Chapter 49: Lucille Comes to Town

At Remisolleke: Thank you so much for the kind review! It really makes me happy to know that someone has been reading my story since day one. I would like to speed things up a bit, but the story has a flow and if I break it I'm afraid the story will suffer. As for Ben and Ventus beating Vilgax...I think it can be arranged. Eventually, that is.

Now, for the rest of the author's note, Carter and Evan's reaction with the Wii are reactions me and my friends had when we played. We played multiple times with the Wii and this is what happened every single time. This does not mean that everyone reacts the same; I'm just using results from my circle of friends.

"I can't do this."

"Yes you can."

"No, I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"No I can't-don't slap me!" Kevin brought his arms over his face when he saw Sam's raised palm. She was glaring at him, eyes lit up dangerously. She slowly lowered her hand, remembering where they were. She breathed through her nose to calm down.

"My hand is down. You can look."

"I don't believe you!"

"Damn it, Kevin!" she hissed, wisps of smoke wafting from her hair. Kevin took a sniff and immediately patted at it, trying to put out the fire. Sam slapped his hands away with a snarl:

"You'll burn your hands!"

"Sorry!"

Sam sighed audibly and face palmed. "I'm sorry too," she said honestly. She went to straightening Kevin's bow tie. He had decided to dress in his best suit, which just so happened to be his Doctor Who suit. It was silly, but Kevin had wanted to make a good impression, which Sam could understand. And it was rare to see him so dressed up, so she was going to enjoy this.

Putting both hands on his shoulders, she said, "You've knocked down DNAliens. You've gone head to head with High Breeds. You laugh in the face of danger. You will be fine."

Kevin took a nervous look at the door. They were sitting on hard plastic chairs at the local high school, since it was the nearest place for the officials to set up the testing. Said officials were on the other side of the classroom door, setting the place up for Kevin to take the test. The same Kevin who knew more about alien technology than the average Plumber.

The same Kevin who was practically hyperventilating right now. He nearly had his head in between his knees, it was that bad.

Times like this usually mean he needs a shock to snap him out of it, Kirche the fire goddess mused in Sam's head. Think you can use your electricity powers on him?

I am NOT shocking him, Sam thought back vehemently.

Then how's about you kiss him?

…Won't that freak him out more?

You're his girlfriend. He shouldn't freak out.

She had a point though Sam was loath to admit it. She turned to Kevin beside her. "Kevin."

He didn't look up.

"Kevin," she said more insistently.

"Mm?" he mumbled quietly.

"Look at me," she said gently.

He hesitated for a moment before slowly sitting up. She could see the fear etched on his face, the worry causing lines to stretch across his skin. For a second he seemed ten years older. And then Sam saw his eyes, the undiluted fear in them, and she saw a scared little boy groping for something to hold onto.

Grabbing his face with some force, she kissed him, mashing their lips together. It was painful-Sam was pretty sure she accidentally hit his teeth-but then it softened and Kevin's body visibly slackened. She let go, dropping his heads. Kevin just sat there, eyes blinking like a fish.

"…Um," he finally drawled out.

"You'll be fine," Sam insisted. He blinked once more before the ends of his mouth turned up slightly.

The classroom door opened. A serious looking man in a business suit stepped halfway into the hall. "Mr. Levin, we're ready for you."

Kevin's face visibly paled. He stood up quickly, straightening his suit jacket. He took a quick look at Sam and said in a somewhat small voice, "Wish me luck."

"You're Kevin Levin," Sam stated. "You don't need luck."

Kevin stopped for a moment before his face stretched out into a grin. "I'll be fine," he said more confidently. With that he walked into the room. The door closed behind him with a slight thud.

"That star's mine," Evan said snootily.

"No it isn't," Carter growled.

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"BITCH, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU TAKE THAT STAR-I HATE YOU!" Carter threw a punch at Evan, who barely dodged in time.

"WELL MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T SUCK AT VIDEOGAMES-OW!" A Wii controller hit Evan square in the eye. It clattered to the floor and Evan held his aching eye. He was pretty sure the skin around it was bruising.

Carter quickly paused the Mario game and said, "And this is why we don't use the Wii when it's just the two of us."

"Because you have a tantrum every time we play?" Evan narrowed his good eye at her.

"No, because every time you start trolling me and then you get mad whenever I call you out on it," Carter snapped, fists on her hips.

Evan gave a loud snort. "No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"No, I don't!"

"Yes, you do! You're trying to do it now!"

Both friends glared at each other before they suddenly burst out laughing. It was loud and obnoxious, but then again they were alone in Carter's room. No one could hear them so they could be as annoying as they wanted.

As Carter fixed up Evan's blooming black eye, the boy mused, "The Wii is tearing us apart."

Carter fixed him a look. "I don't think so."

He held up his hands to placate her. "Hear me out. No matter what setting we're in, no matter what game we're playing, we only get this angry while playing with the Wii. No other videogame system gets us so riled up. So that must mean the Wii games are evil."

His eye fully healed, Carter let her hand droop. "But that's only when we're alone. If we're with friends and playing videogames, we're fine."

"That's because it's usually Sam and Newt we're hanging out with," Evan pointed out. "We have to keep up the act of being the sane, calm ones in the group."

"Newt's sane, and Sam's a lot calmer now."

"And while that is very true, it's not how we're portrayed," Evan said sagely. "The point is the Wii is evil and must be destroyed. Preferably through Satanic ritual."

Carter blinked. "So you want to give it to Sam's grandmother."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

She slowly shook her head. "You're insane."

"No, I'm smart," Evan said, taking out his phone. "If it goes hand in hand with insanity, so be it." He quickly tapped the code to unlock his phone and then said, "Huh. Speak of the devil."

Carter raised an eyebrow. "Lucille called you?"

"Yeah, she did." Evan quickly listened to the voicemail. Carter could vaguely hear the tinny words speaking through the phone. She could pick out a few cheerful words from the message, but the overall message was lost.

Less than thirty seconds later, Evan shut off the voicemail. His face was grave. "Lucille's visiting."

Carter visibly paled. "Sam's not going to like this at all."

Evan furrowed his brow. "Where is Sam, anyway?"

Kevin didn't say a word once he left the room. He just walked out of the room and gestured for Sam to follow him. She almost missed the cue-watching abridged anime videos on her phone had been pretty engrossing. She then worriedly followed him to the car, him walking at a brisk pace with her quickly catching up.

He only opened up once they were safely in the car. He slammed his forehead on the steering wheel and muttered, "I failed it."

Sam rolled her eyes. "No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"Are we really starting this up again?" Sam said exasperatedly.

Kevin quickly lifted his head. "I did fine on the math and science part. It was the English and history parts I bombed. Nothing I studied for was on that test!"

"Welcome to high school exam periods," Sam quipped dryly. Kevin didn't even crack a smile. She quickly said, "It doesn't matter. Depending on how you did you can take classes at the community college to get your scores up. Or I could bribe some people to make you pass." She furrowed her brow. "I'm sure my parents won't mind."

Kevin raised an eyebrow. "They wouldn't?"

"Well, they wouldn't know."

He gave a short bark of laughter. "You'd do that for me. Risk getting caught for bribery, I mean."

Sam raised a hand. "Believe me I've been caught for worse."

Kevin snorted and gave her a look. "Yeah right. Name one thing."

"I'm not allowed to hold a baseball bat near Evan until I'm eighteen."

"What did you do?"

"I may or may not have accidentally used his room for a batting cage after he melted the faces off all of my dolls."

Kevin stared at her for a moment before bursting out laughing. He banged his open palm on the dashboard and threw back his head, nearly howling. When his laughter died down into painful gasps, he finally stuttered out, "You're incredible."

"I'm also a criminal mastermind," Sam joked. "But seriously, I'm sure you passed the test with flying colors. We'll get the results in a few weeks. Just wait until then."

His lips quirked into a smile. "Okay. And…thank you."

Sam glowed (not literally) and was about to say something back when her phone beeped. Fishing for it, she noticed that it was a text message. She quickly opened it up and read it. Her face fell, her eyes widened, and it was as though her throat was closing in on her. She read the message again just to be sure.

"Sam?" Kevin asked worriedly. "You okay?"

She burst out crying. Her shoulders hunched as her body undulated from the heavy sobs. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks and she buried her face into her hands.

Her phone clattered to the floor. Kevin quickly reached for it and read the text from Carter: Lucille's visiting. As he quickly gathered the crying girl in his arms, Kevin quickly texted back: This is Kevin. Who's Lucille?

Carter texted back almost instantly: The she devil herself.

Ben was sitting at his computer doing his homework. Gwen was sifting through his closet. Carter was sitting on his bed. And Evan was on the floor, reading one of Ben's comic books. It was a pretty normal afternoon, to be honest. If only Ben didn't have to ruin it.

"Tell me about that message Gwen," he said. "I got homework."

"We'll wait until Sam and Kevin come," she answered back, going through a box in her cousin's closet. "Then I won't have to tell it twice."

"Was it an email? Just let me read it."

"Like it'd be that easy," Carter scoffed.

"It was a telepathic SOS sent through my energy field," Gwen answered.

Evan sat up. "You so called it," he told his Goth friend.

"You kept your old teddy bear?" Gwen held out the remains of a threadbare stuffed animal. Ben let out a small yelp and dashed to the bear, grabbing it out of her hands and throwing it back into the recesses of the closet.

"Dude, it's fine," Carter said dismissively to Ben's red face. "Evan still has his old teddy bear hiding under his pillow."

Evan glared at her. "I do not."

"Then explain to me why you recently had it sewn up in a little ninja outfit."

"Because ninjas are cool!" Evan threw down the comic book for emphasis.

"Cute," Gwen noted as she held up an old wooden recorder. "You kept this too?" she asked her cousin.

Ben furrowed his brow. "I guess so. I never did figure out why we had to learn to play that thing."

"I think it had something to do with memory," Carter thought out loud. "Though in retrospect it was pretty useless."

Evan took the recorder into his own hands. "Not really. I figured out how to summon Satan using Hot Cross Buns. I think I can still do it." He took a deep breath and was about to play the first note when Ben smacked the instrument out of his hands.

"No summoning the lord of darkness in my house!" he decreed. Evan pouted a little.

"Oh, look!" Gwen quickly held up a little house with Sumo Slammer action figures in it. "A dollhouse."

Instantly forgetting their earlier predicament the two boys swarmed her. "That's not a dollhouse!" Evan cried out, grabbing it from Gwen and cradling it.

"It's a Sumo Slammers' battle ring!" Ben explained further.

"And they're not dolls, they're action figures!" Carter yelled as she began reading the comic book Evan dropped.

"Aren't you a fan of this?" Gwen asked pointing to the battle ring Evan had so rudely ripped out of her hands.

Carter shrugged. "I'm more into the videogames."

Gwen eyed the dollhouse distastefully. "Still think it's a dollhouse-Ah!" She grabbed her head and staggered back slightly.

"You okay?" Carter asked, abandoning the comic book.

"Something's coming in," Gwen said ominously her eyes glowing bright pink. Suddenly a giant pink oval appeared in the middle of Ben's room. White energy fizzled around it and something black and blue appeared on the pink screen. It was a Kinecelaran in an olive green vest.

"Can you hear me, Gwen?" she pleaded over the airwaves, her voice wavering due to the bad transmission. "Did you find Ben and Evan? We need help!"

"Helen?" Evan said.

Kevin in his usual attire chose that moment to walk into the room. "A hologram?" he asked closing the door. "It's never like I come over and you're just playing videogames or something."

"Guys, I can't hear you!" Helen said quickly on the transmitter.

"Helen, we're right here," Ben said, walking up to the screen.

"If you're getting this message, please, help us. It's important," Helen pleaded.

Gwen closed her eyes and shook her head with pain. "Can't keep the connection."

"There's terrible danger! We need help desperately! Please!" The connection fizzled shut; the energy transmitter disappeared with a crackling sound. Helen was gone.

Gwen stumbled only to be caught by the arm by Evan. "You okay?"

After a moment of light headedness she said, "I'm fine. I'm doing better than those Plumber kids anyway."

"What did they expect going into the Null Void?" Kevin pointed out. "Not like we didn't warn 'em."

"We have to go get them out!" Gwen snapped.

"The Null Void's too dangerous for you," Carter pointed out. "It's too dangerous for all of us."

"She's right," Ben said in a serious tone.

"I know that look," Evan said. "You're planning on going into the Null Void alone aren't you?"

"I'm that obvious?"

Carter rolled her eyes. "You'll be dead within minutes."

"Ten bucks says I'm not!" Ben countered childishly.

"You're on!" Carter held out her hand. Gwen face palmed as the two of them shook.

They found Sam in the abandoned warehouse.

Kevin had left Sam at her house-she was too hysterical to take any place else-and then went to his own home to change. And then he went to Ben's place, since Gwen had asked him to and all. He had every intention of leaving Sam out of the mission; she hadn't explained what was going on with this Lucille person, but instead set her forehead against the car window with her eyes wide open in a near catatonic state. Her little brother looked equally as shocked when Kevin dropped her off, so whatever it was had to be major. And if she was going to be in that state, well, maybe she should sit this one mission out.

He hadn't expected her to be at the warehouse the obsolete Null Void projector was in.

She was huddled in the corner so he almost missed her. It wasn't until Evan had exclaimed, "Sam? What are you doing here?" did he turn in that general direction. But there she was, sitting against the wall with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in her hands. She was as pale as a ghost, though she didn't look as catatonic as before.

Kevin quickly made her way over to her and helped her up. "Should you really be here?" he asked quietly the anxiety showing through. "You could barely talk earlier."

"I…I needed to get out of the house and this is the perfect excuse," Sam said quietly, gripping the Styrofoam cup with both hands. "Hopefully she won't find me here."

"You mean Lucille?" Kevin asked. Sam visibly started, her shoulders shaking. "What the hell is going on?"

She shook her head. "I'll explain once we send Ben off." Kevin gave her a look as she walked towards the others. The others were giving her odd looks too but then Kevin started to take over the operation and it was back to business.

"The Null Void projector's not working!" Evan called out about twenty minutes in.

Kevin swore loudly and said, "It has to work!"

"Don't worry; I traced Helen's energy pattern," Gwen said reassuringly. "I can rip open a pathway into the Null Void if we need to."

Once Ben was strapped into his safety harness, he said, "The last time I was in the Null Void I didn't need all this junk."

"Last time you had a motor home full of cool state of the art Plumber gear," Kevin said as he fiddled with the projector.

"Which you sold!"

"The point is it's gonna be tricky to get you out," Gwen quickly said. "Even if I temporarily rip a doorway into the Null Void, this cable is the only thing connecting you to our world." She held out the long cable that would connect to Ben's harness.

Kevin gestured to the silver wire winded over the industrial-sized spool. "It's not a cable. The Plumber snake is an unbreakable pan-dimensional retrieval system worth mucho dinero which you are very lucky I have."

"Admit it, you'd miss him," Sam teased lightly from the sidelines. Ben grinned at him.

"I got better ways to spend my time than going to your funeral," Kevin snapped.

"And admit it, you won't last five minutes in there," Carter jeered from the sidelines. Ben stuck his tongue out at her.

Six pink mana discs appeared on the wall. They created a circle and began to spin, faster and faster until that part of the wall melted away and showed the red ambience of the Null Void.

"I retraced the energy path of Helen's message," Gwen said, her eyes glowing. "Hopefully it'll lead you to her location but I don't know how long I can keep this open."

Blue flames erupted from Ben's harness-it was really a jetpack. (Go figure.) He immediately flew into the portal, disappearing at the speed of light. The Plumber snake pulled along with it, the spool whirling at incredible speeds.

Sam looked at Carter out of the corner of her eye. "He'll be fine."

Carter gave her a look. "No shit Sherlock."

"Something's up," Evan said looking at the spool. The Plumber snake was shortening far too quickly; the spool was spewing small sparks all over the place.

"Don't tell me he's already in danger," Carter groaned, face palming.

"He's Ben Tennyson. He's a danger magnet," Sam said dryly as the cable finally tightened and the spool slowed.

Kevin took that moment to ask, "So who's Lucille?"

Sam started once again while Carter's visible eye twitched. Only Evan was brave enough to say, "Sam's grandma."

Kevin blinked and stared at Sam incredulously. "You start freaking out because your grandma's coming to town?"

"What, does she pinch your cheeks and make you wear hand knitted sweaters?" Gwen joked.

"If only," Sam muttered.

"Lucille's kind of moody," Evan began.

"By that he means emotionally unstable," Carter interjected. "And we're talking the kind of unstable where you need serious medication for."

"She also owns the DuBaer family business," Evan said wisely ignoring Carter.

"So she's the CEO of a weapons' industry?" Gwen mused. "Don't you need to be emotionally sound to run one of those?"

"Not if you're Lucille," Sam muttered darkly.

"Kevin, you ever hear the name Lucifer?" Carter asked suddenly. "You know; the one name people in the criminal underworld dare not utter even under pain of death?"

"Yeah, but what does that have to…do…with…" Kevin slowly trailed off as the realization dawned on him. He stared at Sam who had crushed her empty cup in her hands. She was shaking again, this time much more visibly.

"What are you guys going on about?" Gwen demanded to know.

"The DuBaer family technically owns the underworld," Evan pointed out. "And the head of the DuBaer family is…?" He gestured to her, waiting for her to connect the dots.

She did, and quickly. "Lucille is Lucifer?"

"That's right," a chipper voice sang out in the warehouse. A young woman had mysteriously appeared in the room, a lovely curvaceous brunette with hair cut up in a sharp bob. Her face was soft and heart-shaped and her blue eyes oddly harsh. Her makeup was minimal and she was wearing conservative business attire: a halfway open red jacket with a black dress shirt and a knee-length red skirt with matching pumps. She was smiling widely at the teenagers in the room.

"Sammy!" she cried instantly hugging her granddaughter. Sam made a choking sound and stood there frozen as Lucille squeezed her in a giant bear hug. She soon let go and went around the room.

"Carter, it's so good to see you!" she trilled hugging the Goth quickly before moving to Evan. "My Lord, you've gotten to be so handsome," she said before hugging him too.

"Nice to see you too Lulu," Evan said as cheerfully as he could. "And you're rocking the brunette look. I like it."

Lucille gave a girlish giggle and said, "I didn't want to perpetuate the evil redhead idea. We already have such a bad rap and I hate for Sammy to get stuck with that label." She shot a bright smile at her. Sam gave a strangled smile back.

Lucille turned to Gwen and Kevin, who had felt rather put out by the large amount of affection. "You must be Gwen," she said warmly. "You're much prettier in person. And you're obviously Kevin." She studied him a bit before saying, "Roguish charm."

Kevin grinned. "Thanks for noticing!" She didn't seem so bad, he thought. She was overly energetic to be sure-like a high school cheerleader stuck in a twenty-something body- but nothing about her really screamed evil. But he could still remember Sam's reaction earlier, the tears that slid down her face. He had to keep an eye out.

"You own the criminal underworld?" Gwen asked point-blank. She never was one to beat around the bush.

Lucille laughed, waving a hand dismissively. "Oh Gwen, you're so silly! You can't own the underworld, it's too extensive. You just have to leave examples everywhere to show you're in charge." Instantly her pretty face morphed into an ugly mask: her eyes turned into slits, her nostrils flared, and her lips curled into a snarl.

"And of course I have to be the one to do all the dirty work, not my damn lackeys, the filthy cowards. They can't be bothered to do it, says it's too inhuman, stupid pricks-!"

And then her face changed again into the happy smiling one shown not a minute before. "But enough of that ugly talk, I want to know what you're all doing here." She gave Sam a disapproving look. "You gave me some trouble, making me find you here with your friends. Speaking of friends, isn't there supposed to be an Evan doppelganger? I bet he isn't as attractive as you!" she told Evan, lightly punching his shoulder.

At this point Gwen and Kevin were officially unnerved. They were starting to understand the emotionally unstable bit Carter had mentioned earlier. Lucille was desperately in need of medication; the changing of emotions was too frequent to be healthy. And what did she mean by examples?

Kevin took a look at Sam and his jaw dropped slightly. On her face was a look of absolute terror. Not the cool indifference or the snarky emotions that often flitted across. He could see fear in her eyes, a feeling not even she could hide.

Just what kind of monster did she have to deal with?

Suddenly the spool of the Plumber snake stopped-they had ignored the whirling sounds earlier. And then the cable slackened, falling to the floor with a thump.

"What happened?" Lucille asked curiously.

"Reel him in!" Carter ordered. Kevin immediately pulled the switch of the pulley system and the spool rolled in the other direction, reeling in the cable at lightning fast speeds. And then the end of the cable appeared, only without Ben. It didn't even have the harness; all that was left was a smoking pile of wires, blackened to a crisp.

"I'm guessing that's bad," Lucille pointed out.

"Oh, no, it's just that Ben stuck in the Null Void without a safety harness, probably getting eaten by monsters." Carter let out a shaky, hysterical laugh. "He'll probably be fine."

Lucille went up to the portal. "What are you doing?" Gwen asked alarmed.

"Going in after him," she said, about to put a foot in.

"Nan," Sam spoke up for the first time since Lucille got there. Her voice was shaking slightly but she put up a brave front. "It's too dangerous, even for you."

Lucille studied her for a moment before putting her foot down. "You have a point there Sammy. But there's just one problem."

Evan suddenly appeared in front of Sam. For the first time he was showing signs of fear: dilated eyes, sweat on his face, tense shoulders. He always faked it in regards to Lucille, because what better way of ignoring your fears than to put up a cheerful front? He could always pretend to like Lucille because she was normally so happy. But now she was about to lapse into lunacy.

Too fast. He could feel the sharp nails dig into his stomach, breaking the skin and digging their way into his innards. He wanted to cry out in pain as the hand dug in deeper, hitting his spine. He was coughing up blood he could feel the rivulets going down his body, oh god why wasn't anyone doing anything-

"You don't show fear Sammy," Lucille hissed past Evan's ear. Sam let out a howl of grief as Evan's sight began to grow black-

"Evan, what's wrong?" He looked up to see Lucille near Kevin and Gwen, a look of concern on her face. He looked down to see his wound-less stomach. There was no pain or blood. He stumbled back from shock, his body being enveloped by something warm. Sam was rasping something out. He could tell she was trying not to cry.

"What happened?" Kevin demanded to know. He was instantly by Sam's side, prying Evan out of her grasp and holding her gingerly. Carter was holding Evan's face in her hands, scrutinizing him severely, looking for any signs of a wound.

Lucille pursed her lips slightly before saying, "Well something's obviously up so I won't bother you anymore. It was so nice meeting you all! Ta!" And then she was gone, disappearing into thin air.

Gwen blinked that image away before turning back to the scene in front of her. "Okay, seriously. What just happened?"

"Nan's a master at illusions," Sam rasped. "She doesn't need to leave examples but she does, she always does…" she trailed off and closed her eyes, suddenly looking like she had aged a hundred years.

"What did she do to you?" Kevin asked Evan who had passed Carter's inspection.

He said in a tiny voice, "It's so easy to pretend like she's not insane when she's cheerful. But then you see her stick a knife in you, feel the pain and see the blood. And then you find out that it was all pretend." He let out a bark of hysterical laughter.

"And you know the worst part?" Carter asked gravely. "She's Immortal, just like Cordelia and Isaac."

"But they're nothing like Lucille," Gwen pointed out. Carter gave her a look of such despair that she back up slowly.

"How do you know they're not pretending?"

I have been waiting far too long to use that recorder joke.

So, thoughts anyone?