch before.
It didn't have a chance.
A sphere of magic surrounded the drone.. She felt it press against the magic. Felt it try to escape and she squeezed her hand into a fist. She could almost feel the alien metal in her hand, felt it straining against her grip. Its desperate screech filled the air, and she kept squeezing.
The alien machine had seen and withstood a thousand wars, but it had never tried to take Ben away from her before.
The magic screamed as it flowed out of the fire in her chest and through her head. Her head ached as she pushed every bit of magic into the bubble that the metal finally gave way. A second later the drone exploded. It exploded with such force that the magic sphere and ever last intact piece of glass in the area shattered.
The sky rained fire, but none of it touched her or Grandpa. The sphere had been too close to the explosion, but the shield she threw up now was strong enough to protect them. She opened her hand and gasped in pain. When she looked, the palm of her Plumber's uniform had burned away, and the skin under it looked sunburned.
It hurt, but it was beyond worth it.
She could feel the magic slipping away now even as she tried to hold onto it. Really big spells made her as tired as a day of karate practice, and she had never even tried a spell like that before. She wanted to curl up and go to sleep.
She wanted to, but she ignored that like she ignored everything else.
She blinked her eyes and the double vision was back. She could still see the green stars on the street, but they were more like dust now. She forced herself to stop looking at it and turn. She didn't see anything else until she looked behind the still standing bit of the strip mall where the other blob had been. If had not looked any bigger than the arm before, but now it burned like the sun.
She turned and ran. Grandpa called after her as he tried to keep up, but she couldn't wait for him. She ran right through the ruins of what looked like a comic book store and thought for just a second of checking to see if there was anything good in it. She stepped over what was still standing of the back wall and finally, finally, saw him again.
Ben was kneeling in what had been a small parking lot, with his head bowed, right next to a pile of crystals the size of a car. The Omnitrix was blinked yellow at his wrist for a moment before it went green. He must have just changed back. She spent almost half a heart beat to check to make sure it wasn't a trap before she started running to him. She was halfway there when the magic she'd been running on finally slipped away from her and the sudden loss almost knocked her to her knees.
Not that that would have stopped her. Right now she would have crawled if she had to.
"Ben!" She called as she limped the last twenty feet. He didn't move. She forced herself to move faster even as something cold settled on her insides. "Ben!"
"Doofus!" She dropped and slid in front of him. He was looking straight ahead. He wasn't even blinking. She touched him with her burnt palm, he felt cold and clammy and he flinched at her touch. He flinched and went white as his eyes spun over to hers. His eyes shined with that odd light.
"Gwen?" He asked, at first confused and then shocked before he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. His hug hurt as much as Grandpa's had, but she wasn't going to say a word. She buried her face in his shoulder while he babbled in her ear. "I – the Rust Bucket – I tried to get back but – he said - and the explosion. I thought... I thought..." His voice kept catching at the last.
"Its okay, Doofus," she said as she hugged him back just as hard as she could. And for one second she believed that. For a second she didn't want to move ever again.
But she remembered Grandpa's worry about Vilgax. She had not gone through all of this just to lose him again. She tried to make herself let go, but she couldn't. Not yet. "We have to go. Grandpa thinks that Vilgax is..."
And he laughed the second she said his name. It was a cracked, crazy little laugh that he bit off so suddenly that she jumped. "He was right. Old me. It wasn't pleasant."
It only took her a second to remember meeting Ben 10,000. Going into the future was weird enough even for them that she remembered almost all of the day. Especially the cold way he said, 'The last time I saw Vilgax, I tore him to pieces. And it wasn't very pleasant for anyone.' Did he mean now? She remembered the pile of crystals behind her, and knew what was in it.
She thought they had changed...
It didn't matter. The future could wait.
"It's okay," she said.
He hugged her again, desperate and thankful, and this time so tightly that even if she was fine it would have hurt. She wasn't. Her stomach exploded in pain to remind her of that. She tried to keep from crying out, but it hurt too much.
The second the gasp left her Ben pulled away. He moved so fast that he almost knocked her over. She clutched at her stomach with one arm while she pushed herself back up with the other. His eyes were on her stomach until she looked up. His face broke out in a sweat when he saw her face. His hand darted up and shook as it touched her forehead. She gasped in pain and swatted it away. He looked at his fingertips and they were all stained by a wet red.
She heard his breath speed up and go shallow. "I'm okay, Doofus," she said. She reached out to touch him, because her touch always seemed to calm him down a little now, but he jumped back without saying a word. She felt the panic coming back because this wasn't him. "We're okay. You have to calm down. We're okay." If she said it often enough, maybe one of them would believe it.
She was about to call for her Grandpa when the thought made him appear. "She is, Ben," Grandpa said as he knelt down next to both of them. Neither of them had heard him come up, but Ben jumped like a mouse that had just seen a cat. "We're all okay. Thanks to you and Gwen."
Ben looked down and grabbed the back of his head with both hands.
Grandpa frowned and his hand went to the emergency kit. He opened it and pulled out the scanner. "I just have to check you over, Ben," he said in a calm, collected voice that made Gwen feel better just to hear.
"Why are you checking me?" Ben asked as he looked up and waved his stained glove over at Gwen. "Gwen's hurt! What's the matter with you? Help her!"
"I did," Grandpa said, still calm as he aimed the scanner at Ben and it started to beep a warning. "She's going to be fine, but you have to -"
Gwen nodded as fast as she could even though each one made her head explode and her words ran over Grandpa's as she said, "He did, Doofus. I'll be okay."
"Don't worry about me!" Ben said over the both of them. He shoved the scanner away from him and at Gwen. "She's hurt. She's bleeding! Help her!"
"Ben."
"I'm okay!"
"HELP HER!" Ben screamed so loud that his voice broke and he lashed out at Grandpa. His punches were wild, uncontrolled. If he had hit Grandpa anywhere else, the man wouldn't have even felt it, but his fist caught Grandpa right in his already broken nose.
Grandpa made a noise beyond pain as he dropped to the ground.
Ben froze for just a second, his face white, and Gwen grabbed him just to keep him from hurting Grandpa or her or himself. "Doofus!" She shouted at him, trying to get his attention, trying desperately to calm him down.
He yanked his arms free of her and spun to face her, his hands fists. He looked at her, but there was nothing in his eyes now but panic and guilt. She saw his mouth move as he kept repeating 'help her'' over and over again to himself. She had to stop him. This wasn't his fault, but she knew he would never believe that, that he would never forgive himself if he hurt her. He was too much of a hero to ever forgive himself.
She had to stop him. She him tense up and tried to call up the magic sphere, she said the words but nothing happened. Everything else she knew that could stop him would hurt him. She'd already hurt him so much already. She couldn't...
"Ben! Ben! Doofus! Please stop. Please. PLEASE!"
He froze and blinked. "You never say please," he said, and his voice sounded so achingly normal that she almost yelled at him for lying about her like that. He shook his head in confusion as he looked at her, and then at his fists. The second he realized what he'd been about to do he kicked away from her. His eyes darted between her and Grandpa, who was just now forcing himself back up, and he shook his head.
"He was right," Ben said as he looked right at her and for the first time he looked calm. She watched him reach over and touch the Omnitrix, watched his fingers go to the edge between the device and his skin and pull. "He was right. I have to take it off."
She'd asked him once if he had ever tried to just take the thing off. He said he did, when he first got it. That he had tried to do just this, but it had hurt so much that he stopped.
He wasn't going to stop this time.
She didn't have any more words left in her as she hurried over to him. He looked so betrayed as she ripped his hand off of the device, but before he could do anything else she threw her arms around him and held him as tight as she could. Tight enough that he had to know that she was there now.
Now.
She was there now, but not when it mattered. Not when it would have saved him from fighting Vilgax by himself. Not when he'd been forced to...
This was all her fault, she realized as she felt him start shaking. Or she was. Or they both were. If she'd just held on. If she had just been there when he needed her. They'd saved each other so many times before, why did she have to screw up now? He'd called her a hero just a few hours ago. Heroes didn't screw up. Her eyes burned as the tears finally started and the words she'd been repeating over and over in her head until they sounded like a scream finally slipped out. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
He didn't make any move to hold her or to get away. He just sat there and whispered, "I have to take it off," again to himself.