Chapter 12: The final Showdown
UNDERGROUND STUDY ROOM ON PLANET MECKA
Gwen woke up with a headache, but tried to open and focus her eyes. She found herself on the floor of a dark room. It looked like an old study with its few armchairs and an old study desk. She managed to prop herself up against the old and burned study desk. She saw that the woman she was kidnapped with was not in the room with her, but looking around she saw someone sitting in a chair in the corner of the dark room. She recognised his overconfident demeanour, his black eyes boring into her soul and his selfish greed written all over his face. He calmly stood up and approached her when he saw that she was finally awake. Gwen looked directly at him and he stared straight at her unblinking. She tried to show him that she wasn't afraid of him.
"Morgg, where have you brought me?" she asked as confidently as possible.
"Welcome Gwendolyn, to the basement of my hideout planet, my entire planet conquered by me, after we won a gang war, after you and your teammates thought that you had finally gotten rid of me" he said in his calm tone.
"I'm not afraid of you Morgg, and you will get the justice that all of your victims deserve from you"
"Is that so, well, you may be right because one of my security probes did pick up a signal outside our orbit, it seems like your rescue party is on their way". Morgg didn't at all seem fazed by this. "But, that's okay because once all of you are here on this planet; we can finish you once and for all".
"I'm not afraid of you" she said confidently to him.
"Don't try and be brave here, little girl, this isn't the place to try and defy me" he said crouching down to her level and nearing his face towards hers.
"Here, we play by my rules" he seized a fistful of her hair and pulled it, as she screamed out in pain. He held a fist of her red hair and threw it in the corner. He clicked his fingers to summon Igazi and another alien named Kain who resembled Ben's transformation 'Four Arms' He looked at her one last time before leaving. Igazi and Kain pulled out a bucket of dirty water and seized Gwen's head, they shoved her head into the water and placed an electric rod inside of which electrocuted her, her screams came out as bubbles in the water. They did this to her again and again and again until she passed out.
OUTSIDE PLANET MECKA'S ORBIT
"Here we go I've planted a virus into one of the lasers so that it can shut down the cloaking device" said Cooper firing the laser in the direction of where the planet was supposed to be. Within minutes the planet slowly started to reveal itself.
"Okay, great, by the way I've just called the plumbers, they'll be here soon as—" Ben was cut off by his shock and surprise at what he saw on the planet slowly starting to take form. Both he and Cooper gasped as they took a closer look at how the planet looked inside it's atmosphere.
"Is that pollution, oh my God, and dead bodies?" asked Ben horrified.
"Yes, unfortunately guys, you have to brace yourselves for what you're going to see on this planet, it's not good" said Kevin. "Although there seems to be more bodies than I remember last time".
"It must be from the gang war that they fought, It looks like your old gang won" said Ben.
"I just can't believe the sheer scale of murdered people, its insane" he said as they broke into the atmosphere and landed Cooper's ship behind a derelict building in the city centre with Helen's ship arriving behind them.
"How, are we going to get to Gwen's location" asked Cooper looking at the plumbers badge.
"We'll have to sneak in, but it's no use, they already know that we're here, the airspace of this place is covered in security" said Kevin.
"But it looked like this place let us in" said Ben; he was trying not to throw up because of the bodies littered on the ground.
"It's probably Morgg and his doing. Let's go around back so we can walk through the hallway to her location" said Kevin.
UNDERGROUND STUDY ROOM OF PLANET MECKA
When Gwen woke up after her torture, she felt so weak that she couldn't move, she noticed that she wasn't bound up by the rope anymore. All she could hear was the screaming and wailing of another woman in the same room as her. Revenna was sitting right next to Gwen, chained to the wall, and on the floor. She was in complete agony huffing and puffing at her pain; she clutched her abdomen in pain and was shaking all over her body. As much as Gwen didn't like Revenna, she couldn't sit around and listen to her pain.
"Hey, Revenna is it, are you okay?" asked Gwen silently trying to get her strength back
"Just shut the hell up, I don't need to hear your voice on top of everything else"
"I don't care; no one deserves to be treated like this".
"What do you know, you're just a preppy rich girl, you know nothing about real life, some of us have had to struggle from the beginning".
"What do you mean, why are you struggling so much?"
"I was born on planet earth in a place known as the Balkans" Revenna said through small gasps.
"Yes, that's where a few of Kevin's human descendants come from" said Gwen trying to keep the conversation going
"My human mother gave me up when my alien father left her and went back to his home planet. She gave me up to a cruel woman living next door to her and left me. The woman abused me daily with her husband who sexually abused me until I had to run away and fend for myself, and Kevin helped me, we joined the Futha gang together with Igazi"
"It's not your fault Revenna, I know that you're just a victim of a neglected society" said Gwen
"Don't think that you know who I am because of what your fancy schooling taught you. My life can't be learned from a textbook" she said.
"I just want to help you, you don't have to live like this, you have a choice. I heard in your spaceship that you didn't want this kind of life anymore and you don't have to, you can get away from it and start afresh just like Kevin".
"This is the life of a gangster, you either get killed or land up in jail, so Morgg left me here to die". She kept quiet for a while before exclaiming in pain again, Gwen saw blood seeping out of her jumpsuit above her tail. She gave herself another injection shot which looked like her last one to relieve the pain. Then both heard voices outside the door.
"The surveillance shows that Ben Ten and company are nearby" said someone.
"Good let them come. Meanwhile bring this bitch to me" he said and Morgg burst through the door with some thugs dragging the cowering prostitute and placed her on the floor with Gwen and Revenna...
"Guys I can hear voices" said Cooper as he Ben, Kevin and Helen continued behind the wall towards the study room where Gwen was being kept. They were a corridor away when Cooper said "but, we can't go in there now, people are in there with her right now".
"We'll have to wait for the most opportune moment" said Ben.
"Is this her?" they heard Morgg say.
"Yes" said someone inside.
"Then get it out of her, I need that cube!" said Morgg walking out and up the stairs into the basement.
"No, plees don' keel me, I'll ge' your coobe baack" the prostitute begged in her broken English.
They all heard a woman scream followed by three loud 'BANGS!' of a gunshot that echoed through the underground study and filtered through the halls. Ben, Kevin,Cooper and Helen all looked at each other with eyes wide open and breaths held. They had heard gunshots but didn't know who had just been shot.
Gwen closed her eyes as the women next to her was shot at point-blank range in her forehead and had died instantly. They placed her body on top of the desk and to Gwen's horror, started cutting her stomach open to find their precious cube. This was too much for Gwen to handle. She let out a scream after scream that made her eyes glow a bright pink and broke the inhibitor cuffs around her wrists.
As Kevin and the others heard Gwen's screams, they knew that they couldn't wait any longer, it sounded like she was being tortured. They all ran to the room and burst open the door just to hear another bang from the same room. They saw two of Morgg's cronies lying on the floor and Gwen, who's eyes were glowing a bright pink, holding out her hand to them. She had just broke loose from the inhibitor bracelet and had blasted the men into the wall.
"Gwen, you're okay!" said Ben running up to hug his cousin.
"How did you get out of your bracelet?" asked Kevin cautiously, they weren't exactly still on good terms.
"I couldn't take it, what they did to her, so my manna just, did it" she said taking off her school jersey and placing it over the woman's lifeless face after she closed the woman's eyes.
"Okay guys, we need to get out of here now before anyone comes down here and checks on Gwen" said Helen.
"She's right, we can't make a stand here without the plumbers backup, there's too many gangsters here and this is their home turf" said Ben
"That's not going to work" said Revenna sitting on the floor. "They already know you're here, this planet is heavily guarded".
"You got that right" said a voice behind them.
They all froze and turned to see the man who had started it all in the parking lot of Prosperity City a while ago, pointing his gun at them along with a few other gangsters.
"Put your hands up and follow me all of you" he said.
They had no choice but to follow Igazi up the stairs and into a brown, dingy basement room crowded with gang members. They all stopped and looked at them all as they walked in. Morgg, finally had them all where he wanted them.
"Kevin step forward" said Morgg. Kevin did as he was told to avoid any fighting, it wasn't just him in danger anymore, he now had to think about the rest of his friends.
"Gent's we all remember Kevin Eleven don't we?" the basement full of gangsters laughed and murmured in agreement.
"Tell, me Kevin, just how many people did you kill when you were eleven years old?". Kevin remained silent but Gwen said "Don't listen to him Kevin, he's just trying to guilt you".
"You're one of us Kevin and you know it, just think of what we could give you, all the money, drugs, sex and power you want, we know that Osmosians can't resist power, something that your girlfriend can't give you".
Before anyone else could say anything more, footsteps coming up the basement caught everyone's attention. The footsteps came closer until… they revealed Magister Ghalil.
"What's going on here?" he said pointing his gun to the crowd. Kevin and the gang sighed in relief when they saw the magister, but something was off about him, he didn't seem to be threatening any of the gang members but walked up to Morgg casually.
"What are you doing? We had an agreement, you're not supposed to hurt the kids" said Magister Ghalil. They all stood there in shock and disbelief as they witnessed their Chief Magister who was in charge of their quarter of the galaxy standing next to Morgg.
"You traitor, how could you do this" asked Kevin his hands shaking in fury.
"I needed the money from the drug trade, its simple" said the Magister.
Helen made a move to attack Morgg but Ben, Cooper and Gwen stopped her.
"How could you, you let my brother die, it's your fault Pierce is dead" she screamed at him. Ben, Gwen and Cooper had a hard time restraining her. The magister walked away and Igazi started talking to Kevin again.
"What do you say, we'll be like old pals again, you don't think your teammates actually care about you do you, they're rich educated, and would be the first to leave you if they found out about your crimes. For the last time, what do you say?"
Kevin looked at Igazi for a while, deep in his dead, soulless eyes… and punched him. He swung so hard at the side of his face that Igazi fell backwards. The entire dungeon of gangsters all came at once at Kevin and friends. Gwen made a manna shield to surround everyone from the gangsters so that Ben could transform into Jet Ray, and Kevin can absorb the material of the walls and Cooper could build a robot hand on his hand using his eyes.
"I don't know how long I can keep this up" said Gwen struggling to keep the shield intact from the many gangsters who tried to break it.
"That's okay we can't fight them off like this, we need to get to the surface so we're not cornered" said Ben.
He looked at Helen. "Helen you take Gwen and Kevin and run as fast as you can out of here, try and find an exit somehow and I'll grab Cooper with my tail and try to fly out of here".
"Okay, everyone ready?" They all nodded "Let go" yelled Ben and Gwen let go of the shield.
Immediately bullets started raining from the sky and big gangsters were pouncing on them from left to right. Helen being super-fast grabbed Gwen and Kevin under her arms and sped off within a blink of an eye in the direction of a ladder she saw heading upwards with Ben as Jet Ray flying right behind them.
"There, go to the ladder, it will get us to the surface" yelled Kevin to Helen
As she headed in the direction of the ladder, she was tripped by someone and she, Gwen and Kevin went flying into the air because of their incredible speed they were going. They all hit the ground in different places and were surrounded by gangsters. Meanwhile Ben was shot out of the sky as Jet Ray fell to the ground with Cooper still on his tail. As he hit the ground, he transformed into ultimate Humongousaur and started blasting the surrounding gangsters with his giant gun hands.
Kevin, before getting up absorbed the concrete floor and punched the gangsters surrounding him, also sending them flying. Gwen made a whip out of her manna and began to lasso the gang members and throwing them far.
Morgg, who only had his evil eyes on Kevin, took out a giant laser gun and shot a beam of energy at him. It lit up the room as it headed towards him, everyone in its path had to duck to avoid it. For Kevin there was no time to think, he had no choice but to absorb it, and almost instantly dark circles appeared under his eyes.
"Kevin, not too much, remember last time" said Gwen from behind. Kevin fought with his osmosian instincts not to let the power go to his head, he was already struggling as he could already feel the insatiable need for more power, but he looked at his friends and a distant screaming man in his head, he blasted the absorbed energy into the crowd of gangsters and some of the energy ricocheted and hit a gas tank which exploded into a fiery ball and knocked everyone off their feet. The whole place was on fire and gangsters ran out for their lives in every direction.
"Get out of here, let's go" yelled Ben to his teammates, and transforming back into himself as the fires started licking up the walls and surrounding them in the basement room. They all started running out as rusted pipes began bursting and falling from the roof. Some of the gangsters who weren't deterred by the fire still gave them chase. A long steel pipe from above them started falling in front of them, blocking their path with fire. Ben transformed into water hazard and doused the fire on the pipe so they can get away. Magister Ghalil, Morgg and Igazi were nowhere in sight.
They almost made it to the ladder when someone grabbed Kevin from behind.
"I'm going to kill you Kevin Eleven" Igazi said pulling him to the floor. Gwen instinctively tried to shield Kevin with her manna but Kevin told them to continue going.
"Just go, I'll take care of this guy" he said as they all reluctantly ran towards the ladder. The smoke almost made it impossible to breathe. Kevin wrestled Igazi on the floor but threw him off. They both stood up and stared at each other the once two best friends who had thieved together, were now at opposite sides.
"I guess this is finally where it ends" said Kevin.
Igazi who didn't respond but exclaimed in anger and ran at Kevin's neck and tilted his head back trying to snap it with his bare hands. Kevin absorbed the necklace on Igazi's neck and warped his hands into a giant hammer and smashed Igazi's face who fell to the ground but stood back up again quickly with his broken nose bleeding. Kevin, who didn't think that Igazi would get up so quickly was caught by surprise and Igazi picked him up and repeatedly punched him in the face, then he picked him up again and was about to throw him into the surrounding fire. Kevin couldn't loosen Igazi's grip on him, he knew that if he didn't do something soon, he would be killed...
'BANG!' came the shot of a gun and Igazi's grip loosened on him. Igazi fell over and clutched his shoulder to see who had shot him.
"Revenna? What the hell are you doing?" he asked unable to keep the shock from his burned face. She didn't respond but shot him repeatedly with a 'BANG, BANG BANG BANG!' all over his body and looked into his now empty eyes. Kevin looked up at Revenna in surprise who was still looking at Igazi's body with hatred. He wasn't sure if she was going to shoot him but he took a chance and stood up. She watched him stand up but didn't move herself.
"Thank you" he said.
"Get out of here" she said looking at him.
Kevin started running and she followed behind him. They had to jump dodge falling ceiling, and run through the fire which had almost engulfed the entire room. As they were running, they saw the young rookie who Kevin had spoken to his heartbroken grandfather when the rookie joined the gang. He was holding a gun in his hand.
"D- D- don't mo..ove' he said sounding frightened.
Kevin looked straight at him with his trembling gun in his hand.
"If you're going to shoot, us then do it, do it now! come on do it!" he yelled and the Rookie lowered the gun in fear of Kevin and Revenna.
"If you wanted to shoot us, you would have done so already, now come with us, so we can get out of here". The rookie nodded and followed behind them.
They finally reached the ladder, after dodging all the fire, that all his teammates were climbing and were already halfway when Revenna saw something out of the corner of her eye: a bag full of drugs they called dream dust lying inside a cabinet on fire. The fire hadn't reached it yet and she stopped running and stared at it. Kevin who was about to climb the ladder, saw her and pulled her towards him.
"Leave it behind Revenna, it's not worth your life". She looked at him for a while, like she hadn't done in a long time and reluctantly ran away.
They had all made it to the ladder and stared climbing with Kevin and Revenna just underneath him. Suddenly more shot came from beneath them and as they looked down, they saw a surviving gang member shooting at them, it was Chopper, the small but strong gang member who had assaulted Kevin in his kitchen.
"Climb faster" yelled Kevin trying to dodge the bullets. But unfortunately one of the bullets hit someone… Cooper who was halfway up, was hit on is back and fell…
"COOPER!" yelled Gwen and Helen after him as she helplessly watched him falling.
"HELP ME!"he screamed. He yelled for someone to help him and Kevin extended his arm but slipped, so Cooper missed his hand. He tried to make his robot catch the wall but it was too late. He fell into the inferno below them, on top of Choppa as the fire swallowed the both of them. Kevin felt his heart harden as Gwen, who saw Cooper fall into the fire started screaming, followed by Helen.
"Get her out of here" yelled Kevin from below and Ben who had reached the top, started pulling a crying Gwen, Helen, and the rookie out of the tunnel ladder.
Kevin who was still way below the others with Revenna right below him continued climbing but noticed that the fire was burning the bottom of the ladder.
"Kevin, the fire's coming" said Revenna panicking. They both raced to the top with the fire slowly rising up to meet them. Another blast from the side and fire burned Kevin's hand and Revenna's leg. They both exclaimed out in pain as Kevin reached the top and stepped outside helped by his friends. All that was left was for Revenna to come up.
"Revenna, climb up you're almost there" said Kevin reaching out his hand so she could grab it but she was badly hurt.
"I can't, my leg is burned" she said in pain. They were all panicking as the tunnel could explode any minute. Kevin lied down on his stomach and reached out his hand to her "C'mon Revenna grab my hand, please" he begged her.
"No, Kevin, I can't I don't have a life past this, I can't go on, I'm not like you" she said
"Revenna stop it, I've seen you changing, you deserve a second chance, now take my hand" he yelled.
She stared at him with tears coming down from her pale face as she let go of the ladder, closed her eyes, crossed her arms across her chest, wrapped her tail around her body and fell into the fire as the last explosion blasted the tunnel into flying debris. Kevin pulled his hand out in time and they all scattered away to avoid being hit by flying pieces of concrete along with civilians and other gang members who had made it to the top. Ben slapped the ultimatrix and turned into Ultimate Big Chill who blew out fire that froze the building. He flew around the building until all that was left was smoke and debris lying around the now ice building and flew down to turn back into himself.
The whole team, dirty, smoked and sweaty and burned walked to one another and hugged each other. The grief of losing Cooper was overwhelming them, and for Kevin having Revenna give up on herself when he saw that she wanted to change, burned inside him. Helen, and Gwen were still crying and Kevin let go of everyone else to hug Gwen and embrace her tightly. Ben put his arms around Helen and she cried on his shoulder. Kevin listening to Gwen's cries couldn't help but let tears fall down his face as well, it was all over but it came at such a high cost, the guilt of having Cooper and Revenna die for him was eating at him.
When he let go of Gwen he walked up to the Rookie, who looked away nervously at him.
"Go and find your grandfather, he needs you to be there for him" he said.
"I don't think so, I killed my mother to be in this gang and now" he started sobbing "He'll never forgive me".
"He will, just trust me, and stop with this gang life" said Kevin seizing the necklace and charms around his neck and breaking it off. The rookie thanked him and headed towards the crowd of people gathering at the city centre. Kevin saw the boy find his grandfather and they both embraced looking teary eyed. It made him long to also see his family.
All of a sudden a loud noise caught their attention, it came from above them. They all looked up to see plumbers ships landing in the city and the intergalactic task team unit jumping out of the ships and parachuting their way to the ground. Within minutes they had the entire city covered and were arresting the surviving gang members and were giving everyone gas masks for the toxic air. Ben and his gang headed for the ships.
They gave Ben and the team some gas masks and one of the plumbers directed them to a spaceship parked nearby and they all walked to it. As they were walking they passed a few plumbers who were arresting Morgg and taking him away. They all exchanged hateful glances at the most evil man they had ever met who to their fury looked satisfied. Kevin and probably the rest of the team had to work hard to hold back from trying to attack him. They walked away to the ship they had been told to go to and it opened for them. As they got in they took off their gas masks and saw someone standing by the captain's chair. Someone they all needed to see at that moment.
"Do you guys need a lift to plumber headquarters for debriefing?" asked Max Tennyson in full plumber uniform.
"Grandpa!" shouted Gwen and Ben at the same time running to embrace him, and after Kevin and Helen went to give him a hug as well.
"Let's get you guys out of here so you can explain yourselves" he said.
Kevin feeling slightly happier than he had, smiled at Ben, Gwen and Helen and they all smiled teary eyed at each other and got in their seats to fly off, finally leaving the planet, the gang and Kevin's past behind them once and for all…
I'm almost done, I can't believe it, you can review the story and tell me what you think if you like, before I finish it, with one last chapter...