Chapter 27: The Boulevard of Broken Memories Part 1

...You can tell I'm a Green Day fan, can't you? XD

Yes, the author's note isn't in italics. The rest of the chapter is, and I didn't want people confusing this as part of the story.

Okay, the reason this is going to be in two parts is because all together the amount of words is over nine thousand-seriously, it's close to twenty thousand.

...I have been waiting over twenty chapters to use that Dragon Ball Z joke.

Time to answer to reviews!

To Calvin: Cordelia and Isaac are immortal and yet they're not. They can live for thousands of years-so to some people they are immortal-but they can still die. Their like vampires: they don't drink blood, but they can live forever unless they get a stake to the heart. Also, the Slayer gods have existed long before the Greek gods did. I'll explain more in a couple of chapters, just be patient.

Mr. Daniels studio was really part of another studio, one for classical arts instead of modern music like the lessons Ben was taking.

Ben had just finished his lessons for the day and now had the whole day to do nothing but laze about. His father would be coming to pick him up in twenty minutes, and now Ben was in the back of the studio, bored out of his mind.

He heard noises coming from the other side of the wall, where the classical music studio was. A piano was playing opera with a siren-like voice accompanying it. The voice was muffled thanks to the walls, but he could hear words coming in through the air vents.

A naturally curious child, Ben decided he should investigate. He did a quick scan of the back of the studio-old chairs, posters of rock bands on the wall, beginner's instruments cluttering about- and when he thought no one was looking, Ben turned the dial on his Omnitrix and turned into Gray Matter.

The tiny gray alien with large, bulbous eyes hopped up to the nearest air vent and went to work on dislodging it. It was slow going, since the screws were beginning to rust and Ben didn't want to alert Mr. Daniels or the other kids of what he was doing. When the vent was finally loose, Ben hurried down the metal chute and followed the voice to the other side. He was first blinded by the light coming through the air shaft gate, but when his eyes grew accustomed to it, he saw the other studio.

The practice room was a small space that looked a lot like Mr. Daniels studio. Cabinets were in the back against the white wall, and posters of Beethoven and Bach and other classical geniuses were tacked on the walls. In the corner were silver stands for music sheets, and folded chairs were leaning against the wall. A black grand piano was in the corner, and the music instructor was playing it, an old woman with her gray hair in a bun and wearing a plain white dress shirt with a blue skirt and smart black shoes.

Three students were sitting in fold-up chairs around the piano with small black cases next to them. Their packed instruments, no doubt. But in the center of the room was a lone child, singing for her audience. She was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt under a black t-shirt with a simple white cross on the front, black Capri pants that loomed over her ankles, and heavy-looking combat boots. Her gray eyes were closed, though Ben couldn't tell if the left one was thanks to that weird bang covering half her face.

The song soon ended, and Carter's voice reached a low octave before suddenly ending. She stood there, breathing heavily, sweat on her brow, her face bored and tired.

"Put more life into your performance!" the instructor snapped at her. "Compared to your earlier practices, you sound completely flat!"

Ben bristled a bit and glared his buggy eyes at the teacher. Carter's voice had sounded great to him. Maybe it wasn't perfect-he hadn't heard the whole song-but it didn't sound flat at all.

When Carter didn't respond, the instructor sighed. "We'll continue next week. I expect to see vast improvement in all of you." The teacher gave her students icy looks as they all muttered, "Yes, Mrs. Griselda."

The teacher left the room, closing the door behind her. Carter began to leave as well when one of the other students said, "How pathetic. You don't even have perfect pitch like me."

Carter sighed and tried to glare at the girl, but then her face fell. "You're not even worth the effort anymore, Linda."

The girl named Linda was no doubt the mean, popular girl of the class. She was pretty, with shoulder-length pale blond hair cast in soft ringlets, a heart-shaped face, and icy blue eyes. She was dressed in designer white Capri pants with a blue belt and a matching blue shirt with white angel wings on the back. Bracelets hung on her left wrists, and her strappy sandals looked like death traps. She was flanked by two other girls who looked almost exactly like her, with soft ringlets for hair, designer white pants, and strappy shoes. The only difference was that the girl on the left of Linda was a brunette with green eyes and wearing a pink shirt with hearts on it, and the other girl was Indian with silky black hair and chocolate brown eyes that matched her skin tone, wearing a simple green shirt.

If Linda was annoyed by Carter's comment, she didn't show it. Her sneer grew wider, her eyes colder. Her body language was simply screaming queen bee. "Giving up already? I figured you would. I mean, only losers give up in this world. I guess you're one of them."

Carter rolled her eyes. "If mocking people makes you feel better about yourself, go ahead. I'll ignore you just like everybody else."

"Leave her alone, Linda," the brunette said. "She's obviously not smart enough to dish out a decent comeback."

"She hangs out with those losers, what'd you expect?" the Indian girl agreed. All three girls laughed haughty laughs like Carter wasn't even in the room.

Carter was about to leave the room, but when she heard them diss her friends, she reared her head at them and snarled, "Their not losers, you vapid harpies!"

Linda sneered at Carter's angry expression while her two lackeys cringed. Even Ben did; Carter looked furious, her eyes full of fire and her teeth looking unusually pointy.

"Aw, look, she's trying to stand up for herself," Linda jeered. "How cute; it's like she thinks she can actually stand up to me."

"Yeah, because I'm totally going to let a brat like you walk all over me," Carter said sarcastically. "God, you're pathetic."

Linda's sneer faltered just a bit. "How am I pathetic? You're the one who can't even sing right. I don't even know why you bother to come here. It's obvious to everyone you're a talentless loser with no hope of ever getting into the big leagues."

Was it just Ben, or was the air getting colder? He breathed through his mouth, and a stream of white vapor blew out of it. The temperature had dropped drastically in the past several seconds, and by Gray Matter's calculations, it would soon be below freezing in this room.

Linda's lackeys had also noticed the sudden drop in temperature. They began to shiver through their thin shirts, hugging themselves to try and keep warm. "Linda…" the Indian girl cautioned.

"Shut up, Hillary!" Linda snapped at her.

"No, you shut up!" Carter snarled at her. "Every freaking day you stand around with your so-called friends and make fun of everyone else. What's obvious is that no one likes you. They all think you're a mean, spiteful, self-entitled brat who can't be nice even if it killed you!"

"Self-entitled?" Linda yelled at her. "I deserve everything I have! I deserve my title as the snow goddess, and I certainly deserve your title as the water queen!"

Ben had no idea what was going on between them, but it seemed like an old argument. All he knew was that there was going to be a fight soon and Carter was going to need backup. Even if two of the girls were shivering, it was still a three-against-one fight. So Ben climbed out of the vent and quickly made his way down to the floor, where a thin layer of ice was forming.

So the room was freezing, and according to Gray Matter, it would continue to drop. This did not bode well for any of them. He hurried toward Carter.

Despite Hillary's and the other girl's objections, Linda and Carter seemed fine. Neither of them shivered in the cold or rubbed their arms to gather a little warmth; instead, they glared at each other with white hot hatred, seething as white mist blew out of their mouths.

Linda was standing now, her pale blonde hair moving wildly from a nonexistent wind. Her hands were clenched and her teeth were bared and pointed. Her ice cold eyes seemed unusually colder, and the pupils had thinned considerably.

Carter looked at Linda coolly, eyes as sharp as daggers. Her arms were crossed, her back straight, and a little crown of what appeared to be small diamonds was nestled in her hair. She gave off an aura of power and royalty, like the girl before her was nothing more than an insolent peasant just waiting to be squashed like a bug.

And in a way, maybe Linda was. She had the insolent part down, anyway.

Carter's eyes narrowed into slits. "You are only the snow goddess, keeper of winter. You have no right to take the throne of the water goddess. Doing so would destroy the balance the gods have created and have you branded as a usurper. And no one cares for the usurper."

"Hima wouldn't be a usurper if Aquaria hadn't cursed her lineage!" Linda accused, pointing a finger at Carter. This left Ben seriously confused. Who was Aquaria and Hima? Why was Linda pointing at Carter like she was the one at fault when it was really someone else? Why was snow falling from the sky when they were clearly indoors?

Carter snorted. "Like she didn't deserve it. She only tried to turn Aquaria's friends against her, take her throne, and throw her to Purgatory."

"So she was a little power hungry! That didn't mean she had to make sure Hima couldn't be happy again!" Linda protested.

"You're kidding me, right?" Carter looked at her dumbfounded. "You actually think trying to overthrow the water queen is justifiable?"

Linda was about to say something, but the brunette said in a tiny, shaky voice, "S-she's got a p-point t-there."

"Shut up, Sloane!"Linda yelled at her before glaring at Carter again. "So when a half Immortal tries to gain power, it's okay, but when a god does it, it's suddenly a crime?"

"It is when you're trying to take down one of the Big Four!"

"SHUT UP!" Linda screeched as the air above Carter turned from air to sharp icicles. They fell and nearly impaled her, but Carter had willed a silver shield attached to her arm at the last moment and covered her head with it. The icicles shattered to pieces, the fragments falling from the shield to the ground and nearly taking out Ben. He ran towards Carter's feet, screaming a little when the pointy end of a broken icicle nearly hit his head.

Ben looked up when the shadow of the shield disappeared. Carter was holding her left wrist and he could see a flash of silver on it-a bracelet? And then he saw gray eyes looking down at him, surprise etched in them. For an instant their eyes locked, and then Carter turned back to Linda, her expression steely.

"Nice tantrum; what are you, five?" Carter taunted, her hands glowing blue. The ice by her feet melted rapidly, and the water flowed upward onto Carter's outstretched palms. The water collected itself into an orb, glowing brightly.

The wind began to pick up, ice and snow whirling around the two of them like a blizzard. Linda was throwing pointy icicles at Carter. Carter made the orb of water in her hands stretch out into a rope, one hand clutched at the end of it. And then she flicked it at Linda like a whip. The whip shattered the ice into fragments that fell to the ground. Carter pulled the whip back and flicked it again, this time at Linda's feet. The water whip hit her feet with a loud SNAP. Linda shrieked in pain and fell backwards into the three chairs, crashing to the ground. Her two "friends" were nowhere to be seen.

The blizzard instantly stopped, and Ben could see that everything in the practice room was covered in a thick layer of snow. Icicles were even hanging from the ceiling. Carter allowed the water whip to fall to the ground with a splash, where it instantly froze. Ben hugged himself as he felt the temperature drop into the negative numbers.

Linda struggled to get up, shooting Carter withering glares as she did so. Carter snapped her fingers and Ben heard a huge CRACK sound from above. He looked up and saw all the ice on the ceiling suddenly splinter and hover towards Carter. She waved her hands in slight circular motions, making the icicles move along with her. And then she stopped moving, all the sharp ends of the ice aimed at Linda.

"Give up," Carter said, annoyance evident in her voice. Linda looked fearfully at the weapons about to impale her and fell back to the ground, defeated.

Carter made the icicles fall to the ground as water just as the Omnitrix timed out and Gray Matter became Ben again. The cold air immediately hit Ben and made him shiver, forcing him to hug himself. Carter looked at him, shocked, before regaining her composure. She looked at Linda, sulking on the ground. It didn't look like she saw anything...

"Come on," Carter whispered, grabbing Ben's arm. Nearly frozen, Ben let her drag him to the wall, where the buttery ceiling light didn't hit properly, encasing the area near the wall in shadow. Carter put a hand into the darkness and Ben gasped as it disappeared.

"Come on," she repeated, putting a foot through the wall. Carter pulled him out of the light and into the dark and Ben could see himself disappearing. He tried to struggle out of Carter's grasp, but he was too frozen to move properly. He closed his eyes just as he phased through the wall.

Ben opened his eyes to complete darkness. The air was lukewarm and warmed him slightly. Ben moved his free arm and felt around. It was like he was moving through some sort of liquid, not quite viscous but not quite watery either. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ben looked around to see himself floating in nothingness with only Carter to guide him, her lethal grip clamped on his arm.

And then they were in the alley outside the studio. Ben had to shut his eyes tightly as the sunlight overtook his senses. He could feel himself warming up, and he soon opened his eyes.

"You okay?" Carter asked him nervously. She had let go of Ben while he was blind, and she had taken off the diamond band on her hand and was playing with it with her hands.

"That was awesome!" Ben whooped, a stupid grin on his face. Carter looked at him startled and the diamonds melted into a little puddle on the ground. So the diamonds were really ice after all.

"Really?" Ben nodded and Carter gave a little smile of happiness. And then Ben asked, "Why didn't you use your scythe?"

"Because there was ice and snow around for me to use," she explained. "I'm not going to defend myself with some weapon when I can just use my own element."

"That reminds me; what was that girl talking about?" Ben asked. "What did she mean when she said you cursed her?"

Carter pursed her lips. "It's an age-old argument between our families. One of my ancestors cursed one of her ancestors for trying to usurp my family."

"And who's the Big Four?"

"That's classified information. Now what were you doing in the studio?"

Ben began to blush as he remembered why he was in the vent in the first place. "I heard music and came to investigate."

"You heard music."

"It was really nice music."

Carter's lips slowly formed into a devilish smirk. "And who might have been the singer?"

Ben's face heated up even more as tried to look away. "Come on, tell me," Carter taunted. And then they heard a car pull up to Mr. Daniels studio, distracting them. They both looked out of the alleyway and saw Ben's dad come out of his parked car.

"That's my dad, I gotta go." Ben looked at Carter. "See you around?"

Carter thought for a moment before smiling. "Yeah, see you around."

It took a while to convince his parents he was mature enough to walk around town on his own after band lessons, but they knew he had the Omnitrix to protect him from any trouble. He may have been ten, but that didn't mean he couldn't handle the most powerful device in the universe. The only catch was that if there was ever an alien problem, he'd contact Grandpa Max for backup first before going in.

So there was Ben after band practice the next Saturday, drumsticks in his back pocket and guitar case slung over his shoulder, waiting outside the main entrance. He was looking around, trying not to be too conspicuous as he looked around for Carter. He saw her talking to two other kids, his eyes first trailing to the redhead with hair that looked like it was on fire.

Carter was laughing at something one of them said. She then locked eyes with Ben and smiled slightly, gesturing him over to them. Ben walked over, suddenly feeling nervous as the two other kids stared at him.

The redhead had penny-colored eyes that seemed faded almost, like she was always tired. She was wearing a red sweater that looked like a hand-me-down from her older brother and was two sizes to big on her paired with jeans and ratty blue sneakers. The boy was a brunette with his shoulder-length hair tied in a ponytail with rimless glasses over his forest green eyes. He had on a white polo shirt with a green tie and olive green cargo pants with white sneakers. There was something incredibly familiar about him…

"Ben, I'd like you to meet Evan and Sam." Carter pointed to each kid respectively. Sam nodded while Evan stared at him, eyes narrowed slightly.

"What are you looking at?" Ben said rather harshly, since this guy was giving him the creeps.

"You," Evan replied. "Are you good or evil?"

"What?"

He took off his glasses. "Are you the good twin or the evil one?"

Ben gaped at he stared at his mirror image. Well, the two of them were almost identical. Evan had longer hair, darker eyes, and was slightly taller than Ben, but the skin color, the frame of the face, and even the way they carried themselves was the same.

Sam tittered at Ben's expression. "You were right, Carter. He is weird."

Ben spluttered, "Your friend has a twin! How are you guys so calm?"

The three of them smiled evasively. "Because we know things."

"Besides, there's another reason why he's weird," Carter told Sam. "He's Ben Tennyson."

Sam eyed him suspiciously. "No way."

"So this means I'm the evil twin," Evan mused, putting his glasses back on.

Ben stared at him. "Why are you so hung up about that?"

"Have you ever seen the movies? Whenever some guy's doppelganger shows up, they have to establish who the bad guy is so people can root for the good guy. That and the evil twin tends to be the hot one."

"No they're not!"

"Yes they are," Carter said.

Sam, who had been watching the interaction with a amused smile on her face, suddenly piped up, "How about instead of standing here staring at each other, we go to the arcade?"

"Good idea," carter said. "I'm in the mood for some videogames."

"You're into videogames?" Ben inquired. No other girl he knew actually admitted it.

Carter shrugged. "Not as much as Evan here, but yeah."

"Do you play Sumo Slammers?" Ben asked him.

"Yeah, I love it," Evan said, staring at Ben. He stared back.

"Did we just become best friends?"

"I think we did," said Evan, high-fiving Ben. Sam and Carter shook their heads and muttered, "Nerds," under their breaths affectionately.

"Before we go, shouldn't we hide Ben's guitar?" Sam pointed out. "Its gonna be a pain to carry."

"True," Carter mused. "I know a place. Come on." She led the way to the arcade-a route Ben knew by heart- but just before they went in, Carter veered suddenly to the left of it into the nearest alley. The alley was remarkably clean since there wasn't a dumpster or other trashcans, but it was dank from the lack of sunlight.

Carter put her left palm on the wall of the alley. "Aperire spatio ad abscondere obiectum," she muttered. Instantly a break in the wall appeared, which turned out to be a door that looked like the brown bricks of the alley. The door was the size of an average adult; the interior was certainly big enough to hide a guitar. Ben immediately shrugged off his case and gently put it into the dark space along with his drumsticks. Carter then closed the door and the cracks disappeared until it was just a wall again.

Open the space to hide the object. Ben blinked and shook his head. Where had that come from? It had sounded like an old man was explaining whatever Carter said in his head.

I'm not that old, Benjamin. Okay, now Ben was freaking out. There was a voice in his head who was responding to his thoughts like he was a crazy person. Oh, no, he was a crazy person!

The voice chuckled. You're not crazy, Ben.

That's what all crazy people think! Ben shot back to the voice. He had to calm down, he was just imagining things, he could handle this...

"Ben, you okay?" Ben snapped out of it to see Carter looking at him, concerned. She seemed paler than before, and she was out of breath.

"I'm fine, but what about you?"

Carter shook her head. "Spells are naturally harder for me. I'm not a reservoir of magic like some people."

Some people like Gwen, Ben thought to himself. Out loud he said, "But didn't you do magic back at the studio? With the shield, I mean."

"We're used to that because we've been trained to," Evan explained. "The three of us are only quarter alien; we only depend on magic and our powers when there's a large source of it or if we absolutely have to."

"Or if you're Sam, you can just use your powers without having to worry about tiring out," Carter pointed out enviously. Sam shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Wait, all of you have powers?" Ben asked excitedly. "Cool! What are they?"

Sam snapped her fingers and a tiny flame sparked on her thumb before sputtering out. Evan held out a hand and stomped his foot and a small rock levitated off the ground and into his outstretched hand.

"That is awesome!" Ben whooped as Evan dropped the rock. He turned to Carter expectantly, only to have her frown.

"I'm too tired to try anything else," she admitted. "Besides, you've seen what I can do."

Ben shrugged, a little disappointed, before Sam said, "Come on, let's go to the arcade. I hear they got a new pool table."

"You play pool?" Ben asked as they walked out of the alleyway.

"It's kind of a family thing," Sam said.

"She's always trying to get us to play," Evan muttered to Ben. "We go along with it because it's her."

Ben vaguely wondered how well these three knew each other for two of them to just do something they didn't want to do just because their friend liked it. He decided not to think about it, just like how he decided not to think about the voice in his head.

"I'm so going to beat your high score!" Carter goaded Evan as they got on the neared the House of the Dead videogame.

"In your dreams, Goth girl!"

"So I have a chance then." Carter and Evan grabbed the air soft guns and put in the coins needed to start the game.

"Goth girl?" Ben muttered under his breath. Sure, Carter dressed all in black, but it wasn't right to stereotype someone as a Goth simply by that, was it?

"Carter reads a lot of Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, and William Blake, so kids in our school labeled her a Goth," Sam explained. Ben looked at her as the game started up and Evan and Carter got right to it.

"I don't know many of those people," Ben admitted.

"You're what, ten? Of course you don't," Sam scoffed. "The only reason why Carter knows them is because her grandparents are really into romantic literature."

"Since when does Frankenstein count as romance? Unless you're counting his wife; are you counting his wife?"

"No, I'm talking about the literature movement from the 18th century. Back then, horror was dubbed romantic."

"Why?"

"I have no idea."

"Die, monster, die!" Evan yelled at the game as he and Carter quickly gained life points and shot at monsters. Ben watched the scores as they quickly climbed past three hundred.

"Man, you guys are good!" Ben complimented them. They didn't seem to notice as their scores went past four hundred.

Two minutes later, the game was over for Carter, who had six hundred points. Evan was still going, firing at the monsters with ease. It was like the gun was an extension of him.

But despite the rhythm he had, Evan had lost too many lives to finish the game. He had seven hundred points.

"Told you!" Evan teased Carter, who swatted his arm playfully. "Wanna play something else?" Evan asked the others. Sam's eyes drifted to the empty pool table in the middle of the crowded arcade, gaze so full of desire and longing that Ben had to give in.

"Wanna teach me how to play pool?" Ben asked, even though he really didn't care. Sam's eyes lit up and she grinned. Ben allowed himself to get dragged to the pool table, past the glitzy videogames which made loud noises and the cheering kids who beat them.

The pool table had already been set up, and Sam and Evan immediately started getting the cue sticks for everyone. Carter was explaining some of the rules to Ben, but he wasn't listening. He had spotted something else.

Cash and JT were ten feet away from them, finishing up a game of Avenger.

Of course they had to be there today.

Ben turned back to the game trying not to let the worry show on his face. He was on the road to being friends with these guys; he didn't need his bullies ruining things for him.

"Something wrong?" Carter asked him. Ben pretended he didn't hear her. She raised an eyebrow and scanned the darkly lit arcade and spotted Cash and JT, who had seen Ben and were making their way over here.

"Sam," Carter said. The redhead looked up and saw the two boys with their wolfish grins, and her eyes narrowed. She nudged Evan, who had already seen them and was now holding the cue stick tightly.

"'What's Tennyson doing with the freak patrol?" Cash jeered when he finally caught up to Ben.

"Yeah, their always lurking around here, playing pool like losers," JT added. "I knew you were lame, but not that lame." He and JT started laughing, and Ben wanted to crawl in a hole and die. He didn't dare look at the others.

"Pathetic," Carter said, cutting their laughter short. "It's like you're not even trying to bully him. If you really want to get under someone's skin, use big words."

Cash and JT stared at her like she was an alien. Ben glared at her; wasn't she supposed to be on his side?

"Am-I-speaking-too-fast-for-you?" Carter said in halting English. "I figured; ignoramuses have horrible vocabularies." She turned to Evan, who high-fived her.

Cash and JT seemed to notice Evan for the first time. "Tennyson has a twin?" Cash said, shocked.

Evan and Ben looked at each other and Ben shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Yeah, well, he looks like a nerd," JT scoffed.

Evan threw down the cue stick and grabbed JT by the collar. "Say that again, I dare you," he said in a venomous whisper, boring into his eyes.

"Evan," Carter warned, since they were gathering attention. Evan slowly let go, never taking his hate-filled gaze off of JT's, and the two boys slowly backed away before running out of the store.

Ignoring the stares, Evan turned back to the others, and Ben shirked back when he saw the unbridled hatred in Evan's eyes, the barely controlled anger in his taut muscles. And then Ben saw his face into hurt, his face set in a quivering grimace.

"You can't react to insults like that anymore," Sam told him sternly. "If you keep getting angry like that all the time, you'll lose the people you love, and then you'll have nothing."

Evan gave a small smile. "Straight from the horse's mouth, o wise one?" Sam gave a small laugh and embraced him, pulling Carter along with her. Ben stood awkwardly to the side, wondering what he was doing here. He was obviously intruding on a seriously close friendship; an outsider like him had no right to be here.

Ben turned and was about to put the cue stick back on the hangar when a hand clapped on his shoulder. "Let's play," Carter said, gesturing to the pool table. Sam and Evan were back in their positions, waiting expectantly for him. It was like the earlier scene never happened.

Ben smiled.

"What are we doing today?" Ben asked as he met up with Carter, Evan, and Sam the next Saturday.

"We could walk around town," Sam suggested. The other three shrugged and went over to the alley by the arcade so Ben could put away his guitar. They walked past the arcade closer to downtown, where all the stores and cafes were.

Bellwood was a relatively normal town, so all the teenagers milling about were dressed out of department store catalogs and all the adults were dressed in normal leisure wear. No one really thought the idea of four kids walking around town without adult supervision as weird; after all, Bellwood was a safe place.

"How about the music store?" Carter pointed to the F.Y.E. music store down the street. Without waiting for an answer, she went towards it, and the others had to walk briskly after her to catch up.

The music store was large with long aisles of every music genre from all around the world. Videogames made up the right wall; movies made up the left. Ben followed the others into the rock and metal section of the store. They immediately began rifling through the CD displays with Ben awkwardly skimming the selections. He didn't particularly like any band on the radio; he found that the rock songs were pretty good compared to the Top Forty, but he couldn't place a band to the song.

"Hey, Ben, you ever hear of Attack Attack?" Evan asked him, holding out a CD. The cover had a window open to the night sky with a tied bed sheet going out of it. A loud title covered the window, saying "Attack Attack! Someday Came Suddenly".

"This is their debut album," Evan explained. "It's got metal, hardcore punk, and electronic music. It sounds weird at first, but once you get used to it, it's awesome."

Ben studied the CD cover for a moment then put the package over the scanner of one of the store's special music players. The music player scanned the barcode and Ben put on the earphones while the machine loaded the CD. Ben then picked the song "Shred, White and Blue" and listened.

Evan was right; the music was different and darker, something Ben was unaccustomed to thanks to his diet of pop Top Forty songs. But after a minute he started to like it, actually enjoying the hard to understand lyrics and liking the electronic mix in.

"Not bad," Ben said to Evan. He eyed the price on the CD. "I think I'll buy it." Evan gave a self-satisfied smile and went back to browsing with Sam.

"Ben, listen to this," Carter said, coming up to him. She held up a Fall Out Boy album. She scanned the CD case and Ben put on the headphones again. Once it was loaded, Carter picked the song.

It was "Short, Fast, and Loud."

Ben turned to Carter, eyes narrowed. "Are you implying something?"

Carter looked at him innocently. "No; why would you say that?" Ben jabbed a finger at the digital screen. She smiled impishly, and Ben started to get annoyed.

"You're mean, you know that?"

"I know. So what do you think?"

Ben took off the earphones. "It's okay; it's a lot easier to understand than Attack Attack."

"And it's on sale so you can buy it if you want," Carter offered.

Ben looked at the two CDs in his hand and said, "I don't have the money to buy both of them."

"It's a buy one, get one half-off sale."

Ben studied her for a moment. "Did you know about this? The sale, I mean."

Carter shrugged. "I was going to suggest it when Sam said she wanted to walk around town. It seemed convenient for me."

Ben couldn't argue with that logic. "I'll go buy these then."

As he walked away from her, he couldn't help but notice how different Carter seemed now that they were getting to know each other. First, she was cold and sarcastic, then scared and worried, and now friendly and honest. It just further proved the point that girls were weird.

"Have you ever wanted to fly without the Omnitrix?" Carter asked Ben seriously. They were on the cliff that overlooked Bellwood, the one Carter's parents frequented when they were teenagers. Ben and Carter were alone up there because Sam and Evan had family obligations.

Ben looked at the town and admitted that yes, he wanted to fly without the watch.

"Close your eyes," she ordered him. Ben did so, and she touched his spine, sending volts of electricity through his body. And then he felt something heavy on his back, but before Ben could ask, Carter pushed him off the cliff.

For a second Ben was stuck in midair, the pull of gravity grabbing at him while he was temporarily suspended. And then he was falling, falling to the ground at breakneck speed.

Use your wings, Ben. There was that voice again; the one Ben had thought he dreamed up. He hadn't heard it in a while, so he thought it was a figment of his imagination.

Flap your wings and extend. Something was stretching from Ben's back, something blue.

And then Ben was no longer freefalling through the air; instead he was hovering between the sky and the ground, his mismatched wings flapping to keep him steady. One wing was demonic, a crinkly blue instead of black and outlined in green. The other was angelic, blue feathers dipped in green.

Carter flew beside him, her own mismatched set black and dipped in blue just like his own. "How does it feel?" she asked as she flew past him.

Adrenaline from the fear of being pushed off a cliff was still racing through him, making his heart race uncontrollably, making his throat close as Ben gasped for air. But there was something else, something he only felt when he was flying through the air as Stink Fly: exhilaration.

Ben looked at Bellwood, then at his wings, then finally at Carter, who was hovering near him, waiting patiently. He flapped his wings once more and then soared away.

Thirty minutes later

"That was awesome," Ben gasped as he collapsed on the grassy cliff. Sweat was pouring off him like rain and his bones felt like lead. He couldn't be happier.

And then he felt the weight of his large wings leave his back. "Where'd they go?"

Carter sat down beside Ben. "I don't know. Back into your body, I guess?"

Ben was satisfied with that answer. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the pretty blue sky, trying to calm his racing heart.

"Do you like singing?"

Carter started at the question. "Yeah, I do." She seemed downcast.

"Liar."

"I am not!"

"Then how come you aren't happy?"

Carter heaved a defeated sigh. "When my grandparents found out I was good at singing, they said I should have an appreciation for the classics if I ever want to make it big. I thought they were talking about the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones, or the Beach Boys. Instead they signed me up for opera and other classical stuff."

"So why don't you just tell them?" Ben asked, genuinely curious.

"I don't know…" Carter faltered. "I guess I just don't want to disappoint them after all they've done for me."

"I can understand that," Ben admitted, thinking about his grandpa. A sudden thought struck him. "Can you sing for me?"

"Sure. What do you want to hear?"

"The kind of music you want to sing."

Carter thought for a moment, and then, almost shyly began to sing.

"Am I more than you bargained for yet
I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear
Cause that's just who I am this week
Lie in the grass, next to the mausoleum
I'm just a notch in your bedpost
But you're just a line in a song
(A notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song)"

Carter's voice slowly gained strength, gathering in volume until her voice became loud and powerful. Her eyes were closed and the wind blew around them, adding their own chime to the song.

"Drop a heart, break a name
We're always sleeping in, and sleeping for the wrong team

We're going down, down in an earlier round
And Sugar, we're going down swinging
I'll be your number one with a bullet
A loaded God complex, cock it and pull it"

The wind blew stronger now ruffling Ben's hair and making Carter pull her longer hair back behind her ears constantly. The wind seemed like a nuisance, but Carter didn't let it distract her from her little concert.

And the wind played around them, toying with them until it breezed off the cliff and towards Bellwood, carrying Carter's siren-like voice with it.

What, Evan was angry? Well, of course, he was bullied for being a nerd. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a short fuse, even for a little while.

Next chapter: The Boulevard of Broken Memories Part 2