Passing through the Earth's atmosphere was the hardest part about space travel. No other planet that Ben had been on had such a thick and stubborn protection zone.
His ship rumbled and shook as he attempted to fly through. The sky's blue color was simply a mask for its deadly effects it could have on someone or something. Each minute was like being on a thrill ride from a carnival.
When Ben left his headquarters, he felt a bit hungry. However, his stomach was no longer in the mood to take in food.
After another minute of withstanding the shakes, the Grazer X200 pulled through and plunged into the night of space without so much as a single tear or loss of component.
Everything was beautiful. The white stars shone brightly, large-colored celestial dust caused the blackness to gain shades of reds, greens, and blues.
Ben's eyes were being fed a delicious candy as he stared out into the endless span of time. Unfortunately, time was just something that wasn't given to him freely. He was definitely pressed for it. Gwen was in danger on the other side of the galaxy and he was compelled to save her - and at the worst...find her.
Ben entered the coordinates of the solar system Gwendolyn was last heard from and allowed the ship to fly itself there. Quickly, the computer spat out a time frame of which he would arrive. It read between two and four days. Not bad for going halfway across a galaxy.
Getting up from his seat, he walked about the ship's interior. It was all brightly-colored in a white hue, but still quite large for a ship made for speed. And luxury.
The Grazer X200 was designed to be fast, of course, but it was also designed to be luxurious and comfortable.
"Probably why it's so spacious...I wonder what else this thing has to offer," Ben ventured to ask himself. Spying a comfortable looking red bed mattress against the far wall of the ship - next to a big window - he moved over towards it hoping to gain a bit of honest rest.
"No bad guys to fight, no people to help, just me and my relaxing ship. For now," he said while flopping over the soft bed.
Closing his eyes, Ben had hoped to drift off into an uninterrupted sleep, with nothing or no one to bother him. However, just as his eyes closed, a metallic clanking noise became audible right beside his ear - followed by what felt like cold fingers grab his shoulders.
Ben stood up with sudden surprise and looked at the spot he had just been lying on. There, coming out from the sides of the bed, where skinny robotic hands. But as soon as he stood, they retracted back into a compartment underneath the mattress.
"Maybe too luxurious..." he said to himself while thinking of a way to disable them. Walking towards a large window which relieved a great view of space and it's inanimate inhabitants, and dismissing his chance of rest, Ben couldn't help but wonder. "Did Grandpa ever get Kenny and Devlin?"
"You two know you can't keep doing things like getting expelled from school." Max called to the back of his chrome-interior RV.
Kenny and Devlin sat on Ben and Gwen's old bunk beds from thirty years ago. They were comfortable with their legs on the walls and hanging off of the mattresses.
"Oh, and why not?" Kenny asked, trying not to sound sarcastic.
"Because your father needs your cooperation. He doesn't have time to worry about all the things you do wrong in school."
"He doesn't ever seem to have time for anything but himself."
Devlin heard this and jumped in. "Come on Kenny, it's not that bad. We live in an awesome tower thing and you've got the Omnitrix. Besides, your dad was nice enough to let me join your family. I like him."
Max listened to what they both had said. Kenny didn't seem to be having the time of his life - not anymore at least. Ben used to play with the kids and take them on adventures whenever he was called to help somewhere. Over time he grew more distant, and started to only provide what their bodies needed. Food, water, and shelter. It wasn't very father-like.
"I know your dad hasn't had time to be with you guys lately, but he is a very busy man," Max offered, in an attempt to heal a spreading wound.
"Too busy for his only two kids? Whatever, I don't need him."
He's definitely Ben's son, Max thought and chuckled silently.
"Anyways," Devlin began, "it's not our fault we got expelled."
"Oh?" Max queried.
"The teacher wouldn't let Kenny use the Omnitrix to go get some lunch from that Asian restaurant that's right outside the school. I mean, the school lunches really reek."
"Still, that doesn't give you an excuse to do it anyways."
The conversation took a dive and the Rust Bucket became quite silent. Kenny and Devlin decided to just lie on the beds and wait until they got back home. Being expelled did have its perks. No more school.
The custom-designed RV hovered over the headquarter's landing pad and finally landed smoothly. Quickly, the two passengers held up inside burst out and ran into their home - glad to be back into a state of freedom.
Max climbed out and followed his two great-grandchildren inside, but instead of going to the lower levels he decided to head up to the tower top.
The headquarters was made from a reddish brown metal that was quite think and didn't make too loud of a clinging noise when he stepped on it. The whole architecture was quite a marvellous beauty.
As soon as Max entered the top level, he began to look around for anything clue of where Ben might have gone. Everything was neatly arranged and untouched - which was odd because Ben would typically drag things out and not put them up. Gwendolyn was usually the person who cleaned up after him - keeping the tower nice and shiny.
The elderly man walked up to a couch that sat in the middle of the circular room and noticed a green blanket thrown across it.
"Watching TV?" Max questioned aloud.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted something open on the mainframe computer. It had the words "Emergency Transmission Received" flashing on the screen.
Suddenly, the older man's mind snapped its complete focus to finding out what the transmission was. Without so much as ten seconds passing, Max was at the computer toying with the controls in order to open the transmission.
The monitor stopped flashing the three words and started to play a low-quality media file. His eyes grew wide with sickness as he watched the events play out. The video caused his mind to swirl with possibilities.
Hoping that Ben hadn't gone out in search for her without taking in the full fact of the possible dangers, Max rushed to the room where the man's space ship had been sitting for nearly five years. As soon as the metallic sliding door flew open a startling revelation made itself known to the white-haired man.
"No..." he said breathlessly.
Gwendolyn's body felt ache and numb. She couldn't feel a single part of her - not even the blinking of her own eyes were known to her nervous system. Blood fell from different parts of her head and stung wounds that were even lower on her body.
Surrounded by heated fire, the orange-haired woman looked down at her leg, which was the only part of her that anything could be felt. However, it was what she felt that startled her. Pain.
Her green eyes finally met the source of her dreadful pain. A large shard of her now-destroyed ship had impaled her calf and it was causing blood to clot right before reaching her ankle.
Gwendolyn winced in agony at every movement she tried to make. Her back was probably broken from the crash. Memories flew in and out of her mind which only caused her to cry - which also hurt to do. The salt in her innocent tears brought stings to each wound that lie down her once-flawless cheeks.
To make matters even worse, something big was coming her way. It was intimidating to look at it even though it was merely a silhouette of what could be arriving. The thunderous footsteps rumbled each white, metallic shard that sat around her crash site.
Gwendolyn eyed the incoming beast, but couldn't stand the fact that this could be her last moment alive - and it was the worst moment she had ever been in. Did he even get her message? Did he even care?