"And that's what happened, Grandpa." Ben sighed, taking a once over to all of his battle wounds, as he told the older man in detail with what had transpired only an hour ago. Max had called the trio over to his motor home after he had found some important information on the recent bug infestation.

"I'm just glad you made it out alive." Max sighed in relief, while putting a comforting hand upon his grandson's shoulder.

"And what are we, chopped liver?" Kevin growled out, folding his arms over his chest, as he turned to Gwen, hoping that she would agree by backing him up on his awfully rude remark towards her grandfather. When all he got in return was an irritated raise of brow, he slowly leaned in closer to her and whispered, "Sorry", and let the older plumber continue.

"I meant all of you." Max replied, smiling. "It could have gone down a lot worse if we would've lost any more innocent lives, especially at the risk of losing the three of you." He explained letting out a heavy breath of air, as he sat down on one of the bench seats that where located in the kitchen slash living room of his motor home. Lifting up a pan of fried food, thinking that the trio had to have been hungry after such a battle, Max simply asked, "Fried squid gumbo surprise? You kids sure look hungry."

Ben and Gwen's eyes automatically widen with fear, while waving their hands spiratically in the air around them. "NO! No thanks!" The Tennysons' replied in unison, as they proceeded to give out their own reasoning's for not wanting to eat the dish that the old man had offered them.

"Um.. I.. Just ate a little while ago, Grandpa." Ben grins, while taking a few cautious steps away from the frying pan that was holding to what most people considered where "un-digestible, and un-edible like food.

"Sorry, but I'm on a diet." Gwen sheepishly smiles, while bringing both hands up, almost shielding herself in defense. "I gotta watch my girlish figure you know."

That comment from the red head however, earned an immediate 'up and down look' from Kevin, who was convieniently standing right behind her at the time. "What!" Kevin thought to himself, as his obsidian gaze shifted down from her delicate ankles, right on up to her soft, rose tinted lips. "Is she on crack or somethin'? There's just no way that she needs-"

"Kevin?" Max smiled, interrupting the Osmosian's inner observations of the girl, that he had for some reason, unconsciously grown to like over the past few days of just being around her.

"Uh." Kevin stuttered under his breath, thinking that he had been caught red handed by staring at the retired plumber's own granddaughter, his face now, turning a bright heated shade of crimson.

"You all right, son?" Max asked, now standing up out of concern, as he quickly noticed Kevin's sudden change in color.

"I'm fine." Kevin said a bit too quickly, as he began swallowing the heavy fear of bile down his throat, trying to get his sudden scare to pass. "I'm just…." He looks to Gwen and Ben, seeing their concern faces for him as well. "Ya know… Allergic to the stuff."

"No you're not." Ben spoke up, putting his two cents into the subject. "I saw you eat shrimp just the other day."

"So! That doesn't mean I'm not allergic to the stuff!" Kevin shouted out, maybe a bit too defensively. "Me eating shrimp proves absolutely nothing, Ben."

Ben furrowed his brow at the ex-con in suspicion, wanting to find out as to why Kevin had turned into a worry some shade of red. The hero had decided that it was best to just drop it, and save themselves of having an argument by setting Kevin's allergies to the side, for now.

"I guess." He finally drawls out slowly, leaving a raised brow up in suspicion toward his friend. "Grandpa?" Ben asked, turning his attention towards the old man, quickly changing the subject. "You mentioned during our ride over here that you had found some information on those bug things that we fought earlier today."

"Yes I did, Ben." Max replied, sitting back down, while shifting his weight into a more comfortable position, so that he could reach the high tech plumbers' computer that was hidden behind his flat looking kitchen stove. The man had an unspeakable amount of alien, and plumbers' technology hidden within every square inch of his compact sized motor home. The grey haired man never left his humble aboad unequipped without it.

Lifting his badge up to a circular shape type scanner, Max had suddenly made the stove quickly change its' outer appearance into one, complicated looking piece of plumbers machinery. Putting his wrinkled up fingers onto the keyboard located just below his hands, Max started to punch in certain key words and codes so that he could bring up the said information he had told Ben about before the three had arrived to his simple, and beloved little home on wheels.

Ben, Kevin and Gwen watched on intently as the old man continued to work. They were after all curious as to how and why these so called alien bugs were here on earth in the first place. To them, it made absolutely no sense. Those said bugs were just merely causing mass hysteria, and utter destruction in their wake, almost as if it were a distraction of some kind.

When they had defeated the alien creature hours earlier, there was absolutely nothing on the damn thing to justify it wanting to steal any one particular artifact, or, for that matter, the massive bug didn't even seem to have the brains, or was it showing any signs of it having any human like qualities of thought. So, the idea of it wanting to try and take over the earth was just practically ridiculous.

"Alright." The elder plumber spoke out, turning around in his seat, while breaking the train of thought amongst the younger three that were located around him, and the computer. "This is what I've got so far." Max took in a deep breath, and continued. "What you three defeated earlier today is what we local plumbers like to call an Aracnoid, it's a large insect-

"That can dissolve pretty much everything in its path by just the acidic mucous it shoots out from its' mouth alone." Kevin moves his eyes closer to the screen for a better view. "I thought those things looked familiar. But their body structure has changed over the last few years." He stands up and away from the screen, shrugging his shoulders. "It's probably why I didn't recognize them. They've gotten a lot bigger since then too. At least a few hundred feet."

"How is that even possible?" Ben asked in shock. "How can a bug evolve in just over a few years time?"

"More importantly." Gwen cuts in, putting her hand up to her chin in thought. "Why are they here? They obviously have a purpose, being on earth. Plus, judging by how they interacted with us today, only tells me that the possibility of them being controlled by an outsider is quite high."

"I couldn't agree with you more, Gwen." Max said darkly, while shooting her one of his graved looks of concern towards her. "Which is why I can't let you be involved in this mission any furth-."

"What? Why!" Gwen interrupted, not giving the man a chance to explain, while at the same time causing her grandfather to jump slightly in his own seat. "What's so terrible about all of this that it forces me out of the mission?"

"Gwen." Max continued, softening his hardened glare towards her. "I'm not saying you couldn't handle the job. I'm just saying that it's going to get too personal and dangerous for you."

Confused, the red head presses on with the subject further. She had to figure out why Max, her own grandfather, didn't want her help with the evil forces at hand. "You know I can handle anything that's thrown my way!" She takes in a deep ragged breath. "I'm tougher than most of you give me credit for, and you know it." She folds her arms heatedly over her chest. "I can handle-

"Orthos". Max simply said, disrupting the girls rant.

Gwen's eyes went wide on Max mentioning that name, her throat tensing up with climbing amounts of sudden fear. "Wh-what did you just say?" She breaths out, letting her arms dramatically fall to her sides.

"You heard me, Gwen." Max replied in a serious tone. "Now do you understand-"

Before Max had a chance to explain himself any further, Gwen's face went flush, and tears quickly began to stream uncontrollably from her already, festering, reddish green pools. With her grandfather being, to what seemed to be at first, "unsupportive" of her joining the team, to the now new found information of a certain mad man coming into the picture by the name of Orthos. Who's mentioning clearly caught the girl off guard, and obviously put the fear of god into her already strained, crushed heart.

The red head looked upon the overly concerned faces of the three men at first. Embarrassed with how she'd been acting in the last few minutes. Then heer eyes fell upon Kevin's expression. He seemed pained, almost crushed, his dark like orbs festering in wanting to know what had her so upset. Kevin didn't like to see her so hurt, and he didn't know why. His heart pounded rapidly inside his chest, and all he really wanted to do at that moment in time, was to comfort her. He felt the need to do it... He wanted to do it… He just had to do it… Reaching out a comforting hand towards her, the red head immediately slaps it away, and rushes out the door into the cool midnight air. Her whimpers of sadness fading with every rapid step she took.

"Gwen!" Kevin called out to her, quickly making his way closer to the entry way of the motor home. He didn't get very far, because it was at that moment, Ben had stopped him in midstride by putting a forceful hand upon his shoulders. "Kevin, wait."

"Get off me!" Kevin shouted out, forcefully shrugging the hero's hand off. "I need to go and find Gwen!" With that, Kevin ran out of the door without so much as any hesitations of looking back.

"Let them go." Max sighed, as Ben turned around at the sound of the old man's soothing voice, while placing a questioning like gaze upon his already worried features, wondering as to why his grandpa even wanted Kevin to go out after her.

"Kevin's just concerned for her, Ben. That's all." Max replied, already answering the boy's obvious question without him having said one single word on the subject.

"Why's that?" Ben asked in curiosity, while he leaned up against the nearby wall closest to the door. "It's not like he-" His eyes suddenly widened. "Oh… OH! Duude… That's just gross!"

Max shook his head at the young man's reaction to the whole thing, as he slowly sat back down in his chair. "Don't go saying anything to him. Kevin needs to figure all of this out on his own."

Ben quickly brought up a huge plastering smile. "Yeah, but, can't I just-"

"No, Ben." The old plumber sighed in irritation, interrupting his grandson, knowing the real reasons as to why the kid wanted to go and "out" the Osmosian's sudden feelings towards his granddaughter. Ben in return rolled his eyes, and huffed heavily under his breath. Sometimes that old man of his, would never let him have any fun. Especially when it involved getting Kevin back in some way or another from all those other times he had gone and picked on him.

It just wasn't fair.

"Anyways." Max began once more, while taking a small sip of his ice tea that sat on the table in front of him. "We need to figure out how we're going to stop Orthos Valiconte before he finds out that Gwen's living here, in Bellwood."

"With how things have been going lately, it seems that he may already know." Ben replied, his brow furrowing in fear for his cousin. "And you also know that no matter what happens, we're not going to be able to stop Gwen from helping." He finished, folding his arms across his chest, while leaning back in his seat slightly. "She'd end up fighting us first, then going after Orthos."

Max chuckled at this, and took a sip once more from his ice cool beverage, as he lifted his pointer finger up towards Ben, raising one of his grayish tone brows. "I know. It looks like she's going to help out whether I like it or not."

"Did you expect anything less out of her, Grandpa?" Ben grinned knowingly to himself, earning a smile in return from his grandfather, who already knew what Ben had meant when he said that.

Max had known a long time ago that his granddaughter did in fact have his old, natural spunk and drive for wanting to rid all of the bad from this world by trying to make it a better place for those who happily lived here, and in all seriousness, Max wouldn't of wanted her to change that aspect about her. He loved that part about Gwen, and it made her more of a warm hearted, genuine person, in his deep, caring eyes.

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

Kevin ran into the darkness of the forest that had surrounded him, calling the girl out by name frequently to see if she'd at least answer him back. But, when she didn't acknowledge him screaming after her, he decided right then, that he wasn't going to give up on her based on the fact that she simply didn't respond.

Knowing the red head didn't have any type of communicator attached to her, or a plumbers badge for that matter, made the situation at hand that much harder for the raven haired man to get the tabs on her, and at this particular moment in time, he found that he really didn't care. Kevin was going to find her, come hell or high water, he was going to find her.

Hearing a crunching noise that came from a twig being stepped on, Kevin swiftly moved himself behind a tree that was located just to his left. Watching, as Gwen ran right passed him. "How did I manage to get in front of her?" Kevin thought to himself as he turned slightly to keep an eye on her.

Suddenly, the girl had lost her footing, and she fell face first into the cool mud and muck that was located just beneath her feet. Letting out a huge cry in pain on impact, caused Kevin to come out of the shadows from the neighboring trees.

"You okay?" Kevin shouted out in concern, as he quickly helped Gwen up onto her feet, while brushing all of the dirt and twigs that had collected onto her when she forcefully collided with the ground. Then, lifting her upright, Kevin suddenly had found himself staring intently into Gwen's own intoxicating green pools, making the man blush even more, when he realized for a second, on what he was actually doing.

Gwen in return, gazed right on back with as much passion and emotion as he did. The fire of intensity between the two had started to slowly rise, and it was at that moment, Kevin and Gwen had forgotten about the whole entire world around them.

…And the cool summer night breeze was the only one left to be heard, echoing in their silence.

I want to thank EVERYONE who has reviewed, faved, and alerted this story! You all are so fantastically wonderful beyond comprehension! You all amaze me.. Alright? Seriously. WOOOO!

Now.. My authors note…Sorry that I stopped where I did.. (And it being a shorter chapter) I just haven't figured out where these two are going at this point. I am working on it though. So, next chapter will have heavier Gwevin moments inside, due to that fact that they will be alone together. Also, I'm still developing Orthos's Character. He's of my own creation so, it's going to take me some time to get him to go with the way I want his personality to play out …So.. Please bare with me folks!

Either way, I hope you enjoyed it, because this chapter gave me some trouble. But, I think I'm happy with it. :D

As always, PLEASE leave me a sweet little review? Thanks a bunch!

The Spoon. :D